I ♥ Argument

Every so often, I will see a film so skewed toward my own values that I leave the theatre with not just an appreciation for the film, but an abiding amity toward myself...surrounded by a glowing nimbus of self-love. A cinematic paean to argument and moral ambiguity (which anyone who knows me will tell you are the hallmarks of my personality), Thank You for Smoking is just such a film.

In an age (or, perhaps more optimistically, a period) when our leaders tread a delicate line between moral ambiguity and, well...evil, and the phrase "current administration" has taken on dark, Vader-esque overtones, movies such as Thank You for Smoking (whose protagonist, a charming antihero, shills for Big Tobacco) tap the Zeitgeist like a rich vein of precious metal. It's hard to tell through the arch tone of the movie exactly what message we're meant to be taking away from it. This is wholly apropos, however. "People need to think for themselves" is at times the protagonist's mantra, at other times an expedient justification for the brand of remorseless shilling he does.

The veracity of your argument is fundamentally irrelevant. The purpose of argument is not to spread the truth. It isn't even to convince your opponent--or any possible audience--that they should believe as you do. No. The fundamental purpose of argument is to force people to examine what they think, and--more importantly--why they think it. The well-crafted argument needn't be true, therefore, in order to serve its purpose. Form before function, you might say. Or perhaps more accurately, form as function. You needn't speak with absolute authority in all things in order to argue well (although it helps, see: illustration at right); as the film's protagonist tells his son, "That's the beauty of argument: If you argue correctly, you're never wrong."

Returning for a moment to my previous point: Holy crap, do I love argument. I'm not talking about yelling matches or bullheaded disagreements...but honest-to-goodness debate, where claims are made and defended with forethought and mental dexterity. Thank You for Smoking simply made me think about why I love it, which means it served its purpose.

I guess maybe I should go into law or something. ;)

This entry was posted by naporeon, on Tuesday, April 04, 2006. You can leave your response.