Philosophy Now Forum

This is a world we don’t get to see everyday: An illegal mining operation in Northern China.

Morality here doesn’t get much murkier. In other words, not the sort of Communism envisioned by Marx and Mao. But clearly the sort of capitalism many reactionaries would like to see exported over here. Profits way before people.

But even here the grifters can ply their trade. And this con is deadly.

One way or another, the fix is in. It’s only a matter of just how illegal it is.


Blind Shaft [Mang Jing

Manager: Boss, why bother? Why not just kill the two of them?
Boss: You crazy? We can’t take any chances now.
Manager: Just get in touch with your police chief pals.
Boss: No way. These cronies gotta take a hefty cut. A hundred grand ain’t enough for them.

The new "Communism".

Boss: It’s almost the New Year. A corpse lyin’ around isn’t auspicious.

Depending on who finds it.

Prostitute: Mister, pick a song.
Song: He doesn’t know how to sing. He only knows how to fuck you.
Yang: Go to hell! I was in the front row when our commune sang. We sang “Long Live Socialism.” Put the song on.
Prostitute: Mister, that song became old-fashioned ages ago.
Song: Let him sing it.
Yang: “Long live socialism, long live socialism/Socialist countries high atop/Reactionaries overthrown/The imperialists run away their tails behind…”
Prostitute: Hey, you hick, those words changed long ago.
Yang: How’d they change?
Prostitute: “The reactionaries were never overthrown/The capitalists came back with their US dollars/Liberating all of China”

Next up: Tik-Tok

Song: You’ve fucking found a kid!
Yang: I don’t care if he is a child, just as long as we make money. You feel bad for him, but who feels bad for you?

Let's run this by Xi Jinping.

Boss: Have you been down a mineshaft?
Yang: Yep.
Boss: Why’d you stop working?
Yang: The roof caved in and crushed workers.
Boss: What’s a few deaths? One shits after eating. One might die down the shaft. If you’re afraid, then don’t work here.

Logical enough for you?

Boss: Take it or leave it. China has a shortage of everything but people.

Of course: supply and demand.

Song [to Yuan]: You still want to work? Don’t work here if you are afraid of death.

Unless, of course, you have bills to pay.

Yang: Okay, today we’ll get him laid and tomorrow we kill him.

Nope. Oh, sweet, sweet irony.

Money doesn’t talk here, it screams bloody murder. Everything else is incidental. And it still is today. But it was a whole different world back then. Everyone was “juiced in”…or “made”. You were where you were because one or another set of “bosses” dictated it. And the bosses played footsies with the pols.

But it’s a world I never really learned to comprehend at all because I never [ever] had even the slightest inclination to gamble.

It’s an ersatz spectacle that plastic people thrive on. And that’s okay by me. As long as I can steer clear of them.

But then people being people even the pros here eventually succumb to the ravages of contingency and chance and change. And while fear works wonders in keeping the sheep in line there were just too many anomalies ready, willing and able to stir things up.

Now it’s just business as usual. At least that's what they tell us.


Casino

Ace [voice-over]: Before I ever ran a casino or got myself blown up, Ace Rothstein was a helluva handicapper, I can tell you that. I was so good that when I bet, I can change the odds for every bookmaker in the country. I’m serious. I had it down so cold that I was given paradise on earth. I was given one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas to run: The Tangiers, by the only kind of guys that can get you that kind of money. Sixty-two million seven hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know all the details…

In fact, only God knows them all.

Nicky [voice-over]: Matter of fact, nobody knew all the details. But it should have been perfect. I mean he had me, Nicky Santoro, his best friend watching his ass. And he had Ginger, the woman he loved on his arm. But in the end, we fucked it all up. It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin’ valuable again.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ace [voice-over]: At that time, Vegas was a place where millions of suckers flew in every year on their own nickel and left behind about a billion dollars. But at night, you couldn’t see the desert that surrounds Las Vegas. But it’s in the desert where lots of the town’s problems are solved.

Next up: the desert here.

Nicky [voice-over]: Got a lot of holes in the desert and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. Except you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you’re talking about a half hour or 45 minutes of diggin’. And who knows who’s gonna be comin’ along in that time? Before you know it, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin’ night.

In fact, if he's not careful, he might wind up in one himself.

