Philosophy Now Forum

Free Will

“If I know better than you know what I am up to, it is only because I spend more time with myself than you do.” Daniel C. Dennett

That's kinda my point.

“It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the 'free will' owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche, the renowned neuroscientist.

“We are the sum total of the decisions we have made.” E.A. Bucchianeri

Though, for millions, they are the sum total of the decisions that others made for them.

“Not only are there meaningless questions, but many of the problems with which the human intellect has tortured itself turn out to be only 'pseudo problems,' because they can be formulated only in terms of questions which are meaningless. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy, of religion, or of ethics, are of this character. Consider, for example, the problem of the freedom of the will. You maintain that you are free to take either the right- or the left-hand fork in the road. I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the turn that you might have made the other. The problem has no meaning in the sphere of objective activity; it only relates to my personal subjective feelings while making the decision.” Percy Williams Bridgman

Click?

“The problem of vindicating an omnipotent and omniscient God in the face of evil is insurmountable. Those who claim to have surmounted it, by recourse to notions of free will and other incoherencies, have merely heaped bad philosophy onto bad ethics.” Sam Harris

Or perhaps the problem of vindicating anything in a world where we are only able to vindicate what our brains compel us to?

“Many scientists have tried to make determinism and complementarity the basis of conclusions that seem to me weak and dangerous; for instance, they have used Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to bolster up human free will, though his principle, which applies exclusively to the behavior of electrons and is the direct result of microphysical measurement techniques, has nothing to do with human freedom of choice. It is far safer and wiser that the physicist remain on the solid ground of theoretical physics itself and eschew the shifting sands of philosophic extrapolations.” Louis de Broglie

Any electrons here, perchance?

A Girl Cut In Two [La fille Coupée en Deux]

Paul: I’m used to getting what I want, Honey, so don’t fight it.
Gabrielle: Not used to getting turned down are you, buster?

Only his handler intervening stops him from, well, strangling her.

Geneviève [Paul’s mother]: When did you see Monsignor Godeau?
Gabrielle: Monsignor who?
Geneviève: Paul, explain.
Paul: Monsignor Godeau. He’s officiating at our wedding. We have to see him about preparations.
Gabrielle: What preparations?
Geneviève: My God, you’d think she’s never set foot in a church.
Paul: Mother!
Gabrielle: I’m off. Paul, darling, please remind your mother my name is Gabrielle.

It’s one of those gentry things. You marry into the entire famiy. And always on their terms.

Geneviève [after Gabrielle leaves]: Paul, you are making a terrible mistake.
Paul: Certainly not the last one.

That's for sure.

Charles: You really going to marry that guy? Do you realize he’s completely unstable?
Gabrielle: And you are the picture of stability? You’re a bastard Charles, a real bastard.
Charles: Let’s forget everything and start again.
Gabrielle: Yeah, right. The same old stuff. Steamy afternoons in your flat. Or whenever it suits you. And those twisted games among friends. How’d you put it? To see if I was really liberated. That’s how you want to start over? Is that how you love me? Well, I’m all grown up now thanks to you. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Who said that?

Uh, Paul?

Gabrielle: I think I’ll tell the truth about Charles.
Capucine: It’ll only be your own truth.
Gabrielle: It’s the only one I know.

The rest is, among other things, history.

Geneviève: You’ve come for the money?
Gabrielle: I was at the prison. Paul won’t see me.
Geneviève: Surprised?
Gabrielle: I testified. His sentence was reduced. It’s a strange show of thanks.
Geneviève: You only told the truth. It’s time to grow up, child. You’ll get a letter from Paul tomorrow asking for a divorce. Believe me, you’re not about to get a cent out of us. You’re dismissed.

And then the final scene: A girl cut in two.

Logic

“...but that was the thing about reality. It didn't need to make sense.” Mira Grant

Only that what you believe makes sense does.

“For nothing is more democratic than logic; it is no respecter of persons and makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses.” Friedrich Nietzsche

How logical is that?

“Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

You first.

“To win an argument, rely on logic. To win in life, question logic. If you’re not willing to take some actions that don’t make sense, having a mediocre life will make perfect sense.” Vizi Andrei

You first.

