Danny ChaiLast week Jieun and I plowed through 24 Season Three over four days. Totally exhausting, and afterwards we couldn’t watch TV for a while.
As you probably know, 24 is awesome. I often hear people say they want to be (like) Jack Bauer. But that actually disturbs me a lot. For a couple reasons. One, his character is the epitome of the mentality that the ends justify the means. And I’m against that. He takes it to a total extreme, so much so, that he’s not just morally dubious; he’s amoral. You can’t say you morally value life and then repeatedly endanger and take the lives of others. He has no morality left, just utilitarianism. How anyone could want to be like someone so amoral is beyond me.
And I’m just philosophically against the idea that the ends justify the means. I’ve come to believe more and more that in the Christian life, the ends *are* the means. In God’s eyes, it’s not about what we accomplish. It’s about how we do it. I’ve been reading through Kings and Chronicles recently and this theme comes up repeatedly; kings are judged not based on what they achieve but on where their hearts are. Anyway, I just can’t accept the ends justifying the means thing. I think it’s un-Christian.
The other thing that disturbs me about people wanting to be like Jack Bauer is just, well, he’s so clearly unhappy. And I guess this gets to a question of fundamental priorities. Would you rather be great or happy? Because they are frequently at odds. Clearly so in Jack Bauer’s life. He’s a total stud, but he’s personally a broken man, with destroyed relationships and no real happiness to speak of. I read a lot about great figures in history and they are often unhappy as well. Their greatness comes at a cost. Sometimes it’s the sacrifice of relationships in the pursuit of their ambitions. Sometimes pain is just a side effect of their genius. But regardless, great people are frequently unhappy, and their unhappiness is related to their greatness.
So which would you rather be? For me, I dunno, the world may need Jack Bauers, but I’d rather be happy. Maybe that’s selfish, but yeah; in my life, when forced to choose between achieving something or something that will bring me true (Christian) joy, I’ll always choose the second. So I love the show. But you’ll never hear me say I want to be Jack Bauer. I rather pity him.
Not that anyone in the galaxy cares.