Aimee & Jaguar

Aimee & Jaguar (1999) is a film based on a true story centering on Felice, a Jewish woman who lived in Berlin until 1944 and belonged to an underground lesbian, anti-Nazi (spying) organization. To be a Jewish lesbian in Nazi Germany cannot have been an easy life, with possible catastrophe just around the corner on any given day.  In the film, Felice becomes romantically involved with Lilly, a mother of four and wife to a Nazi solder who is fighting at the eastern front. The film is essentially a love story between the two women. I want to draw out some of the ethical issues raised in the film—with the love story serving as my critique of two ethical theories—utilitarianism and duty-based ethics—that are implied in the film.  

Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism has for its goal the greatest good, which is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, for the greatest number of people. In terms of distribution, the principle can justify allocating a lot of money to some groups—whose individuals can be expected to get a lot of pleasure out of the funds—while depriving other groups of any money because they would not get a lot of pleasure out of even the limited funds. Invest in pleasure where most of it is likely to result. It is the consequence, rather than the means, that is important.

Under such a lopsided distribution as making what money there is available to non-Jewish Germans, the notion of declining marginal utility means that a lot more money would have to be added to the rich Germans to give pleasure equal to that which would come from giving the impoverished groups even just a little money. The utility of 1 DM, for instance, after getting 99 DM is less than the utility after getting 2 DM. This point is illustrated in the film.

In one scene, a fur-wearing, wealthy German woman, sensing that Felice and her three friends, Ilse, Lotte, and Klara, in the bathroom are hungry, and Jewish, sells them food-stamps for nothing less than 200 marks—an extravagant sum judging from the reaction of the three Jews. Based on declining marginal utility, it would take such a sum of money for the pleasure obtained by the rich woman to equal the pleasure from the mere food-stamps accruing to the four Jews. Hence, the exploitation.

The utilitarian distribution cutting off some people or entire groups from funds needed for daily sustenance can be extended to include outright extermination. In Nazi Germany, exterminated groups included the Communists, homosexuals, and Jews. Felice and her three friends were on the losing end in at least two of the three. It is ethically problematic that Bentham’s theory could be used in such a way to justify investing only in people who are most able to be happy (feel pleasure), whether from inner constitution or by external circumstance. Maximizing the pleasure in a society overall is an aim that can justify means that can easily be viewed as unethical. In fact, the resulting pleasure overall, as it is distributed in society (i.e., unequally) can be viewed as unethical. Fortunately, we can turn to Kant to make up for Bentham’s lapses.  

In contrast to Bentham’s theory, Immanuel Kant held that people have a duty to treat other rational beings not merely as means, but also as ends in themselves. Reason, by which we assign value to things (and people) is itself of absolute value, and so rational beings should not be treated merely as means, but are worthy by virtue of having reasoning capability of being treated as ends in themselves. This version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative is similar to the Golden Rule in Christianity (Kant was Christian). For the Nazi leaders to treat groups of people as means only to a Nazi vision of society and race would be for Kant, unethical.

Yet is it reasoning that gives humanity its absolute value? In the film, Felice refuses to go with her friends on a train to safety in Switzerland because she loves Aimee and thus wants to stay with her; the decision taken is not rational, for Felice must know that she could have gone and returned after the fall of the Third Reich; she must also have known that she would probably not survive for long, even if the days of Nazi Germany were obviously limited. “A catastrophe,” Aimee’s mother says when she learns, after Felice has returned from the train station, that she is not only her daughter’s girlfriend, but also Jewish. In such a context, how much value can we put on Felice’s love for Aimee? It seems to me that reason cannot assign value to such an object of such power, so such value must be undefined, and thus absolute. Means and even lofty ends that slight the human natural ability to love face an uphill fight in claims to being ethical rather than unethical.

The Boys from Brazil

Josef Mengele, an SS physician infamous for his inhumane medical experimentation on prisoners at Auschwitz, is in this film a character intent on furnishing the 95 Hitlers he has cloned with Hitler’s own background. Crucially, Hitler’s father died at 65. So too, Mengele, reasons, must the adoptive fathers of the boy Hitlers. Otherwise, they might not turn out like Hitler. The ethics of Mengele’s task—killing 95 innocent 65 year-olds—is clear. When Ezra Lieberman stops Mengele in his tracks, the question turns to the ethics of killing the 95 boys so none of them will grow up to be another Hitler. This is a much more interesting ethical question, and the narrative—and film as a medium, moreover—would be fuller had the script been deepened to make the question, and thus the ethical and ontological dimensions, transparent for the viewers.

Even if the boys have the same upbringing environment as Hitler, and obviously the same genetics, the world was not the same after World War II. Antisemitism cannot be assumed—even less the Aryan-race ideology. The news of the Holocaust alone changed the public discourse. Hitler’s demise meant that any aspiring Hitler would face considerable headwind in securing a dictatorship in Western Europe. In short, the leap from same-environment, same-genetics to another Hitler is unsupportable. Hence, killing the boys to save future lives and even safeguard democracy could not be justified ethically under consequentialism.

