A new Quentin Tarantino flick has just come out, "Inglourious Basterds", which despite its' name actually "glourifies" torture and violence. It is a late coming resurrection of old WW2 hate, but with a modern twist. In this film, Americans and Jews get revenge on the Nazis by being worse than the Nazis.I just want to state clearly right from the outset that I despise this film, and any film for trying to make a profit by glorifying hate and sadism. I'm not sure I can make my statement any more clear than that. I am disappointed that Roger Ebert gave this film four stars, because I usually trust his judgment. But then he recently also gave four stars to Ponyo, which was almost incomprehensible to me. Maybe he's getting more generous with the stars these days.
I think the Basterds film plays into several modern themes. Most obviously, is the theory that the Nazi Holocaust was so bad that it excuses a lot of sadistic behaviour on the part of Jews. Personally I don't agree with this idea, but it seems to be working with a lot of Americans so far to excuse Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians.
A second theme is the idea that torture works and is excusable in relation to what you believe the enemy is doing. I would have to point out one fact and that is, the full horror of the Nazi Holocaust was not known until after the war, and so it is not meaningful to suggest that you would seek revenge for something before you even know it happened. But then again a lot of people are not really able to understand how time works.
No, I have not seen this movie, and I probably will not see it. Actually, this is not really a movie review, it is a morality check about hate and sadism. Are we Christians or are we sadists? Most atheists have a better grasp of morality than shown in this film. We keep telling ourselves that our western morality comes from Jesus, who wanted peace. Is that so?
These days, even some Christian churches are being corrupted with this pro-war and pro-torture propaganda. Listen to
a TV Evangelists calling for assassination of a foreign leader. Look at surveys done to find that the people most in favour of using torture are church-going Christians.
Now read this passage from the Bible, which I had never come across in all my years, but then granted I don't read the Bible a lot. OK not at all. This is the quote attributed to Jesus:
Matt. 10:34 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
I hope this is not where Christianity is going, but obviously this gives some encouragement to the more sadistic warmongers among us. It has been called in the past a "problematic" quote, because it seems to contradict Jesus' best known teachings. Here is one of the web pages that have tried to explain it in a more rational way to fit in with the notion of a peace loving Jesus.
I have a warning for any warwongers who want fundamentalists on their side. Fundamentalists do not fight to win, they fight to die and take as many people with them as possible to get their reward in heaven. And most of them do not even believe in the need to win a war, they believe only in the need to start a war. They are happy to leave the finish of the war to God, and the Second Coming of Jesus. They say there are no atheists in a foxhole, but I would rather be in a foxhole with an atheist than with a fundamentalist who is waiting for the second coming.
I find detailed nit-picking examination of passages from the Bible, out of context, extremely annoying. This, of course, is what we constantly get from TV evangelists.
ReplyDeleteTake a verse or two out of context and you have a scriptural quote to support virtually any position. Absolutely inane!
Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew reports Christ's charge to his disciples: the apostles are named, and their authority, responsibilities and accountabilities are delineated. Basically, they're handed their mission.
Christ warns his apostles that their mission (of making converts) will not be easy, but that he did not come to do easy stuff, he 'came not to send peace,' that you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
And that's what that is about.
Reading broader meanings into verse 34, especially out of context, is absurd, and most likely not anything that the 17th century translators would have contemplated.