The Midknight & Philosophy, Part V

NOTE:  The following essay contains spoilers to my book The Midknight. If you have NOT read the story, I suggest you read it first before reading the following essay.

Part V: Joseph Campbell and the Master of Two Worlds - 

Achieving a Greater Good

Joseph Campbell, who Newsweek magazine once noted was "one of the rarest of intellectuals in American life: a serious thinker who has been embraced by the popular culture," created comprehensive theories of mythology that synthesized the discoveries of modern science, psychology, art history, and literature and used modern media, including television, to popularize his subject. He was one of George Lucas' main mentors (Campbell's teachings helped Lucas form the story for Star Wars), and his works continue to inspire an entire new generation of writers, filmmakers, and mythologists alike. Many of Joe Campbell's teachings and philosophies on life and hero mythology were a major inspiration for The Midknight as well.

According to Campbell, all heroes go on a cyclical journey that involves three main phases: a departure, an initiation, and a return. Launching into the departure phase, the hero leaves the isolation of home after receiving "the call." This enables the hero to cross a threshold into the wider world where he or she can then begin the initiation phase, experiencing a number of different trials. Once the individual has proved worthy of heroic status, the return phase can begin. In this final phase, our hero has somehow transcended duality to an underlying singularity. There is an integration of the familiar and the foreign as he or she becomes a "Master of Two Worlds." This involves a necessary transformation of consciousness and completes the journey.

Jesse's first part of his journey is his departure at the beginning of moving to a new city and starting at a new high school, and his cross over of the threshold is when he is forced to digest the serum. Thus he starts his initiation into standing up for himself and those he cares about by fighting back in the metaphorical and literal sense. Jesse then transcends to his higher level of consciousness when he realizes the true meaning of happiness (by comprehending Vanessa's true source of happiness) and puts the All (the people) above his own needs and desires.

Although, there are some times that this enlightenment can be very frightening and can be blinded from anyone. Jesse himself does try every thing possible to stay with Vanessa and obtain his desires. Even at the end of the story, after his sacrifice, he ignores his enlightenment of consciousness and returns to Vanessa and grave consequences ensue. Plato also has a famous story about a cave of ignorance, the condition he thinks most people live in. Here chained prisoners, unable to see one another, see only the wall of the cave in front of them upon which appear shadows cast by small statuettes of animals and objects that are passed before a burning fire by people behind a low wall. The prisoners believe that the shadows they see are all there is in the world. By this imagery, Plato wants to show us that most people are ignorant of their true selves and reality. Although they're deeply ignorant, the cave dwellers are content with the "knowledge" they think they have. Then someone releases one of the prisoners. Standing up and looking around him, the former prisoner now has a clearer perception of the cave he inhabits. Yet the light from the fire, which he has never seen before, hurts his eyes. In other words, he is quite uncomfortable with his knowledge. It even pains him and he desires to return to his chained position. Aside from the literal experience of suddenly looking at a bright light, why would he experience discomfort and pain from learning something new? Well, looking at himself in this new light would force him to revise the familiar image he had of himself and of the world he's been living in. Most people, like Jesse, welcome this change in their lives. Yet the prisoner's rescuer encourages him to search further until he's finally freed from the cave's confines and attains a vision of the Good, Plato's highest principle. Both Jesse's and Plato's story urges us to look beyond the familiar image each of us has of ourselves, so that we can be aware of our weaknesses. Being aware of our weaknesses, we are able to rectify them, which, unfortunately for Jesse, doesn't occur until Vanessa is taken.

Georg Hegel, at the conclusion of his Phenomenology of Spirit, goes along with Campbell by introducing his "Calvary of Absolute Spirit," which states that all life goes through transformations in which what at first appears to be evil turns out to be good, while the good must by crucified, as Jesus was on Mount Calvary, in order that a higher good be achieved. This transformation of light into dark and dark into light is the pathway of Spirit. This transformation of consciousness and dark into light is when Jesse realizes that he must destroy the serum that runs through his and Gideon's veins. The only way to carry out this plan is to crash the helicopter that is carrying the both of them and most probably die. In this final, self-sacrificing heroic moment, Jesse seems to begin another phase of the cycle which Campbell and Hegel write about. Campbell states, "Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence ... social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all." Jesse's decision to sacrifice himself for the common good of keeping the serum from harming anyone else and also continuing the fight against evil after Vanessa's demise, is an exile of the most extreme sort, which will lead to social, philosophical and personal growth. 

