Antidote for a sterile world (in relation to the movie “Children of Men”)
Xavier Casanovas. Dystopian fiction is in fashion right now. You don’t have to be particularly learned in the subject area to realise that it is simply a projection of what frightens us most: the end of time – or at least, the end of normality as we know it- it is a fiction that has become more credible now than ten or twenty years ago. Ecocide, the collapse of civilisation and epidemics are all over the headlines and are helping us to believe that for our society, in its current form, time is running out.
In 2006, Alfonso Cuarón, the Oscar-winning director of Mexican cinema, made an untimely dystopian movie. Let’s just say it went too far. Although it is true that the fall of the twin towers, Islamic terrorism, and the start of the war in Iraq made people think of the collapse of civilisation, the dynamics of our model of progress and economic growth remained sufficiently unchanged so that we did not need to question any cultural assumptions of our Western society. Maybe this is why the film was not a box office success and went largely unnoticed. We were not ready to listen to what Cuarón wanted to tell us. Yet over time, it has become a cult film and now appears in several lists of the best movies of the first twenty years of the twenty-first century. We are talking about “Children of Men”. (more…)
Coronavirus: One Single Humanity, One Common Vulnerability
Jaume Flaquer.
Looking inward and looking at what is essential
The coronavirus has caught humanity off-guard. Pressing issues before the pandemic had little to do with an epidemiological crisis of global proportions. Although it had been discussed as a theoretical possibility in scientific warnings and depicted in movies, its dystopian character and, to a certain extent, eschatological nature caused us to respond too slowly. It is likely that the arrogance of the West led them to believe: “Something like this will never happen to us; serious diseases and parasitic infections (malaria, dengue fever, Chagas disease, Ebola…) always happen in developing countries”. Goliath showed the same self-reliant attitude when fighting against the much younger David. The entire world, that thought it was controlling the course of history, has found itself conquered by an invisible, minuscule virus, in the face of which the arms race has proved itself to be powerless.
Death, so far from the daily experience of the self-proclaimed first world, has instead become an event that affects us closely; it has entered into the awareness of many people who ask themselves: “What will happen if I get sick?, or, how will my body react?”.
Suddenly, the virus has made us look inward, because our decreased social contact (even with the infinite number of electronic means at our fingertips), allows us more time with ourselves and points us towards what is essential, since consumerism has suddenly collapsed. We are now focused on survival, and we have realised what the essential elements of our life are: health, relationships, love, our daily food… We have discovered that the idols we previously worshipped and venerated, at concerts or on football fields, cannot save us. Now we exalt health professionals because we are entrusting our lives to them. (more…)
Planet “Caring”
Pepe Laguna. If an extraterrestrial were to appear today on Earth, it would inform its alien confreres of the existence of a strange race of beings who are obsessed about caring for its most fragile members. It would also communicate that on that diminutive blue planet which travels at full speed through the Milky Way it had detected frenetic activity around hospitals, homes for the elderly and supermarkets. It is a Planet of very peculiar beings who cover their faces with small masks and who, at the cyclical call of a satellite called the Moon, come out to their windows and balconies in order to applaud the work of those who care for others, an especially valued tribe judging by the amount of work they do and the unanimous recognition given to them by the rest. On the other hand, it might also happen that the Martian informant might write a dossier about a distant star in which a captive race was waging a battle without mercy against an invisible enemy. This would be a planet of peculiar beings, who at the cyclical call of a satellite called the Moon go to their windows and balconies to ward off fear and instill courage in one another. (more…)
Coronavirus: An Opportunity to Secularize Lent
Xavier Casanovas. For some time now I have been trying to give a rationale for the need to secularize Lent. For reasons that are self-evident, our Western societies have been taking each of the religious celebrations and adapting them to the secular calendar. Christmas has become the adoration of the god of consumption. Easter is a surrender to the sin of gluttony. The great feast days, historically consecrated to the pious devotion to the patron saints of individual towns, have been converted into endless revelry. And in some cases we can still say that the true meaning has not been completely lost. (more…)
