Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Yet again, this sort of thinking simply baffles me. It encompasses the “free will determinism” I come upon here time and again in which someone argues for determinism but only as someone seemingly convinced that the argument itself is “somehow” of their own volition. The car that hits Chigurh could never have not hit him. And whether one calls it a manifestation of chance or of necessity one calls it that because in turn one was never able to call it anything other than what the brain compels one to call it. No free will and all plans are rational from the perspective of Nature. But the mystery then revolves around whether Nature itself has a perspective. With God, teleology is built right into the relationship between I and Thou. But of Nature itself in a No God universe.?
Okay, but when Chigurh points this out it is not in a matter-of-fact manner. The inflection clearly suggests some measure of scorn. As though to note the distinction between himself as the Uberman and the gas station proprietor as the Last Man. Whereas, again, in a wholly determined universe as some understand it the two are entirely interchangeable in the only possible reality.
Yes, and that’s when I muddy up the waters philosophically by suggesting that in regard to value judgments in a free will world this revolves more around dasein than deontology.
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Okay, but what does this revolve around if not the two million dollars? We generally live in a post-modern me, myself and I culture where, by and large, everything has come to revolve increasingly around consumption, around all the things that money can buy… which more and more are convinced is the whole point of it all. It might be furnishing a home or having a snazzy car or the best computer or a stereo or stocking a refrigerator with all the best of everything. Having the most “things” to sustain one or another “lifestyle”.
And just because all of the characters here pay the price [even the ultimate price] for it, doesn’t mean that everyone will. I’m sure there are lots of men and women out there who are just fine with it being that way. And without blowing each other away. And it’s not like there is any other Ism around these days able to take its place. Many just want it to include their own 15 minutes of fame. The obsession with one way or another becoming a celebrity. On some TV reality program perhaps, or on YouTube or TikTok.
Though for a few it does come down to being a mass killer.
Yeah, that’s Hollywood. If here a more problematic Cormac McCarthy Hollywood. At least up on the silver screen. And, again, what we are really talking about here is an overarching meaning. Ed Tom Bell may have to deal with the consequences of an increasingly crude, materialistic, nihilistic world, but he still has that loving wife to come home to and a day-to-day existence that is meaningful and purposeful to them. And take Chigurh’s “missions” away from him and what’s left?
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Indeed, that, I suspect, is why I often get such sneering reactions here from the moral objectivists. God and No God. I suggests that in a No God world it is not unreasonable to argue that human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless. That death = oblivion. That, by far, the scariest characters to encounter are the sociopaths. You can’t reason with someone like Chigurh. And there is no philosophical argument you can make in the hopes that you can persuade him at least to realize that the things he chooses to do are in fact inherently and necessarily immoral. He might choose to do them anyway, sure, but at least the argument is there.
Also, in a No God world you can always inflict considerable pain and suffering on others and simply never get caught. Not so in a God world. And Nietzsche was certainly cognizant of that crucial difference.
On the other hand, he still has a set of moral convictions to set against the nihilist wasteland he is exposed to as a lawman. He can go home to his wife convinced there still exist a very real contrast between good and evil. So, there is always the hope that somehow and in some way the evil is vanquished. Compare that with the moral nihilist who has convinced himself that Nietzsche was smack dab in the bullseye in suggesting that in a No God world we now live in a world that is “beyond good and evil”.
Yes, she is the character many will most sympathize with. She encounters this coin-flipping, sociopathic thug because of something that her husband draws her into. And the fact that Chigurh kills her not because she’ll lead him to the money but simply because he told Llewelyn Moss that he would speaks volume regarding Chigurh’s frame of mind.
To wit:
“Chigurh says he’ll kill Carla Jean if Llewelyn doesn’t give him the money. He means that literally. Even though Llewelyn dies, and even though Chigurh gets the money, Chigurh still kills Carla Jean because Llewelyn didn’t literally hand over the money himself.”
Maybe he is crazy. But if that’s the case then he’s off the hook morally.
On the other hand, maybe it’s not a lack of understanding but simply another way in which to understand the world once you come to conclude that God is dead. Or, more to the point, that He never really existed in the first place.
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Intellectuals!!!
Or, rather, point taken?
