Thoughts on I ♥ Huckabees

Kirsten...I mean, I watched I ♥ Huckabees last week. I thought it was an interesting movie. The main character, Albert, hires two existential detectives in order to solve a thrice experienced coincidence. These detectives attempt to show Albert that his problems will be solved if he will recognize that we are all connected. Life is analagous to a blank sheet, humans, events, etc. are just points on that sheet but we are all connected and ultimately part of the one reality. In short, there is only The One. Alas, just as Albert is beginning to grasp this, in comes Caterine. She is a disgruntled former star pupil of the detectives hired by Albert and takes the exact opposite view. Her therapy consists in showing Albert that nothing is connected, there is no sheet. We are all just bare particulars and life is ultimately diversity, The Many. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get at the resolution, as the most important discussion was unwatchable due to a technical difficulty with either the DVD or my player. I'm blaming the DVD.

What interested me was the attempt to solve the ancient philosophical problem of the one and the many. Not a few have characterized the whole of western philosophy as the attempt to unify in a coherent whole the innumerable particulars we encounter each and every moment. The problem with these attempts at reconciliation is that in one way or another they miss and absolutize either the one or the many. In cases of the former error, the many are eliminated, leaving only One. In so doing, the personal is destroyed, as is evident from the discussion between Albert and the detectives. In cases of the latter error, however, just the opposite effect takes place. Only the many exist and there is nothing that ties them together, as is evident in the discussion between Albert and Caterine. Only the individual exists and he alone is the measure of what is. Chaos and nihilism are the offspring of such thinking. It seems to me that we have hope of answering this question if and only if there is one and many in perfect unity and diversity standing behind all our experiences, that is to say, the problem of the one and the many is solved only in the Trinity. All other worldviews fail by sliding into one extreme or the other.