Deeper than the ethical dimension is the question of whether a clone of a person is identical to the original person from which the DNA sample is used to make the clones. In philosophical terms, the question is that of ontological identity. I contend that such identity does not hold in the case of cloning.

That no two environments (e.g., upbringings) can be exactly the same means that a cloned person cannot be formed just like the original. It follows that the clone makes different choices, and even has different thoughts. In other words, the stream of thoughts is not identical. Indeed, the consciousnesses are different. It is not as if Hitler could see or hear the world through the boys after his death. The minds are thus not identical, even though the brains are constructed by the same genetics—but environment can impact brain chemistry! Severe abuse, for instance, can alter the chemistry. Hitler’s father was stern—perhaps abusive. If so, a cloned boy whose father is distant but not abusive would not have the same brain chemistry as Hitler.

The ontological non-identity provides a strong basis for the ethical claim that killing the 95 cloned-Hitler boys to prevent another Hitler from becoming a vicious dictator would be unethical. The assumption that another Hitler must necessarily result from a shared genetics and a similar upbringing is faulty because too many other variables would be in play for such a deterministic relationship to hold.

Should it be argued that the boys should be killed to punish Hitler, who in the film’s story-time is already dead, the ontological non-identity means that the 95 boys are innocent of Hitler’s atrocious deeds. Punishing the innocent is itself unethical. That Hitler is dead when the boys are cloned means that he would not be punished. Admittedly, killing the clones would not be in Hitler’s interest, and doing something that would impact Hitler negatively has ethical merit on account of Hitler’s deeds. However, the immoral act of killing the innocent outweighs such merit, I submit, both because of the boys’ pain of death and the fact that Hitler would not be aware of the punishment because he is dead.

Ethical analysis can be complex, but it can indeed lead to definitive answers. One philosopher who criticized moral theory, Friedrich Nietzsche maintained something very close to an ontological identity—the same consciousness being absent—in positing that given infinite time and the infinite possible number of galaxies, a person just like you—in effect, you—must certainly be the case at some point—and indeed innumerable times—on a planet somewhere that is just like Earth. In fact, Nietzsche holds that the person would be you! How excruciating it must be to know that all your heartaches are to be felt an infinite number of times. So Nietzsche has a demon announce:

"This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence -- even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"[1]

I submit that Nietzsche’s assumption of ontological identity (i.e., his use of the pronoun you) goes too far. As I argue above, even an identical genetics and the very same environment do not give the same consciousness. Physically, two (or more) brains exist. The recurrences are thus not really so. Nietzsche admits, for instance, that we have no awareness of our respective “recurrences; we don’t suffer again what we have suffered. Nor, for that matter, can we experience our past joys again. So you will not have to live once more, and innumerable times more, the life you have lived, even if that life is repeated; the reason is that the person is not ontologically identical to you.

Even in terms of physics, Nietzsche’s theory of the Eternal Return is problematic. Simply put, his idea is that infinite space means that infinite universes (each of which contains galaxies) exist so mathematically an infinite number of Earths with an infinite number of variations, including that which we experience in our lives, must be the case. In short, an infinite number is very, very large. Nietzsche applies the mathematics to physics:

“If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of force and as a certain definite number of centers of force -- and every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless -- it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more: it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated: the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself infinitely often and plays its game ad infinitum.”[2]

In short, Nietzsche is saying that a finite system within an infinite system must occur an infinite number of times. Even though Nietzsche calls this the Eternal Return, he is not suggesting that infinity itself is divine. If space is infinite—a claim that Einstein rejects in his theory of curved space—that space is in Creation and thus not divine. Even so, Nietzsche’s assumption not only that space is infinite, but also that galaxies exist throughout that space is problematic. If space goes on and on without limit, it is possible that matter and energy cease at a certain location.

Furthermore, even a “definite quantity of force” and “a certain definite number of centers of force” can involve an infinite number of variables. One reason why the social sciences fall short of the empirical lab experiments in the natural sciences (i.e., biology, chemistry, physics) is that all the variables that go into human behavior and social scenarios have not been identified and thus subject to being held constant or adjusted. I contend that the infinite number here cancels out the infinite number of recurrences (e.g., of you). Think of “infinite” in a numerator and “infinite” in a denominator of fractions. The two infinities cancel out. In short, there has not been, is not, and will not be another you.

In conclusion, even an “absolutely identical series” applied to identical genetics is not sufficient for us to posit the sort of ontological identity that would permit us to say that Hitler recurs in the 95 clones in the film. Killing the boys would thus be unethical. In keeping the audience from knowing that the boys are cloned from Hitler’s DNA, the story does not permit much time for discussion of the philosophical issues here. Even so, the Lieberman character is of the sort who would be inclined to have such thoughts and thus ask other characters, such as his wife, questions that could get the audience thinking. Such a narrative dimension would make film that much more powerful, and thus rich, as a story medium.