Nicky [voice-over]: Now, notice how in the count room nobody ever seems to see anything. Somehow, somebody’s always lookin’ the other way. Now, look at these guys. They look busy, right? They’re countin’ money. Who wants to bother them? I mean, God forbid they should make a mistake and forget to steal.

Hmm, doesn't God forbid stealing?

Ace [voice-over]: No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he’ll keep comin’ back and back until one of you is dead.

Sin City let's call it.

Meaning

“There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul.” Edith Wharton

Me? She's long gone.

“Crap.
It's all crap.
Living is crap.
Life has no meaning.
None. Nowhere to be found.
Crap.
Why doesn't anybody realize this?” K-Ske Hasegawa

Me? I'm doing the best I can here to remind you.

“Obsessions are the only things that matter.” Patricia Highsmith

The right ones anyway.

If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?” Jay Asher

What do you need them to mean?

“To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.” Bill Watterson

For example, if you're a cartoon character.

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.” Richard Dawkins

He wondered why this frame of mind always exasperated him. Though he still doesn't know.

Casino

Mob Boss [to Nicky]: Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that the money we’re robbing is being robbed? Somebody’s robbing from us? We go through all this trouble and somebody’s robbing us? Huh?
John Nash: Like I said, it’s part of the business. It’s considered leakage.
Mob Boss: Leakage my balls. I want the guy who’s robbing us.

He's looking at him.

Nicky [voice-over]: But the bosses never believed in leakage…so listen to what they do. They put Artie Piscano, the underboss of K.C. in charge of making sure nobody skimmed the skim.

We know how that turned out.

Pat Webb: We may have to kick a ****’s ass outta town.

We know how that turned out.

Nicky [to Charlie]: I think in all fairness, I should explain to you exactly what it is that I do. For instance tomorrow morning I’ll get up nice and early, take a walk down over to the bank and walk in and see and, uh, if you don’t have my money for me, I’ll crack your fuckin’ head wide-open in front of everybody in the bank. And just about the time that I’m comin’ out of jail, hopefully, you’ll be coming out of your coma. And guess what? I’ll split your fuckin’ head open again. ‘Cause I’m fuckin’ stupid. I don’t give a fuck about jail. That’s my business. That’s what I do.

As for the bankers...
"Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home." Woody Guthrie

Ace [voice-over]: Meeting in the middle of the desert always made me nervous. It’s a scary place. I knew about the holes in the desert, of course. And everywhere I looked, there could have been a hole. Normally, my prospects of coming back alive from a meeting with Nicky were 99 out of 100. But this time, when I heard him say “a couple of hundred yards down the road”, I gave myself 50-50.

Next up: the middle of the desert here.

Nicky [to Ace]: Get this through your head you Jew motherfucker, you! You only exist out here because of me! That’s the only reason! Without me, you, personally, every fuckin’ wise guy skell around’ll take a piece of your fuckin’ Jew ass! Then where you gonna go? You’re fuckin’ warned! Don’t ever go over my fuckin’ head again! You motherfucker, you.

Cue the vice?

Ace [narrating]: By this time, Nicky had things so fucked up on the streets that every time Marino went back home, the packages got smaller and smaller. It got to the point, when he walked into the place he didn’t know whether he was going to be kissed or killed.

Start digging the hole.

Nicky [voice-over]: When it looked like they could get twenty-five years to life in prison just for skimming a casino, sick or no fuckin’ sick you knew people were going to get clipped.

Flip or fry or die in prison?

Ace [voice-over]: The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior’s college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it’s like checkin’ into an airport. And if you order room service, you’re lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it’s all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to `rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds. But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing? And that’s that.

In other words, based on a true story.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is how philosophers should salute each other: ‘Take your time'.

Or, here, flip 'em the bird?

Sometimes, in doing philosophy, one just wants to utter an inarticulate sound.

Meh.

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.

Now, that's where I come in. The philosophical equivalent of a bulldozer.

An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.

What's that make IC and his ilk then?

Philosophers are often like little children, who first scribble random lines on a piece of paper with their pencils, and now ask an adult 'What is that?'

That and the clouds, of course.

One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.

Let's get back to that tomorrow.

Casino

Ace [voice-over]: In Vegas, everybody’s gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I’m watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all.

That's what we need here.

