Futurama and Philosophy

by Young, Shaun P. , Lewis, Courtland

  15

  On Bendered Knees

  NICHOLAS A. OSCHMAN

  Fry looks down at the order form in his hand: “I.C. Wiener? Ah Crud!” This crank call is the last straw to a horrible day. He’s already been made fun of by a child, found out his girlfriend Michelle is leaving him, and now this. No wonder he muttered, a mere moment before, “I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life.” As he sits down, alone on New Year’s Eve, he makes a toast to the future, “Here’s to another lousy millennium.” Little does he know, ten seconds later (at least from his perspective), he’ll be in the year 2999, about to embark on the adventure of his life.

  Upon waking, Fry simultaneously rejoices in the opportunities brought about by his new future world (and his escape from the meaninglessness of his twentieth-century life) and anguishes over the loss of everyone he ever knew. Many of our favorite stories follow the tension between Fry’s sense of loss with regard to the past and his hope for the future. Fry’s life seems better with Bender, Leela, and the Professor, yet he constantly longs to return to his old dog Seymour, his ex-girlfriend, his jealous brother Yancy, and the crumbling remains, ruins, and relics of old New York (even anchovies! Yuck!).

  Our introductions to all of the major characters of Futurama begin in much the same way. Each character begins the series by questioning the meaning and purpose of their lives and by struggling against frustrations and tragedies we all can identify with. We meet Leela as a one-eyed alien (she doesn’t know she is a mutant yet) stuck in a job she’s never loved. She’s deeply insecure about her single eye and heartbroken about her isolation in the world, not knowing where she comes from or even what species she is. It isn’t until Season Four that she finally finds out the truth of her origin and begins recovering from decades of abandonment issues. We meet Bender while he’s waiting in line for a suicide booth, and it’s revealed early in the series that Fry is his only friend in the world. Professor Farnsworth, after putting in over a century of research in his field, is considered a senile old lunatic by his peers in the scientific community. Hermes Conrad, while enjoying the thrilling and fulfilling life of a bureaucrat, has never fully pursued his limbo dreams after watching a young boy break his back while trying to emulate Hermes and, subsequently, limboing far too low. And Zoidberg . . . well . . . Zoidberg smells and nobody likes him.

  Of course, I’m painting a rather bleak picture. Life isn’t all pain, heartbreak, evil, and meaninglessness; in fact, if anything, the story of Futurama suggests that life is full of meaning. How else can we explain that, despite the inexplicable odds against such things ever happening: Fry lacks a Delta brainwave, due to his being his own grandfather, and thus is able to save the universe from both the Brain Spawn (“The Why of Fry”, Season Four) and the Dark One (Into the Wild Green Yonder); Fry and Leela find one another despite being born a thousand years apart; and Hermes was the bureaucrat responsible for approving young Bender’s inspection (“Lethal Inspection,” Season Six)? Much of Futurama seems to suggest that there’s a higher plan for the life of Fry and his friends. It seems as if God, or rather, as the Season Three episode “Godfellas” suggests, the remains of a computerized space probe which collided with God, has a plan for the good of the universe.

  (I’m not trying to be controversial here by relying on one conception of God over another. If you happen to be a faithful and devout practitioner of Robotology, substituting “Robot God” for “God” will suffice in all of the following sections. However, if you’re really a Robotologist, what on earth are you doing reading philosophy? Pick up the Good Book 3.0, start praying that you’re not destined for Robot Hell, go listen to Preacherbot give a sermon, and get off my back you fundamentalist factory functionary!)

  Where was I? Oh yeah . . . if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, must God’s plan involve any suffering at all? We all know why God created Slurm (mmmm . . . Slurm), but why does the glowing green goodness of Slurm have to originate as the secretion from the backside of a giant space worm queen? Of course, Popplers (which turn out to be infant Omicronians) are delicious, but why make sentient Omicronians so damn tasty? And why would God make Snu-Snu feel so good, when too much of it will kill you? Why couldn’t life be all Slurm (no worm), Popplers (no guilt), and Snu-Snu (no spongy bruised flesh)? In short, if it’s supposedly within God’s power, why couldn’t the world be all goodness and pleasure without any of the pain, evil, or filthy neutrality?

  Bite My Shiny Metal Argument . . . from the Problem of Evil

  The scenario I’ve described above is known in philosophy and theology as the Problem of Evil. It’s actually a really simple problem. It boils down to the question, “Why does God let evil (or pain) occur?” This conundrum results in one of the strongest possible arguments against the existence of God. While its exact form varies according to different authors, it essentially goes something like this:

  1. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, then God could and would want to stop all evil and pain from occurring.

  2. Evil and pain exist.

  3. Therefore, because 1 and 2 are true, God (defined as an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being) does not exist.

  There’s no question that this argument is valid—that is, it exhibits logical consistency. If 1 and 2 are true, 3 must necessarily be true. However, the question for anyone interested in the Problem of Evil is whether these initial premises really are true. Could an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God choose to allow evil? Does evil really exist?