The Midknight & Philosophy, Part IV

NOTE:  The following essay contains spoilers to my book The Midknight. If you have not read the story, I suggest you read it before reading the following essay.

Part IV: Plato's Eudaimonism

Both Plato's Republic and his vision of the ideal and eternal Good turn on the proposition that we have within us an extraordinary potential that we do not all achieve, and an end state toward which we can and should aspire, a just life. So how do we achieve that good, just life and why should we be so quick to obtain and keep it?

Most philosophers say achieving a "good, just life" is a matter of sacrifice -- along with the ability to make sacrifices; self-discipline; and using our talents, knowledge and experiences for the good of others (friends, family, anyone) as well as ourselves. Plato believed that unless we are blocked from seeing what is good and appreciating it for what it is, what is good will draw us in its direction. It will motivate us and direct our steps. More importantly, a just life includes high morals (leaving a lasting, truly good impact on the world). It is this "good life" that Jesse struggles to find throughout the story that is also found in Plato's Republic -- the ascent of a person from darkness and confusion to enlightenment.

Once we feel this goodness, or happiness, within ourselves, why should we struggle so much in a sometimes harsh world to remain good and not give up? Most people's answer would be because it's what's right or they might even start spouting off words of religion and Heaven and Hell. However, the answer that is given in The Midknight can be seen in Plato's moral structure of eudaimonism -- a mode of ethical thought in which the fulfillment of human nature is the standard by which we recognize what is good. The word "eudaimonism" comes from the ancient Greek term eudaimonia, which is usually translated as "happiness." To put it briefly, eudaimonism arises from two premises that people will always do whatever they think will make them happy, and that it is therefore the job of moral theory to show that the morally good life is also the happiest life. Eudaimonistic moral theories argue that human nature is ordered such that people are happier if they live morally good lives.

Early in the Republic, Plato describes a magic ring, the Ring of Gyges, which will render its wearer invisible (an inspiration for the ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga). Such a ring could be used to commit any crime with no chance of being caught. Plato depicts the human soul as divided into three parts: (1) reason, the source of contemplation, logic, and judgment; (2) spirit, the source of anger, courage, and pride; and (3) the appetites, the source of almost all our wants and desires. To reduce the account to a simple version, we can say that a just person listens to the voice of reason and controls the appetites (like Vanessa, who knows that it would be an overall good for Jesse to save Mark even though Mark is the one who got Jesse into the entire mess, and she's also the first who mentions that Jesse couldn't come to the prom and endanger hundreds of people's lives just so she and him could have their night together), while an unjust person follows his appetites without control (like Jesse, who ignores Vanessa's pleads to not retaliate against her abusive father, and who comes back to find her months after separating, placing her in danger just so he and she can be together).

Plato's most important argument is that the just person is most happy because all the parts of his soul are under control and in harmony with one another. This harmony provides happiness for both internal and external reasons; it is a state of psychological peace and serenity, and it also facilitates the discipline and self-control necessary to achieve greater happiness in the world. The unjust person, by contrast, follows his appetites without control. He is miserable because he is constantly torn by the internal conflict among his uncontrolled appetites. He can never be at peace with himself, nor does he have the self-restraint necessary to live a truly happy life. No matter who is with him, he will always be miserable. If he is cunning, he can gain power, money, and influence by unjust methods, but his very injustice will make him far unhappier than those rewards can compensate for. Though he is master of all he surveys, he is a slave to his passions; the more powerful he becomes, the more miserable he will make himself. "The real tyrant is, even if he doesn't seem to be so ... in truth a real slave." Deep in his heart, he knows it and detests himself for it.

Plato's main argument is to imagine two people: a perfectly just person who is mistakenly believed by everyone around him to be a perfectly unjust person (that is, a master criminal), and a perfectly unjust person who is mistakenly believed to be a perfectly just person. Plato luridly describes the fate of the just person mistaken for a criminal: he "will be whipped; he'll be racked; he'll be bound; he'll have both his eyes burned out; and, at the end, when he has undergone every sort of evil, he'll be crucified." Next to this he places the fate of the unjust person mistaken for a just person: "First, he rules in the city because he seems to be just. Then he takes in marriage from whatever station he wants ... he contracts and has partnerships with whomever he wants, and, besides benefiting himself in all this, he gains because he has no qualms about doing injustice. So then, when he enters contests, both private and public, he wins and gets the better of his enemies." Who wouldn't rather be king than be painfully tortured to death?

