Examined Life

Filmmaker Astra Taylor has achieved a most difficult task – making a fascinating documentary about philosophy. It is her choices of speakers, settings, and questions that make this film riveting and unforgettable. Starting with Socrates’ always appropriate assertion that the “unexamined life is not worth living,” the film explores evil, ecology, gender, garbage, material consumption, the social contract, global citizenship, revolution, the body, disabilities, the meaning of “meaning,” “otherness,” and compassion. But this is not a studio-bound talking heads movie. We and the subjects are constantly moving through environments that contextualize, complement, and challenge their ideas, whether we are in a taxicab, walking through a park, shopping in San Francisco, rowing on a Central Park lake, staring in 5th Avenue shops, or wading through garbage. Taylor’s nine philosophers represent some of the most cutting edge thinkers on the planet today -- Avital Ronell, Cornel West, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, and Sunaura Taylor. Out of these nine, Professor Cornel West would definitely be my first choice for a dining partner. He is the preeminent jazz artist of ideas – quoting widely from other philosophers (melody) and then blasting off with his own mind-blowing string of associative ideas (improvisation). You can almost hear his mind at work as he joyfully and contagiously explores a staggering range of ideas. West propounds the importance of “dialogue in the face of dogmatism and domination.” He artfully quotes W.B. Yeats: “It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.” West insists that we acknowledge our finitude and our fallibility, while simultaneously discovering the pleasure of the life of the mind. He recognizes that we are much like Sisyphus as we go uphill over and over again in our search for meaning, but adds that we must not give into nihilism. Why doesn’t Cornel West have a cabinet post in the Obama administration? I hope he will at least be a frequent guest in all night discussions at the White House. Noted deconstructionist and NYU professor Avital Ronell walks in a Manhattan park with Astra Taylor but seems predictably skeptical of the whole proposition of discussing philosophy in ten minutes. She is deeply suspicious of the concept of “meaning.” Nonetheless she touches on Derrida and the impossibility of any thinking person having a “good conscience.” She does get in some good strikes at Bush and his supposition that he knew the “nature of evil,” which, in his world, always resided in the “other” (e.g. “Axis of Evil.”) Australian animal liberation advocate Peter Singer walks along 5th Avenue, looking at all the high-end consumer goods in boutique windows while criticizing material consumption. He feels that we should always question what we are spending our money on (significantly, this film was made before the Crash of 2008). Singer feels that an essential element of ethics is tied up with money and buying. He expands this to the ethics of vegetarianism vs. carnivorous diets. Simply put, why are humans entitled to eat the flesh of other species? Singer admits that such questions were not part of the philosophical endeavor of the 1970s, but it was precisely then that he found himself wanting to pose such questions and challenge “common sense morality” through applied ethics. He defends applied ethics as not necessarily subjective and individualistic but an appropriate way to serve larger groups. “We should take into account the interests of others.” He adds that “ethics is not just what I decide to do, but what I decide not to do.” There is a moral obligation to help as well as not to harm. “We make our lives most meaningful when we connect ourselves with some important causes or issues….” In short, the good life is one that reduces the amount of unnecessary pain in the world. In a complementary fashion, Princeton/Fordham professor of philosophy Kwame Anthony Appiah supports the notion of global citizenship. He recognizes that we have virtual relationships with the world, no longer just with 100 or fewer family, friends, and co-workers. Through travel, communications, entertainment, and the Internet we are now so much more aware of the people of the world. With such extensive connectivity he infers we have now become “responsible for each other.” Appiah sees the creation of a global conversation of human beings about what is right and wrong in the 21st century. We will have to recognize the huge diversity of values by which we are guided but must endeavor to find common ground. We can neither abandon our core group nor ignore the rest of humanity. Classicist Martha Nussbaum examines the social contract which began to emerge in the 17th and 18th centuries and considers ways of expanding social justice to cover those with unequal physical and mental abilities, including the disabled, children, and elderly. She pursues ideas embodying a “capability approach” which works to ensure that everyone benefits from social justice and has the opportunity to develop to the best of his/her abilities. Political philosopher Michael Hardt discusses revolutionary desire and his activist generation’s experiences in Central America in the 1980s. He came to realize that he and other Americans were not really helping the revolutions of Nicaragua and El Salvador, but he was confused when told to go back to America and start a revolution “in the mountains” and commit sabotage. The entire enterprise of creating guerrilla cells came to seem ridiculous in the American context. Instead Hardt began to examine the very meaning of revolution. Is it the replacement of one corrupt, selfish elite with another elite that might be better (the dictatorship of the Communist Party preceding the withering away of the need for government)? Or is revolution simply the removal of all notions of authority? Hardt began to focus more on rethinking the possibility of changing human nature, transforming people in such a way as to make them truly capable of real democracy and self-rule without elites. The irrepressible Slovenian Marxist cultural philosopher Slavoj Zizek, subject of Astra Taylor’s previous documentary ZIZEK! (2005, previously shown by AFS), stands before mountains of garbage and recycled items and talks about the danger of the ecological movement becoming a new religion. He questions the basic premise of ecology that earth and nature were somehow in balance before being disturbed by man. He sees this as a secular version of “The Fall” of Adam and Eve and the loss of Eden. Zizek corrects this idea by saying that Nature itself is a big series of unimaginable catastrophes. For example, oil is the result of catastrophes which pressed plant and animal life into liquid fuel. Controversial as ever, Zizek proclaims “ecology as the new opiate of the masses.” It is the idea of a perfect nature which he disclaims, but he doesn’t deny the warning signs of global warming and potential eco-disasters. He sees humans as in a state of disavowal, acting as if we don’t know of the dangers. In effect, we refuse to believe that life on earth, as we know it, can be destroyed. But his proposition that we should become more artificial is mystifying. In one of the most visually significant episodes, Sunaura Taylor, in her wheelchair, and Judith Butler walk around San Francisco. They are both philosophers of the body, Taylor because of her physical disabilities and Butler because of her experiences as a lesbian. Sunaura talks about how physical access can lead to social access. All the accessibility changes to American cities and buildings have allowed people with physical challenges to move about within society more easily than ever before and thereby become a more integrated part of society. Moving in the social space is an essential part in the formation of the individual. Showing that Astra Taylor was very astute in putting the two women together in this film, Judith Butler talks about her considerations of “what the body can do” – certainly an aspect of the wide range of sexual activities as well as being relevant to mobility issues in the social space. Concluding the film, Cornel West quotes Beethoven’s deathbed testament: “I’ve learned to look at the world in all its darkness and evil and still love it.” It would seem that the contemporary thinkers captured in Astra Taylor’s stimulating documentary would agree.