Does Ben Belong in the Big Pen?

Does the end justify the means? Does it ever? Is there any circumstance under which we could pursue an end yet still feel unperturbed?

Clearly I think most of us, if not all of us, occasionally rationalize our own actions in pursuing some ends. Fortunately, not all of society engages in pursuing means to ends that harm others or seriously abrogate others' equal rights. But Ben seems comfortable pursuing his ends by any means necessary.

We don't yet know, if we ever will, what the first 10 years or so of Ben's life were like.



But we do know that the on-island Ben doesn't seem to bat an eyelash at even the most cold-blooded actions, most recently in Through the Looking Glass:

Tom: They're not talking.

Ben: Who do you have?

Tom: Jarrah, Kwon, and the dentist.

Ben: Shoot Kwon.

Tom: What?

Ben: If you want them to answer questions, kill Kwon, do it now.

Now, it's been clearly implied that there is something about the island that is of colossal importance. We've already been shown what the apparent consequences are of failing to press the Swan Station button every 108 minutes. But now that the failsafe key has been turned, there seems to be something even more important going on with the island.

We don't yet know what it is, but Ben certainly seems to be convinced of its importance. After living on the island for about 30 years, he "made a decision that took the lives of over 40 people in a single day"; he shot Locke in cold blood, leaving him for dead; he's conned and manipulated not only the Losties but also his own people; but probably more telling is his despairingly desperate (and seemingly genuine) reaction to Jack's attempt to reach the rescue ship:

He is frantic. Cataclysm is apparently imminent. One almost begins to feel some sympathy for Ben's cause, whatever it is. We begin to feel the gravity of the situation. Even though we may be tempted to feel drawn into league with Ben's goals, we still have to confront the ethical question of whether or not the ends ever justify the means.

The 18 Century German philosopher Immanuel Kant had a lot to say about the matter. Kant was essentially a moral philosopher, concerned with what human beings ought to do in various circumstances. Kant is notoriously abstruse, but he basically argued that human beings possessed an innate faculty of reason - a moral compass, one might say - that was more than merely a guide to the satisfaction of one's desires. He further argued that the possession of this faculty of self-governing reason is what endowed each human being with equal worth and respect. But while we can choose to remove ourselves from certain social institutions, and thereby not be bound by their 'laws', Kant argued that, by virute of our nature as rational beings with the capacity to modify our behavior on the basis of certain principles or 'laws' of rationality, we cannot choose to remove ourselves from our essential nature as rational beings subject to a Moral Law. We are bound to act out of duty because all other rational beings are similarly bound. In fact, Kant's formulation of a proper human ethic is "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law."

Interestingly - and very relevant to the overall mythology of the show - Kant began his analysis of moral philosophy with a discussion of the concept of a 'good will'. He didn't mean a good will in the sense of someone having certain 'good' personality traits such as kindheartedness or a good-natured disposition, but rather whether or not one is a 'good person'. The Others talk of themselves as 'good people', but clearly not in the everyday sense of the word. I don't think anyone would call the Others kindhearted or good-natured!

What Kant meant was that what makes a good person good is the possession of this faculty of reason and its degree of conformity with the Moral Law, a law which is not determined by any particular culture or society. What he means is that one's decisions and actions should be wholly determined by moral demands, and not just any demands, but the demands required of rational beings. Kant also believes that human beings view this non-denominational Moral Law as a constraint on their desires. So since this Law is universally binding on all human beings, and since the faculty of self-governing reason that human beings possess imputes worth to each of us, we cannot simply pursue our desires without regard for our fellow human beings, using them as means to an end. We possess a sense of duty to act morally, and only those actions that align with this sense of duty have any moral worth at all.

Kant's view of morality seems to lack some basic human emotion, no? He seems to imply that a 'good person' is one who acts out of a sense of duty to the Moral Law by which each of us is equally bound. But many of us would argue that a good person could also be someone who acts from other motivations such as love, sympathy, friendship, or even common decency. But some have argued that Kant's point is not that we don't feel admiration for someone who acts from such motivations; only that, when one is deliberating, the actions that flow from this deliberation express a sort of motivational architecture that gives the considerations of one's moral duty priority over all other interests. Actions that flow from this duty are 'worth more' than actions that flow from any other motivations.

