The Bondian Metamorphisis - Glimpses of Post Materialism

Some of the Bond movie enthusiasts I spoke with said they were disappointed with the New Bond movie, 'Skyfall'. I think they have their valid reasons to be. Traditionally, Bond movies were always about what Bond did and how cool he looked doing it, especially with the guns, gadgets and girls. The new Bond is no longer about being 'cool'. The new Bond is about being 'real' the authentic, broken guy who needs help just as everyone of us do. I think this metamorphosis of the Bond movies says something about the changing trajectory of human needs. Traditionally, human need for movies as titillating entertainment was to see popular movies as an escape from the dreary realities of life and have a good time. Now, that is changing movies are increasingly seen as avenues of seeking depth and meaning within the dreary realities of life itself.

I want to do three things in this post.
1. I want to offer a key difference between the traditional and the new Bond movie.
2. Point at the broader scope of this Bondian Metamorphisis that involves other superhero movies too.
3. Offer one key insight into trajectory of human psychic needs which I believe is driving this Bondian Metamorphisis.

A key difference between the traditional and new Bond movies is the focus on the vulnerable side of the Bond. The movie delves into the depths of Bond's insecurities and how it is related to 'Skyfall', his childhood home. Which Bond movie has attempted to expose Bond's insecurities? In Skyfall, when 'M' dies, the Bond hugs her and grieves for her. I don't know if any Bond in the prior movies ever had to bother with that tender emotion of 'grief'. This is not a sudden metamorphosis, it started with the 'Quantum of Solace' (which incidentally is another movie the traditional Bond enthusiasts did not like). In 'Quantum of Solace' the Bond shows himself a man with a 'heart', he goes after the guys who killed his girl in the prior movie, which the traditional Bond never did. There was a distinct change in Bond characterization which I wrote about here. I should say that I liked to new Bond in 'Quantum of Solace', I like him more now in 'Skyfall'. The old Bond was as a man with great style but as Chesterton would call him, 'a man without a chest' - zero depth. The new Bond on the other hand, is a man with a heart who is affected by the sharp edges of life and who is driven by deeper and meaningful life experiences than just guns, gadgets and girls.

The Bond is not the only Superhero movie where the story delves deeper into the human soul and attempts to unravel the mystery and meaning behind things. This trend is apparent in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies too. The Batman does not just come to do cool stuff, much of the movie focuses on who he really is and what part of his soul drives him to do what he does. From the trailers to the next version of the 'Superman' movie, it looks like the Superman movie will take the psychological plunge too. Interestingly, even the Supervillians in these Superhero movies have become people with deep souls, albeit sick ones. In traditional Bond movies, the Supervillian, for some inexplicable reason, is intend on World Domination. In 'Skyfall', the Supervillian Silva isn't so. Rather, Silva is a 'hurt soul' seeking his revenge for M's old 'sins'. In the 'Dark Knight Rises', Bane is a Supervillian - the movies goes into his soul to explain the cause of its twisted nature. With these supervillian's one almost gets to have some pity for them. One gets to see a part of their soul that is soft and tender seeking love and acceptance as anyone else. The Supervillian is just trying to cope with the dreariness of life, albeit the wrong way. Hence, these new Super Hero movies aren't just about providing a good time enjoying the titillating entertainment, but delves into deeper meanings behind things.

I think there a key reason behind this new need for depth and meaning in action movies is that as a society people increasingly crave more for meaning than superfluous titillation. Fredrick Neitzche in his book 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' has a poem about the 'Superman'. He believed if evolution created man from the ape, then naturally it would create a Superman from man. And the last of the (current) man-species he called 'lastman' in his poem. The lastman's last achievement would be to invent happiness...

'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink.

Indeed, in ushering the age of materialism, the modern man has invented happiness. All it take is a click of a button or the swipe of a card. We live in a world of titillation at our finger tips. Nirvana's song Teen Spirit epitomizes this when it says 'here we are now, entertain us'. Inventing happiness is the height of materialism.

Neitzche was prescient in his prognosis that man will invent titillative happiness. But he is wrong in that after finding this titillating happiness, the lastman will be stuck in the evolutionary ladder and 'blink'. The Lastman isn't a man on the evolutionary ladder, paving way for a higher being. Contrary to Neitzche's belief, instead of becoming obselete in an ocean of titillating happiness, the lastman (in the fallen image of the 'Everlastingman' - G.K.Chesterton's Christ) realizes the bankruptcy of his predicament and yearns for something in life beyond titillating happiness. He looks for depth. He craves meaning in spite of dreariness.

This change of trajectory seeking deeper meanings isn't noted only by the Hollywood Script writers and Directors. In fact, it has been happening in Music industry for a long time now. Much of Rock music from Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd expressed the need for deeper meaning. In fact, sociologist/futurists predicting future economic trends notice it too. In the book 'A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future', the author talks about the importance that search for 'meaning' will take in people's lives. The author quotes the astute psychologist Victor Frankl, "It is not so much that people try to seek pleasure and avoid pain, but that they really are in search for depth and meaning".

The Age of materialism perfected the art of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, we had 'invented happiness'. We realize that it does not satisfy. We have begun moving into the post-materialistic age of search for meaning. Back in the day, movies were made for audience who looked to materialism, and movies as an expression of materialistic titillation  as diversion from the dreary realities of life. People were just there to have a 'good time'. But now, that we have lived through the age of materialistic titillation and found it to be the empty thing that it is, things have changed. We don't just need a 'good time', we need a meaningful time. In this Bondian Metamorphosis, we are seeing the grounds shift away from the age of materialistic titillation to one of seeking meaningful experiences.

