I wasn't sure I was going to write this post at first, but after noticing a comment by Navya & a few other events, it was pretty much fate (dramatic? but of course).
I was sitting in my hotel room this weekend, I was downtown for a Model UN conference in Chicago, when The Dark Knight came on the t.v. Can you believe two/three of my roommates haven't seen it? Shame on them (I even hope they're reading this right now to be able to fully appreciate the shame). Well, this caused me some concern as I considered who else might not have seen the film.
The twist is I chose two movies that are all fairly well known. What you might not have considered though, is the philosophical allusions in them. (So keep reading even if you have seen these movies before!)
Friedrich Nietzsche is the particular French philosopher I had in mind. In the most simplified terms, he argues one should embrace the status quo. Don't try to change your life because you're afraid of pain. You will only continue to cut out from your life the things you love, and then what is the point of living? You may be more familiar with the phrase 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?'
Fight Club is one of my favorite movies (hopefully this doesn't mean I'm breaking the first rule of Fight Club!) Every time I re-watch it there's something I didn't notice the first time. It most obviously includes the Nitzschean philosophy in my opinion, with not only the embracing of pain, but the actually search for it. My favorite scene included one of the main protagonists holding a gun to a stranger's head. He did it, because for that stranger, breakfast the next morning will never taste better.
The Dark Knight's plot line was all based on descending into chaos.
You are on a boat with an explosive. The only way for you to survive is to blow up another boat with passengers who have the remote to your bomb.
Do you do it?
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