Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2017 16:37:32 GMT
Ok I hope allot of you have seen rick and morty, it's a great
there's been allot of talking about it, also on ideachannel but I have something to add.
so here's some thought I've had regarding the show and how it portrays the relationship between alienation and realism:
the show brilliantly demonstrates what it means to be alienated from oneself in the character of rick, and in rick's nature offers an analysis of one of the leading causes of self-alienation
alienation from oneself is a pretty old concept dating back to before marx, to anyone not 100% sure about what self-alienation is here's a briefing:
alienation is the process of feeling disconnected from something, of having some distance between you and thing, for example if you feel alienated from your family you may feel a certain emotional distance & disconnection from them when you're with them.
so what is alienation from the self?
well it's when there's a similar distance between you and yourself. rick often experiences said distance when it comes to his emotions. rick has a vast array of emotions and emotional experiences and patterns, yet his repetitive unwillingness to engage and give in to his emotions makes him miserable. his emotions are a part of him, and he is alienated from them when he refuses to acknowledge or act upon them.
okay, so far so good, yet this is a pretty flat idea- so there's a character and he's alienated from himself.
but where the show shines some new light often underlooked is in the relationship between rick's belief system and his emotional state.
rick illustrates the tight bond between realism and alienation.
throughout much of human history logic was not regarded that highly, it was even quite esoteric. people were not expected to be rational and rationality was not a very desired trait. up until the ancient greek philosophers layed down the basic rules of logic it was a pretty uncommon method of thinking.
so what guided beliefs? emotions! beliefs were structured around emotions and were often designed around emotions and disregarded rationality. the goddes of fertility, a concept that has risen simultaneously in many different cultures of the world is a classical case of emotions leading belife willingly. she had been 'imagined' by men shortly after the agricultural revolution and was depicted as a pregnant lady to express the common man's 'dream' fertility, she didn't spring out of some theory of practical application, no one claimed that she has been logically proven to give you more crops, but still her placement in many goddess-based religions has been huge (que huge gif).
a famous historian who's name I dont remember has claimed that the entire history of human beliefs has not sprung out of a deep desire to understand the world, but out of an emotional need to explain human experiences.
back to emotions, all religions have had some element of experience in them. going by many different names: mana in the ancient Sumerian culture, spirit of god in many monotheistic religions, demons/ghosts in lots of pagan stuff, the experiences of being emenced in deep emotion have been explained by spirituality in religion.
yet in our belief system today we focus in scientific realism on the measurable, the existing, thus robbing us from many spiritual emotional experiences. the problematic limitations of the realistic belief system are exemplified at best in rick sanches. rick refuses to let emotion drive him, regarding it as inferior instinct interfering with science. he even refuses to engage in what is mostly considered to be positive emotion like love do to it's irrationality.
rick's extremely logical and realistic belief system points to a problem inflicting all of us by bringing realism to an extreme. once all that is irrational is disregarded (as is often the case in western logic-based belief systems) one becomes alienated from himself and many so called 'spiritual/hippie' experiences are missed out upon, preventing us from living a full happy and meaningful life.
I hope I was clear in my explanations, feel free to ask me any questions or leave any kind of criticism. let me know what you think of this as a concept for an episode. also feel free to elaborate upon this, there are many great instances exemplifying what I wrote here in the show and I didn't have the time to write them down so go ahead and feel free to do so. I have a feeling this could be a nice solid episode.
please forgive my half-assed writing I'm kind of in a hurry whistle writing this.
TL;DR: episode concept - rick's character in Rick and Morty brings modern science-realism based belief systems to an extreme to exemplify the emotional problems emerging in all of us existentialist atheists - lack of connection to our emotional world.
there's been allot of talking about it, also on ideachannel but I have something to add.
so here's some thought I've had regarding the show and how it portrays the relationship between alienation and realism:
the show brilliantly demonstrates what it means to be alienated from oneself in the character of rick, and in rick's nature offers an analysis of one of the leading causes of self-alienation
alienation from oneself is a pretty old concept dating back to before marx, to anyone not 100% sure about what self-alienation is here's a briefing:
alienation is the process of feeling disconnected from something, of having some distance between you and thing, for example if you feel alienated from your family you may feel a certain emotional distance & disconnection from them when you're with them.
so what is alienation from the self?
well it's when there's a similar distance between you and yourself. rick often experiences said distance when it comes to his emotions. rick has a vast array of emotions and emotional experiences and patterns, yet his repetitive unwillingness to engage and give in to his emotions makes him miserable. his emotions are a part of him, and he is alienated from them when he refuses to acknowledge or act upon them.
okay, so far so good, yet this is a pretty flat idea- so there's a character and he's alienated from himself.
but where the show shines some new light often underlooked is in the relationship between rick's belief system and his emotional state.
rick illustrates the tight bond between realism and alienation.
throughout much of human history logic was not regarded that highly, it was even quite esoteric. people were not expected to be rational and rationality was not a very desired trait. up until the ancient greek philosophers layed down the basic rules of logic it was a pretty uncommon method of thinking.
so what guided beliefs? emotions! beliefs were structured around emotions and were often designed around emotions and disregarded rationality. the goddes of fertility, a concept that has risen simultaneously in many different cultures of the world is a classical case of emotions leading belife willingly. she had been 'imagined' by men shortly after the agricultural revolution and was depicted as a pregnant lady to express the common man's 'dream' fertility, she didn't spring out of some theory of practical application, no one claimed that she has been logically proven to give you more crops, but still her placement in many goddess-based religions has been huge (que huge gif).
a famous historian who's name I dont remember has claimed that the entire history of human beliefs has not sprung out of a deep desire to understand the world, but out of an emotional need to explain human experiences.
back to emotions, all religions have had some element of experience in them. going by many different names: mana in the ancient Sumerian culture, spirit of god in many monotheistic religions, demons/ghosts in lots of pagan stuff, the experiences of being emenced in deep emotion have been explained by spirituality in religion.
yet in our belief system today we focus in scientific realism on the measurable, the existing, thus robbing us from many spiritual emotional experiences. the problematic limitations of the realistic belief system are exemplified at best in rick sanches. rick refuses to let emotion drive him, regarding it as inferior instinct interfering with science. he even refuses to engage in what is mostly considered to be positive emotion like love do to it's irrationality.
rick's extremely logical and realistic belief system points to a problem inflicting all of us by bringing realism to an extreme. once all that is irrational is disregarded (as is often the case in western logic-based belief systems) one becomes alienated from himself and many so called 'spiritual/hippie' experiences are missed out upon, preventing us from living a full happy and meaningful life.
I hope I was clear in my explanations, feel free to ask me any questions or leave any kind of criticism. let me know what you think of this as a concept for an episode. also feel free to elaborate upon this, there are many great instances exemplifying what I wrote here in the show and I didn't have the time to write them down so go ahead and feel free to do so. I have a feeling this could be a nice solid episode.
please forgive my half-assed writing I'm kind of in a hurry whistle writing this.
TL;DR: episode concept - rick's character in Rick and Morty brings modern science-realism based belief systems to an extreme to exemplify the emotional problems emerging in all of us existentialist atheists - lack of connection to our emotional world.