So yes, traditional Bond enthusiasts will be disappointed with this trend. But they need to remember the pendulum swings both ways. After having swung for too long into joy-ride of materialism, it is beginning to lose inertia and is starting to trend towards the depth and meaning-ride of the age of post-materialism. The 'Skyfall' Bond gives a glimpse of how entertainment of the Post Materialism age will look like. From the looks of it, it looks like it will have a lot more mystery, meaning and depth, kind of like life itself.

Perks of Being a Wall Flower - Race to Happiness

Perks of Being a Wall Flower was a good movie there covered many different aspects of a teen's life from love to loss to depression to delusion to you name it. There is a cute girl, Samantha (Sam) who hangs about with abusive boyfriends. And the good guy the protagonist (Charlie) pining after this cute girl is at loss why she wouldn't choose better. Charlie's keenly self-aware English teacher explains that people 'accept the love they think they deserve'.

Charlie is an extremely introverted suicide prone kid trying to find a place for himself in the High school setup in the midst of a bunch of other misfits teens with eclectic tastes for music. The teens are in a reckless race for finding happiness in everything from dancing to parties to drugs to sex. Ironically the moment they experiecne 'infinite happiness' has nothing to do with parties or drugs or dancing or sex. It happens when Charlie, Samatha and Patrick are riding to a tunnel listening to David Bowie's 'Heroes just for one day' is blaring on the radio. Charlie turns to Patrick and says, "I experienced the infinite". They were 'Heroes just for that moment'. They experience inexplicable mystic happiness.

They figure that it is the song on the radio did the trick, but the problem is they do not know the song. They make a note to hunt for the song. Life goes on, they hook up with with girlfriends/boyfriends and then breakup and go through the ups and downs of it. They get high on dope and the low on getting caught not to mention the hangovers. But all the while there is the search for the one song (which is David Bowie's 'Heroes just for one day') that helped them experience mystic happiness that had nothing to do with sex or drugs or parties.

Sam finishes school and goes to college. The coterie is broken. Then there is a reunion. Sam with a sheepish grin discloses her serendipitous discovery of the 'song on the radio' - David Bowie's Heroes. They go back on the ride through the tunnel to recreate their magic moment of mystic happiness and with that the movie ends.

In spite of all the hustle and bustle of teen lives, David Bowie's Heroes stands tall as a moment that really makes them want to live life to its fullest. Drugs, sex, parties are just a diversion away from the dreariness of suicide prone life.What gives them hope in spite of the dreariness of life is the few moments when they experience the infinite and feel like they are 'special' in some way, they are 'Heroes'. It is for those moments that these teens live for - drugs, sex and parties just help them make it through life until they experience their 'Hero' moments.

God has calibrated the world is such a way that we have enough diversions to not to want to commit suicide (as Charlie sometimes feels like he wants to) but at the same time we have only the briefest glimpses of what makes life special so that we will keep seeking something better. And those moments that make us feel special have nothing to do with sex or drugs or parties.

So the question is, if there is much better joy outside of sex, drugs and parties, why do the teens seem bent-upon reckless race to find joy only in sex, drugs and parties. The answer is the same one that the keenly self-aware English teacher gives, "they do not think they deserve better".

What keeps Sam from Charlie's love is her belief in the lie that the greatest happiness she can ever have is whatever is given her by her abusive boyfriend. Unless there is a way to denude the lie that the greatest joy is found in sex, drugs and parties, we will live in a world of teens wrecking themselves in the race to find happiness in cheap pleasures.

Just like Charlie can offer Sam much better love than her abusive boyfriend, Christ steps-in to offer us a place of Heroes as His Sons and much better joy than sex, drugs and parties can ever offer. But there are almost no takers. None thinks they deserve more joy than they already think they are getting from the abusive practices and people they are getting it from. Unless it is shown them that there is much joy in Christ, they will continue to wallow in the reckless race to happiness.

The Small and the Spectacular

Man is a 'Searcher'. He is always looking for something in the weirdest of places. Often, it turns out that he is looking for himself actually. Felix Baumgartner's setting a new milestone in collective human achievement by doing a free fall crossing Mach 1 was case in point.

Telecast over youtube, it peaked 8 million live viewers. There were people crying, people cheering and getting inspired. BIG moments such as this makes human kind feel special. It makes one feel that one would give everything to do what he did. But if you read an account of his own experience you get a picture not of a man achieving great feats, but one of a man searching for who he really is...

“It was harder than I expected,” said Mr. Baumgartner, a 43-year-old former Austrian paratrooper. “Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records any more. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home.”

Mr. Baumgartner stepped outside, saluted and made the jump right after delivering a message that was mostly garbled by radio static. Afterward, he repeated it: “I know the whole world is watching, and I wish the whole world could see what I see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are.”

Baumgartner's statements are important because they arise out of an experience when all pretensions are bared and the naked soul is exposed to disclose itself for what it is.

This daredevil representative of human kind who has been preparing for 5 years for this one moment to do what no man has done, literally being at the top of the world can't help think about anything else other than 'going home'. All he really wanted was to be 'home sweet home'. Standing at the top of the world, above every other man alive, he feels small. Irony of the highest order, Indeed!

These statements belie two needs of the human soul
1. The desire to find a resting place.
2. The need to find the truth about ones own significance in life.

Felix's experience provides pointers towards finding ways to satiate the needs of the human souls
1. The desire for resting place is satiated in his home.
2. Given the scope of the massive Cosmos he lives in, the truth about man's existence is that he is small.

These answers are largely bankrupt and despondent...

On one side, empirical data suggests that
1. Man can have no true home, for in a long enough timeline, everyone dies.
2. Man is cosmically insignificant, he is pointless in the big scheme of the Cosmos. He is but a blip in Nature's radar.