Kant could be said to represent a peculiarly Western mode of thought regarding 'duty'; in that he grounds his sense of duty in that aspect which is common to all rational beings. Further, Kant also maintained that the preservation of one's moral goodness is what makes anything else worth having; otherwise human beings achieve only cheap pleasure or happiness; fraudulent happiness and pleasure.

The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita espouses similar ideals, but the grounding of the sense of duty is in the overall Cosmic order. The Gita is a chapter in a larger Hindu work called the Mahabharata, and it recounts the conversation between Krishna and the warrior Arjuna taking place on the battlefield of an imminent war. Arjuna is confused and filled with doubt by an apparent moral dilemma: he has friends and relatives on both sides of this fight, so how could he possibly continue?

Krishna advises him on the ideal of dharma (we've heard that before, yeah?), or the doing of one's duty. Dharma essentially boils down to: one should do one's duty because it is the right thing to do. Essentially, Arjuna wants to abstain from action, but Krishna warns him that inaction will only cause the cosmos to fall out of order. He must do his warrior duty. Not doing one's duty is akin to going against the flow of nature, against the natural order and harmony, resulting in the obscuration of reality. Additionally, the Gita teaches that one's essential core - one's soul, if you will - is immortal and permanent and identical with ultimate reality, which is a unity. Corporeal selves are merely ephemeral manifestations of the ultimate reality: kill the body and the soul lives on in unity with this ultimate reality. Identification with and clinging to this false 'self-form' only causes suffering anyway. As Krishna puts it:

Bodies are said to die, but that which possesses the body is eternal. It cannot be limited, or destroyed. Therefore you must fight.

Arjuna must engage in battle even though he has friends and relatives on both sides, and with the full knowledge that they may be killed. He must subjugate his own will to the universal will, you might say. But Krishna states that the physical world must not be forgotten or neglected; on the contrary, one must live one's physically embodied life in accordance with greater laws and truths because that's how the universe works. (Think of Mikhail saying to the Losties: "The Man who brought me here, who brought all of my people here - he is a great man, a magnificent man", and you get an idea of what it means to live life according to 'greater laws'.) Krishna basically tells Arjuna that he must go to war - universal harmony and duty demand it - even if those he knows and loves must be killed. But only transient, temporal and illusory 'selves' will be destroyed, and not the kernel of who they are, which is identical to ultimate reality. Krishna says:

Die, and you win heaven; conquer and you win the earth. Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same: then go into battle. Do this and you cannot commit any sin.

Basically, he says do your duty because it doesn't matter if your physical form (and the physical forms of others) lives or dies; and to not do one's duty is a greater sin.

Does this view of morality provide Ben and the Others with some wiggle room? Could Ben believe that he is acting according to a universal Moral Law which he assumes everyone - not only the Others - are equally bound by, whether they realize it or not? Of course, Ben wouldn't be a true Kantian because he is clearly treating others as means to an end. But what if Ben adopts a Hindu view of duty? What if he feels he is acting in accordance with a unviersal law that transcends the moral law comprehensible by every rational human being, all the while believing that 'people' are mere illusions anyway, and the essence of who they are is immortal and eternal? And what if the end for which Ben treats all others as means is the Mother of all Ends? As Ben explains to Mikhail in Through the Looking Glass:

Ben: You have to understand, everything I did, I did for the Island.

Mikhail: The Island told you it was necessary for you to jam your own people?

Ben: Yes it did. You've always been a loyalist, Mikhail, now I'm asking you to trust me, to trust Jacob who told me to do this.

Mikhail: Why would Jacob ask you to lie to your own people?

Ben: Because this Island is under assault by forces stronger than anything its had to deal with in many, many years. And we are meant to protect it, Mikhail, by any means necessary. The jamming was for everyone's security. We are in a serious situation here.

So, what if the island is what's keeping all of humanity and civilization from being destroyed? Could the killing of some people in order to save the entire human race be justified?

Does Ben belong in the penitentiary, or is Ben really a good person?












Lost

Did Charlie Pace Win the Race?

It is better to conquer oneself than to win a thousand battles.

-- The Dhammapada


Fulfill something you are able to fulfill, rather than run after what you will never achieve. We can modestly strive to fulfill ourselves and to be as complete a human being as possible, and that will give us trouble enough.

