Several of the philosophers that we have learned about this semester have firmly held the belief that we, as humans, should not strive. However, this is how progress is made within society.
In the movie Geostorm, one man, named Dekkom, goes completely overboard in his attempt to reach his goal of becoming the President of the United States. Instead of working harder and developing his platform, Dekkom decides to take matters into his own hands. It turns out that he bugged the largest satellite in the world, "Dutch boy" and was using it in his power to start a geostorm that would win him the presidency.
The geostorm progressed across the world as it destroyed city after city. Dekkom designated the storm to end in the destruction of the city that the national representatives and legislators were meeting in. His plan was to get out of harm's way himself so that in the aftermath of the storm, he would be the only one left to fill the United States presidency.
The logic that Dekkom uses is extremely irrational. While he is striving for the presidency, there are much more reasonable ways to go about reaching his goal. He was already popular in politics, and could have used that to promote his platform; however, he took an extreme plan and it all went up in flames (literally, the entire satellite imploded). In this situation, Dekkom should have chosen the intermediate, as Aristotle suggests in his literature. The two extremes would include ambushing the election, as Dekkom does, or not campaigning at all and never having the opportunity to fulfill his desires. Dekkom should have chosen the intermediate and waited for the next election in which he would have ran a reasonable and pure campaign. In doing so, Dekkom would have likely have been mroe successful that he was in the movie plot.
I like this comparison because I think it really shows what happens when we become too consumed with power. Dekkom became so consumed with the power that he knew he would get after becoming president, that he lost sight of the things that were right in front of him like his popularity in politics, and instead chose the wrong approach, that he thought would make him president. He became too consumed and just like the story about Pahom, he lost everything because of it. This is why I believe Aristotle stressed so much about choosing the intermediate because he saw what happened first hand when things were overstressed and exaggerated beyond their original intent.
ReplyDeleteThis is hilarious, Paige! Find the proper balance between doing nothing, and destroying a large part of the world! :) Good advice, I have to say.
ReplyDeleteI love this comparison, it illustrates what Aristotle was saying very well! Often times, when we become obsessed with an idea of something, we would do whatever it takes to get it (though for most people that is not as extreme as killing and blowing up a bunch of people) when really there is a more logical way to go about it. This is one of my favorite ideas from the philosophy of Aristotle.
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