Anti-Technology Themes in James Cameron's Avatar 870
ThousandStars writes "'The anti-technological aspect [in James Cameron's Avatar] is strange because the movie is among most technically sophisticated ever: it uses a crazy 2D and 3D camera, harnesses the most advanced computer animation techniques imaginable, and has apparently improved the state-of-the-art when it comes to cinema. But Avatar’s story argues that technology is bad. Humans destroyed their home world through environmental disaster and use military might to annihilate the locals and steal their resources.' The question is two-fold: why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie, and why are we drawn to it? Part of the answer lies in Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out."
Fern Gully in Space (Score:2, Interesting)
Is just a movie... (Score:0, Interesting)
Maybe a movie that portrait a future where science and technology have become a tool to satisfy human greed, but I don't really think is about anti-technology.
Re:Change vs Destruction (Score:3, Interesting)
Same argument isn't it.
I think mankind in general is a teen currently, sometimes self destructive, sometimes moody, sometimes passed out cold on someones couch or throwing up in wake of a hangover. Like teens, future is an unknown. Sometimes teens fail to live long enough to grow up, but mostly they do and then look back to their wild years in wonder.
Re:Dances With Smurfs. (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally prefer the Avatar review by the inimitable Dr. Zero: The Suicide Fantasy [hotair.com]
I would summarize his article, but frankly I could never do it justice. Click through and read. It's fantastic.
James Cameron is an interesting character (Score:1, Interesting)
This, in a nutshell, is why I had originally figured I’d either hate Avatar or feel like I was giving money to a wacko if I went to see it:
Avatar’s story argues that technology is bad. Humans destroyed their home world through environmental disaster and use military might to annihilate the locals and steal their resources.
It sounds like a description of the typical drivel you get from the anti-capitalism, anti-technology movement.
However after skimming his Wikipedia article, I’m intrigued to see that he also directed Terminator, T2, and Titanic... all of which deal similarly with technology, its use and misuse, and the sometimes-blind faith that people place in it. While I don’t know how far he went with this theme in his newest movie, I’m also more inclined to look at it as an illustration of technology misused and horribly gone wrong rather than just the broad-ended bashing of all technology that it’s been described as in reviews. I think I’ll definitely plan on seeing Avatar at some point.
Re:Typical Noble Savage Fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the noble savage concept, well if the shoe had been on the other foot would we have gotten a better deal? I sincerely doubt it.
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. I don't think it was anti-technology, but rather all about using your resources wisely. The scene where they asked for forgiveness when they had to kill a predator basically laid it all out. They understood that there were necessities, but they would do them as needed to survive. They also didn't mock the offworlders for what they knew. They complained that their 'cup was already full', meaning they were inflexible about learning a new way.
Given their native capabilities to network with other animals and plants, store memories, travel quickly via land and air, and easy accessibility to huge stores of food due to native flora and fauna, it's not surprising that they weren't technologically advanced. They simply didn't need it.
Here's a quarter, go buy a clue (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Typical Noble Savage Fallacy (Score:0, Interesting)
"For instance, what do they do if one of their buddies is born with a genetic disease like Polycystic Kidney Disease or needs some other benefit of modern medicine."
They always forget to show the medicine rock that cures the disease or genetic defect. They take the rock and bash the baby in the head, problem solved.
From our own history the native populations were responsible for wiping out nearly every large land animal in prehistoric times including driving the Nenaderthalls into extinction. The only reason the Indians had any horses to ride in North America was because the Spanish reintroduced them.
I find the fact that the politcal Left seem to embrace the the "Noble Savage" concept, but at the same time abhor anything that endangers children, hunting not to mention weapons, anything that violates animal rights, any type of violence, and any kind of spiritual ritutal. All those things pretty much sums up the entire Noble Savage person and lifestyle.
Loved the movie by the way. Maybe we'll see another Aliens movie since they pretty much lifted the Colonial Marines right out and used them in Avatar.
Re:Who says "we" are drawn to it? (Score:4, Interesting)
This weekend, when my wife and I needed to get out for a little bit, we gambled and saw it. To my surprise, I didn't hate it. In fact I enjoyed it. I wouldn't say it's the best movie of the year or going to sweep the Academy Awards like I've heard from some, but it was very well done.
