The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 23 and Ontology on Pandora

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THE “DOUBLE MIRROR” IN JAMES CAMERON'S AVATAR – PHILOSOPHY, ECOLOGY, IDEOLOGY AND ONTOLOGY ON PANDORA

Abstract. This article is mainly a reading of Another Pocahontas story, ideologies that make of Cameron's “Avatar”, or is there something more? based on the fact that Cameron has integrated multiple ideologies within the story frame This was one of the early critical of his 3D movie. The research starts with observations regarding the movie. Most the discussion on the problem of avatars in of the online, non-fans, skeptics and the history of culture and philosophy and critics have pointed out that this is just moves towards the description of concepts another “Pocahontas” story: A native from neurosciences, deep ecologism and woman (Indian - Omaticaya) named Marxism or Feminism that have influenced (Pocahontas - Neytiri) leads the white James Cameron's narrative. The author uses Northrop Frye’s concept of double mirror, man (John Smith – Jake Sully) into the as a symbolic interpretation form, meant to wilderness (North America - Pandora), explain the key oppositions in the movie, and during this experience he learns which are not only the relationship between the way of the people (Indian - Na’vi) human and aliens, but also those of mind and becomes their saviour (Toruk over matter, nature versus technology and Macto). One possible answer is that the power against community. All these concepts technological achievement matches the are towards followed in their convergence a constant double representation, practiced simplicity of the narrative thread and with regard both to character development while 60% of this movie is artificial and narrativity and with respect to audience reconstruction, it transports the viewer and actors, and in the changes of the dynamics deep into the fantastic flora of Pandora, of cinema production in the XXI Century. an exotic moon outside the solar system, in forests populated by fabulous animals, EKPHRASIS, 1/2009 with creatures belonging to another Integrating Methodologies world and another way of life. And still, in Visual Culture Research pp. 23-51 24 Doru POP

emplotment (Barthes, 1975, 32). For it is we, as mesmerized spectators, who are suspended in an avatar-like trance. This is where the first element of the double nature, of the double mirroring in this movie is coming into place from the very start. The simplicity of the narrative helps us follow Jake Sully as he is offered the possibility to become his own avatar while we are at our turn avatars of the second degree. The key argument here is that Cameron’s movie is more than the accessible storytelling, designed for a global audience, or the descent from traditional American narrative, going back to Fenimore Cooper. This is a step forward from James Stewart’s 1950s “Broken Arrow”, or Kevin Costner’s this is a simplistic, linear storytelling, “Dancing with the Wolves”, where the covered in a too overt ideology. Upon white men abandon their own identity the arrival on the planetoid called for the sake of love. This is more than Pandora, the main character, Jake Sully, the re-telling of the story in Little Big a former marine, now paraplegic, whose Man (1970), where the massacre of the twin brother unexpectedly died and left Sioux nation becomes the vengeance of him to take his place in controlling an the Omaticaya against the (mostly) white “avatar” of a being having a mixed DNA men aggression on Pandora. Also, Avatar – belonging to this dead brother and a provides more than the landscapes in The creature belonging to the Na’vi culture Horse Whisperer (1998), revamped into a on Pandora – falls in love, transforms 3D extravaganza meant to bring into action himself, and ends up saving the entire planet. How can we escape this apparent the nostalgia for a simpler way of life. simplicity? Roland Barthes, reading It is a philosophical jump into the Zola, has solved this question. Although phenomenology of the mind, a rethinking the ideology is obvious, the tedious of the relationship between matter and nature of the author’s intent is clear and mind, possessing the ontological question sometimes aggressive, but the pleasure of life after death and the nature of soul, of reading or, in the case of Cameron’s and thus of immortality, and tackling the Avatar, the pleasure of seeing fantastic epistemological problems of mediated worlds supersedes this superficiality of reality and philosophy of alien religion. The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 25 and Ontology on Pandora

As for the term “double mirror”, it of the Na’vi is the reverse of Earth. It is comes from Northrop Frye’s interpre- not by chance that the planet in the Alfa tation of the biblical myth of Exodus, Centauri system, around which Pandora referring to the “U” shape of the symbolic gravitates, is called Polyphemus. For in return. The “double mirror” in “Avatar” Cameron’s works the multiple links with is similar – maybe with the added multiple and different mythologies is an allegory of the binocular, stereoscopic artistic statement. The connection here projection that comes to mind because is clear and explicit: Pandora, the wife of the 3D technology – in that it has a of Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus, who constant returning to its initial reference has released suffering into the human point (Frye and MacPherson, 2004). The world, becomes now an entity that is symbolism and the mythology in Avatar founded on peace, interior balance, (as well as the ideological structures natural equilibrium and love. On the and the ontological connotations) are other hand Polyphemus, the cyclops constant returns, in a “U” shape, to very killed by Odysseus, governs a planetary much human problems. system dominated not by deceit and rational deception, as the hero from Ithaca The lost paradise of Western has put it into action, but an universe mythology and artificial reality guided by the total openness between The double mirror strikes us the very the groups and living beings there. In a moment we arrive on the alien planetoid word, Pandora is everything Earth is not, – everything about Pandora has a magical and, by consequence, the world we enter reference, for it is taken from the very by magic is a complete reversal, a mirror beginning of the Western culture. This is replica of our own world. This is again the first of the double mirrors Cameron the double mirroring we are looking for – puts into place, and it is not even a Pandora is a negative replica of our own concealed one. At the moment of the world, and in the same time the movie is “prayer” to Eywa, Jake Sully compares mirroring for us, at an individual level, a the situation on Earth, where humans dimension for escaping from reality into have “killed their mother” with that an artificial reality that is so palpable we on Pandora. Pandora (and its Mother cannot elude its attractiveness. Goddess, Eywa) is a reversed reference On the other hand, from the start of to Gaia, the Mother-Goddess of Terra, the earliest Greek civilizations to the this being even more powerful since in discovery of the Americas, there was Greek mythological representations the a constant stimulation generated by iconography of Gaia is indistinguishable the myth of the Lost Paradise. Another from that of Pandora. If within human utopian paradise, is not an innovative mythology Pandora is the reverse of Gaia, concept. But this recurrent myth, together in the Pandoran mythology the planet with the Edenic nature of the computer 26 Doru POP generated Garden in another planetary becoming acceptable. All this time, system, has multiple connotations, it Cameron is constantly mixing pictures can also be Samsara, the absolute illusory with double meaning, generating an reality in Buddhism transformed by 3D artificial reality that allows us to connect technology. So Cameron is mixing again with it. If we look in the background of two different cultural representations, Hieronymus Bosch’s Eden (the left panel and out of this double mirroring a new of the Garden of Delights) it is populated symbolic context is created. by similar colors and shapes, whereas Out of this comes what Myron Krueger, the new Adam and Eve are Jake and one of the most important theorists of Neytiri. All this time, Pandora is strongly artificial reality considers to be the aim connoted with the place Euhemerus of of such a world: connecting mind and Messene called Panchaia (παγχαΐα), body in a new intellectual experience of fantastic and remote island recounted the world. For Krueger the body needs also be Eusebius of Chaesareea, Ovid to rediscover a long forgotten dynamics and other Greek-Roman histories and from the invention of writing, and the narratives1. This is a world that never separation thus following between mind and the body (Krueger, 1991). We partake into a “composed expe- 1 “The nature of frankincense and the rience” of life, one possible because we preparing of it is like this: In size it is a small tree, and in appearance it resembles are transformed into avatars, witnessing the white Egyptian Acacia, its leaves are our own extensions in the 3D screen. In like those of the willow, as it is called, the Jake Sully’s own words this is the way the bloom it bears is in color like gold, and the double mirror functions: “Everything is frankincense which comes from it oozes backwards now. Like out there is the true forth in drops like tears. But the myrrh- world, and in here is the dream”. tree is like the mastic-tree, although its As viewers-avatars we are not able to leaves are more slender and grow thicker. discern between