NOTE: It has been pointed out to me that I have been very experimental in my usage of Capitalization. Part of this owes to the influence of German Idealism upon my Thinking. The rest is for Emphasis, intended to distinguish Core Concepts and Indispensable Appeals, of which many are introduced here, from idiomatic phrases and deductions, which I leave to the Imagination of the Reader. ENJOY. [({R.G.)}]
Chapter One: Prologue and Thesis.
I.
Allegory One: The Shirtless Egoist.
Perhaps you’ve had the experience
of attending a social function and witnessing the effects of alcohol upon the
ego. Picture, for a moment, a man who attends such events with purely egocentric
intent. Perhaps one night he shows up in a stylish and expensive shirt,
expecting, rightfully, a great deal of attention to be paid to him for wearing
it. Satisfied with the response and elated by appraisal, he proceeds to indulge
in alcohol and the sorts of open expressions of self-confidence that only such
settings can facilitate. After a certain point, he decides that the shirt
amounts to little more than a constriction, a mere Jungian persona intended to
MASK the Great Man Within. He proceeds, therefore and thereafter, to shed the
shirt and to expose his newfound audience to his muscular abdominal build,
expecting the same praise for his bare chest as his shirt received. Yet, of
course, he has been misled by the persona by identifying attention paid to it
with attention paid to his Personality, an all-too-common confusion in the
present Zeitgeist of Social Media and Public Reputation. Should he be met with
less than praise for his tattoo, a matter of great Personal Value to him, he
will feel himself personally attacked, and he might react boorishly. He might
even imagine that his well-meaning critics had deliberately overstepped their
bounds in order to affront his honour; feeling a sense of boundary dissolution
as a result, he would be liable to project his own intentionality upon his
critics, presuming that they sought to supplant his status only in order to
aggrandize themselves, as he had sought to aggrandize HIS own self to begin
with. Such a man would not hesitate to call his critics narcissists and
bullies, for this would be the most effective psychological defence against
them.
Should our hypothetical partygoer
come to his senses the following day, it might not be uncommon for him to
reflect upon his actions with some measure of humiliation and regret. Yet
imagine, as an Epilogue, that our hero proceeds to call the Host of the Party
near immediately, slurring an earnest apology that morning through the haze of
a hangover. Imagine that the Host is bewildered by this apology, insisting that
she remembers neither his antics nor their consequences, since she was,
herself, blacked out drunk and probably shirtless at the time.
I illustrate this not to inspire
nostalgia for your college undergraduate days, but rather to illustrate, by a
belaboured metaphor, the nature of arrogance and, more specifically, the sorts
of arrogance that go unchecked in Groups. While many of us are prone to
experience embarrassment in our moments of Inspired Egomania, we often tend to
feel far more secure when those around us corroborate our egos. We are happy to
draw lines between what we think we Think and what we think we Know, defining
ourselves by our Knowledge while reserving our Opinions for idle discourse,
often to make ourselves appear intelligent, clever, funny, or likeable.
Yet by this process we reveal
elements of Ourselves and Our Beliefs which we have taken for granted for ages,
often to our immense but largely subconscious detriment, for Life required us
to make Choices and we elected, out of Necessity, to make those Choices based
upon a series of presumptions that seemed incontrovertible at the time.
Most probably, those presumptions
which became ingrained within our psyches by Necessity were popular at the time
in our immediate social circle, perhaps even the Mainstream Media. Our felt
need to belong to a Community, to have a safety net to catch us, often plays a
central part in our Beliefs, especially those we consider necessary for
Decision-making. It enables us to bear with failure while more completely
enjoying Success; if our Choices prove to yield unfavourable results, we might
appeal to our Communal Common Sense in having made them, accruing common
sympathy, whereas if results go well we can expect our Success to be perceived
as edifying and contributive by our fellows. In this sense, the communitarian
approach is a win-win for all well-intentioned members involved within an
established discipline with clear-cut goals and guidelines.
Our communal nature as human beings
stands therefore to our credit as autonomous agents, especially insofar as we
presume upon this Nature as a Source of Truth and Wisdom. Yet in confronting
Reality as Such we are interfacing with a different kind of Intelligence, one
whose complexity may or may not surpass the artificial networks we’ve contrived
in Groups. When metaphysical claims about this Reality as Such, applied to
Ethical Choices, are introduced to Collective, Social Discourse, there looms
always the danger of confusing a Matter of Opinion for a Matter of Fact, simply
because, as autonomous agents, we are inclined to marginalize what we
consider to be “matters of opinion” as entertainment whilst prioritizing “matters
of fact” as ethically binding, not only upon Ourselves, but also – to the same
extent as we feel threatened by either criticism or choices made by those who
do not share our opinions – Others as well.
Once I have “tattooed” myself with
one Group’s Ideology, I’m apt to feel attacked by those who consider that
Ideology to be Questionable. I become arrogant and chauvinistic in displaying
those opinions with which I’ve self-identified, as well as boorish and
defensive in resisting those whom I’ve identified with a dissenting opinion,
even if those who proffer that opinion TO me do not themselves identify WITH
that opinion to the same pious and exclusivist extent as I do. Yet whether or
not I should ever have to ANSWER FOR my boorishness, my arrogance, my
defensiveness, or my chauvinism is entirely contingent upon the SURROUNDING
SOCIAL SETTING. If everyone else is likewise tattooed or intoxicated by the
same opinionated egoism, I just may avoid making a public folly of myself,
especially insofar as my egoism is compatible with the egoism of my fellows. If
everyone is drunk anyway, no one cares what you rattled off about.
II.
Allegory Two: Plato's Electronic Tablets. (a
Farce.)
Consider that I am reading one of
Plato’s Foundational Texts: the Republic, for instance. Meanwhile, you are
close at hand, playing with an iPad. Suppose I interrupted your game to ask you
a question regarding Republican forms of Government. At first, you might be
tempted to confuse my position for something referring to the Republican PARTY
of the United States of America. With time, however, it would become clear that
I am talking about Something Else Entirely.
Would you care? Perhaps not, if you
presume that whatever Plato had to say on the matter of Government is dated and
unimportant. You return to your Game, only to discover that a new Notification
has popped up from your Media Outlet of Choice: as it turns out, Republican
Radicals have raided the Capitol!!
You are furious and indignant. I
try to seize my opportunity, to no avail; by the time that I bring up Plato’s
Republic again, you have already moved on to spreading the News to anyone in
the building whose iContraption is not currently plugged in.