-- C.G. Jung (Tavistock Lectures)

The race to which I refer in the title of this post is the race we all must run: the race to live up to one's full potential before the end of one's life. It's not really a race against others, but a race against oneself - and time, of course. It is a quest fraught with obstacles, both internal and external - the internal ones sometimes being the most difficult to overcome. It's not the thrilling, quasi-glamorous quest of Frodo of the Shire or Luke Skywalker. It is oftentimes filled with the mundane, the banal, the gritty - and sometimes interminable torpor.

It has been called at various times and in various cultures "the hero's journey"; and it involves some type of 'calling', followed by a gauntlet of trials after which the hero achieves the 'boon', or the prize, and often uses this prize to help the wider world - the world outside his own ego, his own personal interests.

The calling can be an external event or person, or it can be an internal yearning or desire. Typically, the awareness of this call - whether or not the hero recognizes it as such - is met with some trepidation, some reluctance to embark on the journey. Leaving one's comfort zone, being drawn out of a comfortable, habitual routine, or being extracted from a life-consuming addiction, can feel almost impossible to do.

But once one commits oneself to the call, one sets out on the perilous path of unknown trials. Typically, however, one receives aid from an older figure: Frodo had Gandalf, Luke had Obi-Wan Kenobi. This figure has an accumulated wisdom, unending patience - and presumably has already undergone his own hero's journey, thus possessing a large measure of empathy. The modus operandi of this guide is not to perform the tasks for the hero, but to teach the hero to do the tasks for himself, to commit his whole being to the process of achieving the goal - only then will the prize be legitimately won.

The story of Charlie Pace in the world of L O S T mirrors just such a hero's journey. Clearly, Charlie's drug addiction has been the biggest obstacle in his life. And it's hard to discern whether or not his self-doubt and apparent cowardice are a result of his addiction, or whether they are personality traits that contributed to his addiction. Tom Clark of The Center for Naturalism and a former research associate for a health and addictions research company in Boston writes:

Poor choices (taking that first, second or third hit of cocaine) certainly figure in the onset of addiction, and choices aren't ordinarily considered part of a disease process. Moreover, poor choices can indeed result from what might be called "personal weaknesses," for instance a genetic susceptibility to addiction related to a particular type of dopamine receptor, or a penchant for risk-taking, whether learned, inherited, or both.

But regardless of the cause or causes of Charlie's addiction, the fact remains that this is the biggest barrier to Charlie realizing his full potential. But the crash on the island provided Charlie with a fresh start, and we could consider this to be Charlie's "hero's call". Of course, at this point, Charlie has no idea what is about to happen to him, and neither do we. And the impetus that begins to draw Charlie out of his drug-induced torpor comes from John Locke.

Locke is Charlie's Gandalf, his Obi-Wan, his guru, his guide. But Charlie is, of course, reluctant to accept the call. One could argue that one might never free oneself from one's holding patterns of life unless knocked out of the trajectory by an external force. Locke is just such a force for Charlie.

Charlie's first challenge is to overcome his addiction, but by his own efforts, his own willpower. After considerable internal struggle, his feelings for Claire and Aaron, and some shady Machiavellian machinations involving Sawyer, Charlie is finally able to move beyond the near-total control his addiction exerted over his life.

Charlie's second main challenge is to overcome what could be perceived as his deficiencies in character: his inferiority complex and the resultant cowardice, or his failure to 'step up to the plate', so to speak.

The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had this view of cowardice:

But the existentialist, when he portrays a coward, shows him as responsible for his cowardice. He is not like that on account of a cowardly heart or lungs or cerebrum, he has not become like that through his physiological organism; he is like that because he has made himself into a coward by actions...for what produces cowardice is the act of giving up or giving way; and a temperament is not an action. A coward is defined by the deed that he has done.

If this view is true, then Charlie apparently made great strides in overcoming his cowardice first by killing the Other, Ethan:



Clearly the impetus this time wasn't so much Locke as it was Charlie's feelings for Claire, and his newfound need for redemption - so much so that his killing of Ethan temporarily hurt the larger community of which Charlie is a part. But the hero's journey isn't a straight line of victories; it is an oftentimes circuitous route of alternating successes and failures; but each round of trials eventually serves to 'ratchet up' the overall level of success of the hero's journey and pushes the hero further along toward his goal.

