Re: Moviegoer and despair


Subject: Re: Moviegoer and despair
From: James L Piat (piat@JUNO.COM)
Date: Thu Nov 11 1999 - 10:28:06 EST


Dear folks,

Great post Rhode! Here's my two cents. I think what K is saying is that
what makes a person hopeless is not that his problems are insurmountable
but that he is unaware they he has quit trying to solve them. It's a
bit like saying the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Or that
if you are not upset you probably don't realize the predicament your in.
So what about the person who "knows" he's given up? What's his problem?
How about fear? Fear of succeeding -fear of failing -fear of flying
-who knows. Maybe shame, pride etc. but not despair. The truly hopeless
person doesn't have a chance precisely because he or she is unaware that
it is his own despair (or despair itself) that has made him and/or his
situation hopeless. As long as one knows he has quit trying there is
still hope that he might yet try. All success depends upon trying -hope
in action. Bad luck is not failure nor good luck an accomplishment.

So what IS the situation at four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon?
Perhaps it's what we make of it. The only time its truly hopeless is when
we don't know its hopeless because ignorance of a problem is precisely
what makes it impossible to solve the problem. Where there is awareness
there is always hope. Despair is lack of self awareness. Without self
awareness there is no knowledge of what one desires. Without knowledge of
what one desires there is no hope of making it come true.

Something like that. Maybe.

I also wonder if for Percy the epigraph might not have carried a special
religious significance in terms of his own religious rebirth and
conversion. I'm think here of the notion that without grace from without
one is hopeless and doesn't even know it. I think this is the source of
hope for many Christians -and perhaps all salvationish creeds of one sort
or another. The opposite of this notion being the attitude Camus
describes in the his Myth of Sisyphus -hopeless contempt and pride
-which is what gets the hopeless though the night. Camus' hero was not
without courage, integrity and, yes, happiness. Nor are the saved
without the courage of their faith and the despair of their doubt. The
question now becomes which of these two positions is the truly hopeless
or self deceiving one. This, perhaps, is the situation at every waking
Wednesday afternoon of one's awareness. I think that part of what makes
Percy such an interesting fellow to read for some folks is that he has
struggled with these choices and he respects both the struggle and the
struggler. Or something like that. Maybe.

Thanks to Rhonda, Richard and Sunni for some fun and interesting stuff.
I agree with all of your enlightening comments.

Cheers,
Jim Piat

On Wed, 10 Nov 1999 15:58:39 PST Rhonda McDonnell
<rhonda_mcdonnell@HOTMAIL.COM> writes:
> I'm re-reading MOVIEGOER for the first time in years, and had what
> I'd guess
> is an old question for some of you veterans. When considering the
> Kierkegaard epigraph, "the specific character of despair is
> precisely this:
> it is unaware of being despair," in terms of Binx (and myself
> perhaps), I
> can't help but wonder how you define the feeling you have if you
> recognize
> you are in despair. For example, when Binx realizes that he and all
> around
> him are dead, dead, dead, is that despair? Or does that somehow
> free him
> from the everydayness of despair so that he may embark upon his
> search?
> Once we realize that no matter what time it is, it's four o'clock on
> a
> Wednesday afternoon, does that set us free, or merely make us aware
> of the
> situation we find ourselves in?
>
> Rhonda McDonnell
> Arizona State University
>
> ______________________________________________________
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