The 'Verse And Philosophy by Beatlesfan

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

The 'Verse And Philosophy

POSTED BY: BEATLESFAN
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 04:12
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Monday, May 11, 2009 5:51 AM

I'm a complete philosophy nut and have read or browsed a few titles from the "Pop Culture Philosophy" series. (I only actually own one - House And Philosophy.) Anyway, I've noticed there's no Firefly/Serenity And Philosophy book, but there's philosophy aplenty in the series. Here's where I'm gonna go out on a proverbial limb: are there any other philosophy enthusiasts out there who wouldn't mind, or might even enjoy, discussing philosophy and its applications in the 'Verse?

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Monday, May 11, 2009 10:26 AM

WAKEUPSOON

I'll discuss as much as I can with you, but I'm only a student of philosophy, so I don't know too much about these things.

I've been revising the topic of personhood recently tho, and it got me thinking, what level of personhood must the alliance have given River if they allowed people to cut up her brain? My theory is that, to the alliance, children must be seen as a lower form of life, thus they allowed themselves to experiment on these 'creatures'. However, what then happens once the children reach a certain age, and legally become adults? The answer is simple, if you think about it: they are not human. Even people who regard children as complete persons (for lack of a better term) do not seem to regard AI (Artificial Intelligence) as persons; so the issue can be sidestepped by the Alliance, provided that enough experimentation and alteration has gone on in their brains for them to longer function as real people, and start to function as machines ...

Just a theory.

~WuS
This is not my signature, I have to write this every time I post.
Smile && Nod, it makes it seem like you know what's going on.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 10:29 AM

BLUESUNCOMPANYMAN

Objects in Space. Wow. Just Wow.

There has never been an episode of Science Fiction as deep and personally meaningful to me as OIS. If you are interested in philosophy you should watch OIS with the commentary, it's wonderful.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 10:45 AM

WAKEUPSOON

Ooooh, I haven't actually listened to the commentaries since I became interested in Philosophy .. I'll have to check that one out again soon!

~WuS
This is not my signature, I have to write this every time I post.
Smile && Nod, it makes it seem like you know what's going on.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 11:00 AM

BEATLESFAN

I just got into philosophy this last semester; I discovered Firefly toward the end of it, which I think was good timing. I haven't watched OiS with the commentary yet, but when I went back and was thinking about the episodes, that one did stand out. Unfortunately I tend to confuse Early with the Operative in a lot of ways; their roles seemed fairly similar.

I know that it was the Operative who knew that what he was doing was wrong (right?), that he was creating a new world and that he knew he wasn't fit to live in it.

One thing I do remember in OiS, though, is when River offers to go with Early. Yes, it was a trick, but it's like she acknowledged that, to him at least, she was not a person.

I like the point you made about children not being people; it made sense to me to a point. The only thing I can think of to oppose that is the flashbacks we see in Serenity where River is in school, but even there we're seeing another crummy philosophical theory. They're instilling a type of "Divine Command Theory" into the students with the Alliance as the God figure.

The Alliance (and the "parliament") are very philosophically uneducated and/or simple. Just look at Miranda. They didn't try any sort of humanizing method of creating peace; they just introduced a gas into the air to do it.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 11:05 AM

RALLEM

I didn't want to be the first person to respond so I waited, because I am not a student of philosophy, even though I had taken a class or two on the subject. I will try my best to converse with you intelligently about the philosophy of the ‘verse via these post boards, but I make no promises at actually being intelligent.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

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Monday, May 11, 2009 11:09 AM

WAKEUPSOON

The Alliance has so many errors in its ways. && can I please clarify that I personally do not believe that children aren't persons. In fact, I would even give a foetus almost full human rights, just because it has the potential to become a person, let alone who child who is already fulfilling that potential.

I like your "Divine Command Theory" tho, it does seem like the Alliance are trying to prove themselves Godlike. But, if thats true, then people shouldn't be forced to believe in the Alliance's existence/power. Given what the Alliance have done, I'd be more inclined to liken them to Descartes 'evil daemon', as the Alliance seems to trick people in the Core into believing what they say.

I think, therefore, I am; and so is the evil daemon.

~WuS
This is not my signature, I have to write this every time I post.
Smile && Nod, it makes it seem like you know what's going on.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 11:29 AM

BEATLESFAN

Oh I know you don't think that :P I was just running with the ball without specifying - sorry 'bout that.

