I rewatched the movie Pleasantville the other day, and made a rather startling realization along the way. Pleasantville is a philosophy movie. To refresh your memory, Pleasantville stars Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon who are accidentally transported into the make-believe “Donna Reed” world of Pleasantville, a Middle American town with no crime, no conflict, and where people are always, well, pleasant. While this is not what I would call a good movie, it may be worth rewatching if one does so with a philosophical eye.
In Pleasantville, the citizens have abandoned everything that gives life meaning, in favor of maintaining a superficially pleasant exterior in all aspects of their lives. There is no sex, no art, no violence, no anger, none of the “spice of life.” When Toby and Reese arrive, they begin to introduce these very spices into the lives of Pleasantvillians, who begin to realize that their sunny-side lives are shallow and lack something important, though they aren’t sure exactly what.
In a previous article, I discussed a writing by Susan Wolf in which she deals with the notion of moral sainthood and suggests that this is actually not a standard that we should strive to meet if we want to be truly happy. A moral saint, remember, is someone who only and always follows the dictates of morality. Pleasantville illustrates Wolf’s point rather nicely, painting a picture of exactly what a world devoted to only one type of value might look like.
Pleasantville gives us several manifestations of the problems associated with total commitment to a single value. The artist cannot paint because someone might find his art offensive. The children cannot read books, because they might learn something that disrupts the status quo. People cannot have sex, because sex can create conflict and drama, which isn’t always so pleasant. But without sex, art, and great books, what’s so great about being pleasant all the time?
The message of Pleasantville is one that we would be wise to follow when thinking about morality and ethics. It is certainly important to strive to be good people, to do what is right. But there are other aspects of life that are equally valuable, and that should not be suppressed in favor of following the requirements of morality. This notion of value pluralism is one of the greatest challenges to traditional moral theories, which tend to focus on morality as the sole value worth considering. Pluralism acknowledges the complexity of human lives, as well as the futility of reducing certain types of value to other types of value. Values, just like the humans that hold them, are complex, rich, and diverse. If Pleasantville is any indication of life without pluralism, I don’t think we would find such a world to be pleasant at all.
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I have been battling my entire life on what I should believe, morally challenging my self. My father as well as myself grew up believing that perfection was possible, and that training your mind was possible and necessary in society to become a perfect person. I continued to find clues against it, as well as logical rebuttals to those clues. I have recently (8/22/08) have been leaning towards society and emotion. I’m absolutely not sure how to handle anything as my mind has been partially warped by its own intelligence and observance, I’m afraid that my life will end up like my fathers, continuing to believe that things can be 100% happy or, aha, whatever.
Just the other day in fact my father mentioned that it wouldn’t matter anyways and therefore be best that he started to tell everyone that he knew these things, and that he was slightly superior than everyone because he had read so many books and drove to his philosophy. As he ages I feel that he is adjusting to society, bending away from his thoughts, and living life to its apparent fullest.
Pleasantville, has sufficiently SOLIDIFIED these theories. My life has genuinely reversed. Better get working and questioning these awesome, people…
I’m glad I’m only 16.
I’ll have enough time to catchup.
Thank you.