Digressions&Impressions

On Starship Troopers (and Peckinpah)

Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls has gone through the complete cycle. It was initially received as a notorious turkey, then it became a cult hit that college students watched while playing Showgirls-themed drinking games, and before long it gained a reputation among highbrow commentators including legendary New Wave director Jacques Rivette) as one of the greatest American films of the era.

Good-bad films culture is a space where transgressive movies that are rejected by initial audiences can begin the process of reappraisal and rehabilitation...there is a high degree of overlap between good-bad movie fans and art cinema fans. Film maudit culture emerges from this overlap. I don't mean to say that a legendary film maudit such as Heaven's Gate or Showgirls should be seen as good-bad. Rather, I mean that film maudit sits at the nexus where the concepts of cinematic merit and artistic seriousness are problematized and reshaped.--Matthew Strohl (2022)Why It's Ok to Love Bad Movies, p. 19.

I have been living with Strohl's book for a few weeks now. I avidly search, often without luck, the streaming networks for the movies he discusses and I watch (or re-watch) them in light of his sophisticated and amusing analysis. I quietly mourn the days when my laptop had a DVD player and I could go to the university library or rent from Netflix's once enormous supply. 

The passage quoted above got me thinking of Verhoeven, and especially about (1997) Starship Troopers which has always troubled me. The film has stilted dialogues, an insipid story, but a lot of amazing visual imagery. On Twitter I asked Why think Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is satire? And that went viral with everyone assuring me that it is best understood as a parody/satire of fascism. I am not so sure.

Verhoeven's first major cinematic work was a documentary, Mussert (1968)--Anton Mussert was the leader of the Dutch national-socialists and executed for treason after WWII. I have been unable to find it in order to re-watch it on short notice. But I recall it as an engaging character portrait of Mussert, who is humanized in virtue of the kind of ordinariness of the perceptions of people that knew him. It's important for what follows that I do not mean to say that Verhoeven is interested in defending Mussert's ideology or choices. What is important is that Verhoeven has a documented interest in fascism (no surprise given his biography). 

Soldaat van Oranje (1977) is part of Verhoeven's period of great success in the Netherlands. It's based on a true story. What's distinctive about it (other than the nudity which made all his movies appealing later to my teenage self) is that it starts as a kind of group portrait of students and the choice to collaborate or to resist seems largely arbitrary and driven by ambiguous motives. It's a movie that repays multiple viewings because it's also unusually reflexive about the power of images and the way mutual surveillance is internalized. But I wouldn't call it an antiwar movie because it also treats war as an adventure. (Feel free to challenge this; it's been a while.)

This all by way of prologue. In what follows I want to argue that Verhoeven's Starship Troopers actually expresses a fascist viewpoint. At a high level of abstraction this actually echoes the initial unease about and reception of the film that by now is widely thought inadequate. Since the film also clearly and repeatedly parodies and satirizes a world government that deploys an explicitly fascist aesthetic and propaganda methods most people I know disagree with me.

Moreover, if I am right it also goes against how Verhoeven's claims about the film are usually interpreted (2014). Verhoeven is quoted as follows:

"I stopped after two chapters because it was so boring," says Verhoeven of his attempts to read Heinlein's opus. "It is really quite a bad book. I asked Ed Neumeier to tell me the story because I just couldn't read the thing. It's a very right-wing book. And with the movie we tried, and I think at least partially succeeded, in commenting on that at the same time. It would be eat your cake and have it. All the way through we were fighting with the fascism, the ultra-militarism. All the way through I wanted the audience to be asking, 'Are these people crazy?'" Empire. By Adam Smith, Owen Williams

Interestingly enough, Neumeier is on record (see here) of being a huge fan of the novel.

In what follows, I take for granted that Verhoeven's intentions are anti-militarist. Even so, there are two weird things worth noticing about Verhoeven's claims. First, the main points of the first chapter of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, are the fear and adrenaline in the confusion of battle. The first sentence of the narrator is "I always get the shakes before a drop" despite being full of drugs! I am not suggesting Heinlein's Starship Troopers isn't fascist -- that's a different debate --, but it is quite striking that Verhoeven claims he could tell after the first two chapters. (The second chapter is a flashback to the narrator's decision to join the service which is how the movie starts.) So, I want to suggest that this passage is worth being cautious about.

Second, Verhoeven himself explicitly qualifies the success of his own effort, he claims he only "partially succeeded." Verhoeven is not known for modesty, and I suggest that he must have discerned something of the argument I intend to offer.

Now, in the quoted passage fascism and ultra-militarism are equated. And such militarism and fascism are indeed on display in the first visual of the movie with the logo of the federal network (and the soundtrack playing a marching tune). The first scene of the movie is a slick recruitment video for the mobile infantry. Strikingly, this is a racially and gender integrated force. (The US Armed forces did not allow women in combat roles until much more recently.) We also learn that the world is imperiled ("help save the world") and something of the ideology of the federation: "service guarantees citizenship." (I return to this below.)

The second scene is shot as if embedded with the infantry in the process of invading Klendathu (the planet of the bugs), "which "must be eliminated." This invasion turns out to be disastrous not the least for the reporter and camera man embedded with the troops which are destroyed by the local bugs. This scene is not slick at all. 

That Klendathu "must be eliminated" is an echo of Cato's famous genocidal claim about Rome's arch-rival, Carthage (censeo Carthaginem esse delendam). This is important to my argument. For, the political ideology of the federation, as presented (and mocked and satirized) in the film, is a militaristic form of civic republicanism. This is, in fact, explicitly articulated in the third scene.

The third scene is a flashback (partially analogous to the second chapter of the book). And we find ourselves in a high school classroom where we are introduced to the hero -- or (if he you disagree with me) main character -- of the film, Rico, a conventionally attractive young man, who is drawing a picture of a boy and a girl and not paying attention to the teacher (Rasczak) who we learn is veteran missing part of an arm (and later turns out to be lieutenant commandeering an elite infantry unit that Rico joins after his initial unit is largely wiped out).*

In the flashback, Rasczak immediately summarizes the main point of the year: "the failure of democracy and the social sciences who brought the world to the bring of chaos."+ We learn that humanity is united in a federation akin to the United Nations (and Star Trek's federation). This federation has been transformed by a coup d'état of veterans who have created a system characterized by social stability for generations.