Charlie's second, and final, challenge is to overcome his cowardice while at the same time benefiting the larger group. Unfortunately for Desmond, Charlie's final act of courage begins by preventing Desmond from taking his place in diving down to the Looking Glass station to secure rescue for the survivors.



The end of Charlie's race, his hero's journey, ends of course with his death. That's not what we typically think of as an appropriate ending to a hero story: Frodo destroys the Ring yet returns to his beloved Shire; Luke defeats his near-omnipotent father, not only saving the galaxy, but apparently redeeming his father in the process.

But Charlie can still be viewed as being successful. He has redeemed himself; he has succeeded in doing what Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson has termed "accomplishing one's death": the idea that one has earned the right to die, one has lived up to one's full potential. If death is viewed as the end of the race, then Charlie earned that victory. Not only that, but Charlie can be viewed as a true hero (as defined by the hero's journey) because he did sacrifice himself for the rest of the group, and he did legitimately earn the prize of turning off the jamming signal in the Looking Glass station, which was a necessary step in securing rescue for the survivors.

Of course, we don't yet know if what Charlie helped to secure was in fact rescue, or a mixed blessing that secured rescue, but may also in fact have caused great harm to come to others. The prize may have come at a great cost; it may have come at a cost greater than it was worth.

But we don't know that yet. We can say at this point that Charlie has overcome himself, he has transcended himself and has truly earned and accomplished his death. Charlie Pace did indeed win the race.













Lost

Desmond: Free Will or Fatalism?

Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: 'Cause I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.



In case you haven't noticed, two of my favorite things are L O S T and The Matrix trilogy. But I thought the above quote would be a good entrée into a discussion of fate versus free will as embodied in Desmond David Hume's character. We don't seem to have as much of Desmond's backstory as, say, Jack or Locke. But I think there is enough there - as well as in his on-island experiences - to warrant a discussion.

Perhaps no other subject has received as much attention - in the ivory towers of academia as well as the booths of smoky pubs - as free will.



Even English philosopher Galen Strawson has lamented:

The facts are clear, and they have been known for a long time. When it comes to the metaphysics of free will, André Gide's remark is apt: 'Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.'

The debate continues; some have thought that philosophy ought to move on. There is little reason to expect that it will do so, as each new generation arises bearing philosophers gripped by the conviction that they can have ultimate responsibility. Would it be a good thing if philosophy did move on, or if we became more clear- headed about the topic of free will than we are? It is hard to say.

As the 18th Century English literary figure, Samuel Johnson, once opined with regard to free will: "All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience is for it." Didn't he hit the nail right on the head with that one? In almost every moment of our lives we feel free to do whatever we choose, and we don't feel like we are caused to choose by anyone or anything. In our more clear-headed moments we concede that we are influenced by certain factors, but we are not determined to act in ways that are out of 'our' control. As I sit here typing, I could choose to have another cup of delicious coffee - or not; I could choose to pack up my computer and instead go for a run, etc. I have absolute control over my choices and, therefore, my life.

Or do I?

I can certainly sit here and deliberate over whether or not I want another cup of coffee. I can think about how delicious it is, how the caffeine might help me think more clearly about this blog post, and how the extra antioxidants in the coffee itself might be beneficial to my body. Or I can think about how jittery an extra cup of coffee will make me, and how annoyed the people sitting next to me in the café will be while my leg keeps bouncing up and down uncontrollably, or how long it will take me to fall asleep tonight because I've exceeded my personal caffeine tolerance.

But who or what is the arbiter in this decision? Theoretically it would seem that I could go on and on like this, deliberating until the cows come home, never arriving at a decision. What tips the scales one way and not another? This line of questioning actually touches on topics such as the nature of the self and causal determinism. But more on that later. Let's look at Desmond's life, as much as can be gleaned from his experiences both on the island and off it.

First of all, the look on Des's face in this moment of his Catch-22 episode pretty much captures his dilemma, wouldn't you say?



You can see the pained deliberation, torn between reaching his beloved Penelope and saving Charlie's innocent life. We know he does the 'right' thing and saves Charlie instead. Is this Desmond exercising his free will? Could Desmond have chosen otherwise? Most of us would say he could have.

