Maisie Tan Philosophy 11

2018-00648 August 23, 2019

Breather Film Reflection #1: The Giver

In the Community, emotions are not something they can fully eliminate.They would still

need to share their feelings every night. The world was shown as grey and dull where most

things are done robotically such as apologizing. Break times and leisure times were not

something done in their free time as it was already a part of their schedule. Love is such a taboo

topic that they dismiss it as “imprecise”. The uniqueness of an individual is stripped away as

everyone has the same clothes, celebrates the same “birthday” of sorts and provided the same
material goods or food. There is no concept of a passion or free will in where you eventually end

up in life. If you feel dissatisfied with your job, you cannot quit and move to another task that
you feel is more suitable for you. You are assigned all your major life decisions and things that
happen by chance. Infants are given to the parents already named, so the parents have no control
over the child that they have. Your role in the community is chosen for you, you have no freedom
to pursue your interests as an occupation.

If the main goal of logic is to preserve truth, I think that eliminating it completely would
be ignoring another truth, that emotions are ever present in the human life. It is true that humans
feel emotion. It is true that people have diverse interests, passions and feel differently about
various topics. It is true that people are not just robotic suits that their brain pilots. You cannot
separate emotions from being human. As I have learned from my Anthropology class this
semester, being human means that we have the ability to have more complex emotions and that is
one factor that separates us from animals. The expression of our emotions, that feeling makes us
human. If logic is valuing the preservation of truth, it is illogical and hypocritical to be biased on
what truth is considered “true”.
 I do not think that being logical and having emotions are mutually exclusive. People are
able to compartmentalize and look at situations objectively. It is not a factor of getting rid of
emotions entirely to prevent biases, it is about using your logic to keep your emotions in check.
Logic dictates that you should be objective in thinking critically about a situation, so you do your
best to put your personal feelings aside and work on the problem. There exists sayings such as
“mind over matter” that allude to remaining logical and rational no matter what you are currently
feeling or experiencing.

Logic is purely rational. There are many things in life that have a basis of logic, however
relying solely on logic is not very viable in everyday life especially when dealing with other
humans with their own emotions. You cannot expect others to agree to a logical decision or think
logically just because you are. Most of the time, the decisions you make are not just for yourself.
There are consequences to your actions whether intentionally or unintentionally. A lack of the
emotional factor in decisions may lead to Machiavellian situations where you pursue the logical
option while failing to acknowledge the emotional impact that may have on you and the people
around you. An example of this is the process of “release” in the world of the film. This is used
on the elderly, unhealthy infants and those who have opposed the leadership. The elderly are
“taken out of their misery”. It prevents pain on the parents who raise a child that does not make it
to adulthood. They euthanize the lighter twin to prevent the Community from the issues caused
by overpopulation. Thinking rationally, the elderly would not be good for the society as they
cannot work as efficiently, nurturing a child that would not make it to adulthood would be a
waste of resources and having more children means more mouths to feed. In truth, release is
murder as opposed to the peaceful ceremony as it appears to be. I think the key is to find a
compromise between the most efficient, logical option and the emotional factor people may
have. As seen in the film, the world was portrayed as cold and grey. Emotions have brought new
life and a new perspective as symbolised by color. The return of emotions has given the people a
sense of empathy for those around them. I would say that empathy is the inherent advantage in
the integration of emotions within a logical mindset.