s2a
Heretic and part-time (skinny) Santa impersonator
Lending Elliott the credit he is due in authoring that now clichéd sentiment, it is not especially profound to observe that many "end of the world" books/movies have played upon a similar projected fate for humanity. No big "boom". No divine retribution (or return). No mutually-assured destruction by means of nuclear weaponry.
No...something more insidiously ripe, and rotten. A slow death of humanity--by means of impious injustice, despair, cruelty, indifference, ignorance, and ennui.
The sci-fi "speculation" of a forlorn and lingering demise of everything human from this planet, is presented in a "matter-of-fact"--"that's the way it is" fashion--in the movie "Children of Men".
In summary, the film establishes a "given" scenario (c. 2027) without especial lent detail or assignation of fault/blame as to cause/explanation of mankind's imminent doom. Some allusions are idly put forward as causal agents...from pollution, to overpopulation, to some unidentified virus , to...whatever.
The premise of the cinematic story as presented:
1) All females on the planet have become sterile (or infertile, if you like), and are biologically incapable of producing viable offspring by ordinary means of human sexual reproduction. As a result, no human children have been birthed for nearly eighteen years. None. Current worldwide birth rate...zero.
2) Most of the world has self-destructed in the wake of this ominous realization, yet England remains both viable and self-sustaining as an isolated society and a nation. To preserve this tenuous grasp upon daily ritual and survival, the "government" (by means of a "Homeland Security" branch of lawful enforcement, empowered "ethnic cleansing", and paranoid police state) deports any and all "Non-citizens" from it's lands and borders. Refugees, illegal immigrants, and ethic minorities are herded and shuttled off the one remaining island of "decent" human culture and civil society.
3) [A] "Hope" for all of humanity is presented in the secreted revelation of a an 8-month pregnant young woman, who just happens to be both an "illegal" and a person of "color".
The hero of the story (a former social idealist himself, having lost his own youthful faith and hope), is called upon to safely transport this singular miracle and prospective savior for all of mankind, to some virtually mythical/folklorist entity of "science" (or magic) known simply enough as "The Human Project". What this "Project" does, or of whom it is comprised, or of what extended hopes for mankind it may offer, remains utterly unclear...
I enjoyed the movie, not because it was bleak and dark, but because it supposed human hope as a testable commodity in and of itself, and examined the prospective motivations/actions of a remaining population that obliquely observed both past, present, and future as socially acceptable/inescapable fate.
The film presents some very powerful questions, worthy of circumspect self-evaluations and deliberations.
If you were certain that the entirety of the human species would end within 100 years (or less), how would you act?
Think about it.
No "new minds"; no "fresh ideas"; no grand or compelling philosophical insights to propose or ponder regarding the favorable disposition/outcomes of succeeding generations?
Waste? Greed? "Progress"?
Who cares?
No one will survive to either reflectively question/admire your past/present/future motives or actions, in serving your most immediate needs today.
Would religious adherence explode as provisional rationale/answer to a hopeless humanistic future?
[Note: A "place" that the film does not venture into,..is the scientifically-derived option/prospect of human cloning--in order to preserve/perpetuate our infertile species. Who knows? Maybe that's what the rumored "Human Project" hopes to produce--in light of/answer to--any "cure" for worldwide female infertility.
I wonder...would people that presently oppose the future inevitability human cloning...seek tomorrow to oppose/prevent any/all scientific research/evaluations in this (as yet) unrefined and unproven scientificly theoretical possibility?
Would a supernatural deity allow/endorse such a course? Would the attendant moral/ethical/legal questions regarding embryonic-stem cell research (or cloning of stem cells), or reproductive choice amongst fertile, child-bearing women be suspended for "the good of society"? If it were determined that natural birth only spread resultant infertility amongst the population as a whole, how then would the prospects of human cloning then be received?
Which brings about the more controversial aspect of "science vs. morality" arguments presented today...
...which prospective outcome presents the greater moral/ethical dilemma?
Does inhibition of scientific research and discovery today either promote hope, or serve to eliminate/eradicate hope...for the future prospects of the humanistic condition/experience/existence? Does any legal imposition of moral objections to scientific study/research/discovery hope to avert/prevent untoward circumstantial results, or serve to insure their inevitable outcomes?
