Don't Let Disney Kill The Magic of Cinema
This Sunday, the final season of Game of Thrones will heir on HBO. Much like the ever encroaching white walkers, with their eternal winter in tow, another unstoppable force, this one within the entertainment industry, marches forward, desperate to consume as many licenses as it can and change the world of filmmaking and streaming landscape forever.
With its acquirement of 20th Century Fox, Disney now possesses 4 major studios and the hundreds of licenses that each of those studios hold the rights to. These include Pixar Animation Studios, Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, and now 20th Century Fox. On top of this, Disney’s own Disney Animation Studios possesses hundreds of intellectual properties itself. Disney is now, arguably, the largest license conglomerate in the entertainment industry in terms of profitability potential.
Disney’s accumulation of Lucasfilm, Marvel, and now 20th Century Fox, over the last several years, has led the company to join the streaming services game. Disney has confirmed the launch of their own streaming service later this year, called Disney+(DisneyPlus). This service will no doubt be a large rival to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and other top streaming services. With all of the licenses and production and studio resources Disney now owns, the company not only has ample material to prove themselves a worthy opponent to these other streaming companies, it has the potential to knock the other services from the market completely.
Disney has already begun to pull their properties from other streaming services that, until now, have licensed those properties from Disney to show on their sites. Just last week, Disney pulled the animated series Star Wars Clone Wars from Netflix. For years, Netflix had been the only streaming service to watch the entire series on. One could even argue that being able to watch the entire series was a marketing tool used by Netflix itself to attract younger viewers. If companies like Netflix and Hulu are not able and willing to explore expansions and pivots for their services, they will most definitely suffer and potentially fall as customers gravitate toward the sheer volume of content Disney now has baked into their brand.
I grew up loving movies and television of all kinds. From the sci-fantasy and awe of Star Wars to the hilarious and zany adventures of Spongebob Squarepants, I loved how diverse the media I consumed was. As a student at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, I have come to learn that this is a major reason that most people continue to attend movie theaters and tune into tv channels everyday - cinema allows us to experience all aspects of being a human, from virtually infinite points of view. This experience is what is at risk if Disney is successful in knocking out the other streaming sites while continuing to collect licenses. Much of the content we draw that experience from would eventually come from a single source and the diversity of that content would absolutely suffer as Disney would move to preserve their unique brand identity.
One only needs to look toward countries governed by military dictatorships to see what centralized media looks like. These countries have a centralized, government owned media outlet that is often times the only source of information that the public has access to. Obviously it's ludicrous to call Disney a tyrannical dictatorship but the parallels between a media outlet in a tyrannical dictatorship and a Disney streaming service wherein Disney owns and produces most, if not all, of the content being released on streaming services are clear and frightening. The death of diverse and multifaceted content within the filmmaking world is at stake.
There is hope. Foreseeing the potential threat of a Disney-owned streaming service, Amazon Video and Netflix have both pivoted and become more involved in producing critically acclaimed, original content. Each company has backed at least one project that ran the award show circuit within the last few years. For Amazon it was Manchester By The Sea and for Netflix it was Roma, which was a huge winner at the Oscars earlier this year. This revived interest in classic, theatrically released projects affirms both companies’ respect and desire to protect artistic expression and diverse content within the filmmaking community.
As customers and as viewers we are the most important component to any service. Without us, a company like Disney would not be able to exist. In this way, we have the power to control what kinds of stories are being told within the film industry. Therefore, we have the responsibility to protect the availability of diverse content that people from all walks of life can relate to. If we allow what has transpired so far to continue unchecked, our relationship with film and the experiences we receive from film will germinate from a single source and the art form itself will inevitably die. It falls to us to advocate for and support diverse streaming content.
A Case for Libertarianism
Similar to the way in which Islam has been distorted by social stigma and political divisiveness, the socio-political ideology of libertarianism has been distorted as extreme and radical as well. What has been revealed and what continues to be revealed about the true nature of Islam needs to happen to Libertarianism. When one boils down the philosophy of libertarianism to its root principles, it becomes clear that libertarianism is in fact heavily representative of the founding principles of the United States itself and very much deservant of its unofficial title as America’s third political party. Moreover, when observed within a heavily politicized sphere, such as Hollywood, the continued, unfair stigmatization of libertarianism not only becomes more apparent but the justification of that stigmatization begins to be broken down, for the content and stories coming out of hollywood is associative to many of the principles, notions, and values libertarians cling to.
