Philosophy - A Guide To Happiness (Channel 4, Sunday)
Talking 'Bout A Revolution (BBC 2, Monday and Tuesday)
Undercover Portrait (RTE 1, Tuesday)
(RTE 1, Sunday) Fair City
(RTE1, Wednesday)
Lounging on a bed, Michelle Hutchinson read aloud the severance letter her boyfriend had sent. It was standard "I'm not right for you and you're not right for me" stuff - customary hypocrisy presenting itself as regretful, reasonable and compassionate. Alain de Botton listened dutifully to the jilted babe's lovesick tones and decided to offer consolation: philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy to be precise. If de Botton was trying to score on the rebound, this was an interesting opening gambit, certainly more thoughtful than the jaded "shoulder to cry on" manoeuvre.
The programme's title, Philosophy - A Guide To Happiness, began to make a kind of sense. Vulnerable Michelle might make Alain very happy indeed. Still, the choice of Schopenhauer, philosophy's prince of pessimism, seemed odd. After all, he had had a disastrous love life, perhaps not surprisingly since he used philosophy as the material for his chat-up lines. (Even with today's love drugs kicking-in, a stern "Who are you and why are you here?" could lack a certain seduction on a nightclub floor) Surely a more hedonistic thinker would be more appropriate. But de Botton plumped for Schopenhauer to dispense advice about the unchanging nature of romantic love. In the process he said much about the changing nature of television.
Philosophy on telly has not been tried very often. Back in 1987, the BBC broadcast The Great Philosophers, a history of Western thought beginning with the death of Socrates and continuing up to the 20th century. The series featured the academic, journalist and broadcaster Bryan Magee engaging in 15 weekly 45-minute dialogues with other philosophers, among them A.J. Ayer, Bernard Williams and Peter Singer. The only woman among Magee's 15 guests was Martha Nussbaum, who spoke about Aristotle and didn't lie on a bed or mention the trials of lovesickness.
In the mid 1990s, BBC's The Late Show screened a dramatised version of Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. The idea was fine but quite clearly the budget wasn't and the effort is best forgotten. However, the huge popularity of Gaarder's book showed an appetite among the 1990s public, especially young people, for accessible work on philosophy. Affronted by demystifying populism, some specialist academics emitted predictably constipated groans. But the best of them could see the value, albeit qualified value, in Sophie's World and the book is now a popular classic.
Alain de Botton's book, The Consolations of Philosophy, on which his TV series is based, is unlikely to enjoy a comparable reputation. It's just too profoundly slick. Populism can legitimately generalise without excessive dumbing-down or suspicious selectivity. But de Botton on Schopenhauer seemed too much like Page Three philosophy. No matter how many lovelorn babes and flashy illustrations you use, Schopenhauer is difficult. Tellingly, 13 years ago when Bryan Magee and Frederic Copleston discussed him, they devoted more time to Schopenhauer's influence on Nietzsche and Wittgenstein than on Freud.
But Freud guarantees sexy bits. Hence de Botton's concentration on this aspect of Schopenhauer's thought. If sales and ratings are your aim, this is undoubtedly wise. However, when the subject matter is wisdom itself, such selectivity principally asks questions about the state of media in the 21st century. Interviewing randy nightclubbers, de Botton was told by the men that they were there "to pull birds". The women, being more profoundly pragmatic, giggled before one of them announced that they were seeking "a good shag".
For de Botton that was the QED of Schopenhauer's thinking on romantic love. It's driven by an overwhelmingly feral force pretending to pursue happiness but which, in fact, is concerned only with producing its own version of idealised children. Reason has nothing to do with it. Unconscious biological forces are in command. ("I couple, therefore I am.") It is not a partner who dumps you but nature itself. Therein lies the agony aunt consolation of Schopenhauer's philosophy - you shouldn't take jilting personally. "But isn't it sad that I can't have the person I want?" whimpered Michelle. De Botton agreed that yes, yes, of course it's a little bit sad. Then he asked her out to dinner.
Bryan Magee was criticised for not making use of television as a visual medium. It was a fair point. But Alain de Botton has gone too far in the other direction. Of course, pure discussion can be dull but rampant gimmickry is distorting. Certainly philosophy should be made accessible and engaging, but does it really need putative "bird-pullers" and "shag-seekers"? Isn't there already more than enough of these across the schedules? Perhaps words and pictures are a kind of dialectic within TV. If so, it's even more imbalanced now than it was back in 1987. Discuss.
There was more philosophy on Talking 'Bout A Revolution. Columnist with the Guardian Jonathan Freedland traipsed around the US finding examples of "true democracy". Elderly citizens in Florida, activists for the legalisation of marijuana in Oregon and defenders of the First Amendment (the right to free speech) in Massachusetts made his point. Compared with Britain, where sovereignty lies with the monarch and parliament, sovereignty in the US lies with the people. The ideas of the radical British who gave America this legacy should be brought back to Britain, said Freedland.
