Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. Is a rule’s value to be found in its praxis? And since no rule can keep hardship, tragedy, or death away, is any rule “of use”? And what sort of rule might Chigurh mean? Can some rules accomplish a delivery, by transcendence rather than avoidance, from the sorrow and violence of ordinary life? Are those rules “of use”? What is the difference between transcendence and flight?

Does everyone’s life unfold according to implicit rules? Does it matter whether one understands the rules -or single unifying rule- according to which one lives?

(via mills)

I think Mills is trying to gather material for some sort of anthro/archaeo/philosophico/self-help book. I think Chigurh is a character even better than the Judge, maybe, because of the force and clarity of his execution. The Judge embodies a truly American sort of pantheistically rational Enlightenment archetype. Chirgurh is like a post-modern (in the sense of after modernism) switchblade. A razor of thought for these times.