Just as the study of the history of Islam brings with it, a deeper understanding of the religion and the rejection of a preconceived notion of radicalism, so to does an understanding of the history of libertarianism bring with it the idea that the philosophy is American and has been here from the beginning and before.
The history of Libertarianism has in many ways, grown alongside the history of human civilization, beginning with divides between Ancient Greek schools of thought. However, the history of Libertarianism in the United States can very well attribute its origins to the founding of the country itself and even to those who lived before the creation of the U.S. Two Englishmen, John Locke and Thomas Paine, are considered to be the founding fathers of Libertarianism and it is within their writings that the, since consolidated, principles of Libertarianism can be found in their purest form.
Both John Locke and Thomas Paine were english-born philosophers. Although they were both politically active and outspoken about libertarian values, it was John Locke who truly first laid the foundation for the birth of American Libertarianism. John Locke is most famous for his philosophical writings on human nature and the “self.” His first widely published work entitled, The Two Treatises of Government, outlined the optimal role that government should play based on Locke’s experience as a physician and philosopher and his assessment of human nature through those lenses.
|[The Government has the] right of making Laws with Penalties of Death,
and consequently all less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of
Property, and of employing the force of the Community, in the Execution
of such Laws and in defence of the Common-wealth from Foreign Injury,
and all this only for the Publick Good.|
This minimalist approach to the role of government went on to inspire American revolutionaries such as Thomas Paine himself. Moreover, Locke’s writings are widely referenced, although indirectly, in the Declaration of Independence itself, further reinforcing the notion that libertarianism is at the very ideological foundation that the United States was founded upon and further rendering any stigmatization of the philosophy, simply ludacris. Locke also ultimately concluded that every human is born as a sort of “blank slate”, or tabula rasa as he specifically refers to it, and that from the moment a human is born, everything that human experiences helps to determine how he or she will operate within the world. Therefore, Locke understood the importance of belief in a higher power as to foster moral values within these “tabula rasas.” For this reason, Locke vehemently abhorred the idea of atheism as an otherwise extraordinary tolerant person contextually. To Locke, God and the belief in God, represented a promise of moral high ground within society and a disbelief in a higher power would lead to the degradation of human spirit and human decency. Locke went so far as to explain that it’s not important that you call this ambiguous higher power “God” but that the importance lies within the belief in something greater than oneself. Having said that, Locke did not simply believe in God for the sake of ensuring humanity’s prosperity. Locke was a staunch believer in the cosmological argument, as so many of his predecessors were, which used the order of cosmological events, change, motion, and contingency as evidence to suggest the existence of a higher power. This is extremely significant because it suggests that from its inception and from those who lead to its inception, libertarianism was cultivated within a healthy blend of scientific inquiry, religious moral authority, and individual autonomy. So it is within this blend of beliefs, both in humans as a blank slate(naturally neutral) and the idea of a higher power which keeps human nature in check, that the idea of Libertarianism really begins to form for it is within religious freedom, the protection of the rights of the individual that Libertarians place their principles.
Libertarianism has germinated from within these origins to become a growing socio-political, as well as economic, framework from which much of the modern world has been built. As mentioned previously, John Locke’s ideas both reached many and were built upon by many. Thomas Paine was one such individual who both lived during and through the American Revolution. Moreover, Paine did, in fact, exist as a sort of propagandist on the side of the revolutionaries during the war. At a pivotal moment in the war, when Washington’s army was on the verge of chaos and disbanding, it was Paine who delivered a speech to rally the troops.
|“The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves,
each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a
contract with each other to produce a government: and this is
the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and
the only principle on which they have a right to exist.”|
It is within this speech, meant to stir the hearts of American patriots, that Locke’s influence on Paine and the libertarian values that Paine carried on, becomes clear. Paine’s explanation here helps to reinforce one of the key tenets of libertarianism, that of the place for government in the life of an individual . He speaks of governments existing as a result of the individual peoples deciding that it should exist. It was not thrust upon them, but instead decided to be necessary by the individuals collectively. Paine’s prose maintains the usage of terms such as individuals, each, and his own so that the idea that a government is a social contract by individuals, not some homogeneous body, is undeniably clear. Paine is truly genius in his prose here because he is doing two things simultaneously. Firstly, as aforementioned, he has solidified the nature of how governments(the thing these troops are fighting to establish) are brought about. Secondly, Paine is urging the troops to consider each and every one of their fellow men, a tactic most effective in coaxing troops to holdfast to a cause.
