The X-Files and Philosophy

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:00 PM Page iii Popular Culture and Philosophy The X-Files and Philosophy The Truth Is In Here Edited by ROBERT ARP OPEN COURT Chicago

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:00 PM Page iv Volume 108 in the series, Popular Culture and Philosophy, edited by George A. Reisch To find out more about Open Court books, visit our website at www.opencourtbooks.com. Open Court Publishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company, dba Cricket Media. Copyright 2017 by Carus Publishing Company, dba Cricket Media First printing 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Open Court Publishing Company, 70 East Lake Street, Suite 800, Chicago, Illinois 60601. Printed and bound in the United States of America. The X-Files and Philosophy: The Truth Is In Here ISBN: 978-0-8126-9958-6 Library of Congress Control Number: This book is also available as an e-book.

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 233 25 Wanting and Willing to Believe CHRIS GAVALER AND NATHANIEL GOLDBERG When Scully first makes her way down to Mulder s office in the basement of FBI headquarters, she sees a poster of a UFO and the words I WANT TO BELIEVE. Nothing captures Mulder s attitude toward life better. And, for much of The X- Files, few things distinguish him from Scully more. While Scully, as a medical doctor, is a woman of convention and science, when convention and science are silent Mulder wants to turn to the fantastic. Mulder s attitude traces to the disappearance of his sister, Samantha. He explains in a voiceover: I have lived with a fragile faith built on vague memories from an experience that I could neither prove nor explain. When I was twelve, my sister was taken from me. Taken from our home by a force that I came to believe was extraterrestrial. This belief sustained me, fueling a quest for truths that were as elusive as the memory itself. To believe so passionately was not without sacrifice, but I always accepted the risks to my career, my reputation, my relationships, to life itself. ( Colony ) This idea, that one can live with a fragile faith that one nevertheless believes so passionately, sets Mulder apart from Scully and, presumably, many of us. It doesn t, however, set Mulder apart from William James. James (1842 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist most famous for being a founder of the philosophical traditional known as pragmatism. In The Will to Believe, 233

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 234 234 Chris Gavaler and Nathaniel Goldberg James claims that there are times when, faced with the absence of intellectual proof, we not only can but must use our passional or willing nature to determine what to believe. While Mulder wants to believe that his sister was abducted by aliens, James wants to believe in religion. Regardless, both beliefs have to be grounded on the passional if on anything, and Mulder s even contain religious elements: I want to believe so badly in a truth beyond our own, hidden and obscured from all but the most sensitive eyes. In the endless procession of souls, in what cannot and will not be destroyed, I want to believe we are unaware of God s eternal recompense and sadness that we cannot see his truth. That that which is born still lives and cannot be buried in the cold earth, but only waits to be born again at God s behest where in ancient starlight we lay in repose. ( Closure ) James calls The Will to Believe an essay in the justification of faith. If James s argument is right, then, under certain circumstances, his and Mulder s wanting, or willing, to believe something is enough to justify their believing it. The Rational and the Passional Under what circumstances would Mulder s wanting to believe that Samantha was abducted by aliens justify that belief? According to James, two sets of circumstances are required. First, Mulder would have to lack intellectual grounds to believe or disbelieve it. That would happen if there weren t enough evidence, one way or another. Does Mulder have any rational, or evidence-based, reason to believe or disbelieve what he does about Samantha? Mulder tells Scully when they first meet: I was twelve when it happened. My sister was eight. She just disappeared out of her bed one night. Just gone, vanished. No note, no phone calls, no evidence of anything ( Pilot ). That doesn t establish, one way or another, what happened to Samantha. Also, remember that Mulder admits that his fragile faith was based on vague memories from an experience that he could neither prove nor explain ( Colony ). Mulder nevertheless dedicates his personal and professional life to investigating Samantha s disappearance. He even

