Tonight, my girlfriend and I decided to go see The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest train wreck of a film. Not only was the acting and the plot development poor, it didn’t make any sense– and worst of all, by the end, the film reveals itself to be nothing more than a piece of crass, anti-humanist environmentalist propaganda.
The film revolves around a man named Elliot and his wife, who are trying to flee from an apparent biochemical terrorist attack in the form of a toxin in the air, which, when people are exposed to it, causes them to kill themselves in unusual and gruesome ways. We soon find that it is not a terrorist attack at all, but a pesticide released into the air by plants— all plants. Apparently, the plants become sensitized and release the pesticide when large groups of people come near. The audience is left utterly clueless as to why all of this is happening until the very end of the film, when (after the event mysteriously ends) a scientist speculates that the plants were taking defensive measures to wipe out a virus that was infecting them, and is infecting them still— humanity.
This kind of attitude about human kind does not exist in isolation within this film; this anti-human sentiment has existed for years in the Ecology movement, and it is not a laughing matter. There are serious groups dedicated to the extinction of humanity– some of them are passive, like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which says on its website that an earth without humans
sounds like paradise, doesn’t it? …Without us meddlesome humans, all other species would get their fair chance at survival.
They ask us to
envision an impossible dream: all human sperm suddenly and permanently loses viability - no impregnated human egg begins meiosis to form a zygote - none transforms from embryo into the sacred fetus, is carried to term and sentenced to life. Zero conceptions, wanted or un.
In their defense, the VHEM only calls for what they call a “voluntary extinction” which means no forced population control, no nuclear weapons, no mass graves; they simply want us all to stop breeding, and they want us to do it right now. But these crazy folks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to hatred of mankind.
In April of 2006, Professor Eric R. Pianka, noted ecologist, gave a speech (to a packed audience, no less) in which he called for the extermination of 90% of humans now living with an airborne Ebola virus. No further comment is needed.
The entire driving philosophy behind environmentalism is flawed, and must be checked. Environmentalists believe that nature is an end in and of itself, that it must be upheld and protected above all else. This is why some of them (the ones that are consistent, anyway) will say things like, “You’re looking at the world with a humanity bias,” which means, of course, that you are brutish and selfish for valuing human life above a tree frog or dirt. If we accept that nature is good because it is nature, and for no other reason, it makes sense to desire human extinction; such a desire is merely taking the saying “Leave the Smallest Footprint Possible” to heart. Man survives by manipulating the environment to suit his needs– there is no other way. If we accept that we should leave the smallest impact on the world as possible, why not just wipe ourselves out?
The environment is not an end in and of itself, it is only an end so long as it serves human ends. I want clean air, not because I love the earth goddess and want to see her restored to her natural state, not because of some nebulous responsibility that I feel I have for nature, but because I like clean air, it feels good in my lungs, and it serves as a major value for me to be able to breathe. I want clean water for similar reasons. I want trees around, because I know that, instead of attacking me and forcing me to commit suicide as M. Night Shyamalan would have it, they produce Oxygen for me to breathe, and as I said above, I consider breathing to be important to me. But I will not stop myself from cutting down trees to make room for my house for any reason other than that those trees are, for whatever reason, of more value to me than the house. I refuse to act in discordance with my values, and so should you.
Proclaim once and for all that your own life, not nature, is your standard of what is good and evil, and renounce environmentalism forever.
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Did you see “The Village”? If so, interpret any misanthropy therein? I’d really have to see it again but, if I remember correctly, I understood it as damning those who resort to mystical deception in order to “protect” their loved ones.
Point 1:
I think that it is easy to see humans can do great damage via pollution, even if you don’t think global warming is happening (and I feel odds are that it is these days) there is still the toxic pollution that has been added to rivers, lakes, and some pieces of land that has a detrimental effect of plant and animal life in that area. So we do cause pollution and it does cause harm.
Does that last point mean that life/from Earth would be better without us? I argue no. Not only are we part of life on/from Earth but if we are able to limit the damage we do to various ecosystems around the world so they do not collapse then we provide means by which life on Earth will become life from Earth and those have the potential to survive past the point (in about 5 billion years from now-so keep paying your mortgage) when the sun expands and most things remaining on Earth get cooked. While humanity should learn how not to damage other forms of life on Earth and should actively work to avoid harm now, we are the only species likely to currently enable space travel and thus create the ability to evacuate the planet when such an evacuation becomes necessary to sustaining most of the life on/from Earth (not just us).
Thus calling for human extinction actually removes a potential boon to the survival of Earth’s various life-forms.
Point 2:
I would argue the harm via pollution that humans cause is mainly not do to the number of humans but to the manner we go about economic development. Global Warming is caused by greenhouse gasses. This are released by the burning of fossil fuels. If not for the latter the former would not be a problem. Also look at China, it has a great deal of problems relating to both air and water quality because of the many emissions (some of which are quite toxic) put into each. China’s emissions problem (touching on fossil fuels again) has grown worse after it started its population control program. This is because of the fact that there is no stable ratio between the amount of humans and amount of emissions, factories, cars, coal powers plants, and so on. China jumped ahead of the USA in CO2 emissions not by a population boost but through rapid and reckless economic development in which consideration of the environment was not an issue. Thus focusing on economic systems systems to be the logical way to prevent pollution and environmental damage.
Note: Population control does not involve counting and limiting the amount of emissions-only the number of humans. This is why it actually fails to serve as effective protection for the environment.
Oh, I get it. The vegetation is getting back at the humans for being so destructive. They’ve had it, and they’re doing the only thing they can do to make it stop–kill humans with a natural neurotoxin. You see? Do you see the wisdom of the earth and how it eventually wins in some unforeseen twist? Do you see how guilty you must be? Do you see that you should do what you can to not make an “impact?”
To top off the guilt: The characters run and hide to find sanctuary in a new McMansion. If I were them, I would stay there until the whole thing blows over. It probably has the best air filtration system.
Todd.
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lol, ya think?
Last half of the movie was ruined for me at that point. The symbolism was pretty thick, the greenhouse, gabby cross eyed hippie talking about how smart plants are, and the power plant cooling towers in the background.
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Actually from the secular progressive/radical leftist/traitor to humanity point of view… With evolution being random with no purpose, therefore this biosphere serves no purpose, it is all random. Nobody would shed a tear if we nuked bacteria off the face of this randomly formed planet, since both the tear and sad emotions are just randomly generated electro-chemically induced brain emotions.
Under their system of morality environmentalist have no soul, no God, no afterlife, they have no precondition right to life. They should be careful what ground to tread on.
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