From: CTHEORY Editor [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 7:44 PM
To: ctheory
Subject: Article 94: From Goethe to Baudrillard
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CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 24, NO 1-2
Article 94 27-03-01 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
_____________________________________________________________________
From Goethe to Baudrillard:
Science Fiction and (Neo)Romanticism
=====================================================================
~Jeff Keuss~
Postmodernism is German Romanticism with Better Special Effects
---------------------------------------------------------------
It has been almost 20 years since Ridley Scott's _Bladerunner_ (1982)
first played in theatres. His vision of an apocalyptic world of
~replicants~, androids similar in all respects to humans and superior
in many ways, who are created with full memories of their lives yet
live for a mere three years, seems oddly contemporary in modern film
and continues to draw crowds when re-released in theatres. Rick
Decker, a 'bladerunner' played by Harrison Ford, reflects on the
meaning of his life while watching the death of the last Nexus Six
replicant Roy Batty -- "I don't know why he saved my life; maybe in
those last moments he loved life more than he had ever before. Not
just his life; anybody's life. My life." [1]
Decker's internal musings continue as the film draws to a close --
"maybe we are all looking for the same thing -- Who are we? Why are
we here? How much time do we really have?" -- as a search for what
Paul Tillich terms 'ultimate concern'. More recently, the
Baudrillardian influenced blockbuster from Larry and Andy Wachowski
-- _The Matrix_ (1999) -- was a film that while being seen as (to
quote _Variety_) "the most original movie of the decade" seems, like
_Bladerunner_, to be strangely familiar in theme -- "who are we
really?" "What does it mean to be alive?" "What is a human being?".
These are not films of the Aristotelian heritage where ultimate
answers to such queries are located in the world outside of us.
Rather, the current strain of science fiction film seems to owe much
to the metaphysical heritage of Augustine (in ~interior homo habitat
veritas~; "in the inward man dwells truth"), Rousseau's _Emile_ and
_Confessions_, and, strange as it may sound, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe. Amidst all the technology and futuristic possibilities, we
are shown cinematic narratives constructed around a search for a
philosophy of Self that while being highly subjective, continues to
ask universal questions of ontological form ("who am I?" "who are
we?") that is amorphous in conclusion with a formlessness that is at
times disturbing yet can be viewed as liberating.
I have chosen to center this reflection primarily on the writings of
Goethe and, in particular, _Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre_ as well as
Baudrillard. Postmodernism, contrary to being seen as a new epoch or
age in thinking, is what I argue (at the risk of being flippant), as
simply German Romanticism with better special effects. Given the
questions raised in Romanticism and the amazing similarities to
postmodern discourse, Goethe stands out as a notable figure from whom
to learn. Francis Ford Coppola, director of _Apocalypse Now_, once
commented that "If Goethe were alive today, I think he'd be a
filmmaker. His combination of art and science and his enthusiasm for
technology is something I recognize in myself." [2]
The remainder of my discussion will look at Goethe's tension he
creates between representation (~vorstellung~) and concept
(~begrifft~), those poles of tension so central to Hegel's
_Phenomenology of Spirit_ and poles that Goethe is unwilling to
resolve in his art. Goethe uses this aporetic tension between
~vorstellung~ and ~begrifft~ as the defining space of the self for
both protagonist and, ultimately, the reader. I will refer to the
hermeneutical bridge Goethe finds between his understanding of
"morphology" gained from his scientific studies and his textual use
of ~Bildung~. Between these poles of representation and concept,
along with the space created between destiny and chance, Goethe
creates a space for locating the Self in art and life that needs not
to be defined in static realism, yet is given 'authenticity' in the
Heideggarian sense of becoming. First, a look at Goethe's _Wilhelm
Meister's Lehryare_.