“The person who wishes to attain human perfection should study logic first, next mathematics, then physics, and, lastly, metaphysics.” Maimonides

The fool!

“'The sensible man,' Crow had said to Sherlock Holmes, 'doesn't look to confirm what he already knows -- he looks to deny it. Finding evidence that backs up your theories ain't useful, but finding evidence that your theories are wrong is priceless. Never try to prove yourself right -- always try to prove yourself wrong instead.” Andrew Lane

You know, if you were, are, or ever will be wrong yourself.

Don’t think too much while watching it. It has to look like what we are meant to think it is more than to actually be that thing. A sort of extended fantasy in which the id and the libido fill in the parts that logic tries [in vain] to make more coherent.

If you don’t see pieces of youself in the movie then watch it again. And then watch again and again until you do spot them. Or, if nothing else, the film may well create them.

There’s no getting around the repitlian brain. Aside from repression. And we know where that leads: straight back to this.

Then this part:

"The film was the target of some backlash from the gay and transgender communities, who felt that its portrayal of transgender people was misguided and transphobic. In addition, De Palma was accused of being misogynistic by feminist groups." wiki

https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/online ... oKill.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_f ... characters


Dressed To Kill

Kate Miller: Maybe there's something wrong with me.
Dr. Robert Elliott: There's nothing wrong with you.
Kate Miller: Do you find me attractive?
Dr. Robert Elliott: Of course.
Kate Miller: Would you want to sleep with me?
Dr. Robert Elliott: Yes.
Kate Miller: Then why don't you?
Dr. Robert Elliott: Because I love my wife, and sleeping with you isn't worth jeopardizing my marriage. Is it worth it to you?
Kate Miller: I don't know.

Little does she know...

Liz Blake: Do you want to fuck me?
Dr. Robert Elliott: Oh, yes.
Liz Blake: Well, why don't you?
Dr. Robert Elliott: Because I'm a doctor and...
Liz Blake: Fucked a lot of doctors.
Dr. Robert Elliott: ...and I'm married.
Liz Blake: Fucked a lot of them, too.

Little does she know...

Bobbi: [on Elliott's answering machine] This is Bobbi. You won't see me anymore, so I thought I'd have a little session with your machine. Oh Doctor, I'm so unhappy. I'm a woman trapped inside a man's body - and you're not helping me to get out! So I got a new shrink, Levy's his name, he's gonna sign the papers so I can get my operation. Oh... I borrowed your razor... and - well, you'll read all about it. Some blonde bitch saw me, but I'll get her.

Little does "he" know?

Peter Miller: Look, Liz, I've got to get home and get to work.
Liz Blake: Gee, I'm gonna miss having you on my tail. You made me feel kind of safe.
Peter Miller: Want to come home with me? I'd love the company.
Liz Blake: Wouldn't Mike mind?
Peter Miller: Mike's out of town on a business trip. We've got plenty of room.
Liz Blake: Great. I could sure use the vacation.

And she's married to the director.

Detective Marino: Could she have met one of these nuts at your office? I mean, some kind of weirdo she could've turned on that might have followed her?
Dr. Robert Elliott: The term we use, Detective Marino, is not "weirdo," but a person suffering from emotional dysfunction and a problem of maladaptation. And they never come to my office.
Detective Marino: Are you sure? How about a new patient? I mean, how do you know how nuts they are until you see them?

Speaking of emotional dysfunction and a problem of maladaptation...

Detective Marino: Look. We got some hot-pants broad cruising around for some action. The guy she picked up went down on her in a cab, for Christ's sake. I got a blow-by-blow description from the cabby.

The guy from the museum in other words. The one with the STD if you recall.

Dressed To Kill

Bobbi: I'm glad I took care of that cock-teaser.

If you get his drift.

Liz Blake: How do you like my painting?
Peter Miller: It's - very nice.
Liz Blake: I bought it a couple of years ago for $500. It's really a great investment. I mean, ten years from now, it could be worth - a million dollars. More if the artist dies, of course.

Then she can quit, well, you know.