Of course, as with most such assessments, the author is taking out of these characters what he first puts into them: himself. He sees the world in a certain way and then he judges the characters from that vantage point. Not unlike all the rest of us. I saw Ed Tom Bell as just the opposite of a beacon of hope. I saw him as something akin to a despairing stoic. Llewelyn Moss was all about the money taking him and Carla Jean out of the trailer and Anton Chigurh was all about the money too…a hitman hired to get it back for one or another cartel. Nietzsche’s Übermensch as thug? Someone able to rationalize the killing of another human being because he called a coin toss wrong? He was supposed to “intrigue” us?
Or it might be construed as a commentary on a postmodern “late capitalist” quagmire where God is dead, money is the new religion, and it’s every man for himself.
Okay, but in a world where literally millions and millions of men and women scrape by from paycheck to paycheck and all the movies and television programs remind them of all they haven’t got, what really counts is that you get it, not how you get it. Some just go to greater extremes here than others.
Admittedly, I never really understood Moss’s trek to the motel. The tent poles and the air duct. It never occurs to him that a briefcase filled with two million dollars might have a tracking device? That’s the first thing that popped into my head. And why not go immediately go to the nearest bus stop, train depot or airport…get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. And as fast as possible. I must have missed something there.
Let’s face it, in The Big Lebowski the nihilists are portrayed as stick figures, cartoon characters, buffoons, the butt of jokes. And in part because the plot of the film itself was never really meant to be taken seriously. Right? The fate of Bunny Lebowski? A bowling tournament? Deconstructing “the Dude”?
Laughing in the Face of Nihilism: How The Big Lebowski Offers a Hopeful Message in a Hopeless World
Comicus Muo
Still, I’d hazard a guess that for the “multitudes” who have watched [and truly loved] this film, a “profound exploration of the meaninglessness of life” is not going to be what occurs to them first. Or maybe not even in the top five reactions. And I know this in part because I have watched it myself a number of times with different friends and that just wan’t the priority topic of discussion. Instead, it revolves more around the individual characters bouncing off each other and producing some really, really funny segments. And the Dude himself comes off pretty much as a “me, myself, and I” slacker. Or rather he did to me. The “system”, our “pop culture” and the “the Stranger”?
I still don’t really know what to make of him myself. If he’s a nihilist it’s certainly not in any self-conscious sense…and not in any moral or political or philosophical sense either. I wouldn’t have a clue myself regarding how to sustain a conversation with him. And I don’t bowl.
A slacker some might call him. A loser others might call him. He pulls back into his own little world and just takes everything in stride. Only a case of mistaken identity finally draws him out into a whole new reality. Then one hilarious close encounter with the absurdity of life after another. Along with Walter Sobchak, of course. And what on Earth to make of him?
But it’s mostly played for laughs. Nihilism light. Really, really light. You never take it seriously as you might No Country For Old Men. Nothing even remotely in the way of an Anton Chigurh here.
The plot…
Right, like most watching it will actually be moved by that. Instead, it’s more like a screwball comedy. With caricatures not characters.
On the other hand, it’s not for nothing that millions are fanatics in their love for the film. Is it more than the sum of its parts? Nope. It’s just how the parts and the characters come together to create a commentary on…on what exactly?
Laughing in the Face of Nihilism: How The Big Lebowski Offers a Hopeful Message in a Hopeless World
Comicus Muo
Hmm…
How is that not more or less the opposite of nihilism? Nihilism in sync with a strict adherence to rules and principles? On the contrary, moral nihilism starts with the assumption that in a No God world all behaviors are ultimately permitted. And then going all the way out to the sociopaths who treat everyone they encounter as merely a means to their own selfish ends. If anything, Walter reflects the manner in which in nihilism revolves around means rather than ends. In other words, anything goes: youtu.be/3vB9U2hx6Qg
Bowling has rules. You can’t step over the line. And if Walter thinks you did, you damn well better mark the score zero or risk being blown away.
The end justifies any and all means nihilism.
Hmm…
Like this frame of mind won’t be interpreted in many, many, many different ways by each of us depending on our own uniquely personal experiences and [re dasein] the “philosophy of life” that “here and now” we have come to embody existentially. And, again, both the plot and the characters in the film are almost certainly beyond anything any of us have ever actually experienced.
