Yet There Is Method In It

I have been watching the idiot box (the TV) recently. I saw “I ♥ Huckabees” (aka I Heart Huckabees), a comedy film about characters trying to find existential answers in their lives. I probably need to watch it again because it covers many topics in existentialism, almost too many – it discusses them without dwelling on them. And although many ideas are discussed, the characters barely have time to act on their situation based these ideas. Still, it has many funny moments. This film is philosophically self-conscious and tries very hard to be very existential (jargon is sometimes used to blind and confuse the audience) – this is almost the opposite of movie “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, which does not try hard enough to capture the philosophy of the original work!

Vivian Jaffe: What do you think would happen if you didn’t tell the stories? Are you being yourself?
Brad Stand: How am I not myself?
Bernard Jaffe: [musing on the question] How am I not myself?
Vivian Jaffe: [musing] How am I not myself?
Bernard Jaffe: [musing] How… am I not… myself?

Two main existential interpretations are presented: “everything is interconnected” optimism and “the world is full of pain” pessimism. The film doesn’t come to any firm conclusion on existentialism, which as appropriate for the topic, except to hint a middle way between the two extremes is a solution (rather like Aristotle’s golden mean, or Hegel’s synthesis). The topics discussed in the film tend to be late existential ideas (Sartre, Camus), while I have a personal preference for the early existential period (you know: Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, etc.). “I ♥ Huckabees” is jargon heavy (almost it enjoys the sounds of the words rather than the just the concepts), while understanding the jargon is actually irrelevant to having an existential approach to life – although I guess the audience probably would not notice unless it was made explicitly clear. “Are not all words made for the heavy? Do not all words lie to the light ones?”

I recently finished “The Wire” series 2 and 3. It is a TV drama revolving around police work and organised crime in contemporary Baltimore – rather like LA Confidential meets Traffic. It is hard to overstate the quality of the series – intellectually and as a story. As William Julius Wilson said:

“[a]lthough The Wire is fiction, not a documentary, its depiction of systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the urban poor is more poignant and compelling [than] that of any published study, including [my] own.” Slate

Series 2 was notable in having multiple tragic characters that are worthy of a Shakespeare play. Tragedy as entertainment is a very interesting philosophical area – how does an audience derive pleasure from watching a sympathetic character’s downfall? and what does that tell us about the world? And after all the hard work of the police, are peoples lives any better? is the actual crime rate significantly changed? The Wire can be bleak on occasion! (“Listen carefully”)

Series 3 is more preachy than previous series, but it happens to be advancing an idea I agree with: drug legalisation (or pseudo-legalisation in this case). A senior police officer, approaching retirement with nothing to lose (or so he thinks), attempts a social experiment by tolerating drug dealing within certain limits. In the series, this reduces overall crime in his district, since the police have more time to solve other socially harmful crime while drug dealing is relocated outside occupied neighbourhoods. When the top level police and politicians find out, there is trouble… (If people think this wouldn’t work, remember the end of prohibition.)

Anti Citizen One

Continuing my haphazard series on existential films, there are a few movies that deserve a special mention. One of the foremost in artistic and philosophical scope is Malick’s The Thin Red Line (TTRL). It might be superficially considered a war film, but it is very distinct in its genre. I am hesitant to even label it a war film for that reason. The closest comparison might be made to Apocalypse Now with its examination of good and evil in each person (a la Heart of Darkness). TTRL strikes a different chord – one of life and death, creation and destruction, friendship and estrangement, loss of innocence and the value of individual people. The wandering style of the movie meant it never received much popularity and it was overshadowed by the much less interesting Saving Private Ryan (ok fans of TTRL are still bitter over that!).

The start references the beauty of nature and also the existence of suffering and death. This motif recurs thorough out the film. The camera often cuts in an action scene from fighting to an injured bird or an interesting plant. This links the moral evil in war with the natural evil in nature (and makes it the same thing, twice named).

[First lines] What’s this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself? The land contend with the sea? Is there an avenging power in nature? Not one power, but two?

