Week 9 - You Think Plugging Your Ponytail into an Animal is Cool?

This is where we should start feeling at home...

..NOT here.

I watched James Cameron's Avatar- full of big blue nobly savage aliens fighting the greedy little pinkskins who killed their own mother, and are now coming after the blue folks' mater deitas. So I had three major thoughts as the credits rolled, other than how much cooler Stephen Lang was in Terra Nova. And what a better job that show did of getting the basic message across; yes, Terra Nova was still mightily base and clichéd, but it wasn’t downright stupid about it like Avatar was.

Firstly, that plugging their hair into animals was so tangible.

Second, why? There are several possibilities and they're all disturbing and annoying. Did they do that to re-inforce the impotence and disavowal of humanity? Since we have nothing so tangible in our own attitudes and relationship with ecology? What are people going to think about why we don't, and can't do it? How is this kind of symbolism and throwing a tangible middle finger in people's faces going to encourage them *not* to 'kill our mother...' and for that matter we are not even killing the Earth. We're ruining our ability to live on it, sure, but she was here long before we came, and will recover and endure long after we go.

Third, humans are indeed less valuable than animals/other life, because we are irresponsible and unworthy beings. If we flourish another 50 years, all other life may go extinct. If we went extinct today, in 50 years all other life will flourish. We're 1% of earth's biomass but we consume over 25% of earth's photosynthesis (Rifkin 2009; Ponting 2007). But since we're here, we better figure out how to keep on being here.

You think plugging a ponytail into an animal is cool? No, it's not. What is cool is that we can achieve far more, in a far less outlandish and dream-like way, in our own home. Sadly, though, ecology is the new opium of the masses (Zizek 2008). What we expect from religion is some kind of unquestionable, absolute authority. It’s true because God says it is, end of discussion. Today, ecology is taking over this role. Whenever there is a new economic paradigm or scientific breakthrough, the voice that warns us not to cross *that* line belongs to ecology (ibid). “Don’t mess with DNA, don’t open that mine.” It’s a terrible transmogrification of old ideas into new times.

Another popular myth is that the western world’s technological, artificial environments are alienated from the natural environment. We are not abstract veneers, but rather, nature is our unfathomable home (Zizek 2008). Consider what I call the climate change crusade. Anyone with a clue knows what danger we are in, so what are we doing about it? Obfuscating the issue with ideological crusades (Moore 2011). It is an example of psychoanalytical disavowal. “I know that very well, BUT, I act as if I don’t know.” So you know about climate change, maybe you watched a documentary, but when get in your car to drive round the block to McDonalds, you don’t see any of this. So even if you know rationally what’s going on, what do you do? Go to the site of a real ecological and human horror, such as Chernobyl, and see what you take home. How capable are we to change the way we live?

What we should do to confront the threat of ecological catastrophe is not some new age druidism, back to nature roots-and-all, but on the contrary to cut off those roots even more; more alienation from our spontaneous idealistic nature. We should develop a much more abstract and terrifying sensibility, where we see the world for what it is, finding our poetry and spirituality in that. If not to create beauty in that, then an aesthetic truth in things like rubbish, catastrophe, science, religion, and pain, because that is how to truly love our world (Zizek 2008).

What is love? It is not idealisation. Everyone who has truly loved anybody knows that you don’t idealise them. Love means you accept them and all their failures, stupidities, ugliness; nonetheless the person is the world to you, and makes your life worth living. You see perfection in imperfection itself, and that’s how we should learn to love the world. We should stop talking about science vs. religion, and talk about how we can stop ideas like this dichotomy, and ideological disavowal, from infiltrating our love for our world. Now is our last chance to get the future right (Wright 2005). True ecology loves all of this.

References

Cameron, J. (Director). (2009). Avatar [DVD Film]. 20th Century Fox.

Moore, P. (2011). Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist. Beatty Street Publishing Inc.

Ponting, C. (2007). A New Green History of the World. Penguin Group, New York.

Rifkin, J. (2009). The Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Penguin Group, New York.

Zizek, S. (2008). In Taylor, A. (Director & Writer). Examined Life. [DVD Documentary Film]. Zeitgeist film.

