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LOST is not a story of good versus evil.  When Kate and Jack killed the Smoke Monster no dramatic music played.  The credits did not roll.  The greater part of the story remained.

LOST is not a story of freedom versus destiny.  Jack “chose” to become Protector of the Island, but only because he recognised the office as his destiny.  The entire story was built on a continuous assumption of ultimate purpose; free will was given short shrift.  But the story was not about fate per se.

LOST is not a story of science versus faith.  Once Locke freed Jack from the shackles of logic, the deepest part of the story remained.  We discovered with Jack his true purpose, the purpose of the Island, our purpose as human beings.

LOST is the story of our humanity and the cultural elements comprising its essential core.  LOST tells us the unceasing perpetuation of civilisation is the source and final goal of all culture, all humanity, all divinity. If we cannot live together, if we die alone, we are lost.  But if we recognise and honour the call to civility, allow the Light inside to guide us, we find our way to each other, and we are not lost.

A simple idea.  A one-hour Hallmark special ought to suffice.  Hell, even a Histori.ca minute oughta do it, right?  No.  Six years were required, and for good reason.  This will not be a short essay.

Live Together, Die Alone

Jack framed a crude, initial statement of the thesis in Episode 1.05, “White Rabbit”.  The emphasis is mine.

“It’s been six days and we’re all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come. But what if they don’t? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out. A woman died this morning just going for a swim and he [Boone] tried to save her, and now you’re about to crucify him? We can’t do this. Everyman for himself is not going to work. It’s time to start organizing. We need to figure out how we’re going to survive here. Now, I found water. Fresh water, up in the valley. I’ll take a group in at first light. If you don’t want to go come then find another way to contribute. Last week most of us were strangers, but we’re all here now. And God knows how long we’re going to be here. But if we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.”

These are easy words to preach, they are most difficult principles to practice.  For one thing, not everyone’s needs and abilities are identical.  When needs are great and resources are few, conflict is inevitable.  These two elements, differing needs and dearth of resources, are further exacerbated by the natural human tendency toward selfishness.  A breakdown in civility could be expected on the basis of any two of these three destructive elements.   In a conventional story, these are the only three elements that would be addressed.  A power struggle could be expected, and the story would end with the establishment of a chosen, appointed, or assumed leader, and an Island government.  The leader, acting as arbiter of the Common Good, would make decisions on the allocation of food and resources, work schedules, communal projects, and any other activities required for the general welfare.

But LOST is not a conventional story.  Appointing a leader for the survivors, finding a replacement for Ben, completing the process of turning a Candidate into the Protector of the Island were not the final objectives of the show.  If they had been, that one-hour Hallmark special would have done the trick.  The problem is much deeper, and required a few years of intense development and discussion.

Jack of the Nuclear Age

One of the more interesting philosophical positions on the scenario of a stranded group of individuals was developed by William Golding in his 1954 masterpiece, “Lord of the Flies”.  At the very end of the novel,  the boys’ island engulfed in flames, Ralph on the verge of being murdered by Jack Merridew and his lawless gang, a British Royal Navy officer appeared on the beach.

With the arrival of the officer in his dazzling white, perfectly pressed uniform, the boys realised the extent of their depravity.  Living without the order imposed by civilisation, the boys had reverted to barbarism, or something that might even be considered closer in character to a pre-human, animal existence.  But instantly, with the return of civilisation, represented by the just-so uniforms of the Royal Navy, all was well again.

I believe LOST accepts the notion of selfishness, but I am certain it adamantly rejects Golding’s starched uniform ideal.  Golding’s novel was pessimistic.  If people are taken outside their normal social milieu, they will succumb to their basest instincts, which are entirely selfish, destructive, and disrespectful of human life itself.  All that is needed to restore order are the outward trappings of civilisation:  Uniforms tailored, laundered, and pressed just so, British Common Law, a jolly game of cricket, tea time at four o’clock sharp, and a rousing chorus of God Save the Queen.  Meanwhile, inside the pressed uniform, the depraved desires are tensed, waiting for their moment to escape the artificial constraints of Victorian sensibility to unleash whatever urges and excitements appeal at the moment.

LOST rejects this idea.  The starched uniform is not important and is not the defining aspect of civility.  Civility is not external, but very much internal.  The body, mind, and soul inside the uniform is what concerns LOST.  It is the enormous depth that LOST attempted that rendered it entirely unsuited to the limited format of a brief novel or two-hour movie.  LOST started with Golding but would go much, much farther in establishing and delineating its unique thesis.