On the other hand, a voice deep within the human soul disagrees. It craves for an experience of a true home to rest in and propels to search for some sort of a spectacular significance.

Why this conundrum? Why should man who really wants to find a resting place find himself trying head over heels to search for his significance, only to find himself absolutely insignificant? Why should man feel spectacular and silly at the same time? Where the world struggles to answers or gives bankrupt answers, the Bible stands in sharp contrast.

Psalm 8 gives a pointer to help resolve this conundrum by
1. Acknowledging man's smallness
2. at the same time affirming his spectacularness
The affirmation apart, Psalm 8 gives context for us to help understand the purpose of this contradiction of human existence.

Acknowledging man's smallness...
Psalm 8
3. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4. what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Affirming man's spectacularness...
Psalm 8
5. Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
6. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
7. all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8. the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Giving context for this conundrum...
Psalm 8
1. O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2.     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.
9. O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

The context for man's spectacularness and smallness is that so God's Name would be Majestic and glorified. That man is small shows God's concern, care and ever loving nature for even the smallest of things. That man is spectacular shows that man having been made in the Image of God, is given the authority to exercise his dominion over Earth as God's regent. The Regent is no king, the regent's purpose is to reflect in himself the King's nature and thereby bring glory to the King he serves.

If the goal of technological advancements is to make man feel special and spectacular, it does not achieve that. The most technologically advanced man finds that the Cosmos is bigger than he ever thought possible and that he is alone is it. Besides, in a long enough Timeline he will eventually die.

On the other hand, if man, as seen in Psalm 8, were to know his smallness and spectacularness and act as the Regent he was made to be with the purpose of experiencing the Majesty of the Lord, he will find the two things he is searching for
1) a place of rest in the Lord
2) the answer to the question of why he is 'a being made a little lower than the heavenly beings'.

Such a man is no nomad searching for himself in the loneliest of places. Instead of finding himself tossing back and forth between his feelings of significance and insignificance, he'll know who he is. He will have built his house upon the Rock. It is about such a man that St. Augustine said, "Vast are you Oh, Lord! we will not find our rest unless we find our rest in Thee"..

Black Hawk Down - A Lesson on Love

The movie 'Black Hawk Down' is a non WWII war film that is riveting in its realism of depicting the workings of a modern war fought in the urban cities. In spite of the incessant violence in the role of 'Hoot' played by Eric Bana I found a poignant lesson of love.

Hoot rugged looking handsome and brave insurgent that works behind enemy lines. While every soldier is supportive, helpful and anxious, Hoot appears standoffish, unloving and almost incapable of compassion. In the battlefield he is decisive, brave and appears to love war that you might want to label him a jingoist. One might want to say that Hoot is either a sadist who loves violence or he is a man who has been hardened by years of living life the hard way at the edge of mortal danger.

The Delta force that Hoot is a part of raids a rebel stronghold. They massively underestimate the enemy firepower and get badly beaten. Not knowing what hit them, large numbers of troops are trapped behind enemy lines. As the trapped soldiers make their way out into the safe zone they get butchered as they fight their way through. After hours of battle, being chased and shot down as though they were dogs, a group of soldiers make it through and Hoot is among them.

While the soldiers that made it through rest feeling safe and blessed to have made it to the safe zone, Hoot retools to go back behind the enemy lines. Sgt. Eversmann is flabbergasted that Hoot wants to go back behind the Enemy lines after having been through hell and back. He asks...

Sgt. Eversmann: You going back in?

Hoot, the seemingly unfeeling in-compassionate machine of a man gives a impassioned poignant reply explaining his rationale for taking this crazy risk...

Hoot: There's still men out there. Goddam. When I go home people ask me, they say "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? Why??? You some kind of war junkie? I won't say a goddam word... Why??? They won't understand... They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand, it's about the men next to you. And that's it. That's all it is. 

There is a deep Christian principle in what Hoot is saying here. If you truly loved your Neighbor as you should, you will do what needs be done. If need be, you will go behind Enemy lines to save souls. When I think of this tall, sharp nosed, handsome Hoot, I am reminded of an ugly, short, (supposedly) large nosed man who lived a couple of millenia ago and loved going behind Enemy lines to save souls, St. Paul.

To Paul, going to Rome was to go behind the Enemy lines. To be right under the nose of the Great Caesar and preach that Caesar isn't God but Christ is, is asking to get killed. But Paul is eager to do it, Why? Because he feels an 'obligation' to the 'neighbor' both Jew and Gentile.

Romans 1:
13. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Paul is no crazy adventure junkie. He has a reason why He eagerly risks going behind enemy lines. He explains... that it is because the Gospel he preaches is 'powerful' enough to change 'people groups'.

Romans 1:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

If you know anything about History, you'll know that the Gospel is the Power of God that transforms people groups. It may not happen overnight. It usually takes centuries. Since Paul got behind enemy lines it took about three centuries before Rome turned from being the seat of a Pagan power to a well spring of Christianity.

The famed Historian Will Durant when describing this age of Early Christianity succinctly says, "Christ and Caesar met in the arena and Christ won" (BTW, Will Durant was no Christian. He was just a good historian.)

That there were men out there that needed to be saved was preeminent on Hoot's mind. It defined who Hoot was. That men needed to hear the Gospel, that it was his 'obligation' was preeminent on Paul's mind. It defined who St. Paul was. The question that 21st Century Christians might want to ask ourselves is what thought take such preeminence in our minds that it defines us. 

Not every Christian has to have a St. Paul like ministry, but all of us have preeminent thoughts in our minds that define us to such an extent that we appear crazy to other people. Crazy people are attractive. It is the normal run of the mill folks that are vapid. As Christians aren't called to be run off the mill people. We are called to be crazily in love with our neighbor that others will see that and be attracted to Christ.

