Existentialism In Movies

Discussion in 'Existentialism' started by Mountain Valley Wolf, Dec 20, 2014.

  1. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    I think he's wrote some books.

    Mountain Valley Wolf... She's asking why people approach you with particular questions on this topic in public. In these public settings, how is it that you are designated as an authority on existentialism? do you hold discussions/lectures? Do you meet with philosophy groups? Do you do open mic raps about Nietzsche , Heidegger and Sarte? Etc.
     
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  2. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    Ah I see----the actual question that I actually am often asked is, 'What is existentialism?' which is not always the easiest thing to answer off the cuff. It was after being asked this question that I watched the movie Megamind with my grandson, and realized that I could have just told that person to watch this movie.

    As far as using existentialist as a category for a movie or a literature, you wouldn't find that in your neighborhood video store. But existentialists have often referred to certain literature as existentialist, for example, Dostoyevski was a favorite (Movies were still a novelty in the early days of existentialism). In fact, this inspired many existentialist philosophers to write their own fiction---from Kierkegaard to Sartre and Camus, many used literature to express their ideas. In later years there were French Avante Garde movies that were intended to be existentialist. But, like literature, any movie that is presents the world in existentialist terms would be categorized as existentialist among people that are interested in sharing or exploring such things. Just like, The Watchmen, for example, is considered a Nihilist movie.

    After all, it is far easier to watch, The Adjustment Bureau, for example, than to read Kierkegaard.
     
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  3. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    You, know I don't know----I am just sitting up on this mountain top resting in my favorite body length kaftan, with my long white hair and beard, and people just start coming up to me---I don't know where they come from. The women offer their bodies to me. What am I supposed to do?

    Seriously---my books are still not finished, and yet unpublished----though I am much closer to getting a couple of them out----hopefully in a matter of months, then its typically a year or more at the publisher before a book hits the shelves. The books should have been done several years ago, but I love to travel, and I have a wife that is very high maintenance and very demanding. (For example, that last post took me close to 3 hours to write). Sometimes I will just rent a hotel room for a few days just so I can write. Otherwise I do most of my writing late at night, or at Starbucks----but she is a night person too, and lately it has been harder to escape to Starbucks, so…

    I am published though, and I have other short things written here and there which are on philosophy, among other things. I used to write quite a bit on economics, finance, and culture. I had a column in the Mainichi Daily News (the English version of the Mainichi Shimbun). I do have a book on the stockmarket and a newsletter.

    But I don’t know if I would be an officially recognized expert on existentialism---hopefully my books will change that. But I do have a following---I guess you could call it that. Years ago I distributed a number of copies of Barrett’s, Irrational Man, which is on existentialism, and I did a discussion group on it. People have been wanting to do another one, but I just don’t have the time. Though individually a number of people are reading it, and I’ll discuss a chapter with them after they finish it. I am doing the same with Sartre’s Being and Nothingness with another individual.

    About 3 or 4 years ago, maybe more, I wrote all the philosophy papers for a young guy for his first year of philosophy. They were all ‘A’ papers, and his professor was very impressed and urged him to major in philosophy. Before it sounds like I did him a disservice, let me just say that I explained how and why I wrote what I did at each step, and pretty much taught him how to approach those classes. He says that I really helped him and that it was because of me that he actually got into philosophy---and he is majoring in it. (He is actually the one going through Being and Nothingness). He has gotten a few of the other philosophy students to come to my fire pits and what not. (I haven’t written any more papers for him----the problem was, from the very first one, it was too good, and it would have been obvious if he were to follow it with one of his own, every philosophy class he had that year was with the same professor, so I had to write all of them). A year or two later another student wanted me to do the same, but that time I just helped her write it herself.

    But not everyone at the fire pit is versed in philosophy. There is a guy from a bookstore that I got to talking to, and he is interested in philosophy but never really had a chance to explore it. Another person got his brother into it. (Actually we need a lot more women…) And some of the students that come are first year philosophy students, or are not even majoring in philosophy. (Then again, sometimes we will talk stock market, finance, and economics----being a former stock market analyst, and the author of a newsletter, I am recognized as an authority there).

