For all your “Lost” Needs

A reader writes:

Don’t know if this is relevant to your blog, but I have put together a webpage that explains how to watch the last two seasons of Lost in chronological order.

If someone has never seen Lost, they certainly should watch it in the normal order the first time! But if you have been watching, and are confused by the last season and a half — or just would like to see it again in a different way — this might be helpful.

It’s chronological with regard to the characters (in other words, I don’t try to unwind all the time shifts). One of the fun things is that it makes clear what we _don’t_ know (e.g., there are a lot of gaps in the story of Sayid when he was working as an assassin for Ben).

Also, another reader writes:

Hello Mark:

I believe we may have some mutual friends, such as Ted Sri, or Matthew Tsakinikas. I am a philosophy professor at Benedictine College, where Ted previously taught and where Matt teaches currently.

Hello! Yes! I know Ted (though not Matt). We co-authored a little book on the Da Vinci Code a couple of years ago. Great guy!

I read with interest an article you wrote for the Kansas City diocesan news paper, on the TV show Lost.

Given the large number of characters named after political philosophers, I wonder if the show is some sort of modern, battle of the books, of the ancients against the moderns. The ancients being the religious traditions characterized by the Dharma initiative (Dharma is often translated as law, and they did speak Latin as their primary language at one time). From what I’ve read, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels was the last great work to enter into the debate.

Hmmmm… That’s interesting! I’ll have to think about it. They do make a very self-conscious point of referencing lots of literature, but I’m not sure they have a carefully worked out allegorical scheme in mind. I think the show revels in it’s allusiveness (and elusiveness) and loves to make literary references for the sake of making literary references. But the writers are clearly smart enough to be making real connections too. Ben’s speech about St. Thomas was a clear telegraph of what would happen to Locke (and about as clear a restatement of the backbone of premodern thinking as you could hope for). But Ben himself is not exactly the sort of person you hope to represent religious tradition. 🙂 Personally, I suspect the writers haven’t figured it out yet either and are as much in the dark about who Jacob is and why dead people keep turning up everywhere as we are. 🙂

I also wonder if the smoke monster is not some form of Leviathan. Given that the show has both Locke and Rousseau, who are social contract theorists, it would make sense that there is some reference to Hobbes.

Yep. Also, I wonder why they rubbed out C.S. Lewis so fast. 🙂

If I have enough student interest in it, I hope to offer a course this summer on the political philosophers behind the show, as well as on the show itself, at Benedictine College.

Excellent! I bet you’ll get a ton of interest!

Glad to hear that you are also interested in it.

God bless,

Lloyd Newton, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Benedictine College
Atchison, KS 66002

Gentle Reader: Your theories about Lost are welcome below.