Fiction's Philosophy

The Price of Solitude


In literature as well as the real world, characters and people might deal with their world by seeking isolation, but perhaps their philosophical view of the reason for life comes from a desire to avoid the very contact they fear.

Man’s quest to not only explore, but conquer nature is practically as old as well, man himself. Many have succeeded and many failed, although their quests may have been driven by a yearning for solitude or ways to cope with social contact. For some, their failure was due in large part to inadequate preparation or research, a miscalculation in direction or weather patterns, or just plain bad luck. In the cases of both Aron Ralston in the movie, 127 Hours, and Christopher McCandless in the movie, Into The Wild, I dare to ask if the tragedies that befell the avid adventurers and naturalists were due to something even more insidious than not choosing to alert their friends or family as to where they were going.

Both men made decisions that ended with tragic results. Ralston made the agonizing decision to amputate part of his right arm after his hand and wrist wound up being pinned against a canyon wall after an eight hundred pound boulder tumbled loose as he was descending a portion of Blue John Canyon. Ralston’s story was also described in the book Between A Rock and A Hard Place. Chris McCandless’ story was movingly captured by author Jon Kraukauer in the book and movie with the same name of, Into the Wild. McCandless wound up forsaking all of his worldly possessions and trekking all the way to Alaska where he hoped to enjoy a solitary existence of living off of the land. He met a tragic and untimely demise when he accidentally ate a poisonous plant that he believed was safe.

While no one can argue that both Ralston and McCandless had a genuine love of nature and appreciated the freedom and the beauty of the lands they explored, they both craved the solitude of the wide open spaces they were a part of. In both Between A Rock and A Hard Place and Into the Wild, Ralston and McCandless comment frequently that they looked forward to being alone, away from either the boredom, mundaneness or in Chris McCandless’ case, the pain, heartache and chaos of everyday life.

For Ralston, his need to be alone against the elements seemed to come from his supreme confidence in his abilities as a climber, medic and overall naturalist and adventurer. It was also a desire to see how long and how far he could push himself. There was an air of invincibility and a slight arrogance within him. A feeling that he had taken all that nature could dish out and was still standing. For Ralston, it seemed that there was no situation he couldn’t handle while out in the wild. For Ralston, family and relationships were pushed aside for more adventure and more solitude.

McCandless’ motives for burning his money and most of his other worldly possessions and heading to Alaska seemed to be due to his disillusionment with the conventions of living a “regular” life. He held a great deal of resentment and harbored many internal scars toward his parents, who he felt were pressuring him into living a materialistic, typical American lifestyle. For McCandless and his naïve idealism of challenging himself and living off of the harsh Alaskan land, solitude in the Alaskan wilderness also meant not having to deal with the stresses and vapidness of everyday life. It also meant having minimal contact with others. Minimal contact meant not having to deal with the baggage, and in McCandless’ mind, the inevitable hurt and disappointment that came with establishing a connection or a relationship with someone.

But in the end, when both men were slowly, agonizingly dying, they both had the same epiphany - that in the end, it wasn’t solitude that they were craving. But rather, it was the relationships and bonds that they had forged in life with friends and family that had meant the most – relationships that both men had ultimately forsaken for their own selfish or fearful reasons. Before summoning the strength to make the brazen decision to amputate his arm, Ralston wondered if his sudden enlightenment was his body’s final desperate attempt to persevere or if it was a final, cruel lesson about his life and how he lived it.

Unfortunately, Christopher McCandless would not have the opportunity to follow through on his realization. He died from starvation near Denali National Park and Preserve, alone in a beat up school bus that he used as a makeshift form of shelter. One of McCandless’ final statements as he lay near death and was barely able to move was the following, “Happiness is only real when shared.”

Despite losing part of his right arm and nearly bleeding to death, Aron Ralston would be the only one to heed McCandless’ advice and learn from his mistakes.