Plato wouldn't and neither would most classic morally just people. Like Vanessa in The Midknight, Scotsman William Wallace, Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars or even Jesus Christ, Plato reaches the conclusion that the just person, punished for crimes he didn't commit, is happier than the unjust person who has everything he desires. Vanessa accepts that she can't be with Jesse, not only for her benefit of a healthy lifestyle and moving on to better herself at college, but also for Jesse's sake (he worries too much about her and she becomes a distraction to him from saving others during the final fight); William Wallace chose death over praising allegiance to the King of England, a corruptible, wicked ruler who only cared about power; Obi-Wan Kenobi chose death to Darth Vader so that a greater good (in the form of Luke Skywalker and his friends) could overthrow the evil Empire and bring peace to the galaxy; and Jesus Christ chose his own crucifixion over lying to his people, and thus forsaking his God, or taking the Devil's "bargain." At the end of The Midknight, Jesse is alive but very alone while, at Vanessa's funeral, she has several friends and family who truly cared about her and love her. This final chapter exposes the love and adoration of Vanessa's life against Jesse's life of loneliness (which he chose for himself). And it makes the audience come to terms that Vanessa, although dead, had a much better life than Jesse ever will alive (if he continues down the path that he has chosen). Even though Jesse does gain a new view of the world around him, it is not as enlightened or optimistic as Vanessa; she was happier.

Jesse's disgust with himself is reminiscent of another story from Plato's Republic. A man walking along the city wall came upon the dead bodies of criminals, left there to rot by the public executioner as a warning to others. The man wanted to stare at the mutilated, decaying bodies, but was ashamed of this desire, so he turned away. However, the temptation to look overcame him, and so he looked. As he did, he angrily rebuked his own eyeballs, saying, "Look, you damned wretches, take your fill of the fair sight!" Plato's point in telling this story is that it is a key feature of morally good personalities that they are ashamed and angry with themselves when they do wrong. To master one's own desires requires discipline and self-control, which is achieved not by seeking a state of pure logic, but by harnessing the emotions of anger and pride on the side of reason and against the disorderly passions. And that is exactly the gist of Jesse's journey: to master his negative emotions (passion, anger, pride, greed) and gain a better understanding of his life and with the world around him.

The Midknight & Philosophy, Part III

NOTE:  The following essay contains spoilers to my book The Midknight. If you have NOT read the story, I suggest you read it first before reading the following essay.

Part III:  The Big Picture

One of my favorite philosophers, Augustine, contends that desire is the foundation of all evil that results from a person's disordered will: "Each evil man is the cause of his own evildoing." Augustine describes a person as having an "inordinate desire" when he focuses too much on "temporal things." Good persons live by "turning their love away from those things which cannot be possessed without the risk of losing them." While evil persons "try to remove obstacles so that they may safely rest in their enjoyment of these things." This description fits Jesse, who is unable to turn his love away from Vanessa.

It is passion that causes Jesse's inability to experience wisdom and "see the big picture." Like Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love describes the life we humans are called upon to live as a life of universal love. He claims that we are not allowed to say that anyone falls outside the category of "neighbor." It is not easy to live such a life of love. To become loving in this way, we must overcome the natural selfishness and simple inertia that push us towards the satisfaction of our own desires when those desires conflict with the good of others. As mentioned earlier, the true meaning of the sacred journey of the hero is infinite love, it is a love for all of mankind and not simply one group or person.

One other example of this struggle to sacrifice our desires for the "bigger picture" and overall good is through Spider-Man/Peter Parker. Peter is a young man, like Jesse, who struggles with ordinary human temptations as well as the many travails of the teen years. Peter is deeply in love with Mary Jane Watson. His personal happiness to be with her, however, comes into conflict with his vocation as a superhero (again, like Jesse with Vanessa), in both small and large ways. At a more profound level, Jesse comes to realize how a personal relationship with him can be dangerous for those he cares about. It is during this realization that "the big picture" begins to materialize in his ways of thinking. It is this wisdom that emphasizes the claims of the bigger picture over the claims of the present moment.

