The Role Of Evolution In Inherit The Wind

In Inherit the Wind, because the teaching of evolution was outlawed in schools, the people of the town and nation feared the knowledge and preferred remaining ignorant. The case revolves around right and wrong, simply and completely, right? Wrong. It is merely a factor in the grand scheme of things, because there are so many things that go into determining if something is morally correct, just as Drummond believes. “Realizing that I may prejudice the case of my client, I must say that "Right" has no meaning to me whatsoever! Truth has a meaning—as a direction. But one of the peculiar imbecilities of our time is the grid of morality we have placed on human behavior: so that every act of man must be measured against an arbitrary latitude of right and longitude of wrong—in exact minutes, seconds, and degrees!” (I,II,74).

It is often referred to as “The legal battle of the twentieth century”; the case of teaching evolution in schools was the moral dilemma between not only Brady, Drummond, and Bertram Cates, but the entire nation as well.

The question of an individual’s beliefs quickly turned into a question of freedom. Not only is not allowing evolution to be taught in school an act of willingly keeping people ignorant, it also allowed a select few to be in control of an entire nation’s thoughts. When there are a small number of people who control the media or what is said about certain subjects—then they are able to use their power to manipulate their judgment, just as Brady stated in Inherit the Wind. “I've seen what you can do to a jury. Twist and tangle them. Nobody's forgotten the Endicott Publishing case—where you made the jury believe the obscenity was in their own minds, not on the printed page. It was immoral what you did to that jury. Tricking

them. Judgment by confusion. Think you can get away with it here?” (I, II, 47). Ignorance is not only the fault of those who put it in place, but it lays on those who just accept the blind (lack of) knowledge. The townspeople willingly accept what has been told to them merely because the person telling them is of higher status than them, and because they will follow their religion to the end of the Earth without even questioning it. The townspeople are a city of the uneducated, the conservative, and the small-minded. It is no wonder that people that thought differently were ostracized for their beliefs and moral compasses. The people, adults and children alike, had one main educator in life- a fundamentalist Christian named Reverend Brown. His followers, nearly the entire town, are loyal to him, and content with what he says, purely because they have never had an outside perspective. If you go through your whole life believing a tomato is a vegetable and someone suddenly tells you that it is actually a fruit- you are going to think it is ridiculous, regardless of the science behind it. Even in the beginning, Rachel was severely against the freedom of thought that Cates and the new people in town brought forth into the media, and believed that those of higher status were right simply because they were more powerful. “Bert, it’s still not too late. Why can’t you admit you’re wrong? If the biggest man in the country . . . –if Matthew Harrison Brady comes here to tell the whole world how wrong you are . . . You still think I did wrong?” (I,II,8). The basis of the play, actually of the entire case, is standing up for what you believe is right. Unfortunately, everyone has something they think is immoral, that others do not. The question is where to draw the line, a person should have the access and freedom to learn and understand every viewpoint before making a decision for what they believe in.