Pristine Snow Blanketing Putrid Dung

Jack Merridew of the Nuclear Age was inherently depraved.  Jack Shephard, the New Jack, was not inherently or even essentially evil.  Darlton’s Jack–representing each one of us–was inherently and essentially good.

If we are to understand the ramifications of the thesis of LOST, we must first understand what LOST believes about the nature of humanity.  Simply saying “LOST believes we’re all good at heart” will not suffice, because the show took pains to explain its position on humanity.  The need to plumb the depths of the human soul inevitably requires that we employ the language of religion.  I beg the reader to understand, as I begin delving into religious territory, that I do this within the context of the television programme.  It is not my intention to provide commentary on any particular religious tradition or to advocate one strain of religion over any other.

According to apocryphal citation, adherents of some religious traditions have held that human nature is best compared to a seething, putrid dung heap.  I advise again that I do not claim that any particular tradition currently embraces this comparison, or that any tradition ever did use this imagery in its teaching, or that the teaching is without religious merit.  But the image is powerful and appropriate to this discussion because it relates a way of thinking about humanity helpful in better understanding LOST.  According to this apocryphal tradition, the redeeming grace of the Creator can be thought of as a pristine layer of snow, forever covering the dung heap.  The disagreeable odour of the dung is replaced by the clean scent of fresh snow, and all of the vile aspects of the dung are hidden, replaced by the beauty of the perfectly white (perfectly clean, without even the smallest stain of sin) powder from heaven.

The powerful imagery is predicated on theological understandings of human nature and the nature of divine grace.  According to this way of thinking, not even the omnipotence of the Creator is sufficient to change the essentials of human nature.  We are depraved, treacherously sinful creatures, with or without the divine intervention of grace, redemption, or salvation.  The covering of our sins by the Creator’s perfect grace (the snow in the apocryphal analogy) is sufficient to render us suitable for redemption or the afterlife or whatever rewards might accrue to a life lived in the Creator’s grace.

I believe this understanding of human nature to be entirely at odds with the view expressed in LOST.  I believe LOST proclaims that there is an unalterable basis for positing the inherent goodness of human nature.  Further, I believe LOST conveys the idea that tendencies toward evil can be changed; even if the fundamental disposition of an individual is toward evil, with appropriate and effective intervention at the spiritual level, that disposition can be redirected toward constructive intentions and pursuits.

The Source

The Source is the point of contact with the Divine.  We might think of it as something akin to the Burning Bush, but the comparison is feeble.  The Burning Bush was a divine apparition in a form suitable to Moses’ human understanding.  The Source is raw, unfiltered divine power.  It is the Burning Bush, but it burns not only with bright light, but with heat, with angry red judgment,  with the full majesty and fury and terror of a million suns, with the complete force of divine will.

The Creator is Source of all power, and Her strength is not subject to the whims or puny syllogisms of the most intelligent human mind or the most powerful engine humans could ever create.  There is but one way to meet the Source, and that is through an eternal commitment.  Theology expresses this commitment as something called “Covenant”.  In Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, one of the most important covenants was expressed as a set of Ten Commandments etched on stone tablets.  The physical instrument of Covenant in LOST is the Cork Stone, inscribed in ancient cuneiform script with the most important lessons of human civilisation.  We meet the Source by coming into Covenant with the Source.  The Cork Stone is humanity’s statement of commitment to the ideals of civilisation.  By dropping the Cork Stone into the centre of the Source, we establish the only possible connection between that which is human and that which is divine, and that connection is predicated on and creates the fertile ground for the unceasing propagation of human civilisation.  The pledge of civility is our Covenant with the Divine.

The Light

It is by the power of the Source working through the etched-in-stone precepts of civilisation on the Cork Stone that we are allowed to enjoy the chief benefit of the filtered, raw divine energy that we experience as the comforting Light of the Source.  Not the “energy field created by all living things” of Star Wars or pantheism, the Light that each one of us carries in our hearts (“a little bit of this very same light is inside of every man,” according to the Guardian in “Across the Sea”) is present inside us only because of our communal commitment to the responsibilities of civilisation.

