Which 3 seasons would you take to a desert island?

It was Falling Down wasn't it?

Sarah snaps and goes postal at her local Burger King

It was My Little Pony 2 : This Time it`s Personal.

The Mattress Reloaded?

Firefly or season 2 Friends are also up for my third choice

I hope a spineless relativism is not rearing its ugly head. As Plato pointed out 2500 years ago we are always interested in objective truth. See Roger Scruton's defence of this in the opening chapters of his Modern Philosophy. As Scruton puts it "vugar relativism can only exist in the mind of ignorant scoundrels" while "sophisticated relativism barely deserves the name".

This reminds me of being shown Forbidden Planet when I was 15 years of age. My media studies teacher was particularly capable and clearly expected us to recognise it as Shakespeare's The Tempest, Freud and Being And Nothingness. I was never very academically inclined and I understood none of this so I was totally impervious to his efforts to improve us. Nevertheless the 'work of art'(Heidegger) is realist ie Forbidden Planet is just as objective back in 1987 as it is now.

You seem to be conflating two things. First there is the realist 'work of art'(Heidegger) and then there is the 'antinomy of taste'(Kant) ie there is conflict between people about how a work of art is assessed by concrete individuals ie to return to Forbidden Planet I should have agreed with my media studies teacher about what it is but we could well have disagreed about how satisfying it is. sk

"I think I speak for everyone here when I say, huh?".

I seem to have erroneously presumed the huge IQs here would mean you are also auto-didacticists ie I maybe have wrongly presumed a huge IQ means you are interested in being educated about everything.

Plato argues philosophy is a synoptic discipline. 2500 years later Heidegger seemingly criticises this by arguing against a "restless knowing it all". This sounds a lot like Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times moaning about "know-it-all liberal atheists". sk

Take both of them, nobody will notice

We all bow to our glorious Admin

Buffy season two, The shield season four and firefly

I seem to have erroneously presumed the huge IQs here would mean you are also auto-didacticists ie I maybe have wrongly presumed a huge IQ means you are interested in being educated about everything.

Plato argues philosophy is a synoptic discipline. 2500 years later Heidegger seemingly criticises this by arguing against a "restless knowing it all". This sounds a lot like Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times moaning about "know-it-all liberal atheists". sk

Yeah, you've lost me again there.

I seem to have erroneously presumed the huge IQs here would mean you are also auto-didacticists ie I maybe have wrongly presumed a huge IQ means you are interested in being educated about everything.

Plato argues philosophy is a synoptic discipline. 2500 years later Heidegger seemingly criticises this by arguing against a "restless knowing it all". This sounds a lot like Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times moaning about "know-it-all liberal atheists". sk

Yeah, you've lost me again there.

I may go back to playing with my dollies.

Oh, and I`m picking Alias S2 and Gilmore Girls S1 as my other choices, but that`s a ` just `cos it`s Wednesday` thing.

I seem to have erroneously presumed the huge IQs here would mean you are also auto-didacticists ie I maybe have wrongly presumed a huge IQ means you are interested in being educated about everything.

Plato argues philosophy is a synoptic discipline. 2500 years later Heidegger seemingly criticises this by arguing against a "restless knowing it all". This sounds a lot like Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times moaning about "know-it-all liberal atheists". sk

Yeah, you've lost me again there.

I may go back to playing with my dollies.

That reminds me, I've got to buy a puncture repair kit for mine

I seem to have erroneously presumed the huge IQs here would mean you are also auto-didacticists ie I maybe have wrongly presumed a huge IQ means you are interested in being educated about everything.

Plato argues philosophy is a synoptic discipline. 2500 years later Heidegger seemingly criticises this by arguing against a "restless knowing it all". This sounds a lot like Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times moaning about "know-it-all liberal atheists". sk

Yeah, you've lost me again there.

I may go back to playing with my dollies.

That reminds me, I've got to buy a puncture repair kit for mine

Go on then, I'll bite.

In order to discover the objective truth, you have to presuppose a few things:

1) that there is an objective truth in the first place.
2) that the original creators are willing to discuss exactly what they meant (if anything) when they wrote/filmed a scene/episode.
3) that the creators consider their interpretation of a creative work to be the definitive interpretation and all others are wrong. And, more to the point, that the creators are correct in stating so.

