Let me say first of all that I've also been blown away by the insanity of
what happened in the elections, though I won't apologize collectively for a
collective that clearly does not feel the need to apologize. In fact, that
was exactly what got me thinking about de Beauvoir, and the connection with
nihilism. My sense is that with respect to the political arena, a good
number of us Americans operate at the subman (evasive) level or at "best"
the serious (dogmatic moralizing) level. Given that, there are only two
real possibilities: (1) educate people to see alternatives (with the danger
that they slip into nihilism without being able to recognize the possibility
that there are meaningful projects that expand freedom -- not in Bush's
sense of "free" markets open for exploitation -- in the face of ambiguity,
without there being "absolutely" meaningful projects); (2) come up with much
better simple slogans (that may be a mask for intelligent and nuanced
positions but need to be phrased in simple terms like the Republicans' "tax
relief") to appeal to the people who will remain serious and hence think in
terms of slogans.
My guess is that progressives need to operate on both fronts at once. And I
think film is an ideal place to engage that battle -- a film can give a
simple take home message that can be embraced, but also tell a nuanced
story. Otherwise, I don't know where to begin.
Nate
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:17:08 -0500
> From: Nathan Andersen <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Nihilistic films
>
> I'm jumping into the discussion late, but I think Simone de Beauvoir's
> "Ethics of Ambiguity" is particularly helpful for thinking about nihilism
> and would help with the question what counts as a "nihilistic film."
>
> She outlines a progressively more adequate series of lived responses to
> the
> possibility of freedom, to the recognition that the questions what I am
> and
> what I am to make of the world are inseparable from the questions what I
> and
> we are doing and what we are making of the world:
>
> 1. The first, most inadequate response is to not respond, to evade
> completely the responsibilities of freedom and think and act as though one
> is powerless, at best a cog in the wheel of an incomprehensible machine, a
> nameless face in the crowd: this is what she calls the "subman" (excuse
> the
> sexist language that is duplicated for clarity's sake from the English
> translation of "Ethics").
>
> 2. The next stage is to embrace the machine, or embrace the ideology or
> project into which one finds oneself thrown, to take it seriously: this is
> what she calls the serious man, the one for whom, e.g. the "cause of
> freedom" or "scientific progress" or "values" are all more important than,
> and do not derive their value from, the lives of those who are supposed to
> be made free, or the concrete impact of the knowledge that is supposed to
> be
> won, or the individuals whose lives are supposed to be impacted by
> "values".
>
> 3. The third stage is what she describes as the nihilistic stage. It is,
> she contends, morally higher than seriousness (which is in contemporary
> political discourse thought of as the realm of "moral values"). Nihilims
> recognizes (rightly) recognize that these so-called absolutes that the
> "serious man" takes seriously are not in fact absolute; they are not
> crystalline or pure and real above the fray of the details of everyday
> life,
> but are merely abstractions that are in fact never really instantiated.
> As
> John Marmysz put it well, nihilism is the recognition that serious ideals
> always in the end come to or amount to nothing -- because they are in fact
> nothing when detached from the lived existence that gives them meaning,
> and
> this is how they are taken by the "serious man."
>
> 4. But de Beauvoir also thinks that there are more adequate ways of taking
> up this understanding than that embraced by the nihilist. That ideals,
> taken seriously (i.e. taken as self-justifying, as automatically universal
> or exceptionless) are illusions or at least not absolutely and in
> isolation
> meaningful or valid, does not entail that there is no meaning whatsoever
> or
> that no ideals or projects can or should be taken up at all. She suggests
> that the adventurer, who takes up some project and invests that with a
> significance that is not universal but purely personal, has in fact gone
> beyond the nihilist while doing justice to the good sense of the nihilist
> in
> rejecting the idealism of seriousness. Passion and love, also, can invest
> a
> project with meaning that is, while not automatically universal, at least
> communicable and sharable. A fully adequate alternative to both serious
> idealism and nihilism on de Beauvoir's account involves the taking up of
> projects, and investing them with meaning, that is at the same time
> responsive to the existences who are impacted by these projects, and that
> recognizes the meaning and value of these projects to be inseparable from
> the manner in which they are taken up by a multiplicity of lives.
>
> I think a wonderful film that is not at all a nihilistic film, but that
> portrays a number of these stages remarkably well is Gillo Pontecorvo's
> "Burn!" Marlon Brando plays the adventurer, who sometimes regresses into
> nihilism when he lacks a project to carry his interest. Jose Dolores (his
> protege turned opponent) begins (at least in the eyes of the Marlon Brando
> character) almost on the level of the sub-man, but passes through the
> stages
> of the adventurer, the tyrant, and eventually the genuinely free person.
>
> Other films that are interesting to think about in relation to the
> category
> "nihilism" are several by Bergman, such as Seventh Seal or Cries and
> Whispers. The knight despairs over "ultimate" meaning, his squire
> embraces
> the lack of ultimate meaning, but neither can be said to be nihilists
> because they do find various non-absolute meanings (the Knight in the very
> quest for a knowledge he despairs over, and occasionally even delights in
> his sheer existence over and against the general emptiness with which he
> struggles; the squire betrays a kind of grudging care for others -- the
> deluded witch-girl, Jof the juggler, and the abused woman -- even while he
> espouses nothing).
>
> I guess that from my perspective, it's hard think "nihilism" except in
> relation to other "philosophical or lived" positions -- it's the product
> of
> a dialectic -- and so it's hard to imagine a "purely" nihilistic film that
> doesn't at least entertain the alternatives from which nihilism must be
> distinguished. A film that trashes my sensibilities is not, for that
> reason, nihilistic -- because it's work is to reveal my sensibilities for
> what they are (at least to some degree arbitrary and unchosen) and the
> outcome of that doesn't need to be the rejection of all sensibilities.
>
> Nate Andersen
>
> *
> *
> Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon.
> After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are
> replying to.
> To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to:
> [log in to unmask]
> For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
> **
>
> ------------------------------
*
*
Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon.
After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to.
To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
**
|