As we hear the teacher intone, Rico returns to drawing and we see the girl (Carmen Ibanez), who is his model. And as she smiles to him (into the camera), we clearly see her and a portrait of Spinoza. (I return to this below.) Raszcak switches to a Socratic method, and asks another student why are only citizens allowed to vote? And so the audience gets a civics lesson of the ruling ideology, which has a number of distinct elements:

• A distinction between citizens and civilians. The distinction is political and moral.  
• Citizenship is gained through service, primarily (perhaps exclusively) military service.
• The political distinction is that the voting franchise is limited to citizens.
• The moral distinction is that citizenship is freely chosen, and accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic. (Later, by focusing on Rico's parents, we learn that the life of a civilian is basically hedonist enjoyment without responsibility.) This moral distinction is characterized in terms of civic virtue. 
• Importantly, while the students view citizenship as a means toward social benefits (including college entry), as reward for services rendered, the teacher rejects this. Gifts are never of value.**
• Voting is treated as an expression of political authority, which rests on force, especially violence.
• Violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived. (This is much quoted.)

A student (Dizzy Flores, who is interested in Rico) objects that her mother claims violence does not solve anything. We then get another look at Spinoza, when Raszcak asks Carmen Ibanez (the student who is being portrayed by Rico), what the "city fathers of Hiroshima would say about that," (to which the astute and chilling response is, nothing because they are dead). Near the end of the scene we see a drawing of Hannah Arendt and a bust of Marcus Aurelius. It's not silly to have images of Spinoza, Arendt, and Marcus Aurelius in the classroom if one's ideology is a kind of realist, civic republicanism. 

At the end of the scene -- it's only 90 seconds long -- the question is asked (of Rico) if he believes the ruling ideology and Rico honestly says, he doesn't know. And Raszcak responds that he doubts any of them would 'recognize civic virtue if it bit them in the ass.'

I have spent some time on this because the federation's self-understanding and its structure is formally not fascist. (I don't deny, by the way, that there are important connections between, say, the roman republic and fascism.) We also learn quickly that the federation's military is a meritocracy. And there is some freedom of speech in the federation because there is no suggestion that there will be dangerous consequences for Dizzy Flores' mother doubting of official ideology (and Rico's own lack of conviction). 

Now, the film goes on to show that much of this is sham. The aesthetics of the federation are openly fascist (we see Neil Patrick Harris --  of Doogie Howser, MD fame -- visually transform into a Gestapo officer), it seems committed to open-ended wars of aggression, its claims about citizenship largely a sham because soldiers are treated as expendable; many of the scenes provide us a window into the propaganda that the federation directs at its own citizens. In addition, the federation clearly presents itself as superior to bugs (whose intelligence it constantly underestimates). And it is this fact, this exposure of the militaristic hollowness of the federation, alongside the sheer craziness of its way of life, that is taken as representing the viewpoint of the film and this, in turn, is treated as its anti-fascist message. 

The problem is, however, that exposing that civic republicanism and the duties of citizenship are a sham is itself a feature (not a bug [sorry]) of fascism, or at least what we now call the alt right. In addition, Rico's journey in the film is treated sympathetically. And his species of masculinity is also familiar from contemporary alt right. 

That is to say, while some viewers may end up thinking that Rico is a kind of idiot, I don't think that's the perspective of the movie itself. Initially, his decision to join the service is a rash rebellion against his parents and motivated by his desire to stay near Carmen Ibanez. (This plan fails because Carmen, who is much smarter, is sent to space-force to become a pilot.) He has a change of heart once he is responsible for the death of a fellow trainee (and Carmen far away), but he rescinds his decision to leave the military after his parents (and the city of Buenos Aires) are destroyed by the bugs. After this, this decision is existential. and he devotes his life to killing bugs. 

Rico never questions his decision. And whatever limited growth he shows, it's primarily in the art of killing and military tactics. Rico shows himself to be brave and a good, loyal platoon leader, who rises through the ranks because infantry has a high mortality rate. Importantly, while the smart kids who become officers are uniformly shown to be awful and true believers, in the infantry we see mutual care and comradery of beautiful young people willing to sacrifice for each other and the greater good. 

Now, for some people it's obvious that in virtue of serving an awful regime, which is parodied in the film, Rico and his friends are also so satirized. On social media Liam Kofi Bright suggested, with a knowing nod to Stanley Fish, that it represents a kind of surprised by sin structure. I actually think that's right. For Kofi Bright the lesson is, for the viewer, 'you too can be made to empathise with and root for the villains.' This may be Verhoeven's intention, although it is worth noting that we never root for the senior officers or the federation while watching Starship Troopers. 

My response is that to be surprised by sin just is the human condition. And it does not follow that in virtue of serving an awful regime -- in Kofi Bright's words "objectively what they're doing is aiding a fascist war of conquest...[a]ll their virtues and vices play out against that unquestioned background" -- Rico and his friends are also satirized or parodied. It's not even obvious that Raszcak is satirized in the film. (He turns out to be rather brave and caring of his troops.) In fact, we see Rico taking on the virtues that Raszcak extolls (and exemplifies). 

My position is illustrated by Sam Peckinpah's (1977) Cross of Iron, which appeared the same year as Verhoeven's Soldaat van Oranje. Cross of Iron, which explores the comradery and conflicts of a German platoon on the Eastern front, was a flop Stateside and was panned by critics. (Interestingly enough it did very well in West Germany.) Now, Cross of Iron is very violent, but there is no reason to think that in virtue of coming to sympathize with Corporal Rolf Steiner (James Coburn), whose home is on the front, and who is shown to be courageous and have quite a bit of humanity toward the enemy, we end up admiring the Wehrmacht or Nazi Germany.++ It's pretty obviously an antiwar movie, even though we are shown that for some men war is preferred over domestic life (a good part of the movie explores a romance between Steiner and his nurse Eva, who he ends up rejecting). 