    However I will cart a few philosophy books with me when I go out and write. The incident I wrote about in my first post happened at a Starbucks. I didn’t have my laptop that day, and was going through a couple of Sartre’s books underlining, and writing notes in the margin. At one point I had set them down, and this fellow sitting nearby said that he heard about Sartre but never had a chance to read any. I explained who he was and he asked the question. I spend enough time in Starbucks, that this or similar questions often come up. Another time I was flying to Orlando, and reading Heidegger, and I got the same question. There is a lot of interest in existentialism, and if you give many people an opportunity they will ask about it.

    My own philosophy is heavily influenced by existentialism, but I am an essentialist as well. I call it archephenomenalism, and describe it as an existentialistic-essentialist phenomenalism that has many Neo-Kantian elements, but probably fits in better with phenomenology (while Kierkegaard was considered the father of existentialism, phenomenology was the mother).

    As far as similarities to Kant---Kant’s philosophy was a type of phenomenalism---a philosophy that all we can know of reality is through the phenomena we perceive of it. Kant approached the crisis in philosophy of that time, tied various philosophies together, and created a chasm between physics and metaphysics (as the Greek philosophers would have said---basically the empirical, and non-empirical realms of study). What he did enabled us to move beyond the crisis at that time and he is therefore as critical to the Modern World and all we have achieved as Descartes. But he left one side of the chasm to fall and decay, unintentionally pulling the rug right out from under it.

    But now we are facing a new crisis. In some ways it is a return back to that same old crisis of Kant’s time, in other ways it is a result of that crisis. Kant has served us well, but it is time to go back and undo some of what he has done. Our crisis of today is one of meaning, truth, and value. It is not something that just happened today. Existentialism was a response to this same crisis---but it was not a complete response. And while existentialism pushed the value of the individual, philosophers followed by a return back into objecitivsm, and the sources of the crisis. And as time goes on, the crisis becomes ever more apparent and blatant.

    This crisis is now so acute that Stephen Hawking declared philosophy dead, arguing that it no longer offers anything about the nature of reality, and that it hasn’t even kept up with the advances of science. He is right. Philosophy in the English speaking world is now wrapped up in the meaning of words-----in case, they argue, we missed something that holds a clue to everything. Meanwhile the Theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics give amazing clues as to the nature of reality. But science cannot provide meaning, truth, and value by itself. And it is on the opposite side of the Kantian chasm from philosophy.

    I worked on my philosophy, in large part to resolve the Post-Modern Crisis. Even if it is not heralded as the ‘answer’ it is an example of what that answer would look like. It is time for philosophers to incorporate Einstein’s theories, Quantum Mechanics, and other modern developments in science. A scientist will struggle with and ignore certain implications of quantum mechanics for example, where as a philosopher might see it as validating our own existential freedom and free will. It is time to close the Kantian chasm. More importantly, it is time that we once again focus on the subjective (life) over the objective (objects).
     
  4. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I'm sorry I stopped reading when I saw that you had written papers for another and then allowed him to claim credit by plagiarising your work.
    Academic ghost writing, whether paid or not, is unethical, unfair, cheating, and a violation of academic policies...in short it is academic fraud and, in my opinion, one of the leading causes of the degeneration of the intellectual norm today.

    When I was in college it was a common practice for frat rats to "go to the file cabinet" to find a previously written paper to turn in as their own. Meanwhile I would be doing my best to complete the assignments in an honest way. Many times I watched as my grade would be lower than theirs.

    It is an insult to those who wish to honestly learn on their own and an affront to the entire academic community.

    I must say that I am sorely disappointed; once you have compromised your standards anything more that is presented by you is always suspect.
    Even more shocking for a student of philosophy and ethics.
     
  5. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    Yes Meagain, I can't blame you, and like I said, it did come back to bite us as I did have to write the rest of his philosophy papers that year. There really is no excuse for that kind of thing.