The Light is that aspect of reality that we share with the Creator.  The first book of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis, speaks of humanity’s likeness to the Creator:  “God created human beings in the divine image; in the divine image God created them; male and female God created them.” (Gen. 1:27)  Human beings, in the Hebrew tradition, are the Image of the Creator.   We share with the Creator some ineffable, undefined aspect or substance or quality that imbues us with inherent worth.  Our value is not a function of utility, expression, or function in life.  Our worth is independent of intellectual or creative accomplishment, and cannot be calibrated against or thought to wax or wane with crimes committed or great works performed.  All of us, whether prince or pauper, saint or criminal, bear the divine image and are therefore, of all creation, closest in likeness and actual substance to the Creator; human beings are therefore sacred, inviolate.  In the language of LOST, we are all bearers of the divine Light, and our dignity expresses itself in our commitment to the humble and yet earnest maintenance and propagation of that Light.  That is to say, commitment to the responsibilities and benefits of civilisation is the source and final objective of our identity and our human dignity.

It is because of the Light that Jack (and all of us) carry the divine spark of goodness in our hearts.  The Light renders us inherently good.  The Light is always present, so that at any moment we might choose to orient our thoughts and intentions and choices and actions along a fundamental disposition toward the responsibilities/freedoms of civilisation.

The Problem of LOST

If Jack was inherently good, if he worked diligently, even past the point of exhaustion, even to the point of transfusing his own blood to save a dying man, how could LOST possibly say that Jack was in any way insufficient to the position of leader of the survivors, or the office of Protector of the Island?  Why did Jack have to endure a three-year ordeal, a series of psychological and spiritual trials that nearly killed him, before he was deemed ready for the great responsibilities of Protector?

Boone was dying.  Nothing Jack Shephard did, no course of action available to him on the Island, would lead to any but the most dreaded outcome.  Boone would die, had to die, regardless of any of Jack’s many heroic actions.  Jack worked ceaselessly, hour after hour, ignoring his own physical needs, giving every ounce of his strength and even his own blood in an attempt to pull Boone away from the clutches of death.

This was not the first time Jack had been forced into a position of confronting the full reality of death.  The first instance occurred during their initial night on the Island.  Federal Agent Ed Mars, a jagged slab of metal imbedded in his abdomen, could not possibly survive without immediate, state-of-the-art surgical procedures unavailable on the Island.  Jack refused to surrender, tending to his dying patient night and day.  It was only Sawyer’s botched attempt at euthanasia that eventually accelerated Mars’ demise, though painfully so, as Jack explained  to Sawyer.  If not for Sawyer’s well-intentioned action, Jack would have spent even more of his precious time tending to a patient who instead should have been triaged into the care of a lesser-trained person.

Jack’s refusal to admit defeat was driven by two important events in his past.  The more immediate, and possibly the more important of the two, was the intensely emotional scene of Charlie’s resuscitation after his hanging.

Many consider this scene, fraught with deep, unsettling, raw emotion, the most moving moment in the six years of LOST.  Kate, driven to wretched pain and tears by Charlie’s death, implored Jack to stop pummeling Charlie’s chest.  He was dead.  Nothing Jack did was going to change that.  Jack stopped for only a moment, pulled back his own tears, and then raised a strong, angry arm into the air and pulled down the full weight of his fury, beating Charlie’s chest with inhuman force.  He did it again.  And again.  And again.  Against all the laws of medicine and physics and nature, Charlie’s heart started.  By indefatigable force of will, Jack brought Charlie back from death.

The issue in all three of these incidents was not the extent of Jack Shephard’s medical prowess or depth of his human passion.  He was by any standard a most gifted physician and expert surgeon.  The issue for LOST was Jack’s intent.  He did not exert superhuman heroics to save Ed Mars or Charlie Pace or Boone Carlyle.  Jack went to extraordinary lengths to serve his own ends.  He had to “fix” every patient because to do otherwise was a personal (not a professional) failure that would, he believed, count against him in his father’s eyes.  The well-being of his patients was a distant secondary concern to Jack Shephard.  Serving his own selfish urge to prove his father wrong, prove himself always personally and scientifically superior, was the overwhelming force motivating the good works of Dr. Jack Shephard.

In the world of LOST, “being a good person” is not always enough.  The measure of a human being is seen in and composed of the same Light.  But for those who seek leadership, much more is required.  Leadership, of the variety that bears on human endeavour, requires intimate engagement with the primal stuff of our humanity, requires single-minded and sacrificial commitment to the foundations of human civilisation.

