"Candide" and the Best of All Possible Worlds-Votaire

“Italy had its renaissance, Germany its reformation, France had Voltaire.” ~ Will Durant

I first read Candide when I was in high school, but with little thought. It was on a list of books that Mrs. Willard, the Librarian at our local library, had suggested I read. I think it is a book you can read on one level and enjoy the humor. I read it for the humor and did not much appreciate the level of satire Voltaire displayed in a book I read somewhere only took him three days to write. At the time, the title made me think of candy and in a way the book made me think of the hard candy that all grandparents had in covered candy jars in their living room at that time. Like the candy in the living room the candy in Candidate was not particularly great candy. My initial review was that, while this book was humorous, it was not a particularly influential book.

Several years went by and I reread this book for a philosophy course I was taking. I came to see it in a darkly satirical novella aimed at human folly, pride and excessive faith in the ability of reason. Pangloss' philosophy "that everything is for the best in the best of all worlds" was a simple version of the philosophy of several Enlightenment thinkers, most notably Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz, that the existence of any evil in the world would have to be a sign that God is not entirely good or not all-powerful, and the idea of an imperfect God is nonsensical. These philosophers took for granted that God exists, and concluded that since God must be perfect, the world he created must be perfect as well. According to these philosophers, people perceive imperfections in the world only because they do not understand God’s grand plan.

Because Voltaire does not accept that a perfect God (or any God) must exist, he can afford to mock the idea that the world must be completely good, and he heaps merciless satire on this idea throughout the novel. A reductionist view of this philosophy assigns the existence of any evil in the world to God, as he did not entirely do good. In the death's age of God, I think We place too much emphasis on the folly of organized religion, when Voltaire was directing his satire towards human folly, pride, and faith in the ability of reason to solve all problems. Voltaire would have agreed with Franklin that Franklin's decision, while a vegetarian, to eat fish illustrated the flaw of excessive faith in the power of reason to plumb the depths of metaphysical truth.

"The Folly of Optimism"

I entered college as naïve as the character Candide in Voltaire's novel. To a certain extent, I, like Candide, subscribed to Pangloss's view that “everything is for the best in this best of all worlds.” I had grown up almost totally sheltered from having to suffer or witness much of what was evil in the world. I was a white male, with an above average IQ, in a world that definitely favored tall white males over blacks or women. Two parents with above average parenting skills loved me with above average parenting skills. I was told from my earliest years that God gives us talents. He expects a good return on those talents. The more talents he gives us, the more he expects in return. I believed, or at least wanted to believe: that racism and anti-Semitism did not exist in my home town; that all women were adored and well treated; men were loyal, courageous and stood up for the meek; that what anyone could conceive and believe, he could achieve. I believed in the general goodness of people, and the greatness of the American dream. I believed all of this was true; like Candide and Pangloss, I was an optimist.

Pangloss and Candide suffer a wide variety of horror, floggings, rapes, robberies, unjust executions, disease, an earthquake, betrayals, and crushing ennui. In the book, Pangloss struggles to find justification for the terrible things in the world, but his arguments are simply absurd, as, for example, when he claims that syphilis needed to be transmitted from the Americas to Europe so that Europeans could enjoy New World delicacies such as chocolate. In the book the more intelligent and experienced characters, such as the old woman, Martin, and Cacambo, have all reached pessimistic conclusions about humanity and the world. By the novel’s end, circumstance forced even Pangloss to admit that he doesn’t “believe a word of” his own previous optimistic conclusions.

"Uselessness of Philosophical Speculation"

One of the most glaring flaws of Pangloss’s optimism is that we base it on abstract philosophical argument rather than real-world evidence. In the chaotic world of the novel, philosophical speculation repeatedly proves to be useless and even destructive. Repeatedly, it prevents characters from making realistic assessments of the world around them and from taking positive action to change adverse situations. Pangloss is the character most susceptible to this sort of folly. While Jacques drowns, Pangloss stops Candide from saving him “by proving that the bay of Lisbon was formed expressly for this Anabaptist to drown in.” While Candide lies under rubble after the Lisbon earthquake, Pangloss ignores his requests for oil and wine and instead struggles to prove the causes of the earthquake. At the novel’s conclusion, Candide rejects Pangloss’s philosophies for an ethic of hard, practical work. With no time or leisure for idle speculation, he and the other characters find the happiness that has so long eluded them. This judgment against the philosophy that pervades Candide is even more surprising and dramatic given Voltaire’s status as a respected philosopher of the Enlightenment.