Finally, after an hour or so of
collective quibbling with your fellows at the Café, you return to your table. I
comment that you won’t get very far in Life if you dismiss books in favour of
quick fixes on your iPad screen. To this you simply seethe: “The information I
receive by Internet is just as good as anything you read up in a book.” When I
contest that Information isn’t all there is to Knowledge, you call me a
Luddite, or perhaps a Boomer, and you leave, most probably to spread the Word
to all Our Neighbours.
That I was not born during the Baby
Boom, nor have I ever thrown shoes into a Factory to save my livelihood, is
well beside the point. I did not challenge your use of the latest technology; I
simply pointed out that it was INSUFFICIENT.
Why? Because, having used much
OLDER technology in order to enrich my Understanding, I had something to offer
which was, given its legacy, far more FOUNDATIONAL and COMPLETE than a mere
blurb about political uprising. The remote quality of the text is one that
allows me the Sanctity of Mind in which to observe its contents with Objective
Detachment, rather than Emotional Outburst. Though my satire herein is clearly
a caricature, it is in fact an UNDERSTATEMENT of contemporary protest.
Real-life protest is far more dangerous than my comical, hypothetical
antagonist in the second person, and it is no less absurd to witness from a
literate perspective.
Why is my perspective the more
literate? To be clear: I’ve never read the Republic in Actuality. I use it to
illustrate an extreme in order to counterpoint another extreme with sardonic
wit.
In this example, there is nothing
preventing you from downloading a PDF of Plato’s work and reading it from your
Tablet; in fact, by reading it from a “tablet”, you might ironically contend that
you are honouring Plato’s original intentions BETTER than I do by my reading it from Paper, though perhaps if you
know a bit about Socrates you will insist that none of this ought ever to have
been inscribed at all.
Yet all of this is farcical, aimed
at lampooning the presumption that the printed word on paper holds the sort of
Sacred Dignity which men in bygone centuries projected onto it, just to show
that THEY knew how to read. In Truth, you would not even BOTHER with what those
men had to say, nor with what Plato chiseled tirelessly into blocks or tasked
his slaves with doing. How far would you get into the preface before you were
interrupted by another Notice from our Media? How much time would you agonize
over the strife of bygone city-states before you chose to fall back into
Present Times?
Presuming that the “Internet”
suffices for your “Information” is not just to say, “I’ll read your Plato from
my Tablet and save Trees,” but it IMPLIES instead: “I need no Plato, since I
have what he had never dreamt of in his wildest drunken fantasies.” So much for
the Symposium, then; you would gladly state the obvious: that all the Ancient
Greeks who wrote were drunk and horny, and no one could tell them otherwise, so
why should what they have to offer matter?
Yet the irony here is that your
Technology becomes Useless to you, whereas YOU become USEFUL to IT. The iPad
was not DEVELOPED with the INTENT of being used by college undergraduates to
study Plato’s ancient writings, since the casual consumer has no interest in
such archaic fancies. The iPad was intended for swift access to compact
information, ease of manipulation, electronic communications, and
Entertainment. You are right: Plato had probably never dreamt of it, and,
presumably, the men and women who designed the iPad did not feel they owed him
any favours, even if they did, under Closer Examination.
As such, if you were to PRESUME
that the Apple iPad, coupled with Internet Access, were all you needed with
which to Understand Politics, and if you were to equate Evidence to the
Contrary with an attack upon Technology and Technocratic Progress as Such, were
you to thus suppose that all New Forms of Technology are Superior to Older
Models, that their Limitations ought to be disregarded in favour of their
INTENDED USES, then you are effectively BEING USED BY your Technological
Devices of Choice. Rather than employing the privilege of a diverse Inventory
of Devices in order to arrive at the most Inclusive AND Consistent Frame of
Reference, you would simply DISOWN all older forms; the suggestion that any of
them might retain MERIT to the point of NECESSITY would be tantamount to
destroying all iPads. The iPad, fashioned towards a specific SET of USES, thus
determines what YOU equate with “Usefulness”, and it follows FROM this equation
that OLDER forms are “Useless”.
Yet “useless” to whom? Everyone who
is not a Luddite Boomer.
III.
An Imperfect System:
Scientific Inquiry is an imperfect system
by design. It must be falsifiable in order to be valid. As such, it cannot be
obligated to produce Absolute Knowledge; Science does not “Need to Know”. Yet
human beings DO Need to Know, quite often, with regards to making Choices,
especially of an Ethical Nature. The Felt Necessity for Knowledge is often
characteristic of Religion in both its Ecstasy and its Agony, so much so that
the Ecstasy associated with Spiritual Awakening may be presumed to be little
more than a relief from Agonizing Moral Doubt in the face of Imperative Moral
Decisions. Science cannot satisfy this Felt Need for Imperative Certainty,
given its fluid, developing, and perpetually falsifiable Nature. It follows
that “Man” traditionally coupled Religion WITH Science, rather than seeking to
drive a wedge between them to cleanse himself of the sins of Faith in favour of
the sanctity of Rationality. Yet “Modern Man”, or “Modern Human Being” as we
understand “Ourselves”, has by and large revoked Religious Faith in favour of a
secular approach to Truth as Such. Suppressing the Will to Believe within the
circumscriptions of a formal Tradition, Modern Human Being finds expression for
the Religious Instinct in Science, though Science was never equipped for such
purposes and, in fact, it was developed to COMPLEMENT Religious Tradition and
Religious Presuppositions rather than to COMPENSATE for them.
Much of our contemporary arrogance
derives from the Promethean Pride of Technological Innovation and its cravings
for Rational, Technocratic Leadership which will not only ACKNOWLEDGE the
“Scientific Worldview” but will behave in a manner “consistent with” it. Yet
this is to presuppose that the Scientific Worldview POSSESSES the features of a
Moral Teleology or any other set of Imperatives, though clearly Scientific
Naturalism denies any such Purpose underlying our Existence as Such. Science
not only needs not to Know; it also needs not to Care, and if she is to be
credited at all as the Mother of Modern Technology, and if her Maternity is not
one merely of her having given birth but also of her frequent involvement in
her Children’s lives, she must be acknowledged as a fundamentally cold and
unavailable parent, many of whose Children have run amuck and wreaked havoc
upon entire Civilizations. Technology has helped us to fulfill purposes that
have not only augmented but also mitigated our Humanity, and were we to develop
new Ethics for the proper USE and DEVELOPMENT of Technology, as undoubtedly
many attempts are made to do, they would logically follow NOT from within the
Utility of any Technology NOR from within the Frame of Reference of a Science
which is both capricious and uncaring. Perhaps, for those initiated INTO
Science and her mode of thinking, this is not capricious at all, but acting of
one’s “own accord” as a Developing Intelligence, fulfilling the requirements of
one’s own deficiencies and goals, will nonetheless appear, rightfully,
capricious to those who are seeking a MORAL Worldview, as well as a PERSONAL
one at that.