- Hamilton Maher

"127 Hours" image courtesy of comingsoon.net
"Into the Wild" image courtesy of alltrailers.net

Fiction's Philosophy

Philosophy of the Complete American Dream
 
When the character, Harrison Shepherd, speaks to his attorney in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Lacuna, Shepherd wants to understand America’s hatred toward Communism. Yet his lawyer Artie’s answer could equally speak to the language of today’s Tea Party.
 
Shepherd dared to ask why the public in the early 1950s could be so confused between facts and propaganda. In his daring, he questioned whether the public really felt hatred towards another enemy.
 
Artie commented that, “Anticommunism is not much concerned with Communism.” He stated that the image the anticommunists had about America was that of a finished product, so any new change to that product would become a perceived threat.
 
The conversation occurred in the novel when Shepherd sought advice to deal with the ways the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) clouded his past. Shepherd grew up as a cook and then secretary for Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. He later served as secretary to Leon Trotsky before his assassination. Both Trotsky and Shepherd shared a horror of Stalin’s oppression. Then Shepherd migrated to the states where he helped coordinate the transfer of famous paintings for storage for the state department during World War II. 
 
However, Shepherd's crisis with HUAC arose when the country feared Shepherd's novels would endanger people because of his background. The HUAC spurred propaganda portrayed Shepherd as a threat because all Communists were the same. The HUAC’s propaganda resulted in showing Shepherd as making a quote to disparage the country’s leader instead of revealing that the quote came from a character in one of Shepherd’s novels. The propaganda resulted in distorting Shepherd’s activities. Because of his job transferring art work, Shepherd was stated to still be working for the government. Shepherd’s writing notes with Trotsky on the terror of Stalin were explained as though Shepherd wrote material to encite people to overthrow the American government.
 
When Artie told Shepherd that the public knew nothing about Communism, he pointed out the public failed to think through a charge and simply reacted to primeval fears. Shepherd thought most workers would appreciate the means of owning and controlling a product or service. But the idea of oppression by an elite group that called itself Communistic should not be seen as an example of Communism. 
 
Artie, however, spoke to Shepherd about the charges levied against Shepherd as if the charges only touched on surface issues. The 1950’s public held fears because of a loss of security with the advent of the nuclear age. The public feared a new global society beckoning. That countered their vision of America being a finished product. The vision believed that the American system went beyond the problems of Europe in the 1700s. That dream carried the vision to the West coast and any idea of changes meant a loss to the scope of that vision.
 
Artie could have easily been thinking about today’s Tea Party dialogue. The messages chant that government should spend less, taxation hurts the average person and the government should stay out of healthcare. 
 
The chanting misses the mark like the propaganda from the 1950s. The Tea Party people fail to see that less spending means that local towns have to lay off police people and teachers. The new propaganda fails to make connections between taxes and funds to help spur job growth. Government incentives have long helped the oil industry despite the vast profits accrued by those firms. Government incentives could help the alternative energy industry grow, but the dialogue from the Tea people only focuses on the taxes — not the result. A failure to tax the top three percent of the population means that the rest of the people would pay more because they would receive fewer services. The new language also fails to recognize that private firms control healthcare and only a larger government system could stop those firms from raising premiums on the average person.
 
In both cases, the propaganda uses language that clouds the real fear. Artie said the HUAC feared the bomb and the changing scope of the world. We dare to ask where the real fears of the Tea Party people lie. In chanting for a taking back of America, are they worried about a more diverse America with many ethic faces to go with Gay Rights and more respect for Women? Was the American product finished with an all White, Protestant, female-working-in-the-kitchen household? Artie and Shepherd might answer that Tea Party dialogue should think through their messages and learn more about the facts they abuse.  
 
Picture Courtesy of estuarypress.com
House UnAmerican Activities Committee
Picketing HUAC, Los Angeles, CA 1962

Fiction's Philosophy

Shantaram’s Healing

A scene in the novel Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts shows a leader in a Mumbai slum faced with the necessity of exerting discipline on a wife abuser. However, the leader blends the punishment with healing. Roberts’ portrayal of the slum draws us into the need of using a philosophy of exerting discipline mixed with an understanding of inclusion while managing a large group of people.