Dr. Robert Elliott: Why don't you just talk about it? I'm sure it's not as bad as you think.
Liz Blake: It's very bad. And you're talking to an expert on bad.
Dr. Robert Elliott: Oh, really? Now what makes you such an expert?
Liz Blake: Because I'm a hooker. And I have done most of the bad things you just read about.
Dr. Robert Elliott: Do you like doing these things?
Liz Blake: Sometimes.
Dr. Robert Elliott: What do you like about it?
Liz Blake: I like to turn men on. I must do a pretty good job because they pay me a lot.

On the other hand...

Liz Blake: Would you like to touch me?
Dr. Robert Elliott: Yes and no. Yes, because I'm...
Liz Blake: Well, why don't you?
Dr. Robert Elliott: I told you why.
Liz Blake: Oh, that's right. You're a married doctor. I remember now. I think you're full of shit.
Dr. Robert Elliott: You do? Just because I happen to have personal and professional ethics?

Does he/she actually believe that? In other words, is he/she more a sociopath or a psychopath?

Liz Blake: Look, Doc, I think you're kind of shy. So, I'm going to go powder my nose and when I come back, I hope to find your clothes right next to mine. And if not, we can just get back to the mind-fuck.

The pursuit of some here no doubt.

Liz Blake: There's some men and women who think they're born in the wrong body. They're called transsexuals. And all they want to do is have their sex changed.
Peter Miller: How do you do that?
Liz Blake: Well, if you're a man that wants to become a woman, you take female hormones.
Peter Miller: What do they do?
Liz Blake: Well, your skin softens, you grow breasts, and you don't get hard anymore.
Peter Miller: Great.
Liz Blake: You sure you want to know about this?
Peter Miller: Yeah. It's giving me some wonderful new ideas for a science project. Instead of building a computer, I could build a woman - out of me.

Maybe in the sequel.

Something terrible happens. And then everything changes. Iñárritu just takes us inside this particular web and shows us how the individual threads became intertwined. In other words, the things they have no knowledge of and the things they have no control over. The rest are the narratives they come up with to explain it.

The rich and the poor alike. If you don’t count options. But even wealth is meaningless in some contexts. And certainly love is.
But, come on, love is obviously more than a bitch.

Look for Ritchie in the hole. Certainly one of the strangest plot twists you are ever likely to see.

And El Chivo and his beloved dogs. A truly heartbreaking irony.

Amores Perros?

"Amores Perros is the first movie in Iñárritu’s trilogy of death, and was followed by 21 Grams and Babel. It is a triptych; an anthology film, sometimes referred to as the “Mexican Pulp Fiction”, containing three distinct stories which are connected by a car accident in Mexico City. Each of the three tales is also a reflection on the cruelty of humans toward animals and each other, showing how they may live dark or even hideous lives." wiki

This is basically the Benjamin Button Syndrome, but with so much more at stake.

Amores Perros

Jarocho: You have two choices. Pay me, or pay me.

It's always important to have options, right?

Octavio [to Ramiro]: Being tough don’t make you smart.

After all, just note the "tough guys" here.

Susana: Don’t wake him.
Ramiro: Why not?
Susana: It was hard to get him to sleep.
Ramiro: I never see him, do I, Baldy?
Susana: He’s been puking all day. He’s sick. Selfish bastard!
Ramiro: Shut the fuck up. I gave you the Walkman!

Family ties let's call them.

Octavio [to Susana]: Don’t worry about Ramiro. He won’t fuck with us anymore, I’m sure.

Pick one:
1] the law of unintended consequences
2] murphy's law

Mother: Do you know what happened to your brother? He didn’t come home last night.
Octavio: No idea.
Mother: You don’t know? He got beat up bad.
Octavio: He must have pissed off a customer.
Mother: They threatened to kill him.
Octavio: God knows what he’s up to.
Mother: He left with the baby and Susana.
Octavio: Where to?
Mother: I don’t know where. Or if they’ll be back.

He heads straight for the “bank”.

Valeria: Ritchie went into the hole.
Daniel: He’ll come out.
Valeria: It was 5 hours ago. I hear noises but he won’t come out.

After the accident, of course.

Epistemology

“It is a common illusion to believe that what we know today is all we ever can know. Nothing is more vulnerable than scientific theory, which is an ephemeral attempt to explain facts and not an everlasting truth in itself.” Carl Jung

Psychology. Isn't that one of the soft sciences?