Chime in, and share whatever opinion you may care to offer...
No...something more insidiously ripe, and rotten. A slow death of humanity--by means of impious injustice, despair, cruelty, indifference, ignorance, and ennui.
The sci-fi "speculation" of a forlorn and lingering demise of everything human from this planet, is presented in a "matter-of-fact"--"that's the way it is" fashion--in the movie "Children of Men".
In summary, the film establishes a "given" scenario (c. 2027) without especial lent detail or assignation of fault/blame as to cause/explanation of mankind's imminent doom. Some allusions are idly put forward as causal agents...from pollution, to overpopulation, to some unidentified virus , to...whatever.
The premise of the cinematic story as presented:
1) All females on the planet have become sterile (or infertile, if you like), and are biologically incapable of producing viable offspring by ordinary means of human sexual reproduction. As a result, no human children have been birthed for nearly eighteen years. None. Current worldwide birth rate...zero.
2) Most of the world has self-destructed in the wake of this ominous realization, yet England remains both viable and self-sustaining as an isolated society and a nation. To preserve this tenuous grasp upon daily ritual and survival, the "government" (by means of a "Homeland Security" branch of lawful enforcement, empowered "ethnic cleansing", and paranoid police state) deports any and all "Non-citizens" from it's lands and borders. Refugees, illegal immigrants, and ethic minorities are herded and shuttled off the one remaining island of "decent" human culture and civil society.
3) [A] "Hope" for all of humanity is presented in the secreted revelation of a an 8-month pregnant young woman, who just happens to be both an "illegal" and a person of "color".
The hero of the story (a former social idealist himself, having lost his own youthful faith and hope), is called upon to safely transport this singular miracle and prospective savior for all of mankind, to some virtually mythical/folklorist entity of "science" (or magic) known simply enough as "The Human Project". What this "Project" does, or of whom it is comprised, or of what extended hopes for mankind it may offer, remains utterly unclear...
I enjoyed the movie, not because it was bleak and dark, but because it supposed human hope as a testable commodity in and of itself, and examined the prospective motivations/actions of a remaining population that obliquely observed both past, present, and future as socially acceptable/inescapable fate.
The film presents some very powerful questions, worthy of circumspect self-evaluations and deliberations.
If you were certain that the entirety of the human species would end within 100 years (or less), how would you act?
Think about it.
No "new minds"; no "fresh ideas"; no grand or compelling philosophical insights to propose or ponder regarding the favorable disposition/outcomes of succeeding generations?
Waste? Greed? "Progress"?
Who cares?
No one will survive to either reflectively question/admire your past/present/future motives or actions, in serving your most immediate needs today.
Would religious adherence explode as provisional rationale/answer to a hopeless humanistic future?
[Note: A "place" that the film does not venture into,..is the scientifically-derived option/prospect of human cloning--in order to preserve/perpetuate our infertile species. Who knows? Maybe that's what the rumored "Human Project" hopes to produce--in light of/answer to--any "cure" for worldwide female infertility.
I wonder...would people that presently oppose the future inevitability human cloning...seek tomorrow to oppose/prevent any/all scientific research/evaluations in this (as yet) unrefined and unproven scientificly theoretical possibility?
Would a supernatural deity allow/endorse such a course? Would the attendant moral/ethical/legal questions regarding embryonic-stem cell research (or cloning of stem cells), or reproductive choice amongst fertile, child-bearing women be suspended for "the good of society"? If it were determined that natural birth only spread resultant infertility amongst the population as a whole, how then would the prospects of human cloning then be received?
Which brings about the more controversial aspect of "science vs. morality" arguments presented today...
...which prospective outcome presents the greater moral/ethical dilemma?
Does inhibition of scientific research and discovery today either promote hope, or serve to eliminate/eradicate hope...for the future prospects of the humanistic condition/experience/existence? Does any legal imposition of moral objections to scientific study/research/discovery hope to avert/prevent untoward circumstantial results, or serve to insure their inevitable outcomes?
Chime in, and share whatever opinion you may care to offer...