The psychological dependence of the characters on the I Ching is incredible. Through Frank we see that they (or at least some of them) realize that investing all of your beliefs and efforts into the I Ching is a tad far fetched. In a way the I Ching is counterproductive in the sense that it blinds them to making conscious, logical decisions of their own. For example, they look way to far into the outcome of the I Ching and completely forget about reality. In some ways that can be good but the way I see it is that more often then not, its better to make a decision on your own. It does give the people of Dicks horrible version of the world hope and something somewhat tangible (your own throwing of the coins) to believe in. I think it also lets them make a decision from a safe distance. This meaning they make the decision based off of what the I Ching says which allows them, if it were to go badly, to have something to blame other than themselves. It gives them something to justify their decision.
In some ways its no more ridiculous to believe in the powers and correctness of the I Ching as it is to believe that there’s a bearded white man that lives in the sky who creates and controls everything on earth. When you reduce things to what they literally are, they sound absurd (which is probably why not too many people do that often).
Your post calls to attention the serious lack of logic in the rationale for people’s actions in The Man in the High Castle. It seems to me that if a person places total faith in an external source to make decisions for him, those decisions will probably be erratic and not well thought out. People should have reasons for making decisions beyond doing things because a book predicted them.
ReplyDeleteI think the appeal behind the I Ching is that people can make decisions without accepting responsibility for their actions, if those decisions result in negative consequences. Those people simply pass on their blame to the I Ching, claiming that they had no real power to change what was going to happen. Therefore, the I Ching can be seen as an excuse for irrational or negative behavior. Because everything is predetermined, everyone is blameless, which is probably not the best way for a society to function.
The appeal of having a predicted outcome before an event occurs is understandable; it means less responsibility, less internal blame. But I’d like to tag off of what Kristine ended with: societal implications. I don’t think that an all-knowing presence, or an I-Ching will necessarily lead to more reckless decisions, in fact decisions could become more calculated. As we saw in “Supernatural” and The Man In The High Castle, when the characters know their fate, they don’t necessarily act blindly. They try to plan ahead; decide which actions will get them to this predicted conclusion. If everyone relied on an object such as the I-Ching, there would probably be a mix of rational and irrational decisions-which actually doesn’t sound too far off of how society is today. So in that regard, perhaps there wouldn’t be any societal implications. However, I think there would be implications in regard to creativity. If everyone relies on predictions, who is left to think for themselves? Would individual thinking decay? Would progress come to a standstill? Like The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, this is only a thought experiment, we can’t know for sure what would happen.
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