No God for Anton Chigurh?

Excellent.

No Country is about faith and fate, not God and Darwin.

"I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning."

Chigurh strikes me as a pure distillation of the dispassionate fatalism that crowds so much of Cormac McCarthy's personal philosophy. He is not really a villain or evil. Perhaps if he were, he'd be less terrifying, because he would be a human being. Hurrican Katrina killed many, many people but no one would consider a Hurricane to be "evil" because the Hurricane is indifferent and does as the world wills it to do based on the whims of nature. Whether Chigurh is meant to be merely a man so removed from humanity that he has delusions of being a force of nature or if he is meant to actually be a symbol of the Elements I do not presume to know. Either way, as Patrick Bateman describes himself in Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho," he "...is simply not there."

Just as Bateman is a barely sentient urge for animal gratification, Anton Chigurh is a barely sentient fate machine. Bad luck hits some (called the coin wrong) and good luck hits others and the luck has no opinion other than fulfilling its duty.

I really don't know. Cormac McCarthy is often so vague with his portents in "NCFOM" that his intentions elude me.

Just the angle I had been thinking about for the past week or so, and it is brought up during the busiest month I have ever had at work... Damn you, Jebus.

Good points, Jim. And I have an idea of linking this with your previous post about god, and I shall do that over the weekend. Can't wait to hear what others think.

Have to agree with you. If Chigurh put as much energy into survival as he did killing, he'd be living alone in the woods of Canada somewhere, eating raw squirrels and wrestling bears. There is an obvious backwards pleasure that Chigurh takes in killing, otherwise he wouldn't be doing it.

And that's sort of the key. If you want to talk atheism and assume that atheists live for no one else for themselves (not true) and that the logical, pure result is true survival of the fittest (also not true), then Chigurh wouldn't be killing to survive like this. These are innocent people. He's not eating them. He's making money at best. But the money doesn't even seem to be the point. They'd have to really be paying him well to go through what he did in No Country. He's in this because he's committed and because he likes doing it.

Chigurh in a post-apocalyptic cannibal film, where the only food source left is humans? Fine. Survival of the fittest. But there was that Carl's Jr. in the background of the pool scene. He could just stop there.

I wish you had addressed the original submitters' line about atheists being 'craven', but I'm just glad you responded more politely and appropriately than I - a principled Atheist - would have been able to in response to such a mischaracterization of Atheists. Anton may have been an atheist, but all Atheists are not Anton any more than all Muslims are Osama.

Thanks Jim!

I really don't get the "atheists as survivalists" thing the author of the letter uses. When it comes down to it, EVERYONE is a survivalist, regardless of what religion, or lack thereof, they adhere to. And the insinuation that the religious "dare to exist for causes outside of self," while no atheists do such thing, is just absurd. I'm sick of the ignorant BS that gets thrown at atheists in this country.

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion."
-Arthur C. Clarke

I think a lot of McCarthy's writing is about the internal struggle between belief and nonbelief. He may perfectly capture the voice of the white Southern Protestant ("the Bible is true because the Bible says so"), but he was actually raised Catholic ("the Bible is true because the unbroken line of believers / Church stretching back to the life of Christ say it's true"). Those are pretty reductivist summaries, but bear with me.

The struggle between belief and nonbelief is what I think the final dream in the film is about. Bell says "I always thought God would come into my life." Then, in a very Biblical way, his father comes to him in a dream to say that he's riding ahead of him into the next world, clearing a path, and that everything's going to be okay. "And I then I woke up" -- which means that he woke up metaphorically from the illusion of belief -- or he just woke up because it was time to get up. Belief vs. unbelief.

And as David Mamet version 2.0 might say, Jim, your kneejerk decision to separate Darwinism/atheism from villainy might make you a brain-dead liberal. :)

If I were to take this movie in religious allegorical terms (and I do not) I would put Chigurh in the believer/God role, not the other way around. Just as in the Old Testament God, Chiguhr is violent and unstoppable, but goes on and on about free will. God says, "Do what you like but if you choose to do something against me you will be punished eternally," thus negating any real sense of free will which can only exist if there is no reward/punishment system in place. Likewise, Chiguhr says the choice is yours but if the coin flips the wrong way, you're dead. You're relying on the coin, not your own actual choice of whether you want to live or die, so again there is no real free will.

Sheriff Bell (who is a lawman unlike Wells) in this allegory would be the modern day skeptic/atheist/freethinker who the outside world sees as "giving up" but in reality he is simply reaching the conclusion that Chiguhr is something he doesn't understand, doesn't care to understand and finally, something too vile and violent to let himself understand. Just like the modern day atheist "giving up" on arguments with people who don't understand that doing something based on a reward punishment system of Heaven and Hell means that you're always acting on your own "craven" behalf, not others'(something that Brad Smissen gets exactly backwards), Bell realizes that the illogic and relentless bludgeoning of free thought and true free will represented by Chigurh is something no man can fight alone. It will take time and evolution and younger minds and he is too old to keep up the fight.

Brad brings an interesting twist to the story but unfortunately he's put the characters in the wrong roles.

It is existential for sure, and I think it's another way, besides the dream, for Bell to express his wish that he would still be relevant, that his existence would have a meaning. He'd like to believe, like the man who chiseled the rock, that despite the fact that the country will always change (probably for the worst, if you think like Bell), what he has done in his life will still have some kind of a meaning to the future generations.

But since Bell has a lot of trouble believing in that line of thought, wouldn't we still be facing some kind of nihilistic-existentialist confrontation? I don't think we can reduce the movie's themes to nihilism (like some reviewers did) but it's still a central theme to me.

I really hated that letter, as it seems to be saying atheism = social darwinism, and therefore killing sprees. But maybe (hopefully) I'm reading it wrong.

I disagree w/ Brad's atheist reading. I'm more aligned with your reading, Jim, but I still find myself thinking of the characters as meditations on man (not necessarily existence) and, therefore, more reflective to one another rather than literal people or types.
I find it fascinating that the only screen time Moss and Chigurh have together is as Moss drops out of frame as he jumps from the window and Chigurh kicks open the door and fires his shotgun. As they trade gunfire, one pops into frame and the other pops out.
Even when Bell goes to the morgue to see Moss, we never see Moss's face. And when he returns to the scene of the crime, Chigurh is a phantom in the shadows.
Could it be that the three can't exist in the same place at the same time because they are all facets of the same person?
Its definitely not an easy split, like Alien with superego, ego, and id battling it out.
Its more about the balance necessary for survival--so in that sense I can understand part of Brad's reading. Still, any which way you slice it, this film has so many ideas and allows room for so much interpretation that its pretty much perfect.

And I just want a quick diatribe if I may. Roger Deakins was ROBBED once again. Yeah, There Will Be Blood is pretty, or whatever, but compositionally, shot-for-shot, and based on lighting design (I kept thinking as I watched it, 'How did he light that?') No Country is better.
But he was REALLY robbed when English Patient won over Fargo.
Do you know how easy it is to make sand look pretty?
Do you know how hard it is to make snow look pretty?
Ok. That's it for my diatribe.

I agree more with your reading of McCarthy's work than I do with Brad's take on it.
Perhaps this is simply a personal bias, but as an atheist, I cannot understand the rationale behind the way Brad equates atheism with a lack of morality, guilt or human values. In any case, atheism does not automatically confer on the atheist an innate understanding of Darwinian principles, or 'carve him into a creature with a powerful survivalist function.'
In my opinion, Chigurh is the way he is simply because he is. Being an athiest, and not believing- is more convenient and less work than being religious, and believing.

Jim: I'm with you. Though I can understand (if not agree) with Brad's reading of the scenes mentioned, a scene that I think contradicts his reading is the one with Chigurh and the man at the gas station. How would killing that man, or even considering it, make Chigurh an "atheist/survivalist"? If anything, that pointless murder would stand to harm him (creating another crime scene). Though it's impossible to tell precisely what the man says that stimulates Chigurh's "agent of fate" instincts (borrowing from your apt description), once those instincts are triggered Chigurh's decision comes down to an assessment of whether the man has indeed summoned fate or not. Hence the coin toss, just to be sure. By this reading, Chigurh better fits Brad's description of atheists' opposite: "believers who dare to exist for causes outside of self." The film never makes it clear exactly what cause (or deity) Chigurh is living for. But by threatening a man who poses no threat to him and/or sparing a man who does pose a threat to him (depending on your view of the gas station owner), Chigurh certainly isn't behaving like a "Darwinian creature" whose only principle is to put his survival above all else. That said, Chigurh certainly causes Ed Tom Bell to question his religion (his understanding of the universe). So, "No Country" is still a "deep meditation" on the presence (or lack of presence) of God.

Having not the read the novel and having only seen the film, I found little evidence of Chigurh as a survivalist/Darwinian. Are we to believe that this human slaughterer selects a life saturated in violent potential because of its "safety"? Granted, Chigurh means to survive (as most creatures do) but I'd place my money on a low-profile tax attorney outliving Chigurh by a few years. What, after all, is especially safe about tracking a case full of cash from a man with a sawed off shotgun?

And the visit he pays to Carla Jean is in concert with Wells' assertion that he "has principles." Were he simply a survivalist, principles (lofty personal ideals) would be rendered irrelevant.

Chigurh might be a non-believer in the sense that he is not a follower of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but to say that he is an out-and-out atheist misses the point, I think. Chigurh has replaced God with Fate. He has replaced a universe with a kind and loving centre with a cold universe that does not care for any individual. Chigurh's universe stops for no man. It cannot be reasoned with, cannot be placated. It moves along its pre-determined course with all the relentless implacability of a freight train.

It is not the coin toss that reveals this side of him, but rather his adherence to the principles Wells spoke of. The coin toss can be a way of passively rejecting responsibility, as Mr. Emerson said, but Chigurh NEEDS the coin toss in a very real and active fashion. When Carla Jean refuses to 'call it' he insist that she must. That he 'cannot call it' for her. And when she insist that the coin decides nothing, that it is HE who decides, he says that the coin got there the same way he did: as the end result of the universe's vast and predestined Fate, as the final conclusion created by choices already made.

Consistency is the only God that Chigurh recognizes. Once the universe sets an act in motion, it must be realized and no amount of sympathy or emotion will make it otherwise. And, as someone who finds it useful to model himself after God, once Chigurh sets an act in motion, he must by necessity see it through as well. This is true whether he is letting a coin toss decide a man's fate, or delivering on a promise made to a dead man to kill his wife.

I never gave much thought to what Chigurh believes or doesn't believe. I agree with the "fate" concept when it comes to analyzing Chigurh's character. But one thing I have wondered is what exactly IS Anton Chigurh. My girlfriend thinks he sounds Irish, but I think in the film he's supposed to be Native American. Think about it, NCFOM could have just been two hours of "Bitch...this is my house!" Did the novel delve into Chigurh's nationality at all?

Jim, just curious and not that it is relevant to this post and I hope its not too personal a question to ask. But are you an atheist? Maybe its just me, but I have never seen an unemotional comment about atheism by a religious person. This post certainly was unemotional!

I am sure someone HAS written this before me, but having seen the film 3 times now, the last on dvd, the film seems to be to be McCarthy and Coen's updated negative image of Peckinpaugh's "The Wild Bunch".

That film was about how the "civilization" of america was leaving no place for the old guard gunfighters. It ends with the iconic blood letting of William Holden and his crew, going out in a blaze of glory from a world that no longer needs or wants them.

No Country seems to be about the Tommy Lee Jones character realizing the world no longer needs or wants him, not because it has become too civilized, but because the drug cartels, who came to prominence in 1980 when the film is set, were so violent and ruthless, they rendered old school she'iffs like Jones irrelevant. The two speeches by Jones at the end and the scene in the hotel room with Jones where Bardem is there and simply doesn't look for him to me seal it. He can't imagine the guy is still there, waiting to kill again and that he will continue to go after Brolin's wife. He just quits "I'm overmatched" Bardem's character has some reminders of the old school, a code, but the code is so perverted, it makes it ironic.

I think the fact that the ending has no shootout is a further answer to the Wild Bunch, no blaze of glory, no last case solved, just a dream about his dad waiting.

I agree that Chigurh's Darwin incarnate, but not because of faith, that is the just the mechanism; it is the fact that he slaughters people that makes him the next evolutionary step, he becomes almost like a super human.

I appreciate your comments here Jim. I was particularly offended by Brad's view of Atheism as "Craven" or "reckless". This falls off the cliff of logic so severely that I think someone needs to point to Brad where his thoughts go astray. Atheism is a brave way of facing the reality of the universe instead of relying on wishful thinking and invented reality. Also, Atheism does not denote anything more about a persons morals than by saying a person is religious. As can clearly be seen in prison populations, which tend to be much more religious by percentage than atheistic by a large margin.