Pictures obtained from:
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/does-avatar-steal-from-roger-dean/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cardiff/2011/apr/11/roath-rec-rubbish-sunny-weather
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/10/21/2719237.htm

http://deathofdurban.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/rubbish-rubbish-endless-piles-of-stinky.html

http://www.backfills.com/rubbish-art.php

Week 8 - Ideology: STILL the Opiate of the Masses...

PICTURES

This is where we should start feeling at home. The way religion has conditioned people to think for centuries is ideological thought, and is the main problem facing humanity, and the source of the conflict between science and religion. Why? It is dangerous. Ideology addresses very real problems by mystifying them (Zizek 2008). Then we are unhinged from our responsibility and vulnerable to be told to scapegoat all our problems on saviours and sin. What, then, can you do to redeem yourself from the sickness

Ideology's elementary mechanism is the ‘temptation of meaning.’ When something horrible happens, our first reaction is to search for meaning (Frankl 1946). Take AIDS for example. It is a horrible trauma. The religions decided that it is punishment for sin. When we interpret a catastrophe as divine punishment, it makes it easier, because then we “know” that it is not just some terrifying unknown force...it has a meaning. When you are in the middle of such force, it is better to feel that God punished you than to feel that it just happened. If God punished you, then it is still a universe of meaning (Zizek 2008).

Science today is focused largely in two spheres: atheism and ecology. Atheism will be the topic of this post. The final one will cover ecology.


The battle between science and religion has raged for millenia, since religion first appeared in human consciousness in the hydro-agricultural revolution (Rifkin 2009). Religion has lost much of its power and control in recent years, for several reasons. The works of Dan Brown, the books-become-movies The DaVinci Code, that struck a chord with a massive audience who had been hurt by religion; and Angels and Demons which cuts right to the heart of the debate of science vs. religion.

 

In the real world, a man who did this better than anybody else was Christopher Hitchens. In a debate that he and teammate Stephen Fry won by a landslide, he said the following:


"I refer to Bishop Marini and the Pope's speeches directly: 'Given the number of sins we've committed in the course of 20 centuries, reference to them must necessarily be summary...he begged for forgiveness for the Crusades, the Inquisition, the persecution of the Jewish people, the injustice towards women - half the human race, right there - the forced conversion of indigenous peoples, especially in South America."


Then he went on to speak of 94 recognitions made by the previous Pope John Paul II, including the African slave trade, the admission that Galileo was...right, institutionalised and sanctioned torture, silence during Hitler's reign, the burning alive of Jan Hus, the Great Sack of Constantinople, and the rape of boys.

US President Richard Nixon was asked by his Economic Advisor what shold be done about the environment, and Nixon replied "I don't think the Lord will tarry (in his Second Coming) long enough for us to have to worry about the environment."
 
Religion puts that which should be organic and divine and uncaged into a cage in their control, for the purpose of controlling souls for profit (Condon 1983). Science seeks to understand what's going on. Unfortunately for humans we are still steeped in ideological disavowal and irresponsible ignorance.  This is where the vehemence in the conflict, and indeed the conflict itself, comes from. People not realising that we're all in the same boat, and deep down saying the exact same thing in different words.


It's not about being a Catholic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Heathen, Wiccan, Atheist, or Agnostic. It's about being human. Humanism, and empathy, for the sake of being a part of the human race is all we need. Regrettably it's easier said than done, especially when people have been conditioned to believe otherwise with a confusion that runs deep. It's almost as if we've been asleep and now things are about to begin. The real trick will be to figure out how to never find the end that we're still hurtling towards. That will require a lot more than the lucky breaks that gave us life in the first place (Bryson 2003).

True Humanism loves all of this.

References 


Bryson, B. (2003). A Short History of Nearly Everything. Transworld Publishers, London.


Condon, R. (1983). A Trembling Upon Rome. Random House, London.

Greville, F. (1609). Mustapha [Theatrical Play]. Act V, sc. 4.


Rifkin, J. (2009). The Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Penguin Group, New York.

Zizek, S. (2008). In Taylor, A. (Director & Writer). Examined Life. [DVD Documentary Film]. Zeitgeist film.

