Prometheus and Bob: How to Use Furniture

                In “Being and Time,” Martin Heidegger explores the concept of being and how people consider the being of objects in their environment.  Explaining the ways that utility and usability affect the perception of what an object actually is, Heidegger implies that the being of equipment may be reliant upon context.  According to Heidegger, “No matter how sharply we just look at the ‘outward appearance’ of Things in whatever form this takes, we cannot discover anything ready-to-hand.  If we look at Things just ‘theoretically’, we can get along without understanding readiness-to-hand.  But when we deal with them by using them and manipulating them, this activity is not a blind one; it has its own kind of sight, by which our manipulation is guided and from which it acquires its specific Thingly character” (98).  While the nature of a specific object may be discerned according to aesthetics, it is the actual use of the object which testifies to the objects “thingly character.”  The determination of being, then, seems reliant on manipulation.

                In the 1990’s, Nickelodeon aired a sketch comedy show called All That.  This show featured a variety of live action and animated sketches including a clay-mation short, “Prometheus and Bob.”  According the premise of the show, Prometheus is an alien who travelled to earth 900,000 years ago where he met Bob, a cave man.  Prometheus attempts to educate Bob in the ways of the civilized world and has many misadventures in his undertaking.  For the sake of his experiment, Prometheus video tapes each lesson.  In the following video, Prometheus attempts to teach Bob how to use furniture.

Prometheus and Bob

Although the use of the chair and couch seem more than obvious to both Prometheus as well as All That viewers, Bob struggles to understand the purpose of these items.  As is detailed in the video, Bob does not know what to do when he approaches various pieces of furniture.  Prometheus’s frustration is clear as he is unable to effectively educate Bob about the conventional uses of furniture, despite his best attempts at gesticulation and example.  Bob's struggle provide a comic effect, suggesting that "readiness-to-hand" is not, in fact, nearly as obvious as we may have assumed.

From this video it is clear that Bob is unable to understand the readiness-to-hand, and overall usability, of furniture in any traditional sense.  For Bob, who does not know how to properly negotiate this equipment, the chair and couch are ultimately unusable and they have a different value for each of these characters.  According to Heidegger, “Dealings with equipment subordinate themselves to the manifold assignments of the ‘in-order-to’.  And the sight with which they thus accommodate themselves is circumspection” (98).  As the chair does not provide any obvious instructions for its use, it must allow for the experimentation of users.  If the only way to acquire or approximate any knowledge of a being is through its manipulation then a being must ultimately have a different “thingly-ness” according to different conventions and varying users.  While Prometheus may want to manipulate the couch in a chair in a way that provides for his comfort, these items of furniture ultimately provide a source of amusement for Bob who disregards the uses Prometheus attempts to convey.