Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Pop Culture Philosophy 1: "The Stoics of South Park" (Midterm by David Jameson)

4 little boys from just outside of Denver has been giving philosophy lessons for almost 16 years. You probably just didn't realize it.
     While the idea of cartoons geared for more adult tastes were definitely not new, South Park combined the sophisticated and witty humor of The Simpsons (Which will be a topic of a future post) with the immature gross-out antics of MTV's Beavis and Butt-head, and from the very first episode made a concerted effort to use these methods to convey a much deeper philosophical message.

     Now I could never with a straight face sit down and try and convince my readers that South Park is in the upper crust of intelligent entertainment, but so much of the underlying message in the plot is missed by the casual viewer. As we learned in the readings and through in class discussion, Stoicism is basically the belief that the feelings and opinions that a person could express are pointless. In my opinion these feelings are exactly contradictory to what a philosopher is supposed to do. The quest for knowledge is the journey that every philosopher embarks on and subscribing to Stoicism seems to immediately end that quest. The emotions are the enemy to a stoic and during the course of the conversations in class I began to think back to the episode "Raisins." I felt I could draw many similarities between the stoics and the Goth kids of South Park. The goth kids tell Stan that there is no use in loving people or the world because all the world has for you is hate. I see this as mirroring the stoics view on the society.




I believe that modern day "Goth" portrayed in South Park could be a form of stoicism and is seen every day but just isn't thought of due to the average person's lack of knowledge about Philosophy. Stoics seem to promote non-conformity but that in itself is impossible, because if you choose to not conform to a certain group, you are conforming to the group that rejects the theory. A very interesting difference is the overall expectation of the individuals in the group. The Goth kids would say there is no reason to try and make a difference because you will only be hurt more. On the other hand Stoics believe that if they are to abide by their beliefs than they will live a life of happiness. I don't personally see a possible way of depriving myself of the basic pleasures in life, and expect to live a life full of happiness and of contentment. Love Emotions are discouraged by stoics because it is the ultimate emotion to feel and share with the people around you.

"Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I 
could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple 
life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being 
bothered about happiness. "         
                                               - T.H. White

In the end I believe that the Stoic views are flawed and deprive a human being of one of the greatest and most rewarding experiences in life. Living a life alone in exile is not my idea of a "good time" because I would feel like I was missing out on things the world has to offer. I would be very interested in having a class discussion about whether or not Stoics truly should be classified as philosophers. Dr. Oliver talked about it briefly with my group but I think Stoicism is extremely interesting and deserves a larger stage in the class.

I now leave you with complete nonsense....







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