Aesthetic and moral considerations are shown as independent of life and death, as both are shown to have both ugly and beautiful, good and bad aspects. It reminds me of the beauty of seemingly trivial things and of death, as used in American Beauty. The beauty of death is also central plot point in TTRL, it is first verbally discussed and then directly experienced by a main character.

The value of individuals and organisation of individuals is an important theme in TTRL. The character Witt is shown to be a free spirit but also stating he loves his army company. “They are my people.” His commanding officer, Welsh, is generally a stone cold, pragmatic soldier – and a philosophical collectivist and pessimist. Welsh threatens Witt with punishment for is insubordinate behaviour. But even Welsh has moments of emotion, heroism and intimacy. Through the convoluted plot, these two repeatedly meet and trade a few words from their respective world views. Welsh argues, in a world gone mad, only institutions can make any meaningful difference. Witt’s diametrically opposite view is one man can make a difference, even in war – but personal relationships are also key.

Welsh: In this world, a man, himself – is nothing. And there ain’t no world but this one.
Witt: Your wrong there, Top. I’ve seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.
Welsh: Well then you’ve seen things I never will.

Welsh: What difference do you think you can make, one man in all this madness?

Welsh: [looking down on grave] Where’s your spark now?

Welsh: They want you dead… or in their lie.

The film contrasts finding existential meaning with the arbitrariness of war and life. Welsh is a material pessimist, but unlike most other pessimists, he does not believe in an afterlife where justice will be done. This makes evil in the world without meaning, from his perspective. And evil is doubly unfair, as it harms people independently of circumstances, rather than as punishment for previous sins. “Every great pain, whether bodily or mental, states what we deserve; for it could not come to us if we did not deserve it.” Schopenhauer. With good and evil events seemingly having no teleological purpose, the characters are forced to independently find meaning to their actions.

Welsh: There’s not some other world out there where everything’s gonna be okay. There’s just this one, just this rock.

Storm: It makes no difference who you are, no matter how much training you got and the tougher guy you might be. When you’re at the wrong spot at the wrong time, you gonna get it.

TTRL examines themes of loyalty, friendship and love with several relationships being important to character and plot. Welsh, being an anti-individualist, makes this ironic observation:

Witt: Do you ever feel lonely?
Welsh: Only around people.

Witt: Everyone lookin’ for salvation by himself. Each like a coal thrown from the fire.

I have only scratched the surface of this film in this post, but it is worth multiple viewings. I love it and regard it as the greatest existential film (tied with Lost in Translation, at least from among those I have seen).

Anti Citizen One

PS Optical Illusions, seeing isn’t believing…

PPS Another top 10, completely different to my preferences. The Matrix is not really an existential film IMHO (except for about 2 lines, including “the matrix cannot tell you who you are”). And another top 10.

MIAMI—As the Super Bowl captures the country’s attention, excitement over the NFL’s championship game is muted somewhat by the persistent question of whether winning, or losing for that matter, holds any absolute value—a question that has many football fans pondering the meaning of the game itself. The Onion

Previous part

Three Colours Blue A woman’s family are killed in a car crash. Being of independent means, she decides to exist without any personal attachments. They say “no man is an island” but she attempts to simply existing without desire or pain. A fine plan, at first, but she is faced by repeated, unintentional entanglements with people and she begins to lose her apathy. She is also haunted by a musical theme that her late husband (possibly) was composing for the unification of Europe and probably represents fraternity (of the French motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité). The film is themed on “liberty”, in opposition to fraternity and the tension between these conflicting goals is played out through the film. Philosophically, this story is attempting to avoid existential choices by escape into nihilism. (This film might be the polar opposite to Taxi Driver.)

Julie Vignon: Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing. I don’t want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps.

