Thursday, February 01, 2007

More Children

Okay, I guess I should offer more of an explanation. Highlight to read as there are probably spoilers involved.


I tend to react negatively to anything which floats above, or suggests that floating above, the muck is the only productive or honorable course. This is the view of David "pox on both their houses [especially the Democrats] " Broder, the "everybody but us are losers" attitude of the South Park guys, Nader's Gush and Bore, etc... And, ultimately, this is part of the message of Children of Men. The government is right wing and bad. The dissenters are left wing and bad, and so bad they team up with Islamic terrorists and see revolution as an end in itself. Salvation is to be found not within but outside the system. Only those who set up camp outside the existing order offer possible salvation.

I've got nothing against those who see the corruption of the system as an insurmountable problem, it's those who apparently see human nature as an insurmountable problem but then imagine there are Super Humans who can somehow transcend this.

Within that framework the movie had a lot of interesting and perceptive bits, but too often the motives of the political actors were left unexplained. Why was the government obsessed with deporting foreigners? No clear rationale (reasonable or not) was offered. Why were the revolutionaries obsessed with revolution as an end in itself? Why were they united with the Islamic terrorist/revolutionaries?

The political message of "everyone sucks" but "somewhere saviors exist" is a very common one, and it tends to come from people who lack their own coherent ideological foundation.