With over 25,000 souls living cramped in a vise of flimsy huts and an overheated climate, the slum’s residents have to cope with the problems of overcrowding, illness and personal rivalries while suffering from a lack of food and medical help. Yet the spirit of the community thrives as the people willingly seek to comfort others or listen to a leader who adds to the spirit of harmony. We might dare to ask whether that spirit may have grown because of the philosophy of mixing healing with discipline.

When Joseph, a member of the community, beats his wife after a drinking binge, the slum’s leader, Qasim was faced by the need to show discipline for the actions. Once Joseph’s wife was rescued by neighbors to calm her and give emotional support, Qasim had to deal with Joseph’s destructive nature. Qasim ignored Joseph’s immediate need for water. Instead, he instructed people to give Joseph more liquor. Joseph was delirious, but still able to ignore his responsibility. Qasim was close enough to know Joseph’s tolerance. He administered more liquor until Joseph became sick. In the ensuing half a day, Joseph was routinely beaten with the same stick he used to beat his wife. A number of key neighbors took turns beating the wife beater.

However, eventually, Joseph’s behavior shifted, and met a different reaction from Qasim. Once Joseph realized he was becoming sicker and might have killed his wife, he became repentant. Suddenly, the same neighbors who punished Joseph, cleaned him up and soothed him with warm tea — the first he was able to sip despite suffering from dehydration.

The healing and punishment were linked together. Qasim realized that a society could not succeed in changing behavior without the two working together. Qasim acted very differently from many Western leaders. Any community requires a behavioral modification to deal with acts that hurt members. Yet, the usual concept is to divide the punishment from the healing. Keep the punishment going until some designated time way down the road occurs and then maybe think about how the member of society would be reintegrated with other members. Rehab is not in the picture in our perspective. Rehab is so spotty that very few real examples exist of how it works tied together with punishment in a cohesive systematic approach.

Joseph was not separated from society during or after the event. Our American prisons take the person away from society. The person becomes more of a hardened criminal and then the rest of society wonders why rehab doesn’t work. Joseph was forced to see the reactions by neighbors, not jailers. Qasim even planted the stick used to beat Joseph’s wife on Joseph’s hut so the man could see that instrument each day after the event.

Joseph was shown a practical way to remedy his crime. He was told that he would work extra hours for two months and save the money. Joseph would also be separated from his wife for that time so she could heal. Should his wife wish after that time that she wanted to leave Joseph, she would obtain that money he made. Joseph was drawn into the way he could make amends for his crime.

Qasim’s philosophy, part of the Indian slum necessity to share a communal struggle for life, brings the idea of healing right into the concept of punishment. They are not separate and if they are designed in a separate way, then neither works — that was the message from Qasim and Shantaram. Dare we ask whether we could bring part of that into the American way of life where courts, prisons and plea bargaining seem to ignore the role of healing?

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of notamystery.com

Fiction's Philosophy

TV Series Fight Fate

As the current TV season surges to its climax, in just one week we’ve seen Fringe’s Walter try to save a different version of his son from an alternative universe, Flash Forward’s Agent Noh hear that his path to avoid dying could not be changed, and The Legend of the Seeker’s Zed worry that his action to change the forces of evil would still lead to the prophecy of doom.

Fiction has viewers always clamoring for an alternative chance to redo a past act, but the philosophy in us asks whether any chance to relive a moment would only bring the same result.

Why have so many examples of speculative fiction this year decided to explore this theme? Fiction has reveled in the question. The remake of The Time Machine in 2002 showed that despite the protagonist’s best efforts, he was unable to prevent his love from being killed despite trying to change key events. Orson Scott Card’s novel Pastwatch included a scene where characters from the future attempted to delay Columbus’ ships from arriving at Hispaniola at a key time. They changed an event, but the ships still arrived as though the pull of fate was gravity.

