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Supernatural meta: Free Will
Nov. 2nd, 2009 10:52 pmA philosophy near and dear to my heart – and an integral building block of who I am – is concept of free will. More than anything else it is our choices that define us. And the choices that define us the most are those that are made when it appears we actually have no choice. The concept of free will has its most power in face of the capriciousness of fate or destiny or whatever it is that people are calling the uncontrollable circumstances of life. Even if we can’t choose the path we are on, we can choose how we go down that path.
One of the reasons I love “Supernatural” so much is that it’s all about free will. I know that there are a lot of shows that bandy about the concept of free will. Usually it’s presented as coming-of-age marker or a pseudo-anarchist “screw the establishment” mantra that firmly entrenches our hero as “different”. But instead of just tossing out free will in an “us or them”, fork-in-the-road, “left or right”, or a "do/don't do as you're told" simplicity, Supernatural focuses on the true complexity – the power, the cost, the unpredictability and the necessity – of free will.
( Only partially about Supernatural, no knowledge of the show needed. )
I’ve always believed that it is more important to teach people how to think rather than what to think. It’s how I’ve attempted to raise my child. It is, however, a scary and dangerous thing. Our differing choices of free will could lead us to stand alone and against those we care about. This, again, is something that Supernatural does so well, especially in the last season with the schism that developed between Sam and Dean. People often like to take sides and place blame, as if life is a zero sum game that has a perfect solution that eliminates all the errors and pain. But you can’t. Free will demands that there are errors and pain. In the end, that’s what freedom is. As Dean told Castiel in “Lucifer Rising”: “I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise.”
Granted, our lives rarely (fortunately) have such grand, obvious examples of free will. We rarely get to make grand stands for life and right and good. But I think that all of us, somewhere deep down, want to be able to make that choice. To fight a worthy battle, to choose our own path and to say, “If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.” After all, it’s our choices that makes us truly alive, isn’t it?
One of the reasons I love “Supernatural” so much is that it’s all about free will. I know that there are a lot of shows that bandy about the concept of free will. Usually it’s presented as coming-of-age marker or a pseudo-anarchist “screw the establishment” mantra that firmly entrenches our hero as “different”. But instead of just tossing out free will in an “us or them”, fork-in-the-road, “left or right”, or a "do/don't do as you're told" simplicity, Supernatural focuses on the true complexity – the power, the cost, the unpredictability and the necessity – of free will.
( Only partially about Supernatural, no knowledge of the show needed. )
I’ve always believed that it is more important to teach people how to think rather than what to think. It’s how I’ve attempted to raise my child. It is, however, a scary and dangerous thing. Our differing choices of free will could lead us to stand alone and against those we care about. This, again, is something that Supernatural does so well, especially in the last season with the schism that developed between Sam and Dean. People often like to take sides and place blame, as if life is a zero sum game that has a perfect solution that eliminates all the errors and pain. But you can’t. Free will demands that there are errors and pain. In the end, that’s what freedom is. As Dean told Castiel in “Lucifer Rising”: “I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise.”
Granted, our lives rarely (fortunately) have such grand, obvious examples of free will. We rarely get to make grand stands for life and right and good. But I think that all of us, somewhere deep down, want to be able to make that choice. To fight a worthy battle, to choose our own path and to say, “If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.” After all, it’s our choices that makes us truly alive, isn’t it?