Pictures obtained from:
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2009/04/22/ron_howard_defends_angels_aamp_demons_ag

http://jootix.com/view/1561/The-Planet-Earth-planet-earth-blue-space-1920x1080.html

http://www.fashion-dress-pictures.com/can-science-and-religion-work-together/ 

http://glossynews.com/top-stories/serious-commentary/201105180011/science-and-religion-cannot-coexist-together/

http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com.au/2010_08_01_archive.html 

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1662 

Week 6 - Choice: Destiny, Fate or Damnation?

"I think, therefore I am." - Rene Descartes.

Destiny is a rubbish idea, and so is free will, and so is setting up a dichotomy between the two.

All the information in the world and nobody knows how to use it. In Joan of Arcadia (2003), Ryan Hunter, played sensationally by Wentworth Miller, newcomer to the town towards the end of series two, explains to Joan that he, too, has conversations with God. As a child, he created an imaginary friend after his parents divorced. Then the friend was suddenly real. Unlike Joan, he’s not impressed with God’s creation. If God were God, Ryan contends, he would have scrapped the free will idea, making us all intelligent and capable, but not free. Destiny, perhaps?

“We don’t have to be bossed around by some love-starved deity. My life is a gift? Uhh, ok, thanks. You can’t ask for it back.”

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) doctrine teaches that Lucifer fell from heaven because his plan for humanity involved us having no free will. So free will is a good thing, but they – along with most every religion – demand that you exercise your free will in making the choices that they, on behalf of their deity and doctrine, tell you to make. I've made the choice to risk damnation by rejecting this.

Christopher Hitchens (2001) famously finds vicarious redemption repugnant. Lines from Baron Fulke Greville's play Mustapha (1609) elucidate it thus:

                   Oh wearisome condition of Humanity!
                   Born under one law, to another bound,
                   Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,
                   Created sick, commanded to be sound:
                   What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws?
                   Passion and reason self-division cause.
                   Is it the mask or majesty of Power
                   To make offences that it may forgive?

Destiny is garbage. Religious thought makes an obscene middle ground between destiny and free will, by setting humanity up to fail: with one hand it says we have free will, but on the other we must use it to obey them or burn in hell. Choice has power - it's always decisions that matter. The beautiful part of loving someone, be they friend, family, or lover, is that you choose to do it. You choose that person to be everything that makes your life worth living, despite all their flaws. You don’t idealise them; as William Blake (1793) says “he who has suffer’d you to impose on him, knows you.’ 

As much as I hate (as I have discussed elsewhere) the scapegoat for disavowal and irresponsibility that The Matrix’s Neo is, he at least had it right in one thing: The problem, the solution, and everything in between, is choice. John Connor at any stage in the Terminator saga could have chosen to take the mantle offered him; Jesus could have handed off the cup of his crucifixion to someone else. Choice goes hand in hand with a sense of self, one's beliefs, and capacity for empathic responsibility (Rifkin 2009), because there are always consequences; we live in a causal universe.

I disagree with Plato in that we are imprisoned by the shadows on the cave wall that are our senses and experience – rather, this is all we have, and so we should use and celebrate them. We create our reality just because we are in it, much like Ryan Hunter created God. Believing is seeing, not the other way around. Circumstances don’t matter, only state of being matters. The use of the word matter is a double entendre: circumstances don’t create reality (‘matter’), state of being does. Everything is beautiful if you make it so. Everything is pain if you make that so. We’ve got to be the ones to craft and choose our dream. Believing and state of being create the matter that we see. Rational, empirical thought can be as divorced from these truths as can the machinations of religious dogma.

In the end, there’s an old maxim that is eminently and critically relevant – “Don’t think, but do – in other words, do, so you don’t have to think.”

References.

Blake, W. (1793).  The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Retrieved from <http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/prose/Blake_-_Proverbs_of_Hell.html>

Greville, F. (1609). Mustapha [Theatrical Play]. Act V, sc. 4.

Hall, B. (Creator). (2003). Joan of Arcadia [T.V. Series]. Season II, episode 22. Barbara Hall Productions.

Hitchens, C. (2001). Letters to a Young Contrarian. Basic Books, New York.

Rifkin, J. (2009). The Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Penguin Group, New York.

Wachowski, L. & Wachowski, A. (Writers & Directors). (1999). The Matrix [DVD Film]. Warner Brothers. 

Pictures obtained from:

http://sharetv.org/shows/joan_of_arcadia/episodes/258162
http://www.divine-inspiration.org.uk/holy-histories/4-fulke-greville-man-of-mystery 
http://www.youthblog.org/2006/10/

Week 5 - It's Always Black, White, and Everything in Between.