“The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is—insofar as it is thinkable at all—primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system." Albert Einstein

Next up: the empty schemes here.

“But doesn't it come out here that knowledge is related to a decision?” Ludwig Wittgenstein

If only up in the epistemological clouds.

“Information came into the universe when the first hominids began to justify their actions to one another by making assertions and backing those assertions up with further assertions.” Richard Rorty

Want me to name names? Here, I mean.

“The great achievement of Kant is to have shown, once for all, that the external world is known to us only as sensation; and that the mind is no mere helpless tabula rasa, the inactive victim of sensation, but a positive agent, selecting and reconstructing experience as experience arrives.” Will Durant

Deontologically to boot.

“Nothing puts a greater obstacle in the way of the progress of knowledge than thinking that one knows what one does not yet know.” Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Hopefully that will never happen here.

Amores Perros

Valeria: The rats ate Richie.
Daniel: Rats don’t eat dogs. They would get bitten.
Valeria: But there are thousands of them.
Daniel: We could put out some rat poison.
Valeria: But Ritchie would eat it.
Daniel: We could send a cat down there.
Valeria: A cat would fight with Ritchie.
Daniel [exploding]: SO WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO?!!

Then…

Daniel: Everything will be fine.
Valeria: You’re not in my position. Look at my leg, it’ll be covered with scars.
Danieal: Plastic surgery has come a long way. You’ll hardly see any scars…
Valeria [exploding as Daniel caresses her leg]: DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!!

Pick three:
1] contingency
2] chance
3] change

Daniel: Do you want some take-out…or to rent a movie?
Valeria: I’m not in the mood. I feel lousy.
Daniel: You’re going to be fine.
Valeria: Goddamn it! Is that all you can say?

Each and every day she becomes less and less beautiful…

Valeria: Daniel…It’s Richie! He’s whining, listen. Listen, it’s him! Get him out.
Daniel: How?
Valeria: Tear up the floor or something!
Daniel: I can’t tear it up. I don’t have the money to fix it…
Valeria: Money doesn’t matter!
Daniel: It does right now.
Valeria: Get him out!
Daniel: He can get himself out!
Valeria: You faggot! You’ve always been selfish!
Daniel: I gave up everything for you!
Valeria: Yeah, your bitchy wife and your stupid daughters!
Daniel: Shut up or I’ll hit you!
Valeria: You piece of shit!
Daniel: Go fuck yourself! You and that stupid dog!
Valeria: You fucking asshole, drop dead! Drop dead, fucker! Fucker! Fucker!

Next up: before the accident...

Man: Who is this friend? Is he a cop too?
Cop: No, he was locked up for 20 years.
Gustavo: What for?
Leonardo: He was a guerrilla.
Gustavo: Like the Zapatistas?
Leonardo: That’s right, only he was a real son of a bitch. He planted a bomb in a mall, kidnapped a banker, killed cops. He had an army after him, the White Brigade. You know who got him?
Man: Who?
Leonardo: Me!

Fast forward to the present.

Susana [to Octavio]: You and your plans. You know what my grandmother used to say? If you want to make God laugh…tell Him your plans.

Not your plans though, right?

El Chivo [to Maru in phone message]: When I saw you last you were only two. Since then, not a day passes that I don’t think of you. The afternoon I went away I held you very tight. I took you in my arms. I begged forgiveness for what I was going to do. At the time, I thought there were more important things than being with you and your mom. I wanted to set the world right, and then share it with you. I failed, as you can see. I wound up in jail. Your mother and I agreed she would tell you I’d died. That was my idea, not hers. I swore to her I’d never try to see you again but I couldn’t do it. I was dying, I was as dead as I could be. I’ll be back to find you once I have the courage to look you in the eyes. I love you, my little girl.

Otherwise he's a stone-cold killer.

Luis: Who paid you to kill me?
El Chivo: Can't you guess?
Luis: ...no.
El Chivo: What if I told you that it was that lady you fuck every day on that motel?
Luis: Martha?... No, she can't be.
El Chivo: Yeah, you're right, it wasn't her... it was your wife, bro.
Luis: My wife? Does she know about Martha?
El Chivo: I dunno, does she?...
[laughs]
El Chivo: No man! She wasn't either.
Luis: Martha's husband...
El Chivo: Oooh, she's married? Goddamn brother! As you can see there's a lot of people that want you dead!