Otherwise I have to comment no whether Chigurh is an atheist or whether any other character is an atheist in the movie because without them coming out and saying so you could not tell whether a person was religious or not by their actions. (Except maybe if you saw them praying or typically on their knees)
)

I think Chigurh is similar to other McCarmack characters in that he has a personal code that replaces traditional morality (whether divinely inspired or otherwise). He gives Lewellen the opportunity to spare his wife by sacrificing his own; once he is dead Chigurh has no choice within his personal code but to follow through on killing his wife. Note that this also has the effect of enhancing Chigurh's reputation as the most ruthless mercenary alive.

Returning to my first sentence, McCarthy's Judge in Blood Meridian and the man in The Road both had very strict codes of behavior that supplanted all else. The Judge valued loyalty above all else, no matter what the motivating factor, and viewed betrayal of that loyalty as a capital offense. The man, who was supposedly "carrying the light" in The Road's dying world, routinely treated even seemingly harmless strangers cruelly in order to protect his son. Chigurh's worldview follows a similar path - he says he is going to do something and once his word is given it must be obeyed. The coin flip is a little more of a puzzler, but seems to me to represent the randomness with which innocent people's fates lead them into Chigurh's path and whether they live or die is likewise fated.

Atheism is often seen as necessitating nihilism. As an atheist, I put my faith in my fellow man and in myself. I honestly love the people around me. I love them too much to go on a killing spree. I understand why some people need to think there's a God, but I don't need Him. Whether I was created by God or by evolution, I'm here and alive, and that's wonderful. That I enjoy this whole life thing is meaning enough for me.

Darth: I suppose I qualify as a lapsed Protestant. I belonged to one of those '70s Methodist congregations whose pastor's motto was "Expect A Miracle!" when I was in my early double-digits. But even then, I felt it, but I didn't believe it. By the time I read the bible (Old and New) at 14 or 15, the roots of my discontent became clearer to me. The morality in those books is so muddled and internally inconsistent I knew I couldn't aspire to be a moral person and believe in that. But, like almost all atheists, I love to study religion and philosophy -- especially as they relate to morality and the human desire to seek meaning. (It's been said that only atheists take religion seriously.)

In the case of "NCFOM," I'm interested in how a conception of God may or may not figure its moral universe. I don't see the hand of God at work in "NCFOM" (and I don't see it in the bible, either, where God is anthropomorphized into an all-powerful human) but I'm curious about Christian or religious readings of the book and film.

I might try looking at it the other way 'round: That Chigurh is the God figure, the arbiter of life and death who doesn't take responsibility for his own Godlike actions [like Jonathan said!] because he sees them as other people's fault. (Is this an echo of the God who became so angry and/or disenchanted with his own creation that he wiped out life on earth with the Flood, or who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, blaming humans for the faults he built into them?) Chigurh has a godlike faith in his own Mysterious Plan -- something mere mortals are incapable of comprehending.

Morality, in religious or non-religious terms, is tied to free will: We must make choices and be responsible for the choices we make. In some respects Chigurh is right that Llewelyn was willing to sacrifice Carla Jean -- but it's not really "like that," as she knows. Earlier, Carla Jean says her husband won't stop any more than Chigurh will. She sees something similar in both. Llewelyn sees it, too -- and is determined not to give in to Chigurh's vision of how things will "end," but to assert his own. He has no reason to believe in Chigurh's "word," anyway. (In my "Out in all that dark" post a commenter asks if others see Llewelyn as an "unsympathetic" character. In conventional terms, I'd probably say "yes" -- look at the way he behaves when he comes upon the site of the massacre -- but I'm not sure the term is particularly relevant.)

So, do I think "NCFOM" is about moral responsibility? Absolutely. That, in the face of inevitable death, is what Ed Tom Bell is wrestling with throughout the whole thing. What is his duty, as a man and a lawman -- to his father, to his job, to the law, to the people he is sworn to protect and defend? Is that reckoning built around a conception of God or an afterlife? I don't see it. Not because I think the concept of "God" makes morality irrelevant (What can morality mean if it involves accountability to a supernatural power?), but because I don't see enough evidence throughout the book/movie to support that kind of reading.

Gman: I understand why some people need to think there's a God, but I don't need Him.

It's funny: That's what the arguments so often come down to: What works for you? People will believe whatever they need to believe. Call it faith or call it denial or call it nonbelief. Whatever works. I've simply never understood (even when I was a churchgoer and considered myself a believer) why anyone would assume the answers to our deepest, most profound questions have to do with a supernatural force possessing intent. Maybe humans are incapable of conceiving the forces that brought the universe into being. But monotheistic religion (popular though it is) seems to me the weakest of all possible metaphors for it. The idea that the universe rests on the back of an infinite turtle seems just as likely, and far more interesting to talk about.

I might try looking at it the other way 'round: That Chigurh is the God figure, the arbiter of life and death. You left off like Jonathan said.

JE: Sorry! I hadn't read that!

I feel I need to make a comment regarding vader's final statement. It seems that vader has gone ahead and promoted one of the two major misconceptions that are often made about darwin's theory of evolution. The first is the silly statement that evolution is the "survival of the fittest." This is simply not true. If it can be said to be anything then it s more like the survival of the adequately sufficient. By this I mean to say that evolution doesn't care, if evolution could be said to care about anything, if an organism is the best suited for surviving in a particular environment, but if that organism is sufficiently capable of doing so.

The second major misconception is the one that vader promotes in his post. This is the view that evolution is somehow goal driven, that it seeks to create, as it were, a superior being that is somehow ideal or perfect in some way. As stated previously, this is simply not the case. There is absolutely no evidence that shows that such is the case. When an organism reaches a point evolutionarily that it can survive sufficiently in a given environment, they generally do not change, but only ever so slightly, the shark being the perfect example. Sometimes, as with humans, the organism utilizes other faculties that had previously evolved to adapt to new environments without the necessity of change.

To say that evolution seeks to achieve some state of perfection in some nebulous round about sense is completely ludicrous to the point that it would be laughed at as absurd by most if not all scientists, especially those who study evolution. All evolution does it try to achieve what is sufficient for an organisms survival. This basically means that Chigurh would not be, as stated, Darwin incarnate, not by a long shot.

To Darth Vader, sorry for the attack, I seem to have not fully figured out the author placement is set up, I should have looked more carefully. My comments are actually supposed to directed at the poster calling himself mike. otherwise they stand as posted.

Lots of interesting comments! First, I think the original letter confuses atheism with being amoral. Being amoral is, or may be, what gives Chigurh the power, so to speak, over the more moral characters in the movie, such as the Sheriff, who like Brad Smissen says are hampered because they have to act "within confined moral/legal spaces". If Brad is equating atheism with being amoral, he is quite wrong.

Secondly, thank you Jim for answering my question. It is my experience that for most people the title of "religious" or "atheist" is something they take only when pushed to take a position. I think a lot of people would prefer to not being asked to answer this question. Also, I completely agree with you Jim in that I do not think God figures either explicitly or implicitly in the "No Country" universe.

I personally think that Chigurh is simply amoral and his insistence on the coin toss and general disregard for life are due to more earthly reasons. Maybe he is a misanthrope or a serial-killer or treats everything as a game. I wonder if we are trying to attribute something to him that McCarthy did not intend. Maybe he doesn't even have to fit into any stock characterization like "atheist" or anything else.

I also found it interesting that he gave the coin toss option only to people he strictly doesn't have to kill. He doesn't give the coin toss option to people who get in his way or have something he wants. And, if to the former, he is "Fate" why does he only give two choices: Live or Die. Why not "break a leg", "lose an eye" etc.? I think he is meant to be just an agent whom Sheriff Bell cannot explain or understand (just like we can't) driving him to retire.

Atheism has nothing to do with Darwinism, and to assert that a natural conclusion of it is "recklessly craven positioning of self for purposes of survival" is simply theistic hatred. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in gods. Anyone who recognizes the Scientific Method as the best method we have of examining empirical or reason-based knowledge, and is therefore an atheist, does not need to "position themself for survival".

No Country is a thrilling, well-told movie that doesn't proselytizing or demonizing of atheists by alluding to Chigurh by association.

Following up on Darth Vader's most recent comment, I recall Chigurh giving Carla Jean the coin toss option only because she insists that her death is not necessary. This conflicts with the gas station attendant who is forced into the choice without realizing the stakes at first. He has the ability to provide the option, but it does seem to be at his whim. This would seem to conflict with the logical/linguistic games he sets up, in particular with respect to Carla Jean and the coin toss. He is so intent on making her choose that it is unclear (at least to me) whether he is suddenly trapped by it when it is presented. His struggle to accept whether she will call the toss seems very difficult for him to take, as though there is some impossibility in moving forward without it being called. If it never gets called, can he just rescind the offer?

Jeremy mentioned something above which also occurred to me while watching the film. When Bell goes to the motel and Chigurh is waiting in the shadows, the two rooms cordoned off with tape are 12 and 14, and the camera seems to deliberately focus on the space encompassed by these two doors, so when it zooms in, it essentially centers on the space between them (where Chigurh is inevitably standing). This coincides with several of the room numbers in the film- Moon staying in 138 when his shootout with Chigurh takes place, for example, as well as Wells' comment that the building where he meets his employer is missing a floor (implying the 13th, I would imagine). While it cannot be pinned down to perhaps more than "bad luck," Chigurh's connection to the number 13, particularly when Moon arrives at the motel, seems to imply that he is somehow not entirely extant in the same plane as Moon, Wells, etc. This of course clashes significantly with the capriciousness of the coin toss or his pursuit of money, and means that you cannot necessarily pin him into the realm of athiest/fatalist/etc. human or something on the lines of fate/death/etc. He is to me all of these things or none of these things at once, which makes it hard to look for a fully consistent and categorical reading of his character. This tends to work against how we tend to read films (or any type of text), with all pieces adding up to a whole, but there seems to be something decidedly non-zero-sum about the film which I enjoy quite a bit.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, and it's an odd detail to point out, but Chigurh does display one recognizably human characteristic in his self-surgery scene: he has the TV on in the motel room, not really watching it, just having it on as background noise, presumably to help take his mind off the pain. Then he comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and turns it off before lying down. Even Chigurh needs to lighten his mood with a few mundane distractions from reality now and then.

I'm probably detail nitpicking, but Chigurh also audibly grunts "Ow!" when he gets out of the car at the end. I'm not sure if that's consistent with reading him as a symbolic character, completely detached from humanity or human feeling.

I don't know what McCarthy's personal philosophy is, but I've always detected a distinct atheistic vein running through the work of his that I've read. Its bluntest expression comes in a passage in Suttree, set up in a scene where Suttree is conversing with an old ragpicker, a man who claims to be weary of life, and wanting to die. Suttree asks the man if there's anything he'll say to God when he meets him. The ragpicker responds:

Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one think I'd like to know. And he'll say: What's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together.

Near the end of the book, Suttree comes back to ragman's hole and finds him dead in his bead, and starts berating the corpse:

Did you ask? About the crapgame? What are you doing in bed with your shoes on?

[...]

He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

There's no one to ask is there? There's no ... He was looking down at the ragman and he raised his hand and let it fall again and he rose and went out past the old man's painted rock into the rain.

And that's the definitive word on the subject in Suttree. But I think you can find the same theme expressed in McCarthy's other works, like No Country: you can look to God or fate or what have you to explain why this crapgame is the way it is, but in the end, there's no one to ask. It's just us.

Ugh. I just got through sitting through a just released movie tonight in which every shot was supposed to "mean" something, in which every inept line of generic dialogue we were supposed to "feel" the pain of the characters. The funny thing is that someone watching this film who maybe has lived a life of sexual favors for the sake of "love" might view it completely different than I did.

We can say Brad's interpretation is way off, maybe it is because we don't have the background Brad does. A wolf certainly lives by Darwinian rules and I think it still kills to kill, and enjoys it. Man hunts because its a sport. We prove our power over other species constantly..."Sit boy, sit!" Maybe Chigurh's way of showing his superiority over us is to flip a coin. It's his egoism to believe that he is superior, that he follows the rules of fate, and as we know from his getting torqued by the car in the end and getting shot earlier he's not completely susceptible to the rules he feels he's above. Maybe that's what drives him to Carla Jean - his insatiable need to wreak havoc on those that come close to putting him in his place.

I'm breaking away from the metaphors and symbolism of the piece for a moment. A character can say something and certainly not mean it, right? The guy's f-ing psycho. He can talk about a code, and fate, and flip a coin, but in the end he's an f-ing psycho. Just as capable of getting wet when it rains as Thom Bell is.