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” - Adam Smith.

  "The crow wished everything was black...the owl that everything was white." - William Blake.

Bill Hicks tells a joke about how he’s in a cab with a sign “Please don’t smoke, Christ is our unseen guest,” to which he quips, ‘so that explains the extra 30c on the meter…’

Religious thought has so interminably corrupted the idea of morality that it is impossible to use the word. In this sense, it’s governed by a cosmic carrot and stick approach; the ‘unseen guest’ will reward you for doing what he/she/it/they prescribes, and punishing you for disobedience. This is not useful.

Jesus knew what was really going on, by the way, but the game of Chinese whispers that the religions have played (after they killed him) has warped this into oblivion. It’s about surviving, and about empathy.

Mirror neurons were discovered in 1992 by a team of scientists headed by Giacomo Rizzolatti. These are neurons that fire in the brain of an observer of an event, in exactly the same manner as those neurons that trigger in the participant in the event. It is the biological mechanism that proves human beings to be naturally driven from our very core by empathy. This core drive is confused by secondary drives, beginning with religion as a means to try and explain it – take Kingdom of Heaven (2005), for instance. Guy and Reynald want war in the name of God. Balian, Salah ad-Din and Baldwin I want peace, love, and unity, in the name of peace, love and unity. At the end of the inevitable seige of Jerusalem, Balian surveys the fields of the dead. "If this is the Kingdom of Heaven, then let God do with it what He wills."

Steven Weinberg (1999) contends: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. "

If we then look at the case of Game of Thrones’ (2012) Stannis Baratheon, in the series' War of Five Kings, he was the legitimate heir to the throne, and the best one, in my opinion, for the job. He says “a good act does not erase a bad act – nor a bad the good,” to Ser Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight. Davos was a long-time smuggler who sneaked in a ship full of onions past the blockade to save a besieged and starving Stannis, who knighted Davos for saving him, and cut the last joint of every finger on his left hand off for years of illegal smuggling. You’d think Stannis a good man, until he murdered his own brother, Renly, for his own gain…not long after he found faith in R’hllor, the Lord of Light. I still think him a comparatively good man. Look to your sins, Lord Renly, for the night is dark and full of terrors.

It isn’t a matter of who’s right or wrong, because this is a false dichotomy; rather it matters who is right and who is left. Thankfully, then, humans are biologically wired to care about each other. This is what empathy is and the foundation for all morality. Plato didn’t know this, and science only has for 20 years. That’s not yet long enough for the ideas to sink in, but we’ll get there, slowly. Culture has always evolved thus, and religion is just an expression of culture that is, thankfully, becoming a smaller and smaller voice in the world. Empathy is the true unseen guest, the invisible hand, the core drive of every human being, and the wellspring of all morality. That’s the true message of Jesus, who was himself against religion: Be like me, because you are like me; you just don’t know it yet.

References:

Benioff, D & Weiss, D. B. (Show Creators), & Martin, G. R. (Book Author). (2012). Game of Thrones Season Two [T.V. Series]. Home Box Office.

Hicks, B. (Creator & Performer). (1996). In Memory of The Dark Poet [DVD Anthology]. Lightbulb Studio.

Rizzolatti, G. & Craighero, L. (2004). Mirror neuron: a neurological approach to empathy. Retrieved from [http://www.robotcub.net/misc/review2/06_Rizzolatti_Craighero.pdf]

Scott, R. (Director) & Monahan, W. (Writer). (2005). Kingdom of Heaven. 20th Century Fox and Scott Free Productions.

Smith A (1759) The Theory of Moral Sentiments (ed. 1976). Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Weinberg, S. (1999). At an Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.

Pictures obtained from:
http://azizaizmargari.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/black-and-white/
http://tumblr.com
http://www.empathiceducation.com/mirrorneurons.php

Week 2 - Is this the real life, or is it just fantasy?

"Open your eyes, look up to the skies, and see." - Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' 

Reality. Something we've never quite got our heads around. Some of us think we have it figured out. There are others who can't deal with it and go crazy. Or maybe it's the "insane" ones who have it figured, and the priests and scientists who are mad. What is reality?

