SCENE:
Stage with ACTORS seated on FOLDING CHAIRS. Except Actor One, throughout scene others self-apply amounts of MAKE-UP (primary colors/black/pink) to faces, approximating stereotypical clown make-up.
ACTOR ONE
We’re embarked on an enterprise of consciousness; we’re here because we want to be, otherwise we'd kill ourselves. That only two percent of us commit suicide, is proof existence is positive, otherwise humanity would cease to exist for the majority not wanting to be here. If the statement existence is positive is true, true harm can then be determined accordingly and all moral/ethical arguments based on subjective belief can be found as such, and gutted.
ACTOR TWO
No.
ACTOR ONE
It’s never been said before, so your response is natural. You know--the whole stages of truth thing? Vilified to accepted?
ACTOR TWO
Ok, tell us when you received the choice to exist?
ACTOR ONE
As soon as I became conscious that I had the choice to kill myself.
ACTOR TWO
The fact you didn’t make a choice to exist means your choices aren’t important.
ACTOR ONE
We don’t know for certain if we did or did not choose to exist, and even if we didn’t, why would that make our choices now unimportant? If we didn’t have a choice to be here, that hints choices are critical--maybe the reason we’re even here in the first place.
ACTOR TWO
You really should read some philosophy about the topic you’re trying to discuss. Nietzsche would be a place to start.
ACTOR ONE
I’m blowing up Nietzsche.
ACTOR TWO
If you don’t remember making the choice that caused you to have to make every other choice for the rest of your life, then how important could choices be? You haven’t read Nietzsche.
ACTOR ONE
Just because you don’t remember how you got somewhere means what you do from there is irrelevant? Nietzsche is overrated.
ACTOR TWO
Read Thus Spoke Zarathustra and when finished, read it again.
ACTOR ONE
I’ve read Nietzsche, do I need to know him forward/backward? Refresh my memory and use him to prove the premise incorrect.
ACTOR TWO
You’re lying, if you actually read Nietzsche, you’d already know how we know you didn’t.
ACTOR ONE
Why not just refute the contention with Nietzsche? Because you can’t? Who’s lying?
ACTOR TWO
You want me to cite Nietzsche so you can Google it?
ACTOR ONE
Tell us how he destroys the premise. If I’ve missed something in him, then say it. If not, I have no choice but to conclude I’ve blown up your worldview and you’ll be struggling with it for a while.
ACTOR TWO
Your premise is idiotic and we’re ignoring it because you haven’t read Nietzsche. As for blowing up a worldview? You don’t even know what my worldview is. You’re dismissed.
ACTOR ONE
Just what I thought.
ACTOR TWO
You didn’t think anything at all, that’s kinda the problem.
ACTOR ONE
State how Nietzsche matters.
ACTOR TWO
You’ve heard what I said.
ACTOR THREE
That we’re here without choosing to be has nothing to do with why we’re still here. We all understand the choice to not be here, pretty early on.
ACTOR TWO
The fact that you got here through no choice of your own means your choices are irrelevant. Go be a moron somewhere else.
ACTOR THREE
You’ve stated as fact that we arrive at life through no choice of our own, but you don’t have evidence to prove that.
ACTOR FOUR
My god, he’s even worse than I imagined. Let’s see if he needs the last word.
ACTOR TWO
Got tired of being the group punchline, have you?
ACTOR FIVE
Your proposition implies humans are special. If the statement existence is good is true, then consciousness is neither good or bad, it just is--the result of an organic process. Humans aren’t special. Good god, haven’t you ever heard of existentialism? Here’s something to consider: mushrooms and fungi are closer to humans than they are plants.
ACTOR SIX
You need to stay away from mushrooms. Life is just an organic process, but let’s not focus on lifeforms, but on consciousness itself, and what we do with it, and how we discuss it amongst ourselves. So far as that’s concerned, humans are central. The question of whether we’re special depends on context. Do you feel equivalent to mushroom? Does life with awareness and ability to act have no more value than a blade of grass? If so, that’s interesting, and would you care to elaborate?
(Beat.)
ACTOR SIX (CONT’D)
(To Actor One) So you’ve decided life is good? And, of course when I say life, I’m referring to human incarnation — this experience we have in common?
ACTOR ONE
Yes.
ACTOR SIX
So you’ve concluded life is universally good because a only a small percentage intentionally end their life. First, good is merely a linguistic construct without referent; good and evil are subjective judgments which vary with time and place, and don’t exist beyond having uttered them.
ACTOR ONE
Let’s not use the terms good and bad, but instead positive and negative. If existence is positive, then harm can be determined by where it’s objectively occurring within existence--straightforward empirical facts. If only two out of one hundred decide to leave, existence must be positive. I’m not saying that, the numbers are.