Don't get me wrong, I still criticize the movie. Specifically the design of some of the wildlife (some of the designs just seemed to vary from impractical to unnecessary). There were some things that just seemed "alien for the sake of alien".
Yes, it's a "going native" film like Dances with Wolves (even Cameron said that was part of his inspiration) but it really does stand on it's own.
About as anti-technology as... (Score:3, Interesting)
Star Wars.
From "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed", through Luke "finding his way" in a swamp on Degobha, to the final battle of stick wielding Ewoks versus the evil technological Empire.
Utterly anti-technological.
Re:Change vs Destruction (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. +100 insightful.
Someone tell the entire US population (including government) this! Just because someone points out flaws with this country, and there are many, does not mean they wish to destroy it.
Someone who wants to destroy you will keep the flaws to themselves and exploit them at every opportunity. Someone who points your flaws out to you is giving you the opportunity to improve. If you don't even make the effort to improve at that point, you're inviting the attack and you deserve it when it happens.
Right now, this entire country is inviting massive attacks from everywhere with such capabilities; even from inside. Our flaws are pointed out rather frequently; there are a lot of them. People are too busy accusing those who point them out of wanting to destroy us to realize that we'd already be gone if that were the case. We're all too busy pointing the finger to fix it. Further, we're all too busy trying to take things that work from everyone else, when we should all be trying to make what we already have work, so we can share it with the world, rather than forcing it down their throat.
I haven't seen Avatar yet, so I'll rely on everyone here to tie my comment into the discussion.
Re:Typical Noble Savage Fallacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Packs of wolves and bears don't leave you alone there, either, as Jake found out. They leave you alone if they don't know you're there, you're smart enough to stay out of their areas, not piss them off, etc.
The Na'vi aren't peaceful people. They're warriors. Living in harmony with nature, in the real world, means that sometimes you eat a bit of nature, and sometimes it eats you. The movie did not portray a Disney-esqe vision. We know things in their own environment think they're tasty, and we know this is not the first "time of great sorrow", and the last wasn't that long ago. IMO, it's an amazingly beautiful vision of a world, but hardly an Eden.
I don't know anything about PKD, but from the movie it's fair to assume people who aren't healthy don't become full members of the tribe. I found it an interesting concept. Which is better, a society that requires everyone to be productive, or a society (like ours) that encourages people to be unproductive (living on welfare, begging on the streets, living in their parents' basements until they're 35...). Neither is perfect. Our society has a tremendous surplus, so we can accommodate a lot of unproductive people. Societies that can't, don't. I didn't get the impression the Na'vi don't have enough to go around, and they simply didn't address your point at all. I suppose when they need "modern" medicine, they do the same thing we do when we need 22nd century medicine.
Re:White guilt (Score:1, Interesting)
Conveniently leaving out the part where essentially all of the more-or-less natives in, say, North America (by way of Asia and a long walk/float) had warrier classes. They didn't dream that up after the Spanish arrived. Douchebaggism was alive and well and very, very brutal long before the Eeeeevil White Man used someewhat more technologically advanced Douchebaggism to do exactly the same thing that the natives had untold centuries of experience doing to each other, already. Specifically, squabble violently over territory and resources in between brief periods of more or less getting along.
Ever seen a flint-edged mace, made for the sole purpose of bashing the brains out of your fellow never-saw-a-White-Man-don't-care Native American, dating back to long before the Vikings were doing it with bronze or iron? Yeah. Peace and harmony. BS.
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:2, Interesting)
>They also didn't mock the offworlders for what they knew
Yes they did - all the time.
> They complained that their 'cup was already full', meaning they were inflexible about learning a new way.
I found the statement ironic considering a) they themselves wanted to learn nothing from a much more advanced, interstellar-travelling civilization - going as far as closing down a school b) Banning Grace and her team of scientists from .. you know.. actually studying them and their ways.
Re:Why assume the Na'vi are low-tech? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:it's called "entertainment" (Score:3, Interesting)
This movie actually is deep, and merits a deep discussion.