We can find it in Plato's picture of the wise person as one who ignores the temporary objects of sense's perception in order to contemplate the eternal forms, as well as in the Bhagavad-Gita's injunctions to detach oneself from the objects of sense. The problem can be (and is exhibited in The Midknight) that our senses have a natural power over our actions, and so we need to be trained to put them into whatever wisdom deems to be their proper perspective. In exalting the larger picture over the smaller, wisdom not only requires that we learn to resist the natural pull of the senses, it also requires us to resist the natural pull of the emotions. To avoid being overcome by strong emotions, Aristotle recommends that we have the right balance of virtue -- the "Golden Mean." It's a balanced action responding to a particular situation at the right time, in relation to the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way. For instance, you can fear something either too much or too little. Fearing too much may lead to cowardice, as when Mark chooses his girlfriend Amanda to be sacrificed over himself. Fearing too little, as was the case when Jesse ignored Vanessa's pleas to not savagely beat up her father in retaliation to Mr. Strummer beating her, may lead to rashness, both undesirable traits. The balanced trait, that is, the virtue between fearing too much or too little, is virtue.

Emotional control has always been important to the classic wisdom traditions and it is Jesse's inner struggle with his own emotions that highlights the story's plot. Most people would argue that one's own emotions are more important than any "big picture," but to believe in this train of thought is the same as saying that Jesse is right to show up to the prom and put his girlfriend and the entire student body in dire danger. No, he should not place anyone in danger, especially if it is his own moral stand he has to make; no one should be sacrificed at the expense of his own emotion and satisfaction. While someone like Aristotle might applaud Jesse's decision to save his girlfriend and take his stand as a courageous act, he would probably label Jesse's decision to place everyone in danger as a rash one. For Aristotle, the act of confronting danger or risk becomes courageous if and only if both decision and just cause enter the picture. And there is no just cause in placing hundreds of innocent people in mortal danger.

If there is any reason that our society has been brought up to indulge in our emotions and desires (and thus make our senses focus on the smaller picture) it's because these senses present us with the here and now from our perspective. Our own perspective is essentially involved in our natural emotional reactions to the world. Your sudden anger, for example, at some perceived insult involves more than the objective fact that someone has said something to you, and the fact that you perceive what was said as offensive, it also essentially involves your feelings about this fact. Also, when someone rejects you, your anger and/or sadness result not from the mere rejection that someone has passed onto you like some flu but essentially the feelings you feel. In placing the bigger picture above the smaller, wisdom denigrates our natural emotional reactions to the world as reliable guides to action. Even a superhero who acts out of anger rather than reason is always an individual setting himself up for trouble. One of the greatest examples (that is not a superhero) of someone seeing "the big picture" is in Casablanca. When Humphrey Bogart tells Ingrid Bergman that, "The problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." The audience is meant to feel it's something of a tragedy that the Bogart and Bergman characters' love has to take a backseat to the larger picture, but those characters know that what the Bergman character (and Victor Lazlo) is doing is more important than a relationship; we aren't meant to have any doubt that the claims of the larger picture should trump their personal concerns.

The Midknight & Philosophy, Pt. II

NOTE:  The following essay contains spoilers to my book The Midknight. If you have NOT read the story, I suggest you read it first before reading the following essay.

 

Part II:  Love, Friendship & Letting Go

Throughout The Midknight Jesse often has trouble with letting go. Not only with present feelings and situations that humiliate or sadden him, but also of his past -- especially the hurtful memories -- and the future (he is always worried about what will become of him and the ones he loves). Rather than living in the present, Jesse often wastes his valuable time reflecting on the past, thinking of his family and reliving the unfairness of being separated from his loving mother and sisters. These strong emotions of love and loss that Jesse lets overtake him are what lead to his eventual downfall. He does not care about what happens to anyone else in the world around him. All he cares about is him and his family and his girlfriend and it is this worry for their well-being that unconsciously transforms into a fear of losing them, which is a form of greed.

How is fear of losing someone seen as greed? Well, it depends on the context. While some might say that you should fight for what you want and keep a hold of it, most philosophers would argue that no person is something that you should have to "fight for" nor is someone an object that you can or should "hold on to." If someone decides to leave you, that is their conscious decision to make and they have a right to make it. Whether they leave because of not wanting to be around you anymore or because they don't feel connected to you anymore or because of some other circumstantial situation, it is their decision and should be respected. To not let go and try to keep a hold on a relationship they no longer want would be only beneficial to your desires and that is greed.

