Ronge Review on Golden Compass

With the Golden Compass South Africa's best movie critic goes in the Ronge direction

Barry Ronge downplays the anti-Christian statements made in this film, probably because it's the sort of delightful fantasy that seems appropriate for a Christmas flock. It's also the sort of uncomplicated populist view that is easy. Except that Pullman conceived his stories with an explicitly anti-Christian intention, employing an anti-control ethos. So to downplay that is to really lose touch with the essence the story teller was trying to convey.

I think Barry is trying to say that it's a flick that can be enjoyed without getting drawn into religious bickering. Once again, I think the point is to irk the enemy (as it is declared), to push against dominating and controlling religious thinking. So if you're an atheist (a humanist or a naturalist) The Golden Compass can be enjoyed, even celebrated, on its own terms. If you're anyone else, you probably should stomp on movie posters and kick up a fuss. And it's happening. We'll probably see a lot more posturing over the next few weeks, and hear through the grapevine about absurd geriatric performances* from Sunday pulpits.

That said, I found the movie enormously comforting. I have a lot of Christian friends, so I find it disheartening to have to push alone against this constant tide. It is comforting to know that there are others who also know, implicitly, that for all its good intentions, religion is dangerously deluding. It is good to have thoughtful and imaginative visionaries like Weitz and Pullman who can conceive of a practical and constructive antidote to the unspoken harm that religion does. Religion is often a form of borrowing strength, where, through one's religion, one is empowered or called by God. God speaks to someone and thus they are 'right'. How can you argue with someone making such ridiculous claims. This does a great deal to negate or eclipse firsthand knowledge of something, also called 'reality'. I was happy to see a movie like this, broaching this topic, coming into the public consciousness. The human animal is capable - at times - of actually thinking for itself, awaking out of its programming.

The Golden Compass also portrays some of the great virtues humanity appears to be losing: courage and loyalty. Dakota Blue Richard plays the defiant but devoted friend with a fiery determination. The Polar Bear, voiced by Gandalf (whilst the other wizard from the Lord of the Rings also makes an appearance) demonstrates and personifies both these virtues. His duel with his rival is one of the highlights of the movie.

It is interesting how Pullman has used traditionally evil myths and subverted them into 'good' rebels. He employs witches and demons, who, in this fantasy, might be mistaken for angels and cupids (if only in cute, animal forms).

I also differ with Pullman who said: "For all its length and intellectual complexity, I think Lord of the Rings is an essentially trivial work. It's not about anything important." Tolkien constructed an elaborate, imaginative project to demonstrate the importance of the individual, how even a small person has a vital role in the world. Tolkien also poignantly illustrates through the unusual negative construct (resisting the Ring, the ability to NOT do something) and employing the vital virtues of courage and loyalty. These dual virtues appear to me to be the best foundation for humanity, rather than religion's syrupy and the world's waxy mixed up goo concept for 'love'. Love is hard, tough and disciplined. It's not romantic, except in the sense of retrospective survival, but this romantic sense seems to me to have nothing to do with what real love actually is. This is at least true in terms of the way we think of love and objectification in the modern era.

The daemon concept also provides valuable allegory into the precious and valuable relationships that need to be maintained with ourselves, sometimes also called our 'inner child'. That this is depicted as an externalised extension of ourselves is actually very accurate allegory. Sometimes people behave peculiarly even to themselves, as their pain body is triggered by emotions from others or circumstances. In a very real sense we are not one person, but two, and the inner being is a vital function of who we are. Are we at least aware of this caricature of ourselves? Do we invest in it, take care of it, listen to it?

The 'dust' concept alluded to so often in The Golden Compass is interchangeable with the green streams of code in the Matrix, the Force in Star Wars, the Holy Spirit in Scriptures. It is this something that is also nothing that comprises the compass. It is what the compass points to even when it points elsewhere. It is within this contradistinction that the true answer lies. God, if we insist on such a thing, is a basic unit which runs through everything, connecting everything. It is ourselves, and also ourselves as part of everything else. Once we acknowledge this,once we are aware that something is what it is as much as it is also something else, we begin to understand how the world works, and we can consciously become part of the universe, and part of the corporeal structure of every thing, and if you like - God.

We are all light and dust, and we ought not to be focused on only the finger pointing to the moon, but also on the moon to which it points. It is this context that then expands to include the viewer, bringing about a third dimension, and the knowledge of being in the highest order of things.