Of course, Cross of Iron is not satire, so structurally it is not identical to Starship Troopers. And whatever aesthetic surrounds Coburn's Steiner, it is by no means fascist. But the aesthetic surrounding Rico and his friends is fascist. The ones that survive keep their beauty. And at the end of the movie Rico even 'gets' Carmen, while the morally superior Dizzy Flores dies. And so while insipid militarism is clearly criticized, Rico's military service is not. 

Now, one might object that Rico's inability to see through the lies and his dedicated service to a corrupt regime make him flawed. Obviously, I am not interested in convincing you otherwise. But I don't think the movie manages to convey this; unlike the smart elites of the federation, he is not obviously "crazy." In fact, he remains likeable and heroic to the end; he is a fascist poster boy. 

If  am right then this episode also illustrates something else: that so many people defend the movie as merely satire also shows something of how difficult it is to distance ourselves from fascism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tuck Everlasting

"Know what happens then?" said Tuck. "To the water? The sun sucks some of it up right out of the ocean and carries it back in clouds, and then it rains, and the rain falls into the stream, and the stream keeps moving on, taking it all back again. It's a wheel, Winnie. Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is."--Natalie Babbit (1975) Tuck Everlasting

When my son, now almost 11, first went to school, I had to get used to the fact that he was not especially forthcoming with what happened during the day. I learned that certain directed questions might make a difference, but he quickly and repeatedly alerted me to the fact that I ask too many questions. (Another way my occupation deforms me, I thought ruefully many times.) 

Since, I have been well trained to accept any information about his day from any source with gratitude. I have also learned to read signs of distress or success in oblique fashion. 

I don't want to suggest that I never learn anything at all about what goes on in school. For instance, a recent book they read in class -- Peter Pan -- was deemed boring and stupid. 

It is not because he dislikes reading. Our son is a voracious reader. While we are a rather bookish family, I have been, in fact, astonished by the speed with which he reads and the complexity of the material he assimilates. (Okay, I am a proud dad!) He reads so fast that he is perpetually running out of things to read. But despite the fact that he frequently faces a serious search problem, he is quite adamant that our suggestions won't do. (So, he and I most frequently bond over films and football, not books.)

The other day I was, thus, quite surprised that he recommended a book to me: Tuck Everlasting. I learned they also are reading it in class. When I asked him why he recommended it to me, his answer surprised me: it's very philosophical. But after that enticing morsel little else was forthcoming. 

I had never heard of the book. And I was amazed to learn that it had sold millions and was turned into numerous feature films. I suddenly felt very sheltered. It turns out my spouse was convinced she had read it and still owned a copy. After a fruitless search, and a repeated nudging from our son to me to read it, I ordered it online and read it Saturday.

Now, nearly all books I read I encounter with a reputation attached to it. I either know the author personally or by reputation; it's a classic I should have read or a work central to debates in my field; or it's a novel I have heard about (through reviews or word or mouth) or that has been gifted to me with some kind of comment. And in writing these sentences I realized it is, in fact, incredibly rare that I read a book without any sense of what I might expect.  

When I was a late teen-ager a family friend, Marion Zilversmit, gave me a paperback copy of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. I am not sure whether it was for my birthday or a goodbye gift for my departure for college Stateside. For some reason I did not read it initially. And so it stayed in my room in Amsterdam, where I found it after I returned my freshman year. I took it with me in a backpack following the Dutch team around Italy for the world cup in 1990. 

After the (horrible) game against England in Cagliari, where all fans were treated as dangerous animals -- the police used tear-gas indiscriminately --, I found myself alone on the deck of a freight boat returning some of us to Palermo. The fans were packed in and the boat reeked of alcohol and piss. I found a spot on the upper deck, and started reading Auster through the night under the mediterranean sky. When I look back on it, I only see the romance because Auster took me into a vastly more fascinating and stimulating world than the one I was sailing; the smell and disgust are evaporated. 

The first major surprise of Tuck Everlasting is the incredibly abstract, even mythical style that is achieved at once:

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.

Yes, my brain knows that this is strictly false in the Southern hemisphere and, in some sense, unintelligible prior to the building of the first ferris wheels. But simultaneously it feels like I have just assimilated a truth eternal. This sense is heightened by the next sentence with starts with an "Often..."

After I read the book my son pointed out to me, while we were on an errand, that Babbit's descriptions are simultaneously lively ("glaring noons") and austere ("silent," "blank"); that when you read it, you have to do a lot of work imagining what's going on, but this work of imagining does not feel like work. I recognize part of the point and whisper, we co-construct the story, as it were, with the author. He squeezes my hand. 

A second major surprise of my reading Tuck Everlasting is when I recognize (I hope he forgives me for sharing this) my son's recent bedtime questions to me in a passage early in Chapter 1:

The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down, in ever narrowing dimensions, till it meets all other pieces at the center of the earth? Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing?”

At the time he did not disguise his disappointment with the inadequacy of my responses (something about local jurisprudence, scarcity, innate commitments) to his questions. I hope to do better some day.

The other day, I asked him if he wants to talk about Tuck Everlasting (which is a rather violent book). No. Did he identify with the main protagonist (also a single child around his age). No. I could tell I was risking asking too many questions. We eventually negotiated a compromise that I could write a digression about it.

That concessions feels like a pyrrhic victory here; what to say now?

You, perceptive reader, will have noticed that eternal return and heracleitan flux are key themes in Tuck Everlasting. And I don't share any spoilers if I say that the plot is accelerated by ordinary decisions about what to do with dangerous secrets that take on weight in virtue of the possibility of eternal return. 

And then, as I am contemplating a post about how Frodo has to leave Middle Earth, and wondering if I have written that already, and before I realize what's happening, I recognize something else my son was telling me, but hadn't heard; if he and I both co-construct the story while reading it, there is a sense we have not read the same story at all. And while I reflect on this, I discern that asking about the version he is constructing with Babbit would be a way of grabbing illicitly what's now his. 

