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The black mirror san junipero11/14/2022 ![]() ![]() Indeed, the episode is smart enough to explore some of this Heideggerian territory, both in its portrayal of the Quagmire (a bar where everyone seems a bit creepily nihilistic) and in Kelly’s rant to Yorkie after the latter asks her change her mind about passing over to the San Junipero reality after death. In light of this, the central technological premise of “San Junipero”-the creation of a digital afterlife in which we might live indefinitely-is questionable. As Simon Critchley notes, this is not a morbid thought, but rather the suggestion that “it is only in being-towards-death that one can become the person who one truly is.” Confronting death provokes anxiety, but to be resolute in the face of it is to ask oneself who oneself is-if anything at all. It is not a pleasant thought that this life will end, and thus we distract ourselves with reality TV shows, for example, as if it matters what happens on them. We live in anticipation of the future, but tend to want to avoid thinking about death. In other words, it is our very finitude that gives our lives meaning. On Heidegger’s view, it is facing one’s own being-towards-death that opens the possibility of escaping such inauthenticity and determining oneself freely. The inauthentic life is essentially meaningless. (How many people have liked this on social media?) Insofar as I am living my life in that way, I do not even truly exist I am just a “self” composed from the vagaries of common sense and the opinions of others. We tend to live inauthentically determined by “the they”-we are concerned with what They think, what They think we should think, and so on. In Being and Time, Heidegger contends that it is confronting the inevitability of one’s death that opens the possibility of an authentic existence. At this level, the episode certainly provides moments of joy, and perhaps hope, but what about its central technological premise? Their encounter provides Yorkie with her first real relationship, as she was in a terrible accident at a young age. ![]() Two dying women, Kelly and Yorkie, meet in a virtual world that has been constructed (San Junipero) to provide people with the possibility of a digital afterlife. But what makes it so? The core of the episode is a love story. “San Junipero” is widely regarded as the most optimistic episode of Black Mirror, and it may well be. ![]() Anticipation turns out to be the possibility of understanding one’s ownmost and uttermost potentiality-for-Being-that is to say, the possibility of authentic existence. – Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927) But to project itself on its ownmost potentiality-for-Being means to be able to understand itself in the Being of the entity so revealed-namely, to exist. In the anticipatory revealing of this potentiality-for-Being, Dasein discloses itself to itself as regards its uttermost possibility. Here, Caemeron Crain digs into Black Mirror S3E4, “San Junipero.”īeing-towards-death is the anticipation of a potentiality-for-Being of that entity whose kind of Being is anticipation itself. 25YL is proud to feature analyses of each and every episode. If you have, you know it is arguably one of the most important and thought provoking shows of our era. If you haven’t seen Black Mirror, well, I’m not sure why you’re here. ![]()
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