by
Jon Baskin
39
Playing Games: Infinite Jest as Philosophical Therapy
1
terms
3
notes
portentous
(en)
(adjective) of, relating to, or constituting a portent / (adjective) eliciting amazement or wonder; prodigious / (adjective) being a grave or serious matter / (adjective) self-consciously solemn or important; pompous / (adjective) ponderously excessive
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At the same time that Hal's speech indicates his philosophical intelligence, it suggests the failure of philosophy to help him, therapeutically speaking. If it represents a graduate student's defense of his humanity, it also signals the poverty of the version of humanity being defended. If we as readers initially fail to see this poverty, I would propose it is because we share it.
At the same time that Hal's speech indicates his philosophical intelligence, it suggests the failure of philosophy to help him, therapeutically speaking. If it represents a graduate student's defense of his humanity, it also signals the poverty of the version of humanity being defended. If we as readers initially fail to see this poverty, I would propose it is because we share it.
58
[...] The opening scene stages the very common modern confrontation between an individual who identifies his most precious self with his inner "feelings and beliefs" and a society that treats that human being like an automaton, "bred for a function." The confrontation, Wallace suggests, is mutually reinforcing. The harder the inward-facing individual bumps up against this alienating society (it is symptomatic that as Hal gets more and more uncomfortable, one of the administrators gives the great modern-bureaucratic excuse that they are just "doing our jobs"), the farther he is encouraged to retreat from it, until there can hardly be any communication betwen what the individual conceives of as his essential self nad society at all. [...]
IJ
[...] The opening scene stages the very common modern confrontation between an individual who identifies his most precious self with his inner "feelings and beliefs" and a society that treats that human being like an automaton, "bred for a function." The confrontation, Wallace suggests, is mutually reinforcing. The harder the inward-facing individual bumps up against this alienating society (it is symptomatic that as Hal gets more and more uncomfortable, one of the administrators gives the great modern-bureaucratic excuse that they are just "doing our jobs"), the farther he is encouraged to retreat from it, until there can hardly be any communication betwen what the individual conceives of as his essential self nad society at all. [...]
IJ
67
[...] it is not only by emphasizing simplicity and sincerity that Wallace's AA plays its central role in Infinite Jest's philosophical therapy; it is rather by advancing a picture of thought, and of philosophy, that will seem unfamiliar and perhaps initially banal to most of his readers. The idea is not to install belief in AA, or in anything else, but rather to expose the confusions and limitations of the picture of thinking to which many of Wallace's readers and characters already subscribe. Wallace uses AA not to introduce his readers to a new model of belief but to bring them to consciousness about what they already believe.
[...] it is not only by emphasizing simplicity and sincerity that Wallace's AA plays its central role in Infinite Jest's philosophical therapy; it is rather by advancing a picture of thought, and of philosophy, that will seem unfamiliar and perhaps initially banal to most of his readers. The idea is not to install belief in AA, or in anything else, but rather to expose the confusions and limitations of the picture of thinking to which many of Wallace's readers and characters already subscribe. Wallace uses AA not to introduce his readers to a new model of belief but to bring them to consciousness about what they already believe.