In _The Life and Works of Goethe_, nineteenth century biographer
George Henry Lewes made the following observation regarding attempts
at critique of Goethe's _Lehrjahre_:
He [the critic] is not satisfied with what the artist has
~given~, he wants to know what he ~meant~. He guesses at the
meaning; the more remote the meaning lies on the wandering tracks
of thought, the better pleased is he with the discovery, and
sturdily rejects every simple explanation in favor of this
exegetical Idea. Thus the phantom of Philosophy hovers mistily
before Art, concealing Art from our eyes. It is true the Idea
said to underlie the work was never conceived by anyone before,
least of all by the Artist. Hillenbrand boldly says that the
"Idea of _Wilhelm Meister_ is precisely this -- that it has no
Idea", -- which does not greatly further our comprehension. [3]
While the assertion that _Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre_ has no
organizing Idea may appear at first blush to be a rather extreme
assertion, the observations of Lewes do have merit. In his
Afterward to the recent Princeton University Press translation
_Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_, Eric Blackwell raises similar
difficulties in approaching the text by noting that many readers
searching for a clear moral center will be left asking "what does it
all add up to?" [4]
It is precisely in Blackwell's question "What does it all add up to?"
that one must begin. Is Goethe attempting to produce a didactic
pedagogy for selfhood that is empirically sound so that the component
parts "add up" to a whole? Part of the challenge in addressing the
relation of form and content within Goethe's _Lehrjahre_, and the
interplay he is attempting, is that most critique of Goethe's
aesthetic production has been isolated from his scientific writings.
Therefore, to begin answering this query, let us turn first to
Goethe's notion of nature found in his writings on botany and the
notion of "morphology".
Goethe attempted to frame an understanding of nature that was notably
different in shape than most post-Kantian systematics. In _Maximen
und Reflexionen_ Goethe states that "physics must be divorced from
mathematics. It must be completely independent, and try to penetrate
with all its loving, reverent, pious force into nature and its holy
life, quite regardless of what mathematics accomplishes and does."
[5] Goethe goes on to note that
Mathematics, for its part, must declare itself independent of
everything external, go its own distinctive and important way,
and cultivate a greater purity than is possible when heretofore
it concerns itself with existence and endeavors to win something
from it or conform to it. [6]
From his interest in botany, Goethe drew a conception of *morphology*
(a phrase which Goethe himself coined) that was a move beyond the
rigidity of classification of type [7] toward a conception of *nature
as process*. In this regard, such an enterprise as merely ~labeling~
natural cause and effect was not enough. According to Goethe, what
we grasp in ~labeling~ are only the ~products~, not the ~process~ of
life. It is the very process of life he wanted to explore, not only
as a poet but also as a scientist. Goethe discusses this contrast
between static labeling of form and the search for formation in "The
Purpose Set Forth" in _On Morphology_:
The Germans have a word for the complex of existence presented by
a physical organism: ~Gestalt~ [structured form]. With this
expression they exclude what is changeable and assume that an
interrelated whole is identified, defined, and fixed in
character. But if we look at all these ~Gestalten~, especially
the organic ones, we will discover that nothing in them is
permanent, nothing is at rest or defined -- everything is in a
flux of continual motion. That is why German frequently and
fittingly makes use of the word ~Bildung~ [formation] to describe
the end product and what is in process of production as well. [8]
In order to see the process, one must look beyond the cataloguing of
type in order to gain an appreciation of the whole. In _Naturwiss_
he makes the following comment: "^EClasses, genera, species and
individuals are related as instances to a law; they are contained in
it, but they do not ~contain~ or ~reveal~ it." [9] In this regard,
Goethe's theory of morphology becomes an able hermeneutic for reading
_Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre_. To search for systematic stages of
development as clearly demarcated signposts (class, genus, species)
to show whether a life has moved forward in a systematic paradigm
will leave the reader of _Lehrjahre_ dismayed. As with his study of
nature, Goethe's study of the nature of humankind in _Lehrjahre_ is
not a quantifiable study where the parts equal the whole, rather a
portrait is offered through the lives of particular characters that
model, rather than explain, the qualities of the realizing Self.
~Bildung~ of Self as Text and Subject / Representation and Concept
------------------------------------------------------------------
As put by Marc Renfield in _Phantom Formations: Aesthetic Ideology
and the Bildungsroman_,
[Goethe's _Lehrjahre_] narrates the acculturation of a self --
the integration of a particular "I" into the general subjectivity
of a community, and thus, finally, into the universal
subjectivity of humanity^E even the knowledge of only a dozen
words of German suffices to hear an interplay of representation
(~Bild~) and formation (~Bildung~)^E [It is], in short, is a trope
for the aspirations of aesthetic humanism. [10]
This "interplay" between representation and formation is key to
reading _Lehrjahre_, where the differential between representation
(text) and formation (subject) disappears leaving a new hybrid. In
summary, _Lehrjahre_ is not a representation of formation, nor is it
formation theory placed in an aesthetic casing. As with Goethe's
morphology, this is a new "shape" altogether, that while idealized,
is none the less "real" [11].