John 13:
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Going behind enemy lines looks different for different people. To Paul it was going to Rome to fulfill his obligation to love his neighbor. To us it might be spending time with a friend to make him/her feel valued or may be lending money to people who need help or just being with people listening to their suffering without venturing to give half-baked prognosis as Job's friends did or just doing whatever it take to make one realize one is loved.

To love is to risk. To love much is to risk much. If the 'new commandment' to crazily love is something that would truly be preeminent in our minds, if this would truly define us as Christians, that would be a place where the Power of God transforming people groups through the Gospel would be easily apparent and would attract people to Christ. Unless Christians understand this transformational lesson on love, we will miss an opportunity to help the pagans understand the language of love that Christ speaks in.

Saving Power of Imagination!

My introduction to Woody Allen movies was through his later film 'Midnight in Paris'. I liked Woody Allen's use of imagination in the movie. 'Midnight in Paris' is a story about a couple, Gil and Inez, engaged to be married that go to Paris for vacation to celebrate their engagement. The lady's personality is that of a 'philistine' in that she lives in the 'material' world cares pretty much for nothing else other than good food, dressing well and exciting sex. The man on the other hand has a finer tastes for life. Gil is thrilled that he is in Paris the city of dreams for the quintessential artist.

The man and the woman see and experience very different worlds in Paris. Inez goes about the city uninterested, disenchanted and ends up having an affair with the guide. Gil on the other hand, finds his imagination getting fired up. He can't get enough of the city and goes about exploring it. Inez sees no point in enjoying the night walk in Paris. Gil goes it alone. It is in one such midnight walk that a carriage pulls by and he is asked to hop over into it. He gets transported into the Paris of the 1920s when it was thriving richly with a host of young Bohemian artists. He meets everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein and spends the night in their August company. This happens every night. Gil lives a dream life in his imagination. He is a happy man.

The question here is... What do you make of Gil's imaginary world? Does it really matter that the guy has such a powerful capacity for imagination? Or may be he needs to see a Psychiatrist? Why make such a big deal of this imaginary world? Should we just dismiss this cinematic depiction of the power of living in an imaginary world as a crazy old Woody Allen's attempt at making mediocre movies towards the tail end of his career.

I think the answer to this question is implied at the end of the movie in how Paris changes the lives of the couple. Gil is not looking for anything specific in Paris to satisfy him. He surrenders to allow himself to be surprised by his imagination. The more Gil is drawn into this beautiful imaginary world, the happier he is in the real world. That he does not get any sexual satisfaction from his bride to be is immaterial to him when compared with the beautiful imaginary world he is a part of. The woman on the other hand presumably gets ALL she the exciting sex she thinks will make her happy, but ultimately ends up dissatisfied.

When Inez finally confesses that she has been has been having an affair with a mutual friend of theirs and wants to break-up, Gil isn't the slightest bit perturbed which infuriates her all the more. Gil was living in such a beautiful world of imagination that the pleasures offered in the real world seemed mediocre. His imagination was powerful enough to make life satisfying for him. He did not need a 'hot wife' after all. He has his eyes set on a world where ones satisfaction isn't determined by ones needs but by ones ability to be eternally surprised by imagination.

I think there is a Christian principle here. Just like Gil is satisfied by the hope, joy and love offered by the imaginary world do that he does not care much for the mediocre pleasures of the real world, the Christian is to be satisfied by the hope, joy and love of the Heavenly world so that sometimes when we have to give up some of the pleasures of this world it wouldn't be that big a deal.

The Bible uses our imagination to enthuse us about the great goodness of the Heavenly world. The Bible talks abstractly about the next world in terms of the length, breadth and height of the treasures God has prepared for those that love Him. Then the Bible also talks concretely about streets of gold, sea of glass, great mansions. This abstract and concrete figures of speech is meant to fire-up our imagination so that in the imagination empowered Hope of the things to come, we would endure the hardships of this world.

If we do not use our imagination to envision, explore and be enthralled by the Hope we have in Christ we, like Inez will see a very 'reductionistic' world and will ultimately begin seeking after silly pleasures to satisfy us. Christians like Gil have to be people with fired-up imaginations so that we see that there is more to this world than meets the eye. We should go about exploring the world through the Word of God. The imagination empowered vision of the World painted by the Bible will help us set our priorities right and live a happier and FULLER life in this world and the next. Unless Christians use their imagination to see the BIG world that God created and called us to be in, we would become a bunch of petty people seeking after silly stuff in a reductionistic world. Imagination saves us from this narrow focus by helping us SEE the great things God has in store for those that love Him.

Restless Men are Lawless

The movie Lawless is an example of everything being right about a movie except that the director totally failed to bring it together. Great actors, beautiful scenes a few punchy lines, but nothing that brought the disjointed scenes and character development into an engaging storyline.

Some of one-liners were sharp and well delivered though. The one that I loved was at the beginning of the movie. The 'invincible' Tom Hardy is being challenged by a simple thug. Tom Hardy takes one long hard look at him and 'growls' something like, "you know what we are... we are but birds... all of us are like birds, we don't know what is coming at us". Before the slow-minded thug could understand what Tom Hardy was getting at he finds himself  lying on the floor, face caved-in.

This reference to the bird analogy in the movie reminded me about another reference to a bird in another movie 'Of Gods and Men'. This is a movie based on the true story of some Roman Catholic Monks serving the villagers in Algeria who eventually get assassinated by the Muslim extremists. The Islamic rebels threaten the Jesuit Monks that they would be killed if they did not leave the village.