He may or may not believe in God, but he certainly doesn't believe in the sanctity of human life and that in essence, as far as Christianity is concerned, does make him a nonbeliever. And I'm not talking about Christianity as in the kind that killed thousands of people on witch hunts when everyone was a lot more ignorant about everything, those hypocrites. Just the general God fearing rule that people twist to meet out there own needs. After all, Chigurh never flips the coin for Carla Jean - he's not fate. It could all just be a lot of pomp and circumstance for him. As I stated earlier, just his way of feeling superior, above the laws of human nature.

Creatures by darwins rules do what they do because it's what they're best at, whatever part of them has kept them alive they keep and become, roughly. Whose to say that Chigurh isn't man pared down to that primordial sludge of a base thought. You see that look in his eyes when he strangles the cop. It's not a flip of the coin, boys and girls, it's not fate dictating his whims, it's the wolf catching the rabbit and loving every minute of it. What would be more frightening to Thom Bell, fate or someone who believes he is fate and kills because of and in spite of it?

Maybe Brad isn't right on, but he may not be that far off. I guess it's difficult for me see someone else's logic when they take offense to someone else's argument which many people here did. I don't think he was attacking anyone's ideologies, and if he was, who cares - that's what he thinks.

Funny how you Americans are fascinated with mass killers. Bush anyone? Evil is banal. There is nothing phylosophical in it.

I think Chigurh is only “crazy” because he has chosen to hold no value for human life if that life is lived nonsensically. Participators of the drug trade also hold no value for human life, yet they themselves are living nonsensically. Yet Bell holds value for human life, is sensible, but tolerates the non-sense he finds himself around. The only thing that separates Chigurh and Bell is what they are willing to do to counter the drug trade. Since Bell cannot forgo the valuation of human life, he cannot immerse himself in the drug trafficking world and finds himself ineffective in that world he lives in as a lawman. Chigurh only becomes an agent of fate if he foregoes the valuation of human life, and can therefore deal with that world.

It's interesting to note that the desire to persevere financially in a huge scale is what caused the whole state of matters Bell finds himself obsolete in, a change in the countryside-drug trafficking. It creates the opportunity for a seemingly financial secure personal state with little effort, but one you have to sacrifice your own morality(the damage drugs cause society) and a sense of structure(your life is more out of your hands more apt to be taken from you - you have less protection from and offer yourself to the hands of fateful events) in. Violence and the hunger - and the character of the drug trade sacrifices the environment of Bell's father and sherifs of old.

This desire motivates most of the main characters. It does not motivate Chigurh though. Llewelyn is motivated entirely by the prospect of financial security throughout the film. A parallel can be made in both scenes where Llewelyn needs a coat and Chigurh needs a jacket. In Llewelyn’s scene he comes across 3 teens or young adults (who would tend to be broke). The first teen who speaks asks the specific question, “Were you in a car accident?” Llewelyn does not answer this question and turns the acquisition of a coat into a financial proposition. The teen’s question is a caring more human question not typical in the world Bell finds himself in. Same with the Mexican guitarists when he asks for a hospital (the shot featuring a nice close up of an offered 100 dollar bill). When Chigurh needs a shirt, the boy offers the shirt without payment. Chigurh has the opportunity to take the shirt without giving any money. Yet he does give money. Money, an impetuous of the environment Bell finds himself obsolete in, Chigurh doesn’t care about.

The tendency for many people to not answer the question asked is a recurring theme in the movie, especially in Chigurh’s scenes, he not proposing to perhaps kill those who are honest or sensible. Honesty and sensibility are all lacking in the drug trade, and those who lack it in general are more apt to set themselves up for a negative “fateful” event. The owner of the gas station does not answer Chigurh’s questions with honest or sensibility. The candy wrapper may be symbolic of the economy the owner has wrapped his entire life around perhaps not questioning a fateful position pulling him toward ownership of the station-living a life Chigurh understands are indicative of the drug trade, Chigurh gives the prospect of fate to the owner in the coin toss. After the owner winning the toss, Chigurh gives the owner the coin and reminds him that it should be kept separate from the other coins, yet the owner should remember “it IS just a coin.” It is only money.

Chigurh’s motivations turn him into a symbolic agent of fate, in his own way, playing within the world surrounding the drug trade, where the rules have made human life less sacred, in his own way is honest, sensible, and cares nothing about money. As an agent of fate, holding human life less sacred(a lawlessness-in this way lacking morality), but retaining honesty, sensibility(in communication and own rules), and not caring about money, Chigurh is the perfect foil for the situation of the drug trade. Participators in the drug trade sacrifice honesty and sensibility for money, and in exchange set themselves up to be damaged by fateful events(maybe killed).

Bell’s opening speech:

You can say it's my job to fight it but I don't know what it is anymore. More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, OK, I'll be part of this world....

Chigurh is an anti-hero perfect for the drug trade willing to put his soul on the line as he holds no sacredness for human life lived with nonsense, yet has honesty, sensibility, and a outlook not placing emphasis on money similar to Bell. Chigurh is willing to put his soul at hazard and is willing to participate in that world, something that Bell cannot. There is probably a reason Chigurh has decided to enact the counter to his understanding of the drug trafficking problem – a problem influencing the entire area.

Chigurh encounters in order:
Police officer (sensibility-leaves prisoner in a position where Chigurh could do harm)
Guy in the Car(sensibility- guy looks in the mirror Chigurh is not wearing a uniform yet guy obeys-shot in the head-very Miller’s Crossing)
Drug Traffickers(money drug trade honesty, sensibility, money- Chigurh has consciously decided to fight the drug trade)
Station Attendant(sensibility- not answering the questions which were asked, nonsensical, sets himself up to be damaged by fateful events *coin toss)
Lady at trailer home(IS sensible/honest sticks to what she says)
Llewellen(money from drug trade- Chigurh seeks to undo the influence of the drug trade)
Wade(mercenary involved in drug trade for money-money\sensibility)
Guy in office(drugs)
Underling in office(Chigurh asks a simple question-unknown)
Guy in truck(questions/sensibility-is probably dead)
“Chigurh\Bell”(probably signifies their similarities)
Carla(in Chigurh’s version of sensibility words indicate one’s sense when Chigurh says he will go after Carla if certain conditions are met he will go after Carla-her best bet is to call the toss *coin toss)

I'd like to add my support to a number of posters who have objected to the deeply mistaken understandings of both atheism and Darwin. The level and degree of the misunderstanding is mindboggling, since the misunderstandings are also simply inconsistent.

Even if we did erroneously treat Darwinism as survival of the fittest or as a teleology toward "higher" forms of life, it would be moronic to interpret a murderous "fate machine" (as one poster beautifully described it) as the perfect embodiment of survival or as a "superhuman"--there's a reason social behavior is naturally selected in most "higher" primates, after all.

Second, even if the social darwinistic interpretation (which is not true darwinism) is assumed, it would mean that every living creature is a murderous egoistic fate-machine, not just atheists. Theists, on this view, would be murderous egoistic fate-machines who dress up their crimes with the fairy tales of free will and moral justification.

Finally, while I agree with implication that the film deals with nihilism, it is a deep misunderstanding to treat atheism as the cause of nihilism. Nihilism is the result of our highest cultural and moral values dismantling themselves--e.g., the moral imperative to truthfulness, enforced by theism, leading to the exposure of theism as wishful lie. Nihilism results in an absence of values only because theism has systematically destroyed all natural values--all "earthly" values--thus leaving nothing behind after its own self-incurred downfall. In other words, theism causes nihilism. Atheism is the hope of its overcoming.

On a side note, I take the image of the coin toss as the film's (or at least Chigurh's) recognition that the notions of free will, moral responsibility, and "purpose" (whether theistic or misinterpreted darwinism) to be illusions. The fatalism of the film is the fatalism of pure, unadulterated chance, where there are no variables which could change the purely contingent outcome. Pure chance=pure necessity.

Saw the parenthetical in your original comment and laughed. You're a good man Charlie Brown. Maybe "like Jonathan said" could become the new Scanners tagline.

Or part of the laws of human nature.

Being equal to that would be just as powerful as being above that, I imagine.

Also, just because he's paid to do something doesn't make him a non Darwinian entity - someone who's the fittest. Hell, I'd love to be paid for what I do best, nothing wrong with that.

Great, just great. Another blatant misconception being lobbed, this time by Mr Kelly. FIrst off, I have never heard of any evidence in all the research I have personally done on wolves of a wolf killing and not eating some prey. In fact, I have read of reports of wolves breaking up fights between other wolves and sometimes between wolves and dogs. They do indeed live by "Darwinian rules" in terms of doing what is necessary for survival but to anthropomorphize wolves to the extent of assuming that they enjoy killing for the sake of killing without any evidence of them having done so, is just rather silly.

"I felt it, but I didn't believe it". Jim, your experience in church would have been enough for a lot of people who frequently say if you would just turn off your brain and let your feelings rule than God would speak to you. Why fight it?

I don't call myself an atheist for a couple of reasons. One: whatever the prevailing statistics about majority belief systems the burden of proof is still on belief, not non-belief. Atheism is not a rejection of some pre-established fact. It would be like a man, not convicted of a crime, calling himself "acriminal". Two: maybe I'm hedging my bets but if I am, I'm doing it out of courtesy. I have not come to a final disbelief in a creator and so if he exists I don't want to be identified as anti-Him or anything. At the same time I don't fear any such being because I *have* come to a final disbelief in the olde jealous and judgmental god. So call me a heretic but not an atheist.

As for the movie, I disagree a bit, with the idea that religion isn't part of NCFOM. I, like many, think of Chigurh as some sort of Fate, which is a pretty religious concept. Chance might be a better term for a similar, but areligious character, but Chigurh doesn't strike me that way at all. This isn't about butterflies beating their wings on the other side of the world. However bleak, I mean oblique, the plan might be the movie definitely seems to operate under the idea that there is a plan. It may well be an argument against the so-called Judeo-Christian God but I don't think it's at all about earthbound Darwinism. The selection going on here is definitely supernatural.

JE: I guess I should have explained my own experience a little more precisely. I wanted to believe. I saw everyone around me believing (as I had all my life, everywhere, when our teacher led us in the Pledge of Allegience to the motto on our money). I was never even exposed to the possibility that one could NOT believe in God. I was still a kid and I didn't know it was possible -- any more than I could not believe in air. But I do remember reflecting: If you get a bunch of people in a room reciting words and music together, whipping up emotions (that I felt but didn't understand why), everybody supporting one another and validating one another's feelings, then what did we all believe we were sharing? I didn't see how it had anything to do with God, just that we were feeding off one another.

When I got a little older, maybe I developed more skepticism toward authority and an increasing distrust of mob behavior (from Nazi rallies to Beatlemania), but I couldn't put my full trust in those things, even when I thought I felt them. Seemed to me that too many widely held beliefs were indefensible (like, say, slavery -- which even the New Testament condoned). To be true to my own deepest moral beliefs about who I am, I have to live my life without organized religion. Most of all, the idea of an omniscient God who exercises Divine Will and offers his creations free will, seems irrelevant to what I think is important in life. I could never believe in a God who thought it was important that I believe in Him. I wish I could, because maybe then I could believe in Divine forgiveness for what I consider to be my sins and mistakes. But, for me, the only possibility for forgiveness is in this life -- from other people and from myself.

Darwinism, as defined by Webster's Dictionary... #2 "A theory that inherent dynamic forces allow only the fittest persons or organizations to prosper in a competitive environment or situation." The dynamic forces being the drug trade, fittest person being Chigurh. I'm not even agreeing with Brad! I'm just making a point.

Boosh! .. Who was saying that Darwinism wasn't survival of the fittest? Huh? Anyone? ... Alright ... now chill. Even if Webster himself is wrong, if a movie deals with something, say, ooooh, Darwinism, we're not dealing with the reality of Darwinism. We're dealing with Darwinism through the artist's eyes. It's their interpretation of Darwinism or Fate or Death or being F-ing psycho that you're watching. If the filmmaker feels that atheism only leads to a twisted Darwinism then the way they portray Darwinism is going to be affected by that. That's why it's art and not science.

A lot of Christians do equate Darwin and atheism. If there's no God, there's kill or be killed. It's not an illogical jump if you see good and bad with such a white and black finality that many people do. Funny thing is, most of those Christians wouldn't be able to tell upon meeting an atheist if they are one or not. It's the same mentality that many atheists have about all Christians 9no not all Christians hold Brad's belief - if he is a Christian). Liberals and Conservatives. Americans and Muslims. The extremes are always going to be seen first and then followed through on as if it was the only depiction of the race or religion or belief. That's why movies like "Persepolis" should be shown in high schools all across America.

