Thursday, May 15, 2014
Today, in class, we discussed coincidence vs. free will and the importance of coincidence in the jfk assassination plot. I would like to take some time to talk about that now. Many people were in agreement that coincidence plays a big role, but I don't think it does-- it's just being over dramatized. The truth is that coincidence is the word often used by people who are unable to look at the entire picture (thereby ignorant!). Words such as coincidence, synchronicity, (black) magic, sorcery, etc are often used to describe things or events that cannot be explained by human beings through typical conventional science and technology.
Let’s get into the fancy details: the physics definition of coincidence is “The presence of ionizing particles or other objects in two or more detectors simultaneously, or of two or more signals simultaneously in a circuit (OED).” From that, it grew to the conventionally used term of today, where “a remarkable concurrence of [two or more] events or circumstances without apparent causal connection” take place (OED). You can see for yourself how the term grew up. I shall use a multitude of examples to relay my point, and then sum it up in general. If you’re in a hurry stop reading, if not, well what a coincidence, you can keep reading. Now, imagine that you’re in your living room reading this article and thinking about your favorite TV show. Then you open the television out of boredom and voila, that very TV show is coming on. “What a coincidence,” you must think. The truth is that that TV channel is already on the TV from when you watched it last night, and since it’s a hit TV show they are doing a re-run or something. Whatever the case maybe, its hardly coincidence. But we never stop and think about these things. We open the TV, say “What a coincidence”, and start to enjoy the show after a tiresome day. So what does this tell us? It tells us that coincidence, in general, is rare, like very rare.
Another example: when students have been given monetary indulges towards their grades, as in, rewards for an A and such in schools, those schools’ (Data from Freakonomics, worldwide best selling novel; reputable and factual source) overall student performance has a tremendous jump. Coincidence? No. This is research, fact: incentives attract people.
Ruth Paine, a friend of his family's in Dallas alerted Lee of a job opening at the Texas School Book Depository about a month and a half before the assassination. Coincidence? No, because Lee was a looking for a job (ignoring the Libra plot streamline, for a moment) anyways. Roy Truly, the building superintendent, hired Oswald and assigned him to the fifth and sixth floors of the building. Coincidence? No, because those were the floors that needed someone assigned to. There’s a reason that Ruth Paine and Roy Truly are never considered to be part of the plot. They had no evidence, no relationships, no connections to anyone bad or of even slightly suspectful people but Oswald. JFK’s car conveniently passes by the building Lee works in. Coincidence? No, because JFK’s car passed a whole lot of buildings, not just the one Lee was shooting from (you see, Lee get’s himself caught, it didn’t help that he shot from that window as it didn’t not raise suspicion of Lee shooting from that window. He could have just as well shot from anywhere he wanted by getting into the building as a guest, janitor, or worker of some sort.) The thing is, you can analyse these things from any angle you want-- there is NO coincidence involved. When people can’t explain things right, or want to quickly get their point across, they use the word coincidence, because that just has this psychological effect on us, accepting their narrative, be it true, false, a conspiracy, whatever it may be.
If you think that I am wrong in any way, or you have more things related to coincidence, such as specific scenes or things related to Lee’s life and the JFK assassination, please leave it in the comments below, because I would have lots of fun putting forth my arguments during the summer. Blog comment war anybody?
Here’s something to crunch over, if you have time for philosophical things. Let's go back to the coconut analogy. When a coconut falls from its tree into the ocean (so the tree lets go of its fruit), then which river it will go in, which land the fruit will be planted on to pulp a new tree (and even if it is lucky enough to survive), is completely dependent on the fruit and its destiny. That was the analogy I had used previously to give a demonstration of what destiny was and now I will attempt to clarify coincidence. When it falls, where it lands and if it breaks (that is, if there is a low tide than it will break, if there is a high tide, then it will land on the water. Or maybe the coconut breaks after hitting the water anyways.) is it coincidence? Or just something that happened? On another note, suppose I just got three yahtzees (anybody still play board games?) in a row (when all five dice have the same face value in one turn=yahtzee). You would probably say “Wow, what a coincidence!” slightly amazed and perplexed (considering that you have a roughly .08% chance of getting a yahtzee, and one in a million, for three yahtzees in a row). Now what if I told you that I have been trying that since the beginning of the day? The week? As the time frame grows, of when I tell you since when I have been trying this, your excited expression would probably turn into a sighing “Oh. Good job,” or “Cool story, bro,” or a combination or something similar. 
I don't want to start a "comment war," but I will say that JFK's motorcade passing under the window of a *guy who is already at the center of a conspiracy to assassinate the president* is a pretty big coincidence. Yes, there are reasons that explain all of this--no one is "orchestrating" it all, and that's a big part of the point. Something about coincidence *feels like* there's some puppet master arranging human affairs. Sometimes, that feeling can be explained away by conspiracy theory (the orchestration of "coincidence" for particular ends). But even for the most rational-minded of us, every once in a while the universe seems to arrange itself in a way that seems to suggest some deeper level of meaning. It's not so much that the novel is insistent that there IS such a level of meaning, but DeLillo likes to play with the temptation to believe so.
ReplyDelete(Isn't there SOME part of you that marvels at the fact that Ruth Paine, innocently and inadvertently, changed the course of American history simply by remembering a guy she knows who might be hiring, so her Russian friend's deadbeat husband can get some work? If not for her happening to think of this job opening, Kennedy might never have been assassinated. You don't have to fully take the leap into metaphysics to at least let your head spin trying to process these facts. It *feels* like orchestration.)