What’s Wrong With Our Society, 2.13

Like all good things, the second season of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” came to end last week. I’ll wrap up my thoughts next week, though, as I still haven’t had the intestinal fortitude to watch the reunion episode.

We learned a lot this season, to be sure, but the most important lesson was that virtually everything that happens on the show could be connected to some philosophical concept or some canonical political theorist. You can read through any of the run-downs that you missed here.

Rest assured, just as the gang promises to be back for a third season, so too will this on-going series of Running Chicken blog posts. Next year — just as the women will fight with one another about the most ridiculous things and just as the guys will continue to go to the gym, go tanning, and go to the laundromat — so too will I continue to discuss the ways in which “The Situation” and Snooki provide insights into the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas or Hannah Arendt.

But the gang has officially left Miami behind. And, if you’ve been reading these blog posts faithfully, then you probably saw this one coming: the finale is a perfect statement of nihilism.

In this episode, absolutely nothing happens. No one is particularly motivated to do anything. The gang doesn’t go clubbing; the guys don’t go tanning; Ronnie and Sammi don’t fight with one another; Vinny and Pauly D ultimately decide not to get “wife’d up” with regard to Ramona and Rocio (their sometimes paramours); “The Situation” doesn’t behave badly to women; and so on.

But, as Martin Heidegger reminds us, to will the nothing is, in the end, to will something; to embrace nothing is still to embrace no thing (which is, in the end, a thing) … no matter how much you might want not to do so.

And so, after watching thirty minutes of nihilistically eye-glazing inanity, the gang decides they can’t leave Miami without one more fight. But, since this is an episode devoted to nihilism, the fight is about nothing.

“The Situation,” well known as a pot-stirrer, tries to get under Sammi’s skin, then Ronnie’s, and finally J-WOWW’s. With J-WOWW — and with Snooki’s help — he finally succeeds. Except that the fall-out from his decision to label J-WOWW as the most fake person in the house is for Pauly D to go ballistic on Snooki for suggesting to J-WOWW that he agreed with “The Situation“‘s label. Pauly gets so angry that everyone is concerned the veins in his head are going to explode because, as a result of Snooki’s misinformation, J-WOWW tells “The Situation” that Pauly D said he was fake.

Now, if you can untangle this web of inanity, you’re far, far ahead of Snooki, J-WOWW, Pauly D, and “The Situation,” all of whom ultimately just give up and decide they all love one another and are best friends. There is no reason for ths conclusion, just as there was no reason for “The Situation” to do what he did, for Snooki to do what she did, for J-WOWW to do what she did, or for Pauly D to do what he did.

The next morning, they all go home.

Nihilism!