Morphological Poetics
---------------------
As noted, there is a challenge in deriving a critical reading of
_Lehrjahre_, as noted by Redfield in discussing the ~Bildungsroman~:
The ~Bildungsroman~ paradox derives from that of aesthetics.
The "content" of the ~Bildungsroman~ instantly becomes a question
of form, precisely because the content is the forming-of-content,
"Bildung" -- the formation of the human as the producer of itself
as form. [12]
Precisely because Wilhelm's ~Bildung~ in _Lehrjahre_ is *shown* more
than explained [13], the question of content and form regarding the
"how" of his ~Bildung~ can be troubling. Yet a fusion of mind and
feeling does progress [14] into the realizing of a portrait of Self
who has completed his apprenticeship and is ready for life. [15] For
Goethe, the shift must be made from an *empirical* reading of the
text to a *morphological* reading in order to see the ~Bildung~ of
Wilhelm take shape. In the second portion of Kant's _Critique of
Judgement_ (~Kritik der Urteilskraft~) entitled "Critique of
Teleological Judgement", we see Kant's insights into Teleology as a
heuristic principle for investigation toward understanding.
Commenting on the limits of a purely quantified means for
understanding of biological nature, he writes:
It is quite certain that we can never get a sufficient knowledge
of organized beings and their inner possibility, much less get an
explanation of them, by looking merely to mechanical principles
of nature. Indeed, so certain is it, that we may confidently
assert that it is absurd for men even to entertain any thought of
so doing, or to hope that maybe another Newton may some day
arise, to make intelligible to us even the genesis of but a blade
of grass from natural laws that no design has ordered. Such
insight we must absolutely deny mankind. [16]
Even for Kant, a purely mechanistic understanding of living beings
was impossible. Destiny and Chance seem to go hand in hand as
irreconcilable opposites. It was here that Goethe made a connection
with Kant's philosophy and gained language for his own theory. In
his essay entitled "Einwirkung der neuren Philosophie" from
_Naturwiss_ he describes the impact Kant's "Critique of Teleological
Judgement" had upon him:
But the _Critique of Judgement_ fell into my hands, and to this
book I owe one of the happiest periods of my life. Here I saw my
most diverse interests brought together, artistic and natural
production handled the same way; the power of aesthetic and
teleological judgement mutually illuminated each other^E If my way
of thinking was not always able to agree with the author's, if I
seemed to miss something here and there, still the main ideas of
the work were quite analogous to my previous production, action,
and thought. The inner life of art as of nature, their mutual
working from within outward, were clearly expressed in this book.
[17]
In short, for Goethe the process of "becoming" is to be seen through
a veiled morphology rather than a mechanistic system; ordering that
is organic. Destiny and Chance both play a role, neither to the
exclusion of the other.
The Destiny and Chance of Anakin Skywalker
------------------------------------------
This is similar to the unfolding life narrative of Anakin Skywalker
in _Episode 1: The Phantom Menace_ of the Star Wars saga. Anakin,
whose story unfolds with christological echoes (being born a slave
and of supposed virgin birth) is embodied fully in his understanding
of the world and his character grows and develops through its
encounter with his environment. His training is one of looking into
to what "he is destined to be" rather than a systematic shaping of a
~tabula rasa~. As Yoda mentions, although he is "the chosen one who
will bring balance to the Force", he is one whose "future is
clouded." He is to grow into his destiny and be led into it, yet
chance is still at work "clouding" this destiny. Anakin is change
incarnate, but change with meaning and purpose. As his mother, the
Virgin Madonna-esque Shmi Skywalker, muses aphoristically, "You can't
stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting." [18]
In Book I of Goethe's _Lehrjahre_, Wilhelm is given a similar paradox
in the following advice from a stranger he encounters upon the way to
an Inn:
"Do you believe in destiny? No power rules over us, and directs
all our ultimate advantage?"