Re:Typical Noble Savage Fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't matter if that culture is the Wild West, Roman Legions, or Prehistory, how often do you see someone going to the bathroom in a movie if it's not for comedic effect?
To dismiss the idea of living sustainably as "White Guilt", or "Noble Savage", or general "Crazy Leftist" propaganda is missing the point of the movie. You don't have to go back to the woods and hunt in a loincloth, you just have to recognize that the our current system of living is not the only system that has worked. It has it disadvantages and just as we shouldn't buy into another system wholesale, we shouldn't dismiss it outright either.
Re:Fern Gully in Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:White people suck in space (Score:3, Interesting)
How many blacks had speaking parts in the movie?
What percentage of the words by humans were said by blacks (much less asians).
On the "bad guy" side, I am fairly certain 100% of the words were by whites, and 95% were by white males.
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. Now, do you think that these capabilities evolved naturally? Or that the entire planet was something designed? I mean, what evolutionary pressure could possibly drive an animal to having a built-in "make me your mind-slave" link?
That's easy. The sex drive. It's already pretty close. Some people will already do anything their partner asks, and that's just for the promise of future sex.
Couple that with a neural interface, and every guy I know is a goner.
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, Native Americans certainly weren't in universal agreement about land ownership, but was that more out of convenience more than any notion of fundamental property rights? Those that subsisted off grazing animals followed the animals around. Those that lived off corn stayed in place for much longer periods, but even then had to move around to maintain land quality. Those that found a nice tall mountain liked the defensibility (or claimed Divinity) and stayed there. Did any of them consider land as being personally capable of ownership by individuals - ownership that could not be taken away by force? Our could anyone's individual property be seized by the tribe leader or by other means of force that the tribe considered acceptable?
It's obviously possible that the government seized property from people who rightly owned it, as the government has and still does (eminent domain, as you mention). And where such instances occur, it was wrong for the government to do so.
"Rightly claimed" here means "someone on another continent decided that they owned this land, and had the right to give it away".
Actually, it means, "someone who makes use of land that no other has claimed, and claims it as his own." A right is not a deed of ownership, but a freedom of action. Your right to a piece of land is indicated by your utilization of that land - for living, for growing food, whatever. So a small group of people can't claim, "We own Antarctica!", just because they happened to land there. They can justifiably claim to own the section of the continent on which they inhabit and grow food.
Re:Dances With Smurfs. (Score:2, Interesting)
And so will the Na'Vi. (Score:3, Interesting)
>but Native Americans essentially lost...
And that was my final take of the move, as the colonists left Pandora - the Na'Vi are fucked. Just like the brief glory for the Indians at Little Big Horn, in the end it provoked a tidal wave of retribution against which there was no hope of resistance.
As I watched the human colonists column off to leave Pandora, I was thinking, "In a few years an automated drone will arrive in orbit to bathe the Na'Vi villages in a neutron death-ray and solve the problem forever."
That's what he said (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a "people who try to take things from others by force suck" movie.
Exactly, a "white people suck" movie because the implication is that all white people ever do it take by force, except for one lone hero who "breaks the mold".
You are just echoing the reason why the movie thinks white people suck.
Re:White guilt (Score:4, Interesting)
It's sometimes shocking to me how much of life is lost via the conveniences of modern technology, not to mention the loss of character that results from lack of experience.
-Oz
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:4, Interesting)
you must be referring to Bt corn. i can believe that pollen could do what you describe, but at the same time I know that it could have been prevented with the proper promoter on the Bt gene. there's no need for pollen to express the peptide pesticide. fortunately, corn pollen is absurdly massive compared to most other pollen, and doesn't fly far.
what I was really asking about was the irresponsible use of transgenics. you say you work for a company involved with them. have you seen the amount of paperwork needed to even get transgenic seed? the amount of regulation surrounding transgenics is enormous, and I have never really heard of a biologically-irresponsible use in the field (not that it's impossible).
transgenics will save this planet, mark my words.