ACTOR SIX
Since we’re talking about life the terms good versus bad, or positive versus negative are roughly equivalent. Good or positive life is pleasant, where one’s needs are met--food, shelter, clothing. Good or positive life requires an environment where resources are available to meet one’s needs. Good or positive life requires other people and an ongoing understanding that builds upon what’s been previously learned. But still, sometimes life sucks.
ACTOR ONE
I’m saying existence in general is positive, regardless if one’s needs are met. Mileage may vary, but the road itself is positive. Once the learning is done, existence no longer requires others; there are people right now doing everything they can to be alone.
ACTOR SIX
I think it’s the claim regarding suicide that’s motivating my continued interest. This seems to involve Earth. So, Earth is good, even though there are regions inhospitable to life?
ACTOR ONE
Earth is part of existence, and existence overall is positive--regardless if some places on are dangerous and harmful. The ninety-eight percent that do not commit suicide--that’s the evidence human lives are worth enduring. If it wasn’t worth it, fifty-percent-plus would have eventually said said No Thanks, and the enterprise ceases to exist because there’s no left to keep it going. Hello?
ACTOR SIX
Have you ever considered committing suicide? It’s not an easy thing for a person to do.
ACTORS TWO, THREE, FOUR, AND ACTOR FIVE
Even if you live in a tall building with roof access.
ACTOR ONE
So the argument then is that existence compels the majority to commit suicide, but because it’s too tough to do, we don’t? That can’t be true because the vast majority would be experiencing debilitating depression and everyone would be at home staring at the ceiling. No one would go to the theaters anymore; or download books and music. Society and culture are proof the vast majority are not struggling against killing themselves. Look, you have one hundred people in a room, and only two decide to leave. What does that tell you?
ACTOR SIX
How’s it possible to equate all of what we know human life might demand to a room? You’re trying to make a purely objective statistic do a lot of work here. I’m sure you can do better. I believe human life is positive, but not because of the suicide rate.
ACTOR ONE
The room in metaphor is existence itself. The room does demand of us, and in different ways, but very few find it intolerable, otherwise it’d be empty. It’s positive.
ACTOR SIX
You’re not talking about positive, you’re talking preference. Would you prefer being lowered into boiling oil, or shot with a gun? One might seem better than the other, but you wouldn’t call either of them positive. It doesn’t make one good, it only makes it better than the alternative. If you were to talk about what’s in the room, and what’s outside the room, then you have something to talk about. In sum, life is preferable to death.
ACTORS THREE, FOUR & FIVE
But only barely.
ACTOR TWO
And the room metaphor is a false dichotomy, providing limited choices as support for your stupid conclusion.
ACTOR ONE
What? There are only two choices--life or death. Was there a memo on some third option that I never got?
ACTOR SIX
But you haven’t proven human existence is positive. You’ve made the claim, but maybe it’s just that most find it preferable to death. That’s a meager explanation, and I don’t see how the claim supports the notion that true harm can then be determined accordingly, and moral/ethical arguments gutted. That life is good, does not provide basis for determining harm altogether. If anything, it argues that anything short of killing another is good.
ACTOR ONE
It’s not me proving it, the numbers do. Once you accept existence is positive, then anything which unnecessarily thwarts or destroys existence is negative. Someone thinks two women living together is negative, but is there actual harm in two women living together? The answer is no, because that’s subjective.
ACTOR THREE
Numbers don’t prove, logic does. You’re simply making the claim the numbers say what you say they do. You haven’t shown that. You’re not addressing any part of what we’ve said, you’re simply repeating yourself.
ACTOR ONE
What are you talking about? Logic is number. Ever hear of a true table? It’s the number of ways an argument is proven valid or invalid. We can mathematically determine the objective truth, FYI.
ACTOR SEVEN
It’s like if someone said of the people alive right now, we expect about one-hundred and sixty million to commit suicide. In light of that fact, humans, like all creatures, are born with a strong instinct for self-preservation. Therefore the suicide rate proves existence is horrible. Since it’s horrible, anything that goes against existence is good, so murder and suicide are good things. Your absurd claim is on the same footing.
ACTOR ONE
If you’re making the argument that the instinct for self-preservation prevents more suicides, and it’s a horrible situation we’re all caught in, and only the two have the sense enough to escape, then you’re saying the majority are faking it. But that assertion fails in the face of human art and culture, which we clearly know exists and is continuing onward.
ACTOR TWO
Your mistake has been explained to you.
