absurdity & the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

Just yesterday The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was released in theaters. As you probably know—if not you are hopelessly missing out—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a satirical science fiction novel by the witty, and now late, Douglas Adams. Actually, the novel is the first of a five part trilogy. He credits this strange occurrence (a trilogy in five parts) to a “poor grasp of arithmetic.” I went into the film with much anticipation and expectation, but, sadly, I left unimpressed and hardly amused. To understate, the book was far better than the movie. However, the experience was not all bad, because it got me thinking about Douglas Adams and his tendency to exploit the absurd.

“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems with just potatoes,” Adams said, and I think this is probably a fair statement. Perhaps a few minor problems can be solved with only potatoes, such as, well, I need not extrapolate. However, I think we can agree with near certainty that major problems need more than just a potato arsenal to be reckoned with. Thanks to Mr. Adams, we are able to understand this elusive truth, and many more like it.

A major theme that runs through the works of Adams’ Hitchhiker’s series, as well as his Dirk Gently series is that of absurdity. He sheds light on the ridiculousness and silliness of things we generally regard as normal. In this sense, Adams is very close to a philosopher—one who takes the seemingly ordinary and explores it in new ways.

Adams loved to use his incredible imagination to fill in gaps of science, and he loved to do so in a humorous way—what could be better? In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the entertaining and often foolish characters are on a quest to find the meaning of life. Adams was always making fun of people in search of an ‘objective meaning’ in life that ends up conveniently circling around themselves. He would say that these people need a serious dose of perspective. “There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” The worlds Adams creates in his books are undoubtedly bizarre—but, he might argue, no more bizarre than the world in which we live.

Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy, finds himself in a compromising situation, and so searches for some way out. “I’m gonna pray, man!” Beeblebrox exclaims, “Know any good religions?” Religion is often a target of Adams’ satire. Issues such as the creation of the universe take center stage as an area of ridicule. “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

Politics does not escape Douglas’ watchful eye. “To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.”

Technology and the internet interested Adams greatly in his later years of life. He liked to parody both the technology industry and people who use, or misuse, it. Adams put forth a set of rules that “describe our reactions to technologies:”

1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

Remember the infamous Y2K scare that many of the most highly respected technology gurus most feared? You had to expect that Adams would take advantage of this nonsensicality. “There are two things in particular that [the computer industry] failed to foresee: one was the coming of the Internet; the other was the fact that the century would end.”

Adams’s writings resemble famous societal observers such as Jonathon Swift and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). Their combination of humor and reasonable critique makes their work both enjoyable and significant at the same time. Adams, like Swift and Clemens, is able to use his mastery of language and keen sense of rationality to exploit the irrationality of people. Not only is language a tool of exploitation for Adams, but it is also another point of critique. “Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happened. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.” Absurdity runs rampant in language.

Humor aside, or humor included, what importance does this theme of absurdity have? Does it have any importance outside of its mere entertainment value? Insofar that it enables us to look at ordinary things in a new light, it is very important, just like philosophy. Moreover, many of Adams’ seemingly absurd claims are only made more hilarious by their possible truth. The fallibility and limited amount of knowledge enable this type of critique.

Do we live in an absurd world? If so, what does this mean?