the two because of the It oozes myrrh when the earth is dug away fascination of the absolute Otherness, the from the roots, and if it is planted in fertile soil this take place twice a year, in spring visual intoxication with a universe that and in summer; the myrrh of the spring is so different from ours and remote, but is red, because of the dew, but that of the still available and believable, this is the summer is white. They also gather the mark of Cameron’s double mirroring – we fruit of the Christ’s thorn, which they use know it is different, therefore we accept both for meat and for drink and as a drug it as normal. The categorical “Other” is for the cure of dysentery.” (...) “the plain anomalous in function, and so are the six lying around the temple is thickly covered legged horse-like creatures, or the dog- with trees of every kind, not only such as bear fruit, but those also which possess copies of the primitive beings on Pandora, the power of pleasing the eye; for the plain like the Thanator, yet by their own oddity abounds with cypresses of enormous size The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 27 and Ontology on Pandora existed and yet there it is, in front of our Radical ecology and the Native indian eyes, in all its beauty and reality. roots of Pandora’s eco-biology James Cameron has publicly stated that Avatar is an ecological film, a movie he has been waiting for 15 years to be technologically able to bring to reality, and plane-trees and sweet-bay and myrtle, but at the end the cinematographic 3D sine the region is full of springs of water. stunt based on the “ecological” myths Indeed, close to the sacred precinct there of postmodernity, was an excellent bursts forth from the earth a spring of sweet way to cash in a very capitalistic profit, water of such size that it gives rise to a river on which boats may sail. And since the Cameron’s flick earned in the first 17 water is led off from the river to many parts days the margin of 1 billion for the total of the plain and irrigates them, throughout revenues worldwide, and quickly got the the entire area of the plain there grow Golden Globes for best director and best continuous forests of lofty trees, wherein dramatic picture (the Academy Awards a multitude of men pass their time in the are still pending). summer season and a multitude of birds It is obvious that the deep ecologists of make their nests, birds of every kind and the 70s and other radical environmental of various hues, which greatly delight the thinkers that have integrated some of the ear by their song; therein also is every kind of garden and many meadows with varied main Asian philosophical traditions like plants and flowers, so that there is a divine Vedanta, Daoism, or Zen into the Western majesty in the prospect which makes the ecological set of values have been of great place appear worthy of the gods of the influence in the philosophy Cameron has country. put forward in his movie. Some of the most And there were palm trees there with important ideas from the ”green tradition” mighty trunks, conspicuous for the fruits of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and they bore, and many varieties of nut- Hinduism have found their way in the bearing trees, which provide the natives of the place with the most abundant subsis- mainstream of contemporary ecologism, tence. And in addition to what we have and by consequence into “Avatar”. mentioned, grape-vines were found there Cameron has taken from Daoism the in great number and of every variety, notion that all things are interconnected, which were trained to climb high and in an ecological metaphysics constructed were variously intertwined so that they around the energy of Eywa, while another presented a pleasing sight and provided an resource is to be found in the Eastern enjoyment of the season without further philosophies of Jainism, founded on ado.” (cited by Diodorus Siculus, Library the principle that human beings are not of History 6. 1. 1-11 (from Eusebeius, Praeparatio evangelica, 2. 2. 59B - 61A) to harm any living thing, even plants, available at http://www.theoi.com/Phylos/ because life itself is sacrosanct. Another Pankhaia.html, January 2010. layer taken from the deep ecologist mix- 28 Doru POP up are Chinese conceptions of the unity gical thinking. Cameron’s view of the of humans and nature, as manifested in Pandoran animism comes from the the ideal of human existence described human-forest kinship as manifested in by Mencius. Humans need to live a life the various rituals of the proto-American in effective unity between oneself and civilizations, like the Waorani tribe, the rest of the cosmos, that is to ‘‘form in South America, and the Sioux oral one body with Heaven and Earth”. This tradition in the North of the continent. unity say Wang Yangming cultivates The Waorani, like the Omaticaya, have the key virtue of humaneness (jen) by built a culture around their relationship having similar feelings for animals and with the Equatorial forrest, where the even plants, as for other humans. In the trees play an important role in their narrative logic of Cameron’s movie this ethnogenesis. The American Indian is expressed by shahaylu, the bond in the rituals have also influenced Cameron, Pandoran universe, where human(oids) through the deep ecological philosophy connect with other human(oids) and of nature. It is clear that the Na’vi system with the animals and the nature itself by of beliefs are representations of Black the same organic means. At the end, the Elk’s visions of native-american religious thinking of the Na’vi seem to be a strange thinking. Following the world views of melange between Albert Schweitzer belief the Sioux shaman, the Omaticaya are in ‘‘reverence for life’’ and Mohandas alien descendants of Blak Elk’s proto- Gandhi’s himsa (violence) expanded ecologism from the 1960s. For Black Elk, towards the destruction of vegetable and the Sioux spirit died when the sacred animal life. tree was dead, at least that is the North The religion designed by Cameron for American Indian environmental ethic the population on Pandora is Aboriginal noted by Caucasian researchers. This is as in the Original, because the Natives the Hometree of the Na’vi, the 250 meters of the Pandora moon are called Na’vi, a sequoia like tree where the Omaticaya mere linguistic short form for the word people live for generations. Here they „native”. It’s a reference to the indigenous practice Shamanic ecstasy, they develop American ethnic groups – professor Paul the cult of the ancestors and they lead a Frommer, from the University of South “normal” primitive life, in a very striking California developed a new language similarity with the Amerindians. Their for the aboriginals of the moon of material culture is also imported from Polyphemus (Matteo, 2010), a language paleoamerican sources, the hair due and “without writing”, belonging to a culture the clothing, the ornaments of the leaders impervious to the written dominance of of the tribe and the religious chanting are the Western civilization. references to Paleo-Indians. Here the real resource becomes In Black Elk’s vision there are seve- explicit, it is common to the deep ecolo- ral references to the Oneness of the rela- The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 29 and Ontology on Pandora tionship between humans and nature, purely neuro-scientific definition of the where the world is conceptualized as brain as an enormous electrical energy an all encompassing circle. In the vision interconnected, taking place within the of the Sioux shaman, all things within neural cells. Even the visualization of the circle are related to one another, and the energetic Eywa is a transposition of by this are made holy. The Black Elk the Purkinje’s depiction of the neural expressed his conviction that every form cells, looking like a rhizomatic tree. For of being, the two-legged (humans), the the perspective of Eywa as a collective four-legged (animals), the winged (birds), memory, Cameron’s inspiration seems the plants and the stars are part of the to be the concept of neural memory, people. By expansion, all six legged beings developed by Donald Hebb, which and the flying dragons of Pandora are also was based on a similar modulation one people, all akin and connected in a of electrochemical activity. One clear mysterious totality governed by Wakan representation of this electrochemical Tanka (the great spirit) (Steltenkamp, mysticism is depicted in the scene 1993), or Eywa, the Great Mother of the where Neytiri wants to kill Jake Sully, Na’vi. This understanding of the world but is prevented from doing so by a is explicit at least in two instances, one translucent entity, that we later discover that belongs to Eywa. This entity, called where Jake Sully experiences Vitraya by the natives atokirina, are similar to Ramunong – The Well of Souls – and dandelion seeds, with long, translucent when he arrives to utraya mokri – the cilia, filled with light and floating like Tree of Voices, where the voices of all feathers is an electronic representation of the Na’vi ancestors live within Eywa and bioluminescence. It was Ramón y Cajal communicate with their descendants. who came up first with the concept of Eywa as a neuronal metaphor neurons as „butterflies of the soul” – and at an estimated total of 100 billion But how does this trans-temporal and neurons, transmitting information by cross-natural communication work? It electrochemical processes, we can easily starts with the very depiction of Eywa, make the transposition into humanity’s the Mother Goddess of Pandora, as a (or the Na’vi’s) history. This connection more complex entity than the simplistic that goes beyond time and space is human nature connection of the Native plausible, if we consider that the entire American mythology (be it modern or human population, be it dead or alive, ancient). It is rooted in the atomist view constitutes a single entity of neurons, of the world of pre-Socratic philosophies, continuously communicating among as contoured by Leucippus in the eternal each other, provided the necessary infra- and uncreated particles that surround structure is in place. us. Cameron’s view of a planet wide The concept is not related only to the connection among beings is based on a “priests” of neurosciences, for example 30 Doru POP