ACTOR SEVEN
Prozac. What if sixty of the ninety-eight are on drugs, and at the same time, seventy of them believe religious bullshit to give their lives the meaning it lacks on its own. And also, every one of these religions, has a god that prohibits suicide, because if you don’t promise heaven or Nirvana, the suicide rate will skyrocket. Anyways, you sort of missed the point chief. The basis of your argument, is you simply begging the question. None of your numbers establish your conclusions, so in effect, you’re just asserting things with the attachment of other unproven assertions: informal reductio.
ACTOR ONE
But we’re not talking about how or why people are staying, but that staying itself must be positive based on.... If your argument is that we’re here because we’ve been conditioned to be, even though we don’t really want to be--that falls flat on its face because humans don’t willingly contribute to something they want no part of. Human art and culture proves that most of us want to be here--even if only to consume!
ACTOR TWO
Humans don’t willingly contribute to something they want to leave? Ha! Chattel slavery is a radical counterexample, not to mention people who stay at jobs they hate.
ACTOR ONE
Willingly and unwillingly are two different things. While humans contribute to things like slavery or corporate work, they aren’t doing it willingly, but rather because they must, in order to stay in the room.
ACTOR SIX
That they have chosen the lesser of two bad choices does not make what they’ve chosen good. Maybe death is preferable, we’re just told it’s not.
ACTOR THREE
Death might be better than life.
ACTOR SEVEN
The more popular choice is not the better choice. That’s nowhere established. That’s known as begging the question, and is not sound logic. Got to say though, this is getting tiresome.
ACTOR ONE
Nowhere established? We have two choices--here, or the undiscovered country from who is born no traveler returns. If there were some third or fourth alternative, you might have a point, but it’s either/or.
ACTOR SIX
You haven’t responded adequately to the point regarding human instinct for self preservation. In other words life sucks, but we generally don’t choose suicide. I started by asking what percentage of suicide rate would persuade you life is bad? But you haven’t responded to that.
ACTOR ONE
The percentage of suicide deeming life negative, would be fifty-percent-plus--at which point--the enterprise collapses. That the ninety-eight are here just because we’re too fearful to kill ourselves, and go against the instinct of self-preservation? Art and culture proves that bogus. Put your head out the window a minute, it’s everywhere you look, and still thrives! Maybe look at it like there are two TV channels available. One channel plays the human show, and the other plays the--what should be call it? (Musing.) The Human Show and the Death show? Let’s call it the undiscovered country show. At first we think the human show is the only channel to watch, but then as we become an adult we find out--that no--the human show isn’t the only show--there’s this other show. The two percent are like, I don’t like this channel, I’m turning to the other show. The other ninety-eight are like--OK, there are two channels and I’m currently watching the human channel. I know there’s the undiscovered country channel, and I know I’m going to watch it one day--where suicide is the furthest thing from mind--but I get hit by a bus instead. A a human you have to think the enterprise is pretty darn bad to change the channel.
ACTOR SIX
It’s funny, because I really do believe life is good. But as a logical exercise, I have to say I’m not persuaded. My understanding is an emotional one, not intellectual.
ACTOR ONE
What would persuade you? Some middle or third choice I’m leaving out? If there are only two choices and humans have made one over the other for centuries and centuries, then the enterprise must be positive.
ACTOR SIX
I had to ponder that term for a bit, is human life an enterprise? I can accept that. With enterprise comes connotation of success or failure in the business sense. In that regard, a population that shows growth is success, and population loss a failure?
ACTOR ONE
Right. The fact human life exists demonstrates it’s good. Like light, there’s either life or its absence. If it didn’t exist there’d be nothing to characterize as positive or negative or anything.
ACTOR THREE
A senseless, numb void? That sounds kinda nice, actually.
ACTOR FOUR
How can it be said the unknown is worse than the known? Might turn out that life as we’re living it is hell and not a good thing at all. Maybe it’s punishment.
ACTOR SIX
Punishment? What would be the opposite? A kind of reward? I’m here to claim my reward, thank you. So far I can’t characterize my life as pointless punishment.
ACTOR TWO
Addicted to life--can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
ACTOR ONE
Nietzsche? He thought monotheism castrated humanity by democratizing us. He chose aristocracy over democracy and posited a people of the future to be strong enough to return us to that. But see, advocates for aristocracy--as an approach to existence--rather than democracy--forget that in a field, lots of things are going on which result in flowers. Aristocrats play the flowers, but history shows they’ve rarely ever been anything but scum.
(Beat. Actor One rises and walks front and center.)
ACTOR ONE (CONT’D)
Who is it whose grief bears such emphasis, whose words of sorrow would cause the wandering stars to stand still like a wonder-struck audience? It is I, Hamlet the Dane.
(Beat.)
(Actor One tears up/cries while others apply finishing touches of make up.)