In this sense, we are all, as Modern
Individuals, Science Incarnate. We, too, follow our own methods, constantly
developing from past mistakes and revising our attitudes in order to
accommodate new developments in our Lives. We inherit the exciting
unpredictability as well as the insufferable caprice of an Ordered Worldview
that makes sense internally but which is baffling from the outside looking in. It
follows that, when we DO seek alliance and allegiance with Others, we do so NOT
by following from Absolute Principles but RATHER from those partisan biases
which consolidated our certainties at an earlier stage of development. Science
Itself is not immune to these inherited biases, nor are its modern
practitioners, operating within the sort of “Community of Peers” that is
founded as much upon conditioned bias as upon rigorous indoctrination within a
sophisticated Practice. We are all, to some extent or another, intoxicated by
our fellows.
None of this is to say that we
ought NOT to pursue Objectivity, by one definition or another, that we ought to
treat all Opinions as Equal, that we ought to deny either interpersonal or
metaphysical Truth, nor that we ought to regard Everything as a Matter of
Opinion. It IS, however, to say that we have spent so much time operating under
the INFLUENCE of Individualism and its inherent partisan biases that we are not
quite READY YET for an effective form of Collectivism. As Watts pointed out, rugged
individuals tend to form “mobs” rather than Societies. Conformism by itself is
not effective Communitarianism, and it is merely an instrument for Fascism,
that is, Egoism on a Mass Scale.
We must thus proceed to re-evaluate
the Religious Fanaticism that has become so prevalent in Technocratic Culture,
as expressed in the conflicting claims produced by Social Media and Popular
Science. The former is largely subjectivist and individualist in scope, liberal
in its ethos, and possible only by avenue of a Technology which at once
liberates us and circumscribes us in its own, partisan Utilities. The latter is
that Body of Theory which is considered “Knowledge” only when it “works” but
whose Workings remain Mysterious whenever the Human Subject is involved, which
is a constant within all of our Human Inquiries. Between the unchecked
subjectivism of the former and the pretensions towards objectivity that the
latter is guilty of propagating, we are far from having actualized a genuinely
working modern Ethic. It becomes central to our purposes, therefore, if we at
least ASPIRE towards Ethical Action, to embrace an attitude of Humility with
regards to the incompleteness of our Physical Sciences as well as the attitudes
which they give rise to. These Sciences undoubtedly HAVE aided in the
betterment of Human Life, by several definitions of “better”, yet we ought not
to feel such a binding and pious DEBT to them that they should be allowed to
either preclude non-scientific Truths or even ANTI-scientific Truths from
coming to light in Public, nor should they be used as excuses for vainglorious
violence.
IV.
The Snare of the Present: Shady and Fierce.
Consider the concept of Progress.
Progressive thought is primarily predicated upon a set of optimistic
presumptions. “Progress” implies, by its very nature, a set of circumstances
whereby the Future supersedes and surpasses the Past. This may be conceived of
in one of two ways:
One way of interpreting Progress is
that the Past is home to a Tradition whereby Goals are established to be
resolved over the Course of Time, whose consummation lies in the Future. It
would thus follow, under such a paradigm, that the inheritors of this Tradition
would initially shoulder the burdens put UPON them BY their progenitors, whose
tutelage and records would be indispensable in the proper supervision of
Progress. While the Youth will some day live to surpass the Elderly in Dignity,
nonetheless they always OWE their Dignity TO the Elderly, not just in the
causal sense that, were it not for what the Elderly had accomplished, there
would be no Tradition to inherit and by which to attain Dignity, but ALSO
because, were no such Tradition to have existed, as interpreted primarily by
the relatively Elderly, then there would BE no Ethical Imperatives and, as
such, no obligations, no good or bad means or ends, and no Dignity by which to
make Choices.
At first, these two qualities of
Owing Dignity appear to be one and the same, and they are so insofar as they
are two sides of the same proverbial coin. My point is this: that not only are
we capable of being Dignified because our ancestors taught us what it would
MEAN to be Dignified, but we also MUST be Dignified BECAUSE they taught us
this. If this would appear arbitrary, it only appears this way until we,
ourselves, find ourselves repeating the habits of moral preaching. This is no
mistake; on the contrary, it is emblematic of Maturity that one begins to
concern one’s self with one’s Society, its Past, and its Future, and at this
point one atones with one’s ethical progenitors.
There is, of course, however, an
opposing view of Progress, and this is that of Scientific Teleology. One might
say that the Past is obsolete by nature, that Progress in Culture rather
parallels the development of Science and Technology. The proper interests of
the Human Being are to be rightfully circumscribed by the capabilities of the
most up-to-date technology, even if certain customs for which older
technologies were developed must be surrendered to the proverbial “Garbage Bin”
of History. Embodied in the words of Henry Ford, “History is bunk,” and it is
in response to this aphorism that Huxley draws his satirical Brave New World,
Jung draws his defence of mythology as an essential part of psychoanalytic
practice, Lewis and Tolkien write about the arrogance of novelty and the fated
decline of Civilizations, and MacIntyre infers the importance of Tradition in
Ethics. The attitude of Scientific
Teleology ignores the fact that, according to Modern Science, no Teleology
exists in the World Itself, though all moral claims are supposedly directly
contingent upon the Scientific Understanding OF the World Itself and its
effects upon Human Beings, and vice versa.
This is also the attitude of the
nihilist as exemplified by the mad scientist in Rick and Morty, an adult
animated series lauded for having “captured the Millennial Zeitgeist”. Yet at
the root of this nihilism is an unshakeable intellectual optimism. Science will
either solve all our problems or render those problems Meaningless and unworthy
of conscious attention, much less serious debate. Science, yet again, will
provide Certainty, and even if Meanings are lost along the way, they may be
discarded alongside History. Human Beings will use Technology to provide NEW,
more EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE definitions for Marriage, for Love, for Sexuality,
for Justice, for Gender, for Race, and for Character and Merit. We have the
Technology, which implies that we have the Ability, and the first order of
business in our glorious ascent to the Stars is to jettison the old idols of
Tradition, of Social Order, and History.
What would one conceivably expect
from this latter interpretation of Progress, were it valid and true? Primarily,
we would characterize our Age as one of Unmitigated Optimism. The evils of the
Past would not impede our Progress towards Utopia. Mistakes would be recognized
instantly and corrected, despite the histories of those mistakes already made,
as well as the premonitions predicting those mistakes not yet made, having been
decimated. The Artist would not only perpetually surpass his earlier work, but
his earlier work would be regarded as inferior as a matter of course and NOT as
the result of any personal shortcoming. The Musician whose lyrics from nine
years ago appear too affronting for the contemporary listener would continue to
output credible work that is better suited to the Market, without
recrimination. In short: we would never be “haunted” by the materials of the
Past.
