Radiohead and Philosophy - Brandon W. Forbes [39]
Threats to our happiness come both from within and from without. We are prone to error, what Aristotle calls hamartia, in ways that undermine our own flourishing. We can be our own worst enemy. We may also fall victim to circumstances and systems that are external to us and outside of our control. Powerful gods may seek our downfall. Fate may conspire against us and our happiness. And as Redfield argues, the sufferings of tragic characters may traced to conflicting cultural pressures that bear down on them—the “contradictory internal logic” of the social world they inhabit (p. 28). Thus in crafting his story, the tragic poet “imaginatively tests the limits of his culture’s capacity to function” (p. 80). By depicting the fates of individuals, tragedy invites us to analyze the commitments and practices that make their errors and sufferings possible. In this way, art opens up naturally into social criticism and political philosophy.
Songs like “Fitter Happier” and “Electioneering” are among the first to spring to mind when thinking about Radiohead’s social criticism. But the kind of reflection Redfield points to arises from less overtly “political” and more tragic songs like “Fake Plastic Trees” and the “The Bends.” What is it about our culture that fosters such a sense of isolation? Is there something about our outlook that leads inevitably to such feelings of hopelessness? Is it something about our way of life that leads to the erosion of connectedness? In short, artistic depictions of unhappiness invite philosophic reflection on the nature of happiness. And tragedy challenges us to trace the connections between the fate of individuals and the culture in which they—or we—live.
Where Tragedy Ends and Community Begins
Through its “philosophical” dimension, tragedy engages our rational capacities. Its appeal for us is inseparable from the understanding that we gain in watching or listening. To say this is not to over-intellectualize the experience, as if philosophical thoughts were going through our heads when we witness a tragedy or hear a tragic song. The goal of tragedy is to evoke emotion and catharsis, not provoke the contemplation of propositions. But the emotions themselves are not just “raw feelings.” Rather, internal to the emotions is a kind of recognition. In feeling those emotions we register an understanding of human life. And this understanding matters to us, because we too are human. As philosopher Stephen Halliwell says, tragedy revolves around “the exhibition of sufferings which stem from profound human fallibility, yet by engaging the understanding and the emotions in contemplation of these phenomena it succeeds in affording an experience which deeply fulfills and enhances the whole mind.”18
One way to put this is to say that tragedy resonates with us. We are able to discern in a tragedy a sense of human life that has the ring of truth. Part of the enjoyment of hearing “The Bends” or “How to Disappear Completely” is what seems so accurate or insightful in them. They affirm something about the vision of human life and character that the song presents. It is as if part of us says, “Yes, things really are like that,” whether the subject is the fragility of love and friendship, the persistence of personal insecurities, the recurrence of childhood fears, the inability to articulate oneself, or countless other difficult aspects of human life.
If we did not feel that life was marked by experiences of breakdown and failure, surely we would feel differently about Radiohead. They would seem strange or phony to us. Which is why someone with a thoroughly sunny disposition, who always views the world through rose-colored glasses, is not likely to fall in love with a song like “High and Dry” or “Climbing Up the Walls.”
But songs like these, along with other “dark” forms of art, can help us come to terms with these hard truths of human life. We are able to acknowledge