Film Filosofy: The Na'vi as a Post-Civilized Culture

film filosofy film forages

Director James Cameron Film Avatar Title The Na’vi as a Post-Civilized Culture Author Jason Blasso

C H A RY B D I S P R E S S

The Na’vi as a Post-Civilized Culture

film filosofy

C H A RY B D I S P R E S S new york

Published by Charybdis Press New York Copyright Š Charybdis Press 2012 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 15 14 13 12

4321

First Printing No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.

Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

ISBN ...

FILM FILOSOFY series is set in Base9, Rockwell, Frutiger and Adobe Caslon Pro. t he

Text and cover are printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

Plastic bag is made from plants and 100% compostable.

Text and chart by Jason Blasso Book edited and designed by Jason Blasso

www.charybdispress.com

C H A RY B D I S P R E S S

_________________________________________________________________________

Our mission at charybdis press is to publish books on film, poetry, music, art and literature. charybdis press believes in the necessity of these art forms to enrich our everday lives by connecting us to challenging artists and works that can help us access our creative potential for personal expression and growth. It is our desire to take a critical look at these artforms in order to open a dialogue for change and exchange with our readers.

film filosofy

_________________________________________________________________________

The film filosofy series was created as a forum for viewing the medium of film from an anarchic perspective. To do this, we will focus on directors both familiar and obscure who have abandoned traditional film-as-theatre cinema by creating political, personal, open-ended or non-linear narratives that reveal the oppressive milieus of their time, the savagery of the past or a prescient view of post-capitalist futures to come.

The Na’vi as a Post-Civilized Culture

INTRODUCTION

We ironically begin this series with a nod to the Hollywood giant and the legions of fanboys and girls by foraging through James Cameron’s film, Avatar, the highest grossing movie of all time as of the time of this writing. What this blockbuster and most of Cameron’s earlier films reveal is the resistence and triumph of the underdog over alien hostility and indifference and the sociopathic and inhuman excesses of big business. Avatar sets itself apart from its forerunners with the depiction of a sentient alien race who is more humane and advanced than our own species. It was while contemplating the Na’vi that the idea of a post-civilized and thus post-capitalistic people arose. Our hypothesis is that the ability of the Na’vi to connect to their world via the neural link of their queue suggests a world not fashioned by evolution alone but designed to allow them to possess a fully immersive existence with their environment.

3

ABSTRACT

On the surface, the Na’vi appear to be primitives but a closer look reveals characteristics of a post-civilized culture.

It is man’s ignorance of his own futurity that compels him to see the Na’vi as savages in the early stages of civilized development. The Na’vi’s bond to the earth may at first appear to be simple nature worship but the complexity of this bond hints at a depth not capable of by primitives. The clue lies in their queue. The Na’vi’s ability to directly link into the flora, fauna and soul of their world suggests a great advancement over Earth’s pre-civilized and civilized humans.

This can further be seen in man’s hubristic and immature understanding in regards to the power of his current technologies versus the power of the Na’vi’s discreet and integrated organic technologies whose pinnacle is Eywa.

4

APPROACH

We will first flesh out a background that will show us our current milieu and the thought process used for the creation of this article. Next, we will look at a chart that provides a quick reference for the overall design by displaying the timeline and essential duality of both the human and Na’vi cultures. We will then read a brief sketch of Western human history and show how the timeline of the Na’vi ancestors easily picks up from where we are today. We will then follow the Na’vi through this period until they reach the end of their civilization with the creation of Eywa. This will be followed by a list of solutions to the most pressing problems of civilization gained by the Na’vi through the integration of their former technologies into the living world. And we will finally conclude by analyzing the benefits of a story showing the Na’vi as a post-civilized culture to the viewers of Avatar and its sequels.

5

BACKGROUND

The story of the Na’vi, as told by James Cameron in his epic movie Avatar, is not only a life’s synthesis of ideas from this fecund and forward-looking auteur but a call to awareness of the limitations of our current trajectory as a civilization. Mr. Cameron has used the power of storytelling to allow fiction to become reality, not by simply rendering a detailed alien world through breathtaking visual effects, but by producing the greatest achievement of fiction: a mirror for truth. While holding this story up to scrutiny, I caught a glimpse of the Na’vi not as a pre-civilized culture, which has the potential to trap the viewer in an amber imago of romanticized idealism for the past, but as a post-civilized culture capable of freeing man’s imagination to dream of a healthy and harmonized future. It is the post-civilized Na’vi alone who possess the historical experience to show man a model for his potential reintegration. The movie and its sequels can then act as our avatar to the future, revealing a blueprint from which we can design and alter our current technologies to progress towards the ideal of balance here on Earth.