Ace [voice-over]: Ginger had the hustlers code. She knew how to take care of people. And that’s what Vegas is all about. It’s kickback city. She took care of the dealers, pit bosses, floor managers…but, mostly, she took care of the valet parkers…the guys who could get you anything and take care of anything. Ginger took care of the parkers because they took care of the security guards who took care of the metro cops, who let her operate.

Let's run that by Lester.

Ace [voice-over]: Nicky’s methods of betting weren’t scientific, but they worked. When he won, he collected. When he lost, he told the bookies to go fuck themselves. I mean, what were they going to do, muscle Nicky? Nicky was the muscle.

Now he's in a hole in the desert.

Nicky [voice-over]: Ace was so fuckin’ worried about his casino he forgot what we were doin’ out here in the first place. A million times I wanted to yell in his fuckin’ ear…“This is Las Vegas. We’re supposed to be out here robbin”‘…you dumb fuckin’ hebe.

Unless, of course, you go too far.

Nicky [voice-over]: To be truthful with you, I had to admire this guy. Tony Dogs was one of the toughest Irishmen I ever met. This son of a bitch was tough. For two days and two fuckin’ nights, we beat the shit out of this guy. I mean, we even stuck ice-picks in his balls. In the end, I had to put his fuckin’ head in a vise.

Next time, start with the vice.

Nicky: Hey, Dogs, can you hear me?
[Tony Dogs looks over]
Nicky: Listen, Dogs. I’ve got your head in a vise. I’ll squash your fucking head like a grapefruit, if you don’t give me a name.
[now in reasonable voice]
Nicky: Come on, Anthony. We go way back. Don’t make me do this, please. Don’t make me have to be the bad guy here.
Tony Dogs [weakly]: Fuck you.
Nick: [miffed]: Fuck me?
[to cohorts]
Nicky: Do you believe this? Two whole days and nights now.
[turns to vise and starts twisting it almost spinning it like a sailor’s wheel]
Nicky: Fuck me? Huh? Fuck me, motherfucker? Fuck my mother? Is that what you’re telling me?
Tony Dogs [gasps painfully as one of his eyes literally sprouts out of its socket]:
Nicky [upon seeing this]: Oh God, please give me a name.
Tony Dogs [gasping]: Charlie, Charlie M.
Nicky Santoro: Charlie M? YOU MAKE ME POP YOU’RE FUCKING EYE OUT TO PROTECT THAT PIECE OF SHIT?!

Bang, bang, he's dead.

Death apparently is even more taboo in Japan. Not a good profession to be tied to.

I don’t buy into the spiritual or religious overtones here. But if you must have a ceremony for the dead this is certainly one of the least undignified. Everything revolves around a series of solemn rituals handed down over the ages. It makes death less scary [or permanent] if you are able to buy into it.

It is obviously comforting for those who have lost loved ones…so why not just leave it at that. The ceremony can be very moving.
And, when it comes to dealing with death, well, whatever works.

What is particularly surreal [to me] is how you can be talked into paying for a really expensive coffin [just like here] but in the end they are all burned to ashes in the cremation of the bodies.

Look for Hideki Gondô

"Loosely based on Aoki Shinmon’s autobiographical book Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, the film was ten years in the making. Motoki studied the art of ‘encoffinment’ at first hand from a mortician, and how to play a cello for the earlier parts of the film. The director attended funeral ceremonies in order to understand the feelings of bereaved families. While death is the subject of great ceremony, as portrayed in the film, it is also a strongly taboo subject in Japan, so the director was worried about the film’s reception and did not anticipate commercial success." wiki

Death with dignity.


Departures [Okuribito]

Daigo: She’s got one.
Ikuei: Got what?
Daigo: A thing.
Ikuei: What thing?

Yes, that thing.

Daigo [pointing to the cello]: And I still owe on that.
Mika: How much?
[Daigo hesitantly holds up one finger]
Mika: That’s okay. I’m working. We can pay off a million yen.
Daigo [shaking his head vigorously]: 18 million.
Mika [shocked]: 18 million?!

Time to bury the past.

Ikuei: Will you work hard?
Daigo: Yes.
Ikuei: You’re hired.

Try that yourself.

Daigo: What does the job involve?
Ikuei: Well… At first, being my assistant, I guess.
Daigo: Specifically…
Ikuei: Specifically? Casketing.
Daigo: Casketing?
Ikuei: Putting bodies in coffins.
Daigo: You mean dead bodies?
Ikuei: You find that…funny?
Daigo: Uh, no, I mean…The ad said departures, so I thought it meant a travel agency.

