[James] Cameron wrote Avatar, says [John] Podhoretz, “not to be controversial, but quite the opposite: He was making something he thought would be most pleasing to the greatest number of people.”What would have been controversial is if — somehow — Cameron had made a movie in which the good guys accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts.
Of course, that sounds outlandish and absurd, but that’s the point, isn’t it? We live in an age in which it’s the norm to speak glowingly of spirituality but derisively of traditional religion. If the Na’Vi were Roman Catholics, there would be boycotts and protests. Make the oversized Smurfs Rousseauian noble savages and everyone nods along, save for a few cranky right-wingers.
I’m certainly one of those cranky right-wingers, though I probably enjoyed the movie as cinematic escapism as much as the next guy.
But what I find interesting about the film is how what is “pleasing to the most people” is so unapologetically religious...
Many environmentalists are open about their desire to turn their cause into a religious imperative akin to the plight of the Na’Vi, hence Al Gore’s uncontroversial insistence that global warming is a “spiritual challenge to all of humanity.” The symbolism and rhetoric behind Barack Obama’s campaign was overtly religious at times, as when he proclaimed that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” — a line that could have come straight out of the mouths of Cameron’s Na’Vi.
What I find fascinating, and infuriating, is how the culture-war debate is routinely described by antagonists on both sides as a conflict between the religious and the un-religious. The faith instinct manifests itself across the ideological spectrum, even if it masquerades as something else.
On the right, many conservatives have been trying to fashion what might be called theological diversity amid moral unity. Culturally conservative Catholics, Protestants, and — increasingly — Jews find common cause. The Left is undergoing a similar process, but the terms of the debate are far more inchoate and fluid.
In this Jonah Goldberg column (reviewing James Cameron's "half-billion-dollar epic Avatar"), there's a couple of points I'd take issue with...but a whole lot of points that are spot on. Check it out.