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 235 Wanting and Willing to Believe 235 adds it to the X-files case load, labeling it X-40253 ( Conduit ). Eventually, with Scully s help, Mulder does piece together a larger puzzle. Bees, black oil, conspirators, different races of aliens, alien bounty-hunters, human-alien hybrids Xfiles fans have delighted in, and been challenged by, trying to fit those pieces together ourselves. Nonetheless, each time Mulder and Scully start seeing the puzzle as a whole, the truth of its message is cast into doubt. Nor can Mulder rely on evidence gathered by others. At one point, Agent Schoniger tells Scully: There was an extraordinary amount of effort put into finding his sister. Even the Treasury Department got involved. His father worked at a high level in the government. They found nothing ( Closure ). That is, they found nothing either way, themselves. Ultimately, Mulder comes to believe both that Samantha was abducted by aliens as part of a government conspiracy and that she was later saved by a paranormal force ( Closure ). Even then, Mulder has few cold, hard facts. Mulder s Genuine Option Mulder satisfies the first circumstance that James lays out for trusting the passional. He has no rational, conclusive evidence, one way or another, about what happened to Samantha. The second circumstance that James lays out is that the person deciding what to believe based on her will had better be facing what James calls a genuine option. According to James, when we re trying to decide between two beliefs, we re confronted with an option of which to believe. When we have no intellectual reason to opt for one belief over another, and the option is itself genuine, then we can will to believe our preferred belief instead. Is Mulder s option between believing that Samantha was or wasn t abducted by aliens genuine for him? James explains that an option is genuine for someone if it s live, forced, and momentous. An option is live for someone if it increases her willingness to act. Like touching a live wire, she has to feel a spark. And that spark has to be able, at least in principle, to set things into motion. When they first meet, Mulder asks Scully: Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials? Logically, she

