Well, Jimmy's new movie has got people hating themselves and wishing they could live in a computer generated image of a place that does not exist.
"A post by a user called Elequin expresses an almost obsessive relationship with the film.
"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie," Elequin posted."
That's serious, and in my heart of compassion I would like suggestions as to what movie would give her the biggest bounce for her rebound.
The top of my list would have to be the gritty Reservoir Dogs. The violence, the black suites, the aliases, the violence ... it all adds up to make it the perfect reality shock out of that bluish avatar world.
Alternatives anyone?
All right, I was just joking about shocking the Blue World believers back to the reality that we live in, but there is something a little sad there. Avatar is a bit of a fairy tale, and it is where the fairy tale touches upon the reality that we live in that matters most.
ReplyDeleteWe do not expect to live in a beautiful castle, but the idea of being at home and safe remains in us, as do ideas that we will meet challenges head on and bravely, that someone will discover the true princess hidden under the ashes, that we will turn a dwelling into a home for the little ones, cheerily sending them out the door with our love.
The Avatar fairy tale condemns our world and all its inhabitants, leaving no assurance that we will grow up and find ourselves living a portion of the stories promise, and no hope of redemption for ourselves.
I would much prefer a story like Dr. Zhivago, for its insight into the human condition, the heartlessness of large governmental bureaucracies and the hope of appreciating and holding onto the things that make a life valuable.
Tell Elequin to give the young doctor a try.
You want this movie to be reality? go to zeitgeistmovie.com and watch Zeitgeist Addendum. Join the movement. It's real People making Real Changes.
ReplyDeleteNamaste Friends
we can have an Avatar on Earth, we just need to get off our lazy butts and stop the corporations from polluting and killing our oceans and forests. We have amazing nature and we are killing it all off for money. if you want purpose then join Greenpeace or start making a difference. We can stop it if we want.
ReplyDeleteGentlemen, gentlemen... Avatar on earth? You are missing the point of the post.
ReplyDeleteAvatar is a computer simulated make-believe land were people behave not as people can and do act, but as a politically correct liberal theorises they would act, if everything would just be as they wish it to be. One might as well work toward living somewhere over the rainbow, or in Neverland for that matter. The place doesn't exist because we are not the way one might hope us to be. It does not have to do with corporate greed or recycling.
It has to do with sin.
sin is nothing, intellect is what we should be using and if you used your intelligence and did some research you would see that corporations are the leading cause of wars and pollution...but I doubt you would ever understand that
ReplyDeleteoh....I just read your other email, I have to deal with conservatives all the time and they piss me off...oops
ReplyDeleteit's not about the human condition, it's about the plain and simple idea that we are using up our resources
ReplyDelete"sin is nothing, intellect is what we should be using and if you used your intelligence and did some research you would see that corporations are the leading cause of wars and pollution...but I doubt you would ever understand that"
ReplyDeleteHistory is replete with intellectually brilliant people that committed horrendous acts of evil. It turns out that intellectual talent or artistic talent or socialistic utopian visions are of no value in checking the natural tendency toward evil that lurks in each and every one of us. Your own comments belay a certain tendency to belittle and caste judgment, and this from a well intentioned person.
The problems we face cannot be addressed at corporate board meetings. How many times have you thought to yourself things could be so much better if people would just act as you believe they should. But they do not act that way, not here on earth, or in any other reality where humans are found. A computer generated reality comes down to one person's wishful thinking of how life should be. Life is not a circular existance that left alone would be in perfect balance. Our history is linear.
Perhaps you should consider again Dr. Zhivago. It is a human story without a religious point of view, and yet it's telling of the collision between an idealistic utopian political vision with the cold reality of the human condition is more helpful, in my view, to a better view of ourselves and the world we live in.
Perhaps we will speak again. Thanks for stopping by.
Nicholas, you always impress me.
ReplyDeleteCathy
Good answer, Nick.
ReplyDeleteThe dichotomy here is that in the intellectual realm these is possibility for great good or great evil, and theh promise of both can often be found in the same mind's intentions under the impression of helping the commonweal. Millions have died by default or design of intellectuals helping us forge a better tomorrow.
So the issue is not that the intellect is the magic key that frees us from the alleged shackles of superstitions and Bronze Age texts and all the other alleged primitivisms that hobbled mankind from seeing the light.
Rather, it is that we are now free to be evil at a highbrow and more dangerous level.
Absolutely. Well said.
ReplyDelete"Sin is nothing"
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a true modernist liberal.
