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I've had an idea for a story circulating in my head; haunting me dreadfully. So, as a distraction, today I am watching 2001, A Space Odessy. One of the first things that I found irritating was that when the apes began to be influenced by the black objects, the first change in their behaviour was aggression. It is discouraging and felt pathetic that the authors saw that as advancement.
Another point of disagreement I have is that the so called garden of eden was out in a Death Valley like scape. I would think that a real "Garden" would be more conducive to the advancement and mutation of living beings, but that is just me.
When humans discovered another oblisque on the moon, who should discover it but the Americans, and what should the Americans do but violate international agreement and place the whole area under secrecy, violating the very agreement that they would expect everyone else to abide by.
The idea that humanity might not be able to cope with the discovery of extra terrestial beings and must be protected is just ludicrous to me. Again, in our paranoia, we somehow assume that any life outside earth is a threat. Is there some form of species guilt that causes us to see a threat in everything else? Does that guilt originate in the Biblical Creation story? In a few religous systems I know about, outside Judaeism and Christianity, there is no sin by eve. Hmmmm It angers me that in most belief systems I know of, women are universally devalued and abused!
I never saw these things in 2001 before and am wondering what happened to cause me to have such feelings of injustice about it now, when I did not before?
I wonder what sort of story this new train of thought will produce?
Gwendolyn
Comments
actually, the aggression was
actually, the aggression was there before. the opening scene is the fight over a waterhole in the desert. the pride that was originally defeated and faced death by dehydration became intelligent (enough?) to use sticks and stones as weapons in their fight for survival. though i have to agree, there could be a better example of advanced intelligence.
that example is then taken further in the discovery of the monolit on the moon. it's not so much fear that the world would be unable to cope with the discovery, the "pride" that made the discovery defends it's advantage.
one better example that comes to mind has the same initial setting. after becoming intelligent, the prides work together to extend the waterhole so they all can survive into the raining season, which transform the desert into the garden eden.
though you have to take into account the age in which 2001 was written, right at the apex of the cold war.
Sin
Many religions have a type of sin or a concept of actions, whether purposeful or not, that can make you unclean. It's certainly not unique to Jedeo-Christian religions or the religions that came afterwards. The concept of humans being "born evil" or "aggressive" is a philosophical question that pops up all over the world.
If you look at Confucian philosophers you'll almost certainly come across Xunzi (312-230 BCE) who argued that mankind was born innately evil. He believed that it was only through proper education and the following of social rituals that these evil thoughts and desires could be curbed.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "no sin by eve" for non Judeo-Christian religions. Certainly in other religions (Hinduism and Buddhism come to mind) women are considered unclean (This is due to meantruation but also because their womb is a physical representation of samsara, the cycle of birth, death, and re-birth). Women were often depicted as evil-causing forces in the various canons. They are, in effect, born with sin and are meant to be looked upon with suspicion.
Looking upon outsiders suspiciously has a long history on this planet (much of it predating the Bible). Historically, outsiders have tended to bring war, disease, and conquest. I don't really understand why Sci-Fi shows always depicts governments hiding the truth of extraterrestrials from humanity either. I think it's a bit silly. But I can tell you that there would definitely be fear and hatred caused by the arrival of aliens.
The Woman's sinfullness
In Islam, the whole Adam and Eve story is presented more mildly. It simply says, "They Sinned", and left the garden. However some Muftis insist that in Hell, there will be more women than men because of women's gossip. Hmmmm. Yes, we do gossip and meanly at times.
In Mormonisim, it is believed that we had a bodiless, pre-existence and came to earth to learn things that we could only experience in the earthly realm.
I was surprised to see that 2001 came out in 1968. It seemed significant to me that old attitudes about the roles of women prevailed even that late. I found that objectionable. My what a disagreeable old bitty I have become!
I am about to watch 2010 to see if they did any better on this one.
Gwendolyn
And here we thought...
...that not asking for directions was bad!
From The Message - Genesis 3:12 -
The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.â€
Can't even take responsibility, aye?
Love, Andrea Lena
Here is a conundrum
In the Bible it says that man was not doing well, so God created woman. To me that implies that woman is superior to man because it was she who was created to help HIM. Hmmmmm Maybe.
So, interestingly Women have almost twice as many chromosomes as men. :) So women have OH so many capabilities that men to not! I mean, we have twice the accessories!
So, we know that the Zygotes are all female but in the last third of the first trimester, suddenly some of us get cursed by becoming men. It is all a puzzle to me.
So, why is it that women with twice the chromosomes of men get such a bad deal in this creation?
Here is the punch like to this little story. It has now been shown that males are not nessessary to reproduction in other animals. I am not sure what sort of joke that Heavenly Father is playing on us.
International agreements & secrecy
"When humans discovered another oblisque on the moon, who should discover it but the Americans, and what should the Americans do but violate international agreement and place the whole area under secrecy, violating the very agreement that they would expect everyone else to abide by."
There is the perception this attitude exists in the US government for anything considered "game changing". No country should have biowarfare, but it's OK for us to have the same compounds to research defences. The internet should be open and unrestricted to assist democracy, except if it's us doing the restricting to ... uh ... "protect against piracy", yeh, thats the ticket to get it approved, then we'll use it to enforce our morals on others after that.
Also it's common for SF to try and make it seem like "this could be happening now", so to do that they have to have some level of secrecy to explain why the average punter hasn't heard of it - MiB being the film that hangs the lampshade on that.
So it's not really that surprising. :-(
Book versus Movie
I have not read the book, but I am wondering if the book did a better job with some of these issues versus how the movie portrayed things.
Keep Smiling, Keep Writing
Teek
Women as inferior
I really noticed the sexisim in 2001 but not in 2010. I think they did a much better job. I was surprised that neither movie had any gratuitous nakedness of women. +5 points.
Having lived the life of privelege as a man for 55 years, and now 8 years as a woman, I am keenly aware that many men simply discount women as inferior, not as smart, and to be ruled. Maybe some of that comes from 7 years as a female Muslim. Still, even in domestic life some men are sexist, knowingly or not.
I've been thinking of a new story for a long time, even written some of it, and this time, along with the TG element, I want to try to include a broad range of social commentary. No, my stories are not generally any good for one armed reading.
Gwendolyn
It's been way too long since
It's been way too long since I either read the book or saw the movie, plus I was a bit young to be picking up on that sort of a thing.
Fascinating Gwen,
Like others, I too was wrapped up in youthful (my twenties) preoccupations and didn't pick up much on the points you raised. I'll have to get back to it and watch it again sometime.
Thanks for the prompt,
XXX
Bev.
Editorial note
While reading the above, I thought, How much better off we'd be if Genesis began at chapter four.