Help me understand human nature

[Bereta_Eder]

Actually postmodernism should appeal to you Elok.
It leaves space for the divine

Modernism was the erroneous belief that science could solve all our problems and there's no need for God.
Then nazi germany happened and proven that was not the case.

So "humanity" decided that a certain spiritual guidance should also be present. and, tada, postmodernism. (it doesn't have to do with movies I think)

[Elok]

Re: Family being sacred, this is an ideal presented in cinema. In actual American life, single parenthood is rapidly becoming unexceptional, if not the norm. It's the natural, largely inevitable result of sexual liberation combined with American hyper-individualism, and we don't have a strong safety net to keep the attendant risks at bay (I hear it sort of works in certain Scandinavian countries where the government intervenes more). But since nobody wants to reintroduce sexual restraint (or is capable of doing so), and collectivism is wicked and un-American, our commercial art just ignores this fact. Hence we have a TV show called Modern Family that shows three modern American families, and I'm pretty sure (don't watch it) that there are two parents in all three. One's gay and another's interracial, that's it.

Re: Postmodernism, it's a general movement that expresses itself in all aspects of culture to some extent. Its American academic incarnation, at least, is a repulsive mix of unrealistic left-wing extremism and glorification of ignorance in the name of open-mindedness, all disguised by copious and unnecessary jargon. For example, I once read a paper about Hamlet that referred to "the context of larger contemporary discursive networks." By which it meant "what people were talking about at the time." They've learned that you can make even the goofiest rubbish sound impressive with enough obfuscation. I don't know much about PoMo outside of academia, partly because I don't want to know more and partly because they're frequently incomprehensible. Personally, I think we should unite with the secularists to crush them; we might disagree over what the truth is, but at least we both think it exists and can be determined to some extent.

[Bereta_Eder]

Well I think you need only one phrase: "relativism is an absolute value"
and, bam, relativism is crushed

[Bereta_Eder]

About postmodernism I don't know much either (I do know that it influences many things from literature to architecture) but from a "political/philosophical" point of view, its genesis I think steams from post WW2 europe (or the world at large).

Prior to that, modernity ruled, the unshakable belief that science was enough to solve all human problems. If a problem was not solved it was just because science wasn't developed enough by then to solve it. In the future, it would.

Then WW2 and nazi germany and the very scientific extermination of the jews happened.

Hence it became evident that science alone was not the answer to everything and that started to permeate all reasoning (and certaintly influenced many things, from art to architecture etc).

But I guess all of that fall under the "modern world" which you describe. But I think (maybe I'm wrong) that you particularly make the distiction between the existence of an absolute (tangible, measurable and achievable) truth and on the other hand the principle of relativism (everything is determined by its relation with something else, there is nothing absolute etc)

[Colon™]

The Nazis did adopt an ancient Hindu symbol though. Isn't that a postmodern thing to do?

[Bereta_Eder]

They did have a mangled/thrown together "religion".
Also christianity/other religions were not eradicated from the face of the earth during modernism.
But modernity was how the world "operated". It functioned based on that belief of scientific self-sufficiency.

[The Mad Monk]

Before WWII eugenics was also very much a thing.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Actually postmodernism should appeal to you Elok.
It leaves space for the divine

Modernism was the erroneous belief that science could solve all our problems and there's no need for God.
Then nazi germany happened and proven that was not the case.

So "humanity" decided that a certain spiritual guidance should also be present. and, tada, postmodernism. (it doesn't have to do with movies I think)

I have considered myself a Postmodern Christian on occasion. Postmodern faith has far more in common with the pre-modern faith that the Orthodox indicate that they have rather than the "we can reason out ALL the answers" of Modernity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

About postmodernism I don't know much either (I do know that it influences many things from literature to architecture) but from a "political/philosophical" point of view, its genesis I think steams from post WW2 europe (or the world at large).

Prior to that, modernity ruled, the unshakable belief that science was enough to solve all human problems. If a problem was not solved it was just because science wasn't developed enough by then to solve it. In the future, it would.

Then WW2 and nazi germany and the very scientific extermination of the jews happened.

Hence it became evident that science alone was not the answer to everything and that started to permeate all reasoning (and certaintly influenced many things, from art to architecture etc).

But I guess all of that fall under the "modern world" which you describe. But I think (maybe I'm wrong) that you particularly make the distiction between the existence of an absolute (tangible, measurable and achievable) truth and on the other hand the principle of relativism (everything is determined by its relation with something else, there is nothing absolute etc)

The Church of Science was a secondary thing. The idea was that through reason, we could figure out everything and create perfect societies. Once emotion was taken out of things, everything would be better. Of course that ignores that humans are emotional beings and, for a lot of people, all this 'reason' solves everything may be just a bunch of BS designed to obfuscate a desire for power (as Foucault may somewhat put it), especially (and I realize this is now a run-on sentence) when different people have different ideas of what the 'rational' answer is. Postmodernism in its basest form is basically about saying this stuff is bunk - we all have our own ways of seeing the world and people can't be reasoned out of whatever ills because people start from different areas and their reasoning process is basically in service of something they've already decided (interesting research has shown that is EXACTLY what we tend to do - come up with a position and then try to add reason post hoc).

Or something.

[Bereta_Eder]

You are probably correct it was reason/science.
Orthodoxy doesn't seem to care about such trivialities though (modernism/postmodernism/postpostmodernism) (since it always was there)

[molly bloom]

Okay, is this a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the dubious quality of Hollywood writing, or do you mean that literally most movies don't have a sequence of events with a conflict to be resolved, etc.?

Plot driven films not adapted from a novel/short story or historical account ? A list of your faves, please.

[Bereta_Eder]

Of course that ignores that humans are emotional beings .

On that note, http://www.amazon.com/Straw-Dogs-Tho.../dp/0374270937

or stevie vai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTXGswyAls

[notyoueither]

About postmodernism I don't know much either (I do know that it influences many things from literature to architecture) but from a "political/philosophical" point of view, its genesis I think steams from post WW2 europe (or the world at large).

Prior to that, modernity ruled, the unshakable belief that science was enough to solve all human problems. If a problem was not solved it was just because science wasn't developed enough by then to solve it. In the future, it would.

Then WW2 and nazi germany and the very scientific extermination of the jews happened.

Hence it became evident that science alone was not the answer to everything and that started to permeate all reasoning (and certaintly influenced many things, from art to architecture etc).

But I guess all of that fall under the "modern world" which you describe. But I think (maybe I'm wrong) that you particularly make the distiction between the existence of an absolute (tangible, measurable and achievable) truth and on the other hand the principle of relativism (everything is determined by its relation with something else, there is nothing absolute etc)

I think it dates from WWI and the reaction to the ends that machinery and technology could be put to.

[Ben Kenobi]

considered myself a Postmodern Christian on occasion.

Odd, considering that Christianity isn't postmodern.

[Elok]

Plot driven films not adapted from a novel/short story or historical account ? A list of your faves, please.

I'm not sure how exactly one draws a clear distinction between plot-driven and character-driven, but I'd imagine most of the Pixar films count. How about Up, or Ratatouille? If you want just plot-driven films, not favorites, any old POS churned out these days counts.

However, note that I said, "have a sequence of events with a conflict to be resolved," not "plot-driven."

EDIT: as you can probably tell, I don't see a lot of movies. Hazard of having small kids to watch. The most recently-produced movie I watched was the second Thor movie, and I suppose that's plot centered, albeit the plot didn't always make all that much sense. There certainly was a conflict to be resolved, and a straightforward series of events leading towards the resolution. And lots of silly special effects, but that's beside the immediate point.