"The question is not now of my belief; nor is this the place to
explain how I may have attempted to form for myself some not
impossible conception of things which are incomprehensible to all
of us: the question is here: What mode of viewing them will
profit us the most? The fabric of our life is formed of
necessity and chance; the reason of man takes its station between
them, and may rule them both: it treats the necessary as the
groundwork of its being; the accidental it can direct and guide
and employ for its own purposes; and only while this principle of
reason stand firm and inexpugnable does man deserve to be named
the god of this lower world. But woe to him who, from his youth,
has used himself to search in necessity for something of
arbitrary will; to ascribe to chance a sort of reason, which it
is a matter of religion to obey!" [19]
As Wilhelm begins unknowingly his apprenticeship, a "stranger" offers
this advice to him and as well to the reader of the text. In
Wilhelm's approach to life, and the reader's approach to the text,
one should venture not to find solace in either the false security of
certainty nor the supposed freedom offered by chance. Instead, there
is a "middle way" where "the reason of man takes its station between
them [destiny and chance]." [20] Finding this balance will prove
hard to maintain as foreshadowed by Wilhelm in Book II:
He felt glad as having thus been timefully, though somewhat
harshly warned about the proper path of life; while many are
constrained to expiate more heavily, and at a later age, the
misconceptions into which their youthful inexperience has
betrayed them. For, each man commonly defends himself as long as
possible from casting out the idols which he worships in his
soul, from acknowledging a master error, and admitting any truth
brings him despair. [21]
Wilhelm gains a vision for a life that is free from pedagogical
prescriptions through his reading of _Hamlet_. Wilhelm states what
is key to understanding Prince Hamlet's character:
It pleases us, it flatters us to see a hero acting on his own
strength; loving and hating as his heart directs him; undertaking
and completing; casting every obstacle aside; and at length
attaining some great object which he aimed at. Poets and
historians would willingly persuade us that so proud a lot may
fall to man. In _Hamlet_ we are taught another lesson: the hero
is without a plan, but the piece is a full and
rigidly-accomplished scheme of vengeance: a horrid deed occurs;
it rolls itself along with all its consequences, dragging
guiltless persons also in its course; the perpetrator seems as if
he would evade the abyss which is made ready for him; yet he
plunges in, at the very point by which he thinks he shall escape
and happily complete his course. [22]
Again, Wilhelm relates both instruction and warning to the reader --
"the hero is without a plan." There is a destiny, but one without
form. To look for a mechanistic means of connecting events in a
logical progression via the protagonist's forethought will be to the
reader's dismay. Wilhelm, like the plants that helped Goethe gain a
concept of morphology, is himself an organic event rather than a
static presence. Both the reader and Wilhelm *open* in growth not
*through* systematic understanding, but *toward* an end that is the
fulfillment of 'apprenticeship'.
In Wilhelm's reflection on his production of _Hamlet_, he makes this
observation:
In the composition of this play, after the most accurate
investigation and the maturest reflection, I distinguish two
classes of objects. The first are the grand internal relations
of the persons and events, the powerful effects that arise from
the characters and proceedings of the main figures: these, I
hold, are individually excellent; and the order in which they are
presented cannot be improved. No kind of interference must be
suffered to destroy them, or even essentially to change their
form. These are the things which stamp themselves deep into the
soul; which all men long to see, which no one dares meddle with.
Accordingly, I understand, they have almost wholly been retained
in all our German theatres. But our countrymen have erred, in my
opinion, with regard to the second class of objects, which may be
observed in this tragedy; I allude to the external relations of
the persons, whereby they are brought from place to place, or
combined in various ways by certain accidental incidents. These
they have looked upon as very unimportant; have spoken of them
only in passing, or have left them out altogether. Now, indeed,
it must be owned, these threads are slack and slender; and yet
run through the entire piece, and bind together much that would
otherwise fall asunder, and does actually fall asunder, when you
cut them off, and imagine you have done enough and more, if you
left the ends hanging. [23]
Wilhelm becomes aware that an understanding of one's ~Bildung~ is
found in the space between these poles. The first being "the grand
internal relations of the persons and events, the powerful effects
which arise from the characters and proceedings of the main figures."
