The Examined Life is, by the filmmaker’s own admission, an attempt to “bring philosophy to the streets,” an effort to explore philosophy through the medium of film, to examine concepts and ideas in verbal format rather than in a written text. It’s an attempt to communicate critical ideas to a broader audience, to bring what we scholars think to our fellow citizens. So I can’t help but thinking: If this film was an entry in the “Communicating Arts Research” Competition and I was a judge, would it get my vote?
I have to admit here that I place value on the importance of successfully communicating our ideas to a broader audience. It’s an important question for me, one not of “justification” but of “understanding”. If we really feel that thinking is so great, we should probably be able to communicate why it’s important—we should be able to inspire, draw interest, and find ways of doing that outside our little niche.
There are moments in the film where I was drawn in, was made to think, other moments where I rolled my eyes and said to myself, “this is why people don’t want to hear philosophy.” I was fascinated by Judith Butler’s interview of the film-maker’s sister, because the discussion performed philosophy in a completely non-traditional way that made me reconsider my own way of physically being in the world. Slavoj Zizek’s segment was similarly fascinating, and seemed to work well. The visual in-situ cues along with the short, ten-minute format communicated a new way of thinking about ecology as conservative ideology. Zizek’s critique was direct and pointed, and made me consider alternate ways of thinking about ‘trash’ and the rhetoric of the ecology movement. I think I’ve been persuaded that in order to genuinely face our present environmental catastrophes, we need to live more fully in them, in order to move away from dissociation and disavowal. But whether I agree or not isn’t really the point—the point is the effectively communicated critique. How often do we hear a pithy, easily distributable, and relatable challenge like this one to the ideology that underpins ecology? For me, it’s important to be able to engage with these types of challenges and critiques, in order to move towards intellectual growth.
So, on the one hand we have Butler and Zizek, and on the other we have….Avital Ronell. Who wants to hear her complain, “th[is] is scandalous, I understand that the others would have ten minutes but to bring me down to ten minutes is an outrage”? Maybe some people will be able to get past this apparent arrogance to begin to engage with her ideas, but for me, she lost me with that first sentence. I’m not compelled to engage with someone who oozes such pretension, so her ideas, I’m afraid, were missed.
I guess in conclusion, I’m convinced the film was a valiant effort to “bring philosophy to the street,” and some segments were great. It’s a good first step. (This is probably a cop-out, but) I vote 'maybe'. But I think we philosophers-theorists-literary critics need to think further about how we go about successfully communicating our ideas to a broader audience. I’m compelled to think about how I talk about what I do with my friends who work in construction, manufacturing, or the oilfield. If we’re going to be good thinkers-teachers-writers, I think we need to consider how we say what we say and do what we do, and how we communicate that to those outside our EFS department.
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