In contrast to this traditional and, most would say, commonsense view of the freedom of human will, is the idea of fatalism. The concept of fatalism basically comes in two flavors. The first one says that human beings do in fact have free will, but it doesn't matter: all events in the world are predestined. It doesn't matter what one does, the outcome will inevitably and inexorably be the same. The other variety says that human beings do not have free will, and thus everything is determined to happen exactly as it does.

The mix of both views seems to be espoused by the shopkeeper Desmond meets when he goes to find a ring for Penny - Mrs. Hawking:

Desmond: Oh, my God! You knew that was going to happen, didn't you? [she nods] Then why didn't you stop it? Why didn't you do anything?

Mrs. Hawking: Because it wouldn't matter. Had I warned him about the scaffolding tomorrow he'd be hit by a taxi. If I warned him about the taxi, he'd fall in the shower and break his neck. The universe, unfortunately, has a way of course correcting. That man was supposed to die. That was his path...just as it's your path to go to the island. You don't do it because you choose to, Desmond. You do it because you're supposed to.

However, it should be noted that we don't know if Mrs. Hawking is a true exponent of fatalistic thinking, or if she's merely trying to manipulate Desmond in the grander scheme of things. We don't even know who she is, for Pete's sake. But her notion of the universe having a mechanism for 'course correcting' sounds an awful lot like fatalism. However, her formulation here also seems to impute some property of purpose to the universe - but that gets into an area we really don't have time for in this post. That's a quasi-religious issue.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Mrs. Hawking is a true exponent of fatalism: the idea that no matter what one does, the ultimate outcome will be the same - it is 'fated' to happen in a certain way and no other. As a knockered Desmond tells Charlie and Hurley: "You can't change it, no matter what you try to do! You just can't change it!" Clearly the experience of turning the key, having the (apparent) chance of going back in time to make things right, yet still ending up in the 'bloody snow globe' of the island has had an effect on poor Desmondo. Given all that, I can appreciate his despondency.

But does Desmond need to adopt such a defeatist attitude? Obviously his experiences are unique and profoundly disturbing - and convincing - at least to Desmond. I don't think any of us can say we've experienced anything similar - at least not sober. But I think there is a way to see fatalism for the misguided philosophy it is.

Indulge me for a moment. It seems that modern neuroscience combined with the well-supported scientific theory of evolution by natural selection (i.e., common descent with modification) shows that human beings are completely included in the natural order of things, including being subject to the laws of cause and effect. The brain is a physical organ like the liver or the pancreas, subject to the relevant laws of biology, chemistry and physics. The theory of determinism basically says that every event is the result of prior events. To have true free will, one would have to be able to circumvent or otherwise bypass this chain of cause and effect; otherwise one's choices are not free because all of the factors that led to that choice have been determined. And if we were omniscient, we would be able to trace all of those causes, back to the moment we were born. In that regard, free will could be seen as 'super-natural'.

But fatalism could also be seen as super-natural, in the sense that whatever is causing the inevitable outcome in question is not influenced by human action. That doesn't seem quite fair, now does it? But my assessment is what I could call backward-looking. Sure, we can (theoretically) trace all of the causes of our actions and show how they were determined, but what about forward-looking? Can we start at the present time and project all of the cause and effect relationships into the future so that we will know what will happen? I would say no, because the future hasn't happened yet. (Although, J. Wood has a provocative and seemingly plausible account of 'Minkowski space' that might prove my theory wrong - at least in the L O S T universe. See his blog post about it for more info.)

So, if the future hasn't happened yet, then how do we know what the outcome will be? It has been argued that the future is not inevitable, and that we only discover the future as we live it and make choices. Our decisions and actions contribute to determining the course of our own life and those affected by our lives. One could say that the total aggregate of all human action is what produces the future. On this view, the future is not fixed. What we do, and the choices we make, do indeed matter. And we may have gotten a subtle clue to this when Desmond took a cricket bat to the face for the bartender:



It's always tricky to try and speculate about the show because, not only do we not have the whole story, but the powers that be haven't yet given us a definite ontology of the show - and for good reasons.