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Catholic perspective (Churchland, 1989). As philosopher who developed the notion early as 1979, Churchland proposed that we (as human beings) have entered the concept of „plasticity of mind”, a into a new geological age, the “psychozoic concept that would allow another form of era.” Chardin described the development experiencing the world, a nonsentential, of a web of interacting thoughts, commu- neurally-based mode of communication, nications, and artifacts that are covering based on the human desire for direct the Earth in a new sphere, one similar brain-to-brain communication between to the neural structure of the brain separate beings, founded on the person’s (suggestion made earlier by MacLuhan). In “symphony of neural activity”. this respect, Eywa can be seen as the bio- Churchland used a comparison Internet of Pandora, because the Pandoran between language based exchange of nervous system is described in terms of information and neural exchanges, “why electrical transfer of information, and crawl, when you can fly”, and in Avatar the visual depiction is similar with that this becomes a visual representation of for the telephone lines. The mechanism the evolution of Jake Sully as a character. for avatar identity transfer is founded Sully begins as a crawler (the soldiers in in this electrochemical belief, similar to the beginning of the movie call him “meals the electroencephalograph, registering on wheels” due to his disability to walk) the band waves of the brain on delta and latter, as a metaphor of the neural and gamma frequencies. Detecting the transformation, he turns into Toruk Macto, neural activity in the brain by recording the flying hero of the moon Pandora. electric bursts is a mechanical view of In the same way we can identify the the way the human brain operates, so functioning of Eywa with the Oriental the communication between Eywa and ecologist philosophies that integrate its „children” is based on a very much one important Confucian concept, that human concept. of qi. For the Chinese philosophers and Also, the transfer by means of a trans- metaphysical practitioners, the cosmos is cendental neural tube, very similar as a dynamic, organismic whole, unified by visual effect with the space travels in a psychophysical element, the qi. This is the Star Gate series, makes the exchange almost identical with the flow of energy between „avatar” and the „host” a strictly Neytiri teaches Jake Sully to coordinate. electro-spacial event. In the same time, Also, the Na’vi community is designed in the neural tubes form in the embryo in a balance with nature and the structures the early stage of the vertebrate, making of nature corresponding to fengshui, the it an evolutionary symptom. On another art of living according to the rule that level, the communication within Eywa’s everything is alive around us. neuronal network is very similar to Another level of convergence between Paul Churchland’s neurocomputational Oriental energetic philosophies and the The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 31 and Ontology on Pandora description of Eywa is to be found in the other planets in Cameron’s movie. And climactic point of the movie (drastically the post-Darwinian belief in the cosmic cut for the PG-13 rating), where we witness nature of genes is the cornerstone of this the very tantric nature of the neural cosmology of the movie – the mixture connecting (Weinstone, 2004), one that of human and alien DNA is not only raises the difficult problem of the sepa- a possibility, but it also became an ration between physical connections and evolutionary necessity. The all-powerful metaphysical transfers. It is only when gene, in the very Dawkesian definition, is the movie ends with the triumph of the that which leads us to a cosmic consensus. neuronal Darwininsm of Gerald Edelman, The genes are looking for survival, and who designed a theory of the fighting for their only possibility is to integrate with survival of the neurons, when this leads other powerful genes. us to another double mirror in Avatar, Moreover, the Na’vi are nothing but the projection of an anthropocentric view aliens with anthropomorphic characte- into a non-human context. ristics, to such a level that their behavior is similar to human traits, some given by The double mirror of alien Darwinism Disney to his animal characters (Bambi Montaigne’s essay “Of Cannibals” being just one of them). Also, the totality contains one of the earliest suggestions of the social behavior of these pseudo- on the fact that the aliens (as savages) humans is based on earth’s primitive are nothing but „other versions of man”, cultures, so, on one hand we have the actually any alien life form being just “real” humans, that act without human another expression of our own selves. This characteristics, considered as “malignant” anthropomorphizing of alien cultures has to ecology, and on the other the “avatar” been a traditional one in the history of humans, considerably more positive and cinema, since Georges Méliès created the more willing to preserve humaneness in first alien beings on the Moon (A Trip to the cosmic order. the Moon, 1902), looking exactly like the The avatar is growing in an amniotic primitives the French encountered in liquid and, more important, is fed by Africa and with simian characteristics. means of an umbilical chord, which is Pandora too is a human-like space an indication of a placenta birth, thus without mankind, the perfect solution mammal by nature, because placenta for an imperfect humanity. The humans growth is one of the most important are cast away and the only human phylogenetic evolutionary successes. beings remaining on the planetoid are There is another scene where Cameron those transfigured into Na’vi, or those provides us with a glimpse of his alien who support this transformation. But, Darwinism. Lost in the jungle, Jake meets on the other hand, there is an explicit a group of six legged blue creatures, anthropocosmic perspective of life on that are identified by dr. Augustine as 32 Doru POP prolemurs, suggesting indirectly that (maybe due to the fact that Cameron’s the aboriginal population could have ideal for the main female character was descended from this group. Also Col. for the audience “to want to fXXk her” Quaritch and Selfridge repeatedly call (quoted in the Schell interview). Even the natives blue tailed monkeys, with the size of the Na’vi are based on human clear indication to their origins. The measurements, elaborated in 1735, by blueness of the prolemurs and of the the German mathematician Christian Na’vi is an example of the „morphological Wolff. Wolff published a formula for variations” Darwin speaks about when calculating the size of creatures on other addressing human evolution. planets starting with the assumption that The Omaticaya live in a biotic commu- height is proportional to the size of the nity, similar to what Darwin has described eye, and that the square of the diameter of as the prototype of the early homo the pupil is proportional to the available sapiens, living in natural communities. light intensity, Wolff calculated that the These non-conflictual alien societies, average height of the beings living on with intimate existence, without private Jupiter, which was precisely 13.57 feet! spaces and no specific communitarian (cited by Grinspoon, 2004). ethic, are an environmental melange of So here we have another double mirror, idealized ethnicities. the creatures on Pandora are apparently In an interview on his work with genderless and sexual have no organs, Cameron, the concept artist Jordu Schell or the explicit feminine nutritive organs (Schell, 2010), who created the models (which makes the Na’vi females look like for the Na’vi, says that James Cameron the pre-Renaissance women, with their had him make humanoid cat creatures, concealed sexuality) are still dependent superimposed with “beautiful ethnic on “artificial devices” of cultural gender women” – amongst them Mary J. Blige stereotypes, to the point where we cannot and Q’Orianka Kilcher. Although it is not make any difference between the natural explicit how the cat features mix with the from the artificial. At some point all the lemur descendant, one thing is for sure in creatures on Pandora seem to come out the alien Darwinism of Cameron, gender of Discovery Channel’s Alien Planet. We divides are still an issue in the opened have creatures with cat-like noses and world of Pandora. Not only the Na’vi have eyes, plus a monkey tail, with smurph sexual partners, but also the horses are colored skin, nine feet tall slender beings, bi-gendered. This sexual division of the interacting with the flying mountain reproduction on Pandora is important banshees, the thanator dog, the dire horse for the dynamics of the movie, since the and other Paleozoic beings, everything Omaticaya males (the leader of the clan, in a subsidiary evolutionary processes, Eytukan) are testosterone filled, while mimicking the evolution on earth – the females are softer and more tender we still have mammals and egg-laying