I actually found an interesting parallel, and part of what made me think of the Alliance as Divine Command Theorists, was Book's DCT ways. Now I'm a Christian and all, and I think a lot of Book's stuff has some wisdom in it, but I've noticed that sometimes he won't have a reason; he'll simply say "this is right because God says so," or something to that effect. Which makes me wonder if that isn't just a rechanneling of Alliance programming, especially since we don't know much about his past.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 11:37 AM

WAKEUPSOON

I'd never thought of that! But I like it. I'm a Christian also (Roman Catholic, to be precise) and I find Book to be a very interesting character, purely because of how little we know about him. Many men of God often don't have reason any reason, except for the word 'God'. Have you ever come across Idealism? Its a theory of perception created by Bishop Berkeley, its an intriguing idea, and undeniably clever. Until you come up to certain flaws, and the only answer he can give is "There is a Grand Perceiver, lets call him God" and it turns out that that was the whole point of the theory to begin with - to prove God's existence.

Its a little odd, especially seen as it leads perfectly back to the Evil Daemon. All Idealism states is the need for a Grand Perceiver, there's no real need for it to be a Good Guy ...

~WuS
This is not my signature, I have to write this every time I post.
Smile && Nod, it makes it seem like you know what's going on.

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Monday, May 11, 2009 1:53 PM

BYTEMITE

Granted, I haven't read it (I need to pick up some of these extra books), but I thought Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly delved somewhat into the philosophies of the verse.

Anyhoo. I think an important aspect to keep in mind is that not everyone in the Alliance has the same philosophy. Most of the population in the Core-worlds has accepted Alliance propaganda about the advances the Alliance has brought to government, society, and civilization. However, methodology and what an average citizen versus an Operative of Parliament deems an acceptable policy or form of enforcement may vary drastically.

There are, of course, apparently Black Out Zones on some core worlds, and inhabitants of them I imagine might be political dissenters with differing philosophical views. And, of course, ever since River began creatively interpreting the evening Cortex news through dinosaurs, it seems like she's been questioning the propaganda. But I'd say the average citizen thinks more like Inara, or Simon, before he realized River was in trouble.

But there's a nasty group out there involving a consolidation of power between the military, a major corporation, and parliament. And to speak of their philosophy, I would suspect we're looking at a neo-conservatism corporate globalist blend perspective and with a hefty dose of cronyism. There's also definitely an element of authoritarianism.

I say neo-conservative to mean someone with conservative values but a milder view towards the idea of a welfare state, they tend to say they're against big government and bureaucracy but often end up being the worst offenders. I also mean people who support the spread of free-enterprise (meaning the free enterprise of their corporate interests) and actively engage in the spread of their preferred form of government, often by military force.

This is the definition that wikipedia gives. I am not saying that neo-conservatism is the equivalent of corporate globalism, cronyism, or authoritarianism. I am saying that the people who cooked up Miranda and the experiments on River appear to be a blend of all these things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservativism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 1:56 AM

LEMMING

"Granted, I haven't read it (I need to pick up some of these extra books), but I thought Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly delved somewhat into the philosophies of the verse."

Oh definitely. Both Finding Serenity and Serenity Found go into the philosophy in some of the essays. In fact, there is an pretty in depth discussion of existentialism in the first book that I found quite heavy going (as in technical and somewhat over my head at least :-)

And of course the second ever episode of Badger's World on The Signal was titled "Philosophy" :-)

Helen Eaton also did a recent article on The Signal called The Search For Serenity which dealt with some phliosophical concepts (show 5 of current season)

Nick

The Signal ( www.serenityfirefly.com)

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:03 AM

BEATLESFAN

What's "The Signal"? Obviously it can't be stopped, but I've not heard of it...

It sounds like I need to get these Finding Serenity and Serenity Found books. I'd glanced at them and compared them to the House And Philosophy book in that it's a collection of essays written by different people. I'll add it to my ever-growing list of things I need to buy.

The way the Alliance works, and how River interprets it as a child, reminds me a lot of Communism. Not of the idea itself but of the way it tends to run. The Alliance has these great-sounding ideals of bringing everyone together in unity for a better life but ends up telling everyone "how to think" and so on.

It's a great deception method, though, and psychologically works as well. It would be easy to convince Alliance employees that they were working for the good if the only news they received was Alliance created: "There are people out there who are becoming savages, and it's our job to save them from that." It's sort of like the Missionary philosophy in days of old.

I'd say that most of the Alliance probably thinks that what it's doing is the right thing to do, has no idea of what exactly is going on outside their own little world. It almost circles back to Divine Command Theory again; they've been given a truth and taught not to question it, so they don't, not because they don't want to but because it just doesn't occur to them to.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:46 AM

BYTEMITE

Interesting that you bring up communism... :)

For a while now, because of the Alliance being essentially a mixture of the Chinese government and English/American governments of Earth, I've thought that there might be some element of Chinese style communism in the Alliance.

