Hello all! Thanks to everyone who posted a comment; I hadn't expected quite so big a readership in so little time!
***Warning: contains spoilers of The Village and The Last Samurai***
There are two films which I very much enjoy, along with a host of others--The Village, and The Last Samurai. Now, neither one of these films has much in common with the other. The Last Samurai is about Nathan Algren, an American cavalry captain who comes to Japan in the later half of the 19th Century to fight against the Samurai, who believe that a swiftly-modernizing Japan is changing too quickly, and forgetting its heritage. Nathan is captured by the Samurai in a disastrous battle. During his captivity there, he comes to love the culture, ideals, and honor of the very people he has come to fight, and in the end he joins their side.
The Village is a wonderful, poignant, brilliantly-made movie about pure, chaste love, set in the context of a lonely village in the middle of the Pennsylvania countryside. The inhabitants of the village do not depart from the borders they have set for themselves, because they fear that if they go through the woods which surround them they will meet certain fearsome creatures, "Those we don't speak of," as they call them, whom their village elders have told them about. Ivy Walker then travels through these very woods, driven by her love of Lucius Hunt to find medicine to heal his injuries.
Not much in common, right? Well, no, not as far as plots go. But there is one thing that these two films share. Both of them focus on--and praise--societies which are simple, moral (one is Buddhist, but they do hold to a strict code of honor and religious devotion) and primitive in comparison to our society today. The people of the Village are living (or think they are living) in the 19th Century, but their culture is somewhat more timeless than that; their dress code and manner of speaking harkens back to the 18th Century, and the innocence they hold dear is timeless. The culture of the Samurai has hardly changed (in the film) since about a thousand years previously (read 876 A.D.).
The culture we live in today is drastically different from these. Astonishing technological advancements have made life easier to lead. With e-mail we can communicate from Oregon to Mozambique in a matter of seconds. With cars and airplanes, the world has become "smaller" as journeys have become shorter and less arduous. Weapons have become so complex and lethal that we are terrified by war on a large scale. The introduction of television has brought its own unique problems. We have transformed ourselves into an instant, momentary culture, inhabited by pleasure-seeking, "me first" individuals.
But these technological advancements have pros as well as cons. Even the so-called "poor" in Western nations have access to more goods and better hygiene than the richest emperors of one or two thousand years ago, and their levels of comfort and security are infinitely greater. Natural disasters can now be met with billions upon billions of dollars in government aid. Interconnected governments and transportation facilities allow food and water to be transported to needy people.
Which society, then, is better? Do you prefer a fast-paced, metropolized society of freeways and traintracks and nuclear weapons where all food must past the FDA and water is strained through purification systems before entering any household? Or do you prefer a society like those in The Village or The Last Samurai, where honor, innocence, and morality are preserved, at the expense of technology? I'm not saying that such a society is producible in its entirety in the real world; but with all of our advancements, have we made it harder for the Christian witness to be heard, or for God-glorifying innocence to be preserved?
I'm not really sure on all this, I'm just asking all of you. Was our modern age inevitable; should we press on to greater heights of technology? Or should we prize that innocence and morality? I'm not advocating that we destroy all of our computers and refrigerators and live in the Dark Ages. It isn't our modern trappings that we should be worried about (worried about as much, anyway), but our culture and our mindset. We need to bring back the love of things pure and beautiful. We need to pause in our swirl of gears and pistons and remind ourselves that God made the world wonderful. He gave us emotions and wonder and fascination. He gave us friendship and love, and laughter, and the ability to be noble.
What thinkest thou?
~Connor
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6 comments:
That's an interesting question, Connor.
As much as I use technology, I sometimes wish that we could return to the old days of horses and carts, written letters, and closely-knit communities. These things seem so preferable to our own times!
Gregory Wilbur, in a discussion of the arts and history (unfortunately, I don't have a link to the article), identifies three general approaches to or perspectives on history. The first is the "conservative" approach, which is basically the longing to return to old times which we consider better than out own.
