Monty Python and Philosophy

by Gary L. Hardcastle

  God Is Dead (and I’m Not Feeling so Good Myself)

  Alright, I can see your priorities. Let me play, then, Virgil to your Dante, Socrates to your Plato, Pontius Pilate to your Biggus . . . well, never mind. Let’s examine the remarkable, sinless life of Brian Cohen (Maximus) in light of certain philosophical and theological worries. And regarding such worries, God is on top of the heap, so let’s get right to that. This may be objectionable to some. Perhaps I’m bound for the infernal region. Handily, my Baptist friends believed that once you are saved, you’ll always be saved, and they have even been known to toss out those who disagree (although I was never clear whether that is enough to get a person “unsaved”). It seems the Baptists can send you on your way, but not precisely to hell, so they, along with most Protestants, seem to have signed a sort of non-proliferation of damnation pact, abdicating the nuclear option for the soul. The Roman Catholics wisely retain their weapon stock, leaving them the only remaining super(natural)-power. But as I mentioned, I got saved by the Baptists and I am not going to look a gift-Deity (or badger) in the mouth. You are quite another matter. You may need to go and find your own Baptists. Mine are probably in heaven by now. But it is your soul I am most worried about, as you will see.

  So, God. In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), in an especially foul mood, published the following infamous words (except they were in German):Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!” As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. “Is God lost?” one asked. . . . “Or is he hiding?” “Is he afraid of us?” “Has he gone on a voyage? Emigrated?” [I thought God was non-migratory.] The madman jumped into their midst. . . . “Whither is God?” he cried. “I will tell you. We have killed him, you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? . . . [a dozen more such questions] . . . Do we hear nothing yet of the gravediggers of God? . . . God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.28

  Nietzsche was never renowned for his lightness of heart. It is not easy to distinguish the philosophical from the theological sense in this little narrative. Until recently both theologians and philosophers were plenty occupied with the Big Guy, so how to tell the difference?

  One might think, “no theologian would proclaim the death of God,” but in the 1960s a bunch of theologians got a wild hair and did just that, and started wringing their hands over what becomes of theology afterwards.29 It was a silly time. They mostly went away, some not by their own choosing. So what is Nietzsche on about, and what makes it philosophy?

  In the passage, the crowd of unbelievers is laughing at the man who would be sincere. Make no mistake, this is all about laughing at God, and what perils to the soul accompany this activity. What kills God is the laughter—or at least, laughter kills the cheerless God sought by those whose dominant religious passion is wrapped in pathos. Few have contributed more to laughing at such a God (and His followers) than the loyal Pythons, but they begin by having God (a less austere one) laugh at such believers. In Monty Python and The Holy Grail, addressing the believers adopting the “correct” pathos, God says: “Oh, don’t grovel . . . do get up! If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s people groveling!!” When Arthur apologizes, God rebukes him: “And don’t apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it’s sorry this and forgive me that and I’m not worthy . . .” and “It’s like those miserable psalms. They’re so depressing. Now knock it off.”30 This is the sort of situation into which Nietzsche’s “madman” steps, as a pathetic follower (or so he is taken to be by those laughing). The laughter is the clue that whatever reverence the solemn God once commanded has lost its grip. This may be the “madman’s” point, of course.

  This Deity Is Bleedin’ Demised

  Nietzsche is quite right. If that God ever really existed, He is dead now. That so many people find the Pythons funny is Nietzsche’s justification. The God of our Victorian foreparents doesn’t frighten us now nearly so much as a Stephen King novel, although His followers (God’s, not King’s) are still numerous enough and in themselves plenty scary and increasingly desperate in an unbelieving world. Stephen King’s followers are scarier when one sits near them at dinner, although they get on nicely with Nietzsche’s people, since they all wear black, chew with their mouths open, and happily endure the interminable ramblings of self-indulgent writers who need editors far more than followers. The old God has been reduced now to a weapon of mass destruction, wielded by those angry about His death. Yet, to have a personal relationship with the dead God, one must supplement the historic pathos with a peculiar narcissistic psychosis.31 This psychosis I will call “the Comic,” following a usage by Henri Bergson (1859-1943), which I will explain in a moment. For now, grant that reflection upon the difference between the history of the pathos of Christianity and its modern transformation into a psychosis is very much a philosophical matter, not a theological one, and this is what Nietzsche was foreseeing.

  Philosophy is reflection upon all experience and aims at self-knowledge, including religious experience and ideas like “God.” Theology, by contrast, is reflection upon religious experience and ideas, undertaken in faith that such experiences do exist and such ideas do refer to realities beyond themselves. This makes theology a more specialized activity. If you are already offended by what I have said, you’ll prefer theology. But there may still be a God never dreamed of in your theology, and He (or She, or It) may be laughing at you. On the far side of theology, you don’t know very much; even Dr. bloody Bronowski doesn’t know very much.32

  That “far side” is where philosophical consideration of God finds itself after a couple of World Wars and a Cold War. Thus, where the faith can no longer be assumed, one moves past theology into philosophy. While we might be tempted to build an “alternative theology” based upon the Pythonic revelation, indeed, sorely tempted (forgive me Brian), instead we need to grasp how the Pythons enter the philosophical world precisely on the assumption that (the old) God is dead, or at least might be (I mean, maybe he’s not dead yet, but will be any moment). At the end of the infamous passage quoted above, Nietzsche’s madman says “I have come too early. My time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way.”33 If his time was not yet in 1882, certainly by 1979 (when Monty Python’s Life of Brian was filmed) the days had been accomplished. The Pythons speak of God and all this hilarity is not only tolerated, it drowns out the rage of those “serious” Christians.