The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 33 and Ontology on Pandora creatures. All these beings interact exactly known as “mind-body controversy”, as the Harvard biologist Edward Wilson a debate that is centered around the described by the term biophilia, which fundamental question: “What are the is the ‘‘innately emotional affilia-tion of human beings made of?” When talking human beings to other living organisms’’ about this divide and about avatars, a (Wilson, 1993) But biophilia is based few consequences come into action: are on the very deterministic relationship we just bodies with a will, are we reason between humans and their environment. filled objects, or are we dual beings, a We started as gatherers, in close contact mix of the two? with nature and our ancestral habitats, One answer comes from the depictions so this in turn has influenced our social of avatars in the theology of Hinduism. behavior. The concept of psychophysical dualism has a long tradition in Oriental philosophy Psycho/physical split and religion, but strictly etymologically and the essence of an avatar speaking “avatar” is a composite Sanskrit So what is it in an avatar that makes term between “ava” (down) and “tī” (to it an avatar? The concept has been used cross). According to the Hindu tradition, long before the Internet integrated the „Avatāra” refers to the Sanskrit term term itself into the everyday use of virtual meaning “descent”, simply put the interaction – the notion itself is connected descent of a god from heavens to earth. to the way we understand identity. Any deity descending among humans Whether we are surfing the Internet, on earth is, thus, an avatar. In a strict embroiled in role – playing games, or connection with the term, Jake Sully typing a substitute name, or developing descending from the heavens Pandora entire new persons on socializing sites, and its culture makes him an avatar. On the computer – driven activities become the other hand, this concept is one of components of our minds. We are the most common ground in the world hybrids, functioning with a split identity: religions, the transcendent God (or gods) the physical is separated by the psychic can manifest themselves in the material identity. But Cameron’s avatars cannot be world by way of taking various bodily or explained as simple computer-mediated physical aspects, so that the mortals can hybrids, nor generic beings created by understand their existence and receive genetic manipulation, controllable by their subsequent messages. The avatars in telepathic machines by human scientists. Cameron’s movie are conceived as other These sci-fi creatures are references to world entities entering the Na’vi culture some thousands of years old and deeply in the same way as the ancient earthly human questioning. It contracts a century gods. old debate around mind and matter, and But how many manifestations can an it builds upon the philosophical debate avatar have, one or multiple, because 34 Doru POP the Vaishnavism holds that there are the invisible gods is key to understanding 10 manifestations of the god Vishnu, the mythological relevance of the while Shaivism depicts 28 expressions Avatāra system of beliefs, and key to of Shiva. But, if following Friedhelm distinguishing the philosophy behind Hardy’s suggestion, that the Avatāra Cameron’s view of this issue. indicate the empty nature of the archaic The avatāra are not „incarnations” in figure of a Supreme God, and that the the etymological sense we have in Greek, characteristics of the specific gods are where ensarkosis (incarnation) means mere manifestations, expressed by the coming into flesh and subsequent filling the void of significance (Hardy, integration of entities, the avatara holds 1994), this takes us to the next level no amalgamation possibility, and the of symbolic meaning. Because the god manifestations of Vishnu are not to be Vishnu undertakes avatāras in order identified with the identity of the God to bring benevolence and to positively himself (Sheth, 2002). Here Cameron influence the life of the mortal beings supports a view somehow similar to and Krishna comes as avatārra in order the worldview of the Christian sect of to bring salvation to humanity. Here is Docetists. For the followers of this heretic a key twist to the avatar conceptions, sect, Christ only seems to have incarnated the capability of presenting itself into himself into the flesh manifestation of different and multiple configurations, in Jesus. Christ remains truly Godlike and different figures, is consistent with the uses the carnal body – thus not dying in Hindu belief that the self is a permanent, the physical world, and remaining a pure immaterial substance, to which belong spirit. It is relevant that doceo in Latin non-physical internal states like means to “appear”, to “look like”, and cognition. So the avatars can take the the question of Christ’s identity, divine behavioral and cognitive capacities of or human, bodily or spiritual. their respective material expressions. There is another conceptual clarifica- The teleology of Avatar tion that needs to be addressed, since the In a teleological view of the world avatar is not an “incarnation”, in the strict history, all actions converge towards a pre- Christian sense, but more specifically it established purpose. This is a Hegelian is an “appearance” or a “manifestation” view of history, and of the inevitable (Matchett, 2001). The Avatāra doctrine consequences of history – history is within Hinduism is based on this kind a dialectic process, the conflicts of of „descending” of the god Vishnu, as opposing ideas and opinions are followed Krishna, Vashudeva, Narayana or any of not by the destruction of one against the the other gods, so that they are visible other, but a synthesis of the two. The for the believers, but not dependent to dialectic of history is oriented towards their bodily expressions. The visibility of a predetermined end, all history ends – The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 35 and Ontology on Pandora like, for example in the Marxist version depleted – and continues in the same of Hegelian dialectics, history ends logic, because the appearances of human with the triumph of Communism. For beings are constantly inferior, based on Cameron this ending of history is based a fundamental complex of physical and on a fundamental posthumanistic, or mental incompleteness of humanity. We rather transhumanistic vision, because can find the philosophical resources of the it is based on the extinction (total or fact that humans are childish for the Na’vi partial) of human beings. Judgement- in the Kantian concept of Illumination as Day is a constant term in the philosophy being the path of humanity outside its of Terminator, and in most of Cameron’s infancy, an infancy of reason, turned into moviemaking (Robb, 2002). For Cameron an infancy of behavior in the context of there is always the imminent conscience a complex universe. Here Kant’s belief of the fact that this apocalyptic event in the possibility of alien life on other is going to occur no matter what the planets is an added bonus to the thinking individuals do or think (in Terminator 2 put in place by Cameron in a gnoseology and 3 this is a recurrent theme), while founded on the inability of men to gather the second installment of the movie is and obtain resources. Humans need suggestively subtitled Terminator 2: tools and machines to reach the same Judgment Day. Cameron was constantly level of physical and mental strength as preoccupied with the problem of the the indigenous people of Pandora, who survival of the human species from the have „reinforced bones” and can connect very beginning of his carrier as a director. with their planet and the creatures For example in his first movie, Xenon of that planet by means of biological Genesis (1977) – meaning alien creation neural connections. Human beings are – two humans are searching in space for nothing but condemned in the cosmic a place where they can restart the cycle competition for survivor. of creation. Later, be it in conflict with an The same philosophy of human anni- alien race (Alien, 1986), or, as in The Abyss hilation is build into the Terminator series. (1989), with the prevention of World War Kyle Reese comes from a future where III, Cameron integrated this teleological machines have obliterated human-kind, conception of cosmic and human history while Jake Sully arrives to Pandora from a in most of his productions. world where humans have but destroyed A post human teleology conceived their planet. In a way very similar to the as a predetermined plan of nature to Na’vi, the machines in Terminator are annihilate the human race – this is the superior to humans, and this opposition fundamental conceptual premise of of qualities is common for the two Cameron’s Avatar. The narrative of Avatar movies, since the Na’vi possess a certain begins in a post-apocalyptic context physical superiority, both in strength – all the resources of planet Earth are and intelligence compared to human 36 Doru POP beings, and the robots in the Terminator the coexistence of two different entities movies are all but human, in a way that (Beakley and Ludlow, 1992). they are developed as better humans. The The problem comes up powerfully in question raised in The Terminator series one of the most dramatic scenes in Avatar, is the same in Avatar – if humans can when the climax of the story reaches the survive the extinction of humanity, this is no return point and the avatar of Jake possible only by the renunciation of their Sully falls lifeless on the ground, Tsu-Tey human nature, that is the betterment of says to the Omaticaya people, “This is a the two forms