How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy (10 page)

Barney continues to be the sole voice of reason, echoing the message of Robin's story. He's the only one to tell her that the very qualities that traditional thinking puts down are part of what makes her uniquely awesome and she should embrace them rather than try to change herself because there's absolutely nothing wrong with her exactly as she is.

But Robin persists in shifting too far into conventional thinking. Time and time again she makes traditional choices she views as proper and acceptable but she hates it all the while because she's fighting her true nature. She's so conflicted that for much of Season Seven Robin is barely holding it together. In “The Stinson Missile Crisis” she's reduced to hysterically crying under desks and tables, and by “Tick Tick Tick” she vocally wonders why any man would ever love a mess like her.

Can You Believe We Almost . . .? Good Thing We Didn't

Nowhere is the mistake of denying her true nature while going to the traditional extreme clearer than in Robin's relationship with Barney. Her attempts to mold their romance into a traditional, Lily-esque idea of what love and commitment must look like rather than just being their true selves is one of the main factors that leads to their initial downfall.

Robin's very feelings for Barney are an embodiment of her entire struggle. Her love for him and the relationship they have, much like her own identity, doesn't fit into either philosophy. It's a bad idea from a feminist perspective and an equally bad idea from a traditional perspective. Whichever side she chooses, both dictate that she must bury that love and conform to set standards.

Robin loves Barney and desperately wants to be with him, but he doesn't fit into the traditional idea of what's safe and acceptable in a husband and what she should therefore want.
Conventional principles mark him as a risky choice that will never work out. This is highlighted over and over again, exceptionally so in “Challenge Accepted” and “The Best Man.” In both episodes Robin longs to be with Barney but feels like she can't start something with him because of his womanizing and the failure of their first relationship that never could fit into either box.

Her indecision about Barney reaches a turning point in “Tick Tick Tick.” Kevin fits the classic idea of a safe and appropriate mate and Robin falls heavily into that trap. She's convinced that if she wants love and marriage she has to have it in an all-around traditional way.

Robin's inability to leave Kevin is just part of a pattern of willingness to settle for men she doesn't even love simply because she thinks they're suitable. She tries to sell herself these relationships that tradition regards as the “right thing” but it never works and she's never happy because her place, much like her love for Barney, lies somewhere in the blurred lines of the middle.

Kids, I'm Glad You Guys Aren't Real

No matter which side she chooses Robin continues to experience longing for the other, leaving her confused and feeling like she's betraying both philosophies. This is never truer than in Robin's brush with motherhood.

The only thing Season One Robin was firmer about not wanting than a long-term traditional relationship was that she never wanted to be a mom, but even the issue of children becomes murkier over time. “Little Boys” is the first example of this. Robin dates a single father in answer to a challenge set by the group. She ends up bonding with the man's young son and actually enjoys spending time with the child.

Almost exactly a season later, in “Not a Father's Day,” Robin's caught with a stolen baby sock in her purse and finally admits she doesn't know what she wants out of life but she might be warming to the idea of having children someday.

It all comes to a head in Season Seven's “Symphony of Illumination” when Robin believes that she actually is pregnant with Barney's child only to discover that she's not having a baby now and in fact she's physically unable to ever do so. At
first she reacts as early series Robin would by insisting that she never wanted children anyway so it's for the best, but right away it's clear that Robin's masking a deep sadness over her inability to have a biological child.

This confusing pain she feels only adds to Robin's inner turmoil. She sits alone on a park bench in the snow imagining her potential children with Barney and how a traditional life with him could have been. She ends up weeping inconsolably, and weeks later in “Tailgate” she continues to refer to her diagnosis as the event that forced her to give up a dream she never knew she had. Yet, while mourning the loss of any future children with Barney, Robin simultaneously experiences guilt for feeling that sadness in the first place when the feminist career ambitions she still possesses continue to dictate that kids would only hold her back.

On the one hand, the guarantee of no children means there will never be any restraints on her career. On the other hand, tradition has a hold on Robin too. In “The Drunk Train,” she feels less than whole because of her infertility and she fiercely worries that no man will ever want her without the ability to give him that traditional marriage with two point five kids. Just like with her career and love life, Robin is caught between the two worlds with her infertility as well.

A Little Ways Down the Road

The Robin who's a self-described mess, hiding under desks and crying while swilling wine directly from the bottle, is a far cry from the Robin we see in the flashfoward at the end of Season Eight's “The Pre-Nup.” Here Robin is a self-assured woman with a beaming smile who's taking a break from her high-powered, international lead anchor job to meet her fiancé for lunch. That Robin just oozes with happiness. So what accounts for the striking difference?

From mid-Season Eight onward, beginning in the episode “Splitsville,” when after a declaration of love from Barney she breaks ties with yet another boyfriend she isn't truly interested in, Robin slowly begins to accept that she doesn't have to settle for a guy she doesn't love for the sake of tradition, nor does she have to settle for being single just to maintain her independent self and career.