Jack, until his enlightenment, lacked commitment.  He was not engaging with the essential elements of humanity because he was consumed with the urge to satisfy his unquenchable personal needs for proof of perfection.

Worse, Jack, with all of us, was conditioned to accept as normative, and not only acceptable but expected and desired, behaviours and ways of thinking that he later understood to be antithetical to the best traditions of human civilisation.  Somehow Jack had to overcome his perverse, regimented, and useless way of looking at the world.  The Island found a means by which Jack could achieve this end:  Disorientation.

Disorientation

Jin and Sun react to the loud, piercing sound of Swan Station time/place reset in Episode 2.24, “Live Together, Die Alone”

The full truth of the Swan Station eventually became too much for even John Locke’s mind to accept.  He thought himself re-awakening to reality when he marched into the geodesic dome and violently threw the ancient computer to the concrete floor, proving, or so he thought, the lack of meaning behind the numbers and the decades-long practice of entering the six-integer sequence every 108 minutes.  Only when steel containers and metal knives flew through the air and the fillings in his teeth threatened to pull loose did Locke realise his error.

There are in this world special places of extraordinary significance, loci of unexplained power and unimaginable beauty:  the gigantic Easter Island statues, the perfectly symmetrical Peruvian desert drawings, the “impossibly” perfect Mayan architectures of the Chichen Itza temples.  These structures, whose fabrication would tax modern capabilities, were completed hundreds of years ago using materials and methods entirely unknown and apparently as advanced as any modern equivalents.

We rebel at thoughts such as these, conditioned as we are to  believe that certain levels of scientific capability must precede any creations such as those we observe on Easter Island, in the Peruvian desert, and on the Yucatán.  The rules of cause and effect tell us that some advanced science must have been created to allow the design and execution of drawings several kilometres in length and breadth.  At the very least, the ancient desert dwellers must have had access to aerial or satellite photography to ensure straight lines.  Our minds cannot fathom alternatives (the artist dreamed the correct orientation of lines over hill and dale, across stream and field; shamans led the construction effort, using knowledge of medicines to predict proper shape of the drawings; etc.).

When Locke told Jack the Island was special, that bizarre communication elevated Locke to a certain level of disequilibrium in Jack’s estimation.  When only a couple months later Locke told him the Island had to be “protected”, Jack felt entirely justified in his conclusion that Locke had completely lost touch with reality.

But then the Island disappeared from the ocean, leaving not a trace behind.

Jack saw his dead father, alive, in the jungle, leading him beside fresh waters–and to the casket that contained no body, but only a mystery.  Even Locke had conversations with Jack’s dead father, told Jack the old man said hello.

At some point the burden of so many occurrences unexplainable by any rational means became too much for poor Jack.  Disorientation was the painful but very necessary means of loosing Jack from the comfortable scientific straight jacket he had spent a lifetime engineering for himself.  He came to understand, as the result of one painful or inexplicable event piled on top of another and then yet another, that science could explain only a small and increasingly irrelevant sampling of the important events in his life.  The particulars of his connection to the world that carried greatest significance to him were those unfettered by any relationship to logic:  his love for Kate, the Island’s hold over his thoughts, the growing awareness that Locke had been right–about everything.

Cognitive Partiality

Shannon tries to make sense of Rousseau’s sixteen-year-old French recording, Lost 1.02, “Pilot”

Disorientation was intensified and broadened by the fact that only rarely could two people agree on anything:  the significance of an event transpired, the action that should be taken in response to a problem or threat, the meaning of so many unearthly occurrences on this strange island.  No one had a complete understanding of the Island.  Ben claimed to know everything, but of course, he did not.  Did even Jacob himself understand how the Island had healed Locke’s paralysis and Rose’s cancer?  No one had all the answers, but everyone had an axe to grind, an agenda to pursue, a mission to fulfill.  The needs and desires of every one of the major players on the Island coloured their understanding of the meaning of Island phenomena and their significance to the group.  Differing agendas, the strange nature of the Island, the fear and threat of death looming in unexpected places, engendered confusion, mistrust, and very quickly created hostility, open aggression, and occasionally outright genocide.  An entire village was consumed by the Guardian’s wrath.  The Dharma Initiative, at Ben’s behest, was wiped out.

