Philosophy and Pokémon: Psyduck, The Archetype Of The Philosopher
What is it with this dude?! How dare he say that a Pokémon is the archetype of the philosopher? This article is just BS!
Combination is always better
Yeah….. I come from Peru and as some of you probably already know we love combining different kinds of food in one dish. Yup, you read that, sometimes you can come across the weirdest combinations.
As one German friend once told me, “How can you eat that?!” Well, we just love food and we love making combinations. Where can you find this kind of food? Well, in Peru.
More specifically, in huariques.
Hua…what?! Huariques, dude!
In these kinds of restaurants, huariques, you can find all sorts of mixtures and flavours of food.
Huariques are usually associated with cheap and typical Peruvian food.
There is a common belief among most Peruvians that in huariques you get to experience the real flavours of Peruvian food.
Recently, capitalism has taken advantage of this situation. There are appearing a number of expensive huariques. You know what they say, if people like it, you raise the price!
Huariquean philosopher
Anyway, so what does this huarique thing have to do with philosophy and pokémon?
Well, I like to think of myself as a sort of huariquean philosopher, or as some Peruvian friends would call me in Spanish: un filósofo huariquero!
As with food, I love making all sorts of weird combinations in my thoughts!
Having studied philosophy, I have learned that you can always find connections between the most seemingly non-related objects.
That said, how can a pokémon be related to philosophers then?
Pokémon: Psyduck
I am a millennial. Something that you’ve probably already gotten that from my writing.
I love watching Pokémon. Not the latest versions, but the original ones.
There is this Pokémon called Psyduck which as you can imagine looks like a duck and is supposed to have psychic powers.
The interesting thing about Psyduck is that whenever it’s called into action, it rarely knows what to do.
Every time it’s called into battle against another Pokémon, its first reaction is to be confused about what to do. He seems clueless, and for this reason, her owner, Misty, is constantly getting mad at him. Psyduck makes her lose the pokémon battles and it seems she cannot really rely on him.
In other words, in most of the cases it seems that Psyduck is…not so smart.
That said, whenever Psyduck gets to show its real powers, everyone gets amazed. In just one move, it can beat off its opponent.
Something remarkable about these instances when he gets to use its psychic powers is that before reaching this point he usually experiences some sort of really painful headaches.
So, to summarize Psyduck main traits:
- It is a Pokémon with psychic powers.
- Most of the time, it seems not so smart or clueless.
- It can beat its opponents in just one move when it uses its powers.
- It needs to experience some sort of headache before having access to its real powers.
So, how do these traits relate to what I call the archetype of the philosopher?
Philosophers and Psyduck
Well, for one, philosophers have been historically associated with pretty impractical characteristics.
There is this well-known story about pre-Socratic philosopher Thales who apparently fell into a well for having been contemplating the skies too much. That is, his mind was so focused on the place where gods were supposed to inhabit that he just lost perspective about what was beneath his feet.
There is also a parody video circulating on the internet where you can see a football match between Greek and German philosophers. Instead of playing football, as soon as the game starts, they all walk around the field as if trying to see what would be the best move to make. In other words, they seem not to know what to do at first. After some minutes, the Greeks seem to find a solution to their thinking and then they score a goal!
So, yes, also like Psyduck, philosophers are usually thought of as being kind of clueless about what to do in real-world situations.
But also like Psyduck, when they eventually get an answer to their questioning, they seem able to achieve great results!
And also like Psyduck, there is a myriad of stories that tell us that some important philosophers seem to have suffered from some kind of headaches. Just to name one paradigmatic case: Nietzsche.
Could headaches be related to brilliance in mind? It’s not that simple, but maybe in some cases, some form of so-called mental disorders can help grasp marvelous ideas.
I once heard from a professor that Heidegger used to suffer from terrible migraines and apparently this kind of mental situation was experienced just before getting some deep insights.
So, if it is true that philosophers are somehow familiar with the experience of headaches, they might not be that different than Psyduck. As this Pokémon with its powers, maybe it is true that some of the best philosophical insights can only be grasped after some form of painful mental experience.
Final Remarks
In conclusion, if you read these final lines, you might also start thinking that Psyduck indeed is like a philosopher. Or maybe this whole reflection is just due to my impractical mind…in any event, do not underestimate people that seem clueless, they might have the best ideas!