For years she was untrue to herself and the future she really wanted by trying to choose only one limited path. Doing so left her miserable and conflicted because she isn't entirely one or the other. Recognizing that she doesn't have to fully accept or fully reject either ideology is the final piece in the puzzle of Robin's character development. The key to her happiness lies in finally accepting that there's no singular definition for women and how their lives must go. She's allowed to make her own personal blend of the two styles that best suits her individual needs and in that way custom tailor her own happy ending that doesn't have to look like anyone else's.

If she wants to get married, that's okay. If she wants to be forever single, that's okay too. If she wants to travel the world alone, that's fantastic, but if she's lonely there's nothing wrong with that either. What she wants and what she needs, not what anyone else tells her she should be, is the fundamental goal. She can do and be anything she wants in whatever relationship she wants without worrying about falling in line with some rigid design of how things must look at “The End.”

It's okay to not want kids, and it's even okay to falter a little from time to time. It's okay to fall in love, even the head over heals, beyond your control kind of love, and even if it defies all the rules. Robin can be a strong, successful journalist and business woman who also happens to never be alone because she's very happily married to an extremely non-traditional guy who is the farthest thing from “husband material” possible.

By allowing Robin to marry instead of remaining the forever single career woman, and just as importantly by letting her choose to be a wife but not a mother, the writers are telling us that there is no essentialism when it comes to women and what path their lives take. There is no one shining example that we all must strife for. Lily can be a traditional wife and mother but Robin doesn't have to be. Robin can be a feminist, independent career woman but also fall in love and get married.

Robin Scherbatsky is the poster child for the modern non-essentialist woman. Very few women are actually Lilys, who have it all fall into place at such a young age. For most of us it's not that simplistic and straightforward; most of us do exist in that middle ground. By featuring a female lead like Robin,
who's dealing with this very same thing,
How I Met Your Mother
acknowledges the inner struggle that women face but it also gives us a solution. A woman should embrace what Robin has done: make whatever happy ending best suits her, and in Robin and Barney's “Robin 101” style give a thumbs up to anyone who doesn't like it.

¹
Carol Gilligan,
In a Different Voice
(Harvard University Press, 1982).

²
Deborah L. Rhode,
Justice and Gender: Sex Discrimination and the Law
(Harvard University Press, 1989).

³
Drucilla Cornell,
Beyond Accommodation: Ethical Feminism, Deconstruction, and the Law
(Routledge, 1991).

5

Barney's Magical World of Self-Deception

C
ARTER
H
ARDY

K
ids, Barney Stinson is not as awesome as he seems. He's a trick of the light; a man trying to be himself and failing. He's like one of his own magic tricks: flashy and fun to watch, but after seeing it a dozen times, it becomes old and predictable. We all know who Barney is. His entire persona can be summed-up in a few consistent, self-defined, lifestyle choices. Barney is:

       
•
  
A businessman (though what exactly he does is a mystery)

       
•
  
A lady's man who can get any girl into bed, even if it requires some intricate plan from his playbook

       
•
  
A bro who worships the bro code

       
•
  
A suit enthusiast

       
•
  
An opponent of marriage and relationships

In defining himself in these ways, he is forcing himself to be predictable. But everyone makes lifestyle choices, right? Ted chose to be an architect, Marshall chose to love Lily, and Robin chose to stop being a Canadian pop star. Isn't everyone predictable to some extent?

It's not just that Barney is predictable. It's that he's unknowingly forcing himself to be predictable. Aside from Ted saying “I love you” to any girl he dates, Barney is the most predictable character in the group, and this is no one's fault but his own.

Barney is doing something very special with regards to his own freedom. He is warping his entire world, making it perfect for him to be the way that he is. He is locking his actions and personality into a stagnant state. This magical world that Barney has created for himself is the greatest of all self-deceptions. It's legen-wait-for-it . . . deception!

I Dare You Guys to Dare Us to Make Out

At the core of this issue of self-deception is Barney's freedom of choice. We can't claim that Barney is deceiving himself unless he was free to not deceive himself. While there are many philosophical views about the nature of freedom, one that particularly rings true with Barney is the theory of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sartre was a French existential philosopher, which means that he examined philosophical issues beginning from the standpoint of the individual. Unlike some other schools of philosophy that look for objective information about the world, existentialism is a cultural movement that is interested in the world as experienced by the individual. For an existentialist, individual existence and subjective knowledge are the most important.

In his book
Being and Nothingness
(Citadel Press, 1974), Sartre says that we're completely free to do whatever we want (p. 429). He doesn't mean that we're free to break the laws of physics by flying or walking through walls. Rather, he means that Marshall is free to make the jump to the adjoining roof (if he can build up the courage). Nor does Sartre mean that we're morally free to kill and steal. Even though Lily is physically free to steal when exacting her own brand of justice, that doesn't mean that it's moral to steal. She simply has that choice available to her, and she is free to choose it if she wants to.