Rescuing Ourselves: Ally Condie's Matched Trilogy

"The two desires struggle within me: the desire to be safe, and the desire to know. I cannot tell which one will win."

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In an attempt to enter into and better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping my kids and the rest of today's youth, I submit the latest review of trending books, films, and TV shows effecting a primarily YA audience: Ally Condie's Matched series.
   
Disney has already purchased the rights, and foreign rights have been sold to over thirty countries.  The books went as high as #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, and they have received good reviews from readers and critics.
   
 My goal is not to critique the art form as much as look at how the story reflects and shapes  the readers' worldview.

There will be spoilers.
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The Story

The Matched trilogy begins as Cassia is preparing for her Match Banquet, an event at which she will meet the husband Society has chosen for her. In Ally Condie's dystopic future, Society runs everything: jobs, meals, education, marriage, schedule, exercise, entertainment, social class, even death. It's the only way to achieve optimal results.
    
After the Warming, most people voted to give the government invasive control of their lives so they would be safe.  As the physician Oker points out, "That might be Society's greatest triumph - that so many of us ever believed we were."
   
But when Cassia gets matched with her best friend Xander - and then finds out she was also matched with  Ky -  she realizes that something is amiss in this Orwellian world.
   
Suddenly, she is introduced to a world of choices she never knew existed. Society was supposed to decide whom she should love, but now she is torn between Xander and Ky. She never had a choice of any significance before, let alone one of this magnitude. Now she is faced with her first real dilemma in a world that had always decided for her.

"Looper": On Time Travel, Suicide, and Sacrifice

If you could go back in time and assassinate Hitler when he was still a child, would you do it?  You would have to kill a child who had not yet committed any of the atrocities Hitler would eventually commit, so your victim would still be innocent. On the other hand, by that one act you could spare the lives of millions of others.  Would you be justified in doing so?

What if you found out that young Hitler was full of fantastic potential for good and terrible potential for evil?  Much to your surprise, he was an exceptionally gifted young man with the potential to either make or break the world.  Unfortunately, a devastating psychological and emotional blow made him eventually decide to break it. If you knew who the perpetrator was (though no crime had yet been committed), and that by killing him you could stop the future atrocities of the yet unscarred Hitler, would you be justified in killing the perpetrator who made Hitler a monster?

What if you discovered you were the perpetrator? And what if the only way to stop the Holocaust was to kill yourself?

A Tale of Two Hushpuppies: "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

"Everybody loses the thing that made them. The brave men stay and watch it happen. They don't run." 

There are stories that tap into a deep, haunting place inside where we yearn to be a part of  all that is right with the world. Beasts of the Southern Wild attempts to do this. I choose my words carefully here, because "attempts" is not the same as "accomplishes" - and yet every attempt is laudable.
   
In struggling to write down my thoughts, I realized I needed to write two reviews: One that captures a story that moves me; the other that reflects a worldview that unsettles me.

Desperate Human Beings

“Horror is not a glimpse into someone’s dark imagination, but a bridge into corners of everyday life most of us would rather not think about.”  - Tauriq Moosa

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The Walking Dead and Philosophy brings together a number of philosophers and ethicists to analyze ethical dilemmas as highlighted in AMC’s incredibly popular The Walking Dead. 
 
Since the second half of Season Three is about to begin, this seems like a good time to wrap up my series based on both the show and the book. (If you would like to read the previous entries, click here for a quick link to all of them).

The Walking Dead and Philosophy contains a number of essays that address a foundational question: Where do we ground any discussion concerning ethics and morality?

The Raven Boys

"You're looking for a god...watch for the devil. When there's a god, there's always a legion of devils."

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      For those wanting to better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping today's youth, I offer my latest review in a series of trending books, films, and TV shows effecting a Young Adult audience. My goal is not to critique the art form as much as to analyze how the story reflects and shapes the readers' worldview. There will be spoilers.

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Blue, her mother Marua, and her aunt Neeve  have a strong affinity for the supernatural, an awareness of the darker forces lurking behind the veil, and a pretty keen desire to explore realms best left hidden. As part of her magical heritage, Blue is under something of a curse: if she ever kisses her true love, he will die.