On the other hand, if they were taken from us through means beyond either their or our control (such as death), then it becomes an issue of accepting the natural process of life. No matter how difficult, some eventually accept it and some don't. After all, death is a part of living and we all must deal with it, regardless of how early is comes to those we care about or not. When Jesse sees his sister Karen killed, his love for her is then turned to a bitter rage that drives him to murder her killer.

A world in which people love their parents, siblings and children so much that they are willing to go to great lengths to save them or avenge them is a morally better world than one in which people lack such feelings. People are more likely to develop a strong moral character, and to have richer lives in general, when they are capable of such great and unconditional love for others. And because of this, it is a byproduct of his family's love that drives Jesse into his rage, and that is understandable. Nevertheless, his anger (toward the killer) eventually turns to a sad "woe-is-me" feeling that he turns toward himself. He wishes he could've done more even though the situation was actually out of his hands. Just as the lives of those we care about are out of our hands most times, so it is with Jesse and his sister. His rage and guilt over her death are all part of a downward spiral that will echo throughout the story and lead him to a depressing life. For all the good it creates, the love of family is not always a good moral motive. Certainly, love is a powerful motive -- more powerful than hate or anger as most disputes are born out of love or concern for someone close to us (when was the last time you heard of someone willing to die over someone they disliked?) -- and it can be difficult to control. In addition, the capacity to love is itself intrinsically good, and it thereby creates a great good in people's lives.

Still, despite its great potential, love can also be morally selfish. There's a huge difference between unconditional love and erotic/romantic love. Unconditional love is a form of compassion, a higher and more universal form of love, while erotic/romantic love can become an intense personal attachment which leads to fear of loss and greed. More precisely, compassion is a selfless love, involving a deep, cherishing concern for each individual as having intrinsic value. That is, individuals are valued for their own sake, regardless of their capacity to acheive anything else.

And, as seen in The Midknight, this kind of attachment can be to anyone (even family). It's when we focus our attention exclusively on those we love, that we then can become blind to the anguish of others. They can cease to exist for us morally and that's when personal attachment leads to greed and selfishness. The exclusive love of our own families and our own groups (or significant other) is the root cause of the intolerance that leads to too many of the great crimes committed by humanity.

Another kind of connection to those we love is friendships. Aristotle's analysis of friendship comes into play in regards to Vanessa, her best friend Amanda and Amanda's boyfriend Mark -- the three friends in the story who find their relationship challenged once Jesse comes onto the scene. Their friendship is built on their popularity (moreover, at the beginning, Vanessa and Amanda are friends merely because of their social status and interest in clothes); in most ways, it is a friendship of pleasure. The change that their friendship undergoes is a metaphor for the change that all younger people, teenagers especially, go through when they hit a certain age. Unfortunately, a young person's friendship of pleasure is not often stable. Aristotle explains: "For their lives are guided by their feelings, and they pursue above all what is pleasant for themselves and what is near at hand. But as they grow up, what they find pleasant changes too. Hence they are quick to become friends and quick to stop."

As for the small bond that both Jesse and his counterpart, Gideon, have --whose relationship is merely one of utility, they are different. Although Gideon and Jesse's first encounter seems somewhat friendly and Gideon tries to persuade Jesse to join his team, he is only keeping Jesse alive for something that he wants: the serum. Clearly, what we have here is a case where there could be no continual relationship or friendship. A virtuous man (Jesse) cannot use the services of a vicious man (Gideon) in such a way that it constitutes a friendship. Collaboration with corruption corrupts. So perhaps we should view utility friendships as having this in common with complete friendships: if one party is virtuous, then that constitutes a constraint on what the other party can be. If one of the friends descends into evil, even an utility friendship with a virtuous person must end.

Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant said, "We should always act so that we treat humanity ... always as an end in itself and never as a means only." By putting other people's lives or needs under our loved ones, we are using them merely as tools for our own purposes. We do not respect them as full human beings with their own goals and values, but as something expendable whenever they get in our way. Moreover, to do so when those actions will not even help our loved one treats people as mere beasts. And that is such a fundamental moral flaw that anyone's capacity for love can't redeem their character.

Most intense love relationships stem from a deep passion. Jesse's undying love for Vanessa certainly does. In The Midknight, Jesse's concern for her life outweighs any other person's civil rights, such as their classmate George. Sure, George is a bad guy, but he doesn't necessarily deserve the fiery, painful death that Jesse dishes out. Because of Jesse's passionate love for Vanessa, he goes to extremes to protect her and takes someone's life. There is no virtue in his action and, as it is quite often shown throughout the book, his passion and love drive him to corruptible, vicious acts.

