As Yourself – and – WALL-E’s Dystopian Vision

MSNBC reports on research that – shockingly – concludes that we judge our own moral lapses more leniently than those of others.

We tend to give ourselves a break when it comes to our moral failings, where we tend to shake our heads and "tsk, tsk" the same kind of things in other people.
This is why it is no mere cliché when God says to "Love your neighbor as yourself". If it were easy, He probably wouldn’t see the need to repeat it over and over. Part of living that command is bringing the same kind of understanding to the sins of others that we bring to our own, to cut each other a little slack… not to call black white (or the ever popular "gray"), but to be ready with compassion and forgiveness. This is not a matter of making all moral choices equally valid (in which case there could be nothing to forgive) – just the opposite. It is a matter of confronting sin in genuine love.

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I just finished reading Steven Greydanus’ fine review of Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E, and it reminded me of this post about futurist David Zach. It reminded me specifically of the fascinating talk he gave at the recent annual G.K. Chesterton Conference, because it sounds like in the WALL-E movie, the writers make a common mistake that people make when thinking about the future; that is, they look at recent trends and follow them into the future in a straight line. So, if Americans have been getting fatter, lately, then they trace that development into the future as if we will all just continue getting fatter and fatter. the same goes for our media habits and lack of interaction with one another. The movie assumes these things will continue ad infinitum.

Now, I call this a "mistake" on the part of the creators of WALL-E, but I don’t think it was, really. If they were seriously presenting their ideas of what the future will be like, then it might be a mistake, but what they are doing is actually fine and good for storytellers. They are just exploring recent trends in our society and are using the future to pull them apart and show them to us… using the future as a kind of mirror on our lives.

I’m no tree hugger, I remain a Global Warming skeptic, but I have no problem with the moral that we need to pollute less and waste less and be more responsible. I applaud the movie makers’ critique of our media habits and our tendency to ignore relationships with real flesh and blood people. Why, instead of doing things, would we rather sit on our cans and watch other people do things?

I haven’t seen WALL-E, but I hope to this weekend. Pixar are a bunch of geniuses (or is it genii?).

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