Tell that to his dogs.
Irony in a brutal nutshell, let's call it.

Muriel Barbery from The Elegance of the Hedgehog

How to measure a life's worth? The important thing, said Paloma one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death.

Right, that sure helps to put oblivion in perspective.

No one seems to have thought of the fact that life is absurd, being a brilliant success has no greater value than being a failure. It's just more comfortable. And even then: I think lucidity gives your success a bitter taste, whereas mediocrity still leaves hope for something.

Maybe?

I'm afraid to go into myself and see what's going on in there.

Yo, Mr. Objectivist!

To tell a group of adolescents who already know how to speak and write that that is the purpose of grammar is like telling someone that they need to read a history of toilets through the ages in order to pee and poop.

New thread?

This morning I understand what it means to die: when we disappear, it is the others who die for us, for here I am, lying on a cold pavement and it is not the dying I care about; it has no more meaning this morning that it did yesterday. But never again will I see those I love, and if that is what dying is about then it really is the tragedy they say it is.

New thread?

We mustn't forget that our bodies decline, friends die, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude.

Forget about it?

Things just don’t add up in their life so the first thing some folks think of to straighten things out is money. That’ll do it. And it does just enough times to keep them going in the same direction. But then they want [or need] more – a lot more – of it. And sometimes in order to get it the wrong people will show up on the path. This is just a reminder of how sometimes they’re not the right wrong people.

Mom replacing Doris: contingency, chance and change. And point of view given that Doris’s death would be no less a tragedy for others.

And what are brothers for if not to take down with you.

Oh, and If you want the best for your kid you should try to figure out first if you can afford it.

And all Hank needed this time was $130. It wasn’t like he was addicted to heroin. That’s Andy.


Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Andy: Everything is wonderful. Everything is wonderful.
Gina: Mmm-hmm.

Blame it on Rio?

Hank: You’re a p****.
Andy: I always was.

He's in.

Andy: Well, you need money. So do I. Let’s solve it.

All in the family as it were.

Andy: Do you need money?
Hank: Of course, I need money. But this is…This is serious crime, Andy. I’m not a serious crime kind of a guy.

He knows someone though who is.

Gina [to Hank, her husband Andy’s brother]: We have a really good time in bed. I don’t ask for anything.
Hank: I love you. I want more.
Gina: So does Oliver Twist. Now, can I help you to seconds? Or do you really, really, really have to get back to work?

Just for the record:
"In the DVD’s Director’s commentary, Sidney Lumet says the nude scene between Gina and Hank was shot, Ethan Hawke wanted to make Marisa Tomei, feel more comfortable, and insisted on being nude as well. He further insisted that every male crew member strip naked while filming the scene to accommodate Tomei." IMDb

Okay, but was the nudity necessary at all?

Andy: We don’t want Tiffany’s. We want a Mom and Pop operation, in a busy place, on a Saturday when the week’s takes go in the safe. We both worked there. We know the safe combinations. We know the burglar alarm signals. We know where everything is. I figure, between the week’s take, the jewelry and the cases, the vault, there’s a $500,000 haul. I figure probably six. The old dumb old lady that works there, she’s alone till noon. She’s not going to be a problem.
Hank: Andy…
Andy: Yeah?
Hank: That’s mom and dad’s store.
Andy: That’s what I said. A Mom and Pop operation.

He's still in. Sort of.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Andy [handing him a wad of cash]: That’s $2,000. It’s an advance. See what just that much does for you. And, imagine the rest.

Now that works!

Hank [after Bobby switches from folk music on the radio to heavy metal]: What the fuck is this?
Bobby: You can listen to that faggoty shit all the way home. Right now, I got to get into character.

Next up: so does Mom.

Andy: The thing about real estate accounting is that you can, you can, add down the page or across the page and everything works out. Everyday, everything adds up. The, the total is always the sum of its parts. It’s, uh, clean. It’s clear. Neat, absolute. But my life, it, uh, it doesn’t add up. It, uh… Nothing connects to anything else. It’s, uh… I’m not, I’m not the sum of my parts. All my parts don’t add up to one… to one me, I guess.
Justin: Get a shrink or a wife.
Andy: Uh, I got a wife.
Justin: Get a shrink.

