The “American Chopper” meme is one of the best examples of Hegelian Dialectic at work and when used correctly the result truly is a modern educational tool.
It’s origins can be traced back to the original run of “American Chopper”, a reality TV series that centers on a Paul Tetul Sr. and Paul Tetul Jr.’ business “Orange County Choppers” which manufactures custom chopper-style motorcycles in New York.
Through masterful editing, the father-son relationship is constantly highlighted as problematic, resulting in frequent verbal arguments that finally culminated on Jr.’s termination from the actual business during an episode aired in 2008.
A decade later, during 2018, a meme based on the firing scene came to prominence on the web and suddenly exploded with countless versions of it, as well as many outlets giving their two cents about it, most of them focused on the structure of the jokes that were presented using the meme. Some are quite funny, and others even meta-contextual.
Vox came out with an article about the meme which looks for arguments regarding the dialectical nature of it, however, they predictably chose to veer the focus of the piece towards a politically polarized issue which might make sense in order for the sake of explanation, but minimizes its impact as a tool for analysis and deconstruction.
Here I try to build on the argument that the “American Chopper” meme is a modern Hegelian Dialectical tool that can be used to expose conflicting ideas and discover that through dialogue between contrasting points, a sensible and nuanced resolution can arise. (IMO, something quite urgent for anyone who’s ever been on twitter / social media.)
No idea is 100% right all the time, nor does it have to be held accountable to such a standard. That is something we have slowly accepted as canon, as the constant flow of communication permitted only by our technological devices suffocates us in a sea of uneasiness. The cracks on the floor of our ideologies between us grow wider every day by our isolating reasoning, and our lack of exposure to divergent ideas.
Stephen Fry uses the following phrase to confirm this point on a panel surrounded by Jordan Peterson, Michael Eric Dyson and and Michelle Goldberg:
“One of the greatest human failings is to prefer to be right than to be effective”
This is why I believe the “America Chopper” meme should hold a special place as a tool for exposing contrasting ideas in a fun, non-conventional and very playful way in order to resolve misaligned information and come to a new more effective result greater than the sum of its parts.
There is even a take on the meme about itself which summarizes what I try to tell you. So here’s your tl;dr:
“This is the only meme format that acknowledges the existence of competing information, and as such it is the only format suited to the complexity of our world”
“Hegel’s dialectics” refers to the particular dialectical method of argument employed by the 19th Century German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel (see entry on Hegel), which, like other “dialectical” methods, relies on a contradictory process between opposing sides. A contradictory process between “opposing sides” in Hegel’s dialectics leads to a linear evolution or development from less sophisticated definitions or views to more sophisticated ones later. He regarded this dialectical method or “speculative mode of cognition” as the hallmark of his philosophy.
In summary, Hegelian dialectic is the art or practice of arriving at the “truth” by the exchange of logical arguments. It assumes the human mind can comprehend reality by splitting it into two polar opposites and the discussion taking place in between them is the resolution.
In Hegelian terms, the Thesis is the starting point of an argument (usually the first panel in the meme), the Antithesis which serves as a counter argument to the thesis (usually the second panel in the meme) and then after a back and forth of arguments advancing the agitated conversation between the motorcyclists we arrive at the Synthesis (which becomes then a new Thesis in itself).
Here are some concise examples of the “American Chopper” meme being used to its full dialectical range:
Sources
Maybee, J. E. (2016, June 03). Hegel’s Dialectics. Retrieved December 1, 2018, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/