6

CHART

7

ARGUMENT A Brief Sketch of Western Human History The earliest stories are those told about how we had come from the earth as we had come from the womb of our mother. Our awareness of the world at this time was the awareness of a child, who continually looked back to his mother as the sole source of guidance. The mother was good and provided for her children. She was rightfully worshiped by these hunter-gatherers for untold millennia. Man grew fit, strong and successful. Over time, his confidence grew with his knowledge to master his environment. His intelligence brought him surplus bounty and the knowledge of herding, domestication and agriculture. Man became sedentary and his great nomadic wanderings settled into cities. His connection with the mother weakened as his power grew and he learned to provide for himself. He began to search for new gods to represent his growing strength. He looked away from the animals and images of his mother towards the sky. He raised into the heavens his own magnified masculine image and began to tell stories of powerful patriarchal deities. He molded himself in the shape of his idealized fathers and as he built upwards, the pantheon of gods was 8

reduced to a singularity in heaven. God became the goal, and life was a struggle to grasp the elusive purity of air. The earth became vulgar and rude, as did the body, and both were denied for the spirit and the sky. Man began to labor against the earth and the body and he created newer and more potent technologies to advance his control. Thus, the great technician rose towards domination of the air. And after some ten thousand years he achieved his goal. However, the summit of his achievement provided a new perspective he never expected: the understanding of his true position in the cosmos. The geo- and anthropocentric models of his universe had collapsed. He was alone with himself and his planet, in a galaxy of countless galaxies, in a universe whose scale was beyond the scope of his comprehension. At that moment, he looked back to his mother to see the destruction he caused in the quest for his father. And it was there, in the godless heavens, that he realized he had become the father he sought. It was now time to return to the mother to integrate their spirits into a balanced, accessible system.

9

The Human / Na’vi Bridge The rise of civilization is essentially the rise of technology.

Man leaves the earth/mother for the sky/father mechanically.

He works from the outside in and exerts his influence externally. If he continues to do this, he will follow the path of the Terrans of 2154, where the world has become a dumping ground for hegemonic private interest groups and Quasi Governmental Agencies like RDA. However, if man decides to return to the mother he must do so by working from the inside out, through genetic reintegration.

If we posit that the Na’vi are a post-civilized culture we can follow their history to uncover a potential path for man to do this. The Na’vi are well suited for the task because we share with them DNA as the basic building blocks of life, they are mammalian in nature and possess recognizable social structures. They are also, like the humans in the movie, a fictional creation of the human mind which can only express desires of the human kind. Therefore, the Na’vi are a polarized and perfected human. It is this inherent similitude which supports the idea that our cultural evolution would follow near identical patterns over time. Thus, when we 10

watch Avatar we are led to a bifurcation and are given a choice: follow the humans on an endless quest for power or follow the Na’vi’s integrated and balanced culture. If we take up the Na’vi timeline where ours has left off we can see how they arrived at their current “pre-civilized” state.

11

A Brief Sketch of Na’vi History The ancestors of the Na’vi had risen to the heights of civilization when the growing awareness of their general relativity to and ultimate isolation within the vast and hostile universe created within them an insuperable sense of solidarity. Alone, they took umbrage in one another and motioned to make their home a paradise through the integration of their current technologies with the living fabric of the world. This, of course, did not happen all at once, and, like all historical endpoints and paradigm shifts, took millennia to accomplish. Thus, the great Na’vi technocivilization continued its inevitable sprawl into the future until it finally ended in the complete reintegration of the father (technology) with the mother (environment). The Na’vi did this through the creation of organic technologies of impermanence that would promote the life cycle of growth, death and decay and the inevitable phasing out and elimination of all external and inorganic technologies of permanence. The Na’vi began by bioengineering the living system of flora and fauna to clean up the environment from 12