Re:More interesting opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Well it's a massive economic bust because our economy is structured entirely about selling things constantly, rather than wealth production and retention. And the most effective proven way of reducing birth rates is increased educational opportunities, particularly for women. But agreed, as things are currently set up, it's a big problem.
Nice sig., btw.
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:2, Interesting)
...like putting rabbits in Australia, devastating to the...
The rabbits of Australia take issue with that statement. They are doing very well thank you.
Re:Who said it was anti-technology? (Score:3, Interesting)
my university is well known for its leftist thinking, and I consider myself to be far to the left of the median in America. but I soundly reject those on the left, especially on the fringe, who say that GMOs need to be stopped. in my mind, without GMO crops, we can never hope to feed the masses. even borlaug said organic farming can only feed ~4 billion, and the fertilizers/pesticides we currently use on non-GMO (and even current 1st gen GMOs)represent an unsustainable form of agriculture. thus, I think future, baller GMOs will save the planet.
Re:More interesting opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Dude, everything we have is from nature. Our food, our clothing, our oil, our raw materials, our bodies and minds are nature. "Nature" is us and we are it.
Only in the sense that we have the same atoms. Of course thinking in terms of atoms would mean you're essentially the same as adolf hitler, or horseshit, no ?
Your ancestors didn't ride on dragons? Wah! They rode on horses, donkeys, mules, camels, elephants, dogsleds -- almost anything strong enough to carry a human being. Why do you feel so put out by "Gaia"?
Hello ? Flying dragons, man ! Flying dragons. Donkeys do NOT compare to flying dragons, I'm sure you can appreciate that. And also, where are the animal toasters ?
Where are you getting this from? What in the world is a natural religion?
For example the native indian "religion". Generally any ideology/culture that's pre-agriculture, and their immediate successors is considered a natural religion. Of course, definitions vary.
Who nearly exterminated the Apaches for their land ? Surely it was the "oppressive whites", right ? Well no, it was the Commanches. Of course the Apaches only got that land by warring with another tribe that they exterminated, and we don't even know the name of, just a few images.
Another Indian nation, the Erie nation was exterminated. They lived somewhere near northeast california and large areas to the east of that. They were killed. Every last man, woman and child (the children were famously eaten. Some of those children have been autopsied, hundreds of years after the fact, and guess what was found ? They were alive when the initial bitemarks were made. They were eaten alive. An open question is whether they made their parents watch, like the muslim prophet did when he did the same to a certain tribe that dared to leave him. Of course that gives us some idea as to how Indians dealt with that history, as you can ask any muslim how they deal with it. You see, according to muslims, those acts were not just morally okay, but "holy", unassailable, for they were direct commands from allah, and that even if other muslims repeat that behavior it would not be judged morally wrong. That is, of course, what a religion is, at heart : a definition of what is morally right and morally wroing (and everything in between). There is no "universal" morality, no matter how strongly Baha'is and assorted "noble savage" fantasts believe in it. I'm quite sure you'd find the same sort of justifications amongst members of native american tribes. The type of muslim excuse "mohamed was not a paedophilic rapist, that's a dirty word. Of course, yes, he did fuck a 9 (or 7) year old girl against her will, had intercourse with slaves and had them beaten before and afterwards, and so on. But that was all morally right, and so he was not a paedophile, nor a rapist. That sort of statement).
The same happened to the Huron nation, though the Huron children died from getting their skulls smashed in by a club, and were only eaten afterwards. Surely only white males could have done something like this ? Though one gets suspicious. Eating children, after all, doesn't sound all that Christian, now does it ? Not that anyone claims the conquistadores were very devoted Christians, but even for them this goes very very far, doesn't it ? And of course, you'd be right to doubt : it was the Iroqois (they're called "victims" nowadays)
This is incidentally something they (the Iroquois) tried to do to dozens of European settlements, and they succeeded in doing this at least twice, and probably at least a few of the "disappeared" settlements met this fate too.
I know it is extremely politically incorrect and even racist to tell the history of many peoples, like the native Americans or the muslims. But what is one to do when the truth has become racist, and people demand it to be replaced or suppressed ? I believe in ignoring idiotic sensibilities in favor of the truth.
All these things pal