of existence by the mixing demon in a false body, it should not live”. of their characteristics. For the Na’vi, the avatars are soulless We witness the same conception at the devils, because there is no connection end of Avatar, when Jake Sully succeeds between the body and the spirit, but, if we consider their religious thinking, in the mixing of the human mind with expressed by Neytiri as “latent energy”, the DNA modified Na’vi body, which in a so are all the beings on Pandora, they all very teleological way is not the end of the are avatars of an energy that only flows conflict, but the opening of a possibility into their bodies for a while. for the resolution of a conflict, where only And this kind of reasoning is not one side of humanity is eliminated from totally alien, as described above, starting Pandora, while other “humans” are kept with Plato (and later the Neo-Platonists as adjuvants, witnessing the implacable and the gnostics), human philosophers nature of history, flowing in a certain have developed the conception of the soul direction, that cannot be escaped (Singer, as captive in the prison of the body (Plato, 2001). Gorgias, 493a). By consequence, this soul can be released, either by metaphysical Avatars, bodies without souls, actions or by spiritual practices. If for or souls without bodies Platonic thinking the soul is divine by In the Western philosophical tradition nature, while the body belongs to inferior there are four main philosophical stances dimensions of life, it seems to be the same in this dealing with the question of the in the philosophy of the Na’vi, who take relationship between the soul and the animal life but appreciate the soul as body – the idealist philosophers treating belonging to a higher order of things. In mind as the most important substance, the the Platonic tradition, the body is just a materialists who support the idea that the tomb, an immutable entity, while the soul mind itself belongs to the material world is free and reborn. The soul is a helpless (including its emotional manifestations), prisoner, forced to see reality through the the functionalists, who give way to bars of the bodily prison (Phaedo, 83a), finding a middle ground between the and this is the same for the relationship two, and the dualist approach, supporting between the avatar and its “driver”. In The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 37 and Ontology on Pandora

Cameron’s movie the bodies of the DNA “see and feel” a cut-off limb long after this transformed Na’vi are put into the total exists no longer in the physical world. coordination of the human brains. Jake Sully, the paraplegic soldier, is One radical change was produced in merely an extension of this example, for the 16th and 17th Century, when ratio- he uses his connection with the avatar nalism has developed an answer that machine to substitute his lack of bodily influenced our modern definition of this powers. relationship. Certainly Rene Descartes Another example in the Cartesian is the name that has to be mentioned, argumentation is that of the animals, who because he supported the idea that the may look like us and sometimes function mind is ontologically distinct from the like us in terms of feeling pain, hunger physical body. For Descartes, the mind and other primitive emotions, yet they are is defined as “res cogitans”, while the not human because they lack soul. The physical body is “res extensa”, the thinking essence of the soul, on the other hand, substance and the external substance of is derived in Descartes’ philosophy from things being totally separated. The human the brain, and here is where Cameron’s body stands apart in the material world „avatars” respect this Cartesian principle because of its connection with the mind, of priority of the mind, whereas the this immaterial, non-extended substance, soul is conceived as a rational entity. that enables the body to participate in The rational soul cannot be operational various activities such as rational thought, without the body, and neither can the imagining or feeling. Descartes’s theory of body survive without the presence of the mind as an immaterial substance is totally soul. Like in the case of doctor Augustine, in agreement with the Na’vi definition. the soul cannot survive without a fully The key presuppositions of the Carte- functional body, and in this respect the sian dualism are that the body, being a pseudo-New Age ritual performed at the totally physical entity, is controllable tree of life by the Omaticaya people is by the laws of the physical world, while nothing but a rationalistic spectacle, put the mind, a nonphysical, spiritual and into place in order to re-establish the thinking substance, cannot be controlled connection between soul and body. by the physical laws because it operates For Descartes this relationship beyond this context, and thus functions between bodies and minds is all a matter in a higher order. The “res cogitans” of programming – the programmer controls the “res extensa”, and not the for all living beings is God. Descartes other way around. Here one of the most believed that God and nature work in famous of Descartes’ examples rings a similitude with the manner the mind reference with the biographical evolution and body cooperate, since they are of the main character in Avatar. Descartes double in nature. So in Cartesian thinking uses the example with the mind that can embodiment is a fundamental experience 38 Doru POP in the relationship between body and on the notions of bête-machines and mind. The thinking self is embodied so automatons – trying to explain the much so that it feels pain and hunger nature of human beings; this is one of and other physical discomforts in an the fundaments of Cartesian philosophy intermingling that does not evade the (Pop, 2005). All natural beings, considers material consequences. This reasoning Descartes, are fundamentally machines, put forward by Descartes is followed by built in a machine-like fashion. These the setup in Cameron’s avatar technology, “animal machines” are put on “automatic the multiple nature of body parts and the pilot”, that is they function according to unity of the mind provides the reasoned a code that is instinctively imprinted being, the thinking self, the ability to by a God that is himself compared to a operate into multiple bodily appearances, clockmaker. Wired like the mechanisms but still preserving the complete memory in a clock, functioning in the absence of of these experiences. their maker, but according to his rules, It is a certain neo-Cartesianism in animals operate autonomously only Cameron’s view on the relationship because they were predetermined to between knowledge and the transfer function this way. Our human physiology of knowledge, coming straight from is similarly wired, and, because we react the computation theory of Alan Turing, in predictable ways, our bodily functions based on the fact that information is are operating in very much similitude to transmitted in a complex environment. avatars (Dunn, 2009). The computational transfer of perceptions The automaton is for Descartes any requires that the data in one brain is body that functions independently, ran- totally restored once the connection is ging from clocks to artificial fountains and re-affirmed with the source, which at its mills. These man made machines have an turn needs a huge storage facility. This independence that is dominated by the is very much a mechanical view of the presence of a superior intelligence, they nature of memory and of mind. themselves may not look like controlled, but by means of their lack of immaterial The good, the bad (in the machine) thinking, they are corporeal mechanisms and the avatar put in motion by a cosmic puppeteer The motion of the material being and (Hooker, 1978). In his logical thinking, all the body movements are compared Descartes starts from the premise that by Descartes with the movement of the all human beings can be concealed puppet and the pulling of the cords by the automatons (as in his window gazing invisible master. These cords are strings metaphor in the 1641 Meditation on First of nerves, signals emitted by the thinking Philosophy). entity that commands the bodily being. For N. Katherine Hayles, the avatar is Descartes has discussed extensively a cyborg puppet, an avatar in cyberspace, The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 39 and Ontology on Pandora subjectivity without corporeality (Hayles, exported this vision in the production 1999). Following the same logic the Na’vi of Avatar. Simply put, this is another avatars are bête-machines, because the double mirrored opposition, one that genetically modified beings are puppets maintains that some mechanical beings pulled by strings. Selfridge, the egotistic (Terminators) can be both good and bad, manager of the mining operations on in the same series of products. While only Pandora, dismisses the efforts of dr. Grace their software is different, they show both Augustine with these words: “Winning identities. the hearts and minds of the natives. This is the same in the development Isn’t that the whole point of your little of Avatar. Following the same concepts puppet show?” The avatar program is La Mettrie supported, that is the idea just a multibillion dollars puppet show, that there is no major difference between but with avatars on both sides, inside human beings, animals and plants, or, the movie and outside it, both in the more importantly, between nonliving narrative and in the cinematographic and living beings, the consequence is operations of Cameron. Because this is that all life forms are manipulated by another of Cameron’s double mirroring a supreme instance. For La