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Hey Wisecrack, Jared again.
For 20 Years, the kids of South Park have been skewering every sacred cow they can find.
And at Wisecrack, that's just the kind of thing that gets us hot.
In its thirteenth season, South Park masterfully merged two of its favorite targets for ridicule:
religion and consumerism.
And you all know what happens when we marry God and money.
OK, sure.
But also a multilayered argument about personal agency and the opaque nature of the economy.
Break open a bag of Cheesy Poofs for this Wisecrack Edition of the Philosophy of South
Park's "Margaritaville."
Religion has long been a handy tool for explaining the unexplainable.
It's through clever religious allegory, then, that "Margaritaville" manages to tackle the
economic crash of 2008 and a mysterious system that for many remains the unexplainable - the
economy.
When the all-powerful "Economy" leaves South Park in tatters, everyone is quick to direct
blame somewhere -- including Wall Street and -- But it's Randy's characteristically bizarre
perspective that builds a large following across South Park.
Taking his cues from old-school Protestant ethics.
Randy preaches the economy is a petty vengeful diety that must be placated by worship.
Randy's position draws from the fearful punishment-oriented philosophies of the Old Testament.
And South Park steers straight into those biblical parallels, right down to the flinging
of stones -- I mean squirrels -- by those who pass judgement on the fallen.
In fact, Randy's persecution of Kyle mimics the biblical role of the Pharisees.
The Pharisses were an influential group of people who, in the New Testament, greeted
Jesus's message with skepticism, paranoia, and ultimately, incitement of violence.
Kyle's third-act self-sacrifice in which he, a Christ-like figure, has dinner with his
enemy, takes on all of South Park's debt, and sacrafices himself for the community furthers
the biblical parallels that dominate the episode.
Kyle's sacrafice parallels the crucifixion of Jesus, but where Jesus took on the sins
of the world.
Kyle shoulders the debt of all of South Park.
Just as Jesus's death was mourned by a weeping Mary as he was taken from the Cross, Kyle's
figurative "death" is mourned here by his own weeping mother.
Kyle has died.
Kyle is risen.
Kyle will come again.
Not unlike the hero of the New Testament, Kyle sets forth a philosphy which challenges
and chastises the accepted norms of the community.
But whereas Jesus set forth a religious code of conduct, Kyle sets forth a financial one.
His philosphy, known in the real world as faith-based economics proposes "the economy"
is us -- and should be trusted, not feared.
Since people drive the economy, Kyle argues, we are at one with economy.
Forever and ever.
Amen.
Margaritaville effectively positions the economy as a modern religion unto itself.
Throughout the episode, Randy and Kyle's conflicting arguments don't merely demonstrate religious
parallels, They spring from some interesting econmonic and social theory.
For example, Randy's unforgiving message of self-discpline and self-denial maps well with
the ethics described by German sociologist Max Weber in "The Protestant Ethic and The
Spirit of Capitalism".
For Weber, the Protestant values of austerity and frugality were crucial components in the
development of modern capitalism.
In other words: work until you die, and don't make any time for any fun.
While Randy preaches economic restraint, Kyle offers a very different take one reflected
in the work of British economist John Maynard Keynes who proposed consumer spending is what
truly keeps the economy humming.
If you want economic growth, Keynesian economics argues, you've just gotta keep moving that
paper.
But, hey, if you didn't know much about these two economic perspectives, South Park is not
surprised.
Because one of the big ideas tackled in this episode is that economics are deliberately
made too difficult for most people to understand.
This strategy of linguistically keeping information at arm's length from the everyday citizen
is known as technostrategic discourse and it's so powerful and so dangerous, "Margaritaville"
dedicates an entire "B" storyline to demonstrating it in action.
Take, for example, when Stan visits his bank and is treated to a string of jargon before
his money magically disappears without explanation.
Of course, we all know economics isn't magic, but most of us don't quite know the intricacies
of what economics are.
And, as the subprime mortgage crisis of the late 2000s demonstrated, those who are in
the know are counting on, and even profiting from, our ignorance.
Even if they themselves might be ignorant, too.
French Philosopher and turtleneck enthusiast Michel Foucault argued that, in our modern
era power was no longer concentrated but dispersed through complex systems: prisions, religious
authorities, and as South Park highlights, finance.
Unlike traditional conceptions of power, which might imagine a bunch of bankers in smoke-filled
rooms conspiring to screw everyone over.
Foucault explored how individuals each played their own tiny role in this system of power,
often ignorant to complete workings of the system.
Power, dispersed in this way, shows up in South Park as Stan climbs up the ladder of
helpless bureaucrats: each of them powerless to the rules, or magic, of the system they
participate in.
In scene after scene, so-called experts sustain and amplify power through the exploitation
of confusion.
Stan goes to return his Margaritaville at Sur le Table, only for Stan to be shooed off
to the finance company.
The finance company points Stan to Wall St, the people really running the show, only for
Stan to learn from Wall Street that it is ultimately the treasury department who is
in charge.
The interesting piece here is that, Stan, as he journeys into the world of finance to
find who is in charge finds out that no one is really in charge.
As the very nature of money is an amorphous abstraction, its source -- and, with it, a
source of power -- never seems to be anywhere.
Anyone who's turned to a lawyer, to a doctor, or to a computer technician for support probably
knows the drill.
No matter how dense the language or how straightforward the problem, you're simply expected to trust
in the experts.
But what's the result of this technocratic babble?
According to South Park, the consumer is essentially exhausted into submission, either willfully
throwing himself at the mercy of technocrats...or uh, smashing dad's blender on the floor.
In matters both relgious and economic, "Margaritaville" challenges the seemingly distant and unknowable
forces that govern our lives and fates.
If money isn't real, if the powerful deliberately complicate things in order to retain their
power, and if the answers we seek don't necessarily lie with the experts or with the divine...
whom does South Park suggest we blame in the face of economic or spiritual misfortune?
Maybe the answer is found in the Jimmy Buffet song "Margaritaville," in which a drunk man
sits in a bar and laments his failed relationship.
By the end of the tune, the man gradually realizes his own drinking problem may have
contributed to his failure in love.
Personal responsibility.
It's a hell of a drug.
Bottoms up, Wisecrack.