In the movie there is a scene where the Monks are discussing their options with the poor villagers. There is a beautiful metaphor about men being birds. The monks tell the villagers that they are like a 'bird on a branch' trying to decide whether or not they need to leave. A sharp lady replies, "We are the birds, you are our branch, if you leave, we lose our footing". The monks decide to stay and get killed.

Man like a bird, is helpless and hurrying about his business. Without a 'footing' or a place to nest a bird can no longer go about its business of being a bird. Likewise men we need a place for a sure footing in life. To the villagers, the Monks are their 'footing' - their place of rest. To the monks, 'the love of Christ' is their place of rest. Life is really about finding this place of rest. St. Augustine said of the Lord, "Vast art Thee Oh Lord. We do not find our rest until we find our rest in Thee".

In fact, in the movie Lawless if there is a central theme I think is that of finding rest. The movie starts with the three brothers fighting their way through a lawless, pointless, restless life until Shai LaBeouf falls in love with a girl who is the daughter of the village priest. Interestingly, the movie has the theme of the Church running through it. The first time Shai LaBeouf interacts with the girl it is in a Church. The movie even ends with tune of a hymn (which I did not recognize).

The Church, theologically and culturally symbolizes a place of rest. It is a place which gives man a 'footing' in life. But this does not mean that the Church is a place for docile people. In fact, being IN a Church requires a sort of unearthly discipline, love and compassion that not everyone can cope with it. In the scene where Shai LaBeouf meets the girl at the Church, the congregation is singing the haunting hymn 'I am going home' (this youtube video gives the same rendition of the hymn in the Church people moving their hands likewise and all). The girl is washing  Shai LaBeouf 's feet as this hymn is being sung. The experience scares the devil out of  Shai LaBeouf and he runs out of the Church.

 Shai LaBeouf realizes that he has to go up and beyond who he was to court this girl and he single-handedly change the course of life of the three brothers leading them to find their 'footing' in life. In the movie, the brothers don't so much find their rest in the Church per se, as in their families. In fact, a good family is sort of like a Church that it requires an unearthly discipline, love and compassion to be able to run a family. In fact, when Christ talks about His Kingdom, he talks about 'birds of the air' finding their rest.

Matthew 13:31-32: He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

It is no wonder that as the influence of the Church on the society goes down, people become less disciplined, loving and compassionate to be able to run families. Divorce rate spikes, families disintegrate and people feel lost as the birds of the air. The Church built in the Kingdom of God is a place of rest for the people who feel as lost as the 'birds of the air'.

Without good Churches that transform men from within, men find it hard to inculcate the discipline, love and compassion to have good families. Without good families, man will be as the 'birds of the air' without a place to rest. Men that are restless are usually lawless too.

2012 Olympics - A Story of our Society!

I love history, I admire beauty, I appreciate philosophy and I enjoy watching the Olympic opening ceremony with a bunch of good friends. Thanks to the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, I got to do all of this. What made the London Olympics special is that unlike most other Olympic ceremonies, the theatrics of the London ceremony were not about a juxtaposition of shapes, sounds and sights, rather it was beautifully choreographed storytelling of the Story of Civilization (some parts were politically charged though; the Olympics (at least the recent ones) was the one thing in the world I thought was above politics… apparently, not any more).

Anyway, I love it when art is used to tell a good story. Art needs no justification. Art does not have to always tell a good (or happy) story for it to be good art. When a story is told well, it is good. But then there are cases where art can be used as a 'propaganda machine' – when even its best elements become desecrated by subversive motives of base-humans that wield it for political purposes. Much of the rendition in the London Olympic ceremony was good artful storytelling, but there was some subversive use of art for propaganda too, especially for the NHS (British Healthcare System).

There was once a true saying about England: 'The Sun never sets in the British Empire'… literally, the British Empire was so vast, covering all time-zones, that some part of its empire was facing the Sun. Great Britain has a very special place in the story of Human Civilization; it almost single-handedly brought about the shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy the world over. The presentation at the Olympics about the history of Great Britain seemed to suggest that Britain strives to continue to be the rudder of the world, shifting the world economy to the next stage, away from the industrial/capitalist setup to a socialist setup (NHS).

The choreography began with an astoundingly beautiful landscape bright, beautiful and green where families farm the land, eat of its produce and enjoy communal harmony. Then the economy transitions to the Industrial Age. Slowly, the colors of the choreography change - what was bright, beautiful and green becomes dark, ugly and grey. You don't see families and country homes with gleeful kids playing anymore. Instead, you see masses of 'individuals' climbing out of coal mines greasy, grim-looking and hopeless. Out of the pain and toil of these industrial workers, iron is smelted into five fiery rings that interlocked to become the Olympic-rings. I thought this part of the story was beautifully depicted, even the grim-looking grey scale depiction of the industrial revolution was done artfully. It was spectacular. It was good art.

Now on to the part of the story were Art was made into a 'propaganda machine'. In the rendition of the transition from the 'communal' agrarian era to the 'Individualistic' industrial era, something interesting happens in the performance that is noteworthy. A few rich men pop-up and they are depicted as the greedy, suave and in-compassionate men - the evil masters of industrial revolution, the new 'capitalist'.

These 'Capitalists' are shown as being carefree, dancing and enjoying the fruits of the labor of other oppressed industrial workers. A slight on Capitalism? The whole thing had the feel of socialistic indoctrination. What shocked me was the performance ultimately ended in a crescendo for NHS (National Health System - the British Government controlled Healthcare System). I don't object to the government trying to take care of people who do not have enough community around them to support themselves, but to make Artful presentation in the Olympics as propaganda for the NHS is atrocious. Atrocious, not from policy stand point, but from the stand-point of using art and such a unifying event as the Olympics as a political propaganda for NHS. Of course, sick people need to be taken care of. There are many ways of doing it, NHS is one. It is probably not the best way to do it. To use Olympics and artful performance with kids as a vehicle for propagating the assumed greatness of NHS is I think very subversive use of art.

