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/ Ngz >  alt.philosophy, alt.religion.apologetics /
/ Forum >  TOL - Philosophy ~ Religion / 24Sept02 /
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  In the great Pacino movie called ‘Scarface’ we have the sad
story of a big little man named Tony, the scarface from Cuba,
the bad guy, the evil man. Tony comes to America in search of
the Great American Dream (of freedom and prosperity), and finds
it by becoming a successful drug dealer. If money is what makes
a man successful and powerful, then this gutsy little ex-Cuban
refugee did very quickly realize the great dream to an almost
extreme degree. By feeding the enormous American hunger for
cocaine, Tony eventually managed to bring home something like
thirty million dollars a month! One might even say that he's
got it all: a palatial home, a beautiful wife, fine clothes
and cars, the best in food and drink, and all the many endless
good things that only money can buy. So then that's that. Such
a dramatic rise from rags to riches could only result in great
joy and happiness; for surely no one can deny that Tony had
gained for himself ‘a more abundant life’.
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  Yet as we watch Tony living his ‘more abundant life’ it does
not seem to be a very happy man living it. He rarely smiles or
laughs, and even when he does, it is at best a forced smile,
superficial and transitory. Indeed, it is apparent that Tony is
profoundly unhappy; not only with his own life, but with the
world at large. And his more abundant life is actually only a
more extreme life posing. Tony is not so much an abnormal
man as an extreme man who does everything to excess.
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  Now death and violence come to us all sooner or later, but
not like this. One day Tony is sitting alone in a booth in his
favorite nightclub (with his back to the wall, of course),
when two assassins open up on him with machine guns. Given
the circumstances, that should have been the end of Tony. The
gunmen wound him, but Tony and his pistol escape the place,
while they don't. Clearly Tony is a survivor; and a darn good
one at that. This is due as much to incredible luck as to his
razor sharp wits and his total lack of illusions regarding the
more slimy qualities of human nature.
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  And this may be the source of Tony’s unhappiness; for very
few people can consistently see the world through eyes as
ruthlessly honest as his. It is not the violence around him
(and within him) that separates Tony from other men, but
rather he is alone because his understanding of human beings
is one that defines stupidity as the act of trusting the Other.
Tony relies only on Tony because he knows that people are
fundamentally unreliable and unworthy of trust. And he
constantly justifies his vision of humankind by complaining
about almost everything.
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  One day while watching TV in his royal bathtub (with brandy
and cigar in hand), Tony proceeds to complain about the
government's (highly offensive) drug policies to his wife
and best friend; who are in the spacious bathroom, but not
(significantly) in the bubble-bath with him. Of course, neither
shares Tony’s great and passionate interest in the truth of
things, and finally his wife (in obvious irritation) snaps at
him: “Money, money, money. That's all you ever talk about!”
Now Tony doesn't like the sound of that, for it bears the sting
of truth, and so the battle is joined.
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  Now the scarface can give as good as he gets (and then some),
so it isn't long before she stomps out of the room. Before she
leaves however, she imparts her ultimate conclusion regarding
her estimate of Tony: “You’re an animal!” And after she's gone,
Tony and his friend trade a few verbal blows until the latter
observes that: “She's right. You are an animal.” Then he walks
out leaving Tony in the tub to console himself with the idea
that all this magnificent wealth and luxury is solely his
doing, and that “I don't need anybody.”
.
  But Tony is neither blind nor stupid. He knows he is alone,
and rather resents it. He knows that he needs others too. He
also has a tremendous love for his sister Gina, and one day
this affection leads to tragic consequences when it explodes
in a jealous rage that literally kills his best friend, and
unwittingly destroys the happiness that she has found (but
that had always eluded Tony). But once he discovers (too late)
their recent marriage (ie. Gina and his friend), he has the
good grace to regret shooting his one and only true comrade.
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  Tony’s greatest crimes, therefore, are his crimes of passion.
Violent actions are the natural results of violent emotions.
And Tony is a man of emotion and action. Of course he can think
and reason too; even better than most men. Yet like most men
he wastes all his thinking and reasoning upon trivial pursuits.
But what he can’t do is to control himself. Even the most basic
forms of self-restraint seem beyond his abilities. Freedom thus
means freedom from self-discipline, freedom from the petty
norms of polite society, freedom from the shallow and
hypocritical morality of our post-modern and post-Christian
civilization. But such low-quality freedom means very little
in light of the fact that he can never free himself of his
own faults and limitations.
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  So Tony always feels deeply the awful distance between
himself and those around him, and so assures himself that he
is superior to them. And yet he actually desires a normal life
and a normal family, with all the usual bourgeoisie trimmings
(only more so). Thus Tony never consummates his love for Gina
because the idea simply never enters his conscious mind. Tony
knows himself to be different from other men, knows he is an
Outsider, and yet he lacks the imagination to truly live free,
to dare to be different, to act on the opportunities and
possibilities open to such a wealthy and powerful man. So
instead of running off with Gina (which is what he really
wants), he thinks he wants “a normal life”.
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  Sitting and drinking in a posh restaurant one night, Tony
ponders his beautiful (but sniffling) wife across the table:
“My wife the junkie. Look at her. She's so polluted that she
can’t even get pregnant.” Incensed, she replies, “And what kind
of father would you be? Will you even be alive when he goes to
school? You sell drugs and kill people. A real contribution to
human history.” She walks out of the restaurant (and out of his
life), and that's the end of his marriage and his half-baked
dreams of a normal life. And since he cannot take his drunken
anger out on her, he proceeds to insult and abuse everyone else
in the restaurant. It's the most dramatic scene of the entire
movie, and a defining moment (as they say) in his life. Every-
thing points to Tony’s utter failure as a human being.
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  As a free-enterprise businessman Tony is amazingly
successful. But as an Outsider he is a colossal failure. An
Outsider who wants to be normal can only be an untenable
contradiction that ends in tragedy. He who lives by violence
surely dies by violence. Thus Tony dies like an animal,
stupidly defiant in the face of an army of assassins, as his
killer slowly creeps up from behind and unloads his shotgun
into Tony’s back at point-blank range.
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  Tony’s bloody demise is no surprise, but the cause of the
little war leading up to it is. The cartel invited him to South
America in order to offer him a job. They want Tony to help
a professional assassin get rid of a certain fellow who is
exceedingly bothersome and annoying to them. No big deal.
Tony accepts the job casually. Back in New York a bomb is
attached to the target’s car, and in the morning the man
appears on schedule. But wait! Now his wife and two kids get
into the vehicle and completely upset the plan. Tony wants to
wait for another time, but the hitman insists on going through
with the assassination as ordered.
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  As they follow the car on its route to the United Nations
(where the bomb will be detonated for maximum effect), Tony
broods on the idea that he wants no part of killing women and
children. And once he has sufficiently aroused his anger, he
puts a bullet into the mad-bomber’s head. “Look at you now”,
he says. The mission is thus scrubbed, and the cartel is livid
with rage. Now it is Tony who turns out to be unreliable and
untrustworthy, and war is the inevitable result. Thus Tony
dies because he ultimately values human life more than money
and power (and even death)! Because even the Scarface
Outsider is not just an animal after all.
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               - the almost semi-scarred one - textman ;>
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P.S. "The goal of philosophy is not to know the world, but
       rather to put men on the right path." -- Heraclitus
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textman
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