To all even half-sensible people in the year 2000, there is nothing remotely revolutionary about these ideas. They are mere common sense. In the long haul of human history, pharaohs, emperors, kings and queens may have had some value in their time. Now however, the living relics which remain are anachronisms - detritus of history. Sentimental attachments to such figures are understandable but nations, like individuals, must grow up sometime or become increasingly neurotic. The real wonder about Freedland's programme was its mildness.
Following his trip around America, the presenter convened a group of talking heads to discuss the weaknesses in "British democracy". Boris Johnson, Nigel Lawson, Warren Hoge, Geoffrey Robertson and Linda Colley (gesticulating Linda being rather more a pair of talking hands than a talking head) were gathered together in a plush, wood-panelled library. "How come local government is a term of empowerment in the States, but in Britain is a synonym for tedium?" asked Freedland. Why don't the people elect judges, police chiefs and fire chiefs?
Given that the answer is because it suits Britain's power elite to exercise rigorous control of society from the top down, this was not a conundrum of Schopenhauerian complexity. Yet only the American Hoge and Prof Colley (all gestures and good sense - a very unusual combo) said as much. Johnson affected a patronising and poohpoohing air towards the matter. Robertson, a barrister, did point to the dangers of office-seeking judges playing for votes by judging the public mood more crucial than judging crime. This was a fair point but, avoiding the counter-argument that, not needing popular approval, judges can sometimes be judged to be excessively concerned with preserving the status quo, it was polemically selective.
Lawson spoke about history and, compared with the United States, the greater unity of England (lamenting the devolutionary desires of the Scots and the Welsh and the secession of the Irish). "And what about the monarchy?" asked Freedland finally. In a multi-cultural society, can it be right that only a member of a certain Protestant Germanic family can become head of state? Any attempt to change the way its head of state is foisted upon Britain would be "infantile - juvenile at best", said Lawson. Even the suspiciously affable Freedland knew that this really meant "shut your face and know your place, impertinent Guardian boy".
Poetry, not philosophy, featured on RTE's Undercover Por- trait: Paul Muldoon. Seamus Heaney recalled being told that the schoolboy Muldoon was a "rara avis", which is, apparently, Latin for "a rare bird". It was certainly a rara phrase to hear on television. Tom Paulin, who, incidentally had savaged Alain de Botton's book on BBC 2's Review (Sunday), said that Muldoon's poems were "very beautiful". He had prefaced this judgment by saying that they were "poems not to be hugged - if you try to stroke them, they could bite you". Perhaps Tom had been reading Denis Donoghue's Ferocious Alphabet.
Anyway, the praise other poets heaped upon Muldoon was unstintingly lavish. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill called him "the greatest poet of our generation". Following in the rhymes of such notables as Matthew Arnold, W.H. Auden, Robert Graves and Seamus Heaney, Muldoon was last year elected professor of poetry at Oxford University. "He can open the language like a peacock's tail," said Heaney, using a simple simile which displayed the rara elegance of his own language. Clearly, Muldoon has a gift and just as clearly this hugging TV portrait won't have bitten his reputation in the least.
Finally, to less lofty fare: Glenroe and Fair City. Both soaps screened weddings this week - Dick Moran and Venetia Crosby down on the farm and Jimmy Doyle and Lorraine Molloy up in the smoke. Nobody told either couple that they were fooling themselves really, that irresistible unconscious forces, disguised as true love (except in money-mad Dick's case), were at play. Of course, Dick and Venetia are rather hardy to be impelled by the urge to procreate. Then again, Schopenhauer on soap might be excessively populist for even Alain de Botton.
Traditionally, weddings are major ratings pullers for soap operas. Understanding this, the RTE Guide hyped up these gigs with cover photos and promo yarns. In fairness, both soaps produced commendable moments of authenticity - the directing in Glenroe and the only slightly overcooked neurotic nervousness of Lorraine struck true notes. But both had dark forces circling. Venetia's outraged son, Hoppy, seems prepared to lose the family's tax-dodging loot sooner than let Dick get his hands on it. And Shelley O'Connor, nemesis of Lorraine's da, Harry, pitched up at the church.
Well, in soap, plots have to be kept going and dramatics are needed to keep viewers hooked. We don't need Schopenhauer or any other philosopher to understand the underlying forces at work in television. Variations on the old themes of a cad marrying for money and a Fatal Attraction, "hell-hath-no-fury", scorned woman will always be with us. Compared with Shelley, jilted Michelle seemed excessively philosophical about being rejected. Then again, Shelley hasn't got the consolation of that best-selling rara avis, Alain, for comfort.