 

 

 

On the Political Philosophy of The Last Jedi (IV): Leadership and Sacrifice

The first time we see Vice-Admiral Holdo in The Last Jedi, we see her through the eyes of Poe Dameron: hotshot flyboy, recently slapped down twice in the Resistance’s scramble to evacuate their compromised base. The first blow to Poe’s ego and stability is his demotion from Commander to Captain by General Leia Organa herself, a suitable reprimand for spearheading the devastatingly costly bombing run which provides the film with its opening set-piece. No sooner has Poe processed this—if indeed he has processed it—than he’s knocked further off balance by the loss of all of the Resistance high command save Leia, who is comatose and out of commission. In this state—stripped of his expected personal authority, with the usual structures of command which he relies on decimated—he looks at the new leader of the remaining Resistance fleet and says incredulously to another pilot: “That’s Admiral Holdo? Battle of Chyron Belt Admiral Holdo? …not what I was expecting.”...

the best visual and sound cue in the entire film: having stayed behind to pilot the heavy cruiser Raddus while the rest of the diminished Resistance escapes to the planet Crait, Holdo eventually chooses to drive her ship while it jumps to lightspeed directly through the First Order’s flagship, destroying a great part of it and preventing the destruction of those last few escapees. She is alone when she does this. She is alone, a captain on a bridge, in her dress and her lovely hair, her mouth set in a firm and determined line, and she doesn’t hesitate.

The film’s director, Rian Johnson, gives her—and us—a silent cut as a reward. My whole theater gasped out loud into the quiet. It is the most striking visual and auditory moment in a film full of striking visual and auditory moments....

What The Last Jedi does—amongst many other things—is present its audience with more than one mode of female power. We have Rey, strong in the Force, dangerous and necessary and emerging from nowhere to be the center of this story; we have Rose, a mechanic and a patriot, willing to make sacrifices and willing to know when sacrifice is not necessary; we have Leia Organa, the pivot on which the Resistance turns. And we have Vice-Admiral Amilyn Holdo, who looks like none of what we expect. Who is nevertheless what the Resistance needs, and worth Poe’s respect, and worth ours....---Arkady Martine@Tor.com [HT Karl Aho & Bryce Huebner].

Martine, who turns out to be a world class scholar, rightly notes that The Last Jedi is, in part, a movie about leadership, including the way(s) power, including gendered power, is wielded. In fact, the whole film is simultaneously, an education in the limitations of the daring, sharp-shooting ace-boy-hero (in this film exemplified by Poe and Luke Skywalker's past. A few days ago, I noted the significance of the fact that Luke Skywalker learns to fight without violence [Gandhi (recall also here and here)]). Martine rightly notes that we (and the ace-boy-hero) have been conditioned to have gendered expectations about how heroes look and how they act. Holdo makes an unimposing first impression, and, through our reactions to her, we are taught our biased expectations.

For, it turns out, Holdo plays a bad hand well. How bad? Well, it is notable that Poe had never met Holdo (a legendary commander) before. The Resistance is literally shrinking in front of our eyes and all the key, surviving members converge upon each other in a confined space (in a vast galaxy). How does she play it? By conserving her forces, having an escape plan, and using (to adopt Darwinian terminology) a costly signal that hides her true intent. She also keeps her eye out on the long-term: rather than forgiving Poe (her ace) because imminent survival is at stake, she punishes his insubordination--he, thereby, has to watch the action rather being the action.   

Martine gives an excellent description of Holdo's last moments of certain death. I want to quote another description (this time by Joe Tonelli) because there is evidence of a kind of collective, convergence of the impact of the scene:

I can still see it in my mind—like a lightning bolt that leaves an imprint on your vision after it crosses the sky. The streak through dark space. The utter silence of selfless self-sacrifice. We were alone with Holdo in the ship, in the void of space, and then—that silence. The theater may have gasped out loud, but I only processed the soundlessness and the light. Raw power and terrible beauty, blindingly combined in a single shot.

It is fair to say that the Holdo's last moments are the most iconic of the movie (which lacks a truly great battle scene). I think this is not just because of the aesthetic flirtation with the sublime. Perhaps, I show my age, but I could not help but think of that silent video image of the second plane hitting the WTC on 9/11. To be sure there are lots of differences, not the least being that Holdo's target is a warship. But crucially, Holdo is not made into a likeable character, as Martine points out, we "are absolutely primed to believe that she’s either a traitor or an incompetent." This is so, even though we can assume that she is pursuing the ends of the resistance. Rather, our view of her changes in virtue of the fact that (a) she did have a workable (not full-proof, but workable) plan and (b) she leads by courageous example, and (c) she stays on the bridge of the ship she is captaining and so does her ordinary duty. She is a hero without dazzlement. And, for these three features of her strength of mind, we (and Poe) come to admire her, post facto.

Now, what I am resisting in the previous paragraph is the further claim that we come to admire her in virtue of the ends that she pursues. While the military run First Order is undeniably neo-fascist, it is by no means obvious the Resistance (which is the off-spring of a slave-holding society) is so virtuous. [That is to say, the moral universe of The Last Jedi is populated with virtuous individuals and groups; but it is an open question if it is capable of supporting a semi-virtuous political order.] For, I am committed to the idea that a hero can serve non-rightful ends. To oversimplify, the criteria for heroicism are spectator-relative. (This is why the exemplary deeds recounted in Greek poetry remain heroic despite changing views on the laws of war and morality more generally unless the narration stops speaking to us.) Of course, I am not denying its easier to recognize, say, the courage of an enemy than her heroicism. And I am also not denying that expressing the sentiment in the previous sentence can be rather dangerous and so may itself take some courage in some contexts.

Let me close. Holdo was able to become a hero in virtue of the fact that despite Poe's insubordination, the lines of commmand and control, and the authority that follows from it, within the Resistance remained firm. It resisted the lure of charismatic leadership (Poe).* One can question if that's really likely in such dire circumstances. even so, here, again, The Last Jedi reveals a larger understanding: for the fact follows naturally and truthfully from the style of Leia's earlier, organizational leadership.

