Monty Python and Philosophy (4 page)

In fact, Brian “preaches” twice in the movie: once in the marketplace when he is masquerading as a prophet to hide from the centurions, and once to the multitude from the window of his mother’s apartment. In the market, Brian’s message is a hodgepodge of phrases and parables presumably taken from the other apocalyptic teachers—and some clearly pilfered from Jesus. For example, Brian says, “Don’t pass judgment on other people, or you might get judged yourself,” which sounds as if Brian is parroting what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1. And in Brian’s rising panic he blurts: “Blessed are they . . . who convert their neighbor’s ox . . . for they shall inhibit their girth . . . .” At this point, Brian’s sermons have no message—or, at least, he is too scared to express it.

At his mother’s apartment, however, Brian speaks his own words, and if anything can be called Brian’s religious teaching, it would be found here. To the crowd gathered outside his mother’s window, he says with real passion: “You’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals.” “You’ve all got to work it out for yourselves,” he adds. “Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.”

From this one might deduce that Brian does have at least one principle, for his philosophy seems to be that one should be an
individual
. One should think for oneself. One shouldn’t be a follower. Perhaps this teaching is meant only to set up the joke when Brian says, “You’re all different!” and from the crowd a man named Dennis objects, “I’m not!” Dennis thereby creates a nice little paradox, since he both rejects Brian’s teaching and accepts it at the same time, whereas all the rest who follow the crowd in accepting Brian’s teaching actually fail to accept it. But the passion in Brian’s voice when he says this, and his pained look, suggest that this is more than a joke; it suggests that here he is sincere, that this reflects his real thoughts. That this quote is in fact a message that the Pythons wanted to send comes through in this comment from Michael Palin, who says that
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
reflects “the basis of what Python comedy was all about, which is really resisting people telling you how to behave and how not to behave. It was the freedom of the individual, a very Sixties thing, the independence which was part of the way Python had been formed” (
The Pythons’ Autobiography
, p. 306).

Yet Brian’s “sermon” reflects not only the Sixties but also a principle basic to most modern philosophy, and especially the eighteenth-century movement called the Enlightenment, namely, the principle that individuals should think for themselves. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is often taken to identify the motto of the Enlightenment in his slogan: “
Sapere aude
! Have courage to use your own reason!”
⁵
But Brian’s central principle can also plausibly be seen to represent a kind of existentialism. Existentialists maintain that human beings have no intrinsic purpose or essence; there is no such thing as “human nature.” Therefore it is up to each individual to determine the meaning of one’s own life and to take responsibility for one’s actions. In fact, every individual is “condemned” to do so. Existentialist philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) were all, in different ways, interested in seeing how individuals could live authentic lives, how one could be true to oneself. Brian’s “sermon” certainly fits this tradition.
And one might go even further and also see Brian’s teaching, like that of many of the existentialists, as a form of humanism. This is the view that human beings are the fundamental source of value, and that improving this world should be the primary focus of human activities. Whether Brian intends this or not, this is what Judith sees in him when she tells Mandy that Brian will “lead them with hope to a new world, a better future.”

Brian does not say much about the nature of God, but he is not necessarily teaching
secular
humanism. His message could be a religious or theistic humanism. Theistic humanism combines the belief in God with humanist values.
⁶
It is the view that meeting “this-worldly” human needs is the primary thing that God wants of his followers. On this view, God’s primary interest is in feeding the hungry, healing those who are ill, caring for widows and orphans, and so on. If Brian thinks this way, then he would be teaching humanism not because he lacks faith in God but precisely because he has that faith. Perhaps he gets his humanism, as he got the idea that one should not judge lest one be judged, from Jesus. For example, in what is sometimes called “the Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6: 17-49), Jesus is portrayed as having a profoundly humanistic regard for the poor, the hungry, and the excluded. It is possible, then, that Brian is not trying to be anti-religious but instead is trying to improve the religion of his followers. The idea that Brian’s teachings are meant to agree with a specifically
Christian
humanism comes through in this comment from Graham Chapman (who played Brian): “We did want to annoy [many churches] quite frankly because we felt they’d rather got the wrong end of the stick. They seem to forget about things like loving one another—more interested in joining their own little club and then thinking of other people in terms of ‘that lot won’t go to heaven, just us’ which is really stupid and rather unChristian . . . . That movie, if it said anything at all, said think for yourselves, don’t blindly follow, which I think isn’t a bad message and I’m sure Mr. Christ would have agreed” (
The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons
, pp. 286-87).
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
therefore criticizes religious belief, not when it involves belief in God, but when it is gullible and careless with the message.
⁷

To the extent that one can say that Brian has any philosophy to offer, then, it seems to be an existentialist humanism, not necessarily divorced from belief in God.

Many Christians have been humanists; several have been existentialists. But, even if Brian’s “teachings” are not incompatible with an authentic religious faith, one might have the sneaky suspicion that the movie as a whole has an anti-religious or anti-theistic or even nihilistic view. The movie as a whole seems to present life as meaningless or absurd.

As it happens, there is a philosopher, Albert Camus (1913-1960), who is famous for his embrace of both an existentialist humanism and the view that life is absurd. So now a question about this movie’s philosophy can be asked clearly: Is
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
teaching Camus’s philosophy?

In Camus’s novels and essays, the term ‘absurd’ does not mean silly, like a Prefect named Biggus Dickus or a food vender who sells ocelots’ earlobes. To say that life is absurd means that it has no pre-given meaning—events happen that can crush the individual, events that are not part of a greater plan, that are not “meant to be.” Camus does not believe that ours is a universe in which human beings have much importance; this is not a benevolent and rational universe. As Bob Lane has eloquently put it, Camus

People long for life to make sense, and they long for happiness, but the universe fails to add up. In response to human longing, the universe is silent.

