Is the Future Worth Fighting For?
Even though the movie Star Wars, A New Hope begins with the words, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” it tells a “future” space-age story about the forces of evil that seek total annihilation of inhabitants of all planets in order for the Empire to gain utmost supremacy and control the universe.
“The Force” for good resides in and on the side of those who combat this enemy.
In a scene from Star Wars, Princess Leia says to Luke, “Your friend is quite the mercenary. I wonder if he cares about anything … or anybody.”
Luke says, “I care.”
“I care” is the opposite of indifference.
Caring is costly. Caring means get involved in the struggle. Caring is the opposite of acknowledgment of problems without action.
May the Fourth Be With You
This past weekend, May 4th, 2024, the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra performed the entire soundtrack to the movie Star Wars. The film ran full-length on a giant screen behind the orchestra at the Buddy Holly Performance Hall.
The movie Star Wars has maintained popularity since its release in 1977, continuing to resonate with new generations of viewers. The Lubbock symphony performance was spectacular!
The moment Maestro David Cho and his orchestra played the opening screen credits for Twentieth Century Fox, the audience burst into applause and the final notes played “brought down the house.”
A whole new world
In a NYT article I read this week, titled “Hollywood’s New Fantasy: A Magical Colorblind Past” (March 31, 2024) it says, “Films and TV shows keep reimagining history as a multiracial dream world. Is that really a step forward?”
This same article states:
”Across the arts, we now see so many worlds that never existed.”
It has finally dawned on me. What I have witnessed take place in contemporary films and TV shows is not aimed to make someone like me accept that the queen in series adaptation of a novel like Bridgerton was a black woman, or the characters racially mixed and sexually disoriented in more recent television series represent the wider population, or that these things are historically accurate.
I have nothing against any race, or the actors or mixed race couples, or even a black woman cast as the queen. I noted this example because the NYT article used Bridgerton as its example of how periods in history are being recast. Misrepresentation attempts forgeries of historical accuracy.
These reconditions and repurposed stories form the basis of indoctrinating the next generations! Succeeding generations gets much more of what it believes to be factual from visual media. Media can, does, and often purposely distorts the truth, conditioning people to believe lies.
When Disney went woke, I imagined, as the saying goes, Walt Disney turned over in his grave.
But young children have no concept of the past, or even their future. It’s “A whole new world.” Just ask Aladdin.1
In our woke culture, people alive today are expected to pay a price for history’s “mistakes.” Generally speaking, we have been forced to accept responsibility for the sins of omission and commission of previous generations.
Everywhere in the media, from commercial television and advertising to mainstream movies, a disproportionate representation of race and sexuality exists to indoctrinate succeeding generations.
I’m not as concerned about what’s being written to sway contemporary masses, to make people accept the current prevailing messages as facts rather than opinion. Frankly my dears, most of the masses are not readers. They are watchers. They are social media consumers. They are sheep without a shepherd.
“If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now — not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground — would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune form the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
The microphone of this age is in the hands of many who are indifferent, if not hostile, to history.
Unless you read the Bible for yourself, history remains a mystery and the unknown Future may lie in the hands of AI.
Wizards behind the curtain will continue to craft and create illusions that proliferate and promote lies.
Viewpoints always vary. “What you see depends on where you are standing and what kind of person you are” is how C.S. Lewis put it.
I didn’t live through WWII yet I am a student of its world history and a student of Bible history as well. Evil always emerges in human form, whether kings or leaders or combined enemies of nations.
The High Cost of Indifference
People everywhere find themselves in the crosshairs of the Enemy behind all enemies, the way the Evil Empire sought to destroy entire planets.
A message of hope gets repeated throughout the Bible, and God’s people are charged with repeating this message and answering vain and empty philosophies.2
In another Star Wars scene where the story has made the point that the entire universe is threatened by evil and whole worlds are being destroyed by these evil forces, Leia says to Han Solo, “If all you care about is money … “, telling him to take his reward and go.
Later, Han redeems himself. He swoops in piloting the Millennium Falcon just in time to save the mission, send Darth Vader spinning into space, and saves Luke’s life. Han chose to care rather than remain indifferent.
Indifference is a lethal weapon. Indifference never takes action. Indifference means I don’t care.
But if you do care “about anything … anybody,” the basis of hope is not new. It’s in our DNA to want good to prevail.
Remember who and what you care about.
1 The song “A Whole New World” won both an Oscar and a Grammy for song of the year, 1993.
2 See Colossians 2:8