When I was growing up, prior to
Lady Gaga’s popularization of Electronic Dance Music, the two most important
names in popular music were Beyonce Knowles and Eminem. Beyonce’s popularity
has endured over the past two decades, as has the work of Marshall Mathers,
with both Artists innovating in their respective fields, winning both
popularity and notoriety on behalf of their respective genres and enterprises,
transforming their personae and sounds with each new album. It was surprising,
therefore, to learn from young feminists in 2014 that Beyonce was a “feminist
icon”, and it was even more surprising to learn that they did not recognize her
most iconic hits off of her debut album upon hearing them, only vaguely
guessing at who the singer was on the self-defining “Me, Myself and I”.
Beyonce’s style of vocals had not changed considerably, nor had her production
techniques and genre, yet ten years was enough time for people claiming to be
“fans” to have forgotten or perhaps never heard these songs.
Very recently, Marshall Mathers,
alias Eminem, has come under attack by young listeners on the streaming
platform TikTok. The rapper had been christened the “King of Controversy” for
decades, upsetting purists on both the religious right and the neoliberal left,
inspiring fruitless protests across generations. It is astonishing, therefore,
to discover that modern listeners have attempted to “cancel” his career for his
relatively TAME duet with Rihanna in 2012, less than a decade ago, more than a
decade after the release of THE Slim Shady LP.
What Beyonce’s career indicates is
that a seminal figure can go from being a sexual commodity to a respected
artist to a feminist icon without modern consumers really taking notice; what
Eminem’s career demonstrates is that an equally important figure in the same
Industry can be demonized by the same generation of consumers, despite having
resisted censorship from prior generations and thus paved the way for the
popularization of those forms of Media that the new generation takes for
granted. Beyonce is haunted by forgetfulness to roughly the same extent as
Eminem is haunted by memory. Listeners FORGET Beyonce’s early work, perhaps to
the benefit of her present image, but to the ultimate detriment of her legacy
as anything more than an “icon”: a symbol appropriated by an ideological
agenda. Listeners REMEMBER Slim Shady’s video starring Dominic Monaghan and
Megan Fox, but because they FORGET his earlier work they believe the more
recent release to be damning. Both of these tendencies in Media may be ascribed
to “progressivism”, yet are they genuine Progress?
No. As I explained, “Progress”
implies, even at its most nihilistic and cynical, a certain optimism and
idealism. If we are to be honest with ourselves, we must confess that we pride
ourselves in the Present precisely BECAUSE it was INCONCEIVABLE to the Prophets
of the Past. Scientific Teleology, as opposed to Traditional Progress, makes a
habit, as I have explained, of DISOWNING the Past in FAVOUR of the Present
Moment. Yet how are young people to avail themselves of this? After all: can
their ancestors not say that they PREDICTED that the Youth would make such
MISTAKES in the Future? One must, in order to defend Scientific Teleology, PRESUME
that such predictions were Impossible. No one can foresee the Future, nor is
anyone justified in directing its course.
Instead of looking back on Shady’s
early work and taking PRIDE in how far we have COME, in part BY AVENUE OF HIS
INFLUENCE, progressives in this school are happy to appropriate the results of
his daring innovations whilst disowning the Innovator. It is taken for GRANTED that
he OUGHT TO HAVE KNOWN BETTER, DESPITE the presupposition that he could NOT
have known better, precisely BECAUSE HE LIVED IN OUR CULTURAL PAST.
The same principle may be applied
to European Philosophy. Progressives are happy to embrace Human Rights without
paying proper respects to those who CREATED Human Rights. Human Rights are
presumed to have always existed, inherently, within Nature. Yet how can they
have existed in Nature were they not fashioned by some sort of Intelligence
with its Own Plans for Progress?
V.
The Intelligent Universe.
Those who do not study History are
not doomed merely to repeat it, but to appropriate it. We borrow the language
of the Past in order to justify the polar opposite in the Present. We may be
inventive in doing so, but we are certainly not Good, not even by our own
definitions, except for those which will be rendered moot within a year or so,
given our luck.
However, if every living generation
up until this point has known about these dangers, then have they not also,
presumably, been party to them? If so, how can we turn to ANYONE with the
intent of finding a credible Authority?
The answer is twofold: one is that
Authority need not be Perfect by the standards of a misguided Youth in order to
be credible. The other is that such an Authority may be derived from an
interpretation of the Universe which Science does not offer us: the Morally
Purposive One, wherein the Universe is Intelligent.
Not incidentally, both this former
theme of a “fallen” generation having inherited the errors of its progenitors,
as well as the Redemption of all generations, Living and Dead, Past, Present,
and Future, by contact with a Superior, Universal Intelligence, is nothing at
all new to Human Societies, nor is it peculiar to any one time or place in
Human Culture. Yet it is precisely this Dimension of Human Life, indispensable
to address the problems of Imminently Necessary Choice, which has been the most
systematically marginalized by those who fanatically insist that Science has
rendered it obsolete, as though it were in itself merely a dated form of
Technology. That Dimension is, of course, the Religious.
When the Scientific Method was
developed, it was presumed that the World as Such was Intelligible. Yet what
constitutes “Intelligibility”? When I read a Letter, I am interfacing with an
Impersonal Object; when I use a photo camera, it has no feelings for which I
should be concerned. Be all that as it may, should I record a video wherein I
read a Public Letter denouncing Science as a System, how many critics will not
comment, “but he used TECHNOLOGY to make this very film!!” Yet why should I owe
this DEBT to Technology, and how does that serve as a WARRANT for contemporary
Science? This appears to be the case because it is presumed Technology must be
synonymous with Scientific Knowledge. The Scientific Logos has BLESSED these
devices, imbibing them with its Spirit.
Perhaps that caricature is somewhat
unjust, but it is not far from the Truth. When I read the Letter, I can INFER
upon that Intelligence which drafted the Letter. I PROJECT my own Intelligence
UPON the Unintelligent Object, just as I PROJECT upon the Camera the Scientific
Knowledge necessary to develop this Device. Were that Scientific Knowledge incomplete,
not only would the Device, which bears the Mark of its Maker, have never been Imagined;
this Imagining could never have been actualized with Certainty as to the
effectiveness of its Actualization. Science is Mother, Father, and Child, the
entire Trinity we call Technology, all in one Process, whose Ways are
Mysterious to us but nonetheless Absolutely Binding.
