Disclaimer: Sara Bizarro is a series editor at the Blog of the APA. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the American Philosophical Association or the Blog of the APA. 

The movie Slacker (1990) is Richard Linklater’s first larger-scale production. (His first movie, It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), was acted, directed, filmed by Linklater with a Super 8 camera and released only as a special feature in the Slacker DVD and Blu-Ray.) Slacker does not follow a traditional narrative structure. It follows 100 characters around the UT Austin area in a way that seems completely random. There is no protagonist, no story, no thread linking the individual events. Yet, somehow, it is a completely coherent and engaging movie that sparks as many reflections as the number of scenes it has.

Galen Strawson, in his paper “Against Narrativity” (2004), says that narrativity has become “intensively fashionable in a wide variety of disciplines including philosophy, psychology, theology, anthropology, sociology, political theory, literary studies, religious studies, psychotherapy, and even medicine.” Narrativity, loosely defined, is the idea that human beings construct stories about their own lives.

Strawson then makes a distinction between a “psychological Narrative thesis” and an “ethical Narrativity thesis.” The psychological theory is just a simple claim about how “human beings experience their lives,” that is, that they create narratives of their own lives. The “ethical Narrative thesis,” makes a further claim: it says that this is not only a natural tendency of human beings, but also a good thing. In fact, this thesis claims that narrativity is essential to a life well lived. Strawson will argue that this is not necessarily so.

Strawson claims that most narrative people tend to have a Diachronic self-experience, they see themselves and “something that was there in the past and will be there in the future… something that persists over a long stretch of time, perhaps for life.” People who are mostly Diachronic tend to have a narrative outlook.

But there are other people who, by contrast, are Episodic; they don’t necessarily consider themselves as a self, as something that was there in the past and will be there in the future. These people are aware that they have continuity as a human being, but they don’t feel that this continuity constitutes a coherent self, and they “have no particular tendency to see their life in Narrative terms.”

These distinctions are on a spectrum, some people are more Diachronic and some more Episodic, but that doesn’t mean a Diachronic person cannot sometimes be Episodic or that an Episodic person cannot have, in some instances, a view of the self. Both types of self-experiences can provide a meaningful life, and Strawson argues that it is not necessary to be Diachronic in order to have a good life. Episodics live more in the present, they have memories of the past, and they know it is their past, but they don’t identify their present self with their past self. They can still engage in an “examined life.” Like musicians who become better by practicing their instruments, episodics can improve and develop without creating themselves in terms of narratives.

In Slacker, Richard Linklater created a tableau of life around the West Campus area of Austin near the University of Texas at Austin, which seems to present its character as essentially non-narrative. The structure of the movie is also non-narrative itself, since we follow one character and then another in a seemingly disjointed way with no overarching narrative. We get only episodic moments of these characters’ lives, without any larger meaning to the story, except for how these characters choose to spend their time. The scenes in Slacker include conversations about philosophy, politics, conspiracy theories, relationships, and art. These characters do not seem to have any specific ambitions, but they are completely engaged in the present moment, in what is important to them. They also seem to interact with each other in a non-confrontational way, and accept how others choose to engage with their present moment, which may be aided by an Episodic sense of the self. Conflict seems to imply some disagreement between self and other, and if I am not attached to a Diachronic view of the self, I am less likely to criticize others.

The movie Slacker has also defined a generation, together with Douglas Coupland’s book, Generation X. Gen X includes people who were born from 1965 to 1980 (interestingly, neither Linklater nor Coupland are Generation X, since one was born in 1960 and the other in 1961). The Douglas Coupland book was also non-narrative in nature, with three initial characters, Dag, Claire, and Andy, who share stories between themselves, with other additional characters appearing and semi-random traveling ensuing without any overarching story. These depictions of Generation X led to accusations that Gen Xers were apathetic, lazy, cynical, disjointed, and lacked purpose. These claims, however, are from a perspective that values narrativity as a feature of a life.

The characters in Slacker are not lazy or apathetic, and they do not lack meaning in their lives. They are either college students or have spent time in college and are interested in philosophy, film, politics, art, and having meaningful interactions with their peers. They have an established community where they run into each other and interact socially in a fruitful way. They enjoy the moment and nurture their curiosity with a multiplicity of strategies. These characters are not only nurturing the life of the mind, but they are also modern-day philosophers. Ron Rosenbaum, a critic for the New York Observer, said about Slacker in 2001: “The coffee houses and beer gardens of Austin are the stand-ins for the agora of Athens.”

Slacker can be interpreted as a view of the good life from a non-narrative perspective, which includes engagement with the arts and disengagement with society, only insofar as it encourages people to get a job and pursue a career as a way to create a narrative for their lives. These characters may not know exactly what they want, but they are not interested in a traditional narrative for their lives. Their apathy is a refusal to participate in traditional narrativity, and their openness to participate in the moment and to explore possibilities is their greatest strength.

In Slacker characters do not have a name. Their name relates to the scene they are enacting. For example, one character is named “Giant Cappuccino” because he gets a giant cappuccino at a cafe. Another is called “Dostoyevsky Wannabe” because he discusses Dostoyevsky, and so on. In a scene in the movie, a character who is named “Having a Breakthrough Day” distributes cards from a creativity game originally invented by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt called Oblique Strategies. The purpose of the game is to help with creative endeavors. When someone is stuck, they pull a card and get some inspiration from what the card says. One of the cards pulled reads: “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy.” Being non-narrative is also not the same as apathy. The movie is a compelling argument that being non-narrative may be an essential step of protection against prevailing narratives, and it may turn out to be that for many, this exploration can last a lifetime, with great benefits for the explorer. The movie Slacker is a prototype for this type of exploration and is clearly closely aligned with the benefits of an Episodic life as proposed by Galen Strawson’s “Against Narrativity.”

Note: If you are a fan of the movie Slacker, or if you watch it for the first time after reading this blog entry and find it interesting, I am working on a volume of essays about this film and would love to get your proposal. Please email me at [email protected] for more information!