A New Look at a Classic from a Virtues Science Perspective
Dear reader, today we will explore virtues through the lens of well-known media. We begin with Aladdin, the iconic animated film and not the original tale.
Let us first agree together we should cast aside all that is false and glittering, which is to say false treasures. Riches are only as good as one can see them for what they are, otherwise it is like comparing shadows upon the heart. Aladdin seeks the appearance of material wealth because he believes the validation for his actual worth is in some external prize, and so he chases after it with a fevered mind. When confronted with an arrogant prince, he never considers the cost to moral character in maintaining such material wealth.
When Jasmine smiles at the thief, this is like divine affection shining upon all until they choose a different course away from it. In the story, this is an encounter between two human beings, one bearing the weight of station and the other that of his own flawed nature, though he believes his greatest curse to be the weight of his poverty. In Aladdin’s eyes, this meeting becomes a blazing sun of promise. He does not see Jasmine for who she is, but projects onto her the mirage of what he wishes to be: a ticket out of poverty and humiliation. This is the great sin of amnesis, the forgetting that one’s own soul is far more precious than any throne or crown, yet infinitely less polished without constant refinement.
His mind becomes a prison of its own making. Each movement she makes, each word spoken, is seized upon as irrefutable proof of his worthiness. She is like the lamp itself, a vessel of ostensible good that promises instant fulfilment to anyone who knows how to work it or say the right order of words. But what does one truly gain from such power? Does a fool become wise merely by holding a sceptre? Or does he simply brandish it, revealing only the emptiness within?
Aladdin’s confusion stems from his own heart and no outside conditions, a dark and unexamined place where desire has festered like an infected, old wound. He sees Jasmine’s favour as evidence that she can see past this ugliness thanks in part to his pretended station, when in truth, she is simply choosing to look within. It is a delusion so complete it blinds him to the most obvious truths: that true worth springs from service and sacrifice, not from selfish gain; that humility is the foundation of all virtue, while arrogance builds only castles on sand. It was his humility which saved him, despite arrogance trying to win out from within. Jasmine helped him to see this.
This forgetting is a deliberate act of self-deception, a refusal to confront one’s own shadow so as to bask in the light of another’s reflection, which can, ironically, only be as accurate as what we confront within. The threat he feels from her is in the shattering of this fabricated identity. He would rather live a lie than face the stark reality that his true value is in who he becomes through suffering and selfless love. Thus, he also calls upon the Genie, not as a friend or guide on the path of righteousness, but as an instrument for instant gratification. He believes the lamp’s power will magically transform him into someone worthy of Jasmine’s smile, rather than understanding that such transformation must begin within himself. He was correct to doubt his own worthiness at the moment but misguided in where to apply himself in response. In him, she saw the beauty which comes from a very real promise of good.
The expansion of spirit is never to be measured by how brightly we may shine in another’s eyes, but by the vastness and humility with which we look upon ourselves. It requires us to see our own imperfections without despair and know they are blemished in the same way as rough clay, from which, once permitted, God can shape a vessel of truest beauty if only we cease trying to sculpt it into something it is not meant to be. When the lamp’s promise fades and its power is gone, what remains? Anything we build can only last insofar as it aligns with God’s plans for us.