their former exploitations. They connected themselves to this system by engineering a neural link that would allow them to plug directly into their world. By terminating the interface of the computer, the Na’vi became the computer that could access the living net of information that was housed in the complex dendritic structure of trees. This connection enhanced their awareness and intelligence as they could instantaneously access all of their information and experience through the collective memory of the net. This ability to connect to their entire history and identity by linking into the web of life completed the spiritual quest of their ancestors by returning their soul to the world. God would no longer be some unachievable other living alone in the cold heights of heaven but would be found within Life itself. This newfound trinity would not only maintain the balance of life on the planet through divine detachment, it would house the collective memory and spirit of the Na’vi, and allow for corporeal communion through the connection of the Na’vi’s neural link with its arboreal incarnations. Here the artificial 13

and the natural interpenetrate to create a higher order of the natural, the “supranatural.” The Na’vi, having heightened nature by ordering their world to support the needs of their fragile awareness, created a system of interdependency that was hitherto non-existent. By putting their soul into Life, they became the soul of Life. No longer separate, they became The People. And with the success of their great organic construct Eywa, they gradually gave up control and entered into the eden they had created. A great peace settled over them as they freed themselves from progress and time. Their lives now centered on the immediacy of the present and their restored sense of wholeness. Life was complete and, over time, because of the absence of need and lack of pressure, they returned to traditional patterns of life that mimicked their pre-civilized state. What was essential to them remained and what was superfluous disappeared.

Many generations of Na’vi have come and gone in general contentment and with each passing generation they lost further touch with their past, until they forgot that they were the creators of the world they moved so effortlessly 14

within. Only the shamans remembered, as it is their sacred duty to enter the vast web of Eywa where the story of their origins lay. And all of this continued unchanged until one day, from the sky, a strange, new species appeared.

15

The Na’vi’s Solutions to Civilization If the neural links of the queue bond the Na’vi to their “world/god” and each other then there is no longer loneliness. The people can then become free from the cosmic fear and despair we call nihilism.

If Eywa is the autonomic nervous system of their planet and the archive of Na’vi history and knowledge, “god” would be an accessible living dimension of the Na’vi. The people can then become free from religion, save the most basic.

If the world is programmed for balance then there would also be death, Life’s agent of change. The people can then become free from stasis and stagnation, save the most basic.

If the neural links bond the Na’vi together with other Na’vi in a community then there would be no sense of exclusion.

The people can then become free from isolation, save the most basic.

16

If the individual understands their life to be a subordinate cycle within the larger complex of Life, death would be accepted with little remorse. The people can then become free from the fear of death, save the most basic.

Likewise, if the individual and their culture celebrates the balance of Life. The people can then become free from the concern of overpopulation, save the most basic.

If the Na’vi must hunt together to provide food for the clan, then there would be shared risk and communal identity. The people can then become free from rivalry, save for the most basic.

If all knowledge, thoughts and memories can be “downloaded� into Eywa then there is no longer a need for recording devices. The people can then become free from literacy, save the most basic.

17

If the world is programmed so that its smartest and most sensitive creatures, the Na’vi, are not the apex predators on land or in the sky (and as we might see, in the ocean.) The people can then become free from the concern for the fitness of their species, save the most basic.

If the world provides abundantly then there would no longer be a need for former civilizing technologies. The people can then become free from all technology, save the most basic.

Likewise, if the world provides abundantly then there would be no lack of necessary resources. The people can then become free from all economies, save the most basic.

If the world is programmed to be accessed by the Na’vi, then any connection to Eywa can diagnose and program or prescribe a cure for any illness. The people can then become free from doctors and medicine, save for the most basic.

18

If the world is centered in an ever present now, history and progress can be ignored. The people can then become free from time, save the most basic.

If the neural links of the queue bond the Na’vi to their mates for life, there would be no domestic strife. The people can then become free from infidelity, save the most basic.

If the neural links of the queue bond the Na’vi to their mounts to ride and race, the people would share communal competition and danger. The people can then become free from the need for sports, exercise and entertainment, save the most basic.

If the individual is seen as part of a whole then individual expression will have little value to the collective unless it represents the collective. The people can then become free from the arts as individual expression, save for the most basic.

19

CONCLUSION

The Na’vi have elegantly solved the great problems of civilization by integrating their spirit with the natural world through the implementation of organic technology and the neural link in their queue. By tracing the route of their integration we are tracing a potential path for our future.

