Name: 午夜福音：深度或愚蠢（THE MIDNIGHT GOSPEL: Is It Deep or Dumb?）
Uploaded: 2021-05-06T15:41:43.000Z
Duration: 14 min 51 s
Description: 的確，《午夜福音》是令人感覺迷幻的。但這很聰明嗎？

- (Michael) Hey Wisecrack, Michael here. Today, we're looking at a cartoon after our own

關係子句

hearts--a show that combines sober discussions of philosophy with zombie hordes, parasitic

clown-spiders, and magic-wielding fish-men--Netflix's The Midnight Gospel.

A co-production of comedian Duncan Trussell and Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward,

The Midnight Gospel combines audio clips from Trussell's long-running podcast The Duncan

Trussell Family Hour with Ward's signature visual storytelling to create a one-of-a-kind

animated series that is equal parts trippy, hilarious, and terrifying.

But is the show just a compendium of shower thoughts to help your furlough go down easier

- or is it a legitimate dive into quote unquote real philosophy? To find out, we're going

to focus on one specific aspect of the show. If you've seen it already, you might have

noticed one of Trussell's favorite subjects popping up repeatedly:

- (Clancy) In Buddhism the idea is all of those, uh, mental forms of analysis-

- (Michael) That's right: Buddhism. The Midnight Gospel asks us to consider: what

are the implications of Buddhist philosophy for people going about their everyday lives?

Should you become a societal dropout like the protagonist Clancy--or is there more to

life than just microdosing and doing ritual magic? Well, we're about to find out. So

select your avatars, merge with your simulators, and follow us as we rocket into this Wisecrack

Edition on The Midnight Gospel: Deep or Dumb?

The plot of The Midnight Gospel--insofar as a show about yonic multiverse simulators can

be said to have a plot centers on Clancy, a music-loving burnout living in a trailer

On the Ribbon, Clancy and other “simulation farmers” spend their days shoving their

heads into the aforementioned vulva-Matrices, hoping to collect profitable artifacts or

marketable experiences from the multiverses within. Clancy, for instance, uses his trips

to gather content for his pet project, a “spacecast” with a single subscriber.

- (Clancy) And to my one subscriber, Hernog Jensen, I live for you. You're the reason

I wake up in the morning with a smile on my face.

- (Michael) Clancy's spacecast takes the form of interviews with subjects from wacky,

dying worlds, usually centered around topics such as Eastern philosophy, the occult, or

- (Michael) Said conversations use repurposed audio from Trussell's actual interviews

with people like Dr. Drew Pinsky and Anne Lamott.

From the beginning, Clancy prioritizes thinking about and discussing these Big Ideas over

more practical concerns, such as problems in his personal life or the day-to-day operations

of his simulator. On an (admittedly simulated) planet overrun by zombies, for instance, he

is so unconcerned with what's going on around him that he continues to talk about the positive

benefits of mindfulness meditation while a man is eaten alive in front of his pregnant

- (Clancy) They say look at it as though you're sitting in a forest and you're getting to

watch a rare animal walking out into a clearing.

- (Michael) Clancy avoids mundane tasks--like reading the instruction manual for his simulator--dismissing

them as distractions from his contemplation of the deeper truths of existence.

- (Simulator) Good morning master. Did you get a chance to read the universe simulator

FAQ I left in your inbox? - (Clancy) Nope.

- (Michael) Specifically, Clancy, through his passing familiarity with Eastern religious

traditions, has come to believe that the material world is unimportant--or even illusory.

- (Clancy) And then you become pure awareness- - (President) Yeah, yeah.

- (Clancey) And the concept is that that is what we really are,

- (President) Yeah - (Clancy) And that this entire material universe

including our body is a kind of… (stutters) I can't say it.

- (Woman) Phenomenological - (Clancy phenomenological field of phenomena!

A field of phenomena being encapsulated within-

- (Michael) Put simply, Clancy is saying: the tangible universe that we can see, hear,

touch, etc. is just an imperfect manifestation of a more fundamental reality, accessible

through consciousness-altering practices like meditation, ritual, plant medicine, and so

on. Therefore, the material world can and ought to be ignored, avoided, or ideally transcended.

Everyday life, with its bills, sh*tty neighbors, and absurd laws, isn't the full experience

of divinity, enlightenment, or whatever you want to call it--therefore, it's crap.

So here's the question: are Clancy's thoughts on Eastern religious philosophy deep, or more

like the inane ramblings of someone who just escaped their first Alan Watts YouTube rabbit

hole? To answer that question, we need to ask: does Clancy's line of reasoning fit

within a Buddhist context? That is, do his beliefs hold water among Buddhist philosophers

Well...yes and no. Let's start with the idea that the world is unimportant and illusory.

According to the Dalai Lama, this is somewhat correct, but only half the picture when it

comes to living by the tenets of Buddhism.

In MindScience, a collection of essays and dialogues, the Dalai Lama contends that there

are two levels of truth in the Buddhist worldview: 1. an “ultimate” truth--subscribed to

by Clancy and your stoner roommate--which acknowledges the emptiness of and impermanence

among all things; and 2. a “relative” truth, having to do with the facts of existence

Both of these truths are equally important to living a good life. At least within the

particular version of Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama represents, the relative world,

with all its disappointments, frustrations, and heartaches is not merely some illusion

to be seen through. This is contra Clancy who tries to sidestep the problems of the

material world by fleeing to some supposedly “higher” plane of existence. The Dalai

Lama “accepts the reality not only of the subjective world of the mind but also of the

external objects of the physical world.”

In other words, while the mind-blowing cosmic insights gained through meditation and/or

study in the Buddhist tradition are all well and good, they are not an excuse to fuck off

to a trailer somewhere and abandon one's responsibilities. Which is what Clancy has

decided to do--as his computer points out to him:

- (Clancy) I don't need you to f***ing tell me, who the f*** I am or how to live my goddamn

- (Michael) If the show were merely to stop here, we'd be forced to call “dumb”

on this delightfully bizarre series. Getting half of Buddhism right at the expense of the

other half is not, in philosophical terms, “cool.”

But the show DOESN'T stop there. Instead, it explores how the pure “universal truth”

approach to life does not qualify as enlightenment. On the contrary, it creates very real harm.

Throughout much of the season, Clancy's disdain for the material world keeps coming

back to bite him in the ass. Early on, we learn that Clancy's dismissive attitude

towards humdrum, everyday life has begun to affect his relationships. For instance, he

is funding his spacecast ambitions with money borrowed from his sister, who explicitly told

him not to blow it on a multiverse simulator.

- (Clancy) As I stare out at this majestic scene, I can't help but think of my sister,

Sarah, who said: 'Clancy, I'll loan you this money, but you have to promise not to

字幕列表影片播放

午夜福音：深度或愚蠢（THE MIDNIGHT GOSPEL: Is It Deep or Dumb?）

authentic

specific

meditation

ultimate