Who wouldn't have?

Mika: So, what’s the job? A tour guide? Sales?
Daigo: It’s not a travel agent.
Mika: So, what is it?
Daigo: Ceremonies.
Mika: Like weddings?

Or, sure, funerals.

Daigo: Can someone who has never even seen a dead body before actually do this job?

Let alone excel at it?

Ikuei: To preserve the dignity, take great care that family members do not see the bare skin of the deceased.

Uh, or else?

Daigo [driving to his first body]: What should I do?
Ikuei: Today…just watch.
Daigo: All right.
Ikuei: But it’s one of those. You picked a bad one.
Daigo: What do you mean?
Ikuei: You’ll see…

Two weeks dead.

Daigo [watching Ikuei work]: One grown cold, restored to beauty for all eternity. This was done with a calmness, a precision and above all, a gentle affection. At the final parting, sending the dead on their way. Everything done peacefully, and beautifully.

Sure, if that works, why not?

Ikuei [on training video Mika is viewing]: This is done in such a way that the family does not see. The anus must sometimes be blocked. The cotton wool is rolled, and pressed deep into the anus. This prevents seepage.

Or, perhaps, as dignified as death can be?

Mika: Aren’t you ashamed having a job like that!
Daigo: What’s to be ashamed of? Touching dead people?
Mika: Just get a normal job.
Daigo: Normal? Everyone dies. I’ll die, and so will you. Death is normal.
Mika: Spare me the word games. I want you to quit.
Daigo: And if I don’t?
Mika: I’m going home. Come see me when you quit.
Daigo [reaching out to her]: Mika!
Mika: Don’t touch me! You’re filthy!

Trust me: she'll change her mind.

Mika: My husband is a professional.

Rest in peace.

Fuck 'em? Well, that’s what some will say. But the ones who die are almost never the ones who cash in on it. And this was more a “humanitarian” mission. At least on paper.

The fog of war. You can take that all the way to the bank. And for those who thrive on the military industrial complex it can never be foggy enough. Reconfigure the Commie into a terrorist and the war never, ever ends. And Somalia of all places. But today I suspect we’d hit the warlords with drones. And wouldn’t you like to own a corporation that builds those!

Here, you can read about them: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/drone-lo ... _n_1546263

And coming out as it did in 2001 it fueled all the more the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Billions and billions and billions of dollars in profits were made there, right?

On the other hand, there is the question of genocide. Or mass starvation. But that’s hardly ever the motivation behind any particular deployment. More often than not the rationalization.

But I don’t pretend to grasp fully what the hell really happened back then.

Here are a couple of “dissenting” views on the conflict:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/0 ... htmlnflict:
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/GM012902.html

"One of the favorite films of George W. Bush.
Unlike Ridley Scott’s previous film G.I. Jane, this production received the full co-operation of the US military." IMDb


Black Hawk Down

Title Card BASED ON AN ACTUAL EVENT. SOMALIA - EAST AFRICA. 1992. Years of warfare among rival clans causes famine on a biblical scale. 300,000 civilians die of starvation. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the most powerful of the warlords, rules the capital Mogadishu. He seizes international food shipments at the ports. Hunger is his weapon. The world responds. Behind a force of 20,000 U.S. Marines, food is delivered and order is restored.

Title Card: April 1993. Aidid waits until the Marines withdraw, and then declares war on the remaining U.N. peacekeepers. In June, Aidid’s militia ambush and slaughter 24 Pakistani soldiers, and begin targeting American personnel.

Title Card: In late August, America’s elite soldiers, Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160th SOAR are sent to Mogadishu to remove Aidid and restore order. The mission was to take three weeks, but six weeks later Washington was growing impatient.

The rest, just say, is hiastory.

Durant: Command Super 6-4, we got militia shooting unarmed civilians down at the food distribution centre. Request permission to engage.
Man over Radio: Super 6-4, are you taking fire over?
Durant: Negative command.
Man over Radio: UN’s jurisdiction, 6-4. We cannot intervene, return to base. Over.
Durant: Roger. 6-4 returning.

To "intervene" or not to.

