Jumpers: A Play by Tom Stoppard

In "Jumpers" Tom Stoppard eviscerates logical positivism in a few well-placed dramatic strokes. This would seem an eccentric thing to do, even in the early 1970s, given that Gödel and Wittgenstein (nice name for a comedy team) had pretty well sliced up logical positivism decades before. But Stoppard recognized that even after Gödel and Wittgenstein had done their work, mainstream philosophy remained, as it remains, just as committed to an unreasonable hatred of absolutes, a hatred which leads ineluctably to moral relativism, which in turn might lead you to be as big a jerk as Bertrand Russell. Dead as logical positivism was in its classical formulation, this play was worth writing. It will always be worth reading. I realize I've made "Jumpers" sound like a polemic, but writing a work with a point of view is not the same as writing a polemic. If this were a polemic, Stoppard would not have made George nearly so ridiculous or nearly so blind. He would not have reminded us that abstract thinking about morality, however admirable, is not so good if it makes you forget to grab your wife and kiss her, especially when she's in the room across the hall yelling about wolves. He would not have reminded us so poignantly that even when our intentions are good we can still end up crushing tortoises. Even if the entire play were only an elaborate set-up for the line George delivers to Bones about who he was expecting, that would be sufficient *raison* for the *être*.

In Jumpers, Tom Stoppard was humiliating the pompous civilization that overanalyzes, deconstructs, and builds ridiculous rules and structures instead of dealing with reality. The line "Aetheism is just a crutch for non believers to deal with the existence of God" caught it beautifully. By using the tool of Brits on the moon at several points, he said that if you take people out of the environment/context, they revert to selfish acts without benefit of cover. The pretense is gone. The astronaut at the trial didn't challenge anything; he just agreed and kept going. Similarly, Greystoke, a pure work of fiction, was the perfect embodiment of pompous manners and class structure, and was dismissed. The real wild man was the judge, a former caretaker, who had no qualifications, and ran the whole proceeding into the ground. As The Common Man (whose hobby was philosophy!), he told us how off course we really are. And despite all George Moore's philosophising and analyzing and caring, it was he who killed his hare, he who killed his tortoise, and of course he who killed his marriage, by refusing to defend it. He lost it all because his mind was focused on idiotic rationalizations. The vice chancellor (or chancellor of vice) was the "suit" in all this. When he spoke at the trial, he uttered total gibberish, and the crowd roared with approval. He was clearly what was wrong with everythibng, and of course, he was running it all. Meanwhile, The archbishop made sense and was disposed of, same for Greystoke, and for Bones. Meanwhile, George, whose night this was supposed to be, didn't get to utter a word. Then, at the end, the wife was sent to the moon, and was lifted above everyone else. And that's how it ended. She had a miserable time - unappreciated intellect, unsuccessful career, sham of a marriage - and all covered by her position in society...her husband, her relationship with the vice chancellor...Clearly, she needed to get out of it all and be herself, and the only place she could do that was on the old man-in-the-moon style moon of pre astronaut days. So there was actually method to the madness, and it was entertaining to boot. It was all very British humor which I really appreciated, and the similarities to the final episode of the Prisoner were too many to ignore. By the way, Jumpers are what shrinks call suicidals, and the fact they all wore yellow must have meant they refused to deal with reality, hiding behind their philosophy instead of dealing with it. I kept seeing Robbie Coltrane as George. He really would have made the play. And that reminds me: the female lead was first played by Diana Rigg. Imagine how different THAT would have been! I would have loved to have seen that. LOTS of food for thought in Jumpers. Loved it.

If a dead body was decaying in MY bedroom, I would pause to contemplate the meaning of life. Wouldn't you? Stoppard's treatise on the way we think - as seen through enemies George and Richard - is a bombastic indictment of our pettiness. There are really more urgent matters to address. I'M A POET AND PAINTER AND SCULPT OFTEN WITH DRAMATIC RESULT I LIKE TO RECITE BUT LATE AT NIGHT I'M JUST ANOTHER CONSENTNG ADULT

Stoppard brilliantly illuminates the absurdity of philosophy's retreat from the real world into the world of academia. His lampooning of the Logical Positivists is relentless and sometimes subtle. Throughout most of the play George is preparing to defend the existence of Morality and Good, all the while ignoring the dead body rotting in his bedroom. This is a must read for anyone caught up in, or disenchanted by, philosophy's detachment from real world application.

I first read this ten years ago when I sided with George Moore and thought it was brilliant. Now I reread it and find myself discovering Richard Rorty in the character of Archie, and not so sure where my sympathies lie. I guess that's what's best about Stoppard: he argues convincingly on both sides. As for the play, it starts out as a whodunnit but by about page 20 you know you're never going to find out and that it doesn't matter. The jokes are great, the philosophy first class, and the coda is even moving. If you like Sophie's World, or any of those joke-intro-philosophy books then this is one better.