Today, I’m thankful for those who remind us that we must abide to a social contract.
“Aggression will not stand.”
Such are the words uttered by President George Bush on the television in the empty apartment of Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski. Adorned only in his bathrobe and flip flops, ‘The Dude’ returns from a trip to Ralph’s Local Store with a carton of cream in hand – a necessity for the White Russian drink he is hankering to devour. Yet, out of nowhere, ‘The Dude’ is attacked by two hitmen hired by a Los Angeles pornography producer, who has mistaken ‘The Dude’ for another man. You see, the wife of another Lebowski – the Big Lebowski – owes money to the producer. His thugs have simply been sent to retrieve what it rightfully his. They proceed to inflict pain on ‘The Dude’, even shoving his head down the toilet and urinating on his favorite rug. Of course, ‘The Dude’ tries desperately to explain that he’s not the Lebowski they are seeking. Although initially unconvinced, the two men begin to realize after assessing ‘The Dude’s’ sad state of living conditions, that they probably have a case of mistaken identity, and they exit the apartment in a rush.
Frustrated and irritated at this unfortunate turn of events, ‘The Dude’ seeks retribution for his favorite rug from the other Lebowski, who incidentally is a wheelchair-bound, millionaire octogenarian with a studious assistant (Brandt) and a flirtatious, trophy wife (Bunny). He tries to explain to the cantankerous old man how the ‘rug really tied the room together’, and he thinks it’s only fair that the Big Lebowski compensate him for his loss. The Big Lebowski dismisses ‘The Dude’ as nothing more than a worthless hippie, and he refuses to own up to the request for remuneration. Even worse, he accuses his younger namesake as being nothing more than a deadbeat seeking a handout. So, ‘The Dude’ takes matters into his own hands and steals one of the rugs from the Big Lebowski’s mansion.
Along the way, we meet ‘The Dude’s’ best friend and bowling partner, Walter, a loquacious Vietnam veteran with an impressive vocabulary and a penchant for explosive behavior. Walter suffers from his share of anger issues, as we quickly come to appreciate when he pulls a gun on a fellow bowling patron who he fears is fudging the score: “It’s a league game, Smokey. There are rules.”
And, so starts the first fifteen minutes of the 1998 cult classic by the Coen brothers, The Big Lebowski. Over the next 100 or so minutes, the dynamic duo of ‘The Dude’ (played by Jeff Bridges) and Walter (portrayed by John Goodman) is pulled into a number of outrageous escapades that call into question the normal social framework of society. Eventually, things reach their climax, and we once again find ‘The Dude’ ordering a beer in his favorite bowling alley. When confronted by a stranger at the bar who asks how he’s doing, ‘The Dude’ responds “Oh, you know, strikes and gutters, ups and downs.” The stranger cautions him to take it easy, to which he classically responds: “Yeah, well, The Dude abides.”
Jeff Bridges’ role as ‘The Dude’ never garnered the actor an Oscar nomination – a slight for which I might not forgive the esteemed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Thankfully, Jeff Bridges, who celebrates his 71st birthday on this day (Dec 4), has received his share of nominations in his illustrious acting career. During his 50 years of acting, he’s garnered 7 nominations from the Academy as either Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. In fact, he even took home the Oscar for Best Actor in the movie Crazy Heart.
Yet, in my humble opinion, it’s the Big Lebowski that stands above all others as my favorite Jeff Bridges’ portrayal. The Big Lebowski gleefully reminds me that we live in a society based on order. Much like Walter would explain to Smokey during their confrontation in the bowling alley, “there are rules” by which our society is built. The great English philosopher of the 17th Century, Thomas Hobbes, described this precept as the ‘social contract’ theory. As he notes within his famous 1651 book Leviathan, there are two laws of nature. The first law says that humans will not pursue any course of action that is destructive to their own lives, and, thus, they seek peace with their surroundings. So, this leads to the second law of nature, wherein Hobbes explains that humans, either explicitly or tacitly, are willing to forego some of their personal liberties to a ruling party in exchange for the protection of their basic freedoms. Without this construct, the world would devolve into anarchy – somewhat analogous to what we witness in The Big Lebowski. So, instead of having a society that if you urinate on my favorite rug, I can steal one from you, we have laws that allow for us all to coexist without perpetual warfare and endless strife. The maintenance of social order by its basic unit – the individual – can only be ensured if the ruling party provides protection to its constituents. Although Hobbes would not live long enough to see his ‘social contract’ theory in action (in fact, he died on this day in 1679), the principles he envisioned would become the basis of both the English and the American Bill of Rights. Our freedoms to fully express our beliefs in public, to exercise the religion in which we profess, and to have access to the due process of law must be maintained if the ruling parties wish to maintain their control. If such rights are intruded upon, then the ruling party has lost its legitimacy and society’s constituents have a right to replace their rulers with those better fit to maintain the common order.
But, it’s a delicate balance. As Ronald Reagan once elegantly noted, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
Now, of course, this does not mean that every instance we feel a bit slighted that we should be stealing our neighbors’ furnishings and pulling out revolvers on patrons in public spaces. Rather, it means we mush be cognizant that the social fabric on which our nation is built is fragile and must be protected. If not, anarchy will ensue, and that is not something to which I (or The Dude) would readily abide to.
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