Saw this documentary, “The Examined Life,” at the Brattle Theatre, in which director Astra Taylor chats with philosophers (Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek & more) and a Q&A with the director. It was remarkable for its basic humanization of these contemporary legends of philosophy: by placing them in the street, walking while talking (or, in Michael Hardt’s case, rowing a boat around a pond for many hours), Taylor elicited a natural discussion of philosophical questions that rely upon wandering, much like the act of walking itself. Is meaning still relevant? She asked to Cornel West, while she drove him around New York in her old car.
Although I was excited to see Nussbaum, an intellectual whose presentation is glorious and poised, it was disappointing to see her issue a dry lecture. The personal highlight was certainly Zizek - who was busting his seams with the desire to radicalize our way of thinking about the world. Donning an orange safety vest in front of a looming pile of trash, he urged us to become “MORE artificial, not less!” We typically think of the ecosystem as homeostatic, he said while picking up trash, but we should instead consider it to be in constant flux. He then picked up a magazine with big-chested naked women on it, and scoffed in his heavily-accented lisp, “you call this porn??”
I should also mention that I saw it with two incredible kids, Latif (whose thesis was a play about Einstein’s “year as a bum”) and Rachel (loves telling stories in the medium of radio… and into the convergence of French philosophers with Maoism). We indulged in hot chocolate afterward at Algiers, discussing the film’s narrative and our own. Cambridge is perfect for these sorts of nights… it’s one big reason why I love living around here so much.