High Noon A recently resigned sheriff (Kane) gets married to a pacifist, only to discover that his nemesis Miller (and his goons) are arriving shortly by train. The town, although grateful for him bringing peace and order, tells him this is not his fight and giving him every opportunity and excuse to leave. Although his usual allies are originally keen to help, they equivocate and eventually beg to not be forced to assist the sheriff. Kane is forced to make a choice: to step away from the town he helped create, or to suicidally fight Miller’s gang alone. The choice is made existential as it is without public support, potentially risky/fatal and motivated by personal values. I hear the film is also an allegory of McCarthyism and the failure of Hollywood to stand in solidarity.

Martin: You risk your skin catching killers and the juries turn them loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you’re honest you’re poor your whole life and in the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star.

See also: 13th Floor, eXistenZ

To be continued…

Previous part

Rope Two anti-heros execute a murder as a form of art. They consider them superior beings that are not restricted by conventional morality. They host a party as a sort of game, to see if their friends will suspect them of murder. Their former mentor, invited to the party, was an advocate of this type of action, at least in principle. When he discovers the truth, he thanks them for putting him to the test, and U turns to claim the murders are evil. The film being produced in 1948, Hollywood films were not permitted to let the anti-heros win or escape “justice”. The film conveniently overlooks the choice faced by their mentor, Rupert Cadell: to approve of the murder as art or to personally inform the police, and therefore have then tried, judged and executed. This makes Rupert an approver of killing or an actual killer (but state sanctioned in the latter case).

Lost in Translation This film is perhaps the most direct treatment of enui and existentialism that I have seen. Two characters, who are “lost souls” and who’s marriages are in doubt have a chance meeting in Tokyo. Through their unlikely friendship, they struggle against boredom, insomnia and anxiety of the future. The message, in my view, is that their lives might be otherwise meaningless, but their friendship in that time and place was something worth valuing. Although the characters are usually alienated by Japanese culture, the aesthetic of the movie is in accord with Wabi-sabi (the acceptance of the transience of things).

Lydia Harris: Did you like any of the other colors?
Bob: Whatever you like – I’m just completely lost.

Bob: [picks up Charlotte's CD] Whose is this? “A Soul’s Search: Finding Your True Calling.”
Charlotte: [evasively] I don’t know.
Bob: I have that.

Charlotte: Does it get easier?
Bob: No. [pause] Yes. It gets easier.
Charlotte: (sarcastically) Oh, yeah? Look at you.
Bob: Thanks. [Chuckles]
Bob: The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.
Charlotte: I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be.

Blade Runner has many elements that raise identity and existential questions; in fact too many to list here. I will list a few provisional examples. A few characters discover or suspect their memories are artificial implants. Since our values are generally based on past events and experience, the loss of one’s past throws the basis of all future actions into unknown territory. Also, “appropriate” relationships between machines and humans, and between each other, has not been defined to any great extent in contemporary culture – the movie has several relationships that are perhaps unsettling in this regard. Finally, the movie has a memorable “anti-villian”, Roy, who is merely trying to stay alive and preserve lives of others. The “anti-hero” Deckard ends up questioning his orders to kill replicants on sight, including possibly Rachael – his robotic love interest.

Rachael to Deckard: You know that Voigt-Kampf test of yours? Did you ever take that test yourself?

Deckard: How can it not know what it is?

Groundhog Day is often cited as an existential movie and with good reason. Phil is confronted with reliving the “worst” day of his life a seemingly endless number of times. He can remember the whole experience, but everyone else doesn’t notice anything unusual. The writers speculated that he experiences the same day for 10,000 years. He soon realises that no action he takes has long term consequences and seemingly has no meaning. Hilarity ensues! (It’s Bill Murrey after all). His experience is similar to Camus’s analysis of Sisyphus being force to eternally roll a stone to the top of a mountain, only to see it roll to the base again. According to Camus, he is happy rolling his stone. By appreciating life in the moment, there is no expectation of a better life. A person’s attitude to life is simply a consequence of physiology.