Now the misconception about a wolf not enjoying the hunt, or the kill. I'm sorry Killyosaur that you do not agree that an animal enjoys eating food. And in turn that a carnivore enjoys killing said food on its own terms. I imagine if you took the food away from the animal it might even be considered angry. True, my example of a wolf may not be completely appropriate as they are remarkably lazy creatures and will give up rather quickly if the chase drags out too long (which would mean that they don't enjoy chasing something if it's taking too long...they are impatient as well as happy to kill their prey when and if they can get it). There are however base instincts that can be equated between humans (as we are also animals) and the rest of the animal kingdom, one of those is eating, another is sleeping, and then there's romance - there could very well be more. Animals even have enough sense to make decisions based upon what they see. Good idea/bad idea. That antelope looks pretty good, thinks the Jackal, but that Lion that's already eating it makes him think twice. The lion roars, the Jackal becomes scared (oh God, I'm doing it again anthropomorphizing the damn Jackal - a jackal could never be scared of anything). I use the word think, because animals can reason - certainly not on a human level(though when a chimp signs it's pretty incredible). Saying that an animal doesn't enjoy something is like saying humans don't act based on instinct...ever, and that's not true. Besides, if you're going to semantically gripe about the wolf analogy, you probably missed the point of my argument all together. And if you don't get that a level of ridiculousness follows this argument, then ka-kow, I just wasted your time.

Jim,

The interesting thing about religion is that every religion, especially Christian, believes something slightly different. I don't believe in forgiveness the same way Catholics do for instance. It seems unnecessary for me to need to be forgiven by someone other than myself, the person I've offended or God. I think the mistake most people make, and not just as Christians, is that their religion or belief system takes precedence over human interaction when most often those religions or belief systems are about how we relate to others. So when you say "from other people and from myself" from my own Christian perspective, it's almost more Christian than most Christians behave. And the only reason why we feel the need to point it out is that we expect people who follow a certain higher law to be better and they can't, it's impossible. It's like asking all cops not to be dirty. Some are going to be. Some are still going to beat their wives or launder money or do drugs. Some Christians are still going to back stab and lie. It's not about being Christian or not being Christian, it's about being human and imperfect, and being able to forgive, even when you hold people to a higher standard because of what they call themselves.

Jim, thank you for your thoughtful response. It would seem that my letter offended a few people in the forum. Apologies to the offended. However, all I have done is taken the book/film and run it through my own personal spectrometer. Polite disagreement elevates any discussion, don't you think, especially with touchy subject matter like this.

Let me ask you something, Jim. What do you think the central question is at the heart of No Country? Or perhaps you feel there isn't one and that's fine. I'm pretty sure we disagree about what the film/book is centrally concerned with and this is why we have such different takes on this material. I think the question behind No Country is both simple and complex and everything within the book/film dovetails back into this question -- why do good? It's the question that Chigurh had to ask himself many years before. It's the question that Ed Tom Bell, as an old man, is only now starting to vaguely wrestle with. You see, Chigurh is man of principle and strong conviction. A man like this could never be a bystander in life's fray. No, his choices in life were lawman or killer. Now, onto the subject of Chigurh's atheism. Here's why his atheism is so critical to understanding him -- because No Country's author says so. Remember the line with Carla Jean -- Even a non-believer . . . .? To not interpret this line as an admission of atheism makes no sense to me. McCarthy is a spare, vague writer to be sure, there's nothing heavy-handed or preachy about his approach. But McCarthy means to give us an important piece of information here. We'd best take it because he gives us nothing else about Chigurh. Nothing. So is Cormac saying that Chigurh's atheism informed his lawman/killer decision? In a way, yes. But I also think that Cormac means to say that Chigurh's decision was arrived at intellectually and not bound by any spiritual belief system. Speaking of spiritual belief systems, I think this is exactly why that stone trough got carved, but that's a whole different argument.

Quite a few folks thought I was trying to make short work of atheism. This sorta baffles me. Are we not all aware of how religion can corrupt and twist ideology? Is atheism outside of such perversions? Of course not. I believe that No Country contains a character that has corrupted and twisted his own atheism. I believe that Cormac McCarthy finds corrupted atheism way more horrifying than corrupted religion.

Lastly, everyone seems to agree that the coin-flipping scenes are about fated things. But aren't these scenes also about Chigurh's sense of mercy and decency?

Brad: Thanks for providing the stimulus for so much interesting discussion. As I said, I do appreciate your point of view, even when I wouldn't read the book/movie that way.

In answer to your question: I think the central question is a little more abstract: How do you live your life knowing you're going to die? Not in the abstract, but really going to cease to exist? (I think both movie and book see death as final -- no promise of an afterlife -- which is one reason I don't detect the presence of God in it.)

I don't think there's any "mercy or decency" in Chigurh -- that he exists outside those concepts. As I wrote, I think it's just another illustration of his unwillingness to take responsibility for his own actions, to pretend it's up to "fate" or "chance" (depending on how you look at it). He insists the OTHER person has to "call it." When Carla Jean refuses, he's genuinely flustered. She will not validate his principles with her consent. Sure, he can still kill her, but that won't make her accept his terms.

Jim, I'm glad to have the more precise explanation but I hope it doesn't mean you misunderstood my post because I was in full agreement with you. My experience was almost exactly like yours and I was just parroting some of what I heard back then. I wouldn't say I wanted to believe, though, because more simply I assumed I *did* believe until I realized I didn't. And then want had nothing to do with it. I hear that a lot, though, even from someone who has tried to argue, scientifically, for the Christian side. Eventually they give up and say, "Well I just wouldn't want to live in a world without God." Or they use a line like "There are no atheists in foxholes." To me, these arguments are simply another way of saying "You must fool yourself--convince your brain there is a God because it's better that way." And I just can't nor do I see the need to try. I just avoid foxholes. And please, people, I'm not trying to convince anyone of what they should believe. I'm not an evangelical. I'm just saying that my reality seems pretty firm to me even if it isn't always pretty.

Mr. Kelly, you have still failed to demonstrate how Chigurh is a good example of a Darwinian being, rather than a terribly flawed example. Darwin's theory of evolution merely says that individual organisms within a species that possess mutations that make them more likely to be successful at producing more offspring in a given environment will become "naturally selected." Because the mutation would propagate/procreate more successfully than the non-mutation, the mutation appears more frequently within the species across success generations until, eventually, the species has "evolved" into a new species.

This is what is meant by "survival of the fittest." It's not "survival of the best," but rather "best chance of survival due to most appropriate characteristics for an environment." This is high school biology material. This is why the idea of an "evolutionary ladder" is a misconception, because evolution does not necessarily (and certainly has not always) produced more advanced species, which means that saying an organism/species is evolved does not signify that it is "better" or "higher" than that which came before it.

So in light of this very basic definition of Darwinian theory, how does Chigurh fit the Darwinian model? Darwinian theory says nothing about "kill or be killed" (which is why such Christian conceptions of evolution and atheism are dead wrong). Chigurh's motives for murder cannot be found in an overriding survival instinct. Within the dangerous, drug-trafficking world of the movie/novel, Chigurh does not need to be a bounty hunter who kills everyone in his way (and even those who aren't) to survive or "be the fittest." He could, for instance, be one of the people who pull the strings in the business.

He is never defensive, except for the brief moment when he finds himself hunted and wounded by Moss. That part of the story, the part after it (in which Chigurh steals drugs from the pharmacy and treats his own injuries), and his final scene, are the only times when his strong survival instincts and cunning are emphasized and thus could be loosely interpreted as Darwinian. But then one can say that as the hunted, Moss is also a Darwinian character, despite his ultimate fate. Chigurh doesn't claim to be superior or inferior, above or below, anyone else. He exists and acts to do what he has been hired to do and what fate calls him to do.

A much stronger interpretation for Chigurh's motives and place in his world is that he is an agent of order, the "one right tool" used to clean up the capitalistic mess of the drug deal gone bad. In this light, he is not a Darwinian entity but rather a machine, much like HAL 9000, that operates by a non-human set of rules that require him to do anything to fulfill his objective. Would you like to call HAL a Darwinian being?

Brad made the assertion that No Country for Old Men is best understood as a tract on Darwinism, but we're saying that this interpretation is weak, i.e. not well-supported by the entire story compared to other, more popular interpretations. Thus, I don't understand why you would suggest that the Coens and McCarthy are trying to portray Darwinism. It sounds more like you're trying to read that into the story rather than getting it from the story. And yes, I know that you're not completely agreeing with Brad.

How can you say that wolves (or any other predatory carnivores) enjoy killing prey? And just what do you mean when you say that people (or animals) "enjoy" eating? People enjoy good food, and people will be happy to be relieved of their hunger. But what makes the actual eating of the food "enjoyable"? It's just something that we have to do, like breathing or expelling waste. Do you enjoy breathing? Do you enjoy urinating or defecating, other than the relief that both bring you? Certainly whatever "enjoyment" might be argued for any of these cases can't be the same kind of enjoyment that we feel from doing recreational activities.

Predators kill because they have to kill, just like we have to breathe and expel waste. To make the inductive leap that they somehow must enjoy killing is unreasonable, unless you can read their minds. Certainly, they may not feel guilty for killing, but that doesn't mean that they enjoy it. And just because you'll upset an animal by taking away its food does not mean that it enjoys killing or eating. If you were unable to find a bathroom, you'd also be upset, but that also doesn't mean that you enjoy expelling waste; and if you're prevented from breathing, you'll be upset, but it doesn't mean that you enjoy breathing. Similarly, we don't know that Chigurh enjoys killing. It's just something that he thinks that he has to do.

What you say about Chigurh's sense of "superiority" in terms feeling not obliged to live by human moral decency does not all point to him being a Darwinian being; instead, it would make him a classic example of a twisted interpretation of the Nietzschean Übermensch ("overman"), a concept that isn't connected with Darwinism. Also, psycho-killers are necessarily anti-Darwinian because they act directly against the interest of the species. In other words, if everyone were like Chigurh, the entire human race would become extinct in almost no time.

"I think the mistake most people make, and not just as Christians, is that their religion or belief system takes precedence over human interaction when most often those religions or belief systems are about how we relate to others. ... It's not about being Christian or not being Christian, it's about being human and imperfect, and being able to forgive, even when you hold people to a higher standard because of what they call themselves."

Then what is the point of being Christian or a follower of any particular religion? Why not just expound secular humanistic values? Why even have so many religions? No, the point of any religion isn't to teach followers how to relate to each other. It's to bait followers with promises of supernatural rewards (i.e. God's love, heaven, 72 virgins, nirvana, etc.) in exchange for certain behaviors. If your religion serves primarily as a guide for how to relate to your fellow person, then why do you follow it versus another religion or no religion at all (i.e. secular humanism)? You certainly sound like a secular humanist, except that you call yourself a Christian.

By the way, the people who have committed atrocities in the name of Christianity are not hypocrites. In the Bible, God commands the slaughter of many thousands, and He says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." They're just doing what they believe God tells them to do, so why do you have a problem with that?

Don't want to contribute to a pile-on (well, maybe I do) but I have to say say a quick bravo to the challenging of Mr. P. Kelly's notions of animal behavior (especially the second mention, about the wolf "enjoying every minute of it"), which sound suspiciously like someone trying to justify their own feelings. The smug tone that suffuses his writing cinches it.

Though I would have to say that Fei sort of sidles up to anthropomorphism in a backwards way by saying that animals "may" not feel guilty for killing, because of course they don't. Things like guilt and shame are human, period.

Phillip: My joke about Catholicism, from the first time I heard about confession, was that it was the most brilliant thing I'd ever heard of: guilt absolved through accounting. Sin X + 10 Hail Marys + 3 Our Fathers = O! (Yes, I'm being facetious.)

Dane: I really appreciate what you said about believing until you didn't believe. My experience was slightly different, because even when I believed I wanted to believe more. I don't remember making a decision not to believe, but somehow I gradually realized that religion felt artificial to me and that I didn't see why I should keep fighting to accept it. Maybe it's like a left-hander being told "You must use your right hand" even though it doesn't feel right, and finally just accepting reality: "No, I'm left-handed, it's what feels natural to me, and I'm going to write with my left hand."

Philip: There is a big difference between natural selection and Social Darwinism. That definition you're using has nothing to do with natural selection or the theory of evolution. If you're going stand against evolution, you should be careful about how you throw around definitions.