  Yet, laughing at God is dicey business any time. As I said, I’m right with Brian, and I am here to help you get right; I think it may be too late for Nietzsche. Even the Mormons, with their wise doctrine of salvation for the dead, show no interest in reclamation of the retiring little guy with the migraine that wouldn’t quit. In some ways, however, Nietzsche’s seriousness touches upon a characteristic of all that is comic. We can use it here.

  So Brian Cohen (Maximus) stands continually before new incarnations of the same crowd as Nietzsche’s madman, asking the same sorts of questions. But Brian’s pathos is different from the madman’s; Brian has the sincerity of the divine idiot.34 Recall the following exchange, when Brian finds himself obliged to prophesy:Brian: Don’t you, eh, pass judgment on other people, or you might get judged yourself.

  Colin: What?

  Brian: I said, ‘Don’t pass judgment on other people, or else you might get judged, too.’

  Colin: Who, me?

  Brian: Yes.

  Colin: Oh. Ooh. Thank you very much.

  Brian: Well, not just you. All of you. . . . Yes. Consider the lilies . . . in the field.

  Elsie: Consider the lilies?

  Brian: Uh, well, the birds, then.

  Eddie: What birds?

  Brian: Any birds.

  Eddie: Why?

  Brian: Well, have they got jobs?

  Eddie: Who?

  Bria
n: The birds.

  Eddie: Have the birds got jobs?!

  Frank: What’s the matter with him?

  Arthur: He says the birds are scrounging.

  Brian: Oh, uhh, no, the point is the birds. They do all right. Don’t they?

  Frank: Well, good luck to ’em.

  Eddie: Yeah. They’re very pretty.

  Brian: Okay, and you’re much more important than they are, right? So, what are you worrying about? There you are. See?

  Eddie: I’m worrying about what you have got against birds. Brian: I haven’t got anything against the birds. Consider the lilies.

  Arthur: He’s having a go at the flowers now.35

  All one needs is a literal-minded group who neither believes nor disbelieves, asking obvious questions. Religious sincerity crumbles. The same could be done to any preacher in his pulpit anywhere, but none will do it. Yet when fire-and-brimstone evangelists ply their trade on college campuses, sometimes this scene is replayed. More often the listeners are beset with the countervailing pathos, opposing the pathos of the evangelist. Throughout Monty Python’s Life of Brian, detachment from pathos pushes the plot and generates the humor. The story depends not upon mocking God, Jesus, or even Brian, but upon holding oneself at a distance, not allowing the countervailing pathos of opposition to take hold—Nietzsche called this countervailing pathos ressentiment.36 And how is the latter pathos avoided? One can rise above it, as would an Übermensch, but that isn’t funny; or one can idiotically fall below this dialectic, a sort of divine Untermensch. Brian doesn’t claim to know anything. He would be glad to, but he doesn’t. He is a well-meaning moral idiot, just like nearly everyone else. When questioned, he shifts ground and finally gives up, like anyone with common sense.

  The Plumage Don’t Enter into It

  Thus, the death of God is not simply the end of a certain concept of God, nor of the power of that concept to fill us with fear. The death of God is the onset of a detachment from the entire question of God, and common sense telling us that no one actually has the answers to questions like “is there a God?” Those who possess such detachment by native temperament find Pythonic religious humor pleasing, while those who do not find it troubling, offensive, or even blasphemous. Common-sense detachment from impossible questions leads us to tend our mortal souls, leaving the immortal soul, if there is one, to its own fortunes.

  Today we need not be as upset about all this as Nietzsche. He thought that killing off this old God means humans would have to bear God’s burden—and would be unequal to the task. But I think we are probably up to the chore, which is part of the revelation I received when I asked Brian into my heart. Yet there really is a “moment of decision” Brian puts to his hearers: “shall I shun this, be offended by this, condemn this?” If the still small voice in the back of your brain says, as mine did: “no, if there is a God, He’s surely enjoying this too, and if not, bugger Him,” then you are open to salvation of the sort Brian brings. Of course, this is salvation from the pathos of religious authorities who would ruin your cheer with their dreary pronouncements of Hellfire, with a thinly veiled confidence in the absolute truth of their own convictions (concealing an utterly unconscious fear that they may be wrong). Their confidence is difficult to distinguish from mere pride, but it is best not to judge, since, as Brian taught, you might get judged yourself if you do it. Better to laugh. They can’t do much about that—at least, not any more.

