Twin Peaks and Philosophy: That's Damn Fine Philosophy!

Popular Culture and Philosophy #119

by Richard Greene (Editor)

2017 saw the triumphant return of the weird and haunting TV show Twin Peak s, with most of the original cast, after a gap of twenty-five years. Twin Peaks and Philosophy finally answers that puzzling What is Twin Peaks really about? Twin Peaks is about evil in various forms, and poses the What’s the worst kind of evil? Can the everyday evil of humans in a small mountain town ever be as evil as the evil of alien supernatural beings? Or is the evil of non-humans actually less threatening because it’s so strange and unaccountable? And does the influence of uncanny forces somehow excuse the crimes committed by regular folks? Some Twin Peaks characters try to confine evil by sticking to their own moral code, as in the cast of Albert Rosenfeld, who refuses to disguise his feelings and upsets everyone by his forthright honesty.

Twin Peak s is about responsibility, both legal and moral. Who is really responsible for the death of Laura Palmer and other murder victims? Although Leland has been revealed as Laura’s actual killer, the show suggests that no one in town was without some responsibility. And was Leland even guilty at all, if he was not in control of his own mind or body?

Twin Peaks is about the quest for self-knowledge and the dangers of that quest, as Agent Cooper keeps learning something new about himself, as well as about the troubled townspeople. The Buddhist Cooper has to confront his own shadow side, culminating in the rite of passage at the Black Lodge, at the end of Season Two.

Twin Peaks is about madness, sanity, the borderline between them, and the necessity of some madness to make sense of sanity. The outwardly super-normal if somewhat eccentric Agent Dale Cooper is the inspired, deranged, and dedicated shaman who seeks the truth by coming to terms with the reality of unreason, partly through his dreams and partly through his existential encounters with giants, logs, outer space, and other unexpected sources. Cooper challenges official law enforcement’s over-reliance on science.

Twin Peak s is about the imagination run wild, moving from metaphysics to pataphysics―the discipline invented by Alfred Jarry, which probes the assumption that anything can happen and discovers the laws governing events which constitute exceptions to all laws.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Film, Tv

258 pages, Paperback

Published August 7, 2018

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diane, i've just read this fascinating little book about all the philosophical tenets of the show Twin Peaks. Never realized how Buddhist and Kantian that world was, you should visit it some time now that you are no longer in the Black Lodge

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

obviously meant for people who watched the show, but not necessarily fans looking for meaning or explanation in Lynch's work. still, it introduces several interesting ideas with being too heavy on the academic side, especially about duality and repetition, vastly common in Twin Peaks. all in all, it's an interesting read, and I like the fact that this book came just in time to relate to season 3 as well.

[Dann · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The owls are not what they seem.” Twin Peaks and Philosophy: That’s Damn Fine Philosophy! explores the strange and bizarre mysteries of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cult television series. Addressing such issues as the Madonna-whore complex, epistemology, aesthetic intuition, power over vs. power-to, and the nature of evil, the authors fire walk through a variety of themes and characters from the series. However, many of the essays are just as enigmatic and metaphysical as the show, and are kind of hard to follow. Still, they help one appreciate how deep and complex the show is and present new ways to think about it. While Twin Peaks and Philosophy: That’s Damn Fine Philosophy! doesn’t really solve any mysteries or come to any concrete answers, it does reveal what we find so fascinating about the series.

[Kushal Srivastava · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was left unsatisfied at the end of this book and I'm the one to blame for it. I wanted this book to be something it wasn't supposed to be. I wanted it to be the ultimate guide to the mystery of Twin Peaks. I know that a true fan is not supposed to solve for it, but I couldn't resist. The book rather discusses whether Twin Peaks is art, whether it is true cinema, the concepts of duality so overused in Twin Peaks, the morality of twin peaks, the madness, and whether things not making sense is acceptable.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Zizek are discussed and how their ideas apply to Twin Peaks.

I will just put down a few of the ideas and quotes discussed in the book so that years later I can revisit this review and maybe get a dream in which a 25 years old scream lives in a red room:

Lynch leans so heavily on dream imagery, since, if Langere is correct, that is the very essence of cinema itself. As such, Twin Peaks demands that we not only interpret the events of the show but that we also reflect on the very medium and methods of movie making

Nothing is less artistic than a document that contains no surprises

Gadamer thought something is a work of art only if we participate with it

An argument is made that any art or scene is incomplete unless a viewer makes sense of it. In our making sense of the actions, we are participating in the process of the work of art’s creation.

Madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human

The philosophy at the heart of the show is absurdist aesthetics

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're looking for intriguing analysis and interpretation, I'd suggest bypassing this and going for The Blue Rose Magazine or 25YearsLater. While there are some solid gestures in a few of the chapters, these are consistently unsustained, as if the contributors were under severe time pressures and word-count constraints. I was very primed to enjoy this book and had my expectations dialed very reasonably, but it didn't come through for me.

[Christopher Green · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually like series like this, however the quality of writing and analysis in this book is abysmal. This reads like a collection of undergraduate essays on Twin Peaks. A great concept with terrible execution.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two of these essays were good. Some of them were so off the mark that I felt like one of us must have watched the show in an alternate universe. One was completely unconscionable.

[Pamela Chacón · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can be more interesting than mixing philosophy with Twin Peaks? I find this book really marvelous and entertaining. Two of my favourites things in life in one book: philosophy and Twin Peaks.