The Smart in a Stupid Movie
Why Dumb Questions Are Better Than No Questions
Year One is a slapstick comedy from 2009 about a caveman-era hunter (Jack Black) who starts his own tribe after eating forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Its rating on IMDB is 4.9/10. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 15% ‘fresh’ rating. Critic Cosmo Landesman of The Times (UK) wrote, and I agree with his assessment: “Too silly to be smart, too timid to be subversive about religion.”
But there’s always something of value to be found, even in the worst art. You just have to know where to look. For example, I thought this exchange was worth considering:
When I saw the movie, I heard those lines and asked my friend a question. “Are they making fun of philosophy there?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he said.
This, I worried, is how philosophy is portrayed in the mainstream: as inane, silly questions. As the stoner waving his hands in front of his face and saying, “Whooooa man, my hands are so biiiiiig.”
But a consistent questioning of our perceptions, our assumptions, our reality—that’s called the scientific method, and perhaps nothing is more valuable. Jack Black’s character, however unwittingly, was thinking well.
Now, it would indeed be ridiculous to philosophize about literally everything. We’d be stuck asking, “How did the fruit get there? How did that tree get there? How did the soil get there that helped the tree grow?” Further, in opening the floor to questions, we also open ourselves to answers we don’t want or are actively harmful. Goodness knows the twisted ways in which people have answered, “What is the meaning of life?” or “Why is that person different from me?”
The alternative, though, is far worse: a blind acceptance of conventional wisdom.
When a friend and I were discussing my recent piece It’s a Prank, Bro, she questioned its thesis that kids shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens. “The human brain matures at a certain age. This is proven. Don’t you believe in science?” she asked.
No, I don’t believe in “science” if “science” is taken as an infallible, omnipotent truth with the power to extinguish any further debate. Then nothing distinguishes it from religion. To wit: Comedian Bill Burr reportedly once said, that “Science is religion for smart people, and religion is science for dumb people.”
He, of course, had it all wrong. The point of science—and philosophy—is not to provide clear answers that are easy to regurgitate. The point is to continually pose questions. Yes, even silly ones.
If you enjoyed this story — and even if you didn’t — you should check out my book, Ticketless: How Sneaking Into The Super Bowl And Everything Else (Almost) Held My Life Together.
