It's no secret that tensions are rising in the United States. Hardly a week goes by without another march, another protest, another shouting match (or physical fight), another cry against injustice in some fashion. These clashes often seem to generate a lot more heat than light. Is it possible to navigate our way through these skirmishes in a way that productively leads us toward truth, justice, reconciliation and peace, or are we stuck with simply shouting and posturing until the loudest or strongest side wins?
In our most recent episode of Etctera, Beth and I discuss the recent controversy in Traverse City involving the replicas of Columbus's ships before addressing Charlottesville and other places where clashes over civil and human rights have been front and center in the news. We offer a starting conversation on a complex subject; hopefully, it can contribute in some fashion to a cultural move toward truth, justice, reconciliation and peace.
The latest Reader’s Digest (September 2017) has the
click-bait worthy “13 Mind-Blowing Discoveries Scientists Made This Year.”
Though I must confess my mind remained relatively calm, the 12th one did catch
my eye:
“A tool to repair DNA in embryos. Chinese scientists devised a
gene-editing tool that may eliminate certain disease-causing mutations in the
DNA of human embryos. It is the first such technology to be used on viable
human embryos and could one day help prevent babies from inheriting serious
genetic diseases. But it has already raised ethical concerns about the
potential to effectively design children – and alter the genetic heritage of
humankind.”
I note the following:
This is the DNA of something living, not
something that will potentially live.
The DNA being repaired in human embryos (unborn
children) is the DNA of a human being. There has been a diagnosis of a serious
genetic disease that is passed on from one human being to another. Not from a
human being to a blob of tissue or to something that may or may not vaguely
have personhood. It’s what human parents pass on to human babies. The distinctive embryo/baby language used in the article may be helpful in identifying the stage of life the baby is in, but there is no ontological difference between the
child mentioned with both those terms.
The repair done in utero will be a part of a 10-year-old’s
history or a 70-year-old’s history. There is a unity to his or her life that
begins before birth. What happens to this unborn baby happens to the person
whom that baby was, is and will be. A 50-year-old who had this kind of treatment probably won’t say, “Before I was a baby (or a human or a person) I had this treatment…”
They will likely say, “Before I was born...” Before I was born.
The DNA being repaired is not the mother’s or
the father’s. Neither one is affected by this. It is the DNA of a unique,
separate human being. This is not something done to the mother’s body; it’s done in the mother’s body to the
baby’s body.
There is a unity to human identity that begins at
conception. The story of our life begins in the very first moments, and every
stage adds chapters. Abortion does not stop a story from starting; it ends a
life story that has already begun.
This past week, Etcetera's podcasting crew had the opportunity to interview writers, producers and directors associated with three documentaries showing at the Traverse City Film Festival:
producer Andrew Grant and director/writer Anniken Hoel (Cause of Death: Unknown); director Zaradasht Hairan (Nowhere to Hide); and producer Greg Kohs (AlphaGo). You can listen to the podcast on Soundcloud; as always, we welcome your thoughts on our Facebook page and on this post!
To give you an idea of where the conversation ranged on these three films, here are some observations and questions that worked their way into our discussion with them, as well as some links with which to pursue each topic. I think you will find what our guests had to offer as fascinating and insightful as we did!
War For The Planet Of The Apes has received widespread accolades, and rightly so. More importantly than the remarkable special effects, it tells a thoughtful story about war, morality, revenge, justice, goodness, and hope. And it once again features apes riding horses, which is hard to beat in terms of sheer entertainment value.
What stood out to me in this final (?) installment of the series was the remarkable biblical imagery. I said to my son after I watched it, "That was a story of Caesar, the Ape Moses, leading his people to the Promised Land." I went home and jumped online, and sure enough - that's what the director had in mind:
In Reeves’ mind, the character’s death was almost biblically preordained. “He was sort of this ape Moses, so for him not to be able to be in the Promised Land with them — I thought reaching this place could be tremendously emotional,” he said.
Director Matt Reeves told EW:
“We watched Bridge on the River Kwai...We watched The Great Escape. We watched Biblical epics, because I really felt like this movie had to have a Biblical aspect to it. We watched Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments. We didn’t go, like, ‘Let’s take a little bit of this, a little bit of that.’ When you surround yourself with something that feels emotionally right, there are connections that make sense to you that somebody else might not see…[the films] informed the vibe we felt about this thing.”
