Terri Murray watches a liberal death squad in operation. (Warning: Contains spoilers!)
https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/The_Last_Supper
The Last Supper
Re: The Last Supper
Dear Editor: in the title of Terri Murray’s The Last Supper, you add a spoiler alert. But it seems to me that some critical spoilers were completely neglected that might have compromised Murray’s thesis. For one, it neglected that Ron Pearlman’s character, Norman Arbuthnot, at the end of the movie ended up turning the table and poisoning the five liberal characters, that is while they were debating not poisoning him. In other words, rather than just leave, he chose to outwit them, the kind of manipulation that rightwing ideologues are prone to since they cannot usually cannot prop up their beliefs on any reasonable notion of rationality. And the point was taken to a further level when, in the closing scene, as the camera was fixed on the five graves, the soundtrack was of Arbuthnot announcing his candidacy for president of the United States. And this goes back to the question the liberals asked at the beginning: if they were to meet Hitler before he ever engaged in the evil he did, would they kill him. And given Arbuthnot’s decision to become president and shove his views down the throat of all Americans, it becomes evident that the liberals had their chance to stop another Hitler, but failed to do so because of the liberal propensity towards hesitation.
I’m sorry. But something about Murray’s article totally irked me. Perhaps it seemed a little too smug. Or maybe it reminded me of the same cheap tactics that the Right too often utilize. For instance, Murray makes a point of how reasonable Arbuthnot comes off as compared to the liberals. But, first of all, these particular liberals are a straw man since they are fictional characters in a movie that offers a novel situation. Secondly, the movie does portray Arbuthnot as manipulative in that he clearly recognized he was in hostile territory. So the arguments he made were not so much an expression of how he actually felt (he likely expressed all kinds of hostile accusations towards liberals in his broadcasts), but rather his attempt to turn liberal values back on the liberals their selves. Neo-Nazi’s, in a bind, would use a similar tactic. And, ultimately, it always amounts to intellectual bullying. And while the right and Neo-Nazis are clearly wrong, it is never just a matter of them being dumb. It is, rather, a matter of how they use their intellect.
I’m sorry. But something about Murray’s article totally irked me. Perhaps it seemed a little too smug. Or maybe it reminded me of the same cheap tactics that the Right too often utilize. For instance, Murray makes a point of how reasonable Arbuthnot comes off as compared to the liberals. But, first of all, these particular liberals are a straw man since they are fictional characters in a movie that offers a novel situation. Secondly, the movie does portray Arbuthnot as manipulative in that he clearly recognized he was in hostile territory. So the arguments he made were not so much an expression of how he actually felt (he likely expressed all kinds of hostile accusations towards liberals in his broadcasts), but rather his attempt to turn liberal values back on the liberals their selves. Neo-Nazi’s, in a bind, would use a similar tactic. And, ultimately, it always amounts to intellectual bullying. And while the right and Neo-Nazis are clearly wrong, it is never just a matter of them being dumb. It is, rather, a matter of how they use their intellect.