[p2p-research] Fwd: Fw: Avatar Transforming - its power, its message, its possibilities
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 30 13:54:10 CET 2010
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Greco <thg at mindspring.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:57 AM
Subject: Fw: Avatar Transforming - its power, its message, its possibilities
To: Peter Etherden <peteretherden at yahoo.com>, Larry Victor <
larryvictor at comcast.net>, Sonia Lub <ibeginwithpeace at gmail.com>, Sergio Lub
<sergio at sergiolub.com>, Gaye Lub <gayelub at aol.com>, Haig <haigkw at aol.com>,
Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
This is an interesting commentary by Tom Atlee on the Avatar film.
Toward the end, Atlee engages in some "what if" regarding the planned
sequel.
This is the kind of scenario planning we need to engage in if we are to end
the cycle of violence and begin, on a mass scale, effective action that will
lead to emergence of a sustainable harmonious society and the "Butterfly
economy."
Thomas
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Atlee" <cii at igc.org>
To: "undisclosed list" <cii at igc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 10:37 AM
Subject: Avatar Transforming - its power, its message, its possibilities
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http://tom-atlee.posterous.com/avatar-transforming-its-power-its-
message-its
or http://bit.ly/AvatarTransform
AVATAR TRANSFORMING: ITS POWER, ITS MESSAGE, ITS POSSIBILITIES
by Tom Atlee
"Embrace the movie — surely the most vivid and convincing
creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving
pictures." -- Richard Corliss, Time Magazine
"Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected, all human
beings to each other, and us to the Earth. And....to appreciate
this miracle of the world that we have right here." -- James
Cameron, Avatar director
"[The movie's] parallels with history and current events are obvious
enough, but they're beside the point." -- Amy Biancolli,
Houston Chronicle
I was blown away by James Cameron's new movie Avatar. It immersed me
in a thoroughly compelling world, imagined and crafted with a depth
of detail that utterly amazed me. It conveyed multiple profound,
challenging messages via an archetypal story designed for mass
appeal. I am not at all surprised it is suddenly the highest
grossing movie of all time, beating Cameron's previous allegorical
blockbuster, Titanic.
The impact of this movie made me wonder how we might enhance Avatar's
transformational power -- a question I'll get to in a moment. First
I want to address a few points about its reception.
I couldn't believe most of the reviews I read.
MISSED MESSAGES
Although rightly lauding the remarkable special effects and 3D, and
noting the relevance of the film to Europeans' colonial abuse of
Native Americans, hardly any reviewers named what to me were among
the movie's most important messages:
1. Humans are embedded in the beauty, power and
interconnectedness of nature.
2. Our abuse of nature and indigenous peoples
did not only happen in our historic past.
Cameron himself addresses the first point in numerous places. In
addition to the quote above, at Comic Con 2009 he said he hoped his
film would make a viewer "think a little bit about the way you
interact with nature and your fellow man." He noted that the
indigenous Na'vi represent "our higher selves, or our aspirational
selves, what we would like to think we are", while the human
corporate-military invaders represent "what we know to be the parts
of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning
ourselves to a grim future."
The spiritual dimension of our link to nature is obvious in the
movie, but has met mixed reviews. It has been celebrated by those
with deep-ecological spirituality, e.g.,
http://hubpages.com/hub/James-Cameron-Spiritual-Message-in-Avatar-Movie
(or http://bit.ly/8scBVY)
and attacked by others, most notably the Vatican and New York Times
reviewer Ross Douthat
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
who dismiss it as misguided pantheism, warning viewers of its
theological dangers. Others warn of an anti-technology, anti-
civilization, unrealistic worship of "the noble savage."
Such black-and-white thinking misses the spectrum of meaning
available from the film. Cameron insists the film is neither anti-
technology nor anti-American. Rather, it is about being more
conscious in the ways we hold and use our technology and our
Americanism (or other isms).
Furthermore, one doesn't have to be "a pantheist" to be awe-struck by
nature and realize our interdependence with it. This reverent sense
of nature-connectivity is poetically and passionately expressed by
another New York Times essayist, taxonomist Carol Kaesuk Yoon, in her
"Avatar's Luminous 3-D Jungle Is a Biologist's Dream,"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/science/19essay.html
Yoon says that Avatar "has recreated what is the heart of biology:
the naked, heart-stopping wonder of really seeing the living
world.... I felt as if someone had filmed my favorite dreams from
those best nights of sleep where I wander and play through a
landscape of familiar yet strange creatures...."
This profound intersection of science and spirit in the face of
nature plays out most fully perhaps in religious naturalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_naturalism.