*Geriatric: To be insane, stumble, stare at young womens breasts, dribble, incontent, smell of piss.

Oh my god, why do all the geriatric's have to come to the post office at lunch time instead of the other 7 hours in the day when I'm at work and they're doing nothing?

Comment on ACDP Blog: Where Does the Golden Compass Point?

The Golden Compass has just as much deliberate undercurrent as Narnia. The original children's book was written by Philip Pullman, who famously said, "My books are about killing God..."

A dedicated athiest, Pullman is an honorary associate of the [God forbid] National Secular Society.What then is the message of the film?

In truth, the film has been watered down from the original story told in the books. Essentially the story is about the fight against a controlling authority [like The Matrix, Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Bible Old and New Testament, Jake White's In Black and White], portrayed clearly in the books as the church, or the Catholic Church to be more specific. [Is the Catholic Church an innocent entity?]

...some analysts believe that the message of questioning authority is an important one.

I'd say the message is not healthy either way. Children are going to begin reading the books out of curiosity anyway. What is being shown is that the emphasis seems to be centralled on this very question of authority. Let's call it what is is: rebellion against authority. Ultimately I don't believe that the real issue is whether authority is good or not, but whether we are ready to honour and submit. The truth is that we are all part of a structure - nobody is above the law.

NVDL: This guy seems to suggest that curiosity or being curious is dangerous, subversive or wrong.

"Ultimately I don't believe that the real issue is whether authority is good or not, but whether we are ready to honour and submit."

That's an extremely silly statement when you think about it. So wherever you are, whoever your master is (God, Satan, Hitler or Mandela) you submit without making sure who/what it is you're submitting to? Crazy!!!

Cargo Cults

Belief systems start up SNAP – just like that!

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic – Arthur C. Clarke.

If you sometimes wonder how God came into being, it’s really quite simple. When a primitive culture encounters a more advanced culture (and not necessarily of a different species), engendering godlike status is a natural, if illogical reaction.

Cargo cults have been around for as long as 200 years, and as recently as 30 years ago. Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion writes: “It seems that in every case the islanders were bowled over by the wondrous possessions of the white immigrants [coming] to their islands, including administrators, soldiers and missionaries.”

Rituals that seem at first to be incomprehensible, later make perfect sense. They’re intended ‘to persuade the gods to send cargo.’ Richard Dawkins explores this interesting aberration in human beings from page 202 of his book. He notes that several cargo cults sprang up during the same period all over the world. David Attenborough indicates cults springing up in New Caledonia, Fiji, the Solomon islands, the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and ‘over fifty [cults] in New Guinea’.
Attenborough writes: ‘The majority of these religions claim that one particular messiah will bring the cargo when the day of apocalypse arrives.’

Dawkins ponders whether so many similar cults indicate ‘unifying features of human psychology’. The legend of John Frum, which we’ll examine here in greater detail, is a fascinating example. Whether or not Frum existed as a real man is not known for certain, but in Vanuatu he was treated as a savior, as a figure of messianic significance. Dawkins points out that although this cult is a fairly recent one (dating back to 1940), and although official government records show some (inconclusive) evidence that he existed, it is by no means certain that he did.

Remember that the primitive people who encountered white sailors noticed they never seemed to make anything. If something was needed these ‘gods’ went away and came back with exactly what they needed. Obviously, if you have an ‘island’ psychology, meaning if your world and perception of the world (and the universe) is confined to your and a few neighboring islands, then it simply doesn’t occur to you that these boats are sailing unimaginably long distances into a completely different environment, with vast cities, where sophisticated cultures and economies have developed.

So the natives viewed the cargo as supernatural. After all, the gods seemed to spend all their time in rituals, and none in conventional practice (such as hunting, fishing, or planting crops). Dawkins suggests that shuffling papers behind a desk, to a primitive, might appear to be ‘a kind of religious devotion’.

It’s important to remember that the pattern for cargo cults doesn’t vary. There’s a single blueprint. If you’d like to verify for yourself (something one should always do), refer to David Attenborough’s book Quest in Paradise.
Now, the primitives put together an idea how to procure ‘cargo’. Bear in mind that for them, cargo is a source of magic. Cargo is not merely treasure, it is life enhancing, life transforming. So how do you ‘get’ cargo? What rituals need to be performed? Dawkins writes: ‘Build masts with wires… listen to small boxes that glow with light and emit noises…persuade the locals to dress up in identical clothes and march around…’

The legend goes that a small white haired man with a bird-like voice would come again, wearing a shiny coat glittering with buttons. Frum was something of a revolutionary, prophesying and turning the locals against the visiting missionaries. According to the cult, Frum went to his ancestors (which must mean he was killed), but promised to return, and his return would bring abundance to the people (in the form of cargo). Frum’s prophesies were about cataclysms and natural disasters, his return would heal the sick, and bring youth to the old and infirm. Everyone would have as much cargo as they wanted. Interestingly, Frum also prophesied that on his return he’d bring a new currency, coins with coconuts on them, which led to the local inhabitants spending all their money in 1941. Despite serious damage to the local economy, and numerous arrests, the cult continued.

