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My brother James watched a thought-provoking movie in theaters last week. His response was similar to something I’ve been reading and thinking about lately, namely self-control and the desire to be entertained.
Below are some introductory notes that I hope to flesh out in future columns.
This movie is Jordan Peele’s “No,” and it’s not just about our current culture, but about the human instinct to turn everything into entertainment.
In his commentary, James cites two sources, Plato’s Republic and Genesis, to emphasize his point.
“Leontius son of Agleon, as he went up the hill from Piraeus along the north wall, saw several corpses lying at the feet of the executioners. He had an appetite to see them, but at the same time turned away in disgust​​​ He struggled for a while, covering his face, finally overwhelmed by his appetite, widened his eyes, rushed towards the corpse, and said, “Find it for yourself, you rascals, enjoy this beautiful sight to the fullest. “‘”
—Plato, Republic
“When they brought them out, one said, ‘Run for your life. Don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Run to the mountains, lest you be swept away.'”… But Lot’s When his wife looked back behind him, she turned into a pillar of salt. “
—Genesis 19:17, 26.
“On the face of it, I like Nope as an alien invasion thriller, it’s the genre that comes closest to me,” James said. “But also a film about our desire to turn everything into entertainment, whether it’s domesticating animals that probably shouldn’t be, or turning tragedy into memes and skits. Our morbid curiosity and desire for entertainment can sometimes At the cost of respecting the deceased or knowing your own limitations.”
Like Leonitus (one of the world’s first rubber necks) and Lot’s wife, we’re all curious about things we shouldn’t be looking at. Who hasn’t slowed down to see the wreck?
James’ words reminded me of what Edmund Burke wrote in his book, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.
In it, Burke writes that beauty produces emotion and tenderness in human beings, which exercise our ability to appreciate and understand; but as for the sublime, he writes,
“Anything suitable to inspire the idea of ​​pain and danger, that is, anything scary, or familiar with a fearful object, or that operates in a manner similar to horror, is a source of pain and danger. Sublimation; that is, , it produces the strongest emotion the mind can feel.”
Speaking of a society, Burke warns that a society that is not bound by the temperament of beauty will only be captivated by the sublime, which does not bring order to our passions and leads to a chaotic culture that fails to appreciate beauty.
This is what Herman Melville mentioned at the beginning of his masterpiece Moby Dick.
Shortly after introducing himself with one of the most iconic first three words in all of literature (call me Ishmael), Melville’s character reflects why people so often flock to the coast.
“But look! There are more crowds coming, headed straight to the surface, as if to dive. Strange! There is nothing to satisfy them but the limits of the land; it is not enough to linger in the shade of the warehouse over there. No,” he wrote. “They have to get as close to the water as possible without falling. . . . Tell me, does the magnetism of the compass needles of all these ships attract them there?
The sea was dangerous, but Moby Dick’s men answered its call. What is it in human nature that leads us to the sublime, the precipice between danger and beauty, how dangerous and yet so fascinating?
I will leave my answer in a future column, may the Lord please.
For this, however, I want to end with one of my favorite lines from a recent TV show. Amazon just released the first two episodes of the series “Ring of Power” based on Tolkien’s work. The visuals are stunning, the dialogue is decidedly Augustinian, which means that Tolkien’s point about the moral qualities of beauty is true, and we seem to often miss the empty philosophy in the modern concept of relativity that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” “
Near the beginning, Galadriel’s brother Finrod compares her to a ship and a rock, the former guided by the beauty and the latter by the sublime.
“Do you know why the boat floats and the stone doesn’t? Because the stone can only look down. The darkness is huge and irresistible. The boat feels the darkness too, every moment, trying to control her and pull her down. But this The ship has a secret. For unlike the stone, she looks not down, but up, gazing at the light that guides her, whispering something greater than the darkness knows.”
As Burke points out, beauty should lead us because it produces love in us, and when love is properly formed in us, it leads us to help others, not just seek to satisfy our thirst for excitement.
Joseph Hamrick is a semi-professional writer and sometimes a thinker. He lives in Commerce and serves as a deacon at Commerce Community Church C3).he can reach atjhamrick777@gmail.com
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