I think it’s fair to say that this
is
the vision of
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
. Brian lives and moves in a world in which, as Camus says, life is absurd. One sees Camus’s influence in the film whenever events seem meaningless or suffering calls out for remedy, but one sees it above all in the ending of the movie. Brian and the rest are being crucified, but they are not really criminals; their executions are pointless. There is no sign that their deaths play a role in a larger struggle or that they are going to a better place. The words of their song present Camus’s perspective explicitly:

Brian lives—and then dies—in an absurd world.

What should one do about the absurdity of life? What
can
one do? This is a crucial question. Camus argues that in the face of the absurd, the best that one can do—the noble life—is to rebel against the absurdity of life. To do this, one would have to be able to act without hope of reward, conscious that in the long run it makes no difference how one acts. One would refuse to believe in or hope for God-given purpose and instead fight for one’s goals, creating a meaningful life in the very choices one makes.

Several of Camus’s writings illustrate what it would mean to live one’s life in this way, as an “absurd hero.” Three examples of the absurd hero are the characters of Meursault in Camus’s novel
The Stranger
, Dr. Rieux in
The Plague
, and Sisyphus in
The Myth of Sisyphus
. Meursault lives unreflectively. Because he lives unreflectively he lives spontaneously, until he kills someone he does not know and is tried and executed for this murder. It is not easy to see Meursault as a hero, but Camus insists that he is. Let me come back to this. The character of Dr. Rieux is easier to like: he cares for those afflicted by a plague even though they cannot be cured and even though by doing so he may catch the disease. And Sisyphus, the character from the Greek myth, is punished by the Gods by being forced to pointlessly and eternally roll a rock up a hill just to watch it roll back down. According to Camus, however, Sisyphus would not surrender his happiness to the fact that his achievements do not last, and for this reason he would be able to find a grim satisfaction in the task. From a cosmic perspective, the actions of these three characters are insignificant, but they are heroes because they live honestly and authentically.

So the question arises: Is Brian too an absurd hero?

It seems clear that Camus himself would say “No.” Speaking of the meaningless labors of Sisyphus, for example, Camus says, “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”
⁹
Camus apparently means that no matter how difficult one’s life becomes, one is a free being and so one can always rise above one’s circumstances. But Brian is not haughty enough to scorn. He does not look down on his fate. On the contrary, he is constantly irritated and frustrated.
The Myth of Sisyphus
also says that “[t]he struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart” (p. 91). It is true that Brian is involved in the struggle for liberation from the Romans. But the movie makes it clear, first, that the struggle is a farce and, second, that Brian is more interested in the homier benefits of Judith. Brian may be placed in an absurd situation, but no one would think he triumphs over it by concentrating on his freedom, by refusing to hope, or by realizing the absurdity of his situation. On the contrary, Brian whines about his lack of freedom, constantly hopes that things will work out, and does not ever become conscious of the absurdity of his situation. Brian lacks a rebellious or defiant recognition of the meaningless of human life. He is not heroic in Camus’s sense.

If Camus has the final say about heroes, then one might conclude that
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
is pretty cynical. It presents an absurd universe that does not even have a hero in it. But there may be another way to think about the meaningfulness of life and how one should live in a world in which death is the final word. On this scale, Brian fares better.

One thing to note is the centrality of lying to Camus (and to all of the French existentialists). The greatest failure of a person, they say, is when one lives a lie, when one deceives oneself and lives in “bad faith.” Camus has said that Meursault is an absurd hero because he does not lie and that
The Stranger
is “the story of a man who, without any heroics, accepts death for the sake of truth.” This, Camus adds, is a portrayal of “the only Christ we deserved.”
¹⁰
But despite what Camus says, it’s not clear that Meursault really is an ideal person. Robert C. Solomon argues persuasively that far from being a completely honest hero, Meursault never reaches the level of consciousness where one can choose to tell the truth or to lie. There is nothing in Meursault to which he
can
be true.
¹¹

One thing that we can say in Brian’s favor, however, is that he does not live a lie. Brian is bluntly, almost childishly forthright. At the beginning of the movie he caves in to the pressure of his sharp-tongued mother, but as he comes into his own, he eventually is able to throw this off.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
is in part the story of growing up and becoming—not becoming a hero, but an adult. Perhaps this explains why the song at the beginning of the movie says that there was a baby named Brian who grew up to be . . . a teenager named Brian, who then grew and grew until he who grew up to be . . . a man named Brian. He is not an absurd hero, but he is also not a liar. From this perspective,
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
rejects Camus’s austere idea of what human beings should aspire to and reflects instead an appreciation for more mundane satisfactions. Brian does live in Camus’s absurd universe. He does so, however, not as a rebellious hero but as an adult: he does not wait for a miracle. Instead, he hates the Roman occupiers,
he loves Judith, and he in general does his best. Brian is buffeted by forces that he cannot defeat, but he nevertheless tries to do good, he is sincere, and he makes for himself a life that gains meaning through his own decisions. Perhaps those of us who admire Brian should invent a term: “absurd decent guy.” If this is plausible, then
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
exemplifies another form—a new form—of existentialist humanism. On this perspective, what
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
offers as a counterweight to nihilism is
humor
. One cannot rebel against the absurd, but one can laugh at it. Here Brian represents a different understanding of what a hero really is. It is an understanding that rivals that of Camus. If this is plausible, then one can reject the idea that the almost completely unreflective killer Meursault is a hero. From this perspective, one can find heroes closer to home.