[24] This is an accounting of the obvious -- that which is seen not
only by the Self, but also evidenced by others. Yet there is a
second class of objects that also plays a role in one's ~Bildung~,
those being "the external relations of the persons, whereby they are
brought from place to place, or combined in various ways by certain
accidental incidents" [25] *In short, the authentic self is located
between what is seen and what is not seen -- between the represented
self and the conceptual self exists the authentic self.*
Goethe's Slender Threads and Shuffling Baudrillard in _The Matrix_
------------------------------------------------------------------
This tension between the represented self and the conceptual self is
portrayed vividly in _The Matrix_. In the beginning of the film,
Thomas Anderson (the protagonist played by Keanu Reeves whose true
name is Neo [26]) goes to a secret hiding place in his apartment
where there is a copy of Baudrillard's _Simulacra and Simulation_.
He turns to the chapter entitled "On Nihilism." The book is merely a
shell -- a metaphor for the hollowness of so-called reality -- that
holds a computer disc that is the only reality within the shell.
This use of Baudrillard is by no means accidental. For readers of
Baudrillard, it is worth noting that the chapter "On Nihilism" in
_Simulacra and Simulation_ is not actually in the middle of the book
as 'shown' in _The Matrix_. Curiously, "On Nihilism" actually closes
the book. I believe this misplacement of the chapter serves as a
device employed by the film makers to provide specific philosophical
context for this complicated, intriguing film. While such widely
divergent streams such as Christ imagery, eastern philosophy, and
Greek mythology all inform the narrative and the characters,
Baudrillard's _Simulacra and Simulation_ is probably the best
starting point for a philosophical and sociological approach to the
movie's content. [27]
Baudrillard quotes from Ecclesiastes in _Simulacra and Simulation_ by
asserting that "the simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth
-- it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum
is true." [28] In _The Matrix_, the "reality" of earth as we know it
is gone. The "real" world is a "desert of the real" in the words of
Morpheus; a nuclear wasteland is all that remains and humanity
"exists" in a simulacrum of reality as we need it to be: jobs,
shopping, skyscrapers, etc. provided by AI so we will be content.
According to Baudrillard, the truth pulled over our eyes is that "the
simulation is infinitely more dangerous since it always suggests,
over and above its object, that law and order themselves might really
be nothing more than a simulation." [29]
As with Baudrillard's 'simulation', so also Goethe's poetics
preserves a space between destiny and chance, concept and
representation, that opens a gap of the possible that is without
truth yet is the truth. Baudrillard asserts that the simulacrum is
never that which conceals the truth, rather it is the 'truth' which
conceals that there is no so-called truth. Goethe in his
'morphological poetics' leaves the reader and the protagonist of the
fiction 'without a plan' and with the troubling reality that what you
see (and read) is all that you will get. There is no 'destiny', yet
there is no 'chance' in Goethe's universe. Paradoxically, one's life
cannot be planned, yet one must plan a life. There are "accidental
incidents" that arise and give shape to one's identity. These are
not to be discounted nor dismissed as Wilhelm's contemporaries have
erred to do. Throughout _Lehrjahre_, characters continually appear
seemingly 'by chance' and offer necessary information and direction
for Wilhelm as if by mystical means. This comes to its most
grandiose epoch with the revealing of Wilhelm's "apprenticeship" in
Book VII by the Abbe' and the Society of the Tower. As it is
revealed to Wilhelm that his 'life' has been guided, he is told the
following:
"Perhaps," continued his interrogator, "we should now be less at
variance in regard to Destiny and Character."
Wilhelm was about to answer, when the curtain quickly flew
together.
