Faith and Authority

Thanks, Koskiewicz. I wrote a blog a few years ago with a Zizek quote that sums up the point of this entry well: "The cynicist is quick to denounce the ridiculous pretense of solemn authority; the ironist is able to discern true attachment in dismissive disdain or in feigned indifference…”

Something else to remember...



... and, of course, fostering assumptions about the prosperous brings together some interesting bedfellows .

I have to start this post with a confession. Of all the things I have revealed about myself, this is the most embarrassing. When I was a girl, one of my favorite shows was – can I say it? – Gilligan’s Island. Having a strong memory for lines from movies, songs, books and TV shows, I can recall much of what I heard in Sherwood Schwartz's program with horrifying accuracy. Drystyx’s mention of the program this month and recent talk of doubles perhaps helped summon these memories when people started writing about the law, laissez-faire, and feminism.

Someone mentioned how inequality is “human nature.” The characters in the show unwaveringly hold their social status and stereotypical gender roles (except for rare - broadly comic - effect,) despite their apparent lack of sex, throughout the series. There is also no “law” there except for a brief attempt which – surprise, surprise – allowed Gilligan to spoil their chance of rescue. Otherwise, except when the Skipper uses his authority or the Professor his scientific knowledge, everyone defers to the millionaire Howells. In addition, IIRC, there were more episodes centering on this couple than on anyone except for the titular character.

Above, I mention one of my blog entries, an entry that discusses how Lacan inverted “the commonplace about the liberating potential of the unconscious impulses which resist the ‘repression’ of the Authority to which we submit consciously: the Master is unconscious; he exerts his hold upon us in the unconscious.” I bring up how television in the middle of last century was a huge part of the United States’ unconscious, allowing its citizens to be cynical about its social mores while conforming to them.

A couple episodes of the program under discussion may illustrate the process. In one, Mrs. (“Lovey”) Howell gets letters from a secret admirer. After some attempts to find out who it is, the islanders discover that it has been her husband. However, she takes offense when he lets out that he did it to make her feel special, and she throws him out of their hut. However, after dreaming that she is Cinderella and he Prince Charming, she realizes that she truly loves him.

In another, an imposter who had surgery to steal Thurston Howell’s identity and was squandering his fortune fell off a yacht and managed to wash up on their very island. The pretender knocks his double over the head and changes clothes with him, taking his place on the chaise lounge. The real Thurston awakens (and we hear music expressing his woozy state.) As he stands, Gilligan’s “everyman” music plays, and the title character approaches him, asking how his clothes got all wet. Howell looks down on his gaudy new apparel and asks, disdainfully, “How did I get these clothes?” He comments that he hadn’t felt this way “since New Years’ Eve” as cheerful flute music invites us to laugh with the sound track. He encounters his doppelganger and, as comically frantic music plays, he runs toward his hut and shouts to his wife, the commotion also drawing the Skipper and Gilligan. He then tries to prove his own authenticity to his fellow castaways. Dismayed that his wife says she doesn’t know which one is her husband, he reminds her of a birthmark and lifts his sleeve to reveal it. Somehow, however, the imposter has an identical one. Thurston asks Lovey, “Don’t you recognize your own husband?” and she says she recognizes the clothes on his double. Howell then tells how he was knocked out and that the pretender changed clothes with him. At Mrs. Howell’s dismay, Gilligan suggests she keep them both, and she looks pleased. Thurston then asks the pretender three questions, to all of which the impostor provides answers that “commoners” would consider conceited to psychopathic, but which answers convince everyone present of his authenticity. After the last one – whether, if he had to choose, he would save his money or wife, a question to which he proudly answers, “My money, of course!” - Lovey embraces the pretender, crying, “Thurston, it is you!”

These scenes well exemplify, for those of us to whom they were exposed, what Zizek calls the...


I’ll end this post by linking a later blog entry which also fits with both the episodes I describe in terms of the three concepts named in my first paragraph.

PS (9/27/20): Re-examining the later blog entry in light of thoughts on the modern unconscious and the law bought to mind the centrality of Descartes in these subjects, so I thought a picture of him here would be appropriate.