Saving Private Ryan: Freedom, capitalism, and Joe America (Joe Lunchbox!)

I just watched Saving Private Ryan. I haven't seen it for several years, and I enjoyed it a lot once again.

Something that struck me:

At the end (and beginning) of the film, James Ryan is an old man, going to visit the grave of the Captain who instrumented his return to the US. Just before he dies, Cpt Hanks says "Earn this" to Ryan.

Ryan is there with his family: His wife, children, and grandchildren. And he says "Beverley, tell me I'm a good man". To which she says "You are."

We don't know anything about Ryan. That's intentional. All we know is that he's Joe America, with kids and grandchildren that wear nice clothes, and are interested in coming to the grave-site with him. And this is a good life. Regular American life is a good life. That's what Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks clearly want to say.

Another thing:
The end is accompanied by a letter written by some sort of head of the army. And he says that James fought valiantly to rid the world of tyranny and oppression. The thing that struck me about this letter, is that it's true. The US (and Australia) do not actively oppress anyone born in the US or Australia. Nobody in Australia or the US could say that they are tyrannised by their government.

The Nazis were right-wing in that way too.

So the US doesn't oppress anyone, except by neglect. The gap between the rich and poor in America is huge. And my experience of being in that country was that there are a lot of beggars, and a lot of people getting by on not much. I wouldn't live in the US except in pretty special circumstances.

It's funny to me that the US, (and to a lesser extent Australia), think that oppression by a government involves active oppression of their own people only. It's clear from Graham's posts on this blog that both nations actively oppress people in countries (as do we by our compliance). And it's clear that, especially in the US,  people are oppressed by neglect. But this comes across as virtuous, because every person has the right to pursue their dreams, and every person has the right to make their fortune etc. It's about freedom.

So it turns out I don't want freedom.

This is obvious when it comes to violence. This is also obvious when it comes to health care. I would rather have a good public health insurance system than the US system which is more of a 'free market'. But it also applies to social services. I would never have been able to go to University in the States (well, maybe I would have got a scholarship, but that would have been my only chance). I like Australia's pseudo-free university system (free in the fiscal sense). I like that if people are struggling for whatever reason, they have access to government help.

These things result in less freedom, in the capitalist sense. This is good stuff.

Just saying...

The Pianist I

This week my beautiful wife and daughter are in England, so I'm a bachelor for a week. Inevitably then, I'm

1. Living in squalor, 
2. Eating poorly, 
3. Sleeping in, and 
4. Watching a lot of films.

Last night I watched The Pianist. About 20 mins in I felt sick and almost turned it off, but I persevered. It was excellent. When the German soldier gave him bread, and he opened the wrapping and there was jam inside, I could almost taste that jam, it was so good. Much of the film was about hunger, and it worked really well. Much of the film was about escalating violence, and that worked really well too.

Anyway, it raised several problems for me, which I'll deal with over a few posts lest this one get too long. I'll deal with the toughest one (for me) first:

God did that.

It's a common thread in Bible study groups, especially when the group does Old Testament stuff. God told Israel to attack so-and-so, and to leave no one standing, not men, not women, not children, not livestock. Nothing. Saul keeps a few sheep alive and gets in big trouble.

If you made a film about this, I would probably watch it and feel about Israel the same that I felt about the Germans in this film. When they were captured at the end, inside the wired fence, I hated them. I was really glad they'd been captured. And I was meant to feel this way. The filmmakers had that very purpose in mind.

So I'd feel about Israel the way I felt about the Germans, and presumably I'd feel about God the way I felt about Hitler.

This is a problem. (Goes without saying doesn't it?)

Usually, at least in Bible studies I've been to, there are some rationalisations which are raised at this point. You know the point? Someone in your BS hadn't really thought about Israel's genocidal tendencies before, and they're struggling not to be appalled by the whole thing. So some people say:

The thing you've got to remember, is that we all deserve that. We all deserve to die. We all hate God, by nature, and reject him. The Canaanites hated God. Let's look at Romans 3...

And the answer seems good enough, and we all store it away for a while. It's like in those fantasy films where the evil power gets trapped in a stone, and the magic that kept it there would be good for a time, but every 1000 years or so someone needs to re-work the magic to keep it there? Hah... can anyone relate to that?

But when I watch things like The Pianist, it comes out again. God's wrath is intense. His choice of Israel as his special possession is arbitrary, and so the Canaanites get screwed. God made us like this, for his own glory, and it leads to some pretty incredible violence and hardship, and then eternal punishment. I really really struggle with this.

So last night I was talking to God about it, and got nowhere. But maybe in time I will.

One more issue this raises for me:

I was raised as a Christian, and so initially I trusted God was there because my parents said so, and because I talked to him and it seemed reasonable.

These days I think the thing that what keeps me a Christian is the historical testimony. Sometimes I feel like God is real, sometimes I feel like I'm being sanctified, but sometimes I feel like it could just all be a farce. But then I remember: There's good reason to believe that Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead. The evidence is good. So God is there, and I have to deal with his character as it comes. And in the Bible that is a difficult thing.

I wonder where this is all going to lead me... Time for an intervention? Is anyone out there a little worried?

Splice

Spoiler Alert! I will ruin the plot of a film in this, so don't read it if you are intending to watch Splice.

Ok, tonight I watched Splice. I'm not sure if it's in Australian cinemas yet, maybe it's been out for some time.

Anyway, it plumbed the depths of iniquity. Not like Saw (I, II, III, IV, how many are there?) which was just a film about wallowing in the joys of torture and death, but in a more sophisticated way. There was extremely unethical cloning, the two main characters (the woman in particular, who was very well played by the girl from Go! who is not married to Tom Cruise) had extreme god complexes, bestiality (yes, the man (from the pianist) had sex with the half human - half animal girl they created) rape (yes, the woman did too when this beast turned into a man), and finally someone has come up with an act worse than abortion - the woman sold her unborn quarter-animal, three quarter-human to science.

These characters cared nothing for basic ethics toward living creatures, but then neither do some Christians I know, particularly those who grew up on farms.

It was really really interesting, and quite enjoyable.

I think the most terrifying science fiction possible, is stuff that is truly just around the corner. This was not Star Trek/Wars intergalactic travel which won't be possible in our lifetimes.The creature that these two made (if that's the right word) used technology which I would guess will be accessible in my lifetime.

Crazy stuff.

One thing that struck me, was the man's somewhat biblical perspective after he had sex with this animal/girl. The girl from Go! saw him, and when they talked about it, he blamed her ethics in making the girl. This was swallowed! His argument was "It all went wrong. We did the wrong thing from the beginning, and it got out of hand".

This had a remarkable Romans 1 feel to it, and was also pretty relate-able. It made me think of the Nazis (possibly because this guy was from the Pianist). It's that thing where one thing slips in your ethics, and then you find yourself on this slippery slope where suddenly you're killing Jews / having sex with animals / cheating on your wife / lying to your boss or whatever.

Further, the woman took it on board and that was it. She got over it extremely quickly. Before my very eyes the world has accepted sex-outside-of-committed-relationships as being far less worse than I think it is. I guess I'm getting old-fashioned at 27...

Even after knowing these things, I still recommend watching the film. I watched a preview for it and thought it would be horror or at least thriller. It was neither. It was just interesting, well told, well acted, well shot, and quite enjoyable, if not immoral. And it has two low-key sex scenes... and a rape scene... geez. Maybe you shouldn't watch it. Everything is... implied, not explicit, if that helps.

Ok, time to stop!