Reihan Salam, writing in Forbes, takes the corrrect, Kleinian position on Jim Cameron’s Avatar, as against Kinsellian deviationism. “The irony of Avatar is that Cameron has made a dazzling, gorgeous indictment of the kind of society that produces James Camerons.” My point exactly! But I wish I’d thought to say this:
I’m pretty sure that I’d prefer baking bricks in the hot sun, guzzling motor oil, or jumping rope with barbed wire to spending an afternoon living among the Na’vi, perhaps the most sanctimonious and frankly boring humanoids ever portrayed on film. But the Na’vi are actually worse than just boring. Because the struggle for survival is the only source of meaning in their lives, the Na’vi celebrate physical courage and martial valor above all else, with the possible exception of mastering the admittedly cool ability of talking to trees.
Thanks to Ross Emmett for the pointer.
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Counterpoint: See Lew Rockwell’s post about Cameron’s next heroic project!
jeez – look at the comments on the original article…looks like people don’t buy this guy’s argument
…of course they also say the last 20 years were marked by capitalism in finance.
South Park has a nice send-up of Avatar. Beware of potty mouthed youngsters in the clip. Just picture Cameron as Cartman, spinning tales of evil greed.
The Smurf version on South Park is missing the extreme neo-con mentality and pyrotechnics.
Ahh, what wonder – All these amazing visuals that are proof of our advanced civilization! It’s like physicists perfecting their science – the proof being the production of nuclear weapons.
This hollywood spectacle is not evidence of an advanced civilization – it is merely high tech propaganda.
It might be just me (or the length of the movie), but I was a little bored watching it (even in 3D).
Humanity finds no comfort in a “natural world” (if it means that we are not a part of this nature). We humans did not invent housing, chairs, soft beds and pillows just to create extreme luxury, but because they are meeting even the basic comfort of our daily lives.
Many environmentalists argue that we have become lazy (really? progress has slowed down with comfort?) and we should “go back to the good old days”. But they don’t exist. There were tyrannies, only a few granted freedoms and people were dying like flies by the age of 30, either by starvation or bad living conditions.
The whole thing was an analogy on the colonization of America (corporation with military in a foreign world) and their fight with the natives. It is “Dances With Wolves” all over again.
That’s what I got out of the movie. But each to their own. I think an investment in DiLorenzo’s next book has more merit.
Maybe I didn’t see the part, but were we told what humanity needed the unobtainium for? I see nothing wrong in voluntary contracting with the Na’vis (though, they don’t seem to believe in contracts, or were they affected by a “liberal education” from the scientists?).
Regardless of what you might think about Na’vi culture and attitudes, what do you think of their property claim?
BTW, is there any Austrian literature that addresses conflicting property claims involving indigenous people? If someone has any titles, authors or links, I think it would be interesting to read.
I just saw the movie and I liked it as an movie (as an entertainment), but the story was too Gayan- Rousseauean for me too.
Jesper, one thing that I noticed was a line from Jake Sully (from his videoblog I believe) (paraphrasing): “We don’t have anything to offer to Navi, they don’t need anything from us”. i.e. Navis don’t need TRADE. For me this line brings down the whole believability of the Navi societal structure and even ecological/evolutionary system of the planet.
The message seems to be that Navis as they are in the movie are the pinnacle of Pandora’s evolutionary process. They have nowhere else to go, there is no way their lives could be improved, there are no problems that could be alleviated by mutually beneficial trade. By Cameron Pandora is an autarkic system (why is everything connected only in Pandora, but not connected with the rest of the universe?).
So in conclusion Cameron is a closet socialist (big surprise!) with heavy autarkic bias. Much better ending (after the big battle) would have been the creation of trade between humans and Navi. Otherwise we can expect humans coming back with some cleverly designed viruses and thermo-nuclear bombs. When goods don’t cross the borders, guns will.
P.S. Good stories should arouse such discussions, that is one purpose of stories (and sci-fi especially) – to get us thinking and talking. Or as the creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski has said: “If we can start some bar fights, I’ll have done my job.”
“Maybe I didn’t see the part, but were we told what humanity needed the unobtainium for? I see nothing wrong in voluntary contracting with the Na’vis (though, they don’t seem to believe in contracts, or were they affected by a “liberal education” from the scientists?).”
All we are told of it was that it was worth a lot of money ($20 million a kilo, as I recall). Nothing on what it was for, but implied it was very vital.
They tried to negotiate (that was the whole reason the company was willing to fund the Avatar project), but it seemed as those the Na’vi didn’t want anything being offered, and its clear the Company wasn’t willing to respect their property rights (the attitude was more of ‘find something they want so they will move’).
All said and done, ethics and morals aside, if the indigenous folks have something I need and will not trade for it, they will have to fight for it, as suggestd by Paul’s comment.