Yet years after the passing of the Star Trek’s three series, questions about changing time erupt again. In this year, we have seen the concern that fate’s decisions cannot be countered by our best intentions. Fringe’s Walter rescued an alternative son when his boy died of a rare disease. But the events of the theft of the alternative son set in motion a war between the two universes. As the agents in Flash Forward try to avoid the destruction many have seen in a vision of the future, they are told that all the possible paths will lead to the same concluding event. Despite the Seeker’s faith in his abilities to make his own fate, he sees his friends always hurt by attempts to change a path that is foretold.

Fiction reflects the present world, the past and future too. In our world of tech advancements that require updates every micro-second, certainty is evasive. Since 9/11 the shock value of fear can drive people to think individual action would fail when it faces the inevitable. Individuals who worked in the Ground Zero cleanup thought the government protected their health. Yet many still are denied health coverage for sicknesses related to the cleanup. The public expected a quick victory against the forces of terrorism, yet the problems have increased. So the fiction verbalizes the fears, casting a father in Fringe, a protector of society in Flash Forward, and a fantasy knight in The Legend of the Seeker. Yet the question that plagues them gnaws at our being — we dare ask if we can find an alternative path to upset a seemingly powerful destiny.

- Tom Pope

Images courtesy of sesionvip.com

Fiction's Philosophy

Mumbai Morality

Poor kids race through Mumbai streets as they steal from decent people. The act is deplorable, yet the torture of minor crimes by enforcement fits with correcting wrongs — right? Fiction’s philosophy makes us dare to ask how we define morality as seen through the eyes of characters in the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

In Slumdog, morality seems to have a number of faces from Jamal who risks everything for love, to Salim, Jamal’s brother, who seeks materialism while saving Jamal’s lover. Meanwhile, the upper society symbols of justice and entertainment offer torture and jealousy.

Jamal’s moral code was in direct contrast to the way the upper classes viewed concepts of right and wrong. Jamal thought little of stealing for survival. Yet he ignored the chance for wealth as he pushed the quiz show to the limit just to keep the line open for his lover, Latika, to see him. Jamal looked at degrees of wrongness. It was all right to steal in the streets. Stealing knowledge to stay in the quiz show was part of the bigger picture for Jamal rather than the idea of committing a wrong. In Jamal’s eyes, an even greater wrong would have been to allow his Latika to remain with the mob leader that his brother Salim worked for, because that would have taken her life’s spirit from her. Jamal’s goal was to rescue Latika, so committing a wrong to accomplish that goal took on a sense of righteousness.

Salim’s sense of morality focused on getting ahead by gaining a reputation in crime, although he rejected torture of the innocent. He almost allowed Jamal to become blinded just to be a better beggar, yet stopped at the last second because the act went against his grain. Salim could even aim a gun at Jamal when he saw his brother threatened his path. But he turned on his mob boss so that Latika could escape.

A different moral mentality flowed through the police inspector who believed torture helped get answers from people. He had to use electronic pain to force Jamal into admitting that he cheated in the quiz show, even though Jamal was innocent. The crime that he thought Jamal committed was not terrorism or murder, but the punishment was not an issue from his perspective.

Prem Kapur, the quiz show host, displayed another version of morality. His disgust with the thought that a poor kid could not have wisdom led him to become jealous of Jamal. The further Jamal reached in the show, the more Prem wanted to derail the youth. Winning was not his place, and Prem’s moral code called for him to protect his caste. During the show, he tried to give Jamal a false clue. When that failed, Prem had Jamal arrested.

In Slumdog Millionaire, morality’s many faces make us ask how we define good and bad. Maybe the key component is whether the characters in the movie have a sense of selflessness and care about others. Yet even that leads us to ask how we define acts that help us while hurting others if the eventual goal considers the others fate. But that very concept means many variables drift and flow into play. Many degrees of selfishness or selflessness must be considered within the pressure of outside forces. Dare we ask how we would run through Mumbai streets?

