"The United States of Leland" and "The Human Condition"

I just watched the movie "The United States of Leland" while having begun Hannah Arendt's book "The Human Condition" earlier today. The movie left me speechless as it raises so many questions, the biggest of which is why must we have an answer to why "evil" occurs? That word after all is quite subjective, is it not? Imagine for a moment if Hitler's plan had succeeded, would people today still call the Nazi's "evil"? According to interviews with Pol Pot, he never saw what the Khmer Rouge did as evil, thus refusing to his dying breath to apologize. The problem then, arises from the catagories and those who get to create and assign such classifications. Justifications. Excuses? The movie leaves you with the feeling of having the rational world turned in on itself. After all, you are made to feel empathy with a slain child and with his murderer, while still struggling to answer why? Why do people kill? Why do people fly planes into buildings? Why do people strap bombs onto themselves and walk into cafes, onto buses, strategically calculating how they can do the most damage? Well, I think what the film brings you to then, is the realization that because we can never truly be in someone else's mind, we cannot know why they choose to do something even if they tell us. Yet the film also holds another theme, as it is often repeating that we are not the sum of all of our parts. So then what are we? The sum of our actions? Our thoughts? Our experiences? All of these? None of these?

It is a difficult movie to watch for the sheer emotionality of it and yet there are surprising aspects in it, scenes that make you laugh and social criticisms that make you smile. In this way, it reminds me of many other films Kevin Spacey has been in, such as "The Life of David Gale" and of course, "American Beauty." As with both of these films, 'Leland' is also a multi-faceted critique intended (I think) to raise all sorts of existential questions and to challenge how we know what we know and how are we so sure that we know anything at all. What is knowing, something sure? Something concrete? But nothing is so sure. Nothing is so simple or concrete.

That brings me to Hannah Arendt. In her book, "The Human Condition" she writes, "The human condition comprehends more than the conditions under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence." "Whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition." "To avoid misunderstanding: the human condition is not the same as human nature, and the sum total of human activities and capabilities which correspond to the human condition does not constitute anything like human nature." "On the other hand, the conditions of human existence--life itself, natality and mortality, worldliness, plurality, and the earth-can never "explain" what we are or answer the question of who we are for the simple reason that they never condition us absolutely." (9-11)

Here, I have taken liberty with taking quotes from her 1st chapter to illustrate the difficulty of answering concretely, why. Her insistance that the borders with which we define and understand ourselves as human, the boundaries of our existence (life, natality, mortality, wordliness, plurality and the earth) cannot "condition us absolutely." So, when you take that and apply it to the observations made in the film about why tragedy brings people together only for a short while, or while punishment intended to prevent further deviance often only serves to further it by increasing feelings of estrangement and social alienation...you are left with the very point of the movie...that "why" is a social construction, ever changing, ever dependant upon who is allowed/privileged enough to draw the distinctions. I wish I could create a list of films I'd consider mandatory viewing for anyone wishing to expand their understanding and critical thinking but the reality remains it would be based solely on my opinion of what is critical. I'm sure George W. Bush and I would likely disagree on what film should be mandatory viewing.
I always wonder what gives anyone the right to think that they know what might be best or might best enlighten others. This always gives me pause. I was looking at my bookshelves yesterday and I realized that almost every book was either suggested to me by others, assigned/mandatory reading from college (some even from high school) or they were random joys I stumbled upon, struck by a phrase, a cover, or the review on the back of the book. So, do we create our conditioning, our humanity, our human experience simply by agreeing upon what that will be? Or is this somehow transpiring both outside of us and within us?

Any thoughts?

I'm off to read more of Arendt and perhaps it will make more sense as I go. Do check out the film if you are so inclined.

peace.
jen