This kind of passion can become a driving force for evil in a way that we didn't know possible. For instance, a crucial moment in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is the love of the intellectual and magician Faust for the young maid Gretchen (a half-inspiration for Jesse and Vanessa), a love that is made possible only through Faust's bargain with the devil -- to give up his soul in exchange for the intense experience of life that can only be found through love. This is indeed what the power of love seems to be for the separate ego -- the very loss of one's soul. Such love, which Faust obtains by giving himself over to the powers of darkness, brings about death to Gretchen as well as peril to the immortal soul of the lover. And even though the true meaning of the sacred journey of the hero is infinite love, it is a love for all of mankind and not simply one group or person.

Just like Faust, what starts out as a good intention for someone you love might turn out to be their destruction and maybe your own (the first example that comes to mind is Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith). The "law of unintended consequences" ensues and can be seen in everyday life; someone ends up committing a horrendous act, to their own surprise, and against the very people he was aiming to help, or at least avenge. The knowledge or action that he thought was sufficient to take or guide him ended up being a tissue of fantasy and falsehood, and it led to tragedy. Certainly, this happens to Jesse and Vanessa. After she is beaten by her alcoholic, estranged father, Jesse hunts him down to avenge her (even though he promised Vanessa he wouldn't) and beats the man to a bloody pulp. At the end of the story, it is not any of the book's main villains that lead to Vanessa's demise but her own father who is seeking to protect his daughter from being touched by "the piece of shit" he believes Jesse to be, because Jesse unmercifully beats him. The father shoots at them and unknowingly kills his own daughter. And the father came after them because Jesse's love for Vanessa overcame him and drove him to disobey her and beat on her father. That led to the father's own malice and the only innocent of the group is killed.

Our ancestors, in both the east and the west, thought of emotions as things that are external to the self which, when allowed to determine our actions, undermine our freedom and autonomy. We think of the emotions as internal to the self, and we correspondingly consider emotional expression to be an expression of the true self. The word "passion" interestingly comes from the same root as the word "passive," because, for our ancestors, it was part and parcel of being under the influence of a passion that our ability to determine our own actions -- that is, our ability to act freely -- was being seriously undermined.

One main group of philosophers who believed in this (and would find in The Midknight many great examples of why their teachings are important) were the Stoics. Stoicism is the ancient Greek philosophy that originated in the third century B.C.E. in the "Stoa" or porch where Zeno of Citium taught in Athens. Stoicism counsels acting virtuously and without emotional disturbance while living in harmony with fate (think of Yoda in the Star Wars movies).

The Stoics understood "passion" (pathos in Greek) to be a disturbing, unhealthy movement of the soul. They believed that there are no degrees of goodness either. Until a man is good, he is bad. However, the Stoic is not devoid of all emotion. They believed that there were three "good emotional states" that were not pathological movements of the soul, namely, benevolence (wishing someone good things for their own sake), joy (in virtuous deeds), and caution (reasonable wariness). On the other hand, emotions seem necessary to motivate action, and despite the presumption that they hinder the exercise of reason, emotions are sometimes capable of an intuitive canniness that guides reason when it falters. Aristotle, for example, observed that without a certain type of anger, one would be unable to perceive when one is unjustly dishonored. However, anger is the emotion of aggression, and aggression without reason is brute danger. The ancient Roman Stoic Seneca called anger "the most hideous and frenzied of all the emotions." Seneca thought angry people were insane, saying of anger: "Oblivious of decency, heedless of personal bonds, obstinate and intent on anything once started, closed to reasoning or advice, agitated on pretexts without foundation, incapable of discerning fairness and truth, it most resembles those ruins which crash in pieces over what they have crushed."

Jesse's anger is as a result not so much from the serum (albeit it enhances his emotion) but comes from the loving relationships that he longs to hold onto and keep. The anger all stems from the romantic ideas of love and concern and being afraid to lose them; Jesse becomes so twisted up in his protecting and loving his family and girlfriend that he soon is willing to sacrifice others for them. His care turns into greed and that greed spawns suffering and hate, which, in contrast to Aristotle's point, turns him, and his "mission," into a brute danger for her peers and those he loves. He has no other concern other than them and loses "the big picture."