Wednesday, November 25, 2009

We're Watching: X-Files

So you know I finished Frankenstein, but it seems as of late our attention has been focussed on the grotesque, because our latest Netflix ventures have been into the Hitchcockean psyche (we're watching Rear Window) and the paranormal province of Detectives Mulder and Scully. That's right... the X-Files (my stepbrother would be so proud).

We've watched four episodes and I love it (so far). But I really think Jen would love it (unfortunately she's already headed west back to B-Ham for the holiday). Why would a lovely, Hope Floats-watching beauty love such a freakish show? Because of William James. That's right, this show is hard-core Jamesian (if you haven't figured this out yet, this post is pretty much for Jen.. you're welcome to keep reading, but if you don't have an interest in - or an inkling as to who is - James, then you're not in for a fun read).

Seriously, Jen, you have to watch this show. It's all about the modern scientific paradigm, and the defense of human experience. There's not much that can rile the cool-witted Mulder, but when you start denying people the right to their own experience, he becomes bad ass. He demands that human experience(s) be taken seriously. Scully is the epitome of empiricist, but she doesn't have the fine appreciation for the subjectivity of human experience, without which empiricism fails. While she seems to only think in the scientific paradigm (in which her training in medicine and the FBI academy have equipped her), she seems to have a sense that Mulder's free-wheeling enthusiasm for the unexplained is something to be admired. She desires freedom from her trade, but loves it so dearly for giving her tools for meaning. I love the tension in the actor's face when she is clearly struggling with how to reconcile her trained ways of thinking with her intuitive appreciation of the complex cases found (dum, dum, duuuum) in the X-Files.

Mulder reminds Scully that the scientific paradigm itself rests on testing "unscientific" claims, that it relies on (and works with) more than the objective. Its assumption of "always a reasonable explanation" is often productive, but if submitted to slavishly, can also delude. Come home, Jen.

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