  According to Henri Bergson, “the Comic” just is anything overly stiff that holds itself opposed to the flow of experience, and when its rigid bearing is noted by others, laughter results. The person who is “comic” has at least two very important characteristics. First is this mechanical inelasticity, this rigidity amid what should be a flowing present. Second, a “comic” person is invisible to himself as comic, does not realize he is being rigid. As Bergson says, “the comic person is unconscious. As though wearing the ring of Gyges with reverse effect, he becomes invisible to himself while remaining visible to all the world.”37 Hence, the art of the straight man affects sincerity, rigidity, unself-conscious pathos—and the Pythons, especially Chapman and Cleese, are among the best straight men comedy has ever produced. But for the pathetic follower of the dead God, comic rigidity is no affectation, it is a mode of existence. So the issue is not whether religious fundamentalists are utterly comic, the crux of the matter is whether anyone will point it out so that we can all laugh. But your soul is still in jeopardy, so don’t laugh yet.

  We have more to say of rigidity and the comic, but please grant that it is far more difficult to be funny about things that are already funny, like the Pythons, because funny stuff isn’t rigid and comic. In such situations one needs recourse to the lower types of humor: puns, off-color jokes, ethnic slurs, or, at the very bottom rung, politics. We are not scrupulous people. Let’s do politics.

  Romani Ite Domum

  It is hard to be the only remaining super-power. One’s empire is always getting a bad rap. But there is no pleasing some people, as both Jesus and Brian taught. Bring people the aquaduct, sanitation, roads, medicine, education, order, peace, and even the public baths and good wine, and what do you get? Just complaints about little foibles that come along with it—a taste for ocelot spleens and jaguar’s earlobes, or blood pudding and Branston Pickle. British humor has a connection to Roman stoicism, for the humor works in inverse proportion to the degree in which the humorists’ culture is repressed: the more repressed the conquerors, the greater the comic possibilities, which is one reason why British humor seems almost surreal to the American ear (one can hardly be more repressed than the British). But get one thing straight: It’s their empire, not ours, even when we have temporary administrative responsibility.

  On a recent trip to Britain I discovered to my (very American) dismay that the British are unimpressed with American wine. I was poking around in a good wine store in Oxford and finding little or nothing American to drink. I affected my best British accent (the secret is to speak without moving the upper lip, the rest takes care of itself, with some practice), and inquired after some wine from California. The clerk (pronounced “clark”) lilted back: “’aven’t got any; tried it once, can’t sell the stuff.” He had spam, though. I had thought they made some pretty good wine in California, and here it isn’t even taken seriously. And if you pour what the Brits know about wine-making into a thimble, it wouldn’t even be half empty. No matter. Obviously I am a colonist. Having worn out the bit about “taxation without representation,” I’m looking now for the headquarters of the American People’s Front. What have the lousy British ever done for us?

  And here’s the lesson of empire. Empire takes mettle. It isn’t for nancies or pleasure-loving creatures of comfort like Australians and the Americans. Empire requires one weapon: organizational genius. And of course, an unfailing sense of what is and is not important. So the two weapons of empire are organizational genius and an unfailing sense of what is and is not important. And perfect confidence in one’s own superiority. So, the three weapons of empire are: organizational genius, an unfailing sense of what is and is not important, and a perfect confidence in one’s own superiority. I mean, nobody expects a perfect confidence in one’s own superiority. “Great race, the Romans,” says Michael Palin, hanging from the ceiling in chains the Romans granted him the privilege of wearing. But the same might be said of the British. It takes an astonishingly blithe attitude toward suffering (your own and other people’s) to keep hopping in your boats and invading every place you can even land, not to mention constantly having to spank (for their own good) the troublesome Dutch and French and Spanish who are without even the decency to bring British civilization to other lands. No, the Aussies and Yanks don’t have that in them.

  To illustrate, it is far, far more important that Brian be made to conjugate his Latin correctly than that he be silenced from saying “Romans Go Home.” The true threat to empire is people who refuse to learn the lingua franca correctly. Was I not, after
all, asking after American wine in the Queen’s own English? When in Rome. . . . History is a stubborn and harsh teacher. Right up to my own middle school years we were still learning, at the tip of a blade, to conjugate Latin. The language had been dead for five centuries. Now that’s an impressive cultural imperialism. People will be learning the Queen’s English everywhere for another two millennia, minimum. Some things come and go, some come and stay. Latin and English are of the latter sort. The Romans and the Britons, kindred spirits and stoically convinced of the unlimited power of self-mastery, are confident that when they have imparted their cultural forms to lesser people, that’s all that can be done for our betterment.

  Having borne the superior man’s burden, a Roman or a Briton may freely stare in incomprehension at the ridiculous behavior of his empire’s foreign subjects. Yes, the foreigners have silly beliefs and customs; it hardly matters. But let them misuse the mother tongue and, well, they’re in for a good thrashing. It is little known that the actual cause of the American Revolution was an intense desire on the part of the British to teach table manners to the colonists. Not the Battle of Yorktown but our utter incompetence at eating peas off the convex curve of a fork led the British to give up on civilizing us. We would have to improve ourselves after 1783.