Guys. I was hoping my statements since they included "boosh" and "ka-kow" would point to the fact that I wasn't taking myself all that seriously when talking about animals or the definition of Darwinism. The over intellectualizing of all this is about to make my head explode. The point of the animal diatribe was to show how ridiculous it was for one person to Lord that over me instead of seeing the point of my original post. I was being absurd in my second post. If they had an "absurd" font I would take full advantage of it, as I would a "sarcastic" font. I mean, really, "romance"? Is that what they mean when they put the word "mounting" on the descriptions outside of the monkey cages at the zoos? No one got that I was completely joking when I wrote "romance"? Smug, though, I will not tolerate when all I'm doing is having a little fun. If I couldn't have a little fun and poke some fun at even myself, my head would explode.

My comments about how artists view their material rolls back to my original comment concerning Brad's point of view being dictated by what he's experienced in his life (which then some people said I was doing -- how did things get so twisted around? Only my pointing it out in Brad's case was far less negative then it was in my case, but I'm a big boy.) An Artist's view of sex might be dark as it was for Emily Dickinson or Stanley Kubrick because that's the way they saw it. Me? I think sex is a great thing, my art would show that. A person will take their life and roll it over the movie. That's how they'll see something, and I don't believe intelligent discourse can happen until one is able to accept that in someone else, rather than feel immediately offended by it. Otherwise it's an I'm going to try and knock over your wall and not allow you to get past mine. All it is is butting heads. And that might not be the original intent of the author of the note or message.

My comment about the artist seeing Darwinism as something other than the definition was in no way meant to specify the Coen's take on McCarthy's novel. Merely to further show that personal interpretation can play a much bigger part in how something is defined beyond the viewer. If there's was an inference I was not making it.

Fei, my failing to show how Chigurh can be seen as a metaphor for Darwinism only happened, because he can't be seen as that. I in fact do not believe that Chigurh is a Darwinistic symbol. So many people reading Brad's comments were getting unnecessarily upset because they felt like it was an attack on their beliefs (in this case, lack there of - that is a joke). I tried to throw some balance into the conversation, to consider for a moment his point of view. And it led me to other interesting thoughts, the one I think I settled on is the fact that Chigurh is simply psychotic.

Anyone who feels that they are on level with the hand of fate, or as you point out the order in a chaotic world naturally takes a position of supposed superiority. Whether they feel they are or not. Again, it doesn't matter what he says about himself, he still breaks his own rules to deal the final blow - there's hardly order in that. But, that doesn't mean he can't see himself as order. I like your thought about order. I like the thought above about Chigurh representing something more Old Testament biblical too -- all very intriguing ideas. The Coen Brothers take everything, all the intellectualizing, ideologies, statements, metaphors, whatever you want to call them and they turn them all on their heads in the final few scenes of the film. All this that we're talking about and throwing around, really in the end of the film doesn't matter. They take the mythology of the characters, of the Western archetypes, and they humanize them. Chigurh is fatefully hit by a car even though he held fast to being the dealer of fate. Ed Tom is told that believing things have gotten worse is "vanity". Everything that the characters present themselves as, is shrewdly torn apart. Maybe, in the end he becomes a Darwinian symbol, surviving by dealing with his broken limb and moving on. These final few moments in the end are the most important in the film to me, and directly point to what the Coen Brother's are getting at. It's vanity to believe you can outrun death, it's vanity to believe you are the person who gives and takes away life when you can have it taken away just as quickly.

The best thing about this sort of discussion is that when you consider someone else's perspective you find new perspectives yourself. And sometimes you just strengthen your own. As a Christian I'm always questioning my belief system, it's the only way I can grow as a person.

Fei, I also enjoy breathing and peeing. Have you ever stepped outside after a nice long rain and just taken a deep breath? Or maybe been sick and unable to sleep at night because you can't breathe, then suddenly you wake up and you're not sick, and can breathe? There's enjoyment there. Or perhaps held it in to finish watching a movie, then rushed to the stall...it's a pretty enjoyable experience to release that tension. I enjoy walking too. I've had a broken toe for the last two months, and I can finally put weight on it. My cat doesn't meow at me for five minutes to get me to throw the ball because it doesn't enjoy running after it and bringing it back. There are words, descriptive words, that match both human and animal behavior. If I give a wolf a piece of fruit, it won't eat it, because it doesn't like the taste. Is it wrong to say that it doesn't enjoy eating that piece of fruit? Who knows if a wolf enjoys eating or not. I don't, do you?

You wrote, "What you say about Chigurh's sense of "superiority" in terms feeling not obliged to live by human moral decency does not all point to him being a Darwinian being; instead, it would make him a classic example of a twisted interpretation of the Nietzschean Übermensch ("overman"), a concept that isn't connected with Darwinism." These were two entirely different thoughts in my post as well. Thinking about Brad's thought I stumbled onto the other.

James, I don't think I mentioned the words evolution or natural selection in any of my statements while searching to understand Brad's observations, which I find intriguing. This was a definition given by Webster's Dictionary, which also did not say anything about evolution or natural selection. It is one of the base definitions of Darwinism. Some people were saying that wasn't what it meant, I was just showing that it can mean that. I guess even people who define Darwinism will define it differently. But this is what I'm talking about, because I consider Brad's ideas in a post I'm suddenly standing against evolution? It doesn't make any sense to me.

And finally, Fei, I guess I'll be the first Christian that does care about human beings over my stake in a great property beyond the pearly gates. I also believe you can do great theatre in Los Angeles without pandering to the film industry - I'm a little crazy. I believe it was Jesus who said love your neighbors as yourself. Unfortunately, most everything has become a sales pitch in our current era, at one point Christianity was sold on the basis of, become one or we'll kill you. I think we're doing a lot better now. So, do we view Christianity based on the way in which a culture has decided to sell it or spread it (depending on your POV) or do you base on it's value system and intent? I just don't like boxing anyone into corners, even atheists. I'd say that's hardly smug. I would say that I'm not religious and largely against the way organized religion is conducted in our current world, that doesn't mean I'm not a Christian. It just means I don't think religions necessarily act like Christians all the time.

Not all Christians fall into the same category, not all of them use it as a sales pitch, just as all atheists don't fall into the same category. C.S. Lewis is one of the people I admire, not only as a Christian, but as a person.

One person will be an atheist because he hates God for allowing a relative to die, another won't see the necessity in believing in a God from the beginning. Two completely different reasons to not believe in God. We don't label them differently like we would Baptist and Catholic, but we could. In the end they're both still Atheists. It's the person that makes the decision how they chose to believe and it isn't my place to judge them for believing the way they do. Unfortunately many Christians do judge other Christians. My Dad is a Pastor, I grew up in this world that you box up and condemn. There's certainly enough to condemn about it. There's certainly enough to condemn about the Coca Cola company. You can find something to condemn in any institution or social structure. But to condemn individuals within that social structure is a miscalculation and can lead to some of the most heinous treatments of human beings I've ever seen.

Now, if you want me to get really personal, which it sounds like you do: I'm constantly questioning my belief in God. And then I wonder if I'm questioning the way I've been taught to believe in God. How do I separate the two? This is why I'm drawn to people like Ingmar Bergman as filmmakers. The complications of my own personal belief is a discussion that goes a lot deeper than a few posts on a blog can take. But I do believe in God and I do consider myself a Christian. It's something I've decided on over and over again, but I have my days when cynicism, doubt, logic, hopelessness really steer me in the other direction.

Jim, I read your facetiousness, and I grinned accordingly. I feel from now on whenever I'm having a little fun I'll have to follow it with a disclaimer.

Dane, they tried to force me to right hand it too.

I don't know what else to say.

I just went back and reread all of what I wrote because I didn't think I was being that unclear.

"A lot of Christians do equate Darwin and atheism. If there's no God, there's kill or be killed." Obviously, I'm talking about other people's opinions and not my own. The fact that I don't say whether that is write or wrong, means that I'm not saying whether it's write or wrong. A lot has been inferred into what I wrote.

Fei, see if this goes somewhere (I'm having a little intellectual fun). If Chigurh represents to the Sheriff the ever changing way in which the darker side of society deals with it's problems, then in fact, Chigurh is a Darwinian symbol. The Sheriff talks about a passage of time, from one generation to the next, that evil has become more potent, that the bad guys have found ways to defeat each other in ways that are so efficient and frightening it's not even worth fighting against them anymore.

So, we're not talking about a literal passing of genes from one organism to another so that a creature can adapt, but a metaphorical one, a creative one. If Chigurh is the evolution of what "evil" or "criminal" has become from one generation to the next then that does make sense (through the Sheriff's eyes). If this is what it takes for this sort of behavior to not only continue but worsen and become as efficient and brutal as it has, then Chigurh is the perfect example of a Darwinian villain in the drug trade. He has learned from his predecessors, changed/adapted to better fit his environment. He's in fact adapted to the point that death is just another thing to him. Killing someone in his eyes may not even be about killing, it's like brushing your hair in the morning, just another thing you do. (I abstained from making an animal analogy, even for the sake of humor.)

Now atheism doesn't fit into this equation. Though from some Christian point of views, as I stated before, a lack of value for human life is not very Christian-like, and from that side of the spectrum, I can understand someone equating this atheism with this Darwin idea, or reading it into the artist's point of view. Though, I do not feel that way. To first defeat your opponents you have to empathize with them (joke by way of exaggeration).

If Chigurh is primarily concerned about his own survival, why did he not kill the two kids on the bikes at the end who can not only identify him, but who now have a $100 bill from the drug deal? He simply paid one for his shirt, and then tells them to tell the ambulance or whoever that he was already gone when he got there. This scene for me does not fit with the above descriptions about Chigurh being concerned only with his own survival.

Well, since I started this whole discussion I'll attempt to refine my thoughts about Chigurh, a fascinating character to say the least.

First, we must accept the fact that Chigurh is indeed an atheist. The only real God/No God fingerprint(within the book)comes from Chigurh's own mouth when he intimates his non-believer status. McCarthy doesn't play fast and loose with this kind of information. He must've thought it important. We should treat it as such. Now it's easy to argue that God's presence can not be detected in No Country. This is true and to a degree precisely the point. For McCarthy to insert God into No Country would render the text non-secular and polemical which is not consistent at all with the thrust of McCarthy's body of work. Anyway, yep, Chigurh is an atheist. Now let us move on.

Second, we all seem to agree that Chigurh believes in determinism, which is informed by his atheism. To the believer free will is God's gift. No God, no free will, at least to Chigurh. Also, it's important that we not regard Chigurh as a symbol of determinism or fate. Chigurh must be viewed as a living, breathing entity with a philosophical background who has arrived at certain conclusions and made certain choices. Within the story, Chigurh is a real person, not a symbol of anything.

Lastly, does anybody wonder why Chigurh has chosen his particular line of work? Let's say there was a guy standing in front of you and all you knew about him was that he had principles and didn't seem to have an interest in money. Now which is he -- lawman or lawbreaker? Exactly. So once again, why did Chigurh chose this particular line of work? And please, don't say because he's a psychopath and that's what psychopath's do. Chigurh is indeed a psychopath but this is the effect of something else, not the cause. Are we to believe that Chigurh has always been a psychopath and then decided to brush up on his philosophy, reject God, and align himself with the laws of determinism simply because he needed a belief system that made his psychopathic tendencies more plausible to himself. C'mon folks. No, chances are that Chigurh rejects the entire notion of good and evil. Chigurh only experiences the world in terms of weakness or strength. This is why Chigurh works in the name of lawlessness -- better weapons(like that nasty shotgun deal)and absent moral/legal limitations. Yep, it's all about weakness and strength for Chigurh. And it's a short ride to Darwinism from there.

as to the last post on survival -
it looked to me that his expedient survival was paramount and foremost on his mind. he was nearly mortally wounded, sitting on the curb with no weapons or the ability to use them, with police sirens wailing in the background. his immediate objective was to remove himself from the scene as quickly as possible. unable to kill the kids even if he wanted to he did the next thing which was to give them hush money and hope that it would work. meantime it distracted the kids enough so that he could hobble away to safety.

Brad: So basically you're saying if Chigurh were a Christian he wouldn't kill people? Could it be he's just a sociopath who enjoys the hunt? Killing people ruthlessly doesn't require atheism. Plenty of self-professed Christians throughout history have exhibited sociopathic tendencies. I could just as easily imagine a killer who uses a metaphysical, even religious justification for hunting people down and killing them for money. I could just as easily imagine someone hunting down "sinners" and killing them, using a similarly deterministic argument (e.g. "I'm the left hand of god").

That might seem irrelevant to you because Chigurh ISN'T a Christian, but I think it's important to point out. Because you're suggesting a slippery slope that connects disbelief in god to murderous amorality, and that just doesn't hold water, because Chigurh being an atheist does not mean all killers must be atheists, nor does it suggest that being irreligious is a precondition for nihilism and violence.