    It actually didn't start with me writing it-----I was going to help him, but then my ego got in the way---I guess like a dad who is helping his son with something, but the son isn't doing it right, so the dad ends up doing it himself (yes, I was that kind of a dad to my son, more than once--unfortunately).

    This guy had been hanging out at my firepit for years. It was our discussions that prompted him to go to college, and even take philosophy. Part of the problem is that he didn't have a working computer, so he wanted help and also asked if he could use my computer.

    We talked about the assignment. He wrote a bit. I said, ‘no that's not what I meant.’ Then he wrote some more, and I said, ‘here let me see that.’ We talked some more---I corrected his grammar and spelling, and then it was like----‘let's just start all over.’ ...and then I was up all night writing his paper.

    As wrong as it was, I will say this----I learned my lesson. As I mentioned, a girl, a fellow philosophy student, asked for help too, and I told her that I had to stay completely out of the writing process----I will help her with her ideas, and so forth. (I actually did read her paper and it was very good----fortunately she could write. But I promised myself that I would not feel compelled to 'fix it.')

    And that is one of the reasons I give for not helping write papers beyond what I did for her----I will end up writing it and then I will have to write all the papers for that student for that professor. I don't consider myself obsessive compulsive in any way---but with all these kids that have gone through the 'no child left behind' and all their misspellings, and bad grammar... You fix that, then it's their thesis that is flawed, and... It’s just best I don't help people with their papers.

    But I will also say, as I mentioned in the previous post, that he learned a lot as we did that. He switched majors to philosophy, and he claims that how I approached the problems and wrote the papers helped him immensely in the papers he has written since then. I have never written a paper again for anyone since then.

    As a writer I often get asked for help on creative writing courses as well, I did try to help a niece with her paper for a creative writing class, and soon realized I was falling into the same trap and had to stop myself. It is hard for me to not want to fix it all.

    When someone comes to me for help, I sincerely want to do all I can to help him or her. I do give it my all. I didn’t even let him pay me for my help---I let him get me a beer was all. As I worked on that paper that night, I didn't think of the other students I would be harming. In fact I doubted his abilities (which was wrong too). I didn't really understand the implications until after he turned the paper in, and the Professor said that there was only one student who even understood the purpose of the paper (which was my paper obviously). It was then that I realized that he was no worse than any of the other students, and that I had probably done a disservice to the whole class. I felt bad about it.

    He was very impressed that having never stepped foot in that classroom, I still was able to write that paper, and so he started bringing other students over to my fire pit. I think that I was able to help these other students, through our conversations around the fire pit, and hopefully I made up for some of the disservice I did to the class. Both classes that year were on Greek Philosophy, and the professor had a thick foreign accent which made it hard for the class, I believe. So at that time we discussed Greek Philosophy and how it shaped Western Philosophy. Those other students still come back to the firepit, and some of them have continued with philosophy.

    Seriously though, if he had come to me and asked me to write his paper, I would have said no. He asked for help, and I seriously wanted to help him. I think there are a few parents that understand how that happens---there is at least one model airplane that my son probably would have preferred to build himself------I tell myself that he appreciates the great job I did on it for him. There were other things too…

    Yes, a model airplane, and a research paper are two different things. I should have never taken it so far. But now I know that I can't just go in and fix everything, if someone needs help, and I will just stay clear of the actual writing.
     
  6. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    The greatest damage done was to yourself.

    Please forgive me for judging.

    But let me ask this: is it possible for an existentialist to believe in morality or ethics beyond their own limited being?
     
  7. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    is there anything that cannot be called existentialism?
    how did existence itself become a cult?
    these movies, to me all they are saying, is that everything we think we know, could be an illusion.
    to me, this goes without saying.
    not that existence is an illusion, or that everything that does is, but everything we think we know about it.
     
  8. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    Existentialism seems like a malleable philosophy, in that I don't think many movies really provoke thinking about existential ideas and tackle them in depth, but you as the viewer, can probably draw upon many movies and kind of discuss them from an existentialist angle, if that's your prerogative and you conscientiously set out to do so .