Somewhere at the beginning of the movie, our protagonist narrates that energy is running out and the residents of planet earth are facing extinction. That puts the whole deal in better context.
Anyway, it’s just a movie. I’ll happily engage in a few bar fights over it, but virtually all of my friends and acquaintences agree the tree-hugging was over the top. I have one hippie buddy who has served up some weak sauce Easter Island blather, but even he admits that when stuff runs out, you get the stuff any way you can.
A neighbor whispered to me that there’s a world wide conspiracy to cut human population down to a mere 500 million. She saw it on Jessie Ventura’s show. Sounds about right to me. Ban DDT and hand out condoms for free: modern social policy. Toss in abortions and the encouragement of homosexuality for good measure. Kids are nothing but future consumers of “scarce” resources anyway.
Paul: You put into better words than me, I also needed trade to make the story more fulfilling. But as you said, Cameron made the Na’vis absolutes, who doesn’t in any way accept compromise of their lifestyle.
Of course this is a strong argument against voluntarism, but then again all humans (and not fictional characters) have to compromise as we share the same resources. Trade is built on this, as we also want some kind of justice (price/leverage of goods). Capitalism is trade with money and an extended knowledge, e.g. property rights. Austrian Economy/Market anarchism is probably the next evolutionary step in the knowledge of human action, as it continues to prove these things we take for granted. Trade and justice is even so connected as we use the symbol of the scale for both.
The Na’vi uses a monolithic justice system, where there is a king, a warrior caste and a priestess caste, and they choose what is best for the people. There is probably no trade, since everything seems abundant, but what if this was maybe 10000 years later, and they were billions of people (or would they/”the neural network” want to control how many children they can have?). Our planet isn’t a static perfection, why should theirs be? What about the gas giant the “planet” (it is actually a moon) orbit around, will it be there forever or make bad “bursts”? Isn’t it better to make progress to have technology to get out of solar systems, like the humans have archived? Too many questions, but it shows that the socialistic world view simply cannot work, as everybody need to know everything.
.. spoiler ..
Did anyone else get the line, where he said that their planet is green, “whereas Earth now is gray”?
Actually aren’t people being romantic saying that “people lived short, frustrating lives under tyrants as opposed to nowadays”? Sure most Westerners chose a lifestyle that made them quite sickly but of other people whom explorers found? Many people, especially on islands, were quite healthy and tall with shining teeth and, ultimately, no disease – they only started to suffer when Westerners set ashore and brought disease, filth and vermin with them. Then again what of the Christian acceptance of filth and poverty keeping Westerners poorer for longer than they could have been when compared with the Romans who took pride in bathing?
On the other hand and talking of the (Sm-) Na-vi. Is this not akin to the suggestion that the Arabs didn’t deserve a cent in oil revenue because they did nothing to homestead the land let alone the oil and the oil companies respected their ‘right’ to the land when they actually had no duty to? Besides there’s no duty for humans to recognise other species’ right to property any more than a property developer stops work because it would demolish an ant hill.
Gil, humans have admirable tendency to adjust to their surroundings and find happiness everywhere, even in concentration camps. Most people strive for equilibrium, only few of us (or everyone in a small degree) want to change things for the hypothetical better. Take a snapshot of any society and you would find what seems to be equilibrium. Only in very seldom you find societies where things are obviously out of whack, i.e. pre-revolutionary/pre-war/pre-civil war/pre-secession situations.
My own childhood experience from Soviet Union (from early 80-s) seems to confirm that. Life was so much worse than it is now in freer and wealthier Estonia, yet people still lived and could find happiness. There is always contention but there is also always ways that lives could be improved. Statism (as in static) vs dynamism.
It’s the change that people are afraid of and for good reason, it’s often painful (remember your teenage years?) and often the change does not work out for the better. But change is part of Life. And here is where Avatar fails – the message is “No change! No trade! Everything is perfect as it is!”.
Of course I still support the Navis right to property and agree that morally humans were in wrong there, but Navis are living in a la-la-world and if they want to survive in a wider ecosystem (galaxy/universe) they better change their ways fast. Either start building weapons equal to humans or (obviously better yet) start trading (and in this way connect to the cosmic unity).
Haven’t seen the film, but it seems apparent that it reflects the schizophrenic “culture” that is modern society. Double-think kind of stuff, where people can observe a scripted piece of fiction in which one-dimensional characters are portrayed as protecting property rights while, deep down, they’re actually those “noble savages” that are the stuff of ridiculous Rousseau fairy tales.
One thing is for sure: the film does its job of being a distraction from important issues in the real world.
Kinsella is absolutely right and I am amazed at how many here who generally claim to be libertarian side with the Fascist central planners who wish to confiscate the land for some supposed corporate good ravaging both land and people against the wishes of the rightful owners of the property.
I do not doubt that James Cameron believes that government central planning is the proper way to protect the Na’vi but his movie condemns corporatism while upholding property rights even though he may not realize it.