Just because a story features an atheist killing people does not mean that the author believes that atheism must lead to killing. I think your argument is incredibly reductionist and completely overstates the implied intentions of the author and the film makers. Certainly we can agree that Chigurh is an atheist, but then we also say that Jim Jones was a believer.

Chigurh could murder because of deep uncontrollable compulsions, misanthropy, sociopathic apathy, psychosis and/or extreme narcissism- all of these disorders can emerge in people regardless of their religious beliefs.

Brad,

My one problem with all of this is that you're talking about the book. I haven't read the book, but I have seen the movie and that line isn't in the movie (unless I'm forgetting it). While McCarthy put it in the book no doubt for a reason, the Brothers left it out for a reason.

I don't think you can say the character in the book is completely representative of the character in the movie. And because of that while some themes might carry over, others may not.

Just a thought.

Ugh... commentary overload.

One thing that this discussion did bring to mind: given all of the signficance assigned to the coin toss, he only offers it to two people in the film, right? The gas station guy and Carla Jean. Gas station guy surrenders to fate (knowingly or otherwise) and lives. Carla Jean exercises her free will, refuses to call, and dies. What message there...? Have your papers on my desk by Monday.

Brad,

Have you studied evolution or Darwin? "Survival of the fittest" does not mean "survival of the individual," but refers to species. This often necessitates, and as Darwin points out, cooperation amongst a species. Otherwise, there is no survival.

Taken this way, if you link atheism with Darwinism (though this isn't necessary), perhaps atheism's "natural conclusion" is extreme cooperation.

However, if you take Darwinism to mean "survival of the invididual at the cost of all other individuals," then Darwin himself was not a Darwinist.

Since you do not adequately describe Darwinism nor, as others have pointed out, atheism, I cannot agree with your opinion of the film's meaning.

As Warren pointed out, if someone is concerned with his or her own survival, there might be vocations with greater appeal than mercenary. Even if they highly trained themselves to stay alive at all costs, I don't think they'd put themselves in a position in which people are trying to hunt them down.

I find the initial letter incredibly offensive, and completely ignorant of philosophies such as Humanism. I could use just as much or more textual support to argue that Chigurh's dogmatic code of life resemble that of Christianity or other world religions. And I could extrapolate that the film and book are all about what happens when people think that a greater entity has granted them the power to decide the fate of others.

Would I be able to make the argument convincingly? Probably not. But it would be at least as sound as Mr. Smissen's reading. And if Smissen doesn't like such simplistic readings of his faith, he shouldn't jump to such hasty conclusions about those who have none.

Slone, respectfully, I don't feel Christianity is germane to the No Country discussion so I won't go there. You seem to have a problem with Chigurh being a possible outcome of atheism. This should not be confused with atheism being a causal agent. Do you believe that cigarettes cause burials? Neither do I, however, there is a relationship there worth exploring, don't you think?

Justin, survival of the fittest works in the animal kingdom because animals are amoral. If they were moral then they would protect the weak members within their own species(something uniquely human)and these weak members would pass on their weak genes indefinitely. Chigurh, by rejecting the notion of good and evil, renders himself amoral and thus reduces himself to animal status in my view. This is why I think use of the word Darwinism is apt enough.

Phillip,

I'm no linguist and I don't know, exactly, what Darwinism means at this particular moment in time, but I do know that I'm in total synch with your definition of "enjoyment". Hormones, pheromones, whatevermones, create positive feelings around instinctive acts that are pretty indistinguishable from our "higher" human feelings which derive solely from our supposedly unique reasoning capabilities. What I can't figure out, for sure, is whether you were pilloried for bringing humans down to animal level or animals up to human level. In my opinion, however unscientific, if a wolf didn't "enjoy" killing it would likely starve to death and also, in my opinion, if you had said the wolf enjoyed eating no one would have cried...well, you know.

p.s. I think your eye slipped. It's Jim that's left-handed. I'm right-handed, with small feet, like all good-hearted people.

Brad, not to get too off topic, but there are other species in which the individuals routinely protect weaker and harmed members of the group, sometimes seemingly more routinely than humans.

Chigurh is a symbol of responsibility for one's actions and beliefs. He positions himself as a mirror, reflecting evil at evil, and good at good.

He clearly understands concepts of fairness and dignity. The importance of following the right rule seems paramount to him. ( As he tells the cowboy before shooting him: "If the rule you followed brought you to this, then what good is the rule" ). This is the key to understanding Chigurh. He punishes people for consciously following wrong/dishonest rules.

For example, the cowboy knew that being a freelancer in drug trade could eventually lead to this. Lewelyn knew going back for the money was wrong. The gas attendant knew that marrying someone for the house was wrong. Thus, each person lead their life sinfully in one way or another ( "You've been putting it up all your life" ) leading to one single moment of reckoning.

On the other hand, those who followed rules sternly and were honest were rewarded by Chigurh. Example, the lady in the wagon who stuck to the rule of not revealing information, thus "passing the test" in Chigurh's eyes. When the boys helped Chigurh selflessly, he rewarded them. Chigurh was even willing to let Lewelyn's wife go by offering her a coin toss ( thus, he allowed the possibility of breaking his own word, which is significant. He thus wanted to give her a chance. )

To me this film is all about personal responsibility, and how our life is made of many many small sins that eventually lead to one single reckoning for all of them at once, though they seem to be prompted out of nowhere, or randomly by a sudden and seemingly unconnected event. ( Death, an accident, a sudden illness, suffering, loss of income, career, etc )

The film, in my view, comes at a relevant time and is addressed to all of American people. The recession that is about to hit your country is very much your own meeting with Chigurh, it comes seemingly out of nowhere and randomly, but is really the result of all the collective sins that your nation has been putting up ever since your global militarism started with Vietnam.

The title "No country for old men" symbolizes that your nation has no wisdom, and instead acts recklessly and foolishly around the world in search of a quick payday, like the Lewelyn character.

Mohammad, great contribution to the discussion. You've given me much to think about it. Much thanks.

I just saw No Country, and felt compelled to look for any reviews or commentary on the depiction of death and, especially, Chigurh as the grim reaper in this excellent film. And here we are!

My own immediate thoughts on Chigurh are those that echo some of the contributions in th blogs here. He inhabits a world which is, well, other-worldly. There are no ready-made indications as to how he pursues the scent of his quarry (aside from the obvious ones that put him on the trail in the first place -- clinically prising the details off the door of the SUV, following itemised calls on a phone bill, and so forth) -- just the wrong place at the right time. After all, while is pursuing his main target, he despatches so many who are incidental to his ostensible pursuit. And they are done -- or not done -- with oblique, eloquent contemplation of mortality, chance and choice (or at times the lack of it, I should add). That contemplation echoes -- but in a starker, more earthy, context -- the game of chess in Bergman's Seventh Seal. Discussion, and even a protracted one, with the despatcher of souls is not straightforward. It hangs, jars, defies logic, but is, ultimately, an inexorable one. And while he pursues the elliptical dialogue with the protagonist's doomed wife, forcing her to admit, finally, that she has no choice in the matter, she is not the final casualty -- it is, in fact, the driver of the car that, by chance collides with a tranquil Grim Reaper (and yet in the same inevitable way as the poor, hapless woman who is despatched before the faceless driver -- the only difference is that one death comes after a final philosophical spin of the coin; the other because the end of that exchange required just the right length of time for the collision to occur).

And a final contemplation: the presence of animals and people. There is the aching scene in which the 'hound from hell' is pursuing his quarry in the stream. Too metronomic for the poor dog's own well-being. He gets to his target just at the wrong time, as the man unloads, and then re-loads the pistol, and then shoots the dog dead (with a starkness and finality that is later echoed in the car crash). There is the other one that lies festering in the desert sun (and that is commented upon by the sheriff's deputy). There are the references to the abattoir, and the use of the gas-powered stun-gun. And so too do many humans follow that reflectionless pattern of death in the film. Contained by men, desptached for the simple reason that they are there.

It is a film that is likely to follow the Seventh Seal into the pantheon of contemplations of death and its philosophical parameters. But with one, and characteristically Coen, further touch: when death is contemplated by, or for, us in terms of eternal questions and high, operatic drama, there is also the far less lofty and contemplative form of an animal or person who just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time. And as with the poor dog paddling in such an efficient and focussed way after its own proposed victim, there is also the matter of split-second timing!

Wonderful, and perhaps even awe-inspiring!!

Concerning "No Country for Old Men," I have not read the book and have seen the movie only once. Even though the story followed the young man and the old sheriff, the 'hero' seemed instead to be the killer. He was committed to his 'rules' and criticized others for the failure of their rules. In the end, he alone both lived and was victorious (though marked by the randomness of fate). The philosophical issues here are less atheistic or darwinian, which are simply taken for granted, but Nietzschean. He is the 'superman' who 'transvalues all values' and, in the end, everyone confessed it (either by their death or their retreat to dream of death).
It also appeared to me that the movie had to lie about the young man in order to make this point. He was painted initially as more than competent enough to win, but this was only to give the audience a false hope. He then did uncharacteristically stupid things to allow the Nietzschean superman to win. So also did the old sheriff suddenly lose his courage in the end, simply so he could make the defeatist speech which gives final vindication to the stories true 'hero'.
The sole truth in the story was the ease with which such a human shark can swim through the waters of soft, civilized humanity. It makes me cringe when the liberals that applauded its essential deception then speak of gun-control.

Dane,

If I feed my cat cat food, he'll eat it. If I feed my cat chicken soaked in gravy he'll enjoy it. If I cover the throw ball in gravy for the cat to chase he'll enjoy the hell out of it.

I think they were upset because I...well, I don't know why, it seemed like kind of a silly thing to get so riled up about. I agree, if I had said enjoyed "eating", I think I would have been safe, but where's the fun in safety? Certainly an animal would never enjoy killing something. Naturally having no belief system would make them atheists and naturally being creatures of Darwinism (or natural selection, which I guess we could be talking about as opposed to the Social kind, which it seems like Chigurh is a part of), saying that they enjoy killing would just offend more people. (Am I being facetious?)

p.s. Funny thing about my left-handedness, my teachers didn't teach me how to slant the paper properly, so my hand drags across everything I write. Bummer.

I agree with the idea of Chigurh being a moral enantiomer, however limited. Did your one have his weapon of mass destruction when questioning the secretary in the trailer or pathetically asking the two boys for a helping hand? I'll bet greenbacks Chuck Norris would have ripped his radius right out. However much one may disdain American policies, it seems the movies are still a big draw. I assume the Coen brothers films have reached out pretty far, this may sound crazy but perhaps the brothers were addressing humanity across the board, some kind of blanket statement about us being vulnerable and mortal and thus equal, regardless of religion or politics, yadda yadda yadda. Some crazy in need of a severe Paves consultation could run up and kill you based on a coin toss... I say "welcome to NYC" but apparently it happens south too. Sending underdeveloped nations GMOs to hinder the food supply or flying planes into perceived symbols of domination. If only I could make it rhyme, record it and sell it.

more coffee needed now.

Chigurh is a pathological killer and everyone is making too much of out this. His actions are erratic (why'd he want to kill a clerk?) and inconsistent (the coin tosses) that no right minded person can explain, hence the many views, interpretations seen here.

Mohammad is spot on to see Chigurh as a moral mirror (at least in some sense) - in a sense, we all do this informally while police do this formally - the difference is that Chigurh functions as a sort of ultimate moral arbitor when he does not have the sanction of the community to do so (as in the case of the police) - he does this, not pathologically or randomly, but according to rules - rules of his own making (a definition of evil, according to M. Scott Peck) - perhaps he does so simply because he can or because he has his own ultimate commitment to them - either way, in spite of showing no desire to start a new society as Nietzsche's 'superman' did, he acts like just such a 'superman' - perhaps this 'evolution' in humanity and society is what Ed Tom fears and hides from in retirement - and this is clearly a philosophical descendant of certain forms of Darwinism and atheism - the fact that most atheists do not go to this logical conclusion does not mean that it is not an appropriate conclusion nor that others, as Chigurh, won't make it - the sad conclusion is, initially, 'he wins' and there's no hiding from him - and, ultimately, can anyone really live with that?

Ony two points to make

1) Whenever the federal gov't goes after one of those survivalist camps (Branch Dividians, Ruby Ridge, the latest in TX) they are not Athiest, they are some variation of Christian. So the characterization of athiests as survivalists holed up in the woods seems lacking of evidence.

2) Although "There are no athiests in fox holes" is a well known cliche I think its time for a new one "There are no athiest suicide bombers"

-Pat

Justin,
The "Did you NOT hear me?" Trailer Park attendant could have just as easily been spared by the fact that someone else was present in the office...about to come out of the bathroom, as evidenced by the sound of the flushing toilet.

