South Park and Philosophy

"South Park" AND . . .

What?!? Philosophy? Are you kidding me?

Well, the answer, of course, is no, they are not kidding.

It has taken me a while to really come to enjoy the Emmy Award-winning cartoon South Park. In fact, I really didn't like the show the first couple times I watched it. Mainly because it is a definitely not your average Saturday morning cartoon. I found it funny, but it's also extremely vulgar, crass, uncouth, needlessly controversial and it appears to have a bias against every possible interest group in the world. On top of that, it struck me as completely inscrutable. Case in point: Kenny. Why have a character the audience could not understand but the other characters could that died almost every episode? What's the point of that? Over the past year though, I've come to appreciate South Park, not just as entertainment (yeah, I feely admit, it's warped entertainment!) but as real social commentary and as way of beginning to think about the philosophical issues that swirl around us in modern and "sophisticated" people. If you're careful, at the end of a show, you can honestly say "You know, I learned something today."

That is where the book, South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating, comes in. My wife and I noticed it on the bookstore shelf and quickly thumbed through it. Our first impression was "this must be a joke." Even the essay titles suggested it was; there was already enough vulgarity on the first couple pages to make me think that this was a gag book (I counted eight potentially-offensive terms in the titles alone). But, in the end, the essays seemed like they might just be worth a read.

The book, as all the Popular Culture and Philosophy series books, is a collection of essays. This one is "cobbled together" by Richard Hanley, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Delaware. He's a reasonably intelligent and knowledgeable writer, but, unfortunately, he doesn't mind being as vulgar and rude as some of the characters on South Park. I suppose that's the point; it IS a book about South Park, after all. That said, it got on my nerves pretty quickly. It's perfectly alright to point out other peoples' fallacies or be opinionated, but it's quite another to make personal attacks and slop vulgarities over perfectly good prose. Because he wrote fourteen of the twenty-two essays were written by Hanley, just getting through much of the book was a chore.

Even so, there is a lot about the book I enjoyed, particularly the essay on time travel by Sophia Bishop, the Golden Mean by Aaron Fortune and the essays on the philosophy of education and death by Randall Auxier. One can get a quick over-view of a good number of topics from almost all major fields of philosophy. It probably does require a little background in philosophy to truly appreciate though.

So what is "philosophical" about South Park?

I've always thought that South Park touches on quite few philosophical themes. In fact, almost every episode I've seen (and I've not seen them all by a long shot), centers around an ethical, metaphysical or epistemological idea. In a typical show, two extremes are pitted against each other and by the end of the show some third alternative presents itself, suggesting, perhaps, that that creators are big fans of the Middle Way. In addition, the book suggests that the Parker and Stone are astute students of Socrates (Auxier thinks Chef IS Socrates), Aristotle, Freud (the boys represent the Id, Ego, Superego and the Death Impulse--can you guess which is which?), and Heidegger, among others. While most of the episodes feature current events, movies and celebrities, the underlying message of South Park does not seem to be ABOUT those things. Rather, it seems to me (and the authors of the book), that South Park is about deeper issues that are drown out by the innane babble of today's media. It asks big questions: When does life end? How should we treat those with differing points of view? What is knowledge and how do you know what it is anyway? What is God like and why does the Devil always get such a bad wrap? Why should I believe my TV?

One last observation, one I've made myself, but the book brings out nicely. South Park seems to be anti-religious--it does a great job of bringing to light all of the silly, obnoxious, childish and plain stupid stuff the Church (well, any religious organization) can dredge up--but it really is simply against hypocrisy in any form. The show's creators have no problem taking on any kind of fallacious thinking but seem to be respectful of thoughtful consideration of a religious (even Fundamentalist Christian) view. There's nothing wrong with having a religious point of view, as South Park suggests, as long as you sincerely think about what you believe and allow others their due.

But for a couple of excellent articles, I can't say that I can recommend this volume, but I understand this is really the second South Park and Philosophy. I'll have to check that out South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today and let you know what I think of it. I hope it's better than this one. If you are really into South Park and its sophomoric use of language, then you probably wouldn't find this book too difficult to read. On the other hand, if you prefer a little more sophistication and cool-thinking in your philosophy, then maybe you should pass on this one.