Mettrie, all – the puppeteer is Cameron, and we are beings function according to the same the avatars with their minds and hearts mechanical, physical, and chemical laws, on the stakes. and while humans are more than complex On another level, the aboriginals of machines, they are still machines in Pandora calling the avatars “soulless every aspect. Using a Cartesian metaphor, demons”, do not reject the imposture La Mettrie supports the concept that the and the carnal manifestation of their human beings are clocks that wind their own identity, but the real nature of own springs (La Mettrie, 1961), and in these automatons walking among them Avatar the springs of all creatures – as it and ceasing to function whimsically, as happens in the end when Eywa “sends” if manipulated by an estranged god. This all the creatures against the attacking can be connected with another human humans, there is a mechanical control conception of how the bodies work. even in the most spiritual of the worlds. In 1747, Julien de La Mettrie, a former Another consequence of the l’homme chief medical officer in the French army, machine formula, according to which all flees to Holland, the adoptive country of the human beings are perpetuals movers, Descartes, and there he anonymously permanent moving machines, which publishes the book L’ Homme Machine wind themselves as clocks, in order to (Man a Machine), where he develops a keep moving, is in the perfect recovery of purely mechanical view of living beings. action in the avatar once the clockmaker Cameron, in the Terminator project, (the avatar driver) enters the body. This has extensively used this view and has clock-like metaphor is visible in the 40 Doru POP way the avatar machine functions – the from the heavens. And this means the extraction of the “human mind” from the mirroring of the perfect Puppeteer. box. The avatar ceases to function once the operator is absent, and the decoupling, Actors and audiences in the new although there are repeated warnings cinematography of Cameron that there are side effects of the abrupt – the final avatars interruption of the mental link, is sudden This is not just the most expensive and without visible consequences. movie in the history of cinema (the total The man machine metaphor is costs being estimated to 500 million important also when Sully discusses with dollars), but it is the first of its kind in Col. Quaritch the possibility of replacing the production cycle of technology. As a his legs. In the world Cameron build in matter of fact, Cameron reinvented cine- the future, the limbs and “components” ma as an art, and the way the technology of the body are not relevant, because, will develop in the foreseeable future. from the very beginning of the movie, It is a pure evolutionary movement, we discover that human technology is because during its short history, cinema able to generate any body parts, which was constantly forced to compete with can be replaced as easily as we replace a other media, and to re-invent itself. component of any mechanism. The only When radio competed with cinema, the thing that hinders Jake Sully from getting movie business integrated sound. When his entire body back is one of financial television entered the territory “owned” nature – legs are more expensive than by cinema, this lead to the invention of the backbone (completely covered by color. When television adopted color, the insurance companies of the XXII-nd cinema moved toward cinemascope and Century). One natural conclusion is that bodies are reproducible entities, while wide panorama, and recently, as television brains (or brain waves and energies) switches towards High Definition (HD) are not, since the identical twin of Jake broadcasting, cinema integrates 3D tech- Sully was not resurrected – at least bodily nologies, which in turn television tends resurrection without brain integrity is to adopt. Cameron has created a 3D one thing not available to human science. stereoscopic camera that will allow real The philosophy of the human-avatar time filming, patented as Fusion Camera interface is a direct consequence of System or Reality Camera System. Based another puppeteer ability of humankind, on this technology, Cameron created a that is the mastery of the DNA code. In fantastic world that seems more realistic Cameron’s logic, human science has than the previous experiments with 3D reached the absolute level where humans imaging. can integrate their own bodily code into But even more relevant is the fact any other living being, on earth and that the characters in the movie became The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 41 and Ontology on Pandora avatars, secondary processed beings. alienated from the nature of their work, The actors in this project were filmed in they are composites in an electronic (soon the logic of the double mirror. On one electrochemical) medium. Sometimes hand, the director was recording “the old between one shot and the performance fashioned way” their reactions in a green capture stage of the filming there were screen environment. But on the other more than 12 months, which makes the hand, each actor was wearing a head set alienation of acting more detrimental camera, which recorded their reactions, than the alienating nature of cinema and these captured emotions were post- experience. Due to the advances in processed so that the final character is no cinema techniques, using the method longer the physical actor, but “avatars”. known as Performance Capture, the The director who works with digitized details of the facial characteristics of the versions of real beings, operating with actors which are transferred into a virtual nonverbal cues and with components reality context, equaling 1 pentabyte of of emotions becomes the real absolute data, 2000 times 500 gigabytes, makes puppeteer. Virtual cinematography, based the neural network of Eywa a puny thing. on Avatar’s experiments, would allow the directors to be avatar manipulators, Avatars, monads without gonads of contextual avatars and of subjective Another concept of the 17th century avatars. philosophical concept, put forward by This is not a philosophical or teolo- Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz, influencing gical novelty, since the Sanskrit term Cameron’s ideology, is the doctrine of avatāra is connected with theatrical the monads. Monads are, quite simply appearances and has the same root as put, the indivisible parts that compose rangāvatarana, which means the entran- the substance of the universe. According ce on the stage, as well as the actor, to Leibniz, mind and body function named rangāvatarāka (Matchett, 2001). as two perfectly correlated elements, Cameron’s movie is an example of the again synchronized like two clocks at entrance on the cinematographic stage their origin by God (Cottingham, 1988). of the actors as simple avatāra, in the In this understanding it follows the sense that they do not interact naturally Kantian principle of unity of the self- with their environment, nor with their consciousness, or as expressed by Paul counterparts or with the director himself. Weiss (Weiss, 1958) the self identity Using 80 markers on the actor’s face make which is fundamental to defining human – a technique developed by Peter Jackson beings, define us as creatures based on for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings – the self-identical unity. For Weiss, in a Cameron has transformed the essence neo-Cartesian way, the mind is a non- of human acting. The actors are totally bodily entity, in as much as it is not a 42 Doru POP function of the body. By consequence, if to be suspicious and even aggressive, but this is so, the mind provides the unity of latter he seems to come to terms with the the monad. situation, in a “so be it” fashion, he has This is the same for the tandem no grudges and holds no hate. human body-avatar machine, which is Also the genitalia of the Na’vi seem put into motion by the monadic modified to work in a strange and monadic way Na’vi DNA. This type of avatar is hybrid – albeit non-gonadic – since the genitals by nature and its hybridity is obvious in of the blue aliens are not positioned in the number of fingers of the “authentic” their tails, as one would expect even from Na’vi and the mixed DNA of the avatars an alien evolutionary perspective, but in – four fingered with an opposable thumb the tip of their hair, which is somehow vs. five fingered. While the avatar is a de-sexualized. Also, similarly with the hybrid, transgressing species (in a kind human beings, who use their sexual of confusion Spinoza identified as “the organs from multiple (yet limited) roles, confused knowledge of our bodies”), it the creatures on Pandora are connecting cannot cross over its mental determinacy. with their fellow Pandorans, with the In a philosophical conceptualization, animals and with the spiritual energy we can say that Jake Sully, although he of their planet through the same organ, becomes a bodily Na’vi, is dependent on thus making their bodily functioning a the subjective thinking, on the ethos of merely prosthetic, unimportant extension “having”. Apparently private property of their existence. is missing in the world of Pandora, because we see no privacy centered Alien post-humanism building or possessions of the Na’vi. After Norbert Wiener expressed his Still, the link between the individuals conviction that a human being might and their respective useful animals be sent through a telegraph wire we (dire-horses and the ikrans, the flying all became posthuman (Hayles, 1999). dragons) are individualistic, unilateral, Hayles supports the idea that the signs monadic. Possession on Pandora also of posthumanism are the abandoning entangles the loose definition of control, of individualism in favor of cybernetic of subjective control over the world and community, the computation substitutes of the surrounding human beings. A good the possessiveness of the subjective example is the character Tsu-Tey, the individual, and the loss of body. So contender of Jake Sully for the love of looking for the perfect human, that Neytiri, who seems to have a somewhat would correspond to these traits, the un-possessive approach to intimacy, only solution is “the telepath” (Rabkin, and still reacting ambivalently. In the 1987), because the telepath articulate first move, since his promised mate has itself as “intelligent machine”. So, at the chosen another sexual partner, he tends theoretical level, the post-human self is The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 43 and Ontology on Pandora computational, dependent on computing are supreme: it would be impossible to machines to manifest its intelligence. create an animal more perfect than man This would be a virtual self, in the sense – the image and similitude of the Master of the avatar, with a self-less identity, of the Universe” (Benford, 1987). In the mutable and constantly changeable logic of Cameron’s double mirroring, (Derrida, 1982). sometimes humans are less human that This problem is solved in Avatar by the aliens, as it becomes obvious from the means of psychokinesis, one of the most attitude of Col. Quarritch who proclaims: important sources of inspiration for “It would be human”, when he decides the modern popular culture. Actually, to physically destroy the culture and parapsychology is deeply rooted in the religious grounds of the Omaticaya. This development of the Avatar narrative. Not is another double mirror, since human only the humans have non-corporeal chauvinism is not only a characteristics relations with their avatars, but also the of the maleficent Col. Quarritch, but also Na’vi are connected with the living beings of the way Cameron builds his avatar. around them, and their entire planet by In the history of humankind we have means of mental transfer of data. Here the always been in search for the perfect technological enhancement of humans is human, who is the complete opposite matched by the biological enhancement of everything that is natural for the of the Na’vi, although this enhancement human being. And this is embodied is not disclosed in a supernatural form, by the avatar-Na’vi reality, built on the it is all the time present. The Na’vi are existence of a non iterative, nonsexual, represented as superior in their bodies, nonaggressive society. Still, the need to that exceed any of a super-athlete, and become another being, to transform into not by just being twice as big as any another entity is based on the human human, but also in their psychic abilities. desire to transcend our own mortal (and Nonetheless, this is constantly referred to incomplete) beings. Humans have access humaneness. to the spiritualized world by secondary In alien science fiction movies, though, matter transformation, implicitly by there is no post-humanism without an becoming artifacts. In this respect, embedded humanism, that is the view that avatars are necessary artifacts – the humans are at the center of all thinking, William Lycan experiment showing that of all creation and coming into being conscience is a natural consequence of (Slusser and Rabkin, 1987). Alexei Tolstoi intelligence. If we transfer the entire body expressed this same philosophy in Aelita, and brain characteristics from a human or The Decline of Mars (1922), stating that to a robot (or an avatar, for that matter), life on Mars is necessarily humanized, can we still call that entity the name of because “everywhere life appears, and the „source”. This is what Lycan calls a over life everywhere man-like forms “human chauvinist”, a person who has a 44 Doru POP philosophically unjustified bias in favor rights and powers forbidden in the of human biology and prejudice against masculine “civilized” society (Roesch nonhuman forms of consciousness”. Wagner, 1996). The avatar, although “natural”, is still a Here is the resource for the contradic- second being, it is an artifact, not entirely tion in Cameron’s cinematography – in artificial and not entirely natural. movies like Alien, Cameron has used a Another consequence of post-huma- combination of femininity with machi- nism is the proclamation of the end of nery, with clear androcentric, masculinist Western self. When William Spanos attributes, and in Avatar he moves to- published his seminal work The End of wards an allegory of conflict between Education: Toward Posthumanism, the Mother Earth and Father Machine, typical concept of post-humanity was linked to to the Gaia vs. God theories (Radford, the idea that post-humanism naturally 1992). comes out of ethnic minorities social movements, following black and women So God, is it OK for Christians movements. Cameron’s Na’vi culture, to hate Avatar(s)? with its blue skinned creatures is the The Pope may have installed solar complete realization of this self-fulfilling panels on the roof of the papal residency prophecy – post-humanity is a humanity in the Vatican, but the Holy Seed is without the traditional Western subject. not a pro-ecological place, and the first Another consequence of the monad reactions of the Catholic church towards without gonad conception of Pandora’s Cameron’s movie, coming through its beings – partially argued above in the media outlets in Italy are a proof to case of Black Elk’s influence of Avatar that. The criticizing of the Catholic – is the clear influence of feminism, press against Cameron’s movie is that it coupled with the ecological aspect of this supports nature-worshiping and paganism postmodern approach to society. This is through the religion of the Na’vi people. another source of the double mirroring I would be curious to see how would the in Cameron’s philosophy, the fact that Catholic church approve of the religious the feminist movement, as convenes beliefs of any alien races, that were not Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the “Mother” of familiarized with Judeo-Christian morals the American feminist revolution, was and theology? Why is there a problem if found in the vicinity of the Iroquois Six the hypothetical alien culture cultivates nations living near her home at Seneca the respect for their own planet? As a Falls, thus the society of the Na’vi are matter of fact, the so-called primitives simultaneously Native and Feminist were forbidden to worship nature for – following the historical fact that the the same reason, because nature is a American women saw that indigenous manifestation of the creative capacity women of the Iroquois nations possesed of a God-like intelligence. All nature- The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 45 and Ontology on Pandora worshiping is pre-Christian by historical have caused that death of almost 112 fact, but the lack of knowledge for the million people in the Americas, from the Christian message is not necessarily arrival of Christopher Columbus to the theologically wrong – for example the massacre of the Sioux tribe in the Nine- Orthodox Church puts forward a more teenth Century. What most of the critics inclusive understanding of the Christian of Cameron’s “ideological” movie seem to theology, manifested throughout history forget is the fact that this behavior is not in non-Christian forms. confined to the Americas. The faithful The basic contradiction between the Europeans have enslaved millions in Catholic Church and Cameron’s view Africa, and in the three centuries of of the alien worlds is summed by St. Western presence in the black continent Augustine’s argument on Christology and almost 12 million people were captured, its relationship with other worlds religion. moved, sold, tortured and sometimes His rationale was that, if there would be killed. All this time, the politics of genocide intelligent life on worlds outside our being supported by the Holy Book, since own, these worlds would need a Savior, Moses applied the same techniques to the but this in turn is impossible since Christ Malachites and the Midianites. was singular, thus there is no salvation It is unfortunate that the Christian outside the salvation propagated by the chorus of critics joined the attacks against Universal Church. the eco-ideology of Avatar. Considering Unfortunately, the critics of the Catho- our history, how do they think the lic Church seem to be impervious to the relationship between humans and an fact that the same institution supported alien civilization, technologically inferior the conquistadors of Spain, who, together to ours, would look like? Exactly as it with the holy armies of the Jesuit order, looked for the aboriginal populations of managed to wipe out, in a very similar the other continents and the Caucazian way depicted in Cameron’s movie, entire migrants. The media critics of the cultures in the Americas. According to Catholic Church still read the Genesis some of the estimates, only the Maya and in the logic of merciless exploitation of Inca empires had, before the arrival of the natural resources of the planet. God the peaceful Christians, approximatively is supposedly supporting the idea that 40 million inhabitants. In just a couple humans are aggressive users of these of years, the newcomers and the endless resources, and somehow even interaction with these searchers for the blesses the combination of militarism and “unobtainium” of the XVI-th Century capitalism designed to exploit all these (gold!) lead to the decrease of population “goods” of the Earth. by 80% – most of them being sent directly The criticism spawns from a reaction to the pre-Christian Paradise by the armies to the Christian view of nature, based of the invaders. It seems that Europeans on the vetero-testamental context in 46 Doru POP

