Hello W.C.
— “I think I see your point, though I would like to say here that V’s hatred for the government is not only because of the agents administering the various experiments and such upon him, but because of the government who failed him as a citizen with rights; a government who ordered V’s torture.”
O- The rights of an individual stand removed if his actions endanger the Govt. At that point, it is a matter of self-defense. A law is a law. I might consider a law as unjust-- govt does not care about my opinion on a law but my compliance with a law. If i break one of the laws of the land-- that is to say “of the people”, then, while i retain some rights, I give up others, essentially, my freedom.
V’s torture is a real abobination. I would go as far as to say that it represents the exception and not the rule. But suppose that a particular goverment had done just such a thing, would you be prepared to overthrow such a goverment? Or, to put it in another way, if a goverment was capable of this, would you then try to abolish all possible goverments? That is a flimsy case for anarchism. But suppose we take V at his word and take out the very option of goverment…no goverment but self-goverment. That is quite vague. How would such an alternative be like? Well, immagine a city… without a Dept of Police. add to this differences, any one difference or set of differences, be it age, sex, ideology, sexual orientation or religion. Now suppose that other differences become evident, such as numbers within a family. How does a group of people behave in the absence of any authority? Without govt of any kind? By what means do they regulate themselves, or issues resolved between one another? This is the Wild West. I am not even going to say, as the Marxist and other romantics did, that it is all resolvable if we just redistribute property. Nice thought, but does not account for aggression. In this climate, and because of our biology (which brings up dependent and vulnerable to the indoctrination of a family and it’s relative values) clans would take the place of states.
— Is the faction that orders the torture any less to blame then those who administer it?
O- He that orders and those who carry it out are just the same but agents of goverment. Goverment is an idea, not Sutler. Goverment is like V. he too would like people not bother with who he was but what he is. Goverment is not the agent or the 50th President, Chancellor etc. Someone is elected to that rank, that office, but that does not mean that they do not sneeze or get sick. The idea of goverment, the idea of president etc cannot be corrupted by the actions of one man (worthy or not) in a series of many other individuals past and future. The Presidency is an idea, a concept, not a person. V would want the same courtesy.
— I don’t believe that fear is the cause of immorality, but rather, fear puts away the courage to stand up to immorality.
O- Not to stand up to immorality, when one could or should, is immoral, so is just saying the same thing. Never mind at this point that we still lack a consensus of what is moral/immoral. The gay guy praises the poetry of the Koran without a care as to it’s meaning and it’s written opinion against those like him. Standing up may only require strenght to absorb pain, from either govt or V (same thing), but establishing what is moral or not is quite another matter left vague for the convineince of the narrative. It is easier to rally the masses by making them believe that what they do is moral and that their enemy is not, but these pupits do not express why they are and the others are not.
Why is V moral and the govt immoral when both consider that the end justifies the means. They agree as to the use of torture and fear and disagree merely on the end in sight.
— V’s torture of Evey was wrong, I agree.
O- No you do not. You say that you believe that the end justifies the means. Since you agree with V’s ends then you do not mind his means to reach his ends.
— He’s torture did, however, show something quite important to the films progression. It showed that though Evey wasn’t sure whether V was doing right or wrong before the torture, on the point of V’s revolution, during and after the torture it showed that deep down, Evey would rather die then stop V’s plan because she knew it was right. She knew the government was doing wrong and things needed to be done.
O- You’re going too far. In both V and Evey, it is true, the encarceration only set them more firm in their opposition to the existing govt. What comes out of any prision, but the same criminal more determined than before? But that does not mean that Evey had to know that the Govt was wrong and V was right. She could not. What is for sure is that one had failed her while she had failed another. But in both cases, Evey saw a govt to secure her well being. In that sense, she still had not become an anarchist. It’s uncertain, if after his death, she would not take the role of V as catharsis of reformation.
— If V was wrong in he’s hypothesis, if Evey crumbled, I believe V may have re-thought he’s revolution. If the people did not believe he was right, then there is only one other alternative; he was wrong.
O- No. If he had already believed that fear robbed one of the courage to stand up to govt, or oppression, then her compliance with the aggressors would only prove that she was still in fear for her life and that the process had failed, not his ideology.
— Those who were found to be speaking out or with forbidden articles of expression in their possession, were sent to prison or put to death as shown by the governments assassination of the countries leading television host for owning a book, the Koran.
O- Yet is that a characteristic of goverment or of the mob in general? These are bad things, I agree, but they happen when there is no goverment to blame also.
— the government made them feel they needed to be more secure and slowly, but surely, removed the people’s freedoms.
O- Removing freedoms increase people’s security. I might not agree with Big Brother, but I would not mind being able to look at the face of the person who keyed my car, or rob my speakers, etc, etc.
— V was a hero in the sense that he gave the people the courage to restore their freedoms.
O- You mean to live less secure. How did V live after he lost that fear, or need to be secure? By the lenght of his knives. Evey hides long enough to send a train to blow up a building. V says that a people should not be afraid of their govt but that the govt should be afraid of the people. But when there is no govt, will the people not be afraid of other people? Those who are fearless, like V and Evey, are fearless, or may be so, simply because they are willing to inflic pain, maim and kill. They are not afraid of govt agents because they can or will kill these agents. What will happen when fearless clans collide?
It does not matter if V was the lesser of two evils, and that is only an “if”, since, in my opinion, V was a govt in a self. My point is that V and Govt are the same and that V’s actions, based on violence, illegal incarceration, under whatever rationale, lack of consultation or debate etc, indicate that all remains the same. No real revolution is sought. V might be said to simply want a new govt which is afraid of it’s subjects. He might simply seek a return to the Greek idea of govt, but in all these cases, what I see is a reformation- a change of names, but not one of methods.
The revolution will only be televised because it is a fiction of light rather than a process going on of which the images give a report. It is televised because it is fantastic. It can only be shown in pamphlets, books, poems, propaganda, song or television… all of these with a clear beginning, middle and an end. Real life is more complicated. I see many things left unasked and unsaid, just so that the story can end and a particular message delivered. To tell that story, the characters involved have been robbed of most of their humanity so that in the film, Sutler is bankarupt of any redeming charasteristics. It makes the viwer, it almost seeks to force him, to agree that V is the lesser of two evils.
My whole thing is that what if you were realistic:
1- you would have to include the incinsistence of the mob.
2- the philosophical ambiguity of the concepts involved.
3- the lack of freedom in one human child.
4- the impact of the enviroment upon human politics.
5- the impact of human aggression in ideologies.
6- the rationalizations of desires into ideals and morals.
…just to name a few.
