Noah Mitchell
October 11, 2006
George’s Failed Quest for Happiness
The character George in Seinfeld represents “the many” in society, one who lacks virtue and possesses all qualities contradicting virtue. Although Aristotle claimed all men have rational aspect to his their souls, George seems to lack the fruits of this aspect: theoretical and practical wisdom, which involve the ability to reason.
In order to possess virtue, one must make rational decisions, and these decisions should fall between two possible extremes: excess and deficiency. However, George’s two main flaws run contrary to this idea of virtue: he has terrible reasoning skills and his wild emotions control his life. Because of George’s flaws, his actions repeatedly deny reason and follow wild extremes. Since mankind possesses reason, something that is divine and supernatural, one must live according with virtue; a happy individual must attain a harmony between reason and feelings, fulfilling his natural tendencies. Aristotle called this harmony the “Golden Mean.” Yet, George cannot meet this Mean. An essential aspect of his personality impediments virtue: he hates himself. George has good reason to hate himself, too; he is psychologically inadequate, socially handicapped, weak-willed, boring, and his faults are obvious to others. Instead of growing personally, he merely “looks to others to improve his station in life,” wishing for fortune to grant him happiness by some extreme course. George is irrational, imbalanced, and definitely not virtuous.
When chance does seem in his favor, still George looks upon these instances with skewed values. These are chances to declare victory over others. This “scarcity mentality” influences his worldview in such a way that he sees a lack of fame and external wealth, necessitating a loser, one who does not gain any of this wealth. When George is not the loser, he exerts his power over the newly perceived “loser.” The resulting happiness is brief and insignificant. Aristotle writes three ways to build virtuous action: avoid the opposed extreme (rage, sadism), avoid the easier extreme (laziness), and be careful with pleasures. George fails miserably at all three, displaying bouts of uncontrollable anger, continual idleness, and insatiable thirst for external pleasure. George is, in short, the opposite of Aristotle’s virtuous individual.