Evil is like Dawkins feel for "Faulty Towers" where John Cleese's character railsa dn screams at a car, only to realize later that the thing is mechanical only and has no soul.
Liberals like Dawkins for the most part feel this way. Sin is not possible because the human soul is not possible, and in turn good and evil are just turns tossed around much the same way a driveshaft is bad and needs repairing, but not confinement and punishment.
Likewise, the human condition for liberals needs "reform" and government's wise counsel and collective guidance.
There is no evil. Just those things that happen that are obnoxious and get in the way of Human Progress that need tweaking by the loving hand of our highbrow betters.
Is this not correct, then, Greenpeacian?
Unless said "sin" is red meat, smoking, coffee, gasoline, and capitalism, eh?
I deal with Liberals all the time.
And their lack of humility, understanding, and appreciation for the panorama of human history that teaches us about evil from all angles, pisses me off..
"Liberals like Dawkins for the most part feel this way. Sin is not possible because the human soul is not possible, and in turn good and evil are just turns tossed around much the same way a driveshaft is bad and needs repairing, but not confinement and punishment."
ReplyDeleteA corollary is that since sin is not possible, actions taken to reach the utopian vision are inherently not sinful. Thus it becomes necessary to starve millions to death in the Ukraine, the re-education camps are a necessary part of the cultural revolution, and the mujahideen are compelled to take the lives of the kafir, unless the mercy of Allah moves them to enslave them or place them in brothels.
Wakefield...sometimes you just nail it, with an insight that is creative, entertaining and smack on the money.
Good stuff.
Thanks. I needed that today, Nick.
ReplyDeleteOver on McClean's and other outlets, it's been a hellish Steyn Smackdown day, and all things Anti-Steyn being posted.
Good encouragement, there.
(one example, should a father of girls have time for this kind of crappola:
http://mediaculpapost.blogspot.com/2010/01/were-used-to-warnings-about-european.html
A corollary is that since sin is not possible, actions taken to reach the utopian vision are inherently not sinful.
ReplyDeleteRight. No matter how ugly or gruesome.
The other defense here from the same people on the left who'd claim that if there are morals, they'd come from the state. See for example Steve Kangas on such. A famous lefty who said that while Might does not make right, it allows the correct thing to come into being.
But if values are relative, who is he to say outside some collectivized input what is the moral?
His anwser is to diss the "floundering Fathers" as imperfect land owning whites who didn't see the light that there really is no such thing as "inalienable rights" and his answer is that all rights are dependent on the rights of others and that if rights were truly "self-evident" as the Founders said, then all the world would recognize such.
Really now...my answer is that just because dictators and the wise hand of some authorities has other priorities beyond personal rights--are we to take this as solid evidence such do not exist???
Hmmm.
Such is Lefty reasoning.
Which after all the mush and sentimental slush boils down to "We'll end up eventually doing whatever the hell we feel like doing."
aaahhh...what to say...it's so easy to place people in little boxes labeled 'liberal' 'conservative'-blah blah blah.. what happened to people who are just sick and tired of dealing with having a label? I know structure is important especially when you see how people behave when given freedom to do as they choose we can take a look at many money making machines and ask what effects are these having on our planet? we can look at the government on BOTH sides and ask what are they doing for the people? basically it's a lot of bickering back and forth and in the end...who wins? people with a lot of money. it has nothing to do with being bad or good, it's just the ongoing Darwin's survival of the fittest but instead of spears or guns it's finance and manipulation the so called liberals are angry at the way minorities and the environment are abused and the conservatives are afraid of their taxes going through the roof but it seems that this is how it will always be, back and forth. it's all made up anyway from our own minds, everything from religion to politics, all constructed to give people hope because it's what we live on...God, I know I do. So with all due respect I don't care how you define me because btwn 40-60 years i'm gone. I hope I can help by saving some nature just to give us better air to breathe or prevent more garbage from being dumped into the already heavily polluted ocean because it's really sad and we are smart enough to know better, but again, it's a hell of a lot easier for me to just sit here and bicker back and forth with other people pontificating my belief system to stroke my ego than it is to pick up garbage off the street or volunteer at a soup kitchen. unfortunately, I need to go to work now...enough idle 'chit-chat'
ReplyDeleteOkay. Have a good day at work.
ReplyDeleteCan you believe that one guy brought a whole box of pizza? And I don't think he's gonna share.
ReplyDeleteLiving on the Blue World? I don't think so.
Sometimes, you are just so wonderfully random. :)
ReplyDelete