Footnote: Groundhog day is occasionally mentioned in connection to the concept of the eternal return. Although the protagonist faces the possibility of him experiencing it, he only returns a finite number of times (in the movie anyway) and there is reality outside the “ring”. I hear that the movie K-Pax mentions the possibility of the eternal return in a more strict sense. It’s on my to do list.

[Phil explains how he spends eternity on trivialities.]
Rita: Is this what you do with eternity?
Phil: Now you know. That’s not the worst part.
Rita: What’s the worst part?
Phil: The worst part is that tomorrow you will have forgotten all about this and you’ll treat me like a jerk again. It’s all right. I am a jerk.
Rita: You’re not.
Phil: It doesn’t make any difference. I’ve killed myself so many times, I don’t even exist anymore.
Rita: Sometimes I wish I had a thousand lifetimes. I don’t know, Phil. Maybe it’s not a curse. It just depends on how you look at it.
Phil: Gosh, you’re an upbeat lady!

To be continued…

In other news: When religion and games intersect—and how it often goes badly

The British inquiry into the Iraq war has already been informative. I look forward to further developments. For some reason, my listening to the band Rage Against the Machine has increased in response. Questioning of authority and consequences of obeying authority are major themes. For example, they question if we should be follow the current political course when it is unsustainable and self destructive?

I am the Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agent of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire (RATM)

In other news, I finished re-reading Lord of the Rings. It is very interesting after the reader changes to perceive things in a new way on returning to a book. “There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same.” There are many times when the protagonists pity other characters (most often, Gollum). It might be interesting to study if any of the pitied characters actually recover from their pitiable state…

In related news, I have finished the translator’s preface of Of Grammatology. This took significant effort! I will perhaps blog my thoughts one day…

Anti Citizen One

Wow another year as slipped by since I previously posted on the philosophically aware TV series Babylon 5. I am determined to finish the series of articles, that I envisaged when this blog was started. Previously I had discussed the Manichaean good vs. evil theme transitioning into a conflict between order and chaos. Order (represented by the Vorlons) emphasised being and identity (“Who are you?” “Why are you here?”) while their anti-thesis (the Shadows) sought for becoming through chaos and conflict (“What do you want?”). I intend to explore some possible answers to the questions which are used repeatedly and are probably a reference to the method of Platonic dialogues.

“Who am I? What am I doing here? and Where am I going? Those had to be the very first questions we began asking when we became sentient, and we’re still asking them.” JMS

Why are you here?

Answers to this teleological question might by categorised into appeals to objective standards or relative/personal valuations.

Turhan: Why are you here, in this place, in that uniform? Was it your choice or were you pressed into service?
Sheridan: It was my choice.

Delenn: I come to serve [the Truth].
[later]
Delenn: I was meant to be here.

The objective standard is in this case the “truth” or whatever “meant” her to be there. Sheridan’s answer perhaps comes an underlying existential answer of personal choice or interpretation. The third alternative is to not make any choice at all:

Turhan: It has occurred to me recently that I have never chosen anything. I was born into a role that was prepared for me. I did everything I was asked to do because it never occurred to me to choose otherwise.

Included in the more esoteric answers are:

Kosh: We have always been here.

This idea underminds the possibility that one can be somewhere other than “here”, possibly referring to apparent reality. I am reminded of Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:

5.621 The world and life are one.
5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)

Or to transcend the immediate problem of that question, it might be possible to take refuge in companionship or in language itself (“How charming it is that there are words and tones; are not words and tones rain bows and seeming bridges ‘twixt the eternally separated?” Nietzsche)

[Loren mentions he has spent approximately one million years at the bottom of a pit.]
Sheridan: Why are you still here?
Lorien: I am waiting
Sheridan: For what?
Lorien: Someone to talk to. You’re the first one to make it this far.

I quite like that one.

And to take a strict mechanistic view of the situation, which while almost certainly true, is rather unsatisfactory in terms of ethics. But humans seem to seek after meaning beyond the the blunt response:

Sheridan: Why am I here?
Lorien: You were born.

And we still keep coming back to the question “why are you here?”