Then, a few years later, the local religious leaders promoted a new version of the Frum cult, informing the locals that Frum was the King of America, and would arrive out of the sky in an aeroplane. In order to lure him to land, the locals cleared forest and built dummy aeroplanes on the new airstrip. The airstrip even had a dummy tower and dummy air-traffic controllers (made of wood).

In the 1950’s Attenborough visited Vanuatu (specifically an island called Tanna), taking a cameraman with him. After finding evidence of the Frum religion, they finally found the high priest, a man called Nambas. The priest referred to Frum as ‘John’ and claimed to communicate constantly with him by ‘radio’. His exact words: ‘Radio belong John’.
The radio turned out to be a woman with a wire around her waist who would supposedly act as a conduit, and the priest was able to decipher her twaddle. Nambas also claimed to know in advance that Attenborough was coming, since John had told him.

Attenborough asked what Frum looked like.
Nambas: ‘’E look like you. ’E got white face. ‘E tall man…’
Apparently the legend continues to change and evolve, but one thing was certain. Frum would return on February 15 (though of course the exact year is unknown.) When Attenborough observed a ceremony to welcome John Frum on February the 15th, he asked one of the devotees, a fellow called Sam: ‘Isn’t 19 years a long time to wait?’ (It had been 19 years since the ‘real’ Frum had ‘promised’ to return with bountiful cargo).
Sam replied: ‘If you can wait 2000 years for Jesus Christ to come an ‘e no come, then I can wait more than 19 years for John.’

In 1974 Prince Philip visited these selfsame islands, and immediately became deified. Dawkins makes the excellent point that the details of a religion can change very quickly, and spring up suddenly, out of nothing.
And Dawkins provides the following 4 lessons from the above scenario, which are worth considering:
1) The speed at which beliefs come into existence
2) Speed at which the origination process covers its tracks
3) Human psychology is demonstrably susceptible to religion
4) Cargo cults are strikingly similar to other religions

Dawkins also points out that in the modern era charismatic celebrities like Princess Diana, Mother Theresa and Elvis Presley have all but been deified as well. There is also a need to declare people, who seemed particularly good to us, as saints. And people, especially Catholics, routinely pray to saints (as Saint Joan did).

After studying this subject over the past few weeks, I’ve personally had a few conversations on the forbidden subject of Religion, and I have to say, I don’t enjoy the topic at all. I constantly feel I am getting sucked into diseased or contagious thinking, and even when you offer a cogent statement you get a response that is frankly – well, it stops the conversation cold. It’s difficult to share one’s beliefs openly and honestly when one’s beliefs are prescribed as opposed to the natural result of experiencing reality.

But I understand how powerful beliefs are because I held certain beliefs (of faith) very strongly at one time, and regurgitated my responses (as I see so many doing) without having the presence of mind (note the meaning of those words: presence of mind) to reflect on whether these really are our conscious thoughts.

The Cargo Cult phenomenon posits the following: we wouldn’t believe in our beliefs if they weren’t so easy to believe. Sometimes what we believe makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t, but the point is, the belief itself is sticky and efficient, and it works for us in some way. Unfortunately, believing something doesn’t make it true. Belief isn’t a prerequisite for reality, but consciousness is. Being conscious is not in the same boat as having a belief, in fact it’s fair to suggest that beliefs prevent us from accessing the obvious reality in the present moment. Why, because our present paradigm has been overthrown by overarching programming. We are susceptible to throwing away what we know when faced with something that appears magical or simply hard to explain or even hard to imagine (like sophisticated devices, like the coming into being of the universe, like what happens after w edie). It’s fair, from a certain point of view, to intuit a God into a universe that seems to have clockwork beyond our imagination, but if that’s our response then we ought to humbly admit that God is merely our definition of the magic, mystery and majesty of the universe. Few people, including me, would find anything wrong with that.