hey! you said you had more to say on asterid and im so curious about your thoughts. I wonder what you think about how she might represent the progression of submission (from implicit, to anxious when she bans the hanging tree song, to silence when burdock dies). Just feel like you might have some interesting words on this.
i’m still processing all my *thoughts and feelings* so this may be a bit half-baked, but i think asterid is a fascinating case study in implicit submission. because she doesn’t start that way. and most importantly, she doesn’t end that way.
asterid can be analyzed by considering hume’s doctrine of implicit submission from his “of the first principles of government” essay iv, which says that while “force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.” hume extends the “opinion,” which can be understood to mean ideology (maybe not the best word idk), into two categories—opinion of interest and opinion of right. the former involves the idea that government in general is a good thing, and also this government isn’t really worse than any other conceivable form. opinion of right can be further divided into the right to power and the right to property.
right to property is somewhat self-explanatory, so we can look next at the right to power. that is largely about how a government in power gains a lot of its power from the idea that it (and by extension, the people in power) has always had power, so it will, and thus should, continue to have power. this concept is much like the heavensbees in the capitol—snow himself disdains but cannot refute the notion that the heavensbees embody panem, because the heavensbees have always embodied panem, and thus maintain the right to wealth and the sprawling mansions and the endless libraries. he tolerates it, largely because he, too, is among this class. he implicitly submits.
asterid, likewise, is among the privileged within her community. the “government” which affects her day-to-day life is, yes, the capitol, but more so its extension of the peacekeepers and the mayor in district 12. she doesn’t engage with the capitol citizens or its rulers, but she does engage with the peacekeepers that require her family to place a banner in the window and the mayor who reads the treaty of treason at the reaping.
asterid should subscribe to the “opinions” of government more than most—she certainly should have an opinion of interest, because, she is decently fed, has friends, and not the worst life. yes, she’s in the reaping, but so is everyone tangible in her world, and she’s in the bowl less than most. there’s no real reason for her to be able dream up a better system, or necessarily to want to.
as far as opinion of right, the government owns the property (see katniss and snow’s conversation in the study in cf, where she says “he has no right, but ultimately every right,” to occupy her home). but asterid has all the access she needs. and with the right to power, the capitol has always had power, true, but so has she—it’s understood through the physical features that the merchant class shares (blonde hair, blue eyes), which differs tremendously from the seam (lower class) people, that the privileged, “powerful” class in district 12 have always been afforded proximity to the government’s right to power and the benefits therein.
but asterid doesn’t. she, much like plutarch, rejects the submission which should come easier to her than to most of the people of district 12. why? because of the three limitations on the opinions which empower government—“self interest, fear, and affection.” hume emphasizes that these limitations don’t overthrow a government on their own; they require a lot of people to reject and/or utilize them accordingly. that said, an individual’s expression of any of the limitations can extend somewhat far in terms of their own autonomy.
asterid, of course, fears the government, and protects her self-interest (her life as described above). she doesn’t run from the reaping. she doesn’t step too far out of line, as far as we know. but she does wield her affection as a healer as a means of force. she treats those in the seam and takes no payment for her services. she falls in love with a man from the lower class and rejects the relatively comfortable life to which she was born entitled. in doing so, she sacrifices the right to extend such comfort to the future children she may have had with otho mellark. these actions are inherent objections to the stratification of the classes of district 12. in other words, our girl is a class traitor, and she commits.
however, embracing these limitations only goes so far. her fear for her family’s safety takes over when she bans the hanging tree, and when she silences katniss’ defiant speech at home. when her husband dies, asterid’s affection turns against her. she enters a catatonic state which endangers the life of her children. had she fallen in love with a man from town, she may have still gone into a catatonic state, but she would have the resources to treat herself and go on. because of her small acts of opposition, otherwise insignificant to the government and its power, she lost the privileges of her prior proximity to the government’s right to power. so, she implicitly submits.
but that’s not true anymore once her daughter comes back from the games. she returns to treating people with no payment. she’s in more danger than ever before, and yet, she brings gale to her home in the middle of the night. after that, she risks prim’s safety by allowing her to aid the steady stream of beaten bodies which arrive on her doorstep. she begins to envision a better world—in district 13, she does her part to help the rebellion. she models the same behavior for her impressionable little girl. a child best known for following in her mother’s footsteps in appearance and in behavior. a daughter whose life is blown to pieces because she, like her mother, refuses to submit.
while it’s true that asterid suffered far more from her small acts of defiance than was proportional, and certainly far more than she gained, i think that she stands as a extension to hume’s assertion that the limitations on the opinions of government can only achieve so much. his example is in collective action, like the rebels fighting the war. it’s true that asterid did not participate in destroying an arena or shooting a gun. but without her affection for a seam boy overtaking her fear and self-interest, we would never have had katniss. without her demonstration of love across stratified lines, katniss would not have prim to protect, or, if she did, a will to do so. without her healing, katniss would never have known how to save peeta (or herself) in the arena, and panem would have never seen the trick with the berries.
through her little acts of defiance, her incidental rejections of submission, asterid birthed a revolution.
