George's Failed Quest for Happiness: An Aristotelian Analysis
A. Introduction
1. George's misfortunes are a direct and ongoing consequence of his pathetic personality.
2. his baseline state of perpetual melancholy and cynicism is punctuated by bouts of rage, obsession, lust, and deep depression.
3. George's joy is forced and hollow.
4. His actions spring not from virtue or reason, but from the wildly fluctuating inclinations of a lunatic, driven mad by decades of hair loss, obesity, sexual dysfunction, and relentless din of his screaming parents.
5. Aristotle refers to the view of an ordinary person as "the many".
6. George is a case of "the many", with all of the deficiencies of many people rolled into one, and thus provides an excellent example of how not to live one's life.
7. George considers his lot in life occasionally.
8. George says every choice he's made has been wrong so for now on he's going to do the opposite and says, "This has been the dream of my life, ever since I was a child. And it's all happening because I am completely ignoring every urge towards common sense and good judgement I've ever had".
9. two main flaws in George's character: terrible reasoning skills and his emotions affect his life much in the way Aristotle predicts.
10. Aristotle and George are polar opposites because they think about what man seeeks in life in a completely different way.
11. Aristotle rejects the widespread belief that value judgements are a special kind of judgement.
12. the good for Aristotle is whatever man is actually seeking (Eudaimonia).
13. "The excellent man's function is to engage in actions that express reason" (Aristotle).
14. moral virtue is a mean between two extremes: vice of excess and vice of deficiency.
15. actions are virtuous because they are performed in conformity with reason, and it represents a mean as a consequence.
B. Why George is a Virtueless Man (Why George is a Pathetic Slob).
1. Aristotle believed that the highest good of man is the complete realization of his reason, which brings happiness.
2. according to Aristotle, happiness is the harmonious fulfillment of man's natural tendencies.
3. George cannot approximate this ideal because: he hates himself, he hates his body, he hates his personality, he hates his inability to interact with women, he ha tes that he is weak-willed, he hates that his life is boring, and he hates that his faults are obvious, especially to the opposite sex.
4. George believes that his lot in life is a matter of fortune. He looks to others to improve his life and says "It's a different world when you're with a cool guy.
C. George's Brushes With Happiness
1. George experiences happiness when he has achieved some victory over others. By transforming others into losers, he erroneously believes that he is a winner.
2. his periods of happiness are only momentary because his personality will always intervene eventually.
3. George lacks the skills to solve his problems so he solves it by surrendering to them.
4. George realizes that the best he can hope for is that others will recognize the deficiencies of his personality and feel benevolence.
D. George and Virtue - Like Oil and Water
1. the real reason that George is doomed is because we have seen him for 8 years and he is no closer to happiness at the end than in the beginning.
2. Aristotle describes three ways to encourage virtuous action: avoid the more opposed extreme, avoid the easier extreme, and be careful with pleasure.
3. George is not alone in his pleasure seeking because a commom theme in Seinfeld is the pursuit of pleasure, even at the expense of others.
4. George's life will improve only if he continues to act virtuously to where it becomes a habit.