"Strange!" said Wilhelm to himself: "Can chance occurrences have
a connection? Is what we call Destiny but Chance?" [30]
Here Wilhelm echoes the advice of the "stranger" in Book I quoted
earlier where he is advised that "the fabric of our life is formed of
necessity and chance; the reason of man takes its station between
them, and may rule them both: it treats the necessary as the
groundwork of its being; the accidental it can direct and guide and
employ for its own purposes; and only while this principle of reason
stand firm and inexpugnable does man deserve to be named the god of
this lower world." [31] In order to return to this truth, however,
Wilhelm's "apprenticeship" is rendered descriptively rather than
prescriptively. He, like the reader, must discover the 'end' is not
necessarily easy to discern in an orderly manner. The "threads of
life" are indeed slack and slender. They run through the entire piece
and "bind together much that would otherwise fall asunder." [32] It
is this action of bringing together that the Self is known, not in
the threads of destiny and chance, representation and concept.
Rather, it is in the working of 'slack and slender' realities that
the weaving of a Self is actualized -- not located in the threads,
but in the pattern itself, or to paraphrase the words of Trinity to
Neo in _The Matrix_ -- the "Matrix of the threads" can't tell you who
you are." [33] In short, we begin where we are and it is process,
not production, that is all there is.
Notes
-----
[1] Bladerunner (1982) - http://us.imdb.com/Quotes?0083658 This
interior monologue was cut by director Ridley Scott in the
re-release of _Blade Runner - Director's Cut_.
[2] Cited in GFT: Glasgow Film Theatre bulletin/ March 1999; p. 8
[3] G.H. Lewes, _The Life and Works of Goethe_ Vol. 2 (London:
T.Richards, 37, Great Queen Street, 1855), p. 201,202.
[4] Johann Wolgang von Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_.
Edited and translated by Eric A. Blackwell. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1995) p. 381,382.
[5] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, _Goethe - The Collected Works:
Scientific Studies Vol. 12_, ed. by Douglas Miller (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1995) p. 303ff
[6] ibid.
[7] Goethe had read Linnaeus' system of nature whereby understanding
of nature is achieved when "we have succeeded in arranging it
(nature) in the pigeonholes of our concepts, dividing it into species
and genera, into families, classes, and orders." ibid.
[8] Goethe, "On Morphology - The Purpose Set Forth", ibid., pp. 63ff
[9] ibid.
[10] Marc Redfield, _Phantom Formations: Aesthetic Ideology and the
Bildungsroman_. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 38.
[11] In Goethe's sketch _Gluckliches Ereignis_ he reports the
following conversation with Schiller regarding his theory of
metamorphosis: "We arrived at his house, the conversation began and
drew me in; there I vigorously expounded the metamorphosis of plants,
and with many suggestive strokes of the pen let a symbolic plant arise
before his eyes. He listened to and looked at everything with great
interest with decided power of comprehension; but when I ended he
shook his head and said: 'That is not empirical, that is ideal' (Das
ist keine Erfahrung, das ist eine Idee). I was taken aback and
somewhat vexed; for he had emphatically stated the point that divided
us^E But I collected myself and replied: 'I am very glad that I have
ideals without knowing it, and even see them with my eyes.'" Cited by
Ernst Cassier, _Rousseau Kant Goethe_. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1945), p. 73.
[12] Redfield, ibid., p. 42.
[13] Book VII of _Lehrjahre_ provides an accounting of the "forces"
at play in Wilhelm's _Bildung_ through the Abbe and the "unveiling"
of the Society of the Tower's apprenticeship. Yet pedagogy is not
given beyond "forces at work."
[14] As noted by Gerlinde Roder-Bolton, "The concept of ~Bildung~, as
advocated in _Lehrjahre_, is a fusion of mind and feeling in
individuals who respond freely to, and are consciously and
inseparably part of, the creative forces of nature. Since this
creative power is also within them, prompting them to reshape their
inner and outer world, they achieve the full development of their
potential." _Studies in Comparative Literature_. Vol. 13: "George
Eliot and Goethe: An Elective Affinity". (Amsterdam: Rodopi. 1998),
p. 164.
[15] As noted in the words of the Abbe at the conclusion of Book VII
"Hail to thee, young man! Thy apprenticeship is done; Nature has
pronounced thee free!" Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and
Travels_ Vol. 2 tr. by Thomas Carlyle. (London: Chapman and Hall,
1858), p. 63.
[16] Cited by Cassier, ibid. , p. 65.
[17] Cited by Cassier, ibid., p. 64.
