I watched The Golden Compass last night. I've never read any Philip Pullman, so I can't compare it to the book, which may be a good thing. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I thought it was intelligently written, directed and acted. I like children's stories, anyway, because magic is natural and expected in a children's story, whereas in adult stories you have to use all sorts of tricks and ambiguities to get your grey old 'humbug' audience to tentatively suspend disbelief. Children's stories seem universally to share an atmosphere of magic, and stories for adults universally to lack it. What has happened here? Magic, I would have thought, is the most essential element of human existence, and without it life is drudgery, and not worth living at all.
Well, the film provided some kind of answer to my question of what has happened to strip life of magic between childhood and adulthood. The sinister Magisterium is performing an operation on children, called "Intercision", which divests the children of their troublesome souls – the souls that make them question and wonder, and open them to the possibility of other worlds. Now, I've always thought that this is precisely what the adult world does to children, and that it is a form of systematic child abuse, so I was quite in sympathy with this story.
One thing I appreciated about the film was that the sinister authority – the Magisterium – were presented ambiguously in terms of whether they were a religious authority or a scientific/secular authority. On the one hand, one of their representatives accuses Lord Asriel of 'heresy' when he talks of 'dust' at the North Pole; dust being a kind of cosmic particle that flows between universes. On the other hand, the centre near the Pole, under the control of the Magisterium, where children undergo Intercision is very much a science lab. I appreciated this ambiguity because, although I have apparent biases because I live largely in a secular and not a religious environment, in fact, I think intellectual, spiritual and political tyranny is a mixture of science and religion. I imagine, for instance, that however much George Bush wanted to mollify the fundamentalists who gave his party money by publicly upholding a religious rather than scientific worldview, more discreetly, he knew very well that the U.S. could not maintain military and economic might without cutting-edge science. The two must have been – must be – locked together in a sort of struggle of battle and negotiation.
Just now I looked up The Golden Compass on Wikepedia, and was quite amused to find the following:
Before its release, the film received criticism from secular organizations and fans of His Dark Materials for the dilution of the religious elements from the novels, as well as from some religious organizations for the source material's perceived anti-Christian and atheistic themes.
So, neither Christians nor atheists liked it. Good! A plague on both your houses.
Call me mad, but personally, over secularism and religion, I would give my support to the magic of childhood any day.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” -Albert Einstine:wine: to the sheer innocence of childhood.
My impression of Einstein has always been favourable, even though I tend to disagree with some of his pronouncements (and who am I to disagree with Einstein, etc.?), such as his skepticism over quantum theory expressed in the phrase, “God doesn’t play dice.” Not sure if that’s verbatim.It’s possible that my above blog entry came off a little more negatively than I intended. I don’t really care about anyone being either religious or positively non-religious, but wanted to put forward the view that neither side of this publicly fought battle is innocent from attempts at mind-control. It’s the mind-control, in my view, that is the real problem, not the particular philosophical or social tribe to which someone belongs.I think there is such a thing as childhood innocence, too, though this doesn’t make children angels. I think, where it applies, it makes them mentally flexible, and, well, imaginative. So, yes, I’ll raise a glass to that.
Personally, I really would like to believe that the good creator DID not play dice when he created the universe, (or at least he won :P), but well so far it looks like the dear old professor wasn’t right all the time.But who knows, a few decades from now, he may have the last laugh.
Hello again.Of course, Einstein could be right that everything is predictable, if that’s what he meant. This links to the free will question that was discussed in the comments a little while back. I can’t be the first to observe this, but I wonder if the truth is not more like onion layers, that one layer will seem to be ordered, but beneath that will be found a layer of chaos, beneath which will be found a layer of order, beneath which will be found a layer of chaos, ad infinitum.I think scientists and theologians alike are thwarted by the elusiveness of the last turtle (to mix metaphors a bit).Just read this:http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081223/tuk-creationism-should-be-taught-in-scho-dba1618.htmlSome of that surprises me.I’ve been listening to David Lynch talking about meditation recently. He’s apparently been encouraging the teaching of meditation in school. I think this is a good idea.
I’m with you in preferring neither the extremes of active belief or active disbelief. The world wouldn’t be worth living for me if I lacked the balm of imagination.As for turtle all the way down, here is something from Kafka that I read recently:The TreesFor we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie sleekly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can’t be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.