Equilibrium! (knowing = being)

I stumbled upon the movie Equilibrium in the library last week while searching for an appropriate study break flick. (I didn’t pick that one but that’s not really the point.) When I saw the movie it immediately reminded me of Thomas’ recent post about knowing constituting being. For those who haven’t seen it, the plot is similar to that of the book Fahrenheit 451. 

Equilibrium is all about knowing and not knowing. In this futuristic world, feelings and artistic expression are banned and citizens take daily injections of drugs to suppress their emotions. Preston, the main character, unintentionally misses a dose of his suppressant and begins to question his morality. These questions, of course, do not come up until he becomes more aware of what there is to “know”. The members of this society all go about their days like robots more or less and those who are caught feeling are captured and killed.

 This is another argument for knowing constituting being. I’d argue that once we stop “knowing” we stop being to an extent. I know that some people have made arguments about what defines a robot and I wonder how close the characters in Equilibrium get to that definition. Not feeling limits how much ones knows so I would say that these people know very little. But I don’t know that emotionless human = robot (though we jokingly accuse those we know off being robots when we aren’t being human enough… Human check! (see my other post)).