You guys got it all wrong about atheism. You can definitely be an atheist and not be a sociopathic killer. Hell, you can do whatever you want, that’s the point. Smell flowers or kill people. “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” -Dostoevsky

If there is no God, then we are all constructs, no more responsible for our actions than the wind is held accountable. There is no free will. Chigur embodies this. Llewelyn tries to get his golden ticket, which, ultimately doesn’t exist. Chigur just points that out. People always want to envision a good ending, as if they can cheat death (another essay on the movie was talking about this)

However, only a small number of sociopaths are unaware that harming other people is wrong. And the fact that there is any argument going on here, or anywhere, for that matter, assumes an absolute truth, one that we should all be aware of. It assumes free will. It assumes a lot about humanity. It just doesn’t want to assume a God.

It’s all or nothing baby.

And yes, there are theists who think they should kill people, just like there are atheists who don’t think they should kill people. Which means nothing. Sorry try again.

-Joseph

Hi all,
Just jumping in here. I think I have read the previous posts, but if I'm covering something that has been gone over already - please excuse.
Initially NCFOM left me with the feeling that it didn't end in a satisfying way. But the more I thought about it, I saw a huge irony staring me right in the face.
Throughout the movie Chigurh attempts to avoid personal responsibility. And yet, there is the sense that he does enjoy demeaning, controlling, and killing people. He does have his own needs - and yet he wants desperately to distance himself from them - in order to feel superior and in control.
At the end of the movie he makes the mistake of trusting a green traffic light, and this little mistake of trust leads him to become dependent on the goodwill of kids who help him get away. He is just as contigent - dependent - as everybody else is. Makes you kind of feel bad for him. The kid wants to give him the shirt off his back for nothing. Anton almosts pleads with him to take the money. Poor Anton. Inspector Javert in 'les Miserables' killed himself at this point in the story - the truth hurt so bad. But I suspect our Anton is much more of a sociopath - he will just have to figure out a way of rationalizing this whole episode. I bet our boy Anton can do it - if he really puts his mind to it.
Suddenly I remembered a page from G.K. Chesterton's 'Heretics,' in which he says that people have been brainwashed out of seeing deep meaning, even poetry, all around us - even in the most mundane things. He says traffic lights seem common, "unpoetical', but "the thing [traffic-light] is not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony of vigilance, light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from death. That is the plain, genuine description of what it is; the prose only comes in with what it is called."
Some might call what Chesterton sees as simply the flowering of civilization and human inter-dependence, even as he and I do believe that the real significance of mail-boxes (he talks about these too) and traffic-lights are because humans are made in the image of God. Anton Chigurh is rendered helpless and dependent only because another person was warned (by a blood-red light), yet failed to stop before someone got hurt.

I believe Chigurh is the equivlent of anyone who has shelved their morals to succeed. Corporate dishonesty including the murder of tens of thousands in India,colony collapse of bees ( both by Bayer)... now there's a version of Zyklon-B that keeps the company successful;and every other corporation that's fudged the truth on safety to market a product. Try the SEALS and Delta/Black Ops types who slit innocent throats just to prove themselves and stay in practice.Plus every local yokel and thief who thinks property rights,privacy and personal possessions are subject to their own definition.And this includes every nation, and some are even worse.( tribal warfare and ethnic cleansing).
As "Hoot" the Delta sergant in "Blackhawk Down" admonishes, "you're thinking.You'll have plenty of time for that later, believe me." Maybe. I'm in touch with guys I served with in Vietnam who haven't yet come to grips with unnecessary murders they were party to. Everybody downrange was subject to being killed.
Think "expedient demise". He's just really good at his job, and when he's creamed at the stoplight it's a lapse of his own focus and skills and awareness. Plenty of people out there are just as good and capable and trained and working for legitimate businesses or the government.There's nothing "deep" about that guy. He leaves a trail of bodies but they aren't talking.
Hopefully you'll only run into one of them when they're running a local logging operation or subcontract home improvement business.The stakes are considerably diminished.

In my opinion, I think Uhaul missed it. Sheriff Bell is dead at the moment he steps over that pool of blood in the final motel scene. Notice the sort of slow motion way Tommy Lee Jones (TLJ) steps over the pool its not footage that slowed down it’s him stepping slowly, it’s a man taking the last step of his life, everything after that point is a dream sequence. This technique was also used in the last soprano’s episode. In the sopranos the entire show is always from Tony Sopranos POV, he is the protagonist, once he opens that door to the diner and sees himself eating at the diner, he is toast we never see him get shot like so many of the other characters in the show. TLJ is the protagonist; Anton is obviously the antagonist, his named even sounds like the word antagonist, maybe even Anton the atheist. Listen carefully to the words TLJ uses in his monologue at the beginning about pushing in all his chips and putting up his soul and being part of this world, it could be that the whole movie is his explanation to god. Like the movie Jacobs Ladder, Tim Robbins character is dead the entire movie is a dream sequence. But for sure Sheriff Bell is dead the moment he steps over that blood it just isn’t shown to us in the traditional manner, ask yourselves would Anton stand quietly in a room with a man walking a around with a chambered weapon with the hammer back, No. As far as where the money is maybe the Mexicans sped off with it, maybe Anton has it, I’ve heard of stories of people doing renovations on buildings and houses and tearing out a wall and finding a ton of cash stuffed inside of it, hidden for years. When TLJ is talking to his wife at the table in the end look closely at the pleasant smile she has on her face, talking about his father going ahead and making a fire for him and a dream about losing money. Listen to the words with his uncle about “things have always been this way; and it aint all waiting on you; and about this country being hard on people; about vanity and about getting a letter from his wife about family news; about while your trying to trying to get things back and mores going out the door; about god never coming into his life and not blaming him.” I suggest you turn the subtitles on and pay attention and read between the lines.

Since this thread is still open, allow me to add/correct from my previous post.
Union Carbide was responsible for thousands of deaths in India,and Bayer Crop Science is only connected to CCD in preliminary studies.Nonetheless, my opinion on corporate and personal greed/morality stands.
The book fleshes out many unresolved aspects of the movie.At the point where Llewellan Moss is killed, Anton Chigurh is in fact comfortably in a police car describing,as a witness, how Moss"alone"and shot multiple times with half his face blown away,was able to kill, dead center, the only drug smugglers/gunmen/witnesses left on the scene.
Ed Tom,the sheriff,has really been morally dead since WWII, outside a farmhouse in France. He has not since been in a position of personal or moral strength to face the new breed of criminal,(Who happen to be only as bad as they have always been), based on his uncle Ellis's statements.Chigruh recognizes the lack of threat when they are close,why kill a dead man?
Moss as a sniper and Carson Wells as a retired (possibly Special Forces) Army Colonel,both in Vietnam, had a history of cold blooded killing, so they have set the stage and terms for their own demise.
Anton Chigruh reminds me of the officers I met in outposts up little canals way back in the Mekong Delta.Many nationalities, ex-WWII, ex-Foreign Legion, probably headed next to Rhodesia or some other war, fulfilling their need for some form of combat. They were ultimately competent, self reliant and totally aware of their own needs to survive.(and trained by multiple governments).Willing to lead quality and trustworthy troops, but able to operate alone, and outside any government's structure or limitations. i.e. a gun for hire.
Psychopaths maybe, disenfranchised humans,war lovers?
Every war generates a percentage of people who will never fit back in but have skills and a moral perspective which allows them to operate within a "moral" vacuum, and fulfill someone's needs.
Nothing new, but a great statement on "good and evil", and the collateral damage always present.Chigruh simply goes to the original employer, with the money.His previous associates have "gone on to other things" and he has no enemies.Have Gun,Will Travel.

Chigurh is a servant to his victims' freewill as God is a servant to ours'. The coin toss is a device employed by McCarthy to illustrate the paradox of choice in the face of fate. Or free will in the face of predestination. The real choices, I'll argue, in No Country are whether or not you take a satchel full of drug money, or bring water to a man dying of thirst. These choices yield violence and these choices are made by mortals, not fashioned in cosmic fates or coin tosses.

But McCarthy presents us with a character who has the absolute power to kill, yet leaves it to choice - "you must call it, I can't call it for you," he tells the blubbering gas station attendant. And at every juncture, Anton manages to be the one holding the coin. With Wells, he quips "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" A proverb on predestination echoes the same sentiment: "if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plans." Anton has the power to give life and death, yet he leaves it up to you to choose. But ultimately, he leaves the outcome bound by a construct of his own creation. Carla Jean gets this at the end. She defies his plan by not making a "choice" and in the same encounter Anton seems to break the fourth wall by intoning "Even a nonbeliever might find it useful to model himself after God. Very useful, in fact." ultimately, the big joke of it all is that Anton himself is, by design, a paradox. He knows something better than where the money is, he "knows where it will be, " and "somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning." But, you always have a choice...

In the end, this apparent agent of fate is more like the gas station attendant who's forced to call a coin toss; he is a man bound by the same consequences of randomness and violence we all face and our parting vision of him, blindly t-boned in the interestion, is a of a surprisingly mortal being left to nurse a compound fracture. Bell wishes God came into his life, he has his romantic dream about following his father into the afterlife then "he wakes up." I think McCarthy woke up a long time ago.

Someone was wondering about Chigurh's ethnic background if it's of any relevance. Well, to me the name sounds very Slavic / Eastern European. Anton is a very common name across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Chigurh also sounds very Slavic, perhaps misspelled. It is not exactly Russian, perhaps Carpathian, by origin. There is a Russian last name Chigur, although pretty rare. Its roots are either Carpathian, or it could also be derived from the Armenian Ghigurian/Chigorian.

Chigurh, to me , is the inequity of human beings. He completely stands on his own terms. He doesnt care about the perception of others, only the way he sees things. One thing that struck me was the end, when he is in the car crash. It was as if fate turned agianst him. When he is sitting there he looks vulnerable. Like he was turned over on his head. Mabye the reason he is so interesting and mysterious is because he doesnt even really know who he is. He knows what he stands for. He sees himself as a force of nature, and a messenger of fate, like he is almost metaphysical. All he is, is what he stands for. And that really makes you wonder about what really makes him tick.

i agree. I think that Brad's analysis is an example of people seeing what they want to see. If this story was meant as a condemnation of atheism then i think there would be more discussion of religion and Chigur's religion.
Instead there is almost no discussion on religion at all.
I dont think this movie isnt really about Chigur at all. The people who died in this movie could have just as easily been killed by the drug dealers without a charachter like Chigur. Meanwhile Chigur kills both the good guys, bad guys and the bystandards much like the drug trade as a whole does without Chigurs help. I think Chigur is a human form of the evil that comes from of the drug trade. An evil that ultimately hurts all of us. The good, the bystandards, and even the drug dealers themsevlves.
The movie is about how people deal with that evil. Some men think the world has changed, but as Sherrif Bell is reminded it has always been this way and it is our duty not to quit in the face of it. The old timers (who didnt become old) died in the face of evil. Bell dhoweever did not.

I think that Anton was indeed an atheist. However, not an atheist that of which was explained in the letter. He is clearly not a survivalist, otherwise he would not have killed all those people. However, I believe that he is an atheist in the fact that he does not believe in anything. I am not stereotyping atheists, pagans, etc.. I am simply saying that Chigurh had no beliefs. He held no morals, no sense in a higher above, no codes. In fact, Chigurh was in a very real sense an atheist, who's sole function was to kill. That said, the above letter is completely, and in every sense, wrong.

anton chigurh is a reckoning.i doubt if mccarthy ever read carlos castaneda but the character invokes "death as a hunter";as something that tracks you thru mistakes you have made.because ultimately,that is how death finds us.

In my opinion , it can be reduced to algebra.I have read the book and watched the movie,and paid close attention .The equation I arrived at is quite simple .If an injured child appeared in my daily activities, I would react quckly and accompany(him/her)to a hospital.If Anton Chigurh appeared,I would react quickly and accompany him to a morgue.I have the wits and means to do either.-BILLY

Hello. You have all misunderstood me. You see, you should not try to label me an Athiest or such. If anything I am a humanist. I believe in the nobility of the human spirit and I operate with a strict sense of rules and honor. Those that do not, or obstruct me, should expect a response.

As I stated clearly, I killed Carla for no other reason than my promise to her husband to do so. It had to be done, or you could label me a hypocrit. I tried to let her out of it, the same way I allow fate to have her say in everything I do, with a coin toss. She chose.

I decided long ago that I no longer had patience for the annoyances of the human race. If you need to know my motivations, consider that.

Business is business, and I have an ethical code, as contradictory as you may think that is, and this is why I killed Wells.

Someone should document my early years and make a prequel.

cheers. see you soon. try to walk with dignity.