On the Political epistemology of The Last Jedi (III): prediction vs understanding

I like thinking about the Jedi because one way to understand them is as (military-)priestly-experts-of-nature who can (partially) control forces. This control of forces is, as Chaim Saiman notes, generally superior to mere weapons technology. In the first three episodes of Star Wars, they are an extra-democratic power in the (proper, and increasingly disorderded) functioning of the galactic democracy.* Unlike modern conceptions of the scientific-priestly, they are not really rule (technocratic-bureaucratic) followers, but rely quite a bit on contextual judgment. (It's not that they lack rules, but (recall) they violate them.) All episodes explore the ethical and political dimensions of such access to and control of natural power. But occassionally, the movies also explore the epistemic dimensions.

One of my favorite moments in The Last Jedi is Rey's remarkable confidence in her ability to see the future. She literally gambles her life on it. Even if one allows that her decision to do so may be influenced by her attraction (in all dimensions) to Kylo Ren (and her desire to save him), she has the courage of her convictions. And she can see the future: she correctly predicts it.

But it turns out that the succesful capacity to predict the future is not sufficient for wise action. For, the movie reveals two limitations: (a) she fails to interpret properly the nature of the predicted outcome--she thinks (the correctly anticipated)) Kylo Ren's rebellion against Snoke means that he will join forces with her [she never considers it may be a tactical alliance to depose Snoke]; (b) she fails to foresee the further, unintended consequences of her action, namely opening the way to Kylo Ren's supreme rule. Her failure of interpretation is caused (c) by her inability to understand Kylo Ren's soul/character (or by wishing the best for him, etc.).

In what follows I focus on a-b, but I should remind the reader that in (c) she merely echoes the original Jedi order's failure with Anakin Skywalker (it is an odd mistake because Luke emphasizes the failures of the Jedi);** again it is notable that Jedi powers themselves are revealed to lack knowledge  of characters/souls. Of course, the suggestion is not that Jedi powers prevents knowledge souls--Yoda has such knowledge--, but there is a consistent hint that Jedi power creates a form of overconfidence in which one fails to pay attention to other insights worth having. The original Star Wars trilogy showed that lack of knowledge of souls is destructive to the political art, and this theme is continued in The Last Jedi.

These days, many of our sciences of nature are betting on data-driven prediction devices (bayesian, artificial learning, etc.). Increasingly such devices are black-boxing the source or grounds of the predicton. Because such approaches dramatically outperform others, we should increasingly expect the ruling  image of science to emphasize prediction (rather than explanation, or exposing causal structure). [I have already seen papers doings so!] In the old days prediction was also valued, but predictive capacity is quite compatible with instrumentalist, anti-realist conceptions of science (and so it was thought that realism required something more, etc.). Being able to foresee the future in virtue of control of the force is like black-boxed predictive machine. One does not, thereby, have the tools to correctly interpret the future.

The Last Jedi teaches us that predictive capacity is not sufficient for practical judgment and may, in fact, sometimes undermine it. (It's an open question, of course, if getting rid of Snoke is an improvement over what follows it--stay tuned for the next episode.) The suggestion is not to give up on the force and do without prediction. But throughout the series we are taught that control of nature and predictive power are not sufficient for wise action. (Perhaps wise action would make a boring movie, too.) Something more is needed: such something more is interpretive capacity of human character. (I am not suggesting this is exhaustive: the importance of faith/steadfastness and trust in human goodness are recurring themes, too.) 

But there is a more fundamental point lurking here: throughout the last centuries we are constantly offered a choice between hermeneutic and exact sciences. So much so that 'science wars' have become a cliched trope to be rediscovered every generation (by folk who too frequently lack historical self-awareness of their own rediscovery). The intellectual and disciplinary divisions of labor merely reinforce these divides. But Star Wars correctly suggests this is/are (a) false opposition(s). The interpretive and predictive sciences can complement each other when agents rely on them to make choices; and to allow myself a moment of melodrama, we may say that -- in light of the huge challenges facing humanity -- without welcoming the insights and predictions of both forms of understanding we are likely to make (ahh) sub-optimal decisions.   

 

 

On the Political theory of The Last Jedi (II): the Socratic Problem

An important theme in The Last Jedi, notably treated in a series of flashbacks, is Luke Skywalker's failed education of his gifted student, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (and, as is quietly acknowledged, some of his less distinguished peers). By a 'failed education' I mean here that dangerous skills are taught to somebody who will abuse these skills. The abuse consists of using the skills for wrong ends. In treating Luke Skywalker's sense of responsibility over this failure, the film exhibits herein an important sensibility often absent in many contemporary experts and professional educators, who treat skills as something neutral and the use/abuse of them as the personal responsibility of the student; when things go wrong, we point to a character flaw in the student not the failure of the teacher. (Given the low intensity of contact in much contemporary mass education that can also be defended.) Similary, in contemporary applied ethics, the inventors of (so-called) dual-use technologies are generally let off the hook for the failures in application. (One is almost tempted to suggest that the pure/applied distinction is maintained in order to absolve the theoretical innovators from any of society's ills.)

One reason why I call it an important theme, is that The Last Jedi echoes the disastrous failures of the original Jedi council in Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader's education (recall this post). The missteps of the original Jedi are a consequence of (a) their failure to adhere to their own rules (about age requirements) and (b) they do not heed the advice of Yoda who does have correct insight into Anakin's character. This failure is a consequence of their superstition. To be precise, they think they can apply prophecy to particular individuals absent determinate identifying criteria. In the Revenge of the Sith (ep III), those failures precipitates the fall of the republic and the wiping out of the membership of the priestly-military Jedi order (a kind of galactic knights-templar).

The echo of the Jedi Council's failure is captured beautifuly in a haunting scene where Luke Skywalker is in the position -- like Abraham lording over  Isaac on mount Moriah -- to kill Ben Solo, but fails to do so. In response, Solo manages to kill most of Luke Skywalker's apprentices thereby dooming any revival of the Jedi as a priestly-military class. That is to say, Luke Skywalker had initially failed to learn anything from the original collapse of the Jedi order. Skywalker's self-imposed exile (mimicking Yoda's after the fall of the galactic republic) is his response to his failure.

