On a Movie and Some Metaphors
Two more technology-focused pieces on the docket: one on The Day the Earth Stood Still, and another on Joy Marie Clarkson's You Are a Tree.
While I’m hard at work on finishing my book on intelligent design (a critical history, not an endorsement or criticism of the movement), I still have managed to carve out some time to publish two new pieces on my website.
The first is an essay on the classic sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still and it’s less-than-classic 2008 remake by the same name.
The general consensus is that the remake is not as good. I agree, it isn’t. However, it’s also not a bad film when taken on it’s own. And I appreciate the way it tried to adapt the story of the original (oriented around nuclear weapons) to a different crisis (climate change).
The swap from using New Testament imagery to Old Testament is an interesting one, too, which was oft-overlooked by critics who simply badgered the remake for being inferior to its predecessor.
Next, I wrote a short reflection inspired by Joy Marie Clarkson’s new book You Are a Tree.
Clarkson focuses on seven metaphors, but the first one was right up my alley: you are a tree. With it, she also explores and rejects an antithetical metaphor: you are a machine.
As she points out, thinking we’re machines can have disastrous consequences. But, as I read her, we also need to think about the way the tree metaphor could have unforeseen consequences too. There is, after all, a difference in thinking of ourselves as trees (as organic beings) and trees (as Heideggerian “standing-reserve”).
I hope you enjoy either or both of the essays if they interest you.
I’ll be returning to my book project after this, in the hopes I can finish it next week. From there, I’m going to turn back to writing on C.S. Lewis’s academic books (A Preface to Paradise Lost is next up).