I do not like the soundtrack of Shrek. It seems pretentious to me, suited to the ears of the parents and grandparents of the viewers. In the assertion of secular culture, moreover, the biblical classicism of “Hallelujah,” a song definitively associated with the image where Shrek rediscovers the value of feelings, assigns—whether accidentally or deliberately—a mystical significance to the celebration of life, contributing, in the unconsciousness of the child audience, to make it an inseparable whole. This, even if it does not, should jar.
I must admit, however, that Shrek is truly a countertrend story. It identifies happiness as something to be won with boldness, recklessness, faith, preserving dignity and self-respect, without losing sight of one’s nature, one’s structural inclinations, with the precise willingness to lose everything, if necessary. Shrek shows how it is possible to be happy without noble titles, without the recognition of crowds, without wealth, with the courage of consistency, because the characters stumble upon beauty, wealth, and nobility without craving them, helping young viewers to focus on broader goals, which share the necessity to uproot—all of which is the challenge—every meanness, whether concrete and present in an enemy, an antagonist, or inside each of us.
You will not often find such coherence in the literature of the last three thousand years. It may be that the aims sought by many learned authors of the past diverged from mine, which is perhaps banal today but rarely demanded then.
There is a latent contradiction in the democratic pretension of certain stories, certain characters. The tales of mythical heroes are passed down and told to children as examples of virtue and righteousness, yet they contain execrable scenes of impiety, in the classics we habitually cite, but also in the most famous and celebrated Disney fables.
Some of these stories contradict their supposed purpose so much that they cause embarrassment and dismay, failing their goal. Instead of demonstrating what they claim, preaching harmony among men, they incessantly emphasize the inevitable and immutable fate of outcasts, the impossibility of self-determination, of redemption, sometimes even denying justice and opposing that fate and the differences it implies by birthright, thereby increasing the original distance they seemed to want to deny.
One might think this is indeed the case, since, despite the great idealist and Enlightenment thinkers—ancient and modern, like Hegel, Voltaire, Rousseau, Washington, or Marx—arguing for equality among individuals, equal dignity, opportunity, and freedom is but an unrealistic fairy tale, so frequently disregarded not only in reality but even in traditional fairy tales, to the point of irony.
Some, defying political correctness, which claims everyone has the right to their opportunity, their ten minutes of fame, have said it outright. It would be obvious to them that “gentlemen are born,” that blood is blue, that God is dead, and that surpassing man, inadequate to progress, by learning the superman, is a necessity.
There would be nothing wrong with this, after all, because the rule, described as a cornerstone on which the entire mechanism of existence rests, seems to fear no refutation, neither regarding conditions like time or place, nor any other basic rule.
The rule simply concerns knowing how to best interpret oneself, developing one’s potential, best qualities, using what one is and has as a musician would play their part in an orchestra, convinced of the importance of the overall perspective, convinced of the indispensable contribution of each, especially one’s own, not discouraged by the apparent greater prestige of violins or woodwinds, just because they are more prominent; despite 36 bars of waiting, despite counterpoint, despite most of the audience seeming to appreciate only what they see and hear distinctly, missing an important part of the show without awareness. Some might lament their fate, regardless of status, because they seem to have more chances in a different role, perhaps more congenial, though unable to test how congenial it is. Some might wish to have been born violin, not bassoon; clarinet, not timpani. It would still be a vain and gratuitous transgression, since no one can change it and the rule must simply be accepted. Thus, even a slave who becomes king, a pariah Brahmin, a squire knight, and a peasant lord are and therefore mostly seem useless transgressions, as they tend to circumvent that rule.
Lessons given to those who want them have always been numerous. I do not want to speak of contradiction, because misunderstanding a lesson, even if one could say the teacher should have been clearer, is easy and cannot always be blamed on the teacher. It is often the student’s fault… if one does not understand, one does not understand.
Yet, the story of the eye of the needle seems very clear… there was a very pious man who wanted to be sure to deserve the kingdom of heaven, so he asked Jesus, who replied that, to be absolutely certain, he had to sell all his possessions and become his disciple. Since the man, wrinkling his nose, did not become the thirteenth disciple, Jesus told the remaining twelve that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Everyone is quite free to heed, in whole, in part, or not at all, the behavioral guidelines of the glad tidings, though the one who spread them certainly hoped they would be taken as such. It is undeniable that many men understood those words as guidelines, whose respect would make us better. Still, one can agree that, taken individually, they contain much good, even if, and I say this knowing I am a poor student, deriving a code of conduct from parables is impossible, since they are often words reported, extracted from different contexts, in disconnected dialogues, by clearly involved persons. There would be obscure points to clarify that no one can clarify anymore, so it would be foolish to venture into refutation.
The problem is not the sources, but the banks. Waters flow by gravity and will reach the sea skillfully channeled, irrigating fields and quenching peoples or overwhelming everything… or passing unnoticed, in ordinary neglect.
Observing some of those banks, where they were built, still offers some insight. For example, a commonly accepted cornerstone of those teachings rests on the principle that the rich are certainly excluded from the kingdom of heaven, except for the distinction between earthly and divine riches, which opens some gaps, and that between those who administer wealth well and those who do not, because “to those who had little, even that little will be denied”… Here, the gap becomes important.
Now, Bill Parrish, the dying old man in Meet Joe Black, escorted in heaven by Brad Pitt, certainly does not go there according to the first rule, while he does with priority right, according to the latter.
The possible contradiction, except to discuss whether nobility derives from earthly or divine attribution and what true nobility is within and beyond earthly boundaries, should not disturb spirits, except those already disturbed and colluding over who is more deserving, say, of eternal life. Who has more chance of salvation between right and left, Sunnis and Shiites, Tutsis and Hutus, Republicans and Democrats?