Other than the Hansos (Magnus and great-grandson Alvar), who were almost certainly motivated by greed, and the United States Army, which was motivated by discovering another island they could turn into radioactive waste, no one came to the Island by choice.  Upon arrival, the survivors or refugees or captives made a decision to find a route off the Island, find a means of exploiting the Island’s powers, or find a way to eliminate competitors or those deemed a danger or a hindrance.  These were the primary motivators, and for untold centuries, Jacob found not a single soul motivated by the desire to serve the Island’s needs.

We found ourselves stranded on the Island after the crash of Flight 815 on September 22, 2004.  But with the advantage of an almost global view (relevant stories told from four dozen points of view over six years), we pieced together a certain feeling about the Island only short episodes after Locke made his earliest pronouncements on the Island’s import.  Long before Locke told Jack the Island had to be protected, we felt the truth of this in our hearts.  We had to go through the same disorientation as Jack and Locke.  Our thought processes had to be adjusted.  We had to come to the realisation that polar bears roamed the Island, illnesses were miraculously cured, the DI continued to make food drops decades after Hanso’s group had virtually ceased to exist as an entity, at least on the Island.  None of it made any sense, and no answers were anywhere in sight.  We never gave up seeking those answers, but over time we also came to appreciate Locke’s wisdom:   The most important aspects of Island life would simply have to be accepted on faith.

Disorientation is integral to the process of preserving human civilisation.  History is the ongoing story of our attempts to progress along a path toward more complete harmonisation with the fundamental expectations of civil society.  Inevitably, some of our experiments are well-intentioned failures that only serve to pull us away from our goal.  Some of the experiments turn out to be deceptions, fabrications intended to serve the selfish needs of a particular group, but serving instead to sever human connection to civility.  More often than not, these groups are led by the Charles Widmores, Martin Keamys, and Stuart Radzinskys of this world.  Through the pain of disorientation, we come to understand the folly of selfish greed, we come to see its false allure, the inevitable destruction it causes to culture, humanity, and the civility from which every good aspect of human life draws sustenance and meaning.

A Culture of Trust

LOST is about the elements of our humanity that precede and supersede life itself.  Our common humanity has a value greater than life.  LOST argues that there must be a fertile ground into which we place the fragile seeds of our human existence.  This ground is rich in trust, empathy, compassion, respect, and the desire to serve the needs of others.  This is our perfection.

Locke, though he was long dead, was essential to the endgame of LOST.  Jack, lowering Desmond down to the Source, said, “Turns out [Locke] was right about most everything. I just wish I could’ve told him that while he was still alive.”

If he was so important to the end of the show, Locke must have evinced some quality distinguishing him above every other character.  His impact on the endgame was not the result of his fondness for knives, the fact that he was confined to a wheelchair, his natural  teaching ability, or any other of the accidentals associated with his existence.  There was something about Locke that made him, and no one else, essential to Jack, and therefore essential to the Island.

Locke was connected to the Island.  He knew when the rain would fall.  He seemed to be able to track anything through the jungle, as if he knew the place, as if he didn’t even need his eyes to make a way through the forest.  The Island healed him, restored his ability to walk, gave him boar to hunt, and provided him insight into the Island.  Not because the Island felt sorry for him, or saw a “sucker”.  No. The Island healed him because Locke, by his very nature, understood the Island.  He had an intuitive grasp of the Island’s essence long before Flight 815 crashed near the water.  Among other strong bits of evidence, his depiction of the Smoke Monster, committed to a charcoal drawing at the age of five, constituted overwhelming proof of his connection.  All of this relates directly to the single aspect of character that is present in John Locke in greater abundance than in any other human being to have walked trail or shore.

The strength of character to which I refer is trust.  John Locke trusted, almost without hesitation.  If you are new to my LOST articles, you may argue that Locke’s trusting nature was not a virtue, it was gullibility, plain and simple.  He was possibly the most gullible personality ever explored on network television.  All of this is true.  Nevertheless, LOST wishes us to believe that Locke’s trusting nature was essential to the outcome of the story.  There was something good and pure and efficacious in Locke’s trusting nature.

LOST tells us that Trust is essential.  It is the core cultural value on the Island.  But there must be some basis for trust.  Even if Locke’s ability to trust was a virtue, nevertheless the trust could be abused so that the person trusted could bend the situation to her advantage and even visit harm upon the one trusting.