The parallels to the biblical epic of Moses are unmistakable.
The concepts of freedom and moral obligation brings with them the idea of justice. If right and wrong are objectively real, and we are people deserving of praise and culpability based on how our choices align with moral goodness, then part of the morally obligatory good would be to treat people justly. So, what is justice?
Spiderman: Homecoming, the latest movie in the Marvel Universe
franchise, is getting great reviews (93% at Rotten Tomatoes from critics, 92% from the audience). It’s not the best movie Marvel has done, but it’s solid. This version of Spider-Man is going to be an interesting addition to the Avengers: he’s lighthearted, somewhat naïve, and not yet jaded (matured?) by life; he’s also strong, fast, brilliant, and incredibly excited about fighting evil and injustice with his heroes. But, as this movie makes clear, he’s got some growing up to do.
Thanks, Karl Meszaros, expert on "everything that could stop you from getting a date," for joining us for this podcast's discussion of comic book superheroes heroism, and the impact is has in both society and individuals. In this episode, we look at several different aspects of this cultural phenomenon:
the rise of the superhero genre
the changing nature of what is considered heroic (how did we get from Superman to Deadpool?)
the reflection of and impact on readers and viewers
the benefits and pitfalls that this type of storytelling has to offer
In an act of bald self-promotion, here are links to some of my reviews, which include occasional guests appearances by both Beth and Karl (whose perspective influenced probably all of these reviews):
“There are two freedoms - the
false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to
do what he ought. “ Charles Kingsley
“Order without liberty and
liberty without order are equally destructive.” Theodore Roosevelt
“Freedom,
like any other virtue, does not exist in a vacuum. It must be worked and
practiced to exist at all. And like any other virtue, it imposes upon those who
would have it the unpleasant tasks of discipline and sacrifice. A materialistic
people do not learn these tasks by reading posters or listening to pep talks,
any more than you can learn to play the violin by the same methods.” Ralph Austin Bard, United States Assistant Secretary of
the Navy,
“What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of
men and women?
It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is
not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads
straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their
freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage
few—
as we have learned to our sorrow." Learned Hand, in "The Spirit of
Liberty"
“The basis of self-government andfreedom requires the development of character and
self-restraint and perseverance and the long view. And these are qualities
which require many years of training and education.” John F. Kennedy
“The truth is that we are not yet free;we have merely achieved the freedom to
be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our
journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road.For to be free is not merely to cast off one's
chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.The true test of our devotion to
freedom is just beginning.” Nelson Mandela, inLong Walk to
Freedom
“Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor
steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow
interest of their own.” Woodrow Wilson,
address to Congress.
* * * * * * * * * *
Freedom in our culture often means the right to be and do as you please, how you please, when you please, where you please. It means doing your own thing, being your own boss, looking after number one first. The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary says it means “exemption from necessity in choice and action.” It is the right to any choice so long as it is your own personal choice.
I’m not so sure this is the deepest, truest form of freedom. It’s probably better described as license. John Milton wrote in Tenure of Kings and Magistrates that “none can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.” As is easy to see simply by surveying our world, license results far too often in an exploitative callousness that objectifies others and deadens one’s own conscious.
We can fill our brain on fake news sites; we can engage in addictive behavior; we can blow every paycheck rather than make long term plans; we can tweet whatever we want or troll any social media site; we can watch all kinds of pornography; we can use dating apps to go through people as if they were playthings; we can pollute; we can support entertainment that spoils the moral fabric of our culture; we can take all the toilet rolls in a portable toilet and throw them into the toilet (sorry...recent experience that really peeved me); we can gorge yourself with food or drink ourselves into a stupor.
We can do all that. But at what cost? Check out Chase Holfelder's rendition of "My Way." He captures the ambivalence well - it's supposed to be a song celebrating radical license, but it's sung through tears, with some regrets, with an acknowledgment that at times he bit off more than he could chew. This version lingers: it's not the breezy, careless Sinatra version. It's a haunting reflection of one who is desperately - and uneasily - wondering if "my way" was the right way to live.