We need these progressive stories because we stand today, as we always have, in a present of uncertainty and fear. We have always looked back to the golden ages of our past for comfort and reassurance while blindly wading into the future unknown. Man has always filled his future with hostility and fear, whether it is in the form of dread machines returning to the past to destroy the scion of their future demise or a fight for survival in the cold void of space with an implacable species whose single function is self-proliferation. Although these movies make for incredible cinematic experiences they aid in further deepening the myth of the inevitable dark dystopias awaiting us. The Abyss begins rising out of these depths with the awesome encounter of a benign but aloof alien species, but it is not until Avatar that we see a reassuring glimpse of the future.

This, of course, in the irony of our endless selfpessimism, is not found in the humans of the movie but in the aliens. And it is here that the true power of the Na’vi reveals itself. If we use them solely as a warning that juxtaposes our current state of degradation with their balanced worldsystem they will remain two-dimensional characters who can teach us nothing, except that we have lost the untrammeled glory of our pre-civilized past. This only serves to continue our destructive retrospection and further binds us to anachronistic thinking. However, if the Na’vi, have passed through the fires of experience into a new age of innocence then they gain richness and depth as models for our potential future. The ghosts of the past have always been heard loud and clear but seldom do we see (especially in vivid 3D) a positive and progressive goal for our species. By viewing the Na’vi not as noble savages but as savage nobles the Avatar movies can act as a catalyst to overcome the gravity of our current situation. It seems clear that the world reaction to “the highest grossing movie of all time” is not simply due to the special effects of the story but because

the Na’vi’s way of life speaks to memories laying dormant deep within our bones. The paradox is that we must move forward to move backward, and to do this we must let go of our idealism of the past and move away from a regressive perspective of worship towards an open minded dynamic of learning. The past will, of course, not be abandoned but used, as we use our individual experiences, to avoid repeating costly mistakes. With the exponential growth in the speed and capacity of computer technology accessing the information and data of the past will be easier than ever and although we will continue to make mistakes, this essential part of the growing and learning process will refine our judgment to avoid further disaster. We have no choice but to courageously move forward through the gauntlet of technology and civilization so that we can enter into a new age of innocence.

To help achieve this, man needs new stories and storytellers.

Avatar is such a story and James Cameron is such a storyteller. Thus, once we open the box of Pandora and come face-to-face with all the horrors of civilization in the mirror of the Na’vi, we are left with one final gift: Hope.

AFTERWORDS

When viewing the movie Avatar, we must choose allegiance between the Na’vi and the humans. Although we are human, we almost unanimously support the Na’vi. This queer cheering provides us with proof that a shift has occurred in our collective temperament: We have turned on ourselves.

The counterinfluences have arrived and are gaining strength.

We want to oppose the patriarchal proliferation of power with maternal reintegration. It is our duty to maintain the pressure so that the alien ideas and ideals of wholeness, balance and harmony become familiar. Avatar and its sequels must continue to work with the imagination of the masses to shape our destiny with positive goals. And by doing this become prophecy.

FILMOGRAPHY

Xenogenesis (1978) Pirahna II: The Spawning (1982) The Terminator (1984) Aliens (1986) The Abyss (1989) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) True Lies (1994) Titanic (1997) Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) Aliens of the Deep (2005) Avatar (2009)

24

James Cameron (Aug 16, 1954 - )

James Cameron is known for his big budget Hollywood blockbuster films The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and Avatar, which, at the time of this writing, topped his previous film, Titanic, as the highest grossing film of all time. But behind all of the stars, money and special effects there is what appears to be a socialist critique and perhaps even a subversive anarchistic agenda. A review of almost all of Cameron’s films finds the underdogs, workers and grunts fighting against the sociopathic capitalist greed of the rich and powerful corporations like Cyberdyne, Weyland-Yutan, Benthic Petroleum, RDA and their predatory guardians. While in the end this may at best be a factual representation of things as they are and will continue to be or, at worst, a carefully constructed plot and ploy to draw in the masses and open their hearts and wallets, remains to be determined. However, we can hold out hope that a progressive understanding informs these films thus allowing us to use the movie Avatar to show a glimpse of a post-capitalist and post-civilized future gleaming beneath the blue box-lid of Pandora.

www.charybdispress.com