The second largely unnoted and politically loaded lesson of the movie
is that the Avatar story is being played out on OUR planet in OUR
time today. The case for this is presented with passion and
considerable facts in the essay "Avatar is Real"
http://carlosqc.blogspot.com/2010/01/avatar-is-real-pandora-is-
located-in.html
(or http://bit.ly/5s5LZj)
Indigenous Peruvian writer Carolos Quiroz takes us on a tour of the
many places where corporate and military forces conspire to undermine
or destroy Indigenous communities to get at resources, usually oil
and usually in rainforests of incredibly beauty:
"Avatar is real," he says. "Pandora exists in our planet and it's
located in South and Central America, and Africa. The Na'vi peoples,
the Indigenous peoples in those regions are being displaced and
killed right now, in order to extract the natural resources laying
underground. The names of places and peoples may be different in the
movie, but the facts of reality are almost the same, like the Andean-
inspired music of the film. Distant regions of green, tropical
forests rich in beauty and resources, are in danger due to their
abundance in unknown treasures hidden [from] human’s eyes. In order
to get those resources needed by rich countries, multinational
corporations are using governments, armed forces, paramilitary and
guerrillas to massacre and displace Indigenous peoples. Sadly, in
most cases the U.S. military is involved one way or another."
Quiroz's article is long but filled with so many painful examples
that it boggles the mind that most reviewers referred only to
historical abuses (as if we don't do that anymore), and even that
often in depreciating terms ("this is a film is about liberal white
guilt"). The only mainstream review I found that acknowledged modern
attacks was the strange quote above, from the Houston Chronicle,
which suggested that both historical and current abuses were "beside
the point" when compared with the technological wizardry of the film.
But they aren't beside the point. A large part of the film's power
is its juxtaposition of the depth of nature's meaningfulness with the
shallow values of profit-driven militarism.
BREAKING THE OLD PATTERNS
My own sense of the film's greatest shortcoming is that it does not
go far enough in that direction. It does not help us break out of
the cycle of violence. This brings me to the other thing I'd like to
explore about this film: its transformational potential.
The last third of the film involves two horrendous, spectacular
battles. A number of reviewers have suggested that Cameron's
violence is not gratuitous. This IS a decidedly anti-war film.
Although Cameron insists it is not an anti-American movie, he admits
it is intended partially as commentary on current American wars. In
our martial era of shock-and-awe strategies, terrorism-counter-
terrorism, and echoes of Vietnam, it is hard to claim the violence is
overdone.
But there are other realities in our times, as well: Keep in mind
the many nonviolent uprisings against powerful militaries -- from the
Filipino "people power revolution"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Power_Revolution
where most of the army turned around and joined the democratic
protesters, to the nonviolent revolutions in Czechoslovakia, the
Balkans, former Soviet Georgia, and elsewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution
There is even a story of women in Nigeria nonviolently shaming
military-backed ChevronTexaco into less exploitive behavior
http://threehegemons.tripod.com/threehegemonsblog/id112.html
More often than not, SOME people in the power structure in such
situations have a change of heart and/or mind. In Avatar there are a
few such defectors, including the star, but their mode of support for
the Indigenous Na'vi is to join them in battle. What if Avatar had
shown them involved in a Pandoran version of the strategies promoted
by Harvard nonviolence historian Gene Sharp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp -- perhaps helped along by
the nature spirit -- a mix of principled resistance, appeals to the
heart, negotiations, sabotage, refusal to follow orders, dialogue,
interspecies sports (can you imagine how the Na'vi would be at
basketball?) and PR with people of the home planet (Earth), as Gandhi
did with the English public. (Sharp lists 198 nonviolent actions
http://aeinstein.org/organizations/org/198_methods-1.pdf
and Cameron could undoubtedly come up with some creative additions.)
Surely Gandhi and King demonstrated that the story of a nonviolent
revolution has no shortage of challenges, danger, conflict, heroism,
and other drama needed to grip an audience. And it is easy to add
romance into such a plotline. Such a story might inspire real-life
nonviolent actions on behalf of those working to stop destruction of
our own planet.
Of course the current Avatar movie ends with the strangely victorious
ending that Cameron gave it. Part of that ending is the Na'vi
victors sending all the remaining humans back to Earth in their
spacecraft. As I watched that conclusion, I thought to myself
"They'll be back! Cameron is setting us up for a sequel." And sure,
enough, it turns out Cameron is planning at least one sequel.
A TRANSFORMATIONAL AVATAR BRAINSTORM
This is where I see transformational, evolutionary potential. The
sequel could include an entirely different approach to the
destructive dynamics Avatar highlights. Here are some plot
possibilities.