I usually treat the risks of such a failed education in terms of the Socratic Problem because these echoe both the accusations against Socrates (and his failures with Critias and Alcibiades) and what we see exhibited subtly in some Platonic dialogues (Meno, Critias, Charmides, even Symposium). The problem is most immediately pressing in magisterial pedagogical cultures (such as the Jedi's) in which there exists long apprenticeships with particular masters (it's not just in traditions inspired by Greek/Hellenistic philosophy; a cursory glance at Mencius's treatment of the relative  merits  and dispositions of Confucius' students shows the issue also shows up, for example, in Chinese philosophy). The contemporary PhD is also conceived in terms of an extended apprenticiship with a particular Doktorvater/mutter (or committe/lab). But regular readers know that I think the issues carry over to non-magisterial-educational contexts, but about that some other time.

The film shows us three ways in which Luke Skywalker responds to the Socratic problem:

1. Total withdrawal from the world (recall for example Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān's withdrawal from the world after his failure to educate in Ibn Tufayl). In The Force Awakens, Han Solo had already intimated this when he said that "Luke felt responsible… He walked away from everything." Withdrawal is a way to limit damage and to take responsibility for failure. It's also a way to keep purer hands, even maintain one's faith in the future. For it is notable that in so doing Skywalker piously maintains fidelity in the holy books of the Jedi, which he treats as venerable relics, and their religious rites.* 
2. Teaching by way of a certain species of non teaching; this is the kind of thing Feyerabend seems to have flirted with he embraces a species of anarchism. I have in mind elements of Luke's (rather) partial training of Rey. Some other time I'll say more about the specifics of such teaching by non-teaching.
3. Teaching by way of modified example. I have in mind the final scene which has all the makings of a final show-down, but turns out to be an instance of fighting without violence [Gandhi (recall here and here)].** This has the down-side risk benefit that those who do not understand the true meaning of the teaching, and who imitate mindlessly, are not encouraged to use violence.

In point 3 I hint at The Last Jedi's broader understanding of the political uses of violence. This is connected to its presentation of different kinds of heroicism and nuanced attitudes toward suïcide missions. But about those topics soon more. 

 

Prologue: On the Political Theory of the Last Jedi (ca 2005)

[This piece, "George Lucas and Knowledge of Souls," first appeared anonymously in 2005 here. It was a response to the (mostly negative critical response to) Revenge of the Sith. I reprint it here because I intend to do a series of posts on The Last Jedi before long.--ES]

Anakin’s Skywalker’s fate is set in motion when some influential Jedi believe he is the Chosen One. It is tricky to interpret prophecy, or its intended time frame. Superstition need not lead to disaster, but the harm grows when the Jedi Council accepts Anakin as apprentice against its own rules (he’s too old) and ignores Yoda’s concerns over the state of his confused soul. (Born in slavery, yours would be confused, too, especially if your mom kept insisting you were result of virgin conception.)

The disorder and pain in Anakin’s Skywalker’s soul are matched by the increasing political disorder and chaos around him. The two are linked through the fatal decisions by the Jedi Council and its peculiar role in the Galactic Republic it serves. The fact that religious (the Jedi lodge in a temple; recall also the belief in prophecy, etc.), military guardians are needed suggests that the inherent instability of the Galactic Republic was once understood. (Perhaps, the Jedi are the source of disorder?) The Jedi’s mistake to train Anakin, who betrays them at the crucial moment, is the immediate cause of the Republic’s demise. (Should one shed tears for the fall of a slave-holding democracy?) But any polity that requires carefully calibrated, supra-legal wisdom to maintain itself is not meant to last. Yoda’s final attempt to save the Republic by fighting Anakin’s politically savvy father figure, Chancellor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious, Sith Lord, etc), leaves the Senate building in shambles; the Jedi cannot even save the symbols of the republic. (The fate of the Galactic Republic illustrates that by concentrating central power, universal government facilitates the rise of universal dictatorship.) Then again, as Plato taught much to Aristotle's annoyance, even the best designed constitutions may be overcome by circumstances, or bad luck.

Many reviewers note that Anakin seals his fate by attempting to avoid the pains (to his wife, himself, etc) he fears. (It also reveals that in his actions, Anakin does not believe he is the Chosen One.) Because Anakin’s fate and that of his children is known, the movie has the air of classic tragedy. The Oedipal themes are easily recognized by us--a knowing age. But it seems to have gone largely unnoticed that the Jedi and the republic they serve are unable to accommodate his desire for honour. (The clunky-ness of the dialogues in the first three Star Wars episodes is at least partly accounted for by the fact that we do not have available to us a ready vocabulary of honour aside from that anchored in legally sanctioned nationalism. Gladiator had it easier by evoking Republican values.) For Anakin is naturally gifted, and is ambitious for recognition of this. Anakin needs empire – in which power rules -- to satisfy his craving for flattery. (He also reveals dynastic imperial ambitions in episode five.) Even Padmé’s love -- one fears part of his attractiveness to her is his ruthlessness -- does not soften him. In their final scene, she shows her lack of insight into his need for acclaim by offering him domestic bliss and a retreat from public life. (Not long thereafter he kills her, too.) Love is impotent sometimes.

A contrast with the Russell Crowe character, Captain Jack Aubrey, in Master and Commander: the far Side of the World is useful.* Aubrey's love of honour is probably no less than Anakin’s. But it serves, rather than undermines, his society because of the external constraints (of space – i.e., the ship as metaphor for home --; of custom and law of British Navy; the size of the crew, etc) set on him and his own understanding of how to employ authority; we should hasten to add, that he also knows how to sublimate his sexual needs through music, exploration, homo-erotic male attachment in war. These constraints, unavailable to Anakin, enable the intensity of Aubrey's exploits to be channelled into ruthless, albeit law abiding behaviour. (The cultivated and urbane taste of the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane approved ecstatically, while savagely, albeit funnily, attacking the monkish code of the Jedi and the general aesthetic of the Star Wars.)