Atto: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because I grew up without running water I am simple General. I do know something about History. See all this, it is simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white boy’s ideas in it.
General Garrison: Well, I wouldn’t know about that, I’m from Texas.
Atto: You shouldn’t have come here. This is a civil war. This is our war, not yours.
General Garrison: 300,000 dead and counting. That’s not a war Mr. Atto. That’s genocide. Now you enjoy that tea, you hear.

Oh, he will.

General Garrison: This isn’t Iraq, you know. Much more complicated than that.

Tell that to the dead.

Galentine: Sgt Eversmann, you really like tha skinnies?
Eversmann: It’s not that I like 'em or I don’t like 'em. I respect them.
Kurth: See what you guys fail to realise is that the Sgt here is a bit of an idealist. He believes in this mission down to his very bones don’t you Sgt?
Eversmann: Look, these people, they have no jobs, no food, no education, no future. I just figure that we have two things we can do. Help, or we can sit back and watch a country destroy itself on CNN. Right?

Any actual idealists among us here?

Garrison: So this is the real deal? Is he sure this time?
Harell: He sounds scared shitless.
Garrison: Good. That’s always a good sign.

Scared shitless? I know how that feels. The grenade in the commo bunker for example.

Hoot: Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window.

Do or die.

Hoot: When I go home people’ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?” You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.

Yo, Danny!

Durant: My government will never negotiate for me.
Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Then perhaps you and I can negotiate, huh? Soldier to Soldier.
Durant: I am not in charge
Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Course not, you have the power to kill, but not negotiate. In Somalia, Killing is Negotiation.

Another failure to communicate?

Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Do you think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down our weapons and adopt American democracy? That the killing will stop? We know this. Without victory, there will be no peace. There will always be killing, see? This is how things are in our world.

Any killings today?

Everyone has a past. But how many start out wondering if they were switched as a baby in the hopsital?

Here is a psychologically “complicated” woman married to a great pianist and the people who become entangled in her dark web. Of course, the others have webs all their own.

But, for me, this is largely about who we become based on circumstances we have no control over. And who we think we are can often reflect only what others have told us about our past. What difference does it really make who – biologically – brought us into this world? Well, it could make a lot of difference if you place the emphasis on genetics. But then who raised us is also of considerable importance.

In this regard, the film reminds me of Toto Le Hero. All the elements of “identity” most of us barely scratch the surface of.

Actually, this film is billed as a psychological thriller. It’s the account of a woman who is obviously “disturbed” but, as in much of Chabrol’s work, the ambiguities are left for you to untangle. And how much can anyone really know about her frame of mind? Or, for that matter, their own? At least Mika recognizes this.


Merci Pour Le Chocolat

Guillaume: You believe you are my father’s daughter?
Jeanne: Of course not!

But he’s not so sure. And soon, nobody seems to be.

Guillaume: Finished your act, have you? What is it you are after?
Jeanne: Nothing.
Guillaume: You’re pathetic when you try to look like my mother. And when you try to play like my father.

He'll come around eventually.

Jeanne: I saw your step-mother spill the chocolate on purpose.
Guillaume: Mika? That proves it, you really are crazy. She made the chocolate herself. She always does. She’d never let anyone else do it.
Jeanne: So?
Guillaume: You’re trying to say she drugged it?
Jeanne: I’m just telling you what I saw.
Guillaume: That’s ridiculous. I mean, why would she do it? So, according to you, she drugged my hot chocolate and then spilled it to make sure I wouldn’t drink it?
Jeanne: Believe what you want. I’ve warned you. My conscience is clear.

We saw it too though.

Mika: What about Jeanne?
André: She could be my daughter. I’d like to have a daughter…

Sealing her fate?

Jeanne: I want to go.
Louise [her mother]: Go, but remember, you’re not Polonsji’s daughter.
Jeanne: That’s all over.
Louise: I’m not so sure.

Still, keep the focus on Mika.

Louise: Your father isn’t your father.
Jeanne: Polonski, you mean?
Louise: I didn’t say that.
Jeanne: No, you didn’t. You said, “You’re father isn’t your father.”
Louise: Polonski isn’t your father…nor was my husband.
Jeanne: You’re telling me this now? So who is my father?

The fact is no one really knows who her biological father was.

Jeanne [to Guillaume]: Why did you switch our cups?

See, I told you.

Mika: I give and I give and I give; I never ask. I never even asked to live.
Andre: You received life like everyone else. You can’t deny that.
Mika [after long pause]: I don’t understand. I never understand when you speak.
[another long pause]
Mika: I know what I am. I am nothing.