In fact the very introduction of the NHS is subversively done. It begins in a scene in which the kids in hospital beds have nightmares of being chased off by evil Ghosts (of the evil dead Capitalists? or Political Conservatives?). Then Mary Poppins is flown-in to soothe the kids and then (surprise, surprise...) in big, bold, bright lights the NHS is formed. It almost seems to imply that as London changed the world from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy, it will lead the world into a social economy.

Let us take a step back here... the overall idea that is presented here is that people were once happy farmers and then the industrial age makes them hapless victims of the evil capitalists and now moving towards a social age of taking money from the evil capitalists and serving the poor. This is Marxism pure and simple. The problem with this rendition of the story, is not that it is totally false (there is some truth to it), the problem with the rendition of the ills of Capitalism and the need for socialism it is that it is one-sided. The performance glosses over the fact that the agrarian economy had its problems. Neither does it show that the capitalistic system has its benefits too.

For example, in the agrarian age the farmer was a powerless worker at the mercies of forces beyond his control. Often he did not own large portions of land to have a sustainable income. He did not have access to capital, so he could never get a loan to buy land and work for himself and pass on the benefits of his hard-work to his son to build upon. Instead, he had to work for the large land owners. If crops failed, he got in debt to the land owner and eventually he became a servant/slave of the house of the Landlord. In this 'feudal' system, the landlords often were just another version of the evil, exacting and excessively greedy new capitalist. In this system, the farmer never got a shot at life, his son too had only to be a poor farmer at the mercy of the rain-gods serving the rich (often greedy) landlords.

Enter capitalism, capitalism is based on the idea of availability of capital solely based on merit. Capitalism steps into this feudal system and says that it will lend the farmer money to build his own farm and make money off it. Capitalism will lend you money if you are meritorious (hard working, industrious and responsible) to use the money well and repay the loan with interest. Capitalism freed people up to do what they were good at doing, as long as what they did was valued by others in the society. For example if you are good at making iPhones and people value the iPhones you make, capitalism becomes the vehicle to make it happen. You did not have to be a son of a billionaire to have a shot at life. You just had to be enterprising. The London Olympics points out the evil side of capitalism (rightly so), but it totally misses this good part of capitalism.

Social propagandists actually get it partly right, in that they observe the social ills better than the capitalist counter parts do, BUT they diagnose it wrongly. They think the problem with society is its Capitalistic bent. They think that if only people could be convinced (if need be, indoctrinated) that communism is a better system, then that people would become communists and the world would become a better place. They mistakenly see capitalism as the problem as socialism as the solution. They are oblivious to the real problem that is the cause of the ills of the society - the evil within human heart/will. Socialism has not and cannot change the evil within the human heart.

Enter Christianity, how does Christianity solve this problem? Christianity rightly diagnoses that the problem is the evil within human heart. The problem is not with an -ism, neither is the solution an -ism. The problem is Sin and the solution is a Savior. What is missing in London's rendition of the story of the civilization is that it misses the fact that there real Sin in all human hearts (whether agrarian or capitalistic or socialistic) and that there is a real Savior who can transform every human heart and make it anew loving, enterprising and happy.

Ironically, the London opening ceremony left out the part where much of Christianity spread through the world in the 18th and 19th centuries by the work of the British (and European) missionaries. The schools, colleges and beurocratic systems they built gave the colonized countries the social structure they needed as they moved away from the feudal systems to freer economies. In India, back when women were not sent to college, a British lady Ms. Sarah Tucker, through the work of the Christian Missionary Society built the first college for women in South India. It paved way for my grandmother and many other women of her generation to be educated. In fact, if only the Christians had followed the tradition of building mission hospitals where the poor and oppressed can come and get healed, we wouldn't have to be dealing with Government overreaches into the lives of individuals in the form of the NHS or any other socialist setup.

What is even more ironical is that it is the people who often consider themselves the 'Christian Right' that vociferously oppose Government support systems pertaining to Healthcare. If Christians had done a good job of taking care of the sick in their midst, the government wouldn't have found a need to step into in the first place. Francis Schaeffer, sometimes derisively called the 'god of the Christian Right' (by the liberal establishment), actually indicts the Christians of the Industrial era for not practicing 'compassionate capitalism'. Christians of that era did not love people around them enough. Of course, they bank rolled the pioneering mission organizations that built schools and hospitals in the Third World, but neglected the Lazarus sitting at their doorstep. We shouldn't forget that Christians gave Socialism the space it needed to become as a global movement. Christians should help the people around us by loving them as people created in the Image of God that deserve dignified treatment.

That the London Olympics chose to highlight the NHS is not so much an indictment of subversive use of arts by the Socialist as much as it is on the hypocrisy of the modern Evangelical Christians. The problem with Evangelical Christianity is that it is very narrowly defined. Evangelical Christians make the 'Great Commission' to proclaim the Gospel as the 'Only Commission' of Christianity. Evangelical Christians forget that we have a mandate to take care of the poor around us. At best Evangelical Christians, much like their counter parts from the Industrial age, have outsourced this helping of the poor to World Vision, Compassion and Living Waters. Ever wondered why most Hospitals have Christian-sounding names? Christians started Healthcare Services as part of their Christian-duty but then turned around and outsourced the taking care of the sick to products of the non-Christian establishment, Insurance companies and the BIG Government. And now, having woken up from the slumber and realizing that the tide has turned, the (evangelical) Christian-right complain that the Government is over reaching into people's private lives and choices.

