Saturday, June 23, 2018

Network

What even was this movie?  I thought for a solid hour that I was watching a pre-Sorkin dialogue and character driven dramedy, but somehow must have missed the clues that I was really watching a cross between Dr. Strangelove and Idiocracy.  The clues that this movie was not taking itself as seriously as I thought it was were there.  But I, dunderhead that I am, didn't realize until Howard Beale walked out on a revolving cathedral of a dais halfway through the movie that I was watching a farce.  And one of the many geniuses of this farce was that the transition from Sorkin to Parker and Stone was almost imperceptible through the first half.

Among the other geniuses were, of course, epic performances, iconic commentary, and positively prophetic social analysis.  All of the pieces worked together in a smooth, and ultimately successful, pastiche.  But perhaps just a little of the bite goes out of this  masterwork when we watch it forty years later, and realize that we are still saying the same things about media today.  Howard Beale was, of course, right.  And he remains right.  But humans have been guilty of the same idiocy for as long as there has been media of any sort.  We are highly unlikely to change, but brilliant commentary such as this at least makes it easier for us to carry on.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Arthur Schopenhauer: Counsels and Maxims

In every worthy text, there is at least one passage that unlocks the remainder.  I had thought I found this text's key passage in Schopenhauer's assessment of "Our Relation to Others":

That is a method of reasoning--an enthymeme--which rouses the bitterest feelings of sullen and rancorous hatred (73).

There it was.  As he so often does, Ol' Artie had undone himself in the process of trying to undo others.  When he points the finger at those who, in his perception, are jealous of his self-professed superiority, he is inadvertently incriminating his own jealousy of the ease with which they seem to be living.  The mirror version of his enthymeme is a microcosm of the entire book: all men are lesser than me, and therefore to be avoided.

This gives rise to such demonstrably untrue propositions as "There are few ways by which you can make more certain of putting people into a good humour than by telling them of some trouble that has recently befallen you" (72), or ". . . with most people there will be no harm in occassionally mixing a grain of disdain with your treatment of them" (62).  The syllogism on which Schopenhauer's enthymeme seems to be based is flawed in its premise, to wit: that all human interactions are of the same nature as that of interactions with the specific human, Schopenhauer.

Having thus handily unraveled his approach, I prepared to file this book under the same heading as that under which I filed his "Wisdom of Life": the brilliant tirade of a sad old man.  Humans are indeed deeply flawed, but it is not true to say that they must be avoided at all cost.  The dreary slime of the human soup is only half of the story, and you must eat the soup to get the dessert.  I, in fact, thought myself very clever.

And then yesterday I went downtown for a pleasant outing, only to be approached by an old lady from a booth labelled "동성 변태 시민반대" (citizens resist homo perverts).  It is not only that this refuse exists that infuriated me.  I have experienced it plenty, and know that it will never go away.  The word "pervert" in particular, though, triggered something unpleasant in me, and I boiled over with a rage that would surely have escalated from the most deliciously calibrated and destructive words, to an adrenaline-fueled velociraptor frenzy through the booth--were it not for my more level-headed companion.

Schopenhauer was right.  His enthymeme is spot-on.  We are all trash.  The old woman with the pamphlets is obvious trash, but I am also trash, a hair's breadth away from reptilian violence.  Avoid us at all costs.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

도란도란 (시인 동아리 시집)

핵심을 깊이 파보면
그 가치가 보인다.
아마추어라도
핵심에 아마*
사랑한다는 뜻으로
좋은 게 있겠다.

아무리 뻔해도
아무리 서툴러도
이와 같은 어설픈 시라도

사람은 저마다 할 말이 있고
귀를 기우리면
도란도란 이야기를 거내줄 것이다.

*아마추어에 있는 "아마" 원래 "사랑한다"는 뜻임