Slumdog Millionaire image courtesy of bollyposter.com

Fiction's Philosophy

Take It or Leave It

After watching James Cameron’s big budget epic Avatar, one of the central messages that Cameron leaves with us is that the human race is doomed to destroy the planet if we don’t change our violent, militaristic and ultimately, selfish ways. Much like the alien race in the movie, the Na’vi, we need to evolve to work with and heal our planet before all of our resources are completely used up. I dare to ask if Cameron was influenced by the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

In Ishmael, the narrator of the story answered an ad in a newspaper placed by a teacher that was seeking a pupil who “must have a desire to save the world”. The narrator discovered the teacher, named Ishmael, was a gorilla with the ability to communicate telepathically. Through Ishmael, the narrator learned that throughout the history of the planet, there were those who were what he (Ishmael) called the Takers and those who were the Leavers.

The Takers, Ishmael explained, came into existence approximately 10,000 years ago (around the time of the Agricultural Revolution) and that they were basically the people that made up Europe, parts of Eastern and Western Asia and the Americas. The Takers considered themselves the pinnacle of human evolution and felt that the laws of nature and the laws governing all life did not apply to them. The Takers felt that they were meant to rule the planet and conquer it if necessary.

The Leavers were the “primitives of the planet” and were representative of all other cultures that were not agricultural or industrial powers. The Leavers took what they needed from the Earth and left the rest alone. In good times, they prospered, in bad times they may have starved. But they did not abuse the resources that were given to them and they let the natural process of evolution take its course.

In Avatar, we see the idea of the Takers as the RDA Corporation, as well as the humans that have come to the planet Pandora to help mine for a precious mineral called unobtanium (an interesting name which has the connotation of being unobtainable). The RDA Corporation have also employed military personnel to sweep the planet and remove any unwelcomed obstacles that might prevent them from mining. Obstacles to the Corporation included the presence of the planet’s natives, the Na’vi, whose homes and lands stood directly under a massive deposit of the mineral.

The Leavers were the native Na’vi, who lived in peace and harmony with the planet, and who also worshipped Eywa, a type of mother goddess. Dr. Grace Augustine (played by Sigourney Weaver), who was the head of the Avatar Program along with the rest of her team, could also be considered Leavers. Dr. Augustine argued with Parker Selfridge, the head of the RDA mining operation and with Colonel Miles Quaritch, the head of the military/security forces on Pandora, that the destruction of the Na’vi’s Hometree could have disastrous effects on the gigantic bio-botanical, neural network of Pandora. Of course both Selfridge and Quaritch were not interested in Augustine’s concerns and ultimately launched an attack on the Na’vi and Pandora’s ecosystem, when they (the Na’vi) refused to relocate.

While the representation of the Na’vi and the ways that they “commune” with their planet may be a bit simplistic and hokey (at times, especially at the end of Avatar, I felt as though I was watching a sci-fi version of The Lion King), the message that both Cameron and Quinn are trying to convey is an important one.

If we, the human race continue to plunder, invade and burn through the planet’s resources without giving anything back, we are doomed to extinction. If we continue to adopt a Taker mentality and horde resources without giving any to those less fortunate, we are doomed to failure. If we consider that we are the pinnacle of evolution, rather than realize that we are just a blip on the radar in the grand cosmic scheme of things, we will be unable to change our selfish, “taking” ways until it is too late.

In the real world we see examples of this Taker mentality everywhere we look…in Iraq, in counties like Darfur and Rwanda, and in the Amazon rain forests. As long as we continue to believe and perpetuate the myth (as Quinn describes) that we are superior to all other races, countries and/or species, free to dictate and do as we please, we, the human race will be impotent in stopping our inevitable destruction.

The message that Cameron and Quinn make quite eloquently, is that we are all a part of the planet, and as such, we have a responsibility to preserve it. Ultimately, it’s up to us whether we take up the mantle of responsibility, or we leave it.