History, beauty and philosophy come together in the Arts. Arts tell the story of our society. The beautiful choreographed story of London Olympics tells the story of our age - it egregiously shows the Socialist bias towards Capitalism, indirectly indicts Christian indifference to the plight of the society and leaves a gaping hole by saying nothing about Sin being the cause of the social-ills or the need for a Saviour who is powerful enough to disciple individuals and transform Nations. The need of the hour is not NHS or a socialist economy. The need of the hour is societies transformed by a Saviour in which every person is treated with the dignity he/she deserves - as a highly valuable individual made to reflect the Image of the fiercely loving God. Unless this transformation happens, our artful renditions of history, beauty and philosophy will continue to depict our brokenness in our systems (-ism) and the yearning for something better.

Avengers - Battle of Identities

Joss Whedon's Avenger's is a movie that both the jocks and nerds can enjoy. The jocks enjoy the mind-body defying stunts, the nerds enjoy the brilliant script.  The jocks and nerds will laugh for different jokes though.  If a jock and nerd were to sit next to each other, one of them might wonder if the other is seeing a different movie, I wouldn't be surprised if it is the nerd that is doing the wondering...

The crux of the Avengers is the personality tussles among the super heroes. The tussle between Captain America and Iron Man I think brings out the essence of what the movie is about. Captain America is a WWII hero who has been resurrected back to life. He thinks Iron Man a narcissist intent on building a personality cult. Iron Man thinks of Captain America as 'old-fashioned', obsolete and useless. They keep having verbal duels from time to time.

When Director Nick (Samuel L Jackson) tries to recruit Captain America, he isn't excited about coming on board. He a recluse who sees himself as 'Old-fashioned' and out of touch with modern life. Interestingly, Samuel L Jackson says that it is his old-fashionedness which would be valuable to the team. Among the Super heroes, Captain America appears to have little to bring to the table. For the better part of the movie, he appears confused and out of touch (you got to have some pity for a  man that had been sleeping for the better part of a century). 

In fact when Director Nick says Captain America's old-fashionism is what what he needed, I thought it was a mistake in the script, especially in a movie with 'modernized' superheroes. It is only at the end of the movie that I realized what this under-valued old-fashionism brought to the table and how it really made the Avengers a strong team. But before we can understand how old-fashionism is a solution, you have to first understand the problem with Avengers... To put it in the simplest form, Captain America's old-fashionism is the solution to the problem of Iron Man's narcissism. 

Captain America comes off a rusty man that cares too much and is always in a serious demeanour as though the whole world's weight were resting on his shoulders. Iron Man on the other hand comes off as the typical 'modern super-human man' who in many ways is still kind of a boy and needs a mom-figure to keep his act together (Gwyn Palthrow pays this mom-figure). Iron Man cares nothing for anything other than his own 'brand'. His doing cool stuff and saving people is more a celebration of narcissism than love. 

The irony is that most people, myself included, went to see Avengers to see this self-absorbed narcissistic Iron Man.  It is for a reason the movie's trailer prominently has the caustic yet 'cool' exchange between Captain America and Iron Man, where Captain America asks, "without the mask and the suit, what are you?". Iron Man coolly replies, "billionaire, inventor, genius, philanthropist, playboy".  The reason we love Iron Man is precisely because he is such a self-absorbed guy, oozing an almost god-like persona. The narcissistic Iron Man does not care much about anything but his self-image. In fact his love interest itself is portrayed with a sort of selfish nonchalance that is 'made' to look attractive. 

We live in a world where the narcissistic are more admired than the 'dull' ones who live normal lives and go about each day doing the 'right' things. A few months ago, 'Psychology Today' did a feature on raise of narcissism in the last two decades. I am not talking about celebrities like Charley Sheen or Lindsay Logan whose lives are fodder for the tabloid junkies. I am talking about you and me. In fact, Facebook's sky-high $100 billion (expected) valuation was mostly based on everyday-people's need to make little-celebrities of themselves. Here is the question - how does old-fashionism solve this problem of fickle, pointless celebrity creating narcissism? 

 The novels 'The Great Divorce' and '1984' have the similar problems too, though different manifestations. In one, people are so self-absorbed that they cannot stand each other and move away from each other. In another, people are so self-absorbed and the powerful put the weak on the ground and press their boots on their faces. The former is a democratic manifestation of the need to make oneself bigger than one can be, the latter is an autocratic manifestation. In the fragmentation of life that happens in sophisticated societies and the pressing of boots on the faces of the weak that happens in the banana republics at the other end of the world, we see this happening in real-world outside of fiction. 

In both the worlds, the problem is the one thing - self-sacrifice is not seen as a virtue. This is were Captain America comes in, back in the WWII era, self-sacrifice was seen as the chief virtue. This self-sacrifice entailed that people were willing to give up their lives for the sake of others.  In Avengers, Captain America's old fashionism rubs against the others too, in the final scene the narcissistic Iron Man does the ultimate sacrifice of risking his precious life for the sake of saving mankind. In a world that is increasingly narcissistic, unless there is a self-sacrificing Captain America to show the way, the narcissistic Iron Men (boys, actually) will be lost in themselves.

In some ways, Captain America comes close to the Christ-figure in Avengers. For Christ is the ultimate epitome of self-sacrifice. He show us that to lay down one's life for one's friend is the greatest act of love, ever. The problem with mankind is that from Facebook to I-Phone, we exhibit the propensity to change much of the novelty into things that feed into our narcissism. Not that anything is intrinsically wrong with technology, technology is good. Narcissism is really a problem of the heart. The question before us is whether we seek old-fashioned self-sacrifice over novel manifestations of narcissism. What we seek will depend really on what we admire. Do we adore the Old Rugged Cross or the shiny new Iron Man suit? Do we adore the narcissistic Robert Downey jr or the loving Jesus Christ. Most Christians would say they would chose to adore Jesus Christ, as they rightly should. But the question would be why we seem to emulate the self-loving Robert Downey jr more than the other-loving Jesus Christ.

