My brother and I went to see Tomorrowland Saturday night despite the reviews I read. We are glad we did. I heard that it was essentially a self-righteous lecture by George Clooney about how we've tanked our futures. However, I saw in the movie an invitation to make a better tomorrow, to do our part to make sure there is a tomorrowland whether you achieve it through environmental endeavors or through interactions with your fellowmen. Both of us saw a different message in the movie, a call not to act but rather to change our perspective. We trust so much in the so-called "best" among us that we excuse their sins against humanity because they mean well, as if none of us do, and as if means matter more than ends. I saw a few different things that struck me that I felt impressed to share with you.
What are we doing to stop it? When we first meet Casey, she attends a day of class in high school where her teachers all talk about the certainty of apocalypse. Her literature teacher finally lets her speak, whereupon she asks whether it can be stopped and what to do. A lot of these people jump to hyperbole. Either it cannot be stopped (Al Gore) or we must reduce ourselves back to the stone age in order to avoid it (Arinofsky). Whenever I hear absolutes like that, I know I can probably discard both of them. The appearance of chaos is simply an attempt to reestablish equilibrium as the concert of ebb and flow overreaches in the search for order. When we see disasters, they are simply the efforts of the universe to reorient itself to changes it finds unfavorable. It is not beneficial or desirable to have everything in common everywhere. Penguins do not do well in the rain forest, and tortoises stay in the desert on purpose. Everything has its place. We need to better learn our own, not to master the earth, but to care for it. As George Carlin reminded us "The greatest arrogance of all is trying to save the planet when we haven't figured out how to save ourselves." What are we doing to lift where we stand? Rather than some grandiose gesture that ends all suffering everywhere, what are we doing to alleviate problems for our neighbors and our families?
Many people are focused on, excited about, and certain of an apocalyptic end of the world. Whereas our parents grew up in a time when people excitedly and optimistically anticipated a better world of robot servants, flying cars, VOIP teleconferencing, UFP Star Trek, and a society run by altruism rather than money, the rising generation talks about nuclear war, the world of Idiocracy, a zombie apocalypse, the 2012 Mayan end of the world, and the like. Ironically, our forbearers envisioned this bright future while their present was darker than our present has been. We enjoy the greatest period of scientific, technological, and social advancement in human history and see only downhill from here. The movie rightly illustrates a morbid fascination with the end of things rather than the beginning, a new beginning, "earth PLUS plastic". Where is our hope? Where is our vision? The people invited to Tomorrowland were people who saw something better and kept trying to achieve it. That's what we need to be.
Science is actually destroying the planet. Despite the images and dialogue paraded before our eyes that men are destroying the planet by not hearkening to science, the real truth of the movie is that the smart people and the scientists inadvertently created its demise. In their arrogance to create a world without sin, a utopia, they build a machine ostensibly to see the future that actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that CREATES the end of the world. Like most time travel paradoxes, trying to avoid the problem actually precipitates it. As soon as they machine is destroyed, the certainty of doomsday ceases to be as dire or imminent. Scientists, smart people, and the "best" among us are actually responsible for hastening the destruction (I also enjoyed watching Hugh Laurie play the villain because he strikes me as the type). This comes, I believe, because many scientists actually manipulate data in order to reach the conclusion they want to be true rather than what the data actually supports. I heard today that NOAA is going back and manipulating the temperature records to corroborate the conclusions of climate change. That's crony science, and it leads to this kind of disaster- wasting time, money, and life in the pursuit of something that never was and never will be. In the movie, they had to turn to someone who didn't have an ulterior motive because Casey didn't even know what happened when they brought her to Tomorrowland, so that she could see the solution without bias and without spin. Governor Nix refused to try; George Clooney didn't believe it could work; the robot Athena couldn't create original thought. It took true and pure peer review to see that science was the problem and propose the correct solution. Sometimes the solution is to leave things alone and let them play out as they naturally will.
People who didn't give up and held to hope held the key to the future in this movie, and they do so today. Rather than relish in and look forward to a tomorrow that demands nothing of us today, the movie invites us to focus only on the part of tomorrow that has its roots in today. CS Lewis warned about the futility of focusing on the future where fear and hope are inflamed in favor of focusing only on the part of tomorrow that belongs to today. We are so arrogant to think that we can destroy this planet, that we have destroyed what has vanished and that we know how things ought to be. Just because it's what we find familiar doesn't mean it's the preferred state for all things everywhere all the time. The same people who prattle the cliche that change is the only constant then act as if resisting change is the only virtue (unless you're a conservative Christian in which case conservation is a sin). Like Governor Nix, they just sit in their ivory tower doing nothing but talk while they insist that we act. Well, I call foul. Over a decade ago, George Carlin gave the perfect counterblast to these fearmongers and their ilk. Since he indemnifies them, they turn a blind eye to it, but you shouldn't. Warning: it is a wee bit profane.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Who knows what will be possible tomorrow? Who will act to make tomorrow better than today? That is the clarion call of Christianity- to make bad things good and good things better. It is also the temptation. We must do this without compulsory means, without manipulative speech, and without unrighteous dominion, but it must come by gentleness, meekness, persuasion, and love unfeigned. The elites among us prefer the former and keep trying to apply the adversary's method to achieve the Father's plan, a futile attempt by fallen men to build a utopia on earth that heaven alone can sustain.
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