Well, nothing if not diabolical.

Mika: Instead of loving, I say, “I love you,” and people believe me. I have real power in my mind. I calculate everything.

It's in God's hands."

Science

“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” Ray Bradbury

So, what's that make God then?

“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” Carl Sagan

Fortunately, it happens all the time here.

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.” Christopher Hitchens

Let's pick one and get started.

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Abraham Maslow

Any nails here?

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.” Martin Luther King, Jr

My guess: they sure as hell can be.

“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.” Albert Einstein

On the contrary, others say:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

It was all so simple back then. No one was really crazy. Mental illness was just something the authorities invented in order to lock up folks who wouldn’t conform to what was [offically] prescribed to be normal behavior. And if anyone really was a few sandwiches short of a picnic it was all the fault of capitalism. Once the revolution happened mental illness would vanish off the face of the earth.

I [sort of] believed that myself back then. Now I [sort of] don’t.

Which isn’t to suggest the film doesn’t expose just how much bullshit is involved with “therapy” that presumes the problem is folks not acting “normal”. How many Nurse Ratchets [and her ilk] are out there still?

But so much mental anguish does revolve around people hell bent on establishing the right thing to do. And then for all the rest of us too.

But here is a crucial point:

IMDb: "Louise Fletcher got the part of Nurse Ratched mainly because she could embody evil without knowing it. She believes she’s helping people even when she isn’t.

Lots of people don’t take that into consideration when they thump those who don’t share their own point of view about mental health. What really is “evil” today?

Note:

"Author Ken Kesey was so bitter about the way the filmmakers were “butchering” his story that he vowed never to watch the completed film and even sued the movie’s producers because it wasn’t shown from Chief Bromden’s perspective (as the novel is). Years later, he claimed to be lying in bed flipping through TV channels when he settled onto a late-night movie that looked sort of interesting, only to realize after a few minutes that it was this film. He then changed channels." IMDb


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Dr. Spivey: Well, it says several things here. It said you’ve been belligerent. Talked when unauthorized. You’ve been resentful in attitude towards work, in general. That you’re lazy.
McMurphy: Chewing gum in class.

If you get his drift.

Dr. Spivey: Well, the real reason that you’ve been sent over here is because they wanted you to be evaluated… to determine whether or not you are mentally ill. This is the real reason. Why do you think they might think that?
McMurphy: Well, as near as I can figure out, it’s 'cause I, uh, fight and fuck too much.

I believed him.

Dr. Spivey: Why did you get sent over here from the work farm?
McMurphy: Well, I really don’t know, Doc.
Dr. Spivey: It says here that you went around…Let me just take a look…
McMurphy: It ain’t up to me, you know.
Dr. Spivey: One…two, three…four…You’ve got at least five arrests for assault. What can you tell me about that?
McMurphy: Five fights, huh? Rocky Marciano’s got 40 and he’s a millionaire.
Dr. Spivey: That’s true.
McMurphy: That is true.

Okay, it's true. Then what?

Dr. Spivey: Of course, it’s true that you went in for statutory rape. That’s true, is it not, this time?
McMurphy: Absolutely true. But, Doc, she was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don’t think it’s crazy at all and I don’t think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that’s why I got into jail to begin with.

Come on, that's certainly not altogether untrue.

McMurphy ]to Dr. Spivey]: And now they’re telling me I’m crazy over here because I don’t sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don’t make a bit of sense to me. If that’s what being crazy is, then I’m senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that’s it.

In other words, no more or no less than the rest of us.

Dr. Spivey: Do you think there’s anything wrong with your mind, really?
McMurphy: Not a thing, Doc. I’m a goddamn marvel of modern science.
Dr. Spivey: You’re going to be here for a period, for us to evaluate you. We’re going to study you. We’ll make our determinations as to what we’re going to do and give you the necessary treatment as indicated.
McMurphy: Doc, let me just tell you this. I’m here to cooperate with you a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I’ll be just right down the line with you. You watch. 'Cause I think we ought to get to the bottom of R.P. McMurphy.

That was before the lobotomy, of course.

Roberto Bolaño

“Poetry and prison have always been neighbors.” Roberto Bolaño

Let's explain that.

“Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me."

Anyone know which book he's up to?