In Safe, the scene where Gabriel Tam tells a young Simon that the gadget he's just been given can be "paid back" by becoming a great doctor... I could interpret that a number of ways. There's the possibility it's just a coincidence and Simon does end up becoming a doctor, there's the possibility that Simon is being actively groomed to become a doctor by his father and that is the path Simon is expected to follow...

OR, I've also thought, it's possible that the Alliance may specialize education programs at a very young age, evaluating the potential and particular skill sets of each student for their most likely future career path (in other words, deciding FOR them).

Most people around here don't really agree with me, but considering some of the mindset I have seen among higher government officials (what with Miranda, and the experiments on River), and the Chinese government being a founding influence on the Alliance, it wouldn't surprise me.

And, of course, Chinese communism as it is right now has a lot of corrupt corporate influence entrenched in the government. Blue Sun, anyone?

Mix with the English ethos of invasion of privacy, and some of America's industrial military complex corporate imperialism, and you have a ripe recipe for a nice futuristic dystopia that looks harmonic and benevolent on the surface to it's over-contented population. Scary stuff.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:10 AM

LEMMING

Beatlesfan wrote:
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 04:03
"What's "The Signal"? Obviously it can't be stopped, but I've not heard of it..."

Follow the link in my sig. It's the original and longest running Firefly and Serenity fan made podcast (we're in our 5th season now, 116 or so shows plus another 50 or so short shows, segments and promos) We've done all sorts, interviews with BDHs prior and just after Serenity coming out, lots of articles, reviews, music, fan emails and inside looks at all sorts of shiny stuff. We're not the only one, Firefly Talk followed shortly after with a more convention based take on the fandom (though this is no longer a regular show), there's Sending A Wave which is totally UK based (which is nice cos it means I get to be involved sometimes :-) and is a more relaxed fan centred discussion show, but they also managed to interview Nathan fairly recently, which none of the rest of us manged :-) And they often get the inside track on similarly cool stuff. Week In Whedon was more general Joss centered, as is Joss'd, but both cover (covered in WiWs case) Firefly related stuff. Then there's the gaming podcasts After Serenity and Echoes From The Black covering RPG in the Verse. Plus the Sonic Society's Old Wounds and Wedding Day (incredibly high quality audio drama. And the fan films of course.

There's a lot of podcasty goodness out there with a worldwide audience (heck, we've got active crew in the US, UK and Africa!) But only 2 defunct Firecasts are listed here (despite several requests that this info be updated)

If you want to look at ways the Verse has been expanded, the FanFic here is extremely good, the podcasts of course do it in their individual ways and that's just the start.

You need to check out Mosquito (parody fan film) and Done The Impossible, the (US) fans story, narrated by Adam Baldwin, then later this year we should get The Bellflower and Browncoats:Redemption. Big Iron, Into The Black and at least one other fan film are also still in production.

This kinda got off the topic of philosophy didn't it :-)

Point is there's a shed load of other resources out there (and in here) and the podcasts, the fanfic and the films (with the exception of Done The Impossible) are free (or raise money for charity).

Nick

The Signal ( www.serenityfirefly.com)

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:16 PM

BEATLESFAN

Gah I wish there was more action in Georgia. I'm a composer, performer, and actor, and I don't get to use any of it aside from recording at home. I'd kill to be involved with a Firefly fan film.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009 8:19 AM

BLUESUNCOMPANYMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I would suspect we're looking at a neo-conservatism corporate globalist blend perspective and with a hefty dose of cronyism.

I wrote a blog post about this.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showblog.asp?b=6447
I make a case that the overall Alliance government exists in a state similar to the 18th century British model.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:07 AM

BYTEMITE

Culturally, I think you might be right, at least on particularly Anglic worlds. I even take it a step further and imagine that the grandiose balls on Persephone, so far removed from the actual court of Londinium, would probably be jokes to the truly elite, like the Victorian era English country side. People like Sir Harrow would probably be seen by the elite as grandstanding on an "unimpressively mercantile" basis of knighthood.

I would also consider Sihnon to possibly be your India controlled by the East India Company. With some reference to China and the Silk road, of course, but in general carrying an eastern influence.

It's funny, though, why is it Londinium, Parliament and lordships when in the Visual Companion it says that England was absorbed by an American Empire? Perhaps it's a Roman concept, with the conqueror taking on the attributes of the conquered so the transition is resisted less.

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Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:03 AM

ZZETTA13

Beatlesfan great topic!