That the Intelligence of the
Designer may be inferred from the Object I do not mean to contest, though I
maintain that we can have no Scientific Knowledge which fully accounts FOR this
Intelligence. We know how to use Science in order to develop Technology; we
know NOT how to use Science to understand that same Process of Development.
Ideas come to us always from the Mysteries of the Unconscious; they belong,
therefore, to Existence as Such. Nor can we presume that those who develop
Technology are in possession of an Absolute Knowledge, one which would warrant
the presumed existence of an Absolute Science, simply because NOT ALL THEORIES
WORK. Science produces the Theory; Technology determines, by its efficacy or
inefficacy, within the bounds of its own Utilities, and according to the
reports of those Human Subjects circumscribed by those Utilities, whether or
not such an application of Scientific Theory is VALID and TRUE. Science is the
Father; Technology is the Mother, and when either the Father misconceives or
the Mother miscarries, this Holy Trinity falls apart, however temporarily.
Neither party is an Absolute Authority, so neither party deserves our
unquestioning prostration and slavish worship.
Considering how those who worship
Science and Technology treat their opponents, especially when drunk at parties,
it is clear that what it means to be an intelligible HUMAN BEING is not very different
anymore from what it means to be an intelligible Letter or Camera. We call
“stupid” or perhaps even “disabled” (a term as mechanistic as it is insulting)
those who do not understand the “Obvious Truths” of Science. Often, we struggle
to UNDERSTAND these people, so we PRESUME them to be Unintelligent. If they TRY
to MAKE THEMSELVES Understood, we see the futility of our own Understanding as
symptomatic of THEIR Unintelligence; if they struggle to understand US, we
presume that they are simply to Unintelligent to do so. As such, the modern
Scientific Positivist equates INTELLIGENCE with INTELLIGIBILITY. I cannot
COMPREHEND those either more or less Intelligent than I, given a wide margin,
hence I give them a wide berth, especially if I presume myself to Know myself
to be more Intelligent. Nor can those of wildly different Intelligence hope to
make sense of ME, so why bother arguing with idiots? Simply determine whether
or not they will serve the Truth. There’s no need to establish Common Ground
between Parties; simply determine the Other’s stance. If the Other is “Right”,
then he or she will not resist me; if he or she is “Wrong”, what a fantastic
opportunity to PROVE it, eloquently.
All of this I do not yet contest as
valid. I only contest that it’s Ironic that these same Militant Positivists
presume the UNIVERSE to be devoid of Purposive Intelligence. Recall the Camera;
I can infer the Designer from the Object. A similar analogy observation was
made about the Watch. Yet was this not the PERFECT Analogy for Intelligent
Design? “No,” say the Scientists, “for the World as Such needs no Designer in
order to be UNDERSTOOD.” Yet if People and Objects cannot be considered
“Intelligible” if they are not “Intelligent”, then how can the WORLD AS SUCH be
considered Intelligible to the Modern Scientist?
It becomes clear, now, why those
who initially developed the Scientific Method(s) believed in God.
Chapter Two: The Godless State.
VI.
Atheistic Sexuality: the Crisis of Consenting
Libertines.
Sexual Ethics are practically dead
nowadays, though the drive to establish and control Sexuality remains at the
forefront of the liberal consciousness which killed those Ethics.
Consider the manner in which
pairings are made. That they are most often between consenting adults is a
given; the manner in which this consent is ACQUIRED goes largely unexamined, as
well as the distinction between positive and negative forms of conspiracy
between "consenting adults". To some extent, the Libertarian Position
is practically taken for granted: Consenting adults may enter into any sort of
conspiracy which stands to benefit both parties. If such an alliance should
stand to hurt any party outside of the consenting parties, that is of no moral
consequence; if it should stand to hurt the parties involved, they both bear
the blame, but that is all.
How often can we claim to be so
impartial? How often instead do we hear talk of one of the consenting parties
violating the other's "rights"? And how often yet must we take biased
strides and leaps of faith in order to pick sides, abstracting from the
conflict and reducing it to Ideology!!
More often than not, consent is not
enough. We make our pairings based upon our whims and NOT based upon Social
Custom. That is not to say that no Customs EXIST, but rather that they are not
ABSOLUTES.
One Custom is what came to be
regarded as "the Bro Code". In effect, it's little more than modern
formal variations on the Code of Chivalry, a Classic Ethic from the European
Middle Ages which is aimed as much towards Solidarity between Good Men as well
as principles of how those Men ought to treat Women.
That this Ethic is not
"dead" or ought to be preserved goes almost without saying. It's
essential for all modern people not just to discern their Friends from Enemies,
but ALSO to be clear about what that ENTAILS: how Friends behave towards
Friends. While Friendly Competition can and does exist, it is DISTINCT from
Enmity, chiefly because IT TOO requires our consent. That Enemies do not
require my consent to competition is a given; that my FRIENDS require my
consent to competition is Essential.
How would this appear to the
Liberal Individualist who does NOT value Friendship, however? To her,
Individual Consent is Everything. It is not the business of the Society to DECIDE
what WARRANTS Consent; that's the Individual's Own Business. Yet how are we to
resolve conflicts of interest between Individuals? Simply put: that Consent
which is RECIPROCATED suffices, and ONLY that Consent suffices; all other forms
of Consent are null and void, and those enterprises producing that Consent are
invalid, immoral, and pathological.
In short: Individualism produces
Mob Mentality. The Individual may be as Instrumental and Disloyal as he or she
chooses to be, SO LONG AS another Individual, by no means his or her Superior
in Dignity, stands allegedly to BENEFIT by a conspiracy of whims between the
two. Since all Individuals are equally depraved, and since they are only
redeemed by consensual pairings, the only SELFISH parties are those who are
outvoted, presumably because they lacked the INDIVIDUAL qualifications to be
the more attractive option in a Competition which they did not consent to, EVEN
AMONG ALLEGED FRIENDS.
How does this pathologizing of the
Unrequited Lover stand with Moral Theory, though? According to Kohlberg
Psychology, these pairings are Conventional at BEST and pre-Conventional in
Principle. While clinically MOST people will reason in such a manner, that
means NOT to indicate that this is the ONLY nor the BEST way to Reason.
One surpassing appeal is that of
Selflessness. Selfless Love is NOT the same sort of Love that wants only the
Other to be Happy, deriving Happiness from the other's Happiness at one's own
expense, for that is nothing more than an investment in Empathy and Good Cheer.
Happiness and Love are often in direct opposition to one another, and
rightfully so, for Love is something more akin to an Agon[y], a Struggle for
Self-Transcendence. The Pursuit of Happiness produces Misery by Default, for it
is ALWAYS a Selfish Enterprise. The Pursuit of Love produces Meaning, which
endures EITHER Misery OR Happiness, "in sickness and in health".