Nope, I am not able myself to connect the dots between the author’s assessment of nihilism in the film and nihilism as I have come to understand it given the life that I have lived. By and large, I still watch the film to be amused.
As for this part…
…yes, this more or less reflects my point that nihilism can actually be liberating. Once you come to believe that in a No God world, a world that even philosophically is “beyond good and evil”, your options can increase dramatically. Your behaviors don’t have to be anchored to one or another rendition of “what would Jesus do?” You can shift gears from “is this the right thing to do?” to “can I get away with this?”
Of course here, however, some choose to become more or less self-conscious sociopaths. And that can precipitate all manner of human pain and suffering.
Instead, the author prefers to keep it all up in the intellectual/philosophical clouds:
Like the “slacker” Dude does? Or with more, uh, noble intent?
How to See Nietzsche’s Nihilism in The Matrix World
Ezgi Al
On the other hand, what exactly is the Matrix?
This?
“The Matrix…depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias “Neo”, uncovers the truth, he joins a rebellion against the machines along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.” wiki
What does meaning itself mean here for human beings trapped in an entirely simulated reality? We may as well be entirely determined by the laws of matter – nature – given that frame of mind. Here the question of meaning would seem to revolve more around what reality means to the machines themselves. Except of course for Neo and Trinity and Morpheus. And their Oracle?
With them and a few others the assumption is made that “somehow” human beings did acquire free will. And they are attempting to defeat the machines and bring autonomy back to the human race for…for what exactly?
To bring things back to the way things are now for us. Back again to all of these folks…
…yammering on and on and on and on that only their own meaning counts. Like the fiercely fanatical objectivists here?
The backstory…
So, right from the start we recognize that this is an entirely make-believe world. A science fiction world like The Terminator and Blade Runner. Then we can project our own sense of reality into the plot and into the characters. Same with our own rooted existentially in dasein take on Nietzsche’s nihilism itself. What did Nietzsche mean by nihilism. Like that can be pinned down objectively such that in grasping it we can then think up the optimal assessment of nihilism in The Matrix.
How to See Nietzsche’s Nihilism in The Matrix World
Ezgi Al
This is where everything gets all jumbled up in the quandary that is free will and determinism. Can she know the future? And if she can then how can all of the other characters – those in the Matrix and those who created it in turn – not be but necessary components of it? Or is she only able to make certain prophetic calculations about it, allowing still for some measure of autonomy for those on either end of the Matrix “reality”/reality?
And in what respect to the Oracle and the Architect is my own understanding of dasein in regard to value judgments applicable as well. There’s the extent to which Neo and the Oracle and the Architect have free will and the extent to which the behaviors they choose are deeed to be either moral or immoral. By you? By me? By others?
Then the part where the plot here is similar to The Terminator or different.
Same thing. What would peace consist of? What would this equality entail since those who created the Matrix use human beings for their own purpose?
Then the part where nihilism and Nietzsche fit into all of this. If the machines are not themselves connected to any God or Divine spiritual path, do they embody more a might makes right agenda or a right makes might agenda.
How to See Nietzsche’s Nihilism in The Matrix World
Ezgi Al
There have been many other dichotomies of this sort. Freud’s rendition of it, Jung’s rendition of it. The enormously complex interaction between reason and emotion that unfolds within all of us from day to day in our interactions with others. There are those things we all agree are rational to believe regarding the behaviors that we choose. And they are reasonable to believe no matter when you were born historically and no matter what culture you were brought up in and no matter what your own uniquely personal experiences and relationships were. They are manifestations of the either/or world. People might have any number of conflicting thoughts and feelings about the fact that something is what it is, but that doesn’t make it any less objectively real.
Only in the Matrix, of course, even the “either/or” world is embedded in this:
“The Matrix was a massive simulated virtual reality construct of the world as it was around the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, created by artificial intelligences to keep the minds of the human race under control while they served as organic POWs.”
So, for me, the real question pertaining to nihilism – meaning and purpose in the is/ought world – revolves more around Neo and those who take the red pill. What of them in regard to the Apollonian and Dionysian world views? Okay, Neo and the others do succeed in ridding the world of the Matrix. AI is conquered and we are back in control.
