Tuesday, February 2, 2010

On Avatar

"Avatar" is an entertaining film that failed to take risks in a way that would have allowed it to explore the implications of the human culture it hints has been created by the year 2150.

Briefly, it is about a human mining project on the moon Pandora, a moon of a Jupiter-like planet in 2150 AD. Humans are mining a certain mineral that can be used on earth. In the process of mining, the indigenous beings on Pandora are threatened in their traditions and way of life. These are big, blue, feline-like humanoids who can communicate on a cellular level with all the plants and animals on Pandora. They are called the Nav'i. Eventually a war breaks out between the Nav'i and humans and the humans are expelled from Pandora.

Two major themes of Avatar are Enviromentalism and anti-interventionism. In exploring these themes James Cameron, the writer/director uses strong and pervasive allusions to current events in enviromental affairs and American foreign policy. However, in the use of these allusions, Cameron sacrifices any subtle examination of how these themes might have evolved in 140 years. Cameron's characters, the majority of which he barely develops past right-wing paleo-jingoists, are straight out of 2010 USA. They frame issues and use the same catch-phrases current in 2010. They are divided, as is 2010 America in the view of Cameron, between the virtuous, enviromentalists, non-interventionists and the intervetionists greedy for a commodity.

Cameron misses an incredible opportunity to examine the evolution of how these ideas would develop over 150 years. First, in terms of Enviromentalism,no sublety of thought is shown in those who want to mine the mineral. Presumably, humanity needs this mineral on earth. An interesting conflict could have been developed between "earth centered" enviromentalists and "universalists." A conflict between enviromentalists who want to "save the earth" using the resources of the Universe and those who want to preserve a pristine Universe, earth be damned. This would be a conflict more relevant to a 2150 society than the 2010 conflicts Cameron imagines surviving for 150 years.

Second, when examining the conflict between earth-centered enviromentalists and Universalists, Cameron again views the issue from a 2010 perspective. In 2150, the world Cameron presumably wanted to create, "save the earth" would be a jingoistic battle-cry in the war against the Nav'i. The film intimates that humanity is united in some kind of confederation(although strangely virtually all the humans are white Americans, looking acting and talking like its 2010). Under these political conditions it would almost certainly be enviromentalists advocating intervention on other planets to "save the earth", a phrase that would become comparable to "God bless America" perhaps.

Avatar takes no risks in its politics, its cultural ideas, and even its technological view of the future. It is basic boiler-plate "Gaia Theory" enviromentalism and a mishmash of critical assumptions regarding American foreign policy. It transports the minds and attitudes of 2010 Americans into the year 2150 and presumes no changes in the political and cultural conflicts that exist today. It is as if 150 years of culture, politics, and human life would leave today's political theories and conflicts untouched and unexamined. In that sense, there is not much science here and a whole lot of fiction. Even its vision of the technology of 2150 is the most unambitious in the history of science fiction, with gadgets that look almost contemporary.

In conclusion, Avatar is entertaining. However, it is a shallow examination of the future and in that sense it could have been so much more. It tries so hard to prove current Leftist enviromental and cultural ideas that it fails to do the job of great science fiction and transport the viewer into a world of the future. In that sense it was a disappointment and a lost opportunity.

The Resurrection of the East

It is a historical misperception that the British Empire ended in 1945. Britain's security and military commitiments were enormous between 1945 and 1965. This was especially true in the Persian Gulf region where she had security agreements and/or troops in all the principalities of the Gulf. This included in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE. It wasn't until 1971 that Britain abandoned this area. This was included in her decision to abandon all of her security arrangements east of the Suez Canal, save Hong Kong. No doubt the Empire was declining after World War Two, but 1971 was the true "fall of the British Empire."

The declining Empire after 1945 was the great catalyst of the Cold War, especially by 1961 when Kennedy decided to fight Communist National Liberation movements with Special Forces. This British decline and the halting, failed attempt by the US to take up Britain's burdens, were both exacerbated by by the political and subsequent economic awakening of the nations of the "third world."

The political rise of the third world was characterized initially by the postwar nationalism that swept over Africa, South Asia and East Asia.This constituted a national awakening in these regions akin to the European national formations in the post-Roman 5th and 6th centuries, the post Carolingian 10th and 11th centuries, and the 1860s and 1870s with the formation of Italy and Germany It is indeed informative that all these events were accompanied by international crises, namely Justinian's attempt the reconstitute the Roman Empire, the Crusader's attempted reconquer of the Holy Land, and the attempted German hegemony over Europe that only failed in 1945.

Asia's political reawakening began in Japan in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration and in China with Sun Yat Sen's revolution overthrowing "the last emperor" in 1911. In India it began with the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1923. The awakening continued in earnest however post-1945 with violence in India in 1947, China in 1949, Algeria in the early 1960s and Vietnam throughout the entire era from 1945 until 1975.

This political rise unltimately fostered an economic rise where stability and sound economic policies were introduced. First and foremost this was true in Japan which began rapid growth and modernization in 1960. One cannot avoid the conclusion that Japan's decision to pursue economic prosperity at the expense of military might was a conscious decision to avoid the mistake of World War Two which was to confront the US from a position of economic weakness. Beginning in 1960 Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and Singapore all began rapid economic growth. This was helped in some measure by the American war contracts for the Korean and Vietnam Wars. However, the growth was mainly due to an emphasis on primary education, sound free-market macroeconomic policies, with more heavy government involvement in key microeconomic parts of the economy.

It is indicative and educative that these prosperous nations were all non-Communist. The Communists, however, were expert at exploiting the growing Nationalism in the third world.

Communism in Asia, both in China and elsewhere is a virulent combination of radical nationalism and one-state Communism. (and yes this is still true today). The radical nationalism is ancient. China has always considered herself the "middle kingdom", the nation with the "mandate of heaven." The one-state Communism was a 20th century phenomena. It was different from Soviet COmmunism in the revolutionary era in that the Chinese leadership rarely advocated exporting the revolution. In this sense it was Stalinist. It was also an agrarian revolution, rooted in a Chinese peasantry that was xenophobic and rabidly patriotic. There was rarely talk of the abolition of the State in China.

Today Chinese Communism has saddled capitalism and is riding it for Communistic ends. There is nothing contradictory in this for a Communist. (for the Communists contradictions are essential in any system). Communists have always viewed capitalism as the avenue to reach Communism. Indeed, Communism is an idea with more cultural meaning and implications going far beyond an economic system. In fact, in purely economic terms it is the greatest nonsense ever devised by the mind of Man. But for the Communist it not an economic panacea that is sought but a cultural utopia. Capitalists and democratics, thinking in economic terms exclusively, have never grasped this.

So we see the profound effects of the rise of nations and nationalism in the east. This rise was fostered under British tutelage and then in large measure became the force that shattered the yoke. Even areas like China that had never been formerly under British rule had been so dominated by Britain economically as to be a virtual colony. When British power declined and then collapsed in 1971 the effects were earth shattering. In many respects we are still feeling them today both economically and poltically. We are living still through the crisis created by the fall of the British Empire.