The second is the "modern" approach, the prevalent approach to history in our day. The modernist sees no value in tradition; he believes in throwing off the past and reinventing the wheel in each new epoch, so to speak.
Wilbur argues that neither of these is the Biblical approach to history, the arts, or anything honorable in the past. He proposes a third approach: the "contemporary". The contemporary artist, historian, or what have you, attempts to bring the light of the Gospel to our own times, redeeming what aspects of our culture that are possible to redeem (obviously, some things are not). The contemporary does not shun Tradition; rather, he learns lessons from the past, and applies these lessons to the present time.
Though Wilbur didn't directly address the issues you brought up relating to technology, I think that what he has to say still applies. Though I sometimes I wish I could go live in the good ol' Middle Ages, or the 1700s in America (or, to be perfectly honest, Middle Earth ;-)), I tend to agree with Wilbur about the contemporary approach to history. We have to face the fact that technology is here to stay. We have to find a way to bring the light of the Gospel to our present culture. If we live in the past, we cease to be relevant in the present.
I think that "Innocence or Inconvenience" is somewhat of a false dilemma. As Christians, we can still uphold honor and chivalry and the Biblical moral code, but I don't believe we have to throw out technology to suceed in that regard. The bottom line is that our duty as Christians is not to dwell in the past, but to attempt to redeem the present for Christ.
We can, like you said, "prize innocence and morality", the pure, the beautiful, and still make use of the technological wonders God has wrought in this age. The only thing necessary is for Christians to make a strong stand in our culture, for Christians to stand up for what is pure, beautiful, and right.
Was that really vague? Or did I entirely miss the point? :-)
Elisabeth--
Yes, a reenactment would be supremely fun. Don't ask me to be Lucius Hunt, though. My eyebrows, though fairly pronounced, do not quite have the enormous presence of Joaquin Phoenix's. :-D
Jonathan--
No, that wasn't vague, and I don't think you missed the point, either! I think my post was a little more anti-technology than it should have been. I, too, feel that pull toward the "old days," but I think you made an excellent point. It doesn't matter was age we live in; Christ and Christian values will never be outdated. I do think technology has some chilling consequences, though. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie _I, Robot_ before (not something I would recommend offhand; our family saw it from an editing company which removes bad content), but it presents a rather disturbing image of robots literally replacing humans in all of the harder aspects of life. They replace trash collectors, and mail-men, they run out people's purses for them--to the extent that people have begun to be dependent on them.
So anyway, technology has its problems, but as you said it doesn't make any difference in our task as Christians.
Looking back to the "good old days" isn't a bad idea. If you look back far enough, you will get a glimpse of a vary good future. I am referring to Eden. However, thinking romantically of the 1700's or Middle Earth ignores important facts. Ever since the Fall there has been sin in the world. The 1700's and Middle Earth had significant and inherent harms. Just because we know that the War of Independece ended well does not mean that many things went terribly wrong during it. However, just as the War of Indepence ended well, we can know that the wars of today will also end well, just like the world will.
Skystrider (whom I believe is Christopher, but in case I'm wrong I won't come down on that for sure)--
You're absolutely right. There is definitely sin in other eras of life as well--sometimes in a more obvious and brutal way even than now. I guess it's simply because the "old days" are so idyllicly depicted in that they seem to have this certain fairy-land innocence and simplicity about them. Perhaps, rather than reflecting real life back then, which I'm sure it was not, it's simply an attempt to movie makers to reflect that ideal--present in Eden and, even more perfectly, in Heaven--of a life where everything is beautiful, and where God-honoring worship and deep friendship is present.
Am I making sense? :-P
More sense than I did.
And I will tell you who I am at church.
Well, technology helps in the spreading of the Gospel. Just look at the planes and computers used by NTM and other associations. And modern medical technology is certainly a big up. Many missionaries wouldn't live too long in some areas due to disease if we didn't have the medical ups that we do now.
And I believe we can have innocence in a society like America's. God has put us here, and we're not going to be able to go back to the romantic age. That age is over and we need to take responsibility for spreading the Gospel and living pure lives in a modern society... I would say look on it as a challenge, not a degredation.
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