Well, that’s when, re the OPs of these threads my own nihilism…
…come into play. My own “fractured and fragmented” perspective on life in regard to moral, political and spiritual values.
Where I distinguish myself from Nietzsche here is in regard to the Übermensch/Last Man dichotomy. Nietzsche dumps God but he comes up with his own “right makes might” supermen to take His place. At least on this side of the grave. They are his own “one of us” vs. “one of them” rendition of dividing up the world between the masters and the slaves.
And here and especially there – knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora – are any number of “fiercely fanatic objectivists” who themselves divide up the world between right and wrong, good and evil, rational and irrational. Both God and No God.
But that is not an option for me. Not “here and now” anyway. Being drawn and quartered – hopelessly ambivalent – morally, politically and spiritually still seems more reasonably than unreasonable to me.
And for those who do not agree, okay, let’s note a context and discuss it.
Well, providing I respect your intelligence and you respect mine.
How to See Nietzsche’s Nihilism in The Matrix World
Ezgi Al
Fine, that is certainly one way in which to construe options in a No God world. Human existence may well be essentially meaningless and purposeless. It may well end once and for all in oblivion.
On the other hand, a human life can be 75 years or more. And that gives you thousands and thousands of days to think of something interesting to do.
For me, however, the part about activating nihilism really does come down to what “for all practical purposes” someone is actually going to do with it fully charged. Will they activate it from the far right or far left? Will others have to be reeducated, shunned or worse if they don’t toe the line?
And, again, in the Matrix, what relevance does Nietzsche really have? Aren’t almost all human beings in a programmed virtual world? And in regard to the Architect…Is he/she a nihilist?
On the other hand, it’s been many years since I saw The Matrix. And, even then, only the first one. So, sure, Nietzsche and nihilism may be pertinent here. In ways that completely escapes me.
How to See Nietzsche’s Nihilism in The Matrix World
Ezgi Al
A theory. One of many, many others attempting to make sense of why we are here at all. “Return” and “recurrence” because we need to know that even if we live the same life over and over and over again until the end of time, that’s better then nothing at all. And “eternal” just has a comforting ring to it.
But where does the Matrix fit into this? The humans are contained and the Architect…? Beyond merely subsisting, is there a teleological component to the world as they construe it to be.
Eternal return, being an entirely fabricated conjecture regarding life after death…and almost certainly is never going to be anything other than that… what are its implications for any mere mortal? Within the Matrix movies, however, did it ever actually come up?
Yeah, apparently so…
“In other words, the events of the first two films have, it seems, happened before several times; and will, we can imagine, happen again. This is a dramatisation in popular-cultural terms of a concept Nietzsche called ‘the Eternal Recurrence’ or ‘the Eternal Return’.”
Okay, but it only really interests me if there is any actual demonstrative evidence that it’s a possibility. Even Woody Allen would prefer endless editions of the Ice Capades to oblivion. But where’s the beef?
Think about that. You accept something…unconsciously? Or is everything that we think, feel, say and do ultimately accepted in the only possible world because there was never any possibility of any other world unfolding. Then we can root for the red pill or the blue pill folks in imagining this as a possible “what if” work of science fiction. What if there is a Matrix and all of this is just an inevitable part of it…too.
And, as Neo or not, Thomas Anderson is no less the existential embodiment of dasein once a community sets about the task of prescribing and proscribing “rules of behaviors”. Then it’s might makes right, right makes might or moderation, negotiation and compromise.
Basically, the capitalist political economy, while providing us with any number of serious “imperfections” – tendencies toward violence, greed, selfishness etc., – it is still far, far better to risk that than to basically become slaves to the state.
Come on, over and over again we can clearly see how, for many, the whole point of enduring all of the many trials and tribulations that are “out there” waiting to befall us, is that there is a “system”. There is – there better be – an overarching meaning and purpose that our life is a part of. Most call it God and religion, though for others it’s one or another political ideology, or school of philosophy or “natural selection”.
Again, however, tell me that our individual reactions to an assessment of this sort won’t be embedded by and large in our own personal experiences?
Or, instead, is there a way in which to sustain the best of all possible worlds. If only philosophically up in the intellectual contraption stratosphere?
