Putting the 'i'rony back in existentialism..

Considering irony has only contigent value, i'm sure existentialism wouldn't acknowledge such a notion. However, I do find it interesting that Firefly writer's decided to name a black character Jubal Early. Jubal Early was a confederate general who founded the idea of The Lost Cause post Confederate losing the Civil War. Basically the Lost Cause movement is that the war was 'unfair', the Confederates were cheated out of a win and their slave-owning based economy was just a different way of life. The latter being a sort of existential perspective.

Firefly's Jubal Early and the Civil War's Jubal Early are comprable due to the same existential ideology. Both had a certain 'code' they lived by. One was a bounty other the other a slave owner. Both could be valid reasons to criticize existential, that there are no values, only 'freedom' (which is ironic thought when thinking about slave-owning societies). Existentialism applied in the wrong way can be a very dangerous tool. When I think about it usually I see it as a positive way to be analytical about cookie cutter expectatioins that are put forth by whatever powers at be. Apparenlty this sort of intellectual freedom that existentism allows can be used to justified rape, murder and baby dashing. So maybe a dash ,not of baby, but of utilitarianism in with my existentialism would be fine just fine.

Also, applying existentialism onto objects is absurd to me as Derrida's Deconstruction approach to literature. Viewing things independent of context other than just that specific object, work, whatever is an over simplification for a creature that feels the need to create a philosophy to explain such madness. When River pulled up the gun/branch part of me wanted to laugh or just throw someting at the screen. I get the symbolism for the bigger picture, but the literal application of objects just seems a bit pointless to me. Us humans should enjoy the utilization of tools that our ancestors created without getting to caught up in some pretentious philosophy consciousness that evolution 'gifted' us with. This is going under the assumption that River is trying to be some sort of teacher or is a use of symbolism for the writers, not that River is mentally deranged. Given the transition to a clever creature by the end of the episode I'd find that hard to do (also how did that transition happen.

River could have done us all a favor and shot all the characters so I wouldn't have to read Firefly fans talk about the blindness (Harris) of a text like it has potential for the greatest profundities for anything that the texts lacks (for now). The show was cancelled for legit reasons. It was on a network that doesn't do well with sci-fi and expects shows to gross lots of cash. Atleast, that is what I've read. For the cost of each episode it wasn't drawing enough of viewers. I've read both sides though... but you either way Firefly fans win with new episodes on the Science Channel. Hurray.