LOST Finale

*Plot spoilers below

I’m happy to say I was wrong about the Finale-Good clearly triumphed over Evil. There was no dabbling in grey areas or nonjudgmentalism or anything wishy washy. However, the Jack v. Locke storyline took a backseat to the “Sideways” story arc in the final episode. This seemed out of kilter because the Sideways story arc was a Season Six addition and arguably inessential to the overall story. For this reason, critics like Ross Douthat and John Podohertz found the finale disappointing because it left so many questions unanswered.

The Sideways story arc turns out to be a big Reunion as all the characters gather together before they enter Heaven together. Characters who were killed off in previous seasons reappear for one last trip down memory lane. It was nostalgic and admittedly fun, but a total dodge by the writers.

One last point about the finale. LOST is eclectic when it comes from borrowing ideas from a variety of traditions e.g. ‘Christian’ Sheppard stands in front of a stained glass window filled with many different religious symbols, the temple (not church or mosque) has Egyptian hieroglyphics, etc. Yet it borrows from the Catholic Tradition more than any other. Douthat said this back in 2007:

The creators of Lost have repeatedly denied that their characters are literally in purgatory, which was a popular theory among early viewers of the series, and most of the evidence from later episodes suggests that they're telling the truth. Still, the show's island is at the least a purgatorial landscape—it's no coincidence that several of the characters are Catholic, lapsed and otherwise—where the things that the castaways carry from their previous lives provide the raw material for suffering, struggle, and growth.

Douthat’s description seems dead on in light of Finale. Several characters were Catholic: Charlie, Echo, Hume, Richard, and Hugo. Life is divided into three stages: pre-Island, Island, and post-Island with the Island as the place where they are supposed to resolve whatever problems they had from their previous life. Some people commit acts so heinous that they are doomed e.g. Michael tells Hugo he is stuck. Others are unable to move onto Heaven because they have not worked through all their past demons e.g. Ben tells Locke he isn’t ready to come into the church (its clearly Catholic b/c it has a Sacred Heart Statue outside and Carravagio’s Doubting Thomas painting inside).

As I said before, this does NOT mean the Island is literally Purgatory. The LOST’s writers borrow from a variety of traditions and reworks them into ways which fit their purposes. But they do seem to borrowing from one tradition quite heavily. I'm sure Dante would approve.

Last, Last Point: It is interesting to see Heaven is rather Godless in the LOST mythology. Heaven seems to be about the characters’ horizontal relationships with each other instead of a vertical relationship with a Personal God. And the Island, with its impersonal ball of energy at its core, is not very conversational either. From a PC point of view, friendship as highest good is probably the best you’re gonna get from a network show. Aristotle would approve-somewhat.

Sticks and Stones....

Libertarian Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul, won the Republican Primary for Kentucky's Senate Seat this week. Since he is now in the national spotlight, NBC's Rachel Maddow questioned him about his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul opposes parts of the Act; he believes a private business owner should be free to practice racial discrimination if he so chooses. To be fair, he is NOT advocating they do so. He just doesn't think Congress should criminalize such actions.

This is a classic instance of "Locke being let out of the lock box." In such a view, all human relationships are reduced to calculation, contract, and consent. Libertarians of this stripe think autonomous individuals should be free to do whatever they please short of harming one another; 'harm' being defined in a rather narrow sense. The only type of harm they recognize is PHYSICAL harm. You can see this assumption underlies Paul's view of racial discrimination. A white private business owner who discriminates against an African American is not assaulting him and so is not "harming" him.

Hopefully, Paul's troubling comments will force us to rethink the old saw about "sticks and stones..." and develop a fuller understanding of what it means to hurt someone.

"Let's call it a draw"

Last week LOST revealed several important clues to its audience as we head into this weekend's series finale. Unfortunately, those clues suggest the show will end on the same bland note other promising stories (Matrix, Battlestar Galactica) finished on.

Matrix and BSG start with two groups, heroes and villains, and we're promised the conclusion of story will be the victory of the good guys. As the story evolves, however, the distinction between the two groups is blurred and we are told the bad guys aren't all that bad and the good guys aren't perfect either. Since they're all evil to some degree, the stories end with some sort of stalemate between the two sides. Such compromises do not make for exciting drama so we shouldn't be surprised by the lack of popular interest in either story's conclusion.

In last week's episode of LOST, the Man in Black's back-story was revealed. Essentially, his reasons for leaving the Island are legitimate. His "mother" used deception and treachery to keep him there. Even Jacob, who has been presented as a hero in Season Six, comes across as weak and gullible. Jacob's attempts to keep the Man in Black on the island now seem unfair. Even if the Man in Black's imprisonment is necessary for the Island's preservation, that still seems cruel in light of his back-story.

If I'm right about LOST, then the Series Finale will conclude like this: Jack will not DEFEAT the Black Smoke; instead, there will be some sort of equilibrium between the two. Or they will both get what they want. But what you will not see is Tolkien's type of ending, the unequivocal triumph of good over evil; yet this is exactly what the audience yearns to see-Jack standing confidently over an unrepentant Locke as he takes his last breath.

Just say "No!"

Patrick Deneen's recent post on the two recent crises, the Gulf of Mexico spill and Greece's debt problem, suggests an argument which is not being mentioned in the Public Square. He says both cases reveal an "inability to live with one's means." Deneen criticizes Sarah Palin and the political right for their mantra of "drill, baby, drill" because it only encourages excess, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.

In this sense, Deneen seems to align with the political left. On the other hand, his reasons for opposing offshore drilling differ markedly from someone like the NYT's Thomas Friedman. While Deneen agrees with Friedman that the spill harms the environment, the more pressing problem is our insistence on living a super-size me lifestyle no matter the cost. We want to continue to drive our gas guzzling SUV's whenever and wherever we like and we do not like how recent oil prices interfere with that. This "inability to live within one's means" AKA vice is not something that concerns Friedman. Indeed, like his opponents on the political right, he thinks these impediments can be improved, albeit his solution to the problem is alternative energy. Either way, both sides are telling the public they can have it all. Right and Left share the Modern assumption that scarcity can be conquered and man can live a life free from material want.

Deneen would probably say this type of thinking was also behind the financial crisis of the last two years. Again, while he would agree with the political left about the vices of Wall Street fat cats, he would still come down hard on the borrower who wanted to own a home he couldn't afford. It is just another example of people being unable to deny their appetites.

In an earlier post, I talked about how it is popular nowadays to criticize poor eating habits (Super-Size Me, Fast Food Nation). The argument behind such works is it harms health. This is certainly true, but it is also a problem because it is a symptom of gluttony. In all these cases then, what is absent in the discussion is whether self-denial and delayed gratification are still important to human happiness.