Genesis, where man is attributed the role Another key concept from Marxist of guardian (read “exploiter”) of nature. theory of labour is that of alienation This patriarchal perspective on human- caused by the unnatural relationship nature relations entails the embedded between workers and the object of their idea that God is the Father, the male work. Capitalist society is structured dominant figure. Opposite to this is the by an unnatural process of distributing Shamanistic view of the world, with and generating social order. The natural its the dualism between masculinity, mode of production, which we intuitively constructed as agressive, adrenaline filled know it function in the Na’vi culture, is and, femininity, identified differently by opposed to the unnatural, mechanical the Nature religions, sometimes called and alienating mode of production of the Amateratsu, Mother Sun, or Mother industrialist exploiters of the resources Moon or Nut in Egyptian religion. of the planets. As Georg Lukacs, one of the most prominent post-marxist Anti-capitalism and the failure theorist, expresses this divide, when the of technological progress “metabolic” relations between man and In his seminal article on Marxism nature ends, this is when society begins. in Cameron’s movies, James Kendrick This “metabolism” is destroyed, in the argued that several of the productions of Lukacs interpretation, by exploitation, the author of Titanic are underloaded with which is fundamentally a capitalist trait concepts belonging to the most powerful and the human beings are no longer critics of capitalism (Kendrick, 1999). “natural beings”, once they enter the logic In Avatar Cameron is not only putting of capitalist production of goods (Lukacs, forward a new concept when criticizing 1923). industrialism and capitalist societies, but This destruction of nature, caused by undertakes the core ideology in the most the „mechanical” production, coupled traditional Marxist perspective, which with the opposition mechanical vs. is that the development of technology natural, is one of Cameron’s most durable in capitalism is fundamentally perilous concepts in building cinematic conflict. to human society. The dangerous nature It was the case in the Terminator series, of capitalist development, which is and the narration in Avatar is built explicit in the Terminator series, where around this fundamental divide. Nature the evolution of computer technologies and the machines are in an excluding generate Skynet, as the ultimate indus- relationship. But the double mirror trial-capitalist form of tyranny, as well as operates even here, if we are to compare in Titanic, where capitalist-industrialist the scene in Alien (1986) when Sigourney pride and trust in technology lead to Weaver played the role of the human human failure (Ewing, 2009), is at the mechanical feminine principle, fighting base of the narrative in Avatar. off the unnatural alien queen, with the The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 47 and Ontology on Pandora end scene is Avatar, where Neytiri fights Paulo Freire, is projected on the corporate the mechanical father figure of Col. evil bad guy Parker Selfridge (played by Quaritch, we understand Cameron’s “U” Giovanni Ribisi). turn in symbolism. The ultimate expression of the venal Because in Avatar this type of anti- capitalist is not Selfridge, the manager of capitalist thinking is built around the unobtanium exploitation on Pandora, another fundamental Marxist concept, a man motivated only by profit (while that of conflict of different classes, and profit driven societies in Marxist theory the exploitation of the less developed are fundamentally evil), who is depicted in technology by those positioned in in a double mirrored standard. While a situation where they can control his name is a direct reference to the technological resources. The symbolic egoism of all capitalists, the character is twist is explicit when we see the whole weak and wobbly. It is the Corporation plot in Avatar is based on the reality of who is actually bad, the shadowy entity “exploitation” of a natural and mineral behind all the problems on Pandora. resource, haphazardly called “the unob- Cameron has already used this criticism tainium” (mirror of the concept coined by of corporate abuse and crime in the Larry Niven). The interest of the human Terminator series, where Cyberdyne was exploiters is to have the unobtainum, the source of all evil (Ewing, 2009). In while the Others have no material Avatar this is where the double mirror desire, they only strive to preserve their comes into place, the Corporation is a cultural identity. Basically this is a re- reference both to the fictional constructs enactment of a typical Marxist conflict, of Cameron’s narratives and a critique of where the owners of technology want to the contemporary corporate scandals. keep what they do not produce, while Escaping the capitalist forms of the “exploited” are deprived of their control means escaping the logic of the benefits. One class is prone to control Capital itself – so in Avatar we witness the other, by using cultural exploitation. a non-technological society, founded on And here Jake Sully expresses the return natural desires opposing the artificially to the very much earthly situation, in a induced one. The society of the Na’vi is memorable anti-capitalist phrase: “They basically a classless society, we do not would not sell their land for lite beer see any production divisions within the and shopping channel”, a self-reference group and among the tribes, the division to something the Na’vi did not have yet of labour being attributed only based on the chance to experience. Taking the the needs of each individual (although side of the oppressed is also a mirrored there is a clear social hierarchy and a effect.This criticism, found in numerous bloodline descender, a clear indication South American socialist thinkers, of a developing monarchic rule). The especially with the social philosophy of Communist utopia the Na’vi live in is 48 Doru POP governed by the Marxist-Leninist prin- the sake of humanity (Kozlovic, 2001). ciple “From each according to his ability, This messianic and apocalyptic language to each according to his need.” (Marx, 1978). – which has embedded in the Terminator On the other hand, the militarism series with or without Cameron, for and patriarchal capitalism, as a perverse example Terminator 4 (2009) is subtitled conglomerate of army and capital, of Salvation, while Terminator 2 (1991) was industrialists and profit based society is subtitled Judgement Day – is integrated malignant – expressed by the character in Avatar. Jake Sully is also a Saviour, a of Col. Miles Quaritch. He is the warrior rejected by his own kind (Jews) quintessence of militaristic agressivity and fully accepted by another group driven, obstinate, and territorial male, (Gentiles). using militaristic coerciveness for sheer There is also a double reference for pleasure. At the base of the exploitation Sully, who is portrayed in a similar way of natural resources on Pandora by to the Vishnu avatars, who are usually human beings is a critique of economic heroic, as Rama (in the Ramayanas), or as depletion of wealth (be it of countries or Parasurama, Balarama, Khrishna himself, planetoids), by the use of the military or the mesianic hero Kalki. While the arm of liberal societies. The exploiters other five avatars of Vishnu (of the total are seen through a Marxist-feminism, the ten) are totemic: fish (Matsya), tortoise Earth in 2154 is void of resources because (Kurma), boar (Varaha), lion (Narasimha), of patriarchal, repulsive colonialism and and semi-human, dwarf-like (Vamana), post-colonialism. Here Cameron’s view in in the Sanskrit language avatāra may Avatar turns again in the double mirror also be a surname, or the calling name – “How does it feel to betray your own for an extraordinary human being, that race?”, asks Col. Quarritch just before is avatara is synonymous with heroism. dying, not knowing that his humanity is The essence of the avatara myth is the going to be turned into a blue-skinned, following: there is an imbalance in the 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien by the new existence of humans and of the world Messiah of Pandora, Jake Sully. (adharma), and the gods interfere with the nature to restore order (dharma), by means Messianic figures in Cameron’s theology of their avatars in action (be it human or It has been widely commented on animal) in a heroic turn of events. As in the fact that John Connor, the Saviour the Hindu doctrine, the manifestation of of Terminator 1 is an anagram of J. C. the avatar must be heroic, and the heroic – with reference to Jesus Christ. John stance is maintained in the theology of Connor is saving the world by means of Cameron’s moviemaking. The avatara- personal sacrifice, and the Terminator like heroism is expressed by the clear T-800 in the second installment of the intervention of the hero in the destiny series is also sacrificing his existence for of his people, without the hero they are The “Double Mirror” in James Cameron’s “Avatar” – Philosophy, Ecology, Ideology 49 and Ontology on Pandora doomed and do not understand their own that he will have to return – for at least sense of life, nor are they able to survive. two more installments, because Cameron has warned his crew that this is going to Epilogue be a trilogy. As Toruk Macto flies into the suns of Polyphemus, there is a lingering feeling

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