At least superficially, the Island seemed to be the most unlikely location to establish a culture of trust.  Everyone, it seems, lied.  There were people on the Island who lied about things large and small, things trivial and essential, things of life and even things of death.  Some people, like Benjamin Linus, seemed to have progressed through life and come into positions of authority entirely on the basis of a complicated structure of lies.

Ben was not alone in his reliance on falsehood.  Sawyer also made a career out of deceit.  The Smoke Monster lied about a great many things for a long time.  Every major character in this six-year drama lied at one time or another, some much more than others.  Even Hurley, great saint of honesty and truth, agreed to the Great Lie that Jack fashioned before they were rescued after the first three months on the Island.  When he had a choice between telling the truth and remaining subject to Ben’s manipulations or telling a lie and ending up in prison for the remainder of his life, incarcerated for multiple murders, Hurley chose to lie.

If everyone lies–that is, if everyone attempts to deceive others and violate their trust–how could trust ever be possible, especially on the Island?

Basis for Trust

The following is a précis, with minor changes, drawn from one of my earlier LOST articles.

Jack has come to a fork in the road.  Ahead are two paths, one guarded by Charlie Pace, the other guarded by Benjamin Linus.  One path leads to Shambala, the other path leads to a dark valley where a ferocious monster kills every person who passes by.  Jack doesn’t know which path leads to Shangri-La, but he knows the guards are familiar with both paths.  After several years of gathering clues, he knows one of the two guards always tells the truth, and the other guard always lies, but he again doesn’t know which is the truth teller and which is the source of false statements.  Even though he doesn’t know which guard to trust, Jack decides to ask Charlie the single question he is allowed to pose.  What is the question Jack asks?

It’s an elementary school logic puzzle, but it gets to the heart of the question of trust as it played out on the Island.  Jack doesn’t know whether he can trust Charlie or Ben, but he knows he can trust one of them.  More importantly, he can trust the rules of the game.

He poses this question to Charlie:  Which way would Ben say is the road to Shambala?  Just as Jack can trust the dynamite above not to explode, he knows that in Charlie’s answer, regardless of whether he lies or tells honestly, Jack will find the truth.

In the same way, Jack relied on his firm grasp of the Rules of the Island to determine the best response to the presence of a bomb in his backpack.  He didn’t have to trust the Smoke Monster.  He had to trust the Island.  Jack understood, not intuitively as John Locke did, but by brute force logic, that he had to trust the Island.  It was this trust that allowed him to win the millennia-old backgammon game, making the last move that erased the Smoke Monster’s supernatural advantage, rendered him mortal, and finally ended his wretched existence.

Some of the survivors had neither intuitive nor brute-force understanding of the Island.  Sawyer, unfortunately, was among the unenlightened, and it was his action that caused the bomb to explode.  But it was not his fault.  The nature of the game and the way it was played over the millennia by two very imperfect creatures incapable of love were the elements most worthy of blame.

Trust the Island, Locke said.  Jack listened, and he discovered  the correct Road to Shambala.  The Island civilisation instituted by Jack and continued by Hurley and “Number Two” Ben Linus was based on trust.  “I trust you, dude,” Hurley told Sayid in the sideways reality.  It was the mantra of Season Six.

Love

The sixth season of LOST launched a continuing series of cultural virtues:  Love, Trust, Faith, Honesty, Hope, and in Hurley’s episode (6.12), Charity.  But by far, the greatest of these, the virtue to which lavish attention was given, was Love.

As best I can tell, only two individuals received invitations for unaccompanied passage to the “pre-moving-on” party in the sanctuary of the Church of the Holy Lamp Post at the end of the series:  John Locke and Boone Carlyle.  Everyone else, apparently, had to bring her significant other–her Constant–or she was not allowed entry.  My conclusion was that a Constant was the prerequisite to passage onward to the next level (to “heaven”?).  The fact that Locke was unaccompanied made sense; his Constant was the Island, and he was connected to it both bodily (his body was buried on Boone Hill, after all) and spiritually.  Boone’s case was more difficult.  The only valid hypothesis I could muster was a shared Constant:  both Boone and Sayid must have considered Shannon their Constant.