Next up: Andy in real life.

Hank: You know, I thought I was going to be able to work it out, but… But I couldn’t get the money together, you know.
Daughter: All my friends think I’m going to be there, what am I going to tell them?
Hank: You know, I mean, there’s going to be other field trips.
Daughter: Not to The Lion King, there won’t. Look, Dad, if you weren’t going to pay for it, you should have just said so and saved me the humiliation of having to tell all my friends that you’re a loser.

Now he is definitely in.

Andy [on phone]: I know you’re there. Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone! PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE, YOU FUCKING FAGGOT!

His own brother!

Dex: I’m going to be straight with you, Chico. Bobby was a piece of shit. I know it, you know it. That’s not the point. The point is that piece of shit was the father of my sister’s child. And he was paying the bills. And now he’s dead. And I’m thinking, who’s going to pay all these bills?
Hank: I’m so sorry.
Dex: Sorry ain’t going to pay the bills, Chico.

Dex from Boardwalk Empire, Chico.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Dex: Ten grand, done. It’s 10 grand. I consider us even.
Hank: No…
Dex: My sister wants me to kill you. Or I could call the cops. But I don’t like cops. And the cops ain’t going to pay my sister’s bills.

Yo, Andy!

Hank [on phone]: Hello?
Andy: It’s me.
Hank: Andy, Jesus! Fuck, man, we got problems.

I can't remember: was this before or after he finds out that Doris was Mom?

Andy: My mom’s dying.
Justin: Bummer. Next time, make an appointment.

Yo, Justin! You're next!!

Gina: You never tell me anything that’s going on anymore.
Andy: I don’t understand.
Gina: Neither do I. What was that in the car yesterday? I could help.
Andy: I don’t need any help.
Gina [exasperated]: Do you realize that I’ve been having an affair?
Andy: What’s that supposed to mean?
Gina: Means I’ve been fucking another guy. Every Thursday, me and your brother, Hank. We get together and we fuck. Not only that, he loves me. And he still finds me attractive. All the time. Not just on vacation. Not just in Rio.

Just what he needs?

William: You always hated my guts, you called me a crook, but you didn’t know shit about how the world works, or what some people will do for money.
[hands him Andy’s business card]
I guess, now you know, Charlie. The world is an evil place, Charlie. Some of us make money off of that, and others get destroyed. He walked in here, he looks a little bit like you, Charlie. He walked in here and I almost knew him, right off the bat.

The plot really thickens.

Andy: We’re in trouble. The worst trouble imaginable. You’re aware of that, right? So, why don’t we try and fix it? There’s almost no choice, but you’re gonna have to follow my lead. No questions, no hesitations.
Hank: I’ve done that before, all right, and that’s how come I’m standing here, with my life going down the fucking toilet.
Andy: Fuck you, fuck you, I’ll do it alone. You can sit here and wait till you go to jail and take it up the ass for the rest of your fucking life.

He's still in.

Hank: No, no more, you kill her, you’re gonna have to kill me.
Andy [turning the gun on him]: Not such a bad idea. You know, in fact, it’s a pretty good one.

And he means it.

Andy: You know I know.
Hank: What do you know?
Andy: I know.
Hank [realizing what he knows]: I’m sorry. I fucked it all up. Just do it. Do it. Go ahead. Come on. You’d be doing me a favor.

But then as "luck" would have it...

Slavoj Žižek

The catch is that, even if life does eventually return to some semblance of normality, it will not be the same normal as the one we experienced before the outbreak. Things we were used to as part of our daily life will no longer be taken for granted, we will have to learn to live a much more fragile life with constant threats. We will have to change our entire stance to life, to our existence as living beings among other forms of life. In other words, if we understand “philosophy” as the name for our basic orientation in life, we will have to experience a true philosophical revolution.

He still doesn't grasp it was a liberal hoax to enslave the world.

At this point we reach the supreme irony of how ideology functions today: it appears precisely as its own opposite, as a radical critique of ideological utopias. The predominant ideology today is not a positive vision of some utopian future but a cynical resignation, an acceptance of how 'the world really is’, accompanied by a warning that, if we want to change it (too much), only totalitarian horror can ensue.