“I kept having dreams all night. I thought they were touching me with their fingers. But dreams don't have fingers, they have fists, so it must have been scorpions."

Who can argue with that?

“People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth."

Uh, define never?

“While we are looking for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, that is, the 'new', which can only be found by plunging deep into the Unknown, we have to go on exploring sex, books, and travel, although we know that they lead us to the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where the antidote can be found.”

Uh, define antidote?

“The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter."

Going back to, well, you tell me.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Nurse Ratched: Have you ever speculated, Mr. Harding that perhaps you arevimpatient with your wifevbecause she doesn’t meet your mental requirements?
Harding: Perhaps. But you see, the only thing I can really speculate on, Nurse Ratched is the very existence of my life…with or without my wife…in terms of the human relationships, the juxtaposition of one person to another, the form, the content.
Tabor: Harding, why don’t you knock off the bullshit and get to the point?
Harding: This is the point. This is the point, Taber. It’s not bullshit. I’m not just talking about my wife, I’m talking about my LIFE, I can’t seem to get that through to you. I’m not just talking about one person, I’m talking about everybody. I’m talking about form. I’m talking about content. I’m talking about interrelationships. I’m talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven. Do you understand…FINALLY?

Nope, he doesn't. But I'm still working on it myself.

Nurse Ratched: If Mr. McMurphy doesn’t want to take his medication orally, I’m sure we can arrange that he can have it some other way. But I don’t think that he would like it.

I guess we'll never know.

McMurphy: But I tried, didn’t I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.

Unless, of course, failure is not an option.

McMurphy: Nurse Ratched, Nurse Ratched! The Chief voted! Now will you please turn on the television set?
Nurse Ratched [she opens the glass window]: Mr. McMurphy, the meeting was adjourned and the vote was closed.
McMurphy: But the vote was 10 to 8. The Chief, he’s got his hand up! Look!
Nurse Ratched: No, Mr. McMurphy. When the meeting was adjourned, the vote was 9 to 9.
McMurphy [exasperated]: Aw come on, you’re not gonna say that now! You’re not gonna say that now! You’re gonna pull that hen house shit? Now when the vote…the Chief just voted - it was 10 to 9. Now I want that television set turned on right now!

Batter up!

Dr Spivey: Do you like it here?
McMurphy: That fucking nurse, man!
Dr Spivey: What do you mean, sir?
McMurphy: She ain’t honest.
Dr Spivey: Miss Ratched’s one of the finest nurses we’ve got in this institution.
McMurphy: Well I don’t wanna break up the meeting or nothin’, but she’s somethin’ of a ****, ain’t she Doc?

Let's run that by Billy.

Young Psychiatrist: Have you ever heard of the old saying “a rolling stone gathers no moss?”
McMurphy: Yeah.
Young Psychiatrist: Does that mean something to you?
McMurphy: Uh…it’s the same as “don’t wash your dirty underwear in public.”
Young Psychiatrist: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
McMurphy: [smiling] I’m smarter than him, ain’t I?
[laughs]
McMurphy: Well, that sort of has always meant, is, uh, it’s hard for something to grow on something that’s moving.

Let's run this by Mick and Keith.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Candy: You better quit on this. They’ll throw you in the can again, you know?
McMurphy: No, they won’t. We’re nuts! They’ll just take us back to the funny farm, see?

Of course, that's where they perform the lobotomies.

McMurphy: What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin’? Well you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walkin’ around on the streets and that’s it.

Of course, that's not always true.

McMurphy: Want some gum?
Chief: Thank you. Mmm. Juicy Fruit.
McMurphy: You sly son of a bitch, Chief. Can you hear me, too?
Chief: Yeah, you bet!
McMurphy: Well, I’ll be goddamned, Chief! And they all, they all think you’re deaf and dumb. Jesus Christ! You fooled them, Chief. You fooled them. You fooled them all! Goddamn you!

Okay, he fooled them. But he's still no kess entangled in their cuckoo's nest.

McMurphy: I can’t take it no more. I gotta get outta here.
Chief: I can’t. I just can’t.
McMurphy: It’s easier than you think, Chief.
Chief: For you, maybe. You’re a lot bigger than me.

In some ways more than others, of course.