The essentiality of the Constant to individuals and to the Island society struck me as a radical statement of the series.  In the religious tradition I try to follow, significant others are not a pre-requisite to any aspect of communion with the Deity.  If one does cultivate a reciprocal love, romantic or otherwise, this is considered all to the good, but it is certainly no requirement.  Single people, married people, those in committed relationship, even hermits with no relationship, are welcome at the table of heaven according to the tradition in which I participate.  I am married, and I would like to believe that this fact qualifies me, in my religious tradition, to certain perks.  I cannot imagine, for instance, that marriage ends with the death of the human body.  But marriage does end at death, at least according to the religious teachings in my faith tradition.  In heaven there is no beer, and in heaven there is neither husband nor wife.  I can’t say I appreciate or understand or agree with this long-held teaching, but nevertheless, it is integral to the theological positions of many religious traditions.  There are no heavenly perks for married people.  When you die, that gold band stays on the finger of your rotting corpse–you can’t take it with you.

It is from this faith background that I consider LOST’s position on love to be radical.  But in examining the Season Six sideways statements concerning Faith, Honesty, Charity, Hope, and especially Trust, this radical and possibly unique statement regarding Love fits perfectly, and becomes the seamless expansion of an essential clause in LOST’s thesis statement.

The essential aspects of civilisation that must be safeguarded, even at risk of life and limb, are these:

Trust
Love
Faith
Honesty
Hope
Charity

There are no “isms” worthy of preservation in the world of LOST.  The liberalism of Jacob (“It only ends once.  Everything else is just progress”) gives way to the conservatism of Hurley (“That’s not cool, dude,” as Hurley often said; Hurley has rendered many decisions regarding what he considers inappropriate behaviour by others–behaviours that probably would have been accepted by the more liberal Jacob.), but neither is a virtue as far as I can tell on the Island of Mittelos.  The Protector is apparently given virtual carte blanche regarding her leadership and government style.  ” That’s how Jacob ran things,” Ben told Hurley.  “Maybe there’s another way.  A better way.”  Ben recognised the wide latitude the Island gave the Protector.

The unifying characteristic of these aspects of civilisation is their expectation or requirement for human collaboration and broad participation.  A life grounded in faith is preferred over existence based on science.  There are many reasons for this, but surely one of the major reasons for favouring faith must be centred on the horizontal nature of faith (all share equally in the Light; multiple approaches are invited–”You do what you do best, Hugo”), compared to the rigid, sceptical, show-me-the-proof, hierarchical nature of logic-based science.

Destructive Cultures

One might well imagine Island civilisation whole-heartedly embracing broadly-accepted human cultural ideals, such as La Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of the French Revolution, or the more modern version, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as promulgated by the United Nations in 1948.

LOST appears to condemn certain features of historic cultures.  The Dharma Initiative is seen as not only flawed, but almost laughably so.  Science in general is considered inadequate to complete understanding of civilisation and culture.  Any human activity destructive of collaboration or the essential tenets (faith, love, trust, etc.) would certainly be condemned.  Selfishness of any kind, antithetical as it is to healthy civilisations, would be considered the worst of the offences against humanity, an attitude shared with many matricentrist and aboriginal civilisations.  In some aboriginal cultures, extreme selfishness was a capital offence.  The most selfish players in the series (Charles Widmore, Stuart Radzinsky, and Martin Keamy) were not given invitations to the big fête at Our Lady of the Foucault Pendulum,  and Keamy died, even in the sideways reality.  Poof!  He ceased to exist.  In heaven there is no beer, and in heaven there is no Martin Keamy.  I would guess, in the theology of LOST, anyone pursuing selfish agendas damaging to the human condition might expect the same final outcome as the one dealt to Keamy.

A Cultural Thesis for LOST

Two players.  Two sides.  One light.  One dark.

The world’s longest running game of backgammon was a life-or-death struggle for control of the Island, for control of the destiny of humankind.

The unceasing perpetuation of civilisation is the source and final goal of all culture, all humanity, all divinity. Human life bears sacred responsibility to disorient from and disavow destructive cultures, aligning always with trust, faith, and love, even at risk of death, to preserve the foundation of our humanity, which is human civilisation.

PM

Related posts:

1. Risk: A Cultural Thesis for LOST 6.03 “What Kate Does” by Pearson Moore
2. Siempre Juntos (Part I): Cultural Insights into LOST 6.09 “Ab Aeterno” by Pearson Moore
3. So You Could Find One Another: Cultural Perfections in LOST 6.17-6.18 “The End” by Pearson Moore

Tags: LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps & reviews, recaps&reviews