To return to and conclude on my main point: the Jedi have immense powers available to them. Like scientific magicians they can bend nature to their wills. But like many powerful they overestimate their ability to interpret the meaning behind the divine will. Worse still: not unlike other ruling experts, their training fails them in ignoring the political art which presupposes knowledge of souls. This makes them vulnerable to betrayal from within and without. The mature episodes of George Lucas’ space opera do not deserve all the scorn of their snobbish viewers.

On a World Première

A few weeks ago, on 11 October, my mom took me to a concert of the Kamus Quartet at the Concertgebouw (in the Kleine Zaal) in Amsterdam. It was a pleasant Fall evening, but in my rush I had realized I had forgotten dinner; I was pleased to find a quick cup of soup on the Van Baerlestraat. During the academic year, when I teach, my life is so hectic that I lack time to check a music program; I can show up to the concert without having any idea what I am about to listen to. While in general I am averse to surprises (I am even more risk-averse than Rawls assumes), I like sitting down in the chair of the music hall, briefly close my eyes, take a meditative breadth, and then be surprised by the sounds. Of course, even if I did know the titles of what is on the program, I would still be surprised in some sense -- because I lack encyclopedic music knowledge --, but the surprise would be mitigated by some anticipatory expectations about what I would hear.

This time around, we did not receive program notes and we had not bought the program booklet. At the start of the second piece, I glanced to my left over the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me. I looked at his booklet, and read that the first piece had been Grieg's unfinished second string quartet; as the musicians re-appeared on stage, I could vaguely make out the name Fagerlund. Because it was unfamiliar to me, I wasn't sure if I got that right. But soon I was distracted by the music emanating from the stage.

I adore chamber music concerts because in their intimate settings, you can follow the interaction among the musicians. The Kamus has a fantastic first violinist, Terhi Paldanius. She makes little eye contact with the rest of the group while she is playing as if she is completely withdrawn into her own music making; the others do make frequent eye contact with each other and often steel glances at her. It's as if they are checking she is still there with them and not playing among the eternal, crystalline spheres. Later in the Sibelius, Petja Kainulainen (the Cellist) would shine in a very different fashion. [Here is the program.]

I was a bit annoyed, at first, by the unfamiliarity of the music. I had, in fact, wanted some time to ruminate on the nature of an unfinished composition. I adore the opening movement of Schubert's 8th 'unfinished' symphony, and I always imagine -- when I hear it -- that of course it could not be completed; it's impossible to put an end to perfection--it's conatus is, as it were, in full vigor fully complete with itself. I made a mental note to check it out youtube and re-listen to Grieg's unfinished.

I enjoyed the Fagerlund piece, which sounded vaguely like Bartok and Berg. And I wondered if I had misread the name because I couldn't place him n my knowledge of the early twentieth century repertoire. The musicians seemed to enjoy it, too. When they were done, they accepted our warm applause but started to wave somebody on stage. Eventually Fagurlund -- for it was him -- appeared, and I realized I had just been witness to a world première of his second string quartet ('From the Ground'). He was a robust man with a sprightly step, and in the moment he climbed the podium I sensed his vanity and pride mixed with a bashful, boyish gratitude toward the players. In that moment I regretted that I was not a sculptor (like my dad) because I would have wished to capture that moment, with his many faces at once, in bronze. Despite the lures of intermission, we applauded louder and heartily.

It was probably not the first time the piece had been played; the Kamus quartet must have practiced it many times, including undoubtedly a full dress rehearsal. And there is really not much difference, to encountering a piece for the first time and a world-première. But even so, one does not have to buy into ex nihilo creation, to like the fact that musicians and other artists mark the first public performance of a piece. I am unsure where the practice originates (Wikipedia is frustratingly and revealingly incomplete on the topic).

And I am kind of sad that we philosophers -- when we launch our concepts and arguments into an unfeeling universe -- do not have an equivalent ceremonial sense.* One may think this is due to the fact that we do not think of ourselves as public performers. That would be the easy explanation. For, the premiere marks not just that something new has come into the world, and with this a whole range of possibilities, but that very novelty also signals that a bit of the world -- where people had not yet had the opportunity to hear Fagerlund's second quartet --, has become irrevocably history. And it is no coincidence that among the arts, we -- who embrace our eternal propositions -- are least comfortable with transience.

 

On Political Good Faith & Voter Fraud [based on notes on Di Lampedusa]

"Now he knew who had been strangled [strangolato] at Donnafugata, at a hundred other places, in the course of that night of dirty wind: a new-born babe: good faith; just the very child who should have been cared for most, whose strengthening would have justified all the silly vandalism. Don Ciccio's negative vote, fifty similar votes at Donnafugata, a hundred thousand "no's" in the whole Kingdom, would have had no effect on the result, have made it in, in fact, if anything more significant; and this mockery of souls [storpiatura delle anime] would have been avoided...

Don Fabrizio could not know it then, but a great deal of of the slackness and acquiescence for which the people of the South were to be criticized during the next decade, was due to the stupid annulment of the first expression of liberty ever offered them." Tomasi di Lampedusa The Leopard (84-6), translated by Archibald Colquhoun (with modest corrections; page-numbers to the 2007 Vintage-Classics edition].

My post on The Leopard today will be a bit reductive (no talk of plot and character development) because I fail to do justice to the many strains that makes this urgent novel so haunting, yet comic.+

One theme of the novel is clear: the (1958) book aims to 'explain' at least partially the rise of Italian fascism.++ This is made explicit near the end, in which the the hero of the Day of Astromonte, Pallavicino, is made to prophecy (while a bit tipsy) the rise of the blackshirts to the main protagonist, The Prince of Salina, "no one mentions red shirts [i.e., Garibaldi's followers] anymore; but they'll be back again. When they have vanished, others of different colours will come; and then red ones once again. And how will it end? There's Italy's Lucky Star, they say. But you know better than me, Prince, that even fixed stars are so only in appearance." (181; part of the joke here is that the aristocratic Prince is a mediocre feudal lord, but an excellent mathematical astronomer.)

