Bayley 1 Christian Bayley Problems of Democracy Mr.

Savill 9/24/2013 Statement on Socrates Crito in Light of The Day the Earth Stood Still Wrongly convicted, would one be more likely to choose to face their punishment or defy the law? The question of whether or not to act out against the state has perplexed man since the beginning of time. It seems to pop up everywhere, from Socrates Crito1, to the more recent case of Edward Snowden. This theme even shows up in pop culture, recently in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still. 2 This film targets this issue both in relation to the government and other authority figures. Everyone must decide for themselves, but contrasting and analyzing Crito and The Day the Earth Stood Still provides an obvious decision. The original dispute between Socrates and Crito had just as much depth as more modern cases. Socrates and Crito debated this ethical dilemma when Socrates was thrown in prison for corruption of the youth. His friend, Crito, offered to stage an escape. Crito not only felt sorry for Socrates, he worried about his own reputation. He said, For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not care.3 Socrates, however, thought that an escape would result in more negative consequences than positive ones. Socrates lived the majority of his life in Athens and thought he owed a debt to the society he had been living in.4 He also thought that

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Plato, Crito, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Collier and Sons, 1900). th The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Scott Derrickson (2008; Century City, Los Angeles, CA: 20 Century Fox, 2008), DVD. 3 Plato, Crito, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Collier and Sons, 1900), 5. 4 Plato, Crito, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Collier and Sons, 1900), 11-13.

Bayley 2 it would be morally wrong for one to repudiate the principles which they had adhered to as soon as circumstances had changed. Socrates argued that because he had adhered to the law since, it would be wrong to respond to an injustice with another injustice, thus disobeying the law.5 In The Day the Earth Stood Still, this plays out at the very beginning of the movie when Helen Benson is visited by government agents and they ask her to come with them. They essentially were kidnapping her. They had no authority that allowed them to force her to comply, let alone a logical reason why she ought to, but out of what assumedly was her sense of duty, she decided to go with them. The same mentality plays out when after Helen was taken by the government and she is on her way to the military base, their entire side of the freeway is unoccupied. The people that were previously travelling along that highway were apt to listen to a completely unwarranted order by a government agency, because of the trust they had placed in the governments hands. Socrates, Helen, and the American people all chose a path that was more along the lines of Martin Luther King Jr. as opposed to Malcom X. However, the motivation behind compliance isnt always so lofty and morally resolute. Oftentimes people are compelled to obey the government in order to fulfill their instinctual desire for self-preservation or the preservation of society. That mentality creates the problem of unknown defiance. Humans have an innate desire to test limits wherever possible. The mentality of preservation allows people to justify actions, regardless of the actual moral state of the action, on the often-tainted basis of humanities projected von Neumannesque endgame scenarios. The bright-line between the acceptable and reprehensible becomes blurred. Conversely, when the state does something unjust to one of its citizens, action against the state should be considered. When the state takes a jaundiced action against one of its citizens, the citizen has every right to act against it. There exists an idea called post-conventional moral reasoning, which states

Plato, Crito, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Collier and Sons, 1900), 9.

Bayley 3 that it is sometimes vital to look past laws and the state in order to determine the true difference between right and wrong. Even before its official advent, Kant explores the idea of post-conventional moral reasoning in his work, Fundamental Metaphysics of Morals.6 Helen demonstrates this perfectly when after being ordered by the Secretary of Defense to drug Klaatu, she instead injected him with saline. She used her own sense of right and wrong to attempt to look past the governments artificial morality. This decision obviously paid off in the end, because it enabled her to gain Klaatus trust and eventually convince him to spare the human race. This can also be seen through the character of Mister Wu, an agent of the same group of civilizations from which Klaatu originates. When talking with Klaatu, Mister Wu reveals that he will not be returning him to their civilization, but instead he will be staying with the family that he now calls his own. When Klaatu questions his logic, Mister Wu says, There is another side [to humanity]. You see, I... I love them. It is a very strange thing. I... I... I can't find a way to explain it to you. For many years I cursed my luck for being sent here. Human life is difficult. But as this life is coming to an end... I consider myself lucky... to have lived it.7 At the end of the movie, Klaatu also makes a similar decision when he chooses to sacrifice his own life in order to spare the human race, because of the love he had developed for Helen and Jacob. Both Klaatu and Mister Wu understand the very fundamentals of post-conventional moral reasoning; the ability to place an alternate moral framework at equal level with or above the governments. This cant be done through Socrates framework. The opposition to post-conventional moral reasoning manifests itself in moral indoctrination. Starting in their youth, children are taught by society to place the states laws on the same level as their Bayley 4
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Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (Hazleton: PSU- Hazleton, 2013), 32-33. 7 th The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Scott Derrickson (2008; Century City, Los Angeles, CA: 20 Century Fox, 2008), DVD.

own moral code. Jacobs character exemplifies this effect, however in a rather contradictory way. When he observes Helens seemingly treasonous actions, he immediately rectifies himself in opposition to them. He questions Helens choice to assist Klaatu, even suggesting the murder of Klaatu. He eventually falls to his artificial morality and indoctrination. He calls the police and reports Helens harboring of Klaatu, resulting in her capture. He then becomes aware of the folly of binary moral analysis when Klaatu saves his life. Through this experience, he modifies his own code to be more accepting of exceptions to the rules. The contradiction arises when one observes Jacobs direct defiance of his mother in favor of the state throughout the film. Jacob exemplifies the perfect before and after shot of the effects of post-conventional moral reasoning and its essentiality to the development of ones morality and ability to try and imagine post-governmental and universal moral principles. One additional issue with States framework of morality arises through the contemplation of binary moral analysis. In modern society, antithetical absolutes are inherent to upbringing. Archetypical movies with a noble and morally perfect hero contrasting an evil and conniving villain pervade the childrens box office. This can be seen when it is carried over into decision making, classifying actions as good or bad and generating absolutes. Governmental moral methodology necessitates the binarization of people, their actions, and their motivations to function. Thinking about things binarily, as opposed to spectrally, limits the available worldview. This type of thinking often causes and propels forth such issues as racism, religious violence, and heteronormative discrimination, because of the way it classifies people into a horrifically simplistic box. The adoption of spectral moral analysis is a necessary underlying step to post-conventional moral analysis for this reason. In the case of a corrupt government, the only way for an individual to act is out of defiance after careful consideration. While some merit exists in Socrates argument, he does not present the best option. Socrates methodology can allow for reprehensible practices and ignores indoctrination. Bayley 5

Regardless, societys collective desire for self-preservation and higher level thinking is too strong. If in Socrates exact position, it would be best for one to adopt the moral framework modeled by the protagonists of The Day The Earth Stood Still in order look beyond the state through a lens of postconventional moral reasoning and then act.