What is your favorite movie?

For the whole argument go to

http://pushlings.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/whats-your-favorite-movie/

Christian you’ve played into my hand. A movie is a painting, a picture of an idea. We get to pick the meaning. You said you’ll let your sons watch it “when they reach a certain age.” The age when they will garner the right meaning. I’m old enough to see that a Nietzschian will to power can only be (almost) consistently applied by a man who is certifiably insane and that the results are destructive (yes david a nihilistic win but because I’m not a nihilist, i consider it a catastrophe). I honestly wasn’t old enough when I first saw it and definitely thought how cool it would be to start a fight club and be a slick sonofabitch like Tyler Durden (at this point it would be good to point out that I never wanted to be a terrorist). I used the movie for evil, or a least I was evil in how I viewed the movie. I now view it in a morally edifying way. A movie can’t have a moral quality in vacuum (the existential aspect is necessary for the movies ethic.) The movie isn’t wicked sitting on my shelf. I think this is true with any art. You can view The Birth of Venus with respect for the artist, and with wonder at God’s gifts, or you can masturbate to it. The Art is the situation and there are decrees about how we should interact with it. Without interaction we can’t evaluate the art. David makes a good point: looking at nihilism can be edifying in the context of the truth. I think that context of truth will prevent viewing certain things as well. I comprehensively understand the evil that a pornographic snuff film portrays without watching one.

I absolutely admit that Fight Club makes an evil argument. If I listen to the argument, the movie has induced me to evil. If I argue back, the movie has been edifying and has strengthened my defenses. I think my main point is that good and evil are considerably more providential then inherent.