* It could show the technologically savvy avatars (humans in Na'vi
bodies) and indigenous Na'vi using the left-behind human
infrastructure to learn the technology of the departed humans, and
using it to nurture a long-distance rebellion (both nonviolent and
violent) on Earth which includes more corporate and military types
realizing the devastation that their systems and ways of life entail
-- and then joining the rebels and changing those systems and ways of
life. (The original Avatar movie includes only a few such
defectors. We could expect many more in the second movie. Perhaps
some are among the humans sent back to Earth -- who were either too
afraid to speak up on Pandora or were keeping silent until the right
time -- who speak out or lead subsequent activities on Earth.)
* The sequel could show (glimpses of) other planets where other
related stories are going on, with other storylines which complement
or intertwine with the Pandoran story. Perhaps an alliance develops,
with different planets having different gifts to offer to the
rebellion, representing the positive use of diversity among different
groups and cultures.
* The sequel could move from metaphor closer to reality in the
responses of nature to human interference. In the original Avatar
movie, the Na'vi are victorious due largely to the intervention of
monstrous Pandoran beasts that join the fight against the colonial
"sky people" (humans), guided by the initially reluctant planetary
nature spirit. A more likely scenario -- and more direct metaphor --
would be that the mining of unobtainium (the stand-in for exploitable
uranium or petroleum in the Avatar movie) produces negative side-
effects of some kind (like climate change in the case of petroleum or
radiation and threat of annihilation in the case of uranium) which
impact human society and force a change. Or, a bit more far-out,
perhaps the next mission to Pandora inadvertently brings mosquitoes
who inject the blood of the nature-linked Na'vi into the blood of
humans, leading to psychedelic nature-spirit realizations by the
humans. Stranger things have happened... :)
* The Avatar sequel could involve conversations about what people
want money, work, domination, war and technology for in the first
place, which becomes part of the reason so many humans end up joining
the Na'vi inspired rebellion. (See the story below for a good
start.) The Na'vi and Avatars could produce poems, art, and videos
(or holograms or whatever) that generate a shift in thinking on Earth
-- perhaps based on the evocative, poetic, often humorous works of
the Chiapas rebel leader Subcommander Marcos that have gained
widespread popularity around the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcommander_Marcos
* The Avatar sequel could have a high school science whiz on Earth
discover a cheap substitute for unobtainium that drives the
interstellar Corporation out of business. (This plotline was
developed to excellent effect in Ernest Callenbach's ECOTOPIA prequel
ECOTOPIA EMERGING.) Or it could include stockholders in the
Corporation changing its exploitive policies or instituting the
"triple bottom line".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_activism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line
You get the idea. Avatar, like other socially conscious fantasies
("V for Vendetta") comes to mind, provides an inspirational story of
rebellion based on violence or a battle-savvy leader -- sometimes
spiced with creative strategic or tactical suggestions (such as the
masks in V) -- but stops short of truly transformational guidance.
In the conclusion of V, for example, we see the population rising up
nonviolently against the dictatorship as the dying V blows up
parliament in a climax of fireworks.... but then what does the
population do next? Start another dictatorship? Fight among
themselves? There is no guidance, no inspiration, no
transformational story. Cameron could create a story in which the
Na'vi do better than that.
So what do YOU think Cameron should do with his sequel? What can we
imagine that could inform or inspire him to do something that would
make an even greater difference in our world than Avatar? Is it even
possible that he could do an imagineering movie of such power that it
would catalyze a movement?
http://www.co-intelligence.org/Imagineering.html
Put your ideas in comments on this blog posting at
http://bit.ly/AvatarTransform
And if you know a way to reach James Cameron, let him know we're
thinking about this...
Coheartedly,
Tom
PS: As an aside, I've also not seen any note that Avatar director
Cameron is a diver (which he is), which may explain the many
terrestrial undersea life forms -- jellyfish, anemones,
phosphorescent spots -- that oddly show up in Pandora's rainforest.
============
A STORY ABOUT THE ROLE OF MONEY AND WORK
An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican
village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone
call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to
clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and
inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American
complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it
take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,”
the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American
then asked. “I have enough to support my family and give a few to
friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket. “But…
What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican looked up and
smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a
siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening,
where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and
busy life, senor.” The American laughed and stood tall.
“Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more
time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time,
you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you
would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of
selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the
consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the
product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this
small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City,
then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could
run your expanded enterprise with proper management.
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, senor, how long will all this
take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.” “But
what then, senor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best
part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your
company stock to the public and become every rich. You would make
millions.” “Millions senor? Then what? “Then you would retire and
move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late,
fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and
stroll in to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and
play your guitar with your amigos…”
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