Asymmetric

One of my working assumptions is that religious feeling is built into each human being. It's not just me, either: people who aren't dumb like Andrew Newberg believe this as well.

Materialists think that those parts of the brain we now use for religion at one time helped us hunt sabretooths and get jiggy with cavewomen, who may not have been as desirable to cavemen for their ignorance of Nair and toothpaste.

I think that we were created that way.

Raquel Welch in prehistoric times. Religion helped primitive man, who eventually produced Raquel Welch, for whom we should be grateful.

This understanding of human nature allows me to see innate religious feeling in many seemingly secular phenomenon. Remember when environmentalists wanted the world to turn off the lights? What did that accomplish? They actually used more energy.

I'll get back to that later. In addition to the innate impulse to worship, some secular philosophies resemble theologies. Many of my protestant brothers and sisters believe that faith alone- as opposed to the Catholic and Orthodox inclusion of good works- saves (one from Hell).

A similar principle is operative in leftist politics: policy positions alone makes a good man. Think of the Kennedy memorials and Wellstone funerals. Gloria Steinem attacked Clarence Thomas during phony Anita Hill affair, but defended Bill Clinton in the real Lewinsky scandal. The difference? Well, Clinton defended women's choice to abortion. The belief that one's politics is the most important part of one's character has a long pedigree. Paul Johnson points this out in Intellectuals.

In the entertainment world, ultra-aesthetes estimate a man's worth by their "talent" or, when that's not readily apparent, "artistic attitude." Michael Jackson worship is an example of this. So's the current controversy over Roman Polanski. Go here for a list of people who think that talent trumps behavior (by the way, it's very disappointing to see Monica Bellucci on the list. I almost have a "saved by hotness" philosophy).

Too bad Monica Bellucci is a moral fool.

Surrogates is a very good mainstream sci-fi movie with the potential to spark post-viewing conversations on human dignity.

Bruce Willis is Agent Greer, a detective in a world where people's contact with reality arrives via robots called "surrogates": people sit in their homes and control a surrogate through sensors attached to their body. The sensors provide feedback, including of the most intimate kind (surrogates go dead for bathroom visits, clean-up, etc.), from the surrogate to the operator.

The Prophet leads a small resistance movement called Dreads.

Crime and "prejudice" is down, as are communicable diseases (no communication; hence, no...). Everything seems virtually perfect when the creator of the surrogates' son is killed by a weapon that not only destroys surrogates but liquefies the operators' brains, not unlike the effect one gets from watching America's Nest Top Model.

Greer must find who's behind the murder.

The plot flows logically and entertainingly. Nothing extraordinary. I prefer solid conventionality to faux profundity and attempts to "blow my mind."

This dystopian future is rather bright. People who like their dystopia especially dark, with wild gangs assaulting innocents- Bladerunner and Clockwork Orange come to mind- or nightmarish 1984-like regimes torturing citizens with huge rats or Joe Biden speeches, will probably not like Surrogates. Those with a low tolerance for human degeneration, like me, will be disturbed enough.

The strength of the situation made me forget or even appreciate the subdued special effects. We get some green goo from the detached robots' arms. A head peels off. Hot chicks jump off buses.

I don't know if it's because real people don't really have to sit in them, but the automotive model line for 2017 looks exactly like the cars you can get at your local Toyota dealer after you finish reading this post. That, or the Touchstone set crew loved their Prius' so much that they dared not tinker with them (the budget was only 80 million- good job!)

I would have loved to have been the casting director for this movie. The actresses are quite, stunningly, beautiful. I guess there's something for the ladies as well. As you'd imagine, the ratio of beautiful to ugly surrogates is very high, with only the student body of the UCLA psychology department even coming close.

My wife would look the same.

Real-life UCLA Psychology major

I like that Greer's surrogate looks like him (for the record, mine would look like me minus 10 pounds- I'd be the ugliest surrogate, but who cares- it's all fake and I'd feel unique).