Chief: My pop was real big. He did like he pleased. That’s why everybody worked on him. The last time I seen my father, he was blind and diseased from drinking. And every time he put the bottle to his mouth, he didn’t suck out of it, it sucked out of him until he shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs didn’t know him.
McMurphy: Killed him, huh?
Chief: I’m not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they’re working on you.

More to the point, how they are about to work on him.

Nurse Ratched: Aren’t you ashamed?
Billy: No, I’m not.
[Applause from friends]
Nurse Ratched: You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this.
Billy: Um, um, well, y-y-y-you d-d-d-don’t have to t-t-t-tell her, Miss Ratched.
Nurse Ratched: I don’t have to tell her? Your mother and I are old friends. You know that.
Billy: P-p-p-please d-d-don’t tell my m-m-m-mother.

Like the man said, they work on you.

Nurse Ratched [after Billy is found dead]: The best thing we can do is go on with our daily routine.

Or certainly in the top 10.

Chief: Mac…they said you escaped. I knew you wouldn’t leave without me. I was waiting for you. Now we can make it, Mac; I feel big as a damn mountain.
[he suddenly sees the lobotomy scars]
Chief: Oh, no…
[embracing McMurphy]
Chief: I’m not goin’ without you, Mac. I wouldn’t leave you this way…You’re coming with me. Let’s go.
[he smothers him to death]

And the moral of the story is...

All I know is this: If I’m hell bent on snuffing it and a guy like this keeps poking his business into mine we’re both going down. Really, there are particular times when officious folks enrage you. Even with the best of intentions. And this is one of them.

Of course, I’m not him and this story isn’t mine.

Everything always comes down to why you are checking out. Scripts like this can only work in particular contexts. In others they make no sense at all. For some folks, you talk them down. But, for others, you help them.

The most important thing though is this: You can only go in so far in understanding another when he or she chooses to end their life.


Goodbye Solo

Solo [to William]: What are you going to do at Blowing Rock, anyway? Are you going to go camping? Are you going there to chill with the trees and the birds? You like birds, big dawg? Are you going to fly away? You’re not going to jump, right?

That's exactly what he intends to do.

Solo: I don’t get it, man. Isn’t it better to go to a motel first, drop off your luggage?
William: Why am I with you again? How come it’s always you that picks me up?

Cue the script?

Solo: Why family don’t stay together in America? If that was in Senegal…That’s where I’m from. In Africa. You know where it is, right? Dakar. Family stay together. We take care of our parents, old people. Even if they don’t have teeth in their mouths anymore, we take food and we put it in their mouths.
William: Then why aren’t you there now?
Solo: I got to make money and send it back home, that’s all. You know what I mean? I’m going to go back there when I get old.

Let's run this by Trump.

Solo: William, I’m going to Piedmont Circle Projects. I mean, I’m talking about Homicide Circle.
William: I don’t give a shit.

Why would he?

Solo: I have my interview on Monday, and I’m going to ace it.
William: I really don’t give a shit. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know about Quiera or anything about your life!

I hear that.

Solo: William, are you there? William. William, are you awake?
William: No.
Solo: What’s wrong? Please tell me what’s wrong with you. I can’t do this anymore.

That makes two of them.

Solo: I went to the cinema tonight. The boy was there. William, I saw his photo in your jacket. You left it in the taxi. Who is he? You told me you had no kids. Why are you lying to me? I’m telling you everything. Is he your grandson? William. William, I want to help you.
William: Did you talk to him?
Solo: William, please.
William: Did you fucking talk to him?
Solo: No, I didn’t. But he doesn’t know who you are, does he? Why don’t you tell him?
William: I want you to get your shit and get the fuck out of here.
Solo: William, why are you speaking this way? William.
William: Get the fuck out!
Solo: We’re friends now, and you want to leave me and him, the boy?
William: Who the fuck told you you could get into my life? Who the fuck do you think you are that you can touch anything that belongs to me? I told you from day one, stay the fuck out of my life!

That's certainly true.

Solo [on phone]: Hi, William. It’s me, Solo. I wanted to tell you I got the results of my interview. William, I failed. I thought you’d want to know.

Did he?

Solo: William, I saw the other driver and he canceled the trip with you. I’ll take you tomorrow morning. That was our deal. What time should I pick you up?
William: 8 a.m.

Sharp.

Solo reading aloud from William’s notebook: “I made a joke about how bad a film was, and when he laughed, his lip twitched. He looked just like his mother.”

Goodbye William.