Wonderland is WONDERland for a Reason

In one of my Alice in Wonderland responses, I analyzed a quote by the duchess that read “If everybody minded their own business…the world would go around a deal faster than it does.” This quote conveys Lewis Carroll’s opinions on the way human nature causes us to question and wonder why things happen. In this response, however, I analyzed Carroll’s views on this topic, but never got to input my own personal opinions and views on this issue.

I’d like to explain that it is questioning alone that got the world to be as technologically advanced as it is today. It was the inventors that asked “What can I invent that would make daily life more easy and convenient?” It was the computer programmers that asked “What can we do to speed up our processors and improve our operating system?” It was the car manufacturers that asked “How can we optimize these cars for maximum safety?” Because of them, we have knives that can cut through steak like butter, we have computers that can access the information on the internet within seconds, and we have SRS airbags standard in almost every newly produced car. So tell me, Lewis Carroll, is it better to leave things alone and “mind [your] own business”? Or is it better to move forward and continue progressing the way society has?

I’d also like to point out that questioning the wrongs of our surroundings makes us wonder how we can fix them and improve ourselves. In the book, Alice continually points out flaws like the duchess’s failure to care for the baby or the hatter’s watch not telling the time of day. Alice does this throughout Wonderland and although she angers the residents of Wonderland, she has a point. What if we never wondered why the earth gets hotter and hotter every year? Then we would have never came up with the theory of global warming and the ideas on how to fix it. My point is that questioning the wrongs of society and wondering how to fix them is what makes us improve as human beings.

It is questioning and reasoning that sets us humans apart from other irrational animals on this planet. We should use that difference to our advantage and apply those skills to our lives, not let life go as it is and never work on improving it, which is what Carroll seems to believe in.

-Nick B.