"Avatar" image courtesy of movies.yahoo.com
"Ishmael" image courtesy of friendsofishmael.org

Fiction's Philosophy

Bauer or Star Trek

As the new Star Trek movie arrives on DVD, I dare to ask the philosophical question from fiction about why communication has been degraded when we deal with enemies. Star Trek introduced the idea that you communicate to find the flaws in your foe. Today’s more representative image of Jack Bauer on the TV show 24 sends the message that you often don’t have time to communicate.

Is there time in a frenzy to communicate? In last year’s version of 24, Bauer told the US President that lack of time was responsible for him needing to torture a traitor to stop an attack on the White House. Trek’s Captain Kirk didn’t have time when a computer system was about to doom a planet to a war with a neighbor if people failed to voluntarily kill themselves. But Kirk took just a few moments to short circuit the system by showing the flaws in the system’s logic.

Bauer had just a few moments to interrogate a traitor in the White House as agents were about to stop him. He chose to intimidate, and threaten the traitor. The result pushed the story deeper into a crisis as the traitor withheld vital intelligence. Agents stopped Bauer, and his goal was thwarted. He could have chosen the path to communicate. The traitor was loyal to a cause that drove him to allow an African General to seize the White House. Bauer could have played on that loyalty. He could have used that info to derail the person’s goal, but he chose the easier, more aggressive route.

Communication doesn’t mean you give in to the enemy. No enemy operates with illogic. The logic might not be that of the protagonist, but there is a system of logic inside the enemy. The better chance the hero has to reach success depends not on force, but communication. Kirk was a product of the Kennedy era. Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Picard lived in the time before 9/11, so we can understand why the fear of lacking time threatens the characters in fiction after 9/11 — the time of Bauer. Maybe the fear from the real world could be changed by the philosophy in fiction. But in this case, the fiction’s philosophy follows that of the real world - maybe it should be leading it in another direction.

"24" image courtesy of tvshowfans.org
"Star Trek" image courtesy of tvmegasite.net

Fiction's Philosophy

Has Fiction Forgotten About Cooperation?

As Rorschach slinks into dark corners to find the gaps in the Watchmen mystery, one overriding theme is the way people cannot rely on one another. Fiction has long been either a reflective mirror of our society, or a guiding path to an alternative. Our present social climate is ushering in a stream of reflection with little on the alternative side. Mistrust is abundant, cooperation bears few examples. Reasons exist for the trend, but many arguments also cry for a counter to the trends.

Whether it’s the Watchmen, Taken, Angels and Demons or even the Jack Bauer look-alikes on television, more material is coming forth reflecting the distrust in our society. It’s been several years since the Hobbits cooperated with Humans, Elves and Dwarfs. Since then, we have seen one character after another offer a smile to an associate, only to use a cell phone in the next scene to set an obstacle in that person’s path. Great plots with conflicts now cast the protagonist at the right spot at the right time, but only to miss the very goal he seeks because he failed to trust someone in the previous scene.

Reasons exist for the plethora of mistrust. When our economic leaders shred the idea of trust with mortgages or skirt the social responsibility to aid a community,that leads to part of the public’s frustration. Yet, that image of mistrust is heightened as political leaders laugh at the concept of promises. The previous political campaign showed debates where one party embraced Joe the Plumber as a small businessman before they discovered the following day that Joe wasn’t his name and he failed to own his business. The society’s craving for fiction’s depiction of distrust naturally follows the frustration.

However, that’s exactly why fiction has the responsibility to lead with an image to counter that frustration. During the terror of the McCarthy era, the SF world showed how people could trust aliens. That era showed how Henry Fonda instilled cooperation against racism when he encouraged a consensus in 12 Angry Men. During the height of the Cold War, an episode of the original Star Trek asked the question, “Maybe they thought we were the aggressors.” Daring to ask that question defied the political hammer that pointed a finger at our real world people who asked the same question.

Fiction’s history shows a proactive role of countering the norm. Yet fiction’s display of cooperation has wavered over the past few years. We expect our fiction to reflect the real world, show us the details that make up scenarios we all face. But fiction also has the responsibility to show a path where few trod, to open up a consciousness that shows where society is missing the mark. That means showing the value of cooperation.

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