ARTS REVIEW: 'I WATCH, THEREFORE I AM'

A Philosophical Study of the Great Mysteries of Life as Explained Through TV Icons

By: M.C. Wood

August 10, 2011

(Adams Media) Anything involving hard work is unpleasant.  Philosophy involves hard work.  Therefore, philosophy is unpleasant.  This adorable little syllogism — even with arguably faulty premises — is taken by virtually every beginning philosophy student as miserably, uncontrovertibly self-evident.  I know first hand, for example, that most people begin an introductory philosophy course believing they’ll sit around a café sipping cappuccino as they comfortably ponder the meaning of life.  No sweat.  Soon enough, however, that illusion is shattered and replaced with the conviction that philosophy is about as pleasant as being subjected to having one’s fingernails torn off with pliers, and subsequently having the raw, bleeding skin scraped vigorously with sandpaper.

At best, people find philosophy boring.  At worst, they think it’s a form of torture the former Bush Administration would have embraced with open arms, had the former president chosen someone other than Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher.  Being flogged and impaled on a cross-section of wood apparently has nothing on thinking about the Categorical Imperative.

On the other hand, other activities -- like eating ice cream, drinking beer, playing video games, watching television, and so forth -- are pleasant.  As such, they are pursued by most of us with the devoted avidity of a religious zealot.  Given the contrast between philosophy and fun stuff, how in the world can anyone generate interest in — let alone inspire dedication to — something so apparently unbearable as philosophy?  Socrates was wrong: it’s not the unexamined life that’s not worth living, but the examined one.  Examinations, like those involving the probing of the prostate or pelvis, just aren’t fun.

I’m pretty confident that you won’t believe me when I say that philosophy is, in fact, often pleasant.  And anyway, it’s sometimes good to experience the discomfort of confusion, frustration, denial, etc., upon being confronted by new and difficult ideas.  It’s good to work through a problem, even if the solution presents a whole new set of worries.  Indeed, I propose that it is impossible not to do philosophy, so suck it up and get on with reading and thinking about some really interesting stuff.  No, you won’t believe any of these things.  But you will believe what Gregory Bergman and Peter Archer tell you.  That’s because they pull off a pretty nifty hat trick with their new book, I Watch, Therefore I Am: From Socrates to Sartre, the Great Mysteries of Life as Explained Through Howdy Doody, Marcia Brady, Homer Simpson, Don Draper, and Other TV Icons.

Thinking about difficult concepts and systems of philosophy poses an interesting problem: how do you begin to do something you (presumably) don’t already know how to do?  It’s sort of like knowing what you’re looking at when you look at a painting that makes no sense to someone else but is perfectly obvious to you.  How do you get that person to see what you see?  One approach is to begin with something the person already knows and then sort of intellectually crabwalk by way of similarities and dissimilarities to the thing you want that person to see.  When it comes to ‘seeing’ a philosophical concept or theory, television characters are the perfect foil, and Bergman and Archer make good use of fictions such as 24’s Jack Bauer.  In addition, they focus not on philosophical theories but the thinkers who generated them.  In so doing, they humanize the theories.  After all, philosophies are just the intellectual work of human beings like you and me.  Okay, maybe they’re not quite like you and me, but they are human.  And though the goal of the book is not to have you believe that you have read and understood Kierkegaard by reading I Watch, there is no reason to think that it’s a fun first step.  In my view, if I Watch gets someone interested enough in philosophy to pick up one of Plato’s dialogues, then it’s done a noble thing.

I Watch is not the only book in its genre.  There are books from the Open Court series, such as The Matrix and Philosophy, South Park and Philosophy, and The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy, but as you can see from the titles, the focus of each book is on how various theories play out in a single movie or television series and its characters.  What’s nice about I Watch, Therefore I Am is its range, not only in terms of television characters, but also in terms of time.  Some of us grew up on The Brady Bunch, some did not.  In either case, however, I Watch gives you a new way of looking at the show’s characters as you learn about philosophy, or it motivates you to do a little research — maybe checking out some episodes on TV Land.

Some may quibble with including Ayn Rand in the mix — and devoting 10 pages to her — but one of the nice things about having more than 2,500 years of major intellectual muscle power at work across the globe is that you have lots of choices.  In a given Introduction to Philosophy course, it’s highly unlikely that a professor won’t assign Plato.  This does not mean, however, that every Intro course has the same syllabus.  Someone may choose to have students read Ayn Rand, especially if they enjoy philosophy of literature.  Moreover, the choice to include Rand in I Watch subtly suggests to readers just how pervasive is philosophy.  Philosophers, from Rand to Iris Murdoch, often have wide-ranging interests; they don’t just write philosophical treatises, but often write novels, poetry, and even screenplays.

I do take exception to calling Kierkegaard a whiner, but Bergman and Archer aren’t the first to do so.  Some of us nod in melancholic understanding when Kierkegaard tells us about having been the life of a party and then having wanted to shoot himself when he got home.  In all seriousness, however, Kierkegaard is an example of a superficial treatment that, as such, distorts the philosopher’s view.  Yes, Kierkegaard was the father of existentialism, but he was also a religious philosopher, a fervent Christian whose existentialist critique of Hegel’s thought had as much to do with Hegel’s view that Kant was wrong and that the universe is fully rational as it did with the correlate view that Christianity is rationalized.  Having said that, however, I am mindful of the fact that Bergman and Archer have a lot to accomplish in a few pages, which necessitates the sort of danger I just mentioned.

I Watch, Therefore I Am is a clearly written, engaging, and enjoyable book; it pays for itself in a variety of ways.  Anyone who likes television should like I Watch, Therefore I Am.  Anyone who likes I Watch, Therefore I Am should like philosophy.  Consequently, anyone who likes television should like philosophy.

Gregory Bergman and Peter Archer's 'I Watch, Therefore I Am' is available now via Adams Media.