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[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 341.

[2] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 1066.

Is Modern Civilization Immune from Autocratic Rule or Susceptible to It?

Die Welle (The Wave), a German film released in 2008, centers around a week-long mini-course on autocracy. The following question put to the high-school students as well as the film’s viewers: Is a totalitarian regime like the National Socialists in the second quarter of the twentieth century still possible? Undergirding this question is the more basic question pertaining to human nature. Namely, does human nature crave the intensity of collective meaning through uniformity that a dictator can provide?

In his discourse on inequality, Rousseau argues that additional, distinctly artificial, economic (and political) inequalities are all but certain in the unnaturally large social arrangements requiring more social interaction with strangers than was the case when members of the homo sapiens species lived as hunter-gatherers in small groups, or bands.[1] Living in small groups fit well with the human tolerance for interacting with less than 150 people—enough to trust without undue anxiety. Inequalities going along with this congruence were, Rousseau asserts, quite natural—not as large as, say, those between a king or emperor and “the masses.” 

The Wave explores why we mere mortals put up with such inequalities of power, and thus whether autocracy is still possible in Germany, und der Welt. Are we immune, buttressed by the artificial safeguards seemingly built into our modern societies, or do we crave a larger meaning that is ostensibly possible only by subsuming a sense of individuality to blend into a larger whole led and enforced by autocratic artifice?  Are we that hungry to fill the emptiness that ensues from the onslaught of post-modern deconstructivism within the shell of modernity’s fractured communities and families?

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1.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Harvard Classics, Charles W. Eliot, ed., Vol. 34 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1910).

Inglorious Basterds: A Feat beyond Human Dignity

Thirteen pages into Tarantino’s screenplay for the film, Inglourious Basterds, Col. Landa delivers the film’s thesis statement, essentially encapsulating the entire narrative in one line. “I’m aware,” the SS officer tells the French Jew-hider in his country house, “what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.”[1] Landa is referring to the lengths to which Jews in hiding will go to evade being captured. He likens them to rats, yet interestingly refers to their evasive means as feats. Perhaps the SS officer admires his prey in this respect. Perhaps he admires the human instincts that spring into action once dignity has been discarded.

In fact, the Landa character can be characterized by the odd combination of polished politeness and brutal aggression, two seemingly disparate poles, being situated as two natures proximate in one person, one essence.[2] This character is on full display when Landa is in the cinema’s office with the famous German movie star, Bridget Von Hammersmark, whom the SS officer suspects is a spy. At one moment, Landa “very delicately unfastens the thin straps that hold the fräulein’s shoes on her [feet].”[3] As if Landa had turned on a light switch, he suddenly jumped the woman to strangle her “lily-white, delicate neck . . . with all the violence of a lion in mid-pounce.”[4] The janus-face flashed inside Landa manifests now in the exchange between the two characters. 

It is no accident, I suspect, that Tarantino explicitly notes that strangling “the very life out of somebody with your bare hands is the most violent act a human being can commit.”[5] The image of the most violent act possible literally in the same shot with a delicate neck of a cultural aristocrat captures Tarantino’s main point: The giving up of human dignity impacts human instinct, not to mention emotion and behavior, tremendously. Whether the person is a Jew in hiding or an SS officer, the animalistic, predator-prey instincts can kick in with remarkable speed and force, as though a severe thunderstorm rolling in on the plains.

Whether the predatory and primitive survival behaviors are indeed feats is itself an interesting question. As discussed above, the Jew Hunter refers to the survival strategies of the Jews as feats. He obviously does not admire the “rats” themselves. Rather, he admires the extreme measures—more, precisely, that human beings are capable of going so far acting on the instinct of self-preservation once they have decided to abandon their dignity. Likewise, he doubtless identifies with the violent lengths to which human predators can go once they have gently and carefully removed the lady’s shoe. 

Through Landa, Tarantino evinces a fascination with the extremes on both sides of human dignity. Enjoying a dessert in a nice restaurant, Landa clearly relishes his impeccable politeness as something much more than a subterfuge as he interrogates Shosanna, the Jew whose family he had murdered and whose cinema would host the Nazi high command and other Nazi elite for the premiere of Göbbels’ National Pride. This penchant for precise politeness does not detract from Landa leaping to the most violent man-on-man (or movie star) civilian combat possible once he has turned off dignity’s internal switch. Most importantly, the two extremes can coexist without blending in the least. Human nature in its rich, complex (rather than moderate, or “every day”), and stretched condition is itself the feat that Tarantino demonstrates and explores by means of the film.

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1. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds (New York: Weinstein Books, 2008), p. 13.

2.  I have in mind the “fully human and fully divine” natures that are in Jesus Christ without blending together within him.

3.  Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds, p. 136.

4. Ibid., p. 137.

5.  Ibid.