I also like the idea of Army surrogates. I wouldn't have to stay in shape or camp in the rain.

Like half of all Hollywood movies, Surrogates is based on a comic book.

Politics/Message:

The movie deals with human dignity issues familiar to humans living in modern societies: the preference for simulated human interaction over the admittedly sometimes unpleasant (and odorous) kind; its attendant problems like pornography and drug abuse; and bio-ethical matters like abortion, creative reproduction, and stem-cell research.

These are primarily religious problems. Prophet mentions God once. I can see people who don't want pesticides in their carrots and existentialists (below) protesting the state of 2017 affairs, but the strongest opposition voices in such a world would likely come from traditional faith communities, Christianity in the Western world, Islam and Hinduism in the East.

One of the selling points for a surrogate world is that it would allow individuals to traipse through life danger-free. Being safe and comfortable numb is the goal of one of the two great secular world views, the one that pushes for high safety nets and rubber playgrounds.

Existentialists, those who gain meaning from doing a bunch of stuff ("bucket list") or from "extreme" experiences would be split. Some might say that if living through a robot is fulfilling, people should do it and that any opposition would be itself artificial, only coming from antiquated moral structures; while some might decry the lack of danger and real-ness.

The movie supports the traditional view of marriage, a real bond between a husband and wife that demands some kind of loyalty.

It's interesting that we can already, almost do this kind of stuff through games like Second Life.

Based on the philosophy that everything's better when you're paying for it, I've made Asymmetric available for Kindle, the device I really, really want, but won't buy for fear that it becomes the electronic device that breaks the camel's back. You can see it here.

50-50 that they'll follow their advice. 50-50 that we do abandon our allies.

Leftists may not pray, but they certainly hope. One of the things that some leftists hope for is that their political enemies commit violence. We see this in their breathless anticipation of conservative-incriminating evidence in the Kentucky killing of a census worker and their scouring of the tea party protests for Hitler signs.

Of course, anybody who knows history knows the violence in America (much, much more overseas) that has come abut as a direct result of leftism, either formal or emotional. Quick primer (look up in Wiki for details): Sacco and Vanzetti, Black Panthers, Weathermen, Charles Manson, Jim Jones of poison Kool Aid fame (Communist atheist), William Ayers, Colin Ferguson, various eco-terrorism groups like Earth First and the Animal Liberation Front, Columbine murderers, church murders, anti-abortion activist murders, Unabomber etc., etc.

Some politically-motivated conservatives have pointed this out to a constituency longing to feel the same sense of victim-hood. Here's an article from 1999:

A "virile and fertile" anti-Christian sentiment is growing around the country, religious groups said Thursday, a day after a gunman spouting blasphemous rhetoric burst into a youth service at a Fort Worth Baptist church and fatally shot seven persons.

"I believe there is a growing climate of hostility that is directed against Christians . . . who find themselves as the targets of a great hostility in this culture," said William Merrell, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention.

A "disturbing double standard" is evident in the way attacks on Christians are viewed compared with crimes against other groups, a spokesman for the Family Research Council said.

From the Matthew Shepard murder in Wyoming last year to the shootings last month at a Jewish community center in California, the media and many politicians moved swiftly to label those episodes of violence "hate crimes," said Robert Regnier, a cultural studies writer at the FRC.

In the Texas church shootings, he said, "I just don't see any of that."

Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer urged the Justice Department "to determine if a pattern of crimes against men and women of faith exists" in such crimes as Wednesday's shootings at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

Citing the 1997 shootings of a high school prayer group in Paducah, Ky., and the April murders of Christian students at Columbine High School in Colorado, Mr. Bauer said Americans are "witnessing a disturbing pattern."

Attorney General Janet Reno warned reporters that it was too early to characterize the Fort Worth shooting as a "hate crime," but said law enforcement authorities on the scene would uncover the facts.

"We must get answers and must move carefully to make sure that we understand exactly what happened so that we can take the most effective action possible," she said. "We should not jump to conclusions."