The point is, in part, an original sin story. That Italian unification under the liberal, Savoy monarchy involved force was unavoidable. But in victory, the victors took no chances and rigged the local referenda/plebiscites on Italian unification.* Unification revealed itself as the appearance of freedom not the real substance. Notice that the point is independent of the actual outcome of the plebiscite. The fundamental problem of voter fraud is not that outcomes may be altered (although that, too, is a problem), but rather the lack of respect for the spirit of freedom which, includes (to speak less metaphysically), a lack of respect for the wills of the individual subjects. For the voter fraud reveals symbolically that not everybody counts. Liberal rule of law promises that, under the law, everyone is treated equally. But in its founding act, the liberal state wishes away those that do not wish to be ruled by impartial law. Here liberal freedom is a mask for intolerance.

And now I get to the heart of the matter. Di Lapedusa discerns that constitutional self-government presupposes good faith [buonafede]; such good faith is fragile and requires shared cultivation. Once this faith has been damaged, it is almost impossible to recover. So part of the (liberal) political art, for those with influence and power, is to maintain such shared faith. As Madison puts it, cleverly, "If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion." (Federalist 49) That is to say, part of the political art is to maintain dispositions that maintain such good faith, which make union possible.

Di Lapedusa explicitly suggests that such faith can only survive in souls that go un-mocked, that is, respected. In contemporary scholarship this is often treated in terms of trust. And while trust is not irrelevant to such good faith, it is too epistemic a category (this is why I talk of dispositions). For, we may say that liberal democracy is like a fugitive woman [donna fugata] who requires such faith in order to hope to survive on the kindness of neighbors and the refuge of strangers.

 

 

Charlie Chaplin; The moral and the funny

The moralistic fallacy is the mistake of supposing that reasons why it would be morally good or bad to feel some emotional response toward an object bear on whether that emotional response is fitting (i.e. on whether the object has the particular evaluative feature that it seems to you to have when you are feeling some particular emotional response toward it). For example, suppose you think it would be bad to be amused by a cutting joke made by some wit at the expense of your friend. You think that a good friend should be angry, not amused, at this quip. If you concluded on that basis that the joke was not really funny, that would be an instance of the moralistic fallacy. Maybe it’s funny, maybe it isn’t, but your moral reasons not be amused by it are irrelevant to that question. --Justin D’Arms interviewed by Andrea Scarantino.

Here I want to ignore the meta-ethical issues that drive Justin's comments. (Perhaps that's a mistake.) I am not convinced 'the funny' or 'the aesthetic' can be so easily screened off from moral considerations. I mean the previous sentences in three ways (I'll draw on Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times throughout) : first, sometimes X is funny in virtue of moral reasons; the slapstick on the assembly line of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, is funny, in part, because it is making a moral point (about exploitation, dehumanization, alienation). This can be readily acknowledged by the second observation: for, second, if the movie were fundamentally making fun of assembly line workers, it might be funny (there is a cruel, downward-kicking funny, after all), but it may also not be funny--not because of some second order reflection that you really ought not find it funny, but because what you're experiencing is not funny. One's experience of a cutting joke is not always akin to a patellar reflex or knee-jerk. (This can be readily experienced with children's movies where some of the jokes only appeal to the kids, who may be in stitched while the parents simply don't even chuckle at some scenes despite it being dark and there are no concerns about setting right example to the kids.) That is to say, in experiencing the film one is also drawn into a more general moral point of view -- that gives coherence to the film and also frames how one experiences each scene in it* --, and so something becomes funny because one is simultaneously empathizing or distancing oneself (etc.) from the main character/situation.  

Third sometimes X is moral because it is funny. Let's leave aside Chaplin's intentions for Modern Times, and just stipulate it is funny (as I have done throughout here). It's not clear to me that without the humor and poignancy of the characters the movie would be especially moral. (It could be, of course.) For some it might be moral, but others may say -- 'look these are exaggerated and one-sided representations of labor relations--rather than it being moral, it's an attack on capitalism or represents only one class interest not the general interest (blah, blah, blah). The point is that such points of view get disarmed by the humor and, thereby, a 'class' gets humanized or capital-worker relations get made concrete. (I am not claiming humor is the only way to do this.)

So, to sum up: undeniable there are instances of the moralistic fallacy about the funny, including humor that is in bad taste, immoral (all things considered), or childish. But it does not follow that how we ought (morally) to respond, say, to a purported joke can't be an essential or integral part of the joke, or what's amusing. This conclusion is not surprising because so much humor is commentary on social status, authority, existing norms, taboos, etc., and we can be amused at various levels of sophistication.  

On Not Being a Movie Star

Once, about twenty years ago, I appeared in a short movie, Left Shoe,+with Gael Garcia Bernal.* In what has to count as one of the greatest casting blunders ever, I was the star of the film (which flopped) and not him. At the time I had already decided to become a college philosophy professor; but as I struggled through the first few months of graduate school, after we shot the movie, I would amuse myself with selecting philosophical quotes to accompany my Hollywood star/footprints down the road.  Until I re-read Grunberg's summary of the movie's conceit, I had assumed I had played a traveling salesman selling foot-materials; but I just learned that I was supposed to be "a shampoo salesman." (Perhaps that explains my generally bewildered look in the film?)

The morning of the shoot, I was introduced to Leonard Cohen's Take This Waltz and, of course, First We Take Manhatten, while we were driving from Queens (with a stop in the Village to pick up Garcia Bernal)) to Coney Island to shoot the film. I always think of my failed career as a movie star and that glorious Summer day when I hear Cohen.

During the shoot, a crowd gathered at a distance when I shot the scene in which I walk into the ocean and find a floating body part. After we completed that scene, we even got applause. An old lady with a faint Russian accent walked up to me (my suit dripping with sea water), and told me she thought it was a brilliant campaign commercial, and would vote for me in the next election.