Thursday Theory: April 15th

In the wake of tax day, it is time to continue the discussion of the theories and theorists mentioned in Talented. In the last post I foreshadowed the presence of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and in all summarizing and bastardized glory, here is Hegel's model of thesis/antithesis/synthesis in one hundreth of the time it deserves:

Any thought or ideological statement put forth is to be considered a THESIS. From this, an opposing thought, ideological statement or ANTITHESIS butts heads with with the THESIS. These two titans clashing into each other results in a SYNTHESIS. And for this horrible bone-dry description of Hegel's dialectical approach, here's an example of a conversation I had that should follow just in toe: thesis- Bill O'Reilly is an idiot, he knows nothing. antithesis- Bill O'Reilly is probably a pretty smart guy, he went to Harvard. synthesis- Bill O'Reilly is a smart man that allows his strong emotions and ego to bring him to insane conclusions about the world.

But the fun doesn't stop there, kids. After the synthesis has formed, it stands as a thought or ideological statement. Wait...that sounds familiar, does that mean- yes, it does mean that the synthesis then becomes a thesis. Which means that the thesis then goes against another antithesis and arrive at a new synthesis and this keeps on growing and growing until we reach some sort of Marxist god-like knowledge. Our conclusion about Papa Bear O'Reilly can be negated and a new conclusion is to be formed. And on and on until we either know everything about O'Reilly or wonder why we even give a crap about some Harvard douchebag with an anger management problem (which can all be shortened into "Harvard grad", actually).

If you would like an in depth view of Hegel, feel free to email us and we can refer you to German philosophers, but in the realm of Talented, Hegel's structure applies to the predominant characters of the story. Though it may seem that Patrick O'Conner, our dashing Irish hero is in fact the thesis, that's not what we had in mind. We formed the story around Sage being the thesis, that the world must be destroyed in order to achieve utopia. Patrick stands in his path, thus arguing that the world must stay the way it is. But who is their synthesis? Is it petty Brian with so many psychological issues that its a wonder he's successful at his profession? Is it Reynolds who is a religious killer (which can be shortened in to "Harvard grad", actually)? Ah, I would read this week's chapter carefully because it is actually the character Conner. But that model hasn't formed yet! We barely know Conner and as Hegel's model decimates both the thesis and antithesis to give birth to the synthesis, you can only imagine what Patrick and Sage are going to go through, both physically and philosophically, in order to arrive at something completely different. I'll leave you all with a graph that illustrates Hegel's model from LawSchoolDiscussion.org and one question: if Conner is the result of Sage vs. Patrick and is the future, will he have to destroy both of them in the name of "progress"? Stay tuned.