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 236 236 Chris Gavaler and Nathaniel Goldberg answers, I would have to say no ( Pilot ). That first word, logically, indicates that Scully isn t emotionally invested. She feels no spark. As James would say, Mulder s hypothesis makes no electric connection with her nature. Believing that extraterrestrials exist isn t a real possibility for her, and so not something that can compel her to act. Mulder, by contrast, feels a spark as sure as anything. He tells Scully: U.F.O. sightings, alien abduction reports. The kind of stuff that most people laugh at as being ridiculous. But I was fascinated ( Pilot ). His interest is piqued. And when it comes to the option to believe that his sister was or wasn t abducted by aliens, the voltage gets turned up so high that Mulder sometimes seems on the verge of electrocution. The option is as live to him as anything could be, and Mulder acts any way he can to resolve it. As Scully (and we) soon learn, resolving that option deciding which of its beliefs to embrace is the driving force in Mulder s life. And as Cigarette Smoking Man and the rest of the Syndicate know, finding out what happened to Samantha is so charged that it can be used to manipulate Mulder to act, sometimes to his own detriment ( Colony, Paper Hearts, and Redux ). An option is forced for someone if it s based on a logical dilemma. A logical dilemma presents two choices, where exactly one must be true. Scully isn t forced to believe that Mulder likes either pumpkin seeds or pistachios. Supposing that she wants to resolve the option, Scully could believe that Mulder likes neither of them. Maybe he likes sunflower seeds instead, which happens to be the case. Mulder, however, is forced to believe that Samantha was or wasn t abducted by aliens. At least that s the case if he s to believe anything at all. Being and not being abducted by aliens are the only possibilities. Exactly one must be true, and given how passional Mulder feels about his sister s disappearance, he s not going to defer deciding. Finally, an option is momentous for someone if the stakes for resolving it are high, even unique. While hunting for Big Blue, the Heuvelmans Lake, Georgia, version of the Loch Ness Monster, Scully mentions to Mulder that her father used to call her Starbuck, first mate to Captain Ahab, in Moby Dick. She realizes that Mulder is himself like Ahab: You re so consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or mysteries, everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 237 Wanting and Willing to Believe 237 ( Quagmire ). Ahab was megalomaniacal about capturing Moby Dick, and Mulder is megalomaniacal about finding out what happened to Samantha. When Ahab has the chance, or option, to strike at Moby Dick, the stakes could not be higher for him. When Mulder has the option to believe that Samantha was or wasn t abducted by aliens, the stakes couldn t be higher for him either. Learning the truth about his sister is the single most important thing in his life. Nothing else matters to me, Mulder tells Scully ( Pilot ). After the X-files are shut down, he confides in her: My life up to this point has been about the need to see her again (Little Green Men). Mulder is the Ahab of alien hunters, and finding out the truth about Samantha is his Moby Dick. Nothing is more momentous. Wanting or Willing to Believe For James, then, Mulder is within his rights to believe that Samantha was abducted by aliens. Mulder is justified in believing what his passional nature tells him to, no matter how fantastic, because: 1. he doesn t have sufficient evidence to decide what to believe on purely rational grounds, and 2. his option to believe is live, forced, and momentous. But is James s case that easy to make about Mulder or generally? James realizes that many people would remain skeptical. When Mulder says to Scully: When convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility? Scully answers without missing a beat: What I find fantastic is any notion that there are any answer beyond the realm of science ( Pilot ). Science has saved lives and explained much of the world around us. It s done so by following reason and finding evidence. So it s no wonder, James readily admits, that his argument for the will to believe faces resistance. Scully voices a view that many people share. Nevertheless, James also recognizes that willing has got to have a role in decision-making. Otherwise, ironically enough, there would be times when we re acting irrationally: I, therefore, for one, cannot see my way to wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 238 238 Chris Gavaler and Nathaniel Goldberg acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule. For all Mulder knows from the get-go, Samantha really was abducted by aliens. Denying him the right to believe that, on the grounds that he cannot intellectually prove it, denies Mulder the possibly of believing the truth. If Mulder has no choice but to will his way to the belief, and that belief is true, disqualifying the belief isn t only counterproductive. On the intellect s own terms, it would be irrational. Moreover, James argues that, in some cases, truths are available only to those who seek them with a willing, or desirous, attitude in the first place: In truths dependent on our personal action, then, faith based on desire is certainly a lawful and possibly an indispensable thing. It s good that Mulder wants to believe. Had he assumed Scully s intellectualist stance, he d never have found out the truth about Samantha. In the episode that brings closure to his search for the truth about Samantha ( Closure ), Mulder and Scully are investigating the brutal murder and subsequent disappearance of a child when they make the acquaintance of Harold Piller, a psychic who has worked in the past with the police. Piller believes that children who suffer terrible fates are sometimes saved by creatures of pure light. Piller gets Mulder and Scully to engage in a séance in the hope of conjuring some of these spirits. They will come to you if you re ready to see, he explains. Scully, who has no rational grounds to believe Piller, doesn t believe him. Consequently, she sees nothing. True to form, Mulder wants to believe him, which is enough. The spirit of a boy takes Mulder s hand and leads him to Samantha s diary. Though the diary is scientific evidence about Samantha s abduction, Mulder wouldn t have found it had he not wanted to believe. And even with the diary, Mulder s passional nature leads him forward. He and Scully arrive at the home of Arbutus Ray, the last person to see Samantha after she escaped her abductors. Mulder lets Scully interview Ray, while he wanders off by himself. I have this powerful feeling, and I can t explain it, but that this is the end of the road. That I ve been brought here to learn the truth, he tells Scully. As she interviews Ray, the spirit of the boy whom Mulder saw earlier reappears. This

X files 2nd pages_hip HOP & philosophy 1/24/17 10:01 PM Page 239 Wanting and Willing to Believe 239 time he takes Mulder to Samantha s spirit, and the two siblings embrace. Ultimately, it s Mulder s will to believe that allows him to discover the truth, dramatizing James claim: There are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming.