In The Circle, millions of people like Mae Holland believe that the Circle's technologies will help to create social justice on a global scale. Under the guidance—um, yeah, let's call it misguidance—of Eamon Bailey, the company has created and marketed dozens of technologies that make it easier for human beings to monitor one another's ideas, opinions, and behaviors—and to judge them accordingly.
While Bailey and his peeps believe that limitless access to all the thoughts and actions of everyone at all times will create a purer and more just global society, Eggers leaves us with more than a few doubts about the relationship between judgment and justice in the world that the Circle is helping to create.
Questions About Justice and Judgment
- According to Eamon Bailey, who has the right and who should have the power to cast judgment upon other human beings?
- Mae Holland sees Eamon Bailey as a social justice warrior. Is she right? Are the ideologies and technologies that Bailey promotes likely to create social justice in the world, or are they more likely to create new oppressive systems?
- Eggers gives us more than one example of the way that the Circle's technologies make it easier for masses of people to seek out and condemn the alleged criminals in their midst. Does the novel portray these developments in positive or negative terms?
Chew on This
In The Circle, digital technologies and social networking programs have made it easier than ever for human beings to cast judgment upon one another's ideas, opinions, and activities. Contrary to creating a purer and more just society, the novel suggests that this power will lead to the kind of paranoia and delusion that gave rise to historical atrocities like the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials.
Although many of The Circle's characters genuinely want to make the world a better place, the novel suggests that progressivism and idealism can be disastrous when possible consequences and outcomes aren't considered carefully.