For some time now I have been actively wondering about philosophy and Alliance doctrine as it was/is conveyed throughout the verse.

I think the first thing that intrigued me about Firefly was within the first few minutes of the pilot episode when I heard Mal say “ Jayne, give me the sticky.”

I was thinking at that time…..why would the writer of a si/fi space show name one of the male characters “Jayne”. I accepted it within the first 10 seconds because I thought there’d be an explanation for it later in the episode. There wasn’t and I really didn’t ponder on the question again….although it never went away.

The second question of “ WHY” things were the way they were came a few seconds later when the captain of the huge Alliance craft made the decision to give up the case for Serenity in order to give aid to the stranded craft ( a hoax of course)? Wouldn’t it be just as well to have some smaller craft chase Serenity while the main vehicle “Helped these people!” or vice versa. In that moment the Alliance didn’t seemed to be portrayed as something so bad.

One thing that really had me connect to the show was that there seems to be some moral dilemma or some finely tuned “gray” area in each episode. It wasn’t a mater of if you do this you’re right, or if you do this you’re wrong. I think the writers actually bounced the question back to the tv audience….What would you do?”

In Serenity the BDM Mal tells the operative that he doesn’t kill children…..and the operative answers “I do!” At the same time Mal takes a code of rope and tells his crew to tie the bodies of their dead friends to the hull of Serenity! We would expect such a gruesome command to come from someone like the operative, but Mal? Could you do the same to people that you once called family?

My fellow browncoats there is a lot to talk about in the worlds of the verse. Each episode has a number of questions it would be fun to discuss. It’s what made the show so interesting to me and so realistic……..and the robots, where are the freaking robots? I understand no aliens but where is robo-cop? Looks as if the worlds have gone backwards a touch…..I like it!! I feel robots would have complicated the show too much.

Finally, don’t get me started about “Parliament” I could write books on them.

Z

“ If you can dodge a wrench….you can dodge a ball!!” Patches O’Houlihan, the Dodgeball Chronicles

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009 4:12 AM

BEATLESFAN

Just saw this post...email notifications are all wonky.

I was watching the first episode yesterday with the commentary on (which was hard to do 'cause I kept watching the episode and not listening), and I too noticed that act of 'kindness' that the Alliance committed. I think it's to set them up as at least a semi-just, -caring, -whatever group, to make you think that they're not really all that bad. It makes you think that the Alliance's priority is to protect the peace and safety of its citizens. It makes everything that comes later more of a shock. We see the Alliance go from a group who would turn away from capturing a group of "pirates" (albeit reluctantly) to answer a distress call to a group who would do just about anything to have its way (protecting what it considers "peace" - just look at Miranda). Don't even get me started on the dissension within the Alliance itself. The fact that there are operatives and blue hands and whatnot that aren't in the system and who would kill their own without hesitation doesn't say a lot for them.

As for the BDM reference, I think it's a matter of perspective. The operative will kill children and whoever else he has to to create this "new world." Mal isn't heartless, but his loyalty lies with his crew and his ship. Yes, his distaste for the Alliance gets in the way at times, but it still applies. That's why he has them tie the bodies to the ship and whatnot. At that point, the dead bodies are something like objects. They're still people, but they're not as important to him as his own crew is, and if he has to do "degrading" things to keep his crew safe then he will.

In the commentary for the pilot episode, Nathan and Joss talk about "the moment where he [Mal] loses everything." I think that after that moment, his harsh, biting, seemingly careless attitude became a defense mechanism. He can be kind, but when his crew and ship are threatened, when everyone they turn to for help is killed, he goes into lockdown. The surprise that his crew shows in his words shows that. He wouldn't normally have them do such things with dead bodies, or act so casual about it, but it's the only way he can deal with it. If he stopped to think about what he was doing, the moral dilemma would be too much.

It's like what you said about the grey area. It's not a matter of "this is right and this is wrong so what will you do"; more often than not it's "these two options both suck but you have to pick one so which will it be? Which is less wrong?" Going back to Haven, any action could be considered "wrong." To leave Haven with no way of getting to Miranda, they would have put themselves in the direct path of anything the Alliance could throw at them, and they were already hurting. Conversely, they were disrespecting the dead by tying them to the hull of the ship to impersonate a reaver ship.

But this brings me to another point, one that we discussed in great detail in my philosophy course last semester: what is "disrespect" to the dead? Some civilizations bury their dead, some burn them, some have eaten them. And all considered other ways "disrespectful." All had good logic, though. Perhaps using the bodies of Haven's population to survive and stop the "evil" was as much respect as they could possibly pay the dead.

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