My Other Notes - The Future

Today I had the opportunity to go to the movies for the first time in a while. I saw - and I know I am the last person in the Universe to see this movie, thank you - V is for Vendetta. The basic theme of the movie is resistance against a totalitarian government, and what methods are actually legitimate to use in that resistance. As for example Johan Norberg has pointed out the picture glosses over this important question in a very unsatisfactory way, and this is a pity - beacuse it would probably have added a lot if V was portrayed more as a psychotic fighter, than as a hero in classical Hollywood mode.

The action scenes are all you could reasonable ask for, with flying knives, guns, impeccable martial arts techniques and the right set ups (as in the scene where V notes that, yes, he only has knives, but they (the totalitarian police) only have bullets - and when they are out of those they have to reload. They had thus better get him before they need to reload , because he will not leave them time to do so. And, no, they don't have time to do that before V has turned them into totalitarian collaborator sushi).

An interesting detail is that V is intratextually very dense: it is filled with intricate plotting and references as well as symboils intertwined with eachother. Several times the existence of coincidences is questioned by many of the different characters in the movie. This new, sometimes paranoid hermeneutic is, I think, deeply significant as a daignostic of post-9/11 society and culture. We now seek meaning and connections in the world to find some kind of basic safety: the need for clear enemies, convoluted plots and intricate webs of symbols is born from a fear that the world is as meaningless as it seemed when the terrorists crashed into the WTC.

The DaVinci Code, The Rule of Four and other works of fiction work with the same basic methodology: revealing a layer of deep meaning under the veneer of triviality and accident. This need for plot and consistency is the same need that gives birth to a multitude of conspiracy theories around the war on terrorism, 9/11, the Iraq war and other current affairs. It is, I think we could say, a need for a Weberian re-enchantment of the world, the return to a state of existence where there are no coincidences, nothing is contingent, everything happens out of necessity and according to a greater scheme.

Conspiracy theorist researchers speak about the loss of a shared Weltbild, and the loss of a common epistemology, even. This loss then creates uncertainty and a sense of abandonment, which art then tries to remedy. Mimesis becomes unimportant, and semiosis - the creation of meaning in closed systems of signs - becomes the predominant method in creative arts.

It is really not strange, I think.

What is, after all, more scary than to think that our lives, our fates are based on nothing but a series of fortunate or unfortunate coincidences? To deny coincidence (as the characters do in V is for Vendetta) is to believe in meaning and narrative, to crave plot and thus individual worth.

It takes a certain kind of courage to embrace the idea that we are accidental and not essential. And I am not even sure that it is humanely possible to fully accept the ultranihilistic perspective. (Meaning might very well be a Kantian category. It doesn't matter if our lives have or lack meaning - we have no choice but to see them as meaningful.)

This also explains the many references to religion in the movie, I think. Johan - amongst others - was upset about this since the original character in the comic book was an atheist, but I think that "God is in the rain" is a key phrase that promises meaning and provides a backdrop for the born-again baptism of Eve, for example, as well as for V:s subsequent sacrifice. Religion fits in nicely with the new mode of art since it contains the most complete meaning-generating sign systems humanity has formed. The basic assumption behind religion is the same hermeneutic that is embodied in the kind of art V, The DaVinci Code and other works represent - that there are no coincidences. "God is in the rain" is merely another way of stating that there are no coincidences.

All in all, then, a nice way to spend an afternoon.