     
Gansey, Ronan, Declan and Adam are the Raven boys, students attending an exclusive prep academy during they day while following legend and magic at night. They are dedicated to finding the ley lines, ancient lines of power strapped into the world. The word is that the ancient Celtic heroes such as Llewellyn and Glendower aren't really dead at all. They are impatiently waiting, preserved in the magic of the lines until someone frees them through the power of reciprocity and sacrifice.
   
This is good news to the one Raven boy who actually is dead already (though nobody else knows). And now that Blue is falling for another one of them, finding the lines really is a matter of life and death.
 
Welcome to Maggie Steifvater's The Raven Boys.

When Dark Knights Finally Rise

I watched two movies this past weekend that showed a sharp worldview contrast:

• In  The Dark Knight Rises, Batman returns to a captive Gotham City to save the people from Bane's annihilation.  He didn't have to risk so much; he had already dedicated much of his life to helping Gotham. Catwoman wants him to escape with her. "Save yourself," she advises. "You've given these people everything." Batman refuses. "Not everything," he says."Not yet." In the end, Batman is prepared to give everything as he offers his life to protect those for whom he cares - not because they are innocent or because he is obligated, but because he can not ignore his responsibility to those who need him.
• In Cabin in the Woods, one man ends up holding the fate of the entire human race in his hand. If he gives his life, everyone lives. If not, everyone dies horribly. He is given a stark contrast: "You can die with them, or you can die for them." He's not about to give his life for them, and so the apocalypse begins. "I'm sorry I ended the world," he apologizes to a friend as they get high and wait for the world to die with them. He's not about to give anything so that others can escape their fate. 

When brought to account for the life of his brother, Cain asked the classic question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Well, yes, to some degree. It's why we have Good Samaritan laws. As the story of the Good Samaritan points out, we have neighbors both near and far, people whose lives are intertwined with ours by geography, vocation, family ties, or simple human dignity.  In every case, something is required of us that transcends our individual preferences and proclivities.  The fate of the entire world will never rest on our shoulders, but things much smaller than a world also require courage and self-sacrifice on our behalf.

The Mortal Instruments

“The descent into Hell is Easy.” 

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For those wanting to better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping today's youth, I offer my latest review of trending books, films, and TV shows effecting a Young Adult audience. My goal is not to critique the art form as much as to analyze how the story reflects and shapes the readers' worldview. There will be spoilers.

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Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones (Book One in the Mortal Instruments Series) introduces us to Clary, a child of Shadowhunters. Shadowhunters trace their lineage back to the Nephilim of Genesis – well, if Genesis included humans drinking angel blood from the Mortal Cup so they could fight demons. And fight demons they do, as well as faeries (the offspring of demons and angels) and the once-human vampires and werewolves infected by demonic diseases.  

Most ordinary people (Mundanes) can’t see this reality; even if they could, they would not believe it. But when Clary sees, she believes. It’s in her blood.  She and her close friend Simon meet Jace, Alec, and Isabelle, three Shadowhunters who are young, beatuiful and strong.  Who wouldn't want to live this life? And what teenager doesn’t want to find out she really is special all along?

Unfortunately, she also finds out that her father is Valentine, a former Shadowhunter gone rogue.  He wants the Mortal Cup to raise an army to overthrow the entire Shadowhunter regime, which may not be the noble enterprise it claims to be.

Deconstructing Humans

The horror genre has a long history of terrifying us with distortions of humanity. Some of the monsters are inhuman (Silence of the Lambs, Saw, Hostel).  Some are superhuman (Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween).  Others are subhuman (The Descent, The Walking Dead).

The subhuman zombies of AMC’s The Walking Dead have reanimated a hot philosophical topic: What does it mean to be human?  It's one thing to identify deviations from the norm. Clarifying the standard from which we are deviating is a bit more difficult.
   
The Walking Dead and Philosophy, a companion book to the series, uses the undead to shine a spotlight on one of today's headlines:  Can humans lose their personhood - and thus their moral rights and standings?  I think most of us would immediately say, "Of course not," but  scientists, philosophers and theologians have a hard time agreeing on the answer to this question.  If "human" is merely one type of "person," then clearly a person does not have to be human. This distinction is not too controversial.  The controversial question is this: Can someone be human without being a person?