One film I can't get enough of is Christopher Nolan's Inception. It tackles this concept with the perfect blend of conceptual vagueness, engaging complexity, and relentless hints of multi-faceted and infinite ambiguity (Johnson 2012) that are the closest to representing the best justice we can do to this topic.

For simplicity's sake, reality is 'existing.' Existing is like a rollercoaster at a theme park. It has twists, turns, thrills, chills, highs and lows, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's fun, for a while. But in the end it is just a ride. There is no inherent meaning, no blood on the wall, nothing outside what we can perceive. As Morpheus famously says in The Matrix (1999), "If real is just what we can see, taste, smell, and touch, then real is just electrical signals as interpreted by the brain." And there is no more accurate way to measure reality, to know that it is real.

This is the best we can do, but this is the real beauty of existing - our perceptions actually shape and create our reality. There really is only one moment, one continuum of creation, expressing itself subjectively in all the ways it possibly can - infinitely. Space, time, and physicality are our perceptions of them.

I remember a train trip my brother and I took. There was a man behind us engaged in a lively conversation with somebody named Roland, who neither my brother nor I could see. My brother murmured, "he's insane, there's nobody there!"

Very much as the caretaker in Yusuf's basement said of his dreaming charges, "who are you to tell them otherwise?" I remarked to my brother, "how do you know that Roland isn't real, and we're the crazy ones for our inability to see him?"

What you see and feel when you look at a painting will be very different from what I see and feel. I could use any number of adjectives to describe reality, but it can only come down to this: Reality is eternal, a gem of infinite beauty and facets, which we all appreciate in our own way according to our choices.

There are therefore only four laws in the entire universe.

1. You exist. As Descartes put it, 'Cogito, ergo sum.' - I think therefore I exist.

2. What you put out is what you get back. Whatever else this reality is, it is definitely causal. Credit to The Matrix's Merovingian for reminding us all. The continuum of creation that is reality is a consequence of the choices that the participant makes.

3. The one is all, and all are one. If you exist, then you are relationally attached to everything else.

4. There are no rules, except for the first three.

The reason you can't will a million dollars into your bank account is that you perceive it is a more preferable choice for you not to do what you need to do to get the money (Robinson 2009). In effect, you signed up for the specific way these rules meshed together on planet earth, and if you want something more than you want what you currently have, then you'd make it so.

Perceiving is believing. Believing is seeing, not the other way around. Let's stop blaming God, the government, the 'system,' our pasts, our weaknesses, etc. for what we have. For what we are. For all we can taste, smell, touch, see, hear, and love.

These are truly the things that matter the most. The faculties of our belief, the tools with which we craft and create and perfect our dreams, right now. Especially the last one - it is the pinnacle of existing, the sublime idea that makes reality reality. It is what Cobb risked everything for (Johnson 2012), what his journey was always about. As much as I hate Saviors, it is what made Neo sacrifice himself. It is, I believe, what makes the world go round. And who are you to tell me otherwise?

References

Descartes, R. (2003). Selections from Principles of Philosophy. [Project Gutenberg E-book version]. Retrieved from <http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1455678>

Johnson, K. J. (Ed.). (2012). Inception and Philosophy: Because it's Never Just a Dream. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

Robinson, K. (2009). The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. Viking Penguin, New York.

Wachowski, A. & Wachowski, L. (Directors & Writers). (1999). The Matrix [DVD Movie]. Warner Brothers.

Zizek, S. (1999). The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion. Philosophy Today, 43. <http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/articles/the-matrix-or-two-sides-of-perversion/>

Pictures obtained from:
http://www.moviefanatic.com/gallery/ellen-page-as-ariadne/
http://www.crystalinks.com/Inception.html 
http://youcantgettherefromhere-theresa.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/public-eye-roller-coaster.html
http://tribework.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/intoxicated-in-your-love.html
http://www.maxisciences.com/cosmos/wallpaper

Welcome

Hello and welcome to FilMind - Fill Your Mind.

This is a film discussion blog set up for my QUT Movies and Popular Culture studies class.

There will be several posts for the purposes of assessment within this unit, but I hope also that you, dear reader, enjoy what you find here!

Don't forget to leave your thoughts in the comments below, and check out my other blog:

mymacrohistory.blogspot.com

Have fun!