It thus follows that the Unrequited
Lover is SUPERIOR to the Conventional Lover, since he can Love WITHOUT BEING
LOVED IN RETURN. It is precisely this kind of Commitment which serves to
WARRANT Love, which serves as a PREREQUISITE to Consummate Love, (which is now
to be defined as a consensual pairing between two parties who WOULD love one
another as unrequited lovers if they had not the privilege of one another's
consent,) and as such it CAN be used to DETERMINE who is WORTHY of consent in
any competition. Unrequited Love is also DEFENDED BY Chivalry, since it is not
distorted by a consent which is founded purely on whim and competition. The man
who defends his "Bro[ther's Honour]" needs not concern himself with
whether or not his Brother pursues a woman who "cares" for the
suitor, since it should suffice that Friends regard Friends as Honourable and
Worthy Candidates, lest they become Enemies and even Bitter Rivals.
That the Predecessor Culture HAD an
internal consistency between its diverse appeals is thereby apparent. That the
Modern Culture of Liberal Individualism lacks this is transparent. MacIntyre
needs no further evidence for his thesis in After Virtue except by
observing the most banal of human sexual pairings. That women had no say in the
establishment of Chivalry goes also without saying, almost. Yet far more
important is this point: that women, taking charge in Sexuality, have yet to
give Good Men a System which is nearly as consistent, both externally and internally,
sociologically as well as psychologically. It is perhaps for that reason that
we hear so much talk of “toxic relationships” but not prescriptions for an
effective antidote. Maybe that is why Eminem’s most honest work is being
censored, as well as why it shouldn’t.
VII. The Liberal
Bureaucrat OR: Why the Robot Shrinks Believed I’d Vote for Trump.
Last year, I took a psychometric
test that was aimed at determining whether I had the moral makeup of a Trump
supporter or a Biden supporter. My results indicated that, according to my
moral leanings, I was most likely to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020
Presidential Election. Of course: I am NOT a Trump supporter, but perhaps not
for the same reasons as most people vote for Biden; in that sense, the test was
very accurate, though probably not in the manner it was supposed to have been.
To me, Joe Biden embodied the cliché of the President We Need, whereas Donald
Trump had always been the President We Deserved.
Why would I say such a thing? In
short, I agree with Slavoj Zizek: Trump is the most POSTMODERN president this
country has ever had. By “postmodern”, what is meant is that he has an ethic
NOT of Consistency but rather of Inclusion. How is this possible in an
ostensibly “conservative” icon who comes off as a bigot? Put simply: Trump is
NOT a conservative. Donald Trump panders to conservatives just as Joe Biden
panders to liberals. Neither man can deliver on his promises, nor SHOULD he,
for the People protest too much.
Donald Trump’s Twitter history
alone stands as a testament to a man whose mind answers to no logical
authority. He rattles off on tangents, citing platitudes left and right,
(though mostly right) but there is nothing there resembling an overlying Plan
or Ethic. Yet remove Trump from the platform, as the Twitter staff did, and it
does not look much better. Twitter inevitably PRODUCED a persona like Trump
because it perpetually facilitates a mind like Trump’s: an incessant, rambling
stream of unconsciousness devoid of Meaning. Trump is “postmodern” because WE
are, and in this sense too he is the consummation of liberal individualism.
Trump represents a project that is
older than its own memory, an enterprise spanning three centuries and fraught
with confusion. Whenever Trump appears dictatorial or authoritarian, it is
nothing but the inevitable consequence of unchecked individuality. Whenever we
are so passionate in resisting bureaucracy that we become bureaucratic towards
others, we become-Trump. As such, the Trump Administration represented a unique
challenge for the American People: to either own up to ourselves or to blame
each other. Any one of us has BEEN-Trump at one point or another, but it takes
courage to ACKNOWLEDGE that fact; it is far easier to blame others by
projecting Trump UPON them, and that is precisely what we did.
By this I do not mean to say that
people are not WORTHY of contempt, especially when they behave in a Trump-like
manner. Yet Trump supporters are not alone in these behaviours, and if one
wonders why the Liberal Media is so repressive and adamant about “canceling”
any vestige of Trump’s influence, as well as the “dark history” that made him
possible, it is only because Liberal Media refuses to acknowledge its OWN
sacred values as emblematic of that same dark history. Without “human rights”,
there can be no “racism”; without “sexism”, there can be no “feminism”; without
“the Elite”, there can be no “Equality”. These are not mere Taoist platitudes;
these are observable trends, for in fact it was the “Right to Property” which
perpetuated Slavery long before it was called “racism”, it was Sexism which
made possible the rise of Feminism, both as the opposition to AND the
implementation OF sexist practices, and it is the drive to be Superior and to
evade Inferiority which compels men and women to want to be “Equal”. The Cancel
Culture is nothing more than Scapegoating and Shadow Projection: the polar
OPPOSITE of what one would expect of a Progressive Society which takes it as a
matter of COURSE that History is fraught with inferiority. Liberal Media
suppresses “conservative” tendencies so as to cover up its OWN kinship to
Trump.
The psychometric test I took was
“iffy”. In general, it’s a bad idea to confuse emotions, ethics, and politics
as though they were one unit. Psychometrics of this kind seek to assess an
individual’s subjective, emotive responses to political issues in order to
determine that individual’s moral “leanings”, in turn producing a prediction
for how that individual will vote.
I do not mean to say that human
beings are “much too complex” to be analyzed; it is rather that politics,
ethics, and emotions are much too complex to be EQUATED. Political Decisions
are often grave matters requiring our best show of objectivity; it’s not that
there is no room for emotion in this field, but emotion cannot be the Driving
Force. Conversely, it is MORALITY which produces both our political views AND
our emotional responses, but this Morality, because it produces our emotional
responses, is NOT the product OF our emotional responses, and often when we
have a “change of mind” we undergo a “change of heart” as well. This change in
both does not always mean that we will make predictable political decisions,
however, since it’s possible that maturity only compels us to see that NEITHER
side is Right.
So: why do I maintain that Biden is
the “right” choice? It is because he is a Moderate. Moderacy is not something I
take pride in, yet it is necessary for the country NOW, for we have to recover
from the lunacy and extremism of the Trump Administration. This is not to say
that I BLAME Trump for this lunacy; he is our scapegoat and a fitting mascot
for the Zeitgeist. The reason I appear to be a Trump supporter is that, while I
DO support Biden, I do NOT think like so many of his other supporters. Biden
supporters, according to this test, think entirely in terms of liberal
platitudes, by no means more sensible or informed than Trump’s otherwise
harmless antics. Biden APPEARS to these people as Trump appeared to the
American “conservative”. It takes, perhaps, a man like Biden to see the TRUE
Biden: a much-needed reprieve.