    I didn't understand the cult bit.

    I'm not sure illusion is absolutely necessary in movies dealing with existentialism, however I think illusion is a very useful technique in such films because it exemplifies that which the protagonist or characters take for granted, or an unfamiliar aspect of themselves and often this novel understanding of the world elicits the necessity to make significant changes in their outlook and I think this bolsters positions of existential notions like "existence precedes essence."
     
  9. Mountain Valley Wolf

    Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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    I think you know where the answer leads----existentialists conclude that there are no universals. For example, the concept of good and evil are human constructs. The implication then is that it is up to us to create a world that is good for all to the best of our abilities. To the existentialist, there is no hidden force, or divine will that will come back and right everything wants things become to evil. We all have an existential choice to do what is morally right. Sartre, for example, disagreed with the Vichy Government during World War II and fought with the French Underground.

    But how we approach that choice is a very subjective problem. And the focus is always on the individual over the group.
     
  10. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    This is why I dislike Western philosophy...

    Good and Evil are human constructs, yet it is up to us to create a world that is good. So what happens is my good may not be the same as your good. In fact you may view my good as evil, and vice versa. So where does that lead? Us and them, strife, wars, and so on.

    Plenty of tyrants, fascists, and serial murders who believe that what they do is good; and by Existential standards how can we say they are wrong?

    By Existential standards doing someone else's homework can usually be rationalized by all involved.
     
  11. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    "So what happens is my good may not be the same as your good. In fact you may view my good as evil and vice versa"

    This is not due to western philosophy. It just is like that. In reality my good IS not always the same as other people's good. The best we can cope with that is by tolerating each other (if we can't accept) until someone or some group abuses this by doing something we all, or at least the majority, consider bad.

    About the Matrix movies, they do of course fit really well in this thread but I would only recommend the first one.
     
  12. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    Very peculiar response, from the amount I have read, albeit not much, Eastern Philosophy seems just as, if not more culpable in treating concepts like good and evil as subjective or illusory compared to Western Philosophy, but probably a gross generalization either way to make such claims.

    I think it's best to treat this issue surrounding morality as specific to existentialism, because in the Western Canon there are several notable schools of thought ( I.e. Plato's Theory of Forms, Descartes Meditations, Kant's Categorical Imperative) which approach ideas such as good as if it has a ultimate or divine nature.
     
  13. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    In the East good and evil are both illusionary in that they they are interdependent. They rely on each other for existence. It is recognized that they have no intrinsic nature at all. There is no concept of an absolute good or evil.

     
  14. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    this is easier for me to understand, then gurilla's attempt to explain, which i appreciate, but still don't really 'get'.
    i see what i would call good and evil as existing, in relation to harm.
    we can split hairs over defining the details of harm, but i'm pretty sure the bulk of its existence is universally unambiguous.
    are you defining existentiallism as denying the observability of harm?
    i'm really at a loss here. is there any unambiguous way of defining what existentialism is not?
    if a word is completely malliable, what is its function?
    yes, most people who do harm on any scale, see themselves as serving some ultimate good by doing so.
    but how does defining harm as being entirely subjective avoid this problem?
    responses my be circumstantially conditioned, this i see as part of simply what is, certainly, but i don't see how that defines harm out of existence.
    not being able to say 'god' or some anti-god, 'made me do it', is a good thing. i'm all for that.
    but i'm still, i'm not detecting an essence here. maybe i'm just looking right at it and not seeing it, but i'm still not.
     
  15. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    So if they are interdependent in Eastern philosophy, what further insight does that lead us in regards to this?

     
  16. Moonglow181

    Moonglow181 Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    "MeAgain, on 02 Sept 2015 - 10:21 AM, said:



    This is why I dislike Western philosophy...

    Good and Evil are human constructs, yet it is up to us to create a world that is good. So what happens is my good may not be the same as your good. In fact you may view my good as evil, and vice versa. So where does that lead? Us and them, strife, wars, and so on.

    Plenty of tyrants, fascists, and serial murders who believe that what they do is good; and by Existential standards how can we say they are wrong?