Most importantly, for others, the Matrix sustaining the global economy today is not some alien machine contraption, it’s built right into the political agendas of the amoral flesh and blood crony/state capitalist plutocrats that run the world.
Only there are as many different renditions of the Deep State here as there are those on their very own One True Path.
How to See Nietzsche’s Nihilism in The Matrix World
Ezgi Al
Then, I suspect, the objectivists among us would immediately want to introduce Neo to their own system. That’s always the crucial distinction for me. Okay, Thomas Anderson is no longer embedded in the AI system. But what happens when “the machines” are defeated and he starts to question Morpheus and the Oracle instead? When he is confronted with the arguments that I propose in regard to conflicting value judgments.
This in particular takes me back to my days as a radical left-wing political activists. We all agreed that ultimately the enemy was capitalism. But the truly heated squabbles we would get into over what exactly should be put in its place. Socialism, sure. But then what?
Yes, employing “active nihilism” in going after what you want to be rid of certainly makes sense. But what of “active nihilism” when Neo and the others liberate human beings from the Matrix? The slate is clean. But what “new values” will prevail?
As for the infinite loop…is this in regard to a wholly determined universe? Or one in which “somehow” human beings acquired free will?
Dancing with Absurdity
Fred Leavitt argues that our most cherished beliefs are probably wrong.
Aside from the author’s take on this, there’s my own take. That, given a “fractured and fragmented” moral philosophy, one can in all sincerity believe that certain behaviors are neither wholly moral nor immoral. Instead, given one set of assumptions, the behaviors are deemed to be moral while given another set of assumptions they are deemed to be immoral. Or neither one. Something is merely presumed to be moral if one believes that it is or immoral if one believes that. In other words, the way the world around us often is: bursting at the seams with conflicting goods. We’re right from our side, they’re right from their side. And thus the best of all possible worlds is one in which moderation, negotiation and compromise – democracy and the rule of law – prevail. Leaving aside the “deep state” – the role that wealth and power play in any human community – most get something because no one is able to get everything.
Sure, with “near certainty” there are many, many things that all of us believe are in fact true. And true for all of us. Objectively as some say. Just try to imagine living from day to day in a world where no events were ever certain. It’s just that some of us then note at least the possibility of an overarching reality that is embedded in dasein, the Benjamin Button Syndrome, in “the gap” and “Rummy’s Rule”. And then from time-to-time pop culture throws things like The Matrix or Dark City at us. We are prompted to doubt almost everything around us. Then those who argue for solipsism or determinism or sim worlds.
Of course, the bottom line [mine] is that we all go to the grave utterly oblivious as to why there is something instead of nothing. And why this something and not something else. Or wondering which one of these paths…
Again, there are those things that most of us will bet our lives on as being true. We interact with others in any number of situations and no one doubts what is unfolding. No one questions the reality of what is going on. In a family. In a community. At school. At work. Given any number of social, political and economic transactions. Here we submit posts pertaining to philosophy. What’s to doubt about that?
Well, plenty of things once we go beyond the either/or world.
That’s where “I” come in in regard to my own “fractured and fragmented” rendition of “identity”, “conflicting goods” and “political economy”.
And that is because in so many truly concrete ways, the “human condition” is patently not “for all practical purposes” absurd at all. Lots and lots and lots of things can be grasped and communicated objectively to others. Instead, I’m the one who suggests that in regard to moral and political and spiritual value judgments, being drawn and quartered is a perfectly reasonable frame of mind. I merely include my own rooted existentially in dasein assumption that there is No God.
Absurdity for some revolves instead around the assumptions the objectivists among us make that how they understand the human condition really is the one and the only one true path to enlightenment.
And, perhaps, most absurd of all is the belief by some that if you follow – embody – their own religious dogmas, you will also attain immortality and salvation.
If it isn’t or is doesen’t make much difference for arguing for the sake of argument gives rise to the absurd notion that is in its self is arguable.
How best to illustrate the paradox of arguably reasoned ; which is presented on reliance on its own basis?
That is why failing a reasonable agreement, did the absurdity of such reliance give rise to that genre, which can not contradict but distance its self to defining what ‘reasonable’ means.?.
And what coextensive means are used to explain such phonetic-signal-sign to emerge in the first place?