The battle of personalities that we see in the Avengers is really a battle of  Identity in the Culture at large. Will the narcissistic boy-man win or will the self-giving (sacrificing) real Man win. The answer to this I believe lies in the question of whether you try to reflect the image of the cocky narcissistic unloving Robert Downey jr. or the image of the humble, Rock-solid sacrificially loving Jesus Christ.

Hunger Games - A Fight for Love and Life!

I saw the movie 'Hunger Games' sometime back. 'Hunger Games' is based on the popular teen novel written by Susan Collins. As is my custom, not having read the book, I attempt to write about my impressions of the movie. 'Hunger Games', I think, ultimately alludes to the deep hunger for love which make a human being truly human. I think a scene in the moive which alludes to this Truth is when President Sown has Seneca, the Head Gamemaker of Hunger Games, commit suicide. Seneca's job was to entertain the rabble. His cardinal mistake was in encouraging love to blossom in the midst of glamorized celebration of kids killing each other.

'Hunger Games' is not much unlike the Gladiatorial fights that made the Roman arenas famous. The difference being that instead of the brawny Gladiators, kids from ages 12 to 17 are made to fight each other to death. The elite and the powerful live in opulence of the Capitol governed by President Snow. The 'slaves' live in 12 Districts. Each year a male and a female kid from each district is chosen by lots to go to the Capitol and fight and kill other kids, until one victor remains. The fight is televised for the amusement of everyone in the Capitol and the slave Districts. The District with the victor get special rations. So this is the National sport, and then some more.

'Hunger Games' has two motives. One exterior, another one ulterior. The exterior motive is to provide entertainment for all. The ulterior movie of the games is to remind slave Districts, who is Boss - the Capitol's Hunger Games force the slaves' kids do something they don't quite like - killing each other. This way the 'slaves' a afraid of rebelling against the Capitol. Seneca's mistake is that in trying to fulfill the exterior motive, he had inadvertently jeopardized the ulterior goal of keeping the slaves from contemplating rebellion. By encouraging love in the loveless 'Hunger Games', Seneca inadvertently gave the oppressed a reason to hope.

Katniss and Peeta the chosen pair from District 12 are in love with each other (actually it is more complex than just that, anyways...). If the game had one victor, they would have to kill each other. Seneca realizes that his game has a pair of star-crossed lovers. Seneca changes the rules of the game that if a pair from the same district reminded alive at the end, that they wouldn't have to kill each other. He decides encouraging their love would make the game more interesting. And it does. It captivates the attention of the audience. After all, who wouldn't want some good romance in an action flick?

President Snow warns Seneca that his change would encourage love would give hope to the hopeless. The point of 'Hunger Games' was to assert power over the oppressed subjects to the point of denying them the right to love each other. President Snow understood that love was divine, within the human heart it had a power of its own. Love would make life special and would give the slaves the self-sacrificial strength and the will to fight for life. Love would create hope and urge to fight for freedom.

President Snow subtle warnings doesn't quite get the attention of the superficial Seneca. He continues on with the game thorough acts of self-sacrificial love, Katniss and Peeta finally win. There is a point at which  both decide the if one of them has to die the other will die too, so self-sacrificial was their love. In a game that is all about killing, self-sacrificial love inspired the oppressed to fight. As President Snow predicted it gave them hope. People in a District start a riot against the opressive Capitol. President Snow asks Seneca to pay for his mistake with his life.

Trying to create oppressive society using President Snow's philosophy of 'denying love' is effective, but only for a while, eventually it breaks down. Denying something is not a best way to keep people from doing something. A better way to keep people from doing something is to make love meaningless. In fact, the brilliant Aldous Huxley does precisely this in his dystopian novel 'The Brave New World'. He creates a hierarchical society not by denying people love, but by making love meaningless. The 'Brave New World' makes love meaningless by giving its subjects two things - free sex and free drugs. People access to unlimited pleasure wouldn't want love any more. They would willingly submit to any system of oppression created in the 'Brave New World'. President Snow understood human nature much better than Seneca did. Aldous Huxley is a league ahead of President Snow himself.

When we look at our own world, any observer of current affairs can see that we are much closer to Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' of meaningless love than Susan Collin's 'Hunger Games' of denied love. From easy access to unrestrained use of contraceptives to legalizing marijuana, political elites are passing legislations that make it easier to have indiscriminate recreational sex and drugs. This will result in making love meaningless and will ultimately rob people off the need to fight for what is right.

Kate Boltlick in the Atlantic, she explores the idea of being happily single all her life. She takes a role model, an elder single lady living in France. The lady live unperturbed her own little home. She has a boy friend with whom the agreement is that none should sleep over at another's place. To have another person sleep overnight is too much of a violation of private-space. They don't 'love' each other but they are sort of together free from the entanglements of love.

The reason why love is increasingly becoming meaningless in our society is because the idea of love has be disassociated from the idea of sacrifice. Love is confused with having a sense of 'feeling good' about oneself. Recreational sex and drugs serve to foster a craving for the 'feel good' mentality and makes people atuned to seeing any form of sacrificial love as something alien.

In Hunger Games, when the love deprived people look at the games and see how sacrificial love finally won, it stirred them to do the right thing sacrificially. The reason why the society of today's has the epidemic disease of meaningless love is because we do not have a good role model for sacrificial love. I have said it many times, but I'll say it again. The ultimate model for sacrificial love is the love of Christ on the Cross. Any culture that does not look up to the love on the cross will end up missing the point of love. It will lose the will to fight for love and life.