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
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…
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
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.
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.
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
A quick, anecdotal case study of adverts seen in the last week:
Example advertising: A car is driven recklessly along a street as an obvious computer game reference to Grand Theft Auto. The driver comes to a halt, steps out of the car and walks into a shop. The man behind the counter feels threatened but the driver takes the product (Coca cola) and pays for it. He then walks around the neighbourhood doing various good deeds in the opposite manner to the computer game – catches a thief, gives money to a busker, etc. The song with lyrics “give a little love and it all comes back to you” is playing. The slogan “the Coke side of life” is shown.
Message of this advert: the brand coca cola is associated to generosity and optimism. The song states that generosity or love will be reciprocated. There is no direct claim is made for the product.
Example 2: A hand cream is applied to a celebrity’s body. The voice over claims the product can taughten skin, remove wrinkles and make you appear younger. (L’Oreal)
Message: Use this product and you will look beautiful (and perhaps more like a celebrity).
Example 3: A man enjoys driving a car through computer generated pretty scenery. Cool music is playing. (Masda/Kia/etc)
Message: Use this product and you will be happy.
Example 4: An envelope is opened and a laptop is pulled out. The laptop lid is opened to show the Mac desktop and logo. (Apple)
Message: The product has desirable properties (thinness in this case). Note that this is not a functional property.
Example 5: A man and a women are shown on split screen talking to each other by mobile phone. They discuss family issues. The driver collides with an unseen object and knocked unconcious. The person on the other end of the conversation is traumatized. (Public information advert – the product in this case is a behavior)
Message: Talking to people who are on their mobile while driving may be upsetting (if they have an accident).
My observations: Advertising typically shows a person (or a character you are likely to identify with) enjoying the product in question. In the more abstract adverts, the product is part of a lifestyle that would be enjoyable. Often the characteristics of the product are secondary to the enjoyment (cars, coca cola). When characteristics are discussed, they are typically aesthetic (thinness, sleek, young, beauty, etc).
Very occasionally the inverse argument is used: product X will cause you unhappiness and should be avoided.
The purpose of advertising is to persuade people to buy the product. Therefore their full message is: product X will make you happy (or beautiful) and you should therefore purchase the product. This unspoken message contains two fundamental flaws.
1) Product being linked with happiness does not imply we should take any particular action. It does not logically follow that we should buy the product.
2) Studies indicate that our level of happiness is mainly physiologically determined. Our conscious choices only have a limited effect on our happiness (including mediation, medication, etc). Happiness is largely outside our hands. We should ask ourselves do certain behaviors cause happiness, or do happy people more likely to perform certain behaviors? The answer seems to be the latter.
This expressed by the master of debunking hollow ideas as:
The most general formula on which every religion and morality is founded is: “Do this and that, refrain from this and that — and then you will be happy! And if you don’t…” Every morality, every religion, is based on this imperative; I call it the original sin of reason, the immortal unreason. [..] An admirable human being, a “happy one,” instinctively must perform certain actions and avoid other actions; [...] In a formula: his virtue is the effect of his happiness. Nietzsche
This argument also applies to advertising. This quote is literally true if a brand has replaced religion in a persons mind. My concern is the proliferation of advertising in society is causing the spread of “immortal unreason” where thought and discussion are impaired.
As recently reported by the BBC:
Clinical psychologist Oliver James claims in his new book The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza, that “selfish capitalism” (the kind of capitalism we have in Britain) is making us sick. Literally. BBC
For further reading, I recommend Adbusters. They seek to move people beyond the tired concept of everyone being a “happy consumer” and toward being a participant in the real world.
Update: Of course advertising was never meant to be a logical argument but an appeal to the emotions.
Anti Citizen One
“The [European] Commission wants to extend the copyright period for music performers from 50 years to 95 years.” BBC
This should be strongly opposed. My views are public. My proposal: to cut copyright to 50 years or the death of the performer which ever is sooner. Only exception: if they have a significant other that absolutely depend on the money (or perhaps they should have got life insurance??). In fact 20 years or until time of death is even more reasonable! (This is the lengths of patents typically.)
Anti Citizen One
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