VIII. A Tale of Five
Black Men: Simpson, King, Smalls, Porgy, and Cosby.
People are not concerned about
murder. People are concerned about judgement. O.J. Simpson got off because the
Court was somehow duped into considering itself unqualified to judge of his
crimes. Rodney King did not inspire a wave of devastating riots because he got
away with drunk driving, but rather because those who sought to punish him for
his crimes got away with using extreme force. No one has really expressed much
concern for the highly documented and even celebrated murders of African
American men in African American communities. One gapes in awe at the Black
Lives Matter movement, since it seems delayed by such a margin. I’d already
grown desensitized to the Notorious B.I.G.’s tales of gun violence towards his
fellow black men; I was inwardly praying for the Police to finally put an end
to this epidemic of murder.
Then I saw Porgy and Bess
and witnessed a black man murdering his fellow with a meat hook. The few people
“not of colour” in this play sought piously to bring the Villain to Justice,
even surrendering various social niceties and elements of due process in the
process: a smart move, considering that to operate within such confines is
bureaucracy. Yet the inhabitants of Catfish Row resisted the investigation with
inexplicable bias, and ultimately the Hero had to murder the Villain and
thereby become the Villain before the show concluded. As the Opera ended on his
most quixotic and megalomaniacal note, the audience cheered for all the actors,
though they booed ironically the actors who portrayed the Officers of Law,
actors who in their turn accepted the contempt their characters accrued with
bows and smiles.
I was astounded. I was promised I
would see “oppression” and “community”, but all of the “oppression” that I
witnessed came from right WITHIN the same “community” that was supposed to have
been its antithesis. The Villain’s actor, interviewed, insisted that he WAS no
“Villain”; rather, he was like a “dog” that needed to be “trained”. Yet who
would train him? Clearly: not those qualified to do so by Authority of Law.
Thus his oppression would persist to an extreme, yet even in the aftermath of
this extreme his vindicator would refuse to look him in the face and own up to
the guilt of that same sin that in the gospel of that same community was an offence
against the Lord of ALL Men.
This is perhaps the consequence of
Liberal Individualism, though Communitarianism is not immune to it. Liberal
Individual Society, especially EGALITARIAN Individualist Society, treats
Judgement as though it were a fate worse than death and a sin worse than
murder. If all distinctions of Authority are false, by whose Authority can I be
judged a Villain? Who then are the Heroes? It’s no wonder that the Damsel in
Distress, at one point central as an archetype, is now considered a taboo. Yet
where is the Heroism in saving one’s SELF? Is it not EVIL to say that no one
WANTS Salvation?
Communitarianism is not much help.
I can stand up for my TRIBE, but ONLY for my Tribe. I am prone to resist
interference from the Dominator Culture, though by the standards of that
Culture those whom I resist are simply representing THEIR Tribe and that God of
Retribution which our Tribes might share in common. In the process, I hurt BOTH
Tribes and become a sinner in the eyes of that same God, except if I presume
that God would wish my enemy to live and sin a little longer so that *I* might
be the one to punish him.
In context it is no more surprising
that Bill Cosby was imprisoned than the fact that O.J. Simpson was not. While
Simpson “represented” the Plight of the African American Man, Cosby had
renounced the depravity of his culture’s tendencies towards violent crime and
instead “represented” the Wealthy and Law-abiding Man. As such, the temptation
was to expose his underlying HYPOCRISY. Cosby came to REPRESENT the Plight of
the Unwealthy Woman, though he was only betrayed by that same Legal System he
condoned when he too became the victim of a vigilante bypass of due process. Our
OWN “hypocrisy” proved greater, and the Black Man was yet again reduced to a
Symbol in the hands of Idealogues, no more Human in the Public Eye than Trump
or Biden.
IX.
What Dysphoria Can Do for God:
We are living in the Future; this
goes also almost without saying. This is not to say that we will never be
surprised again, but rather it is to say that everything which would have
surprised our ancestors has come to pass, at least within our minds.
The Mind is a Strange Place. For
ages, man has more or less adhered, across the Globe, to certain principles and
Universals which were archetypal, without Question. What is Mysterious to the
Contemporary Liberal is that so many of the World's Cultures should have
committed themselves to the same "dogma". What is Mysterious to the
World's Cultures is that the Contemporary Liberal should find so many excuses
to upset that Universalizing "dogma".
Some of the heretics we’ve called
the "mad", the "schizophrenic", the "bipolar" and
"delusional". Yet how we treated Mad Men in the Days of Yore is of no
real concern to Modern Science. Modern Science only treats those analyzed by
specialists, according to a scheme developed by professional researchers with
the Best Intentions. Considering how much our Sciences have formalized, we
might pretend that those who came before us never "UNDERSTOOD" what
mental illness is, so there is no comparison between our treatments and their
tyranny.
Consider one such illness, which we
call "gender dysphoria". We don't deny that this is something VALID,
insofar as even medics are forbidden to contest the Cause. As a result of
sheltering the trans from Public Scorn, we exercise an Ethic of Inclusion. It
is mean, it is "transphobic", and it's fundamentally dysfunctional to
call a human being's underlying gender aspirations into Question. Yet the
Question looms: if gender is exclusively a "social construct", how
does one describe the man who says that, deep down, he's a woman? We might say
that no such man exists, for what we have in fact is but a woman we've MISTAKEN
for a man, as did the Gods who crafted this poor woman's D.N.A. to carry the Y
chromosome.
Of course, I speak again by proxy
and by caricature. I can't claim to understand Gender Dysphoria from the inside
out, except to that extent that, if I ever experienced it, I did not allow it
to affect me, electing to redefine "manhood" prior to redefining
myself as "man" or "woman". Yet, as before, the caricature
needn't be regarded as a farce. I won't PRECLUDE the possibility that a Female
Mind can inhabit a Male Body. Yet one must be CONSISTENT, rather than merely
Inclusive, in the implications this presents.
If we are born with certain mental
makeup, then we're NOT the products of Society exclusively. This is important,
since a purely Social Being has no dignity OUTSIDE Society, its norms and its
conceits to "Progress". If a woman can be born by every semblance
male, if she is but "assigned" the role of Man, then What We Are
cannot be summarized by Science. If we CAN be summarized by Science, by that
token, then how Science has identified “man” is essential, and Psychology must
thus identify dysphoria as a delusion, NOT a purposive neurosis.
