The matter of the breaking of eggs, and the schism it caused in Lilliput (as described on pages 95 and 96) of course sounds wholly ridiculous. It is without a doubt an allegory of the protestant reformation: the Big-endians being the traditional Roman Catholics and the Little-endians being the radical protestants. Swift convinces us the argument between the two doctrines is trivial by using an action of no consequence (the breaking of an egg) as the point of contention. He therefore attempts to give new perspective to the reformation and trivialize it in turn. Gulliver talks about something similar in the section of the Houyhnhnms telling them that back in his home country people spilled blood over things like "what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or grey; and whether is should be long or short." (p301) I want to play devil's advocate here (because I don't entirely disagree with Swift's rhetoric) and point out the fallacy of his argument.
You can make anything sound ridiculous if you de-contexualize it in such a way. I could argue that a college education is meaningless by saying the following: "for four years you sit in tiny rooms with people who you may, or may not, like and listen to people talk about things you may, or may not, care about." Of course this glosses over many complexities and ultimately misses the point, but the statement is nonetheless true. If I added a bit more information and explained "the people who surround you serve to socialize you and the people talking about things will enhance your knowledge and reason" then it may start to sound less useless.
Swift may have seen the differences in doctrine to be trivial but these things were, and still are, important to many people. Add a bit more information and the argument becomes less trivial.
Great post. You are right about the fact that the power of Swift's satire rests -- to a very large extent -- on the style of description he employs. And also the tropes of size that lead to different perspectives work much in the same way. That said, I would claim that seeing things in what you can a "decontextualized" way has its usefulness. Like a super power, I suppose, it can be used for good and evil. And perhaps just for fun?
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