(I should add in here that I don't really recall Real Me at all, as we haven't yet got to S5 in our rewatch)

Point one is perhaps a little flippant, but when you start to get down to the level of detail where you're looking at where people sit in a car in order to try and analyse what the creators mean to convey about the (pseudo-)familial relationship between said people, there are other factors to consider as well. Technical issues for instance: it may be the case that the Buffy/Giles dialogue was dominant for that particular scene and the director felt the best shots were to be gained by the two vocally dominant characters sitting in the same part of the car.

Point two lends itself to an alternative, entirely superficial, explanation of the scene in Real Me which could be as simple as the fact that Buffy is an adult, she is older than Dawn and she gets to sit in the front. I would suggest that that's how it works in almost every multi-child family, especially when one child is an adult and one is a minor. If the creative team behind Real Me have siblings (or multiple children) then they would have assumed that this is the 'natural' way to portray the scene and the viewer should look elsewhere for their cues on how to interpret the Giles-Buffy-Dawn relationship(s).

Point three is illustrated with an entirely hypothetical example. Bear in mind I haven't seen Forbidden Planet, nor read any analytical essays based on it, so the following is all conjecture. Lets say (for argument's sake) that the writer of Forbidden Planet had never read any Sartre. Could you then still suggest that Sartre had any influence on Forbidden Planet? Even if the writer turned round and categorically said Sartre had no influence on Forbidden Planet?

Perhaps more to the point (again, speaking hypothetically), if you knew that the writer of Forbidden Planet had never read any Sartre and you knew the writer had categorically said that Sartre had no influence on Forbidden Planet, would you still consider that you "should" have agreed with your Media teacher?

Hang on, I actually understood all of that

I'll lend you my Forbidden Planet blu-ray David. You'll have to buy a blu-ray player, of course ...

Me too!

I think it`s a fascinating thing to debate.

It reminds me of an English teacher I had for A-levels being a bit sniffy that I was reading a Wilbur Smith book as well as Sophie`s Choice and asking me which I`d enjoyed more and not being happy with the answer.

And this just occurred to me - she wrote Mills & Boon books under a pseudonym in her spare time - whereas the Head of English at my previous school was an Oxford type who also taught Greek and Latin at lunchtime and had a vast collection of Sci-Fi in his study which he was happy to lend out to people. Discuss.

Go on then, I'll bite.

In order to discover the objective truth, you have to presuppose a few things:

1) that there is an objective truth in the first place.
2) that the original creators are willing to discuss exactly what they meant (if anything) when they wrote/filmed a scene/episode.
3) that the creators consider their interpretation of a creative work to be the definitive interpretation and all others are wrong. And, more to the point, that the creators are correct in stating so.

(I should add in here that I don't really recall Real Me at all, as we haven't yet got to S5 in our rewatch)

Point one is perhaps a little flippant, but when you start to get down to the level of detail where you're looking at where people sit in a car in order to try and analyse what the creators mean to convey about the (pseudo-)familial relationship between said people, there are other factors to consider as well. Technical issues for instance: it may be the case that the Buffy/Giles dialogue was dominant for that particular scene and the director felt the best shots were to be gained by the two vocally dominant characters sitting in the same part of the car.

Point two lends itself to an alternative, entirely superficial, explanation of the scene in Real Me which could be as simple as the fact that Buffy is an adult, she is older than Dawn and she gets to sit in the front. I would suggest that that's how it works in almost every multi-child family, especially when one child is an adult and one is a minor. If the creative team behind Real Me have siblings (or multiple children) then they would have assumed that this is the 'natural' way to portray the scene and the viewer should look elsewhere for their cues on how to interpret the Giles-Buffy-Dawn relationship(s).

Point three is illustrated with an entirely hypothetical example. Bear in mind I haven't seen Forbidden Planet, nor read any analytical essays based on it, so the following is all conjecture. Lets say (for argument's sake) that the writer of Forbidden Planet had never read any Sartre. Could you then still suggest that Sartre had any influence on Forbidden Planet? Even if the writer turned round and categorically said Sartre had no influence on Forbidden Planet?

Perhaps more to the point (again, speaking hypothetically), if you knew that the writer of Forbidden Planet had never read any Sartre and you knew the writer had categorically said that Sartre had no influence on Forbidden Planet, would you still consider that you "should" have agreed with your Media teacher?

You are hoist by your own petard as are we to take your post as objective truth so it is worth a reply or are you simply talking drivel so it is not worth a reply? sk

Why don't you just discuss it in a friendly manner? You seem surprised and offended when people don't respond in the way you want them to. With posts like your last one, is it any wonder they don't?

If you find a logical question offensive then I can only despair at the state of modern education. sk