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[littlefallsmets]

Have I ever mentioned how much "Its A Wonderful Life" disturbs and depresses me?

A dude just wanted to see the world and live his own life and... at every stop, God fucks him out of it and forces him to relive his father's life so as to protect a village for co-dependent rubes... his brother's a showboating idiot and he goes half-deaf to the voice of his own heart saving him... he loses his ability to see the world and build a new one, given his best friend's castoff girl as a consolation prize and his father's identity and his father's town and his father's job and...

When he finally rebels against living out the shadows of other people's lives, God sends down a supernatural being to get in his face and tell him:

"You don't get your own life, George you slug, you don't even get to take your own life... you either live out someone else's life or you don't get to have existed at all! Suck on that, loser!"

He had a steamtrunk, you know. He was gonna see the world.

A fuck*ng tragedy. At least Jesus only got pinned up against a single tree to die on.

George Bailey got pinned up against a city entire to bleed to death against.

What a fuck*ng bummer of a film.

[jay-ell]

It's not a popular message nowadays, that an amount of selflessness and self abnegation is not only needed but required in order to promote the good for many. Our current politicos certainly don't exemplify it and it most certainly is not the message sent by the common media. I'm very glad and proud that that sentiment hasn't been stamped out, unpopular though it may currently seem, it is an indicator of true adulthood and the mark of a person actually qualified to manage affairs with respect to others and worthy of the trust necessary to enable one to take up the cause of others. That there movie illustrates a way to lead the meaningful life, and illuminates the pitfalls on that route that can blind one to the blessings it can bring.

Wait, so you're saying that the current political pendulum has swung such that personal liberty has become paramount, even to the point beyond which civic virtue has been subsumed? 

Oh, man.  That explains SO MUCH.  I'm going to have to think about this.  Especially in relation to the political climate of the 1950s, when patriotism and civic virtue stomped all the heck over the concepts of personal liberty and individual freedom. 

Hm.  Hm. 

[AugustWest]

I always saw It's a Wonderful Life as the story of George's search for meaning in his life.  As a young man he thinks he can only find meaning by leaving his home, exploring and having "adventures" (for lack of a better word).  When he's forced to take over his father's business, he sees it as a sacrifice, but is able to find some level of fulfillment in running the business.  When it appears this source of meaning in his life is lost, he despairs.  What Clarence show George is that his true importance arises from his personal relationships.

Exploring the world would have given him purely personal growth.  The Building and Loan allowed him to grow his community, at least on a physical/material level.  What George has lost sight of is the effect his presence has had on the lives of the other townfolks (e.g. Mary, Martini, Mr. Gower, Harry et al).  When Clarence shows it to him, George realizes he is useful, vital and necessary part of his little town, responsible for more than just buildings and savings accounts.  He has found a place in life where is loved and needed -- Clarence just helped him realize that he'd been there all along.

[AugustWest]

As far as the personal liberty/civic responsibility thing goes, I agree that we do not emphasize civic (or personal) responsibility enough.  In another thread I think I wrote about my idea that we should have a bill of responsibilities as well as a bill of rights.

I'm not sure that I agree that liberty and responsibility should be represented as a pendulum.  It may be useful to use that model from a social history perspective.  But thinking of liberty and responsibility as mutually exclusive is part of the problem.  With liberty comes responsibility. 

I believe in a perfect world people would be free to do what they wanted, but would be fully responsible for the consequences.

[theinevitable]

Weirdly enough, I get in this argument with my Mom sometimes. She says things like "I just pity people who never have the chance to (travel abroad/live in a variety of places/get very educated/chase their crazy dreams), it would make their lives so much better, &c." And i point out that... the overwhelming majority of all human beings ever to live have lived in one little town their whole lives, and why does she get to decide what is better or worse, she's just coming from a highly-educated international background and blah blah blah.
And of course what comes out of that is a lecture about how I don't appreciate the things and opportunities I have.


But really, this is the problem I have with philosophies like Ayn Rand's. I think that trumpeting the individual over the community is dangerous, as human beings are essentially social animals. The human animal is not capable of living on his own; we are necessarily dependent on communities to live. Obviously, at the same time, we have come to find that protecting individual rights keeps our communities strong. There has to be a balance.

I don't think construing sex as violent is uniquely American... I think that that man needs to get out into the world more. "Fuck" comes from a german word which means "strike," as far as I understand, and that doesn't sound very consensual and cutesy to me. I think, depressingly, that his Enlightened French Worldview is in the minority. The error comes in saying something like "historically, penetrative sex has been linked with violence and oppression of women, therefore it is rape/exploitative/whatever."

[Doc]

I don't think it's necessary to consider responsibility and enjoyment on opposite ends of a spectrum, as has already been pointed out many of the things we enjoy that make our life better are social activities that benefit our community (whether defined as family or friends or a given geographic area). I haven't seen It's a Wonderful Life but from what you guys have said it sounds like it's more about realising what he enjoyed about his life rather than sacrificing his happiness for those around him. The fact that the things he found to be happy about were what the Man wanted you to be happy about is another discussion. Well ok, it's not, it's exactly this discussion, but the film's propoganda aspects don't invalidate it's main thesis.

But really, this is the problem I have with philosophies like Ayn Rand's. I think that trumpeting the individual over the community is dangerous, as human beings are essentially social animals.

While we're on the subject of Ms. Rand one of the weirdest things I found when I read Atlas Shrugged was the contortions she went through to justify the romantic leads giving each other gifts and so on. All 'I am giving you this piece of jewelry purely because seeing it on you will make me happy.' because 'giving you something you like makes me happy' would be too self-sacrificing. Sometimes, for whatever reason doing things for other people makes us happy. I don't think there's any self-sacrifice inherent there.