"The Hypocrisy of Religion"

Voltaire satirizes organized religion with a series of corrupt, hypocritical religious leaders who appear throughout the novel. The reader encounters the daughter of a Pope, a man who as a Catholic priest should have been celibate; a hard-liner Catholic Inquisitor who hypocritically keeps a mistress; and a Franciscan friar who operates as a jewel thief, despite the vow of poverty taken by members of the Franciscan order. Finally, Voltaire introduces a Jesuit colonel with marked homosexual tendencies. Religious leaders in the novel also carry out inhumane campaigns of religious oppression against those who disagree with them on even the smallest of theological matters. For example, the Inquisition persecutes Pangloss for expressing his ideas, and Candide for merely listening to them. Though Voltaire provides these many examples of hypocrisy and immorality in religious leaders, he does not condemn the everyday religious believer. For example, Jacques, a member of a radical Protestant sect called the Anabaptists, is arguably the most generous and humane character in the novel.

When I reread Candide in college, I do not think I was hypocritical of religion but I came with a certain reservation. Until leaving for college, I had spent my life in a small town in which fundamentalist churches played an outsize role. I jokingly have said that at religious services in my hometown I learned that sex was evil and dirty, and to save it for the one you loved. I learned in the days before integration that all children, whatever their color, were precious to Jesus, but he wanted them to go to separate schools and drink from separate water fountains, so I could understand Voltaire's concern with the hypocrisy of organized religion.

"The Corrupting Power of Money"

I think college was where I was first exposed to the corrupting power of money. Materialism played a big role in the 1960s. Everyone seemed to hustle. Everybody was looking for an edge. The top priority items were chasing your pocketbook, not your dreams. If you were a male, how to avoid the draft when your student deferment ran out, how to make the best grades you could with the least effort were a large part of education.

When Candide gains a fortune in Eldorado, it looks as if the worst of his problems might be over. Arrest and bodily injury are no longer threats, since he can bribe his way out of most situations. Yet Candide is more unhappy as a wealthy man. The experience of watching his money trickle away into the hands of unscrupulous merchants and officials tests his optimism in a way that no amount of flogging could. In fact, Candide’s optimism seems to hit an all-time low after Vanderdendur cheats him; it is at this point that he makes the pessimist Martin his traveling companion. Candide’s money constantly attracts false friends. Count Pococurante’ s money drives him to such world-weary boredom that he cannot appreciate great art. The cash gift that Candide gives Brother Girolée and Paquette drives them quickly to “the last stages of misery.” As terrible as the oppression and poverty that plague the poor and powerless may be, it is clear that money—and the power that goes with it—creates at least as many problems as it solves.

"The Futility of Searching for Happiness"

In the final chapters of the novella, Candide purchases the old woman, Cunégonde, and a small farm. Cunégonde reminds Candide of his promise to marry her. Though horrified by her ugliness, Candide does not dare refuse. However, the baron again declares that he will not live to see his sister marry beneath her rank.

Cunégonde grows uglier and more disagreeable every day. Cacambo works in the garden of the small farm. He hates the work and curses his fate. Pangloss is unhappy because he has no chance of becoming an important figure in a German university. Martin is patient because he imagines that in any other situation he would be equally unhappy. They all debate philosophy while the misery of the world continues. Pangloss still maintains that everything is for the best but no longer truly believes it.

Trying to first fix themselves seems to be the only solution Voltaire can find to the problem of human suffering. Money, leisure, security, peace, and life with his beloved do not make Candide happy. Martin declares that humans are bound to live “either in convulsions of misery or in the lethargy of boredom." Candide manages to find a tolerable existence through work. Each member of the household finds a skill to hone and then uses it to contribute to the support of the household. Without any leisure from their toil in the garden, the characters have no time or energy to trade empty words about good and evil.

The message I take from Voltaire's Candide, is that it is foolish to search for happiness in the world; that happiness can only come from first fixing yourself before trying to fix the world.