Anton

:)

"Mammon."
Look it up. The book tells you to look it up (when Tommy Lee Jone's character mention's it), and I think the Coen brothers left it out on purpose not to make it too obvious. Everyone who touches the money dies or gets into a heck of a lot of trouble. Mammon's greatest trick was convincing people you could worship the dollar (focus on personal gain) and still be cool with God. Chigurh is one wrathful God or the one sent to settle God's scores. If you take (worship) money, you die by the hand of Chigurh. Money corrupts. Mammon is a lie. The wife couldn't escape her fate and the kids at the end of the movie/book seem destined for trouble and all because they took the money. Anyone who takes the money dies. The hotel clerk dies. The cabby doesn't take money. He doesn't die. But simply going after the money like Woody Harleson's character means you are subject to God's wrath. "God" can be a secular reference to your better self.
This movie struck a nerve and did so right before the collapse of the economy. Very timely. The tone of the story reflects the secular, wayward direction of society (hey, I am no believer) but tells a tale bigger than religion or lack there of. The movie throws it in our faces. Stepping on the people around you for personal gain gets you face time with Chigurh. Instant karma in this case.
The whole coin flip thing shows God's sometimes sick sense of humor like how crappy he treats Job. But also sometimes he just needs to show himself and remind people of the finite nature of your life in order to affect change.
"Mammon."

I have read NCFOM, I haven't seen a movie in over thirty years. Why can't we take it for what it is? Bell is an old man that had to make a decision in WW-II that went against his beliefs and training, but he lived. He spent the rest of his life trying to live with that decision. Moss is like most men, he hit the jackpot but that night he couldn't live with the idea of leaving a dieing man without a drink of water. He payed with his life just as Bell would have if he had stayed with his dead soldiers. Chigurh is Chigurh a man who deals in dispute resolution. He judges neither side of the dispute and fulfills his contract. Part of that contract is not leaving a trail back to his employer. He accomplishes this by not leaving a trail back to himself. His self worth is solely based on how well he does his job. His humanity is the coin toss. It's how he justifies his actions in his own mind. Just as we can only completely understand Bell, is if we had to walk away from our own beliefs twice to stay alive, we can only understand Chigurh in how we justify our own actions. In some form or fashion we are all Bell, we are all Moss and we are all Chigurh. This is why we spend so much time trying to analyze, justify and/or explain their actions. At some time in life we will all abandon our beliefs, submit to common greed and do the incomprehensible. We will spend the rest of our lives trying to learn to live with it and forgive ourselves.

I apologize for leaving this out of my last post. Being both a mathematician an a computer scientist I would point out to BILLY that there is no IF in algebra. The IF... THEN ... statement is in all computer languages.

There’s something special about No Country—I have to watch it every so often. There’s three main characters whose paths all cross at a moment in time (though Bell and Chigurh’s never physically meet). I believe the film has a lot to do with the dichotomy of fate and destiny. Though interesting, I don’t subscribe to the atheist/survival/Darwinian viewpoint. Chgurh is a pragmatist who let’s the toss of a coin determine his fate. There’s a seen in the film where he says something to the affect that he got there the same way the coin did. For example, you flip a coin and call to determine whether or not you should buy a house. In a way it absolves him from the choice (and consequences). From another commentary, an interesting point was raised, which I kind of accept; by letting the fate of is actions be determined by a coin a certain course was set. In a way he had immunity (after all it wasn’t his choice but fate from the coin toss) but when be preempted this course by giving Carla Jean a choice (but she refused) he broke his contract from fate (so to speak) and as a result he was vulnerable to the same random events as the rest of us. He was forced to make a choice. This was the point of the car crash—his protective shield was gone. The other characters where interesting as well: Tom Bell was the type of man whose believed the environment controls him. And it was his inability to comprehend, or rather accept it, which haunted him. “…it all aint waiting for you…that’s vanity.” Moss, was an opportunist who simply got caught up in the mix. He thought he could control his environment (fate) but he couldn’t escape his destiny, it was preordained (and he was forewarned, “you know how this is going to end...”.

I really liked Frank's comments:

"There’s something special about No Country—I have to watch it every so often"

Same here.

"I believe the film has a lot to do with the dichotomy of fate and destiny. Though interesting, I don’t subscribe to the atheist/survival/Darwinian viewpoint"

100% agreement.

"an interesting point was raised, which I kind of accept; by letting the fate of is actions be determined by a coin a certain course was set. In a way he had immunity (after all it wasn’t his choice but fate from the coin toss) but when be preempted this course by giving Carla Jean a choice (but she refused) he broke his contract from fate (so to speak) and as a result he was vulnerable to the same random events as the rest of us"

Well put. Chigurh using the coin toss with Carla Jean is like some perverse form of sympathy. To show that Frank's analysis is probably right on I'll end with a quote from the Novel, but first here are the corresponding lines from the movie (I apologize if I didn't quote them exactly):

Jean:
"You don't have to do this."

Chigurh: (shaking head, exhasperated)
"People always say the same thing"

Jean:
"What do they say?"

Chigurh:
"They say, 'you don't have to do this' ."

Jean:
"You don't"

Chigurh: (sighing, pulling coin from pocket)
"All right. This is the best I can do. Call it."

In that last line, Chigurh's voice is calm. It seems like he makes an effort to make his normally deep voice slightly higher in pitch. His tone is actually soothing, rather than abraisive (think of the gas station scene).

My first impression when I watched that scene was that Chigurh didn't want to kill Carla Jean, but some other influence was forcing him to do it. This gives credence to Chigurh's belief in fate (fatalism), that he made a deal with Moss and that he gave his word to kill his wife if Moss didn't deliver the money.

I think it's also worthy to point out that, in the Novel, Chigurh uses birdshot to kill the man that hired Wells. The quote from the Novel is on page 200 in my copy. Chigurh just shot the man on the face and he's laying on the ground choking on his own blood, unable to speak, looking at Chigurh, when Chigurh says:

"The reason I used the birdshot was that I didn't want to break the glass. Behind you. To rain glass on people in the street."

I think theses scenes are important when trying to analyze Chigurh's psychology. Initially, each event appears to show Chigurh's ability for mercy. But, that's not what's really going on. He doesn't go out of his way to kill people if they haven't become entangled in his path, so to speak, and when it's not clear what he's supposed to do, like with the nosy gas station attendant and Carla Jean, he uses the fate of a coin toss.

So, Chigurh is afraid of becoming vulnerable by making a choice. The choice was whether or not to kill Carl Jean outright, even though he 'gave his word.' Here's another quote from the Novel which ties in nicely with this (pg 259 in my copy):

'She (Carla Jean) looked at him (Chigurh) a final time.

Jean:
"You don't have to. You don't. You don't."

'He (Chigurh) shook his head.'

Chigurh:
"You're asking that I make myself vulnerable and that his something I can never do. I have only one way to live. It doesn't allow for special cases."

Ultimately, my interpretation is that Chigurh isn't a typical Hollywood sociopath serial killer. It's more like he's the flesh representation of something more akin to a natural disaster: a hurricane or flood can cause immeasurable pain and suffering to thousands of people, but natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes don't do so out of hate or anger, and in all fairness sometimes they just pass without causing much or any damage at all. Yet, hurricanes and floods and earthquakes are still ultimately indifferent to pain and suffering when they do cause it, and the reason they cause pain and suffering is simply because they exist and sometimes that is what they do.

If the Bible is a way to justify/explain God's ways to man in a way that humans can understand, then No Country for Old Men and especially Anton Chigurh is Cormac McCarthy's way to justify/explain the themes of fate, life/death and existence and, ultimately, evil and violence.

They died of natural causes - natural to their line of work. I find this is the most relevant comment about Chigurh. He is a manifestation of Shiva the Destroyer. Why does a lion kill? That's what it's built to do. If one is compelled to understand its motives: probably for food and territory mostly, and perhaps very occasionally for sport.

I find it amazing that no-one has mentioned the scene in the book where he returns the money to its rightful owner while wearing a suit and tie. Where he offers his services to the owner, while admiring a painting and opining "excellent" when said owner informs him that a painting which he admires is actually a fake, with the real one stored safely in the owner's possession. Where he speaks euphemistically of men who hubristically overqualify themselves, and as a result, have "moved on to other things". Meanwhile, the totality of Bell's story seems to be the theme of man vs. himself, realizing that (with the help of the violence perpetrated by an alleged psychopath) through cowardice in his youth, he has lived a somewhat dishonest life. Thankfully, the female element provides strength and redemption; another recurring theme throughout Cormac's works.

As far as all this atheist/darwinist/satan gibberish I find here, I admit I find myself confused, and, ultimately, disinterested, sorry. Peace.

I think the original poster assumes that Cason Wells is some sort of lawman. He is not. He is a more subtle, less manichean version of Chigurh. I assume that Chigurh and wells know each other from Vietnam. Wells very specifically says he was a Special Forces officer and Chigurh shows all the capabilites of a highly trained Special forces soldier. In fact he is his own A-team showing that he is a weapons expert, medic, and weapons expert all rolled into one. We can assume by his accent he knows at least one language besides English. probably several.
I look at this book as being a direct extension of Blood Meiridian. Chigurh judges people just like the Judge did in the earlier book. Chigurh is no enigma though. In fact Wells says, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Chigurh is a "moral" creature and he adheres to his moral code with a frightening, one might say fundamentalist rigidity. Chigurh's God is chance. An earlier poster says that McCarthy's "intentions elude me". Ultimately that is one of the themes of the book "intentionality". When the path of intention is not clear Chigurh flips a coin to decide someone's fate. But when someone must die they do not recieve a coin flip. Wells does not recieve a flip of the coin, the two men Chigurh kills at the site of the massacre are dispatched with impunity, the deputy sheriff, etc..... . Chigurh only breaks from this at the end of the book where he allows Llewellyn's wife an "undeserved" flip of the coin. There are a number of reasons why she must die, but the most important on from Chigurh's perspecitve is that he made a "promise". After he kills LLewellyn's wife Chigurh almost dies in a random accident. It is almost as if by allowing an undeserved flip of the coin Chigurh as "allowed" chance to come back at in. In some way Chigurh has violated his moral code and the accident can be seen as the Hand of God/Chance reaching down to chastise him. I haven't read the book in awhile but there's some of what I think about it.

The fact that anything relating to evolution or atheism isn't relevant to the happenings in the book is indicative of a wild goose chase on that letter.
The principal themes are that of:
-Chance
-and-
-Fate
It is the fate of Bell to grow old and retire (is it chance that his body can't reproduce muscle tissue as fast anymore?). Fate and chance are interrelated, examples of this are his hunting around the area of the drug shipment gone wrong BUT it was his fate to die of old age like Bell or of sudden and horrible trauma like he did.

Fate was unstoppable death (a notion which Chigurh is symbolic of) but chance was those mexican gents living at the motel Josh Brolin's character was.

I believe the overall message of the author, based on my limited experience of both The Road and No Country, is that there is
1) No God,
2) No Hope,
3) and that good normal people are essentially doomed, but that
4) there is some sort of honor in that.

I could go into vast details and explanation, but these movies are getting old, and I just happened to catch some of it on TV, so I will let sleeping dogs lie.

My father was carrying the light and ...blaa blaa when I get there.

AND THEN I WOKE UP! (no hope)

Chigurh's "moral code" seems to do with internal and external locus of control. Chigurh disdains those who leave their fortunes to fate (external locus of control), rather than being in control of their own lives (internal locus). His offer of a coin toss to his victims is a result of his judgment that since they live their lives as victims of fate, they should die as victims of fate.

Hence, the conversation Chirgurh has with the old shopkeep, as he forces him to admit that he "married into" owning his shop. Seeing this, Chigurh decides that since his station in life was determined by "luck," then his ability to live should be determined by "luck/fate" also.

Chigurh kills those who have an internal locus of control without questions, or "coin tosses." He would have not offered Llelywn Moss a coin toss, as his character believed in taking control over his life and not being a passive recipient. Chigurh, ironically, never got to pass his judgment on Moss, as Moss became a victim of the Mexicans through "ill fortune."

Chigurh represents the future of human existence without a belief in God and without the desire to believe in a just and fair God. Bell knows evil has always existed, but he sees the present and future as a new kind of evil. Why? Because in the past even evil people did things for a reason, they had motives framed by their own human desires. Just as faith is an expression of human desire. I don't believe McCarthy is talking about the existence of God, but there was something in the urge to believe in God that made human beings more human. The people on this board who disparage religion are only part of the picture of the future Chigurh represents, because they don't understand that despite the evil done in the name of religion the desire to believe in God is good, a product of what is good in people, because it is a desire for what is good in life...