[18] Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) -
http://us.imdb.com/Quotes?0120915
[19] Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Travels_ Vol. 1
tr. by Thomas Carlyle. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1858) Book 1,
Chapter XVII, p. 61.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid., Book II, Chap. II, p. 67.
[22] Ibid., Book IV, Chap. XV, p. 207.
[23] Ibid., Book V, Chap. IV, p. 241.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] As stated by Agent Smith in _The Matrix_ - "It seems that you've
been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program
writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security
number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her
garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the
hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime
we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them
does not." http://us.imdb.com/Quotes?0133093
[27] See also Jim Rovira, "Baudrillard and Hollywood: subverting the
mechanism of control and The Matrix",
http://members.aol.com/antiutopia/matrix.htm
[28] Jean Baudrillard, "Simulacra and Simulations" from _Jean
Baudrillard: Selected Writings_ edited by Mark Poster (London: Polity
Press, 1988) p. 166
[29] Baudrillard, ibid., p. 177
[30] Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister_, ibid., Book VII, Chap IX, p. 60.
[31] Ibid., Book I, Chapter XVII, p. 61.
[32] Ibid., Book V, Chap. IV, p. 241.
[33] Trinity also makes the rather Goethe-esque statement at the
beginning of The Matrix - "The answer is out there, Neo, and it's
looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to."
http://us.imdb.com/Quotes?0133093
____________________________________________________________________
Jeff Keuss is a Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at the
University of Glasgow, Scotland. His research interests include
contemporary hermeneutic theory, religion and film.
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* CTHEORY is an international journal of theory, technology
* and culture. Articles, interviews, and key book reviews
* in contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as
* theorisations of major "event-scenes" in the mediascape.
*
* Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
*
* Editorial Board: Jean Baudrillard (Paris), Bruce Sterling (Austin),
* R.U. Sirius (San Francisco), Siegfried Zielinski (Koeln),
* Stelarc (Melbourne), Richard Kadrey (San Francisco),
* Timothy Murray (Ithaca/Cornell), Lynn Hershman Leeson
* (San Francisco), Stephen Pfohl (Boston), Andrew Ross
* (New York), David Cook (Toronto), William Leiss (Kingston),
* Shannon Bell (Downsview/York), Gad Horowitz (Toronto),
* Sharon Grace (San Francisco), Robert Adrian X (Vienna),
* Deena Weinstein (Chicago), Michael Weinstein (Chicago),
* Andrew Wernick (Peterborough).
*
* In Memory: Kathy Acker
*
* Editorial Correspondents: Ken Hollings (UK),
* Maurice Charland (Canada) Steve Gibson (Victoria, B.C.).
*
* Editorial Assistant: Jeffrey Wells
* World Wide Web Editor: Carl Steadman
____________________________________________________________________
To view CTHEORY online please visit:
http://www.ctheory.com/
To view CTHEORY MULTIMEDIA online please visit:
http://ctheory.concordia.ca/
____________________________________________________________________
* CTHEORY includes:
*
* 1. Electronic reviews of key books in contemporary theory.
*
* 2. Electronic articles on theory, technology and culture.
*
* 3. Event-scenes in politics, culture and the mediascape.
*
* 4. Interviews with significant theorists, artists, and writers.
*
* CTHEORY is sponsored by New World Perspectives and Concordia
* University.
*
* For the academic year 2000/1, CTHEORY is sponsored
* by the Department of Sociology, Boston College
* (http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/soc/socdept.html)
*
* The editors wish to thank, in particular, Boston College's
* Dr. Joseph Quinn, Dean, College of Arts and Science, Dr. John
* Neuhauser, Academic Vice-President, and Dr. Stephen Pfohl,
* Chairperson, Department of Sociology for their support.
*
* No commercial use of CTHEORY articles without permission.
*
* Mailing address: CTHEORY, Boston College, Department of Sociology,
* 505 McGuinn Hall, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.
*
* Full text and microform versions are available from UMI,
* Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Canadian Periodical Index/Gale
* Canada, Toronto.
*
* Indexed in: International Political Science Abstracts/
* Documentation politique international; Sociological
* Abstract Inc.; Advance Bibliography of Contents: Political
* Science and Government; Canadian Periodical Index;
* Film and Literature Index.
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Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion
list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html
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