Time is a flat Circle
I want to go back to that boring summer in Louisiana in 2012 to see Rust's path to becoming a "god".
True Detective is a realistic crime drama from the beginning to the end. You might say, I’ve never seen someone as nihilistic as Rust in reality , but please remember that the True Detective is full of In the universe of metaphors for reality, Rust itself is also part of the metaphor .
The first season is full of mysticism and religious atmosphere . Antlers, mysterious marks, naked bodies, yellow robe kings, missionaries who regard faith as business, and the Tuttle family who plan everything behind them all exist in the realism layer. Ruowu's misty mist adds a bloody taste to the whole series . At the same time, they are like cults in reality, and they are the ultimate reason that makes countless people fall into madness ;
But this is not the ultimate metaphor behind the first season of True Detectives. Nic itself should be an atheist or an agnostic. The cosmic horror of Crusu in HP Lovecraft's works is not what he wants to express, so there is nothingness in Rust. What kind of story does the road to his final "god" tell? What does "the light is triumphing" mean?
Rust's nihility comes from a car accident where his wife left. After this tragedy that took away everything that Rust cherished, if Rust didn't join the darkness, he would only have a dead end waiting for him, because he already understood that this world has nothing but absurdity and nothingness.
And this kind of cold comprehension, in fact, has been quietly flowing in the blood of all Westerners who participated in the world war .
The great War and modern Memory
Whenever I hear such words as sacred, glorious, sacrifice, and futile, I always feel embarrassed. We have heard these words a long time ago. Sometimes we still stand in the rain to listen, standing in places where our hearing cannot reach, and only hear some words shouted out loud; besides, we have also read these words. I read it on the new announcement on the announcement. But now, I have been observing for a long time, but I haven’t seen any sacred things, and those so-called glorious things are not glorious, and the so-called sacrifice is like the abattoir in Chicago, except that the meat slaughtered here is not Put it in a can, but bury it. There are many words that I can't hear anymore. In the end, only place names still maintain their dignity. The same is true for certain numbers and certain dates. Only these and place names make sense for you. Abstract nouns, like glory, honor, bravery, or sacred, if they are put together with specific names—such as the name of the village, the number of the road, the name of the river, the number of the army, and the major date, etc.—it’s almost an order. People hate.
----"Farewell, Arms" Hemingway
Through the long and dark Middle Ages, Western civilization has begun since the Renaissance, and the supremacy of rationality has taken root along with the industrial revolution and capitalist theories. This has enabled the West to move from classic to modern first. The rapid progress of material and spirit seems to start to make people feel that this world is in the world. Perhaps nothing can stump mankind anymore. It seems that from the day when our productivity is greater than the material desires of all mankind, mankind will be able to get rid of its animal attributes forever: an ideal world with only truth, goodness and beauty seems to be right in front of us , "Modernity" "It became the greatest invention in human history.
It wasn't until the shot that killed Prince Ferdinand on July 28, 1914, that Westerners have only discovered since then that "modernity" can be used to destroy it in addition to creating civilization .
These two battles affected hundreds of millions of civilians. More than 165 million soldiers participated in the war. 70-90 million soldiers and civilians were killed in the tragic tragedy. The devastating blows brought about by the world war far exceeded what we are in. Any imagination of suffering in this era of peace.
The world is like a huge tomb furnace. The orange fire ashes floating in the ruins were once the hometown where people were born and lived here, and they are the blood and flesh of people's love .
The beautiful vision of "rationality" and "modernity" in the West, like Rust's accidentally lost daughter, is reduced to nothingness.
Blossom in the Void
The world is absurd, life is painful, and life is meaningless.
Sartre (1905-1980)
Rust told us in the play that philosophically, he is a pessimist, and at the same time, he is a realist. We already know where the pessimism and nihilism in him came from, but why can a pessimistic and realist full of Nietzsche be able to finally become a character with sacred glory like Jesus in the play ?
At the end of the 19th century , when the war had not yet broken out, but some hints of restlessness had been revealed , an important turning point was ushered in the history of European philosophy. The Austrian philosopher Husserl discovered a new philosophical path: phenomenology. The exploration of "objective truth" has been sealed, indicating the direction in which contemporary philosophy can truly develop: based on the perception and understanding of "phenomenon" (object) by "man" (ontology) , existentialism was born from this, in the final analysis, Existentialism is actually a kind of "humanism" .
Acknowledging the absurdity and emptiness of the world is the foundation of this "humanistic" doctrine . Whether born in the best hospital in America or in a slum in Rio, no baby has the right to choose. We are thrown into this world.
"Existence precedes essence" , the born ontology itself is nothing but a blank sheet of paper. Morality and soul are created by us in our existence. People are not obliged to abide by certain moral standards or religious beliefs, but they have the freedom to choose. Absurdity means that the world itself does not have a universal meaning, and there is no right and wrong and fairness. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. Seeing this, would you say that it seems that existentialism is a kind of pessimism?
Wrong, this pessimism of existentialism is actually a kind of sobriety. Only by recognizing the cruelty of the world can we truly change this cruelty by giving meaning.
At the beginning of the 20th century, two world wars broke out and ended, devastated. With the collapse of rationalism, pessimism shrouded the entire world. The same is true for Rust who lost his daughter. He and the world desperately need a good medicine. What can soothe their pain and let people who have faced the nihility regain the meaning of life?
action.
Life has no purpose, only process. The so-called ultimate purpose is nothingness. The situation of human beings is the same as that of a tree. The more it wants to open to high places and bright places, the more its roots have to go down, towards the soil, towards the darkness, towards the depths, and towards evil. Don't forget that the higher we fly, the smaller our image in the eyes of those who can't fly.
----Nietzsche, Says Zarathustra
You can say that every existentialist was once a pessimist, but existentialism is not only a kind of pessimism, but a good medicine against nihilism and absurdity.
Familiar with nothingness can fight against nothingness. Rust is like every soldier who continues to live with the scars of war . He approaches the darkness in order to fight the darkness. His ultimate metaphor is: even if he realizes that the world is just absurd and nothingness, But we can still use actions to change the nihility of the world we live in, and create our own meaning in the nihility. It is also his confession line to Marty, "The world needs bad men, we keep other bad men from the door. " The whole meaning of his existence reflected in " .
Rust has not become a real savior, because the Tuttle family has not been wiped out. The sacred brilliance in him is actually the salvation that belongs to him alone.
The whole world also slowly healed the pain after the war, and after walking out, mankind will eventually give itself meaning with peace and development.
After encountering nihilism, through actions, he completed his sublimation from pessimism to existentialism in this even malicious world. This is also the reason why Rust, as a former pessimist at the end of the play, believes that the light is triumphing. .
Existentialism is the flower that grows out of the ruins, and Rust is condensed with a modern Western history.
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