Uli Doesn't Care About Anything 3
No funny stuff
Third and final (for now) entry in our three-part series on Uli Kunkel, the napping nihilist from The Big Lebowski.
Over the past two days, we’ve been doing a deep dive into the character of Uli Kunkel, the former rock-star-porn-star-turned-nihilist in The Big Lebowski. As my dear friends Matt and Henrietta have asked in their posts over the past two days — if you haven’t read them, stop what you’re doing and go read them! — how do we understand Uli’s nihilism? Does Uli really believe in nothing? And where does his iconic nap in the pool fit into all this?
Let’s look a little further into the notion of nihilism, building on Matt’s post from two days ago. As I understand it, nihilism emerged in ancient Greece as one of three understandings about the notion of Truth in the universe. Plato argued that there is an objective, unchanging truth that can be accessed through reason. The Sophists believed that all truth is relative. And those lovable nihilists denied the existence of truth all together.
So back to Uli. The nap is the issue here my friends. We meet Uli napping in the pool at the Big Lebowski’s mansion, and Uli appears in the Dude’s dream claiming “we believe in nothing!” But isn’t napping in the middle of the day Uli’s ultimate truth? Deep down, isn’t the nap his core truth? I’d love to ask him one day. But for now, I’ll just go find a cash machine and settle in for a cozy nap. That’s a truth I can definitely believe in.
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