The Revolution Will Be Civilized

My Friends,
   A couple weeks back a friend of mine got me high and made me watch Robocop.

It was my first time seeing the whole thing in one sitting.  Being you know, high and all, I ruminated long and hard on certain mundane parts of the movie, perhaps giving them more scrutiny than had ever been applied to them before.  Principal among such mundane parts was an over-looked aspect of the riot scene.  You know the scene:

Everybody in town is going crazy because the cops just went on strike.  The looters are looting, windows are getting smashed and its basically a big free-for-all.  Funnily enough, the establishing shot for this scene pans to Emil, one of the antagonists...

...kind of just chillin'.

He doesn't seem to be particularly violent at this point.  Kinda just chillin, drinkin his Jack.  He even shudders in surprise when his reverie is interrupted by some nearby hooligans throwing a mailbox through a window.  To me it almost seemed like he was exhausted by the merry-making and needed a rest.  And I thought this idea could be extrapolated to the whole of a population in revolt.
   People I have spoken with regarding the necessity of laws tend to view them as necessary safeguards against anarchy; basically if we didn't have them man's true beastly nature would no longer be kept at bay and he would be brutish and base.
   But does Emil look particularly base and brutish in these pics?  No.  In fact it looks like anarchy has been kicking his ass.  In fact it is only when Red Foreman shows up with fancy new asploeding guns that he gets re-invigorated.

   But I feel that his enthusiasm for this new toy would peter out eventually too and he would just find himself moping around looking for the next new thrill.  And I think this is the point:  there is no lasting appeal to chaos.  So even without rigid, formalized laws we would find a certain equilibrium.  And why not?  After all we existed for about 90% of our hominid existence without laws and we made it here.  Notwithstanding the violence inherent in life in the wild, its not like primitive man was a berserker vandal, killing and raping wantonly.  So why do some people think we "evolved" specimens would falter without imposed rules and regulations?*  

   Lets not forget what laws are for.  They are not to bring order to the chaos that would be an inevitable reality if not for their presence; they are to protect property rights.  End of story.  Laws are an outgrowth of scarcity; they protect the haves from the have-nots.

   So I don't think it makes sense to fear social collapse if laws were removed; certainly there would be an initial shock of lawlessness but this would be akin to loosening your belt after thanksgiving dinner: its not as if your belly would be bloated and distended forever.  Neither would we kill each other en masse til we were reduced to isolated pockets of survivors scavenging from each other.
   We've already built a society** once.  If this one collapsed I'm fairly sure we could do it again, but better.
Stay Thirsty,
-Andre Guantanamo

*Its interesting to think that we might falter without laws simply because our society, although ostensibly founded on good faith and fellowship, actually reinforces individualism and competition.  Our laws ironically afford us a measure of protection from the violence which our society actually reinforces.

**The Egyptologist John Anthony West criticized our society as not civilization but "shiny barbarism."  Its an interesting point and worth some contemplation.

Movie Review: The Last of the Mohicans

My Friends,
   I have The Last of the Mohicans finishing up in another window as I write this.

This movie came out like 21 years ago and I am just watching it now in spite of the universal praise I have heard it receive.  I should have watched it sooner cause it appeals to me on a few different levels.  Lemme get past the meat & potatoes philosophical aspects before I get to the more more whimsical stuff.

The Redcoats Are Not Always Bad
   Is it just me or have we been programmed to always view the red coats of imperial British soldiers as evil?  In The Patriot they burn down a church full of colonial women and children to goad Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger into attacking them

It works btw

In Zulu, Michael Caine and his soldiers are portrayed as brave holders of the fort against amazing odds...

...which distracts from the fact that they were foreign occupiers.

Cary Elwes was a douche-bag in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book... 

...although he didn't wear red.

And let's not forget the most recent example, Assassins Creed 3,

where, as a young half-Indian assassin, you are on a mission to bring down a secret society called the Templars against the backdrop of the American Revolution.

   So yeah, reasons aplenty in pop culture to hate the British empire.  However, LotM does its best to actually humanize the Brits and puts them on the side of right in the North American theatre which was unprecedented to me.  Mind you, they are still a little cunty, what with their attempts to force colonials to join their fight against the French-Huron alliance and their desire to hang Daniel Day-Lewis for sedition.  But in spite of these shortcomings, the real cunts of the film are a faction of Huron Indians led by Magua, who seem unable to accept the peace terms that their French allies set up with the British rivals.
   Now some liberals might say it is a little cruel to portray Indians as villains in a film set against the conflict between two European powers vying for territory which belonged to Indians, but this is interesting for the same reason that seeing the Brits as "good guys" is interesting: Frankly, conflicts aren't black & white.  History doesn't have good guys and bad guys, just people with conflicting motivations; for every cunt in history who is remembered for his cuntiness, there is a perfectly understandable set of motivations and causality which led up to said cuntiness.  It is actually unfair to the Huron Indians to portray them as universally good, just as it is unfair to portray the Brits as always bad.  Both were victims of their cultures and acted within a framework which dictated (broadly) their actions and motives.
   So yeah, to recap, while the film still portrayed an unrealistic good vs. evil dichotomy, it did so in an unconventional way where things were shown to be more complex than "native = good and foreign occupier = bad."

The Huron Indians Were Fucking Terrifying
   Miss Weir taught me a lot about the Huron Indians in Grade 8.  I learned that they were fierce warriors who lived off the land, (yawn) respected nature, traded with the French, etc.  Needless to say, such explanations of their fierceness never painted a vivid picture of just how fierce they were:

Check out the first two Indians who lead the ambush starting at 0:55

Those two fuckers literally come out of nowhere screaming.  I would defy the bravest motherfucker I know not to shit his pants in such a situation.  Or better yet, watch this entire scene which chronologically comes first in the movie:

See where that dude gets fucking scalped?  I cringe when I think about the times I had sliced skin off my scalp while shaving, never mind losing the whole top of my head.  And the way they came out of the woods screaming after a musket volley?  I guess I never appreciated how terrified European soldiers must have been even with their superior numbers and firepower.  

I Want To Be An Indian

   Ok so not actually, but watching DDL and his fellow Mohicans running fleet-footedly through the forest at the beginning of the movie reminds me of how much I love the feeling of....

I dont really have a word for it.  Its a feeling you get, particularly in nature, when you're fit and agile, and traversing the terrain, aware with your whole body of obstacles and fluidly moving around them in an optimized way.  The equivalent in the city would probably be parkour.  Again, its not about backflips or flair, or even looking cool.  Its about economy of movement and confidence of ability that come from knowing a place and oneself.  At the end of the day its what I believe all the working out, running and fitness is for: mastery of your environment.  

   They say you shouldn't run from a bear if you see one in the woods, but watching the opening scene from LotM, do you really think a bear could catch the three Mohicans if it wanted to?  

I have my doubts.  

Similarly, do you think the police could catch parkour founder, David Belle in the environment he has mastered?

Again, I have my doubts.

If you have never had this feeling I pity you, but I suspect most people have.  I think most children at one point or another feel a certain connectedness with the world around them.  Its something as simple as not being afraid of getting dirty by rolling around on the ground; at its essence its just a connectedness with the world around you whether natural or man-made.

   This is a connectedness which I never want to lose but I face a problem in that my current lifestyle is not entirely conducive to it.  Will have to work on that.

Stay Thirsty,

-Andre Guantanamo