[jay-ell]

Boy howdy, did my day get complicated about thirty seconds after I split this thread.  Sorry I'm just now getting back to it. 

Ash: I wasn't trying to box you into a corner re: civic virtue vs. individual liberty.  I wasn't trying to say that you had to choose which was better -- if anything, I was trying to avoid (unsuccessfully, apparently) passing judgment one way or the other. 

Of course, being the pinko commie that I am, I think that individual liberty is overrated and that people, in general, should act in the interest of the community whenever possible, even at the expense of one's own convenience or freedom. 

And since I'm feeling feisty, I'll be specific (knowing full well to whom I address this comment): While an individual may want to own a gun for recreational use, if some people cannot be trusted with weapons, even law-abiding, peaceful gun owners should willingly submit to restrictions and regulations on which and how many guns they can own.  Does it impede personal liberty?  Yes.  Do I give a flying flip?  Not really. 

"Easy for you to say, non-gun owner."  Yeah, it is.  But I tell you what, we give up lots of freedom for relative safety against things that are a lot less dangerous than a gun in the hands of an irresponsible person. 

[littlefallsmets]

I'm all about sticking it to The Man in the form of Mr. Potter.

For an adult, as a fully-reasoned choice in a society where there will be aid to you in your endeavours.

Not having it heaped upon you by your neighbors, by your family, by fate and literally by the fuck*ng Lord Hisself to play Jesus for a town of incompetents who can't begin to understand what you're even doing and WILL fall to the next Mr. Potter (Wal-Mart in two generations, I'm sure) once you're dead or no longer capable of fighting the "good" fight.

Heaping it all upon one competent man to nanny Bedford Falls past the boogiemen for one more generation, with nothing learned by anyone other than the bitter ashes of a life unlived in George Bailey's mouth whenever God finally allows the guy to die...

That ain't what I'm talking about at all.

The duty George Bailey did is... to steal the words of The Bastards... a hand-out not a hand-up, y'know.

And a wasted hand-out at that. Fools losing bags of money, idioting away their town to the wolves... George Bailey's sacrifice isn't real change, it is a band-aid and a wasted one. The wound simply festers beneath, exposed again when the dressing's tackiness finally fails.

The same way where Mother Theresa's "compassion" toward the poor of the far East was utterly wasted because, while she balmed some short-term wounds, she made the long-term wounds worse by being beholden to bankrupt Catholic sexual moralities.

A slick corporate douchebag handing out condoms would have, yeah, done that part of the world a lot more good than a sanctamonious old bitty handing out wheat for tomorrow and ignorance for ten generations to come.

And, anyway, as much as I'm against the Mr. Potters of the world, my passions flame far hotter against such cruel paternalistic visions of Divinity than any tinpot plutocrat.

Mr. Potter, too, would have fallen to Wal-Mart or someone like them by now, after all.

Ultimately, my complaints transcend the Potters of the world because... they couldn't exist if not for the ignorance and patronizing hate handed out in the name of the ancient kind of God that movie represented.

Bedford Falls was going to burn itself down one way or the other, guys and ladies, no need for George Bailey to throw his youth upon the pyre to slow it down for another twenty years.

That poor abandoned steamertrunk and a wasted life and a cruel fuckin' Lord.

[pmcd9]

I'm glad we're having this discussion in April so I will have forgotten it by December when I am enjoying this beautiful piece of cinema.

[AugustWest]

I haven't seen It's a Wonderful Life

It's certainly worth watching.  At worst it's an emotionally manipulative morality tale, but an extremely well-done one.  Capra is sort of the proto-Spielberg.  At best you can enjoy it on deeper levels and come up with your own half-assed exegesis. 

As you can tell, it's also a very well-known American cultural icon which might give you some insight into us.

[littlefallsmets]

half-assed exegesis

Well, if I'm ever a success, I now have the title for my "miscellaneous essays wedged together into a book to cash in while the mixed-metaphor is hot" book.

Maybe "Half-Ass Exegesis" rolls off the tongue better but... I think I like it.

[AugustWest]

Well, if I'm ever a success, I now have the title for my "miscellaneous essays wedged together into a book to cash in while the mixed-metaphor is hot" book.

Maybe "Half-Ass Exegesis" rolls off the tongue better but... I think I like it.

I'm sure we can work out a suitable royalty arrangement.

[Doc]

It's certainly worth watching.  At worst it's an emotionally manipulative morality tale, but an extremely well-done one.

It's certainly on the list there somewhere. I guess I've never been much for christmas movies, The Muppet Christmas Carol with Sir Michael of Caine is really the closest I get.

Also just to stir the pot, are we seeing in LFM that point in a person's life when the last of liberal idealism is crushed out of them and they turn to the cold desperate pragmatism that usually comes across as classic conservatism but is really just a final cry of 'Why won't you bastards leave me alone!'

[littlefallsmets]

Oh worry not, it ain't that.

Like I say, it is merely that I have far more quarrel with Divinity than I do Economy when it comes down to the sticks and stones inside my head.

[Drygioni]

I have not seen it, but from what I am understanding here, a guy learns the value of sacrificing his own personal pleasure in order to help others? Or at least it can be construed that way.

sMets, I don't wish to put words in your mouth here so please correct me if this is not the case, but I've always got the impression you'd be pretty angry (like myself and many others) at a capitalist society where people place personal advancement ahead of helping others. Isn't that what George is essentially learning not to do by staying for the good of the others in the community?

This isn't an argument, it's a question that isn't questioning you, just the various interpretations of the movie.

'course I could just see it myself.