The Philosophy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[Michaelangelica]

I don't normally stray into this forum.

But I thought this might interest a few.

The audio will only be there for a few weeks unless someone wants to work out how to attach it to this thread

Philosophers Zone - 29 March 2008 - Buffy the Concept Slayer

An interview with James B. South.

He's Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and much of his research has concentrated on questions about cognition in later mediaeval philosophy, and Descartes' indebtedness to late scholastic thought.

But he's also the editor of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale

 

A few random quotes

Alan Saunders: Yes, and it is interesting, as you've just mentioned, that the figure of the vampire figures quite often in Karl Marx's book Kapital, in fact a recent writer on the subject, Francis Wheen, has said that you could see Kapital as a sort of Gothic horror story.

 

James B. South: I think it's very much that way from the children working in mines, and in these horrible factory conditions and so on, and there's actually an episode written by Jos Weeden of Buffy that actually has Buffy working at a fast food restaurant and discovering these teenagers who get taken in off the street, and then the next day show back up in they're old people who don't remember anything about their lives. And she finds out that there is this demon, who is basically just using people up and taking their entire lives overnight, in this sort of hellish dimension, and Buffy has to put an end to it.

 

Priests: Glorificus wait. Kill the key now and all will be lost. We'll be stuck on this mortal plane forever.

 

Allright, You're right. Let's go. I'm just a little emotional right now. How do they do it?

 

Dawn: Do what?

 

People. How do they function here like this in the world with all this bile running through them. Every day it's Whoo, you have no control, they're not even animals, there's these meat-baggy slaves to hormones and pheromones and their feelings. Hate 'em. I mean really is this what the poets go on about? This? Call me crazy but as hardcore drugs go, human emotions are just useless. People are puppets, everyone getting jerked around by what they're feeling. Am I wrong? Really, I want to know

 

Alan Saunders: Now tell us about Plato's cave, and how Plato's cave relates to the Hell Mouth?

 

James B. South: This refers back then to my thesis about evil, and the Buffyverse.

A platonic conception of the good is one in which everything is contained under the good, either as some attribute of goodness or as some privation of goodness.

And what we see I think as Season 7 develops explicitly, is an account of the good in which the good is dialectally entwined with evil and that the only way to overcome the evil is also to overcome the sort of teleological notion of good that the Buffyverse has set up.

That is, in some ways I see the ending of the series as a way of sort of not just blowing up Sunnydale, but blowing up the cave, right, is blowing up the entire structure of a hierarchically ordered set of goods.

 

Alan Saunders: People might not be familiar with the metaphor of Plato's cave, so just explain briefly what that is.

 

James B. South: There are two major features of it. One is that as Plato imagines this group of people stuck in a cave, chained to it, chained by their desires as it were, to watching these shadows as opposed to the reality that awaits, if we could only get out of the cave. So the way I see Plato's cave is a way of showing that people are infected by or directed by their desires in such a way that they're unable to see reality for what it is. And the other side of the cave is that it posits, at least in Plato's case, the idea of a good that if we could only get out of the cave by having our desires align up correctly with reason, and move up into the sun, into the presence of the sun, we would be able to see reality for what it is, know the good for what it is. And we would be free of our desire-induced fantasies.

 

Alan Saunders: What do you mean by a teleological notion of the good?

 

James B. South: Well basically I mean a notion of the good in which everything that is around us in some sense, all of our actions, all of the things in nature, anything above nature, is subsumable under, is shaped by, is a product of, is related to, in some way, the good. And hence there's at root, one way things ought to be.

[HydrogenBond]

The cave is not just the emotion, but also the thoughts that are induced by the emotion, which can appear logical, but which can put one in a loop that can separate one from reality. It amounts to emotion leading reason instead of reason leading emotion.

 

Let give an example, say a person becomes infatuated. Because the emotions come first they may begin see what they wish to see. They may even create a logic line that can support what they are feeling and reinforce the infatuation. The cave is the separation from reality.

 

If we start with reason they may get to know the person better to gather data to make sure an impending infatuation is warranted or will be a waste of time. If it proper, then the logic line of will trigger the emotion, but using a different logic line to reinforce the infatuation. These look the same, but the first is irrational emotions leading reason using irrational premises, while the second is reason leading to the induction of a rational emotion which can still get irrational, leading to a different cave.

 

If you look at advertising, this is not typically based on giving out tech specs in a logical manner so the person can draw a rational emotional conclusion. They start with an emotional appeal, since they need you in the cave. It is easier to manipulate you with emotional reasoning. The pitch may be the feeling-fantasy of looking cool driving that shiny car. With this emotion in place, one may reason how the neighbors will like you, more, and the girls will chase you, wanting to be cool sitting near you in that fine car. If this actually works, then one is taking advantage of cave dwellers who use reason stemming from their emotions.

 

Culture can often play the role of something analogous to a torch light in a cave. One may gravitate toward this light, thinking it the outside light. For example, one can be practical minded and say the cool car extrapolation is irrational but it does seem to work. If you don't follow the irrational torch light of the cave dwellers, your odds may actually fall, relative to the final affects you wish to achieve. The net affect is to assume, for the sake of argument, the torch light of culture is the outside light for many people. Based on that assumption you play along, since everyone thinks they are outside in the light, simply because they see some form of light, even if it is manmade and not based on objective reality. Instead of a personal cave it is a group cave.

 

Let me give another example; the clothes make the man. This is irrational since substituting clothing for education and life experience will not amount to the same thing. But, if all the cave dwellers are standing near this torch, thinking it is natural light, then their perception of cause and affect, beginning with this irrational emotional premise, may appear reasonable. If you don't stand near this torch in the cave, it might matter to the other cave dwellers. They will see you in the shadows, relative to their reasons, making it appear you are the only one who is in an actual cave.

 

The daylight outside the cave is very bright compared to the torch light. Those in the cave are used to a dimmer flicking light where shadows are in motion and irrational things can appear to be real. The analogy of vampires comes into play. Vampires are afraid of natural light since it is harmful to their health. One can not say, clothes do not make a man, since this is natural rational light that is too bright. It could cause a disruption in their belief system sort of a stake into the heart.

 

They can only come out of the cave at night when the natural light that clarifies reality goes away. They can still interact with reality, at night, but only if it simulates the darkness of the cave, with the full moon (lunacy) replacing the need for the torch. Being outside they can interact with those walking in their own darkness. The goal of the vampire is feeding on blood (emotion) for vampire recruitment. The choice of the neck is because it separates the head from the body or the mind from natural instinct. When dawn appears and natural light gets stronger, they all return to the dimmer light in cave, which is their maximum tolerance for reality.

 

The long life expectancy of vampires is symbolic of cultural irrationality that can linger through many generation and outlive normal people. Buffy is trying to put a stake in the heart or chop off the head, to end the emotion-logic loops of the cave dweller who can only feed in the darkness. The net affect is people give themselves more rational credit then is real because there is always another vampire for Buffy to have to slay.