  Good News Everyone!!! . . . Wait, That’s Not Good News

  There are a variety of ways one may respond to arguments against God’s existence which use, as a starting point, the Problem of Evil. The simplest response is, of course, to agree with them. One could simply say, “Good point Mr. Philosopher Man! You’ve now convinced me to be an atheist.” If this sounds like you, then congratulations, you’ve solved the problem; please proceed directly to the next chapter. (I’m kidding. Please don’t leave me! I’d get lonely going through the rest of this chapter by myself.)

  However, for many or most of us, the Problem of Evil really is a problem, not a solution. It’s called “The Problem of Evil,” rather than “The Solution to the Question of God’s Existence,” because we feel the problem, conundrum, and enigma of a world imbued with both evil, pain, and suffering, and goodness, pleasure, and purpose. In other words, while blind devotion to Robotology, Robot Judaism, Oprahism, Star Trek, the First Amalgamated Church, or Dschubba won’t completely satisfy us without some explanation as to why God allows evil to occur, neither would the simple claim that God does not exist satisfy us without some explanation as to how purpose and meaningfulness occur. Add on to this the fact that Bender has met both God and Robot God, and our simple acceptance of arguments from the Problem of Evil seems to be a weak response to the problem itself (at least in the Futurama universe).

  Another possible response to the argument from the Problem of Evil is for someone to deny that premise 2, that evil exists, is true. While this position is somewhat rarer than the other responses, it’s a possible approach. Usually the people who defend this position don’t deny that evil appears to exist, but rather defend the position that all evils and pains are really just a means by which we can experience goods and pleasures. For example, while lack of booze may seem to be an evil to Bender, those moments when he feels the pain of lacking a martini are what allow his drinking to feel so pleasurable in the first place. In other words, without some pain, there would be no pleasure. The contrast is what allows a fulfilling life. This response seems legitimate when one looks at everyday pleasures. If Fry’s life was exclusively filled with drinking Slurm, eating Emperor Nimballa jerky, watching All My Circuits, and playing twentieth-century video games, perhaps it wouldn’t be as fulfilling and good as his real life which mixes pain and pleasures, goods and evils. Perhaps if the romantic hopes and aspirations which Fry directs toward Leela were easily resolved and his love quickly
reciprocated their romantic journey would not be as meaningful, beautiful, or joyous.

  In many ways, this seems right. Some pains and evils do seem to function as a means by which we enjoy greater goods. However, it seems hard to justify all evils this way. It’s difficult to explain why the genocide of the Omicronian young, why the horrific dilemma forced upon Zoidberg’s species between a life of loneliness and abstinence and a life of mating followed immediately by death, why Leela’s years of abandonment, why the lack of aboveground rights for mutants, and why the death of almost every soldier who has ever served under Zapp Brannigan are not really evils, but merely the spice weasel of life. This approach seems to undermine the raw power of evil, the pointlessness and emptiness of some pains, and the meaninglessness of all of DOOP’s wars. I, at least, am not satisfied with this. Some evils seem to not have a reason. Some evils cannot ever be justified. Some evils are just evil. (Again, I am reminded of the taste of anchovies).

  One final approach to the problem of evil (before we let the writers of Futurama have their say) denies that premise 1, that a perfect God could not allow evil, is true. Often known as the Free Will Defense, this approach suggests that if God were to create creatures that have free will, then God must allow said creatures the opportunity to choose evil. Thus, the evil we encounter in the world is a result of God’s creatures choosing wrongly. In other words, evil exists in the world because humans (or aliens) choose to do evil things. This is a very defensible position in terms of moral evils. Moral evils are those instances of evil, pain, and suffering which come as a result of some moral creature (humans or intelligent aliens) choosing to do something either deliberately or accidentally immoral. The moral choices of twenty-first-century humans can explain why the thirty-first century must deal with the evil of a giant ball of twenty-first-century garbage hurtling toward the Earth. Because the citizens of twenty-first-century Old New York were lazy about recycling, they accumulated garbage and eventually had to shoot said garbage into space (“A Big Piece of Garbage,” Season One). Its return one thousand years later is a result of the moral indifference of human beings. In other words, it’s not God’s fault that he created creatures with the capability to do good and they continually choose to spend their time either doing evil or being too lazy to do good.

  While the Free Will Defense might provide a strong tactic by which we may explain moral evils, ultimately it isn’t particularly convincing because it doesn’t easily explain evil as a whole. Some things in the universe are natural evils. Natural evils are those things in the universe which, as a result of the physical laws of the universe, inflict pain and suffering. For example, moral failings cannot account for the destructive force of an earthquake, a black hole, an exploding star, vicious predators, or the awful taste of anchovies. Admittedly, the natural evil of the taste of anchovies may sometimes be supplemented by the moral evil of putting anchovies on an otherwise delicious pizza, but ultimately, this is beside the point. The Free Will Defense can’t readily explain all of the evils in the universe, because, as it explains the apparent tension between the existence of God and the existence of evil through the freedom and subsequent moral failings of autonomous creatures, it can’t readily explain those evils brought about by nature.