The story of King Arthur, which pleases Republicans, should perhaps offend Democrats, while the latter should love Belle, like every hero and heroine of classical literature, always searching for a more modern ideal of nobility, enriching their culture, because Belle reads a lot, champion of kindness, in contrast to the arrogance of villagers, and of interiority, overcoming prejudices and biases, finding all she seeks in the Beast, ugly and cursed but, unbeknownst to Belle, who does not abandon him when she discovers it, the noblest, richest, and most handsome among mortals. Happiness would be granted for having loved regardless of outward appearance, wealth, and power, but the seal of that happiness is the exercise of that power, the enjoyment of that wealth, and the end of all ugliness. There is little distance between the ideal of perfection of Democrats… or Hutus… and that of Republicans… or Shiites… except for different paths. Is this not a contradiction?
Paradoxically, the perfection of happiness is always the last-minute granting of earthly glory long denied, as if human simplicity must always and inevitably be anesthetized by a gain that can recognize it, so welcome the counterpart, for a miserable existence, of a luxurious eternity.
One could counter with the other parable, that of the three servants entrusted with money to manage and one of whom, later treated very badly, instead of making it profitable, out of fear chose to bury it… There is also the question of Caesar and giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s, while to God it may be necessary to give something else.
We see this in Beauty and the Beast, but also in Cinderella, rewarded with the Prince, in Rapunzel, who obtains justice, being finally recognized as noble by birth; in Wreck-It Ralph, where Vanellope Von Schweetz is recognized for nobility of soul, which she must have had, upon the revelation of her ancestors, with genuflections to the rebellious race car driver; in War and Peace, where all characters gain respectability and gentility, both in war and peace, thanks to the nobility of their family; in Les Misérables, where the holiness and sacrifice of the Bishop of Digne, Valjean, Fantine, and dozens of other outcasts find counterpoint in the marquisate of Pontmercy and the virtuous wealth enjoyed by Cosette; in Pride and Prejudice, where the beautiful Elizabeth rejects all conventions, except to conform and fall madly in love with the most deserving, the most handsome, tall, noble, and naturally, the richest available bachelor; in The Lion King, returning to Disney classics, where poor Simba, whom Scar made believe he killed his father, besides singing “Hakuna Matata” the very next day, fulfills his destiny by defeating his opponents and marrying Nala, his childhood betrothed.
Fulfilling a written destiny, from which it would make no sense to escape, being higher than our will, becomes so inevitable that it coincides with the very will itself, and at that moment, we would witness the perfection of existence. What might seem an adaptation, an acknowledgment, rather than being lived as bowing to the inevitable, an alignment of fate and will, should confirm that destiny is fulfilled and duty is not an obligation but a possibility, indeed, the way our will achieves its purpose, whether we are aware of it or not.
It should…
The correspondence between our purpose, individual or collective, and the obligation to fulfill a destiny, whether the preservation of the species, respect for nature, procreation, the good of humanity, or crochet, always seemed to me only hypothetical.
The fact that a man, born a man, sees his perfection in being a man and not, say, a bee, like a bee born a bee never wishes to be anything but a bee, has always seemed much more than a creative effort. A certain orthodox self-determinism raises doubts. Even in my most anarchic moments of agnosticism, I doubt, besides everything else, that everything can be ascribed to a single path. We live, whether we consider it a miracle, an objective fact, a torture, a unique and unrepeatable moment of eternity. That is what we have. We are given imagination, but not enough time to experience any awareness other than of ourselves and little else around us. We are given the possibility to pass on questionable legacies, genetic and not, to descendants we cannot guide for long. That moment of eternity is the only positive element we can manage, because it might be, even if we have no proof, that we will never again influence the path of the infinite universe, at the end of this moment.
Yet, it might be that all our power, our effort, our disappointment or, on the other hand, our sense of duty, our obedience, respect for the destiny indicated as a preordained path, cannot really affect the course of the infinite universe.
Our duty might, in the end, be crushed like we crush a mosquito, an extreme, irrational pest, while it stings us in its desperate contestation of our supremacy… or like a storm floods the anthill and beehive, despite every single member always doing all the duty required.
By extension, the fact of being a man, born in slavery, rather than an illegitimate son of a fallen noble, or bourgeois or vaishya, must be somehow accepted or opposed, that it coincides with a destiny and that this is known to some, revealed by gods or prophets, and that in respect of truth it must be fulfilled, then, in the economy of astral forces in play, in the expenditure of energy and given the universe’s size, always seemed so arbitrary as to surpass all common sense.
Jesus, son of God, becomes man and accepts to die in Jerusalem to fulfill the scriptures of men, since the scriptures of the men of Jerusalem, God’s people, are the word of God.
How can it not be clear to all that the need to make divine will coincide with human will and that the first must bend to the second, so that humans believe—a will of coincidence so dear to Matthew—makes sense only from the point of view of the men of Jerusalem, who still do not believe, but not for the Chinese, Indians, Incas, and Martians?
How can one not think that it was not the fulfillment of the scriptures that could confirm divine will but, possibly, the fact that they were completely disregarded?
The reasons of men, the predictions of prophets, immutable rules would then have shown their fragility and obsolescence; someone would have noted the inexorable surpassing and unreliability of many of those words, leaving posterity only the certainty that what was said then proved nothing unequivocally and that it was not true, as it is not now, that to submit to established powers it is mandatory to know that the sacred scriptures were a completely false invention or, conversely, completely true.
So much wisdom, so much knowledge… just to prevent a man, born a man, from thinking he is an onion.