All posts by Rinzai Gigen

At first I thought that this forum would provide a sense of closure for me, but it does not do more than trigger me. For instance, posters here refer to “entitled” as a negative quality of character rather than an objective evaluation of one’s status in a meritocracy that can only survive by the acknowledgement of these entitlements, without which all worldly goods would be distributed by purely random chance. (“Self-entitlement” is the PROPER word.) Furthermore, critics go WELL OUTSIDE the scope of the show’s intrinsic text in order to make generalizations about “this” reality, though I would have expected that instead from a feminist writing in Diane’s defense. It’s simply pathetic to see how poorly armed the response here is. For instance, multiple writers herein seem more interested in PRECLUDING Diane’s infallibility than to EVIDENCE her fallibility. But since the ideal is to be infallible, her constant striving towards this ideal is actually admirable, which is why one imagines that the fight to deconstruct her persona would be waged with far more sophistication.

Nothing that happens to Diane can be regarded as the “result” of her actions, since adults NEVER PURSUE THEIR OWN INTERESTS and can therefore NEVER BE PENALIZED OR PRESUMED RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR SUFFERING. This idea dates even as far back as to Socrates, and in the wake of Foucault’s deconstruction of the entire Sartrean epistemology my generation, for both better AND for worse, has returned to a collectivistic mode of thinking that at least AIMS to remove all impediments to the healing of the unfortunate (as Diane does) and to hold no one accountable for powerlessness. Human beings are invariably disadvantaged by failures in collective projects that afflict them ONLY TO the extent that they are individually successful in serving these collective enterprises, and it is from these enterprises that we derive the entirety of our virtue and personality. While Diane’s idealism is flawed, her devotion to it is heroic. I liken her to Charles McGill, to Andrew Bernard, and to Kali. And it is a testament to the banality of the average viewer’s evil that all three of these heroic characters are treated as villains.

Diane is not a narcissistic; she is simply always right by her own estimation. Narcissists, by definition, are always WRONG, though they might PRETEND to be right, conditionally. Nothing that I’ve read here has not reminded me of narcissistic manipulation. Anyone can PRETEND to be right by calling the character of others into question simply for the fact that those others HAVE character. Simply deploring the example set by another’s misery never absolves an individual of the deontological imperative to follow that example. But I imagine I am preaching to the proverbial choir here. I apologize for stating the obvious.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]