Desmond seems to epitomize the idea of free will. He seems to realize this in that bar when he took the hit for the bartender, and he regrets not making things right with Penny - making the assumption that he could make things right, if only he could go back in time again. He even desperately tries to save Charlie repeatedly. But what if, as our best and most current science seems to indicate, free will is an illusion? Do Desmond's choices and actions still affect the future outcome of events? Is there a middle ground between contra-causal free will and outright fatalism?

Yes - if we combine the fact that human choice and action affect future outcomes with the notion that humans can deliberate and make voluntary choices. Some of you might recognize this description as the philosophical position of compatibilism. Compatibilism says that determinism is true, but that human beings nevertheless have free will - at least the varieties of free will worth wanting. The contemporary English philosopher Galen Strawson describes the compatibilist position this way:

According to compatibilists, we do have free will. They propound a sense of the word 'free' according to which free will is compatible with determinism, even though determinism is the view that the history of the universe is fixed in such a way that nothing can happen otherwise than it does because everything that happens is necessitated by what has already gone before.

Suppose tomorrow is a national holiday. You are considering what to do. You can climb a mountain or read Lao Tse. You can mend your bicycle or go to the zoo. At this moment you are reading the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy . You are free to go on reading or stop now. You have started on this sentence, but you don't have to... finish it.

In this situation, as so often in life, you have a number of options. Nothing forces your hand. It seems natural to say that you are entirely free to choose what to do. And, given that nothing hinders you, it seems natural to say that you act entirely freely when you actually do (or try to do) what you have decided to do.

Compatibilists claim that this is the right thing to say. They believe that to have free will, to be a free agent, to be free in choice and action, is simply to be free from constraints of certain sorts. Freedom is a matter of not being physically or psychologically forced or compelled to do what one does. Your character, personality, preferences, and general motivational set may be entirely determined by events for which you are in no way responsible (by your genetic inheritance, upbringing, subsequent experience, and so on). But you do not have to be in control of any of these things in order to have compatibilist freedom. They do not constrain or compel you, because compatibilist freedom is just a matter of being able to choose and act in the way one prefers or thinks best given how one is.

So I think it's safe to say that for Desmond to adopt a fatalist position toward life is unwise at best and flat out wrong at worst. Additionally, Desmond does have the power to affect the future even though he doesn't have what most of us would call 'free will'. But suffice it to say that Desmond's actions can alter the future in ways that are beneficial to him and to others. After all, he kept Charlie alive long enough to secure apparent rescue for the survivors, right? The time travel aspect of the show keeps all of this speculation up in the air somewhat, at least until we know more about what exactly happened to Desmond when he turned that fail safe key.



An interesting aside would be to explore Desmond's apparent 'cowardice' in light of determinism and free will and what Sartre has to say about it. But this post is already too long. Maybe I'll return to it in a later post...








Lost

Man of Science, Man of (Bad) Faith

When one 'takes the red pill' and apparently sees the world for what it is, when one is faced with all the vagaries and vicissitudes of life with no recourse to a heavenly keeper, when one realizes that the responsibility for one's life is squarely on one's own shoulders, when one is assailed with doubts, unsure of one's purpose, and when one is the object of other's projections, both flattering and derogatory - what does one do?

If you're Jack Shepard, you take refuge in a airtight rationalism, obdurately immersing oneself in an almost Puritan-like work ethic.



Although pre-island Jack has not undergone such a dramatic awakening as Neo from The Matrix did, he nevertheless continues to trudge doggedly through his life in an almost Sisyphean manner, moving from one task to the next, in an alternating series of accomplishments and frustrations.

After Neo is liberated from the Matrix, he goes through a period of almost rudderless labor, battling agents, freeing minds from the Matrix; yet while this gives him a temporary sense of purpose and accomplishment, along with a growing confidence in his own abilities, he remains in search of a greater purpose, or at least a possible Archimedean point by which he could gauge his life's work, a way of knowing if he's on the right path - if there even is such a path.

And Jack could be considered to have a somewhat anti-Existentialist outlook on life. From a Sartrean Existentialist perspective, someone who lives life through an exclusively rationalistic lens could be said to be acting in 'bad faith'; that is, using rationality as a means of assuaging one's existential anxiety and dread betrays an essential (and possibly unconscious) fear of being in the world.

Jack doesn't seem to have an overt fear of being in the world, but one senses that fear, or sees a shadow of that fear, in Jack's at times overly obstinate courses of action - a kind of compensation, if you will. What did Jung say, fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt? Jack's rationality could be seen as an attempt to impose order and normalcy on phenomena that are fundamentally irrational - like the idea of pushing a button every 108 minutes.

But by limiting oneself to apperceiving the world's phenomena through a strictly rational lens in an attempt to suppress one's feelings of anxiety and dread, one is prevented from finding meaning in a meaningless world. Additionally, one thereby confines oneself to the mundane and the banal, relinquishing one's claim to true freedom in the process. This, in turn, opens oneself up to being possessed by the 'look of the other', in Sartre's words; that is to say, to take on the projection of other's subjectivity where one's sense of oneself, one's sense of personal identity, is effectively controlled and defined by what others think.

That is precisely what has characterized Jack's life, both pre-island and on-island. Pre-island Jack is seemingly repeatedly told by his father that he "doesn't have what it takes". On-island Jack is repeatedly seen as a savior and a leader, not unlike Neo in The Matrix mythology. The true challenge for Jack lies not in putting out fires and 'fixing things', as Ben condescendingly asserts in the Season 3 finale, but in transcending other people's views of himself, and becoming the person he chooses to be, given the talents and resources he has.

Will Jack look inside himself and find his own authentic life, divested of the projections of countless others in his life? Has he already endured his 'dark night of the soul'?



Or will he continue to play the role which others (and possibly the Others) have prescribed for him? Or will he continue to look somewhere else, outside himself?



Or will he fall prey to the kind of despair to which one of Kierkegaard's characters had fallen:

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

Jack may have secured salvation for the survivors (or he may not have):



But has he secured it for himself? Can he? Can he finally embrace existence and disentangle himself from everyone else's expectations, desires and wishes, and be born anew, the way Locke seemingly has been?

Lost

Echoes of the Übermensch

From time immemorial it seems that humans have harbored the desire to feel special in some way, from the monotheistic religious view of human beings as the pinnacle of creation and human activity as the focus of the entire universe, to the desire to be recognized, acknowledged or otherwise validated by our fellow human beings.

Additionally, it seems that we humans have tended to see patterns in, and impute intentions to, phenomena we encounter in the world. Meteorological happenings were the tantrums of the gods. Aberrantly acting animals were the spirits of dead ancestors; or worse - the machinations of powerful spiritual enemies.

Coincidence is revealed to be synchronicity. Chance is the manifestation of Fate. The invisible guiding hand never ceases. Everything happens for a reason. It takes faith to see what can't be seen; faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.[*]

And so with this we come to John Locke....



Although Locke does not seem traditionally religious, his view of misfortune and calamity is consonant with that of more traditional faiths; that is, those who see such experiences as trials of faith that purge us of dross and leave our characters strengthened and shining brilliantly. Life is all about such trials, they say, and the teleology of life itself is the perpetual refinement of one's being, leading to moral or spiritual perfection - if not in this life, then in some other life to come. It is the process of being put through our paces by a power greater and wiser than ourselves. It requires tremendous faith to acquiesce to such a process when the Power in question is intangible at best and unknowable at worst.

John Locke has certainly had his share of tribulation and disappointment. He was conned out of his kidney - and subsequently defenestrated - by a trusted familial figure; he was rejected by possibly the only woman he's ever gotten close to and loved; he was duped and betrayed by his surrogate family at the commune; and he's worked in menial jobs for condescending bosses who are, as Rilke would say, "raised to the rank of Prince by the slippery ease of their light judgments."

It's amazing that Locke remains a man of faith through all of this. Or maybe it's not; we've all heard of victims of horrendous disasters and grotesque injustices who nevertheless thank God for saving their lives, and then claim that their ordeal just serves to strengthen their faith. In fact, Locke comes through all of this with a certain moxie, forcefully declaring, "Don't tell me what I can't do!"

Locke seems to assert or affirm his life despite his defeats. And upon crashing on the island, Locke seems to have been born anew; he seems to have traversed the furnace of fire, emerging a resplendent kernel of molten metal. In Locke, we can hear echoes of Nietzsche's Übermensch.

Nietzsche's philosophy was basically an Existentialist one, in that he believed there was no "possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven", to quote Sartre. He argued that the absence of moral absolutes or objective values leads to fatalism, nihilism, and pessimism, but that humanity is left with no choice but to overcome these defeatist attitudes. Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch is of a person who is able to overcome nihilism by three methods: rejecting or rebelling against prevailing societal ideals or moral codes; re-evaluating these old ideals and creating new ones; and by a general process of self-overcoming.

The on-island Locke could be said to have created, or be in the process of creating, both himself and his adopted 'society' anew. He has evolved into a type of unassuming guru, guiding and coaching other Lostaways into awareness of their own innate potentialities and special destinies. So he could be said to creating new ideals for the on-island society, as well as refashioning his own self into an image he could only fantasize about in his pre-island life. At times he even embodies the destructive aspect of Nietzsche's Übermensch: he tried to prevent Sayid from using the transceiver to locate and access the mysterious distress signal, resorting to physical force; he knocked Boone unconscious and drugged him in an attempt to help him overcome his attachment to his sister; he smashed the Swan Station computer (albeit in a moment of doubt); he blew up the Flame Station and (apparently) the Others' submarine; and he killed Naomi as she was about to contact her ship.

But while Nietzsche's world-view could be said to be emphatically secular, Locke certainly doesn't seem to discount the supernatural or other-worldly. In fact, on the island he seems to embrace it, even though he's had his bouts of doubt. The supreme act of courage - or authenticity, one might say - in Nietzsche's view is to base one's entire life in this world. In his view, the ultimate Übermensch is one who can take ultimate responsibility for oneself, conceiving and accepting reality as it is, in all its horror and grandeur. Locke has never seemed to be able to do this, instead relying on 'faith' in some hidden power or guiding force. However, certain events on the island - most notably his ability to walk after being paralyzed - serve to reinforce his faith in the unseen. But the island seems to be categorically different from this world; it seems to be a 'special place'.

Will Locke's experiences on the island ultimately be justified, providing at last that certainty of what is unseen? Will his faith be finally validated and rewarded? Will we see the actualization of the innate human longing for meaning, purpose and specialness?

Well, that remains to be seen...







[In the next post, I will be focusing on Jack, and comparing and contrasting both Jack and Locke, as well as teasing out a little more of the echoes of Nietzsche's philosophy.]








Lost

Locke vs. Jack

The first post on this blog - which I will be writing this weekend - will center on two world-views that are diametrically opposed to each other: one that could be called 'natural' (Jack), and one that could be called 'supernatural' (Locke).

I will be using these designations to show how a supernaturalist like Locke believes in Fate or Destiny, and how a naturalist like Jack believes in an orderly universe based on reason and logic.

Who is right? How can we know? Does it even matter?

I will be discussing what philosophers, both classical and modern, have thought about these issues, as well as what we 'laypeople' think about such things.

I look forward to the discussion!

Cheers,

Juno




Lost

The Hearts & Minds of L O S T

Fate. Destiny. Chance. Coincidence. Connection. Choice.

Free will, or futility? Noble Savage, or Evil Seed? Sacrifice, or self-interest?

Heroism. Cowardice. Loyalty. Redemption. Rebirth.

Empathy for the Other? One for all, or all for one?

These are the vagaries and vicissitudes of life in the world of L O S T. These are the quandaries the characters contemplate and confront. These are the issues we all face.

This blog will explore the human condition through the characters and narrative of L O S T. While it is superficially meant to be a means of satisfying our collective L O S T fix until the 2008 season, it is at the same time a sincere effort to acknowledge the things that make us human, the things that occupy most of our intellectual and emotional resources throughout our lives, the things with which we are confronted once thrown into the world, and the realization that a human being is uniquely "something which propels itself forward towards a future and is aware that it is doing so", in the words of Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

I will be publishing a weekly post that will address the issues embodied in a character, situation, or story arc of the show from any of the first 3 seasons. I won't be discussing the over-arching 'mythology' of the show per se, unless it is inextricably tied to the human element of the show. I also won't be discussing any rumors or spoilers about the show.

So welcome to an attempt to elucidate the human situation; and instead of finding ourselves lost, we will simply find ourselves.

Welcome to the hearts and minds of L O S T...

Lost