Marxist Philosophy

I need to go to sleep, but I think you’re onto something with this whole Odets business. So I’ll just write this real quick before I say my prayers, swallow a horse tranquilizer, and crawl into bed:

You’re absolutely right about the Marx Brothers, and George S. Kaufman as well. They did anti-authoritarian irony better than anybody, but to look to them for depth of characterization or complexity of motivation – for contradictory pulls - would be like looking for … FUCKING ANALOGIES! I’ve got nothing! It would be like looking for … ah, fuck it!

That being (almost) said, I believe the best way to look at Groucho is as pure id, as an avatar of unfettered indulgence, as Falstaff without a Hal to break his heart (as Falstaff without a heart, come to think of it), as an antidote to that indecision, second-guessing, and regret you spoke of. We’re all racked by the memories of our failures and the pain of our unrealized ambition, but that doesn’t mean we need to be reminded of it every time we turn on a movie. Sometimes it’s good to remember the things we’re capable of if we just exert the will necessary to revel in our deficiencies and inconsistencies, rather than drown in them. And that’s where a good Marx Brothers movie comes in handy. (A bad Marx Brothers movie, on the other hand, comes in handy only as a distraction from bombing raids or as a way to torture people you don’t like.)

The self-help gurus have it all wrong: We don’t become better, happier people by improving ourselves or working through our issues; we become better, happier people by giving in to all our competing, contradictory impulses - consecutively, contiguously, contemporaneously, convivially, cantankerously, consumptively, concurrently, or all at the same time.

And with that … I must be going: