Arrested Development and Philosophy_ They've Made a Huge Mistake - Kristopher G. Phillips [79]
Unfortunately, we don’t always have a narrator like Opie to clear up our theoretical confusions, or even to give us the proper background knowledge to understand what we’re looking at (if only!). In the absence of a narrator to tell us how to choose between competing theories, we need some guidance. To save Buster Bluth from going to “Army,” one needs to be able to tell whether one is looking at bunkers or balls. Kuhn’s criteria are a good starting point. Like the creators of Arrested Development, Kuhn highlights the social and political aspects of knowledge in keeping both with the Duhem-Quine thesis and with the needs of a maladjusted mother’s boy who has been signed up for the military against his will. Choosing to believe Barry Zuckerkorn may have negative consequences for Tobias’s psyche. But the public display of the analrapist’s genitalia never would have taken place had Wayne Jarvis recognized the theory-laden nature of his own observations and stopped to think about what he was really looking at. And that might be the central lesson here: Sometimes it’s hard to know balls when you see them.
NOTES
1. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: UP Chicago, 1996), p. 206.
2. Ibid., p. 206.
3. Ibid., p. 206
4. Thomas Kuhn, “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice,” in M. Curd and J. A. Cover (eds.), Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998), p. 103.
PART FIVE
SOLID AS IRAQ: POLITICS AND ETHICS ARRESTED
Chapter 15
NO TOUCHING! GEORGE SR.’S BRUSH WITH TREASON
Douglas Paletta and Paul Franco
George Bluth Sr. is a bad man. Just look at the evidence: George Sr. made his own children fight each other for his profitable video series Boyfights, he cheated on his wife every Friday for years with his secretary Kitty, and, after the United States banned his frying contraption the Cornballer, he marketed it in Mexico despite the very real risk it posed of burning off one’s fingerprints. In addition to this impressive (but far from exhaustive) list of moral failings, George Sr. just may be a traitor against his country. He admits as much in the episode “Visiting Ours,” telling his son Michael that he’s currently in prison because there’s a “slight possibility” that he may have committed some “light treason.” The nature of George Sr.’s (possible and lightly) treasonous act remains secret until local newscaster Trisha Thoon’s hard-hitting report on Saddam Hussein’s mini-palaces in Iraq. Not only were these palaces clearly American built, but Michael quickly realizes that the mini-palaces eerily resemble Bluth model homes in both appearance and shoddy workmanship.
Thus, it comes to light that George Sr.’s alleged treason consists in building mini-palaces for Saddam Hussein, America’s enemy at the time. In doing so, he violated the sanctions against doing business with the so-called rogue regime. Even worse, those mini-palaces may have served as hiding places for weapons of mass destruction, which prosecuting attorney Wayne Jarvis points out potentially upgrades George Sr.’s crime from light to medium or heavy treason.
Now, there’s very little question that George Sr. violated the laws of his country by building mini-palaces in Iraq for Saddam, no matter how shoddily constructed or how poorly the fixtures stayed together. Moreover, George Sr.’s actions, including running from his arraignment after hearing the list of charges against him read all at once, seem to indicate that he recognized the seriousness of his crimes. But, what is it about his actions that made them