Man has gradually be come a visionary animal, who has to fulfil one more condition of existence than the other animals : man must from time to time believe that he knows why he exists; his species cannot flourish without periodically confiding in life ! Without the belief in reason in life !
Joyful Wisdom, Nietzsche

Pressing on.. Anti-Citizen One

I have been distracted from updating this site.. which is rapidly approaching its 2ND BIRTHDAY! Many news items suggest comment but were left unremarked. Many views were aired in public and private but simple “passed by”. Even some threads of thought of mine are incomplete.

I need to regain my copy of notes from underground, also. My audio book reading in librivox is progressing and passed half-way.

Just to get very pop culture, I only recently noticed the lyrics to Muzzle by The Smashing Pumpkins. After the first half of the song is plagued with existential doubt, the ending is filled with what might be called existential certainty “[...]the emergence of certainty, even a dreadful certainty, after long tension and torture by uncertainty.” I dig it.

and in my mind as i was floating
far above the clouds
some children laughed i’d fall for certain
for thinking that i’d last forever
but i knew exactly where i was
and i knew the meaning of it all
and i knew the distance to the sun
and i knew the echo that is love
and i knew the secrets in your spires
and i knew the emptiness of youth
and i knew the solitude of heart
and i knew the murmurs of the soul
and the world is drawn into your hands
and the world is etched upon your heart
and the world so hard to understand
is the world your can’t live without
and i knew the silence of the world [x5]

AC1

It has been about 10 months since I posted on my religion in the TV series Babylon 5 thread. I have been busy. (“Everything out there has only one purpose. To distract ourselves from what is truly important.” G’Kar) I have had a chance to rewatch the series again since I last thought about blogging on it.

Shadows

The Shadows are an alien civilization which also very mysterious, manipulative and powerful. Over millions of years they have come to oppose the Vorlon empire. Their philosophy and understanding are all driven by a simple question: “What do you want?” In this system, the identity of an individual is only defined in terms of actions and goals. Any identity, underlying motive or free will is not considered. This is similar to consequentialism where the ends justify the means. Since most of our immediate desires are worldly, it might also be a realist or materialistic philosophy in its routine application.

Machiavelli is a good example of this style of thought. In his most famous work, The Prince, he describes how one acquires and maintains power. He does not attempt to describe an “ideal” prince (that is to say “who he is”) but simply what actions must be performed in order to achieve a goal. This pragmatic view is political realism.

Not all desires are about the pursuit of power. For example we could ask of Socrates, “what does he want”? Could we say “rationality at any price”? (quote from Nietzsche). We could also say Plato: knowledge, Aristotle: wisdom, etc. (Incidentally Lennier indirectly asked for this of the Shadows.) If we pursue any goal too single mindedly, we risk losing our perspective.

The other questions.

I have previously mentioned the questions “who are you?”, “why are you here?” and “what do you want?” There are several secondary metaphysical questions that are mentioned by one or other of the characters but are not so critical to the story’s main conflict. These questions serve as another thematic backdrop to the TV series but are not addressed at such a literal level.
Who do you serve? (TV Movie “In The Beginning”)
How will this end? (Series 2 Ep 9)
Who do you trust? (Series 3 Ep 16)
Have you anything worth living for? (Series 4 Ep 2)
Where are you going? (Series 5 Ep 22)

This is perhaps a reference to the Socratic method, in which a thinker explores a philosophical position by using questions to stimulate thinking. In the next part I will attempt to describe and analyze the various answers to these questions.

Anti Citizen One

Again on my recent theme of cause and effect:

Grand Theft Auto 4 queue man stabbed in head

A hooded male stabbed another man in the head and neck yesterday as they both queued to buy copies of Grand Theft Auto IV from a Croydon Gamestation store. The Register

Considering the people had not had an opportunity to play the game, we can hardly blame the game’s content for this incident. And I was not serious in suggesting that queueing causes violence. In this case, violent people chose to stand in line to buy a computer game.

Banning the game is like bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

AC1