The Christian definition for the
transwoman is "a man who believes he is a woman". Yet this Twitter
regards as "hate speech". The classification is, of course, purely
formal and not at all literal, since Christians are instructed to love their neighbours
as their GOD had fashioned them, regardless of how those same neighbours adorn
themselves. In the Christian view, God does not make mistakes, and neither,
incidentally, do medics. If you're born a man, you stay a man, and everyone can
see it. This, at least, would summarize the Fundamentalist Position.
Why would we call this "hate
speech"? Only insofar as we presume that calling someone's innermost
convictions of Identity to doubt is somehow "hateful". Yet it's not
so much that hatred drives us; rather, it is that we do not wish Bureaucracy to
rule AGAINST the person of transgender. Rulings of this kind INSPIRE hatred, or
at least they lend excuses to it. Speaking hatred is no problem in itself,
except when it has CONSEQUENCES for minorities, making oppression possible.
That is not to say that there are
not minorities deserving of our hatred; Fascists, after all, comprise a waning,
fading trend, for instance. Yet the transgender is harmless, right?
Undoubtedly, though stigmas which emerge from such a policy present a problem
metaphysically. If I presume AGAINST the Christian Skeptic, I must nonetheless
explain HOW WITH SUCH CERTAINTY I KNOW that she who calls herself a
"woman" is a woman. I must side with her in saying that there's a
TRANSCENDENT Gender, deep inside her SOUL, even if "Soul" here is a
mere umbrella for that Psychic Realm which Science can't explain. Thus, though
it's Science which produces our modern understanding of Transgenderism, Science
thus "gets out of Science", in the words of Gilles Deleuze, or rather
WE "get out of Science" when we take it to this strange extreme.
By this I do not mean to say that
we ought NOT to look at Science with some skepticism. Nor do I suggest that
L.G.B.T.Q. will take its place. Perhaps a wave of interest renewed in Carl Jung's
Psychology will help us understand gender dysphoria by means which we have not
available to us at present, or of which we struggle to avail ourselves. Perhaps
we're ALL dysphoric, and by fitting molds that God did not intend for us we've
misconstrued His Plans for us. Perhaps instead of my rejecting my Society I
have to go THROUGH my Society if I'm to reach His Grace, as Kierkegaard
insists. At any rate, I can't preclude this God nor that He has a Plan for me,
for if I DO experience my symptoms as a Given with a Purpose, I presume upon a
Nature which is Purposive, Intelligent, and Moral.
If Sartre can be so punishing in
his absolute renunciation of Transcendental thinking, then we are permitted to
be just as absolute once we allow even the slightest hint of unspoken
Transcendentalism into our most dearly beloved Policies, such as Free Speech.
If it is "hate speech" to call a transwoman a man, then All Things
Are Possible. If they have not happened YET, that is not to PRECLUDE that they
will happen, and though *I* will not be surprised when they DO, those adhering
to the dogma of the Present WILL. It's only a matter of time. We only forget
that Time will Tell, since we live as THOUGH we had no Future.
Chapter Three: Five Sociopaths in Modern
Media.
X.
Our First Sociopath: Walter White.
The Morality Play is not one thing
one would expect to glean much popularity within an age of moral ambiguity, yet
we can count this now among the various surprises that the Future had to offer
us. That Moral Ambiguity has helped to FURTHER rather than NEGATE the art of
the dramatic moral story is exemplified most clearly in the boisterous success
and the enduring legacy of Breaking Bad, still lauded widely as the
greatest show ever released on Television. Vince Gilligan is not the sort of
author to keep quiet on his work, so we enjoy not only seeing our own responses
to the narrative but also his own, living commentary on Walt’s tale. Gilligan
intended Breaking Bad to have a moral, which he clearly summarized: “Actions
have consequences.” Walter White, the tragic hero, must become the villain, so
that we can see his downfall and rejoice in it. The transformation works
because we sympathize with the hero we encounter yet we admire the
villain he becomes; it’s in that “gray area” between the “light” Walter and the
“dark” Heisenberg where all the REAL dramatic conflict takes place, as our sympathies
for heroes compete with our admiration for villains.
What inspires sympathy for Walter
White? It’s the sense that he does not get the sort of recognition he deserves.
A loyal family man, a patient teacher, and a hardworking professional, holding
down two menial jobs to support his family, the combination of the two ensuring
that he will never leave behind the sort of legacy his former partners now
enjoy, Walter invokes both our conditioned sense of homely “Goodness” and our
more deep-seated pity and suspicions that this way of life produces only
misery.
Yet thankfully by now we know it
will not end this way for him, for when he first appears he’s powerless but far
from homely. We encounter Walter not within the cozy suburbs of Albuquerque but
rather in the Deserts of an Indian Reservation, entirely removed from “White”
American Life, driving a Recreational Vehicle with a meth lab inside, desperate
to leave one final message for his family to know he did this all for them.
Since we don’t know yet what he’s done nor who they are, and since he is the
only character whose name we know, in full, establishing a Protagonist, we register
that he’s addressing US, the Audience, as family as well as jury.
The strangeness of these initial
circumstances, as well as the Protagonist’s believable anxiety in response to
them, couple to produce some sympathy in viewers who would never find
themselves in such a situation, while inspiring some admiration for a man who,
like the Western Outlaw, somehow ventured forth into this alien domain, with Dignity.
To see the spineless coward teaching high school chemistry become this Outlaw
Cowboy is rewarding, so our sympathies and admiration must endure as he
descends into the Underworld. As he must grapple with the consequences of his
social deviance, we root for him, acknowledging what he MUST do to set things “right”,
bewailing that he’s tasked with such a burden. His victims would appear to all
be guilty criminals, surpassing him in power and experience, so though he leads
to their demise we still regard him as a “hero”, even noting his involvement in
the Drug Enforcement Agency’s successes.
Yet even when he tries to salvage
innocence by levelling with Krazy-8, we see in Krazy-8 a vestige of the Walt we
know and love, implying that when Walter finally surpasses Krazy-8 he kills
some part of his own innocence, becoming that same danger Krazy-8 had
represented to begin with. As the show progresses, the casualties grow
progressively more innocent, while Heisenberg grows stronger as a villain. Thus
our sympathies are transferred from the man who was “in danger” to the victims
of this man who IS “the danger,” by his own admission as the One Who Knocks. By
the end, the question of whether or not you SUPPORT Heisenberg, whether you
consider his undoing to be tragic or comic, is almost utterly contingent upon
what you truly value more: the innocence of victims or the Greatness of
Oppressors, your sympathy or your admiration.
[({R.G.)}]
We must stop thinking in terms of
what is Good or Bad for any one Individual, and instead we must start thinking
about what the Society Values, perhaps according to what an Intelligent
Universe presents as Such, and what sacrifices must be made in the PURSUIT of
those Values, regardless of who is more or less affected by those sacrifices
PERSONALY.