Why do we submit the moral high ground to central planners. We must embrace the positives of such movies as Avatar and demonstrate how only personal freedom and free markets can protect the Na’vi and their land.
Again reject the Fascists and embrace property rights.
People are funny eh
If you went and saw a vampire movie you’d not be inclined to be critical of the director or producer for his/her implied views on murder and blood sucking – you’d recognize it for what it is – fiction
Yet Avatar has piqued the ire of a lot of “economically minded” folk. I’ve seen many criticisms of the movie by people who seem to think there’s some sort of moral imperative there.
Is it possible that those who react to the “message” of the movie are confusing it with a documentary?
The lady doth protest too much, methinks…
It’s “just” a movie. It’s a brilliant movie too because it leverages on a lot of fundamental human nature and recent human culture. So what that it might seem to imply that nature is good and corporate greed is bad, that natives are good and consumerism is bad – so what? Will it have any effect on the way of things?
Cameron is a genius – he’s an example of who in the past might have been a Mozart or a Shakespeare – someone who gives the masses what they want paid for by whoever has the money to pay.
To purposefully fail to see the movie is in my opinion just foolishness akin to deciding you’d never want to listen to a Mozart opera – but worse, to see the movie and not thoroughly enjoy it for what it is here and now because your moral compass gets confused by the “messages” that resonate with your own personality disorder is a sign that you maybe need some serious therapy.
murray
murray wrote:
“So what that it might seem to imply that nature is good and corporate greed is bad, that natives are good and consumerism is bad – so what? Will it have any effect on the way of things?”
Yes.
This kind of pabulum reinforces in peoples’ minds the ideas that capitalism is evil, technology is evil, and we need altruistic socialists in the government to protect us all from these evils. One movie may not do all that much, true. But when everything in our popular culture tells people the same thing, it matters. It affects the way people think, and the way they vote. That will have an effect on things.
But wait, it’s a racist movie! All discussion must now stop and we must unite to condemn the evil director. Stop watching his movie until he makes amends.
Race traitor? The hero who switches sides would be considered a ‘species traitor’. Libertarians like to call rip on anyone who dares put the interests of any animals ahead of humans, e.g. a housing development shut down because endangered species are found to live there. P.H.F. – Put Humans First.
Russ
just play this mind game
you’re in a packed theatre watching version 2 of Avatar where Cameron has altered the plot so that we torch the stupid blue natives and their trees and we set up an almost inexhuastable supply of unobtainiam
the final moments of the movie show the heros going ooh rah, oo rah while the decimated natives obediantly sucumb to re-education at the feet of our catholic priests
somebody starts to cheer but otherwise there’s just silence
the cheering person is you Russ
Cameron appeals to what is human in us all
whereas you appeal to a small group of accademics and would-be accademics
qed
m
Murray, play this mental experiment: you’ve been transported to a movie theatre back in 1956 and you’re watching John Wayne slaughtering “Injuns”. The only person not cheering is you. Of course films have meaning and of course there’s conscious propaganda in many of them. Please watch the BBC’s “Century of the Self” to learn about American-style propaganda. And from the other side, and just for an example, watch “Reel Bad Arabs” and see how it was that so many like Russ here got to be so terrified of Muslims. Ever watch “Full Metal Jacket”? Think there’s anything to the main character’s imitation of John Wayne. Some of Russ’s “protectors” today in Afghanistan even call their “enemies” “Injuns”.
mpolzkill
brilliant! So absolutely spot on.
except back then i cheered John Wayne too.
so, riddle me this batman
in the 40′s and 50′s our cheering of the slaughter of injuns morphed into our cheering of the slaughter of k-routs(sp?) and then the slaughter of g-ooks and now the slaughter of tow-el-heads
what comes next? the slaughter of which group?
when the concentrated exploitable resources are depleted and there’s only ourselves left to prey on will we cheer the slaughter of those wicked old people? Or maybe we old people will have enough assets to burn that we can promote the cheering of the slaughter of the poor, or maybe the young or maybe anyone who lives in a high-rise
and riddle me this batman
why is it that cops and robbers themes are so behind the times vis a vis the real bad guys?
while our brilliant sleuths are solving the murders of a handful of people per year the real crooks (like those who recently raped the middle class for a few trilllion or the bush-blair bunch who slaughtered untold people for, i guess, some form of kick-back) are slacking in their air-conditioned luxury villas watching Avatar on their personal 3D home entertainment systems
and laughing at the comedy show because they know that the real profit is not in the unobtainium or the gaia-trees but in the rape of the masses who take either side in sterotyped epics
how come they are not being chased on prime time TV?
you know why we cheer the blue people?
because we masses, we middle class – we know in our bones that those who til now have raped the weak are happy to rape us too
they are doing it daily
and some fools think that their emporer’s clothes of ideology will protect them
m
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