  Bender Gets Hit with Space Junk and then Meets God

  In the episode “GodFellas,” Bender meets God, who conveniently provides us with an explanation as to why God allows evil to exist in the universe. Finally, we’ll secure a more cohesive response to the Problem of Evil and get an explanation as to why God would allow Robot Santa to terrorize Christmas, allow Nixon to get elected president over and over again, and allow Labarbara to be such an awful cook (assuming she’s not making Manwiches). In short, since we have a question about God, why not ask the Big Man (or space probe/God thingy) Himself?

  In “Godfellas,” after having been jettisoned into space, Bender is hit by a tiny asteroid carrying miniature humanlike creatures called Shrimpkins which begin growing and flourishing on his body. Initially, he ignores their prayers and cries for help. But after enjoying his own veneration, some conversations with the “prophet” of Bender worship, Malachi, and the fruits of the distillery they’ve built on his stomach in order to honor him, Bender decides to embrace his role as the deity for this tiny culture. Of course, as anyone who has seen the episode knows, Bender meddles too much in their development, a religious war is started between the followers of Bender and the infidels on Bender’s back, and all of the Shrimpkins die.

  After Bender aimlessly drifts further through space for a while, he encounters a strange figure speaking in binary code (whom Bender realizes is the result of a computerized space probe which collided with God). The friendly divine entity and his new “good chum” Bender have a conversation which is incredibly enlightening for the purposes of our discussion.

  BENDER: Y’know, I was God once.

  GOD: Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.

  BENDER: It was awful. I tried helping them. I tried not helping them, but in the end I couldn’t do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong?

  GOD: Bender, being God isn’t easy, if you do too much, people get dependent. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

  BENDER: Or a guy who burns down the bar for the insurance money?

  GOD: Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.

  Jokes aside, God is advocating for a serious philosophical insight here—God must remain somewhat absent from His creations, if creatures are to fully develop. In other words, for people to develop their full potential, they can’t know with certainty that God is looking out for them. Some level of epistemic distance (don’t worry, I’ll explain this term in a bit) must be maintained between God and humankind if people are to become what they’re intended to be.

  The “Hick’s”-Boson Particle

  The response to the Problem of Evil suggested by God in “Godfellas” is most famously expressed as a theodicy (a word that just means an account of why God acts the way He does) by John Hick, in his book Evil and the God of Love. In it, Hick uncovers a theodicy he claims has been existent in the Christian tradition since St. Irenaeus, who lived in the second century C.E. Hick maintains it dissolves the Problem of Evil without either denying that evil actually exists or blaming all evil, even natural evils, on human actions. Hick calls this theodicy the “Irenaean Theodicy,” but for the sake of simplicity, I will just call it the “Soul-Making Approach.”

  The Soul-Making Approach suggests that God didn’t create the world in order for creatures to experience as much pleasure and as little pain as possible, but as an environment in which creatures could develop into full moral agents. Hick explains that the mistake in the argument from the Problem of Evil is that it assumes “that the purpose of a loving God must be to create a hedonistic paradise.” But according to Hick, the purpose of the universe isn’t for the universe to be as pleasant as possible, but to be an environment which allows people to grow and develop. In Hick’s view, moral evil isn’t caused by morally perfect beings who’ve fallen into disgrace by choosing evil, but rather the result of people, who are just children in God’s eyes, who have to experiment, struggle, fall down, and fail in order to learn critical lessons. People aren’t created “all finished,” but develop through their lives. People aren’t perfect to begin with, but are “only the raw material for a further and more difficult stage in God’s creative work.” As Hick says, “Man is in the process of becoming the perfected being whom God is seeking to create.” In other words, this life doesn’t exist for us to enjoy it, but rather to learn from it.

  Hick explains that the necessary condition for soul-making, for the possibility of people learning and developing, is the existence of epistemic distance between us and God (I told you I’d come back to it!). “Epistemic Distance” is the term Hick us
es to describe the necessary hiddenness of God. This is the reason people don’t see God, and why God doesn’t interact directly and obviously with people on a daily basis; this is why God’s not constantly protecting us, teaching us, and preventing all evils from befalling us. As Hicks puts it, because God is so great, “The absolute goodness of the Creator is such that there can be no neutrality in relation to Him.” In other words, if we, as creatures, saw or knew God directly, then there would be no freedom to learn, grow, or develop.

  Think of the Season One episode “Fry and the Slurm Factory.” Fry and the gang discover that Slurm has a disgusting origin, and the worm queen concocts a super potent batch of Slurm which, after he tastes it, leaves Fry unable to focus on anything else but eating more. He almost gnaws his own arm off to get the last drops for goodness sake! Hick suggests that, like Fry and the Slurm, were creatures to encounter God’s superabundant goodness directly, then we’d become obsessed.

  Without God’s absence, we’d never focus and learn to fend for ourselves. Like Fry, we’d never really develop, but instead, would mindlessly enquire after God. So, if Hick is right, because God wishes us to grow and develop freely, in an uncompelled way, God must remain distant from us. Like a good parent, God allows us to explore and develop on our own, and this requires that there be evils and dangers in the world. By overcoming these dangers, by struggling with moral dilemmas, by resisting evils, we slowly build our souls, transforming ourselves from the childlike human animals we are into the creatures God created us to be.