Ideology, meet lifestyles.

What characterizes a really great thinker is that they misrecognize the basic dimension of their own breakthrough.

You first.

WHEN THE TURKISH COMMUNIST WRITER Panait Istrati visited the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s, the time of the big purges and show trials, a Soviet apologist trying to convince him about the need for violence against the enemies evoked the proverb “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs,” to which Istrati tersely replied: “All right. I can see the broken eggs. Where’s this omelet of yours?”

Same with dasein, right? It's all just fractured and fragmented eggs.

According to the standard view, the past is fixed, what happened happened, it cannot be undone, and the future is open, it depends on unpredictable contingencies. What we should propose here is a reversal of this standard view: the past is open to retroactive reinterpretations, while the future is closed, since we live in a determinist universe...This does not mean that we cannot change the future; it just means that, in order to change our future, we should first (not 'understand' but) change our past, reinterpret it in a way that opens up toward a different future from the one implied by the predominant vision of the past.

Uh, get back to us on this, okay?

Although Immanuel Kant's views are racist, he nonetheless contributed to the process which led to contemporary emancipatory struggles - to put it bluntly, there is no Marxism and no socialism without Kant.

Pick one:
1] He goes too far
2] He doesn't go far enough

Out of the blue the father shows up after a 12 year absence. But it doesn’t take nearly that long to sense something very, very ominous is about to unfold. Still, some sons are more desperate for a father than others.

The way he walks around with the hatchet. And Ivan with the knife.

And the difference between having balls and being stupid.

This is a film about what we don’t know. We imagine all sorts of scenarios. The behavior of the father is strange. Why did he leave. Why did he return. The phone calls. The island. The box he digs up. The increasing tension with the sons.

What a great fucking film.

Then this part:

"That this is meant to be a fishing trip is a deception we quickly become wise to. Yes, the boys do get the chance to catch some fish, but the father clearly has motivations beyond that for the journey. Answers are few, however. We see him conduct some kind of transaction at the docks. An odd-looking package is loaded into their car. A body? Later they take a boat to an island (the father makes the boys row when the engine gives out). He digs up a buried chest, but we don’t know what’s in it. Neither do Ivan or Andrei. The boys react differently to their father during the trip. Young Ivan hates him, finding him unloving and unlovable. Andrei falls in line more easily, eager for dad’s acceptance." A Swede Talks Movies


The Return

Ivan: Mom, where’d he come from?
Mom: He just came.

And now what?

Father: Ivan.
Ivan: What?
Father: What, papa.
Ivan: What?
Father: What, papa. Why don’t you say that?
Ivan: What, papa?
Father: Ashamed of calling your father, papa?
Ivan: No.
Father: Don’t lie to me. Call me papa, like a son should, got it?
Ivan: Yes, papa.

Now, let's hit the road.

Ivan: I’ll wait in the car.
[He gets up to leave the restaurant but his father grabs his arm]
Father: You’ll sit down and eat your bread and soup, got it?
Ivan: Yes.
Father: Yes, papa.
Ivan [gruffly]: Yes.

Where's this all heading?

Father: Take your stuff. Here’s enough money for two tickets home.
Andrei: Why, papa?
Father: I’ve got important business.
Andrei: But you promised.
Father: Next time.
Ivan: You mean in another 12 years?

Could be for forever.

Ivan: What did he say about fish? Where could that have happened?
Andrei: I don’t know. In the north, maybe.
Ivan: Did you see how quiet he went when you asked where? He’s just lying.

How can we tell though? And, more to the point, what is the truth?

Ivan: You believe his every word, but who is he? He could be a gangster. He could slit our throats out here in the forest.

And bury them in that chest?

Andrei: Papa, what is this? Where are we? What are we doing here?
Father: Nothing…here. We’re gonna cross over to an island.

The island, he means.

Andrei: How ya doing, Squirt?
Ivan: If he touches me again, I kill him.

Nope, he didn't need to.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

How small a thought it takes to fill a life.

And post after post after post after post here.

When we can't think for ourselves, we can always quote.

Him, for example.

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.

Like we can actually know this.

I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.

The part you still don't get.

At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.

Including this one?

Language disguises thought.

And most don't even know it.