    By Existential standards doing someone else's homework can usually be rationalized by all involved.
    "

    Meagain, the above quote is from you....and i call bull shit on splitting hairs that much....that killing someone would be someone's right.....nope...not ever....not inflciting harm maliciously , etc......this kind of thinking is too dangerous...it was my right....god told me to....nope....not going to wash here.
     
  17. MeatyMushroom

    MeatyMushroom Juggle Tings Proppuh

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    Moon, there are countless leaders who massacre in the name of "good".
     
  18. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    A very complicated concept, good and evil, East and West.

    Let me try to qualify.
    Let us suppose that Jeffery Dahmer had been murdered as a youngster. At the time we would clearly have seen it as an evil act.
    Yet, now we may say it would have been for the better as 17 young men would not have been subjected to rape, murder, dismemberment, necrophilia, cannibalism, etc.

    But then again, maybe one of those 17 young men murdered by Dahmer would have gone on to invent a hideous weapon that would be used to kill thousands of others. That would be bad.

    When we start to differentiate between good and evil how do we know the ultimate outcome of our differentiating? How do we know that what we consider good today will not be considered evil tomorrow?

    So we find ourselves poised on the horns of a dilemma. How do I act in any given situation? Do I act this way or that? Most people will intend to do good, but is intention enough?

    I would imagine our only recourse is to act as if we intend right action as we see it at the time. This may be an Existential view, I don't know enough about existentialism to know about that, that is why I asked the question.

    However we must always bear in mind, that in the East evil is unavoidable as long as there is good. No one individual or act can ever be labeled as absolutely good or evil as they are mutually relational.

    In Buddhism an Evil act is not labeled as such because of its outcome, but because of the narrow delusion that the act is separate from the rest of reality and the fact that it is being committed based on an improper understanding of the relations between all being(s).

    A Good act is one made in the light of an understanding of the interconnections which are always present.

    IMHO


    “All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
    ― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

    https://youtu.be/yAeNTZk8wtE
     
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  19. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    I don't follow how this justification for Dahmer's action or matter-of-fact acceptance of the interdependency of good and evil here leads us to anything better than the seemingly rhetorical question you posed regarding the subjectivity in morality from an existentialist view. In particular, the hypothetical "what if" scenario you pose, where you are saying those young men killed could have potentially invented a hideous weapon to kill thousands. Presumably the "what if" slippery slope could apply to all the people killed by tyrants and fascists as well. I think the existentialist may go on to ask, that if our perception of morality is so tenuous that it can morph over time, then where is any actual fundamental essence to it?




    This is why I found your response fairly peculiar, because existentialism seems to approximate Eastern Thought such as Buddhism's view of morality, in some regards. Perhaps a notable difference as I understand it, is that to the existentialist good and evil do not need to be seen as interdependent on one another like Buddhism, nor do they need to be seen as having some ultimate/divine nature as is proposed by some other Western Philosophy, rather nature is inherently "indifferent". Anything that we may deem as good and evil is purely a human specific response to finding our way in this universe. I don't think this totally discredits the use for having morals as it relates to society and our own personal development, just that they are not fundamental to nature.



    You are coming into this with your own perceptions and ideas as to what morality is, that may be one impediment to your understanding. Although really the only disconnect I see is in the question you pose. I am saying existentialism is denying that good and evil have any actual fundamental existence in reality, as I posted above to MeAgain, reality is "indifferent". Depending on how you want to define harm, they may include that as well, but I'm sure they would still acknowledge physical harm.




    Well to hopefully avoid confusion and stay within this narrow scope of discussion, good and evil having some base existence outside of human values and perceptions is not existentialism.




    It's not completely malleable, i.e. last response. But since existentialism is dealing with facets of human nature, I think from an existential framework in mind, you can draw from many more movies than those that specifically bring up existential ideas, from an existential ideas and concepts.
     
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  20. Irminsul

    Irminsul Valkyrie

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    Dahmer. :)

    I like that guy.
     

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