In the present day, it seems as though the aforementioned history of Libertarianism has been somewhat forgotten or altogether ignored. This becomes ever apparent when one reads or hears about libertarianism mentioned in today’s media. The philosophy is often likened to conservatism and often subsequently dismissed as falling within the realm of the right(which is also the driving problem plaguing libertarianism within politicized spheres of influence such as Hollywood). However, libertarianism possesses several principles that merge the two-party line, more often than not. In an excerpt from an article published by The Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, the libertarian perspective is poignantly described
|“[A libertarian is someone striving for] peace, prosperity,
and social harmony are fostered by “as much liberty as
possible” and “as little government as necessary.”|
Along with this description, The Institute for Humane Studies also reinforces the notion of libertarianism as a historically tried and tested philosophy. Like Paine, during the American Revolution, the institute’s description reinforces the founding principles of and it becomes apparent that these principles are also the principles of the founding fathers themselves/ Again, libertarianism is nothing new. It is as though these principles were instilled within the roots of the country, were forgotten, and are now as they become more prominently displayed in society.
|“With a long intellectual tradition spanning hundreds of years,
libertarian ideas of individual rights, economic liberty, and
limited government have contributed to history-changing
movements like abolition, women’s suffrage, and the civil
rights movement. Libertarian is not a single viewpoint, but
includes a wide variety of perspectives. Libertarians can range
from market anarchists to advocates of a limited welfare state,
but they are all united by a belief in personal liberty, economic
freedom, and a skepticism of government power.”|
As further evidence of the rise of libertarianism in the United States, one needs only to look at the last three American presidential elections, the candidates that considered themselves libertarians in those races, and the followings that they generated. The three most famous figures that fit those descriptors are Senators Ron Paul and Rand Paul(Ron Paul’s son), and governor Gary Johnson. These three political figures were actively advocating for libertarian values and principles on the presidential candidacy stage and generated sizable followings(relatively) because of it. In several interviews during the 2016 presidential election circuit, the former governor of New Mexico and libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson was asked several times what a libertarian was. Johnson’s reply was simple. He asserted that a libertarian was both fiscally conservative and socially liberal. When considered, in tandem, with the historical analysis of John Locke and Thomas Paine’s founding concepts, Johnson couldn’t be more correct. Libertarians advocate for laissez-faire economy both across state lines, as well as internationally, while also utilizing the government to protect the individual rights of each and every citizen.
Despite its rise in socio-political popularity, libertarianism is still fiercely stigmatized within several heavily influential corners of society. One such corner, the entertainment industry(centered in Hollywood)is a prudent case study in which to observe this gross misrepresentation of libertarianism and, frankly, hypocriticism at play. Hollywood is particularly relevant in this phenomenon because of the fact that several prominent content creators within Hollywood are self-described libertarians. One pertinent example of this can be found within the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Their membership within the libertarian party is particularly significant because of the influence that their show has on American society. Along with being a generator of pop-culture references, the show is a socio-political commentary through and through. Parker and Stone’s trademark, if one had to be applied to them, is that they pull no punches. They are notorious for openly and crudely attacking anyone and everyone through their show, regardless of political or any other affiliation. Matt Stone is even quoted saying,“I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals.” They’re abandonment of affiliation with either political party reinforces the very idea that libertarianism is almost void of politics and is instead, simply, American. In the same vein, and more relevant to film specifically, both Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn are self-described libertarians. In 2016, the year of one of the most divisive presidential elections in recent history, the pairs’ political affiliations were used as cannon fodder, against them. Their presence and representation throughout the award season was relatively low, despite Hacksaw Ridge being heavily renowned by critics and audiences alike. This misrepresentation, by demographically left-wing Hollywood elites, of the principles of libertarianism reveals a terrible bias within the industry that's made worse when considering the subject matter of projects like Hacksaw Ridge. The film itself followed a pacifist soldier that went to great lengths to heal, not harm. It was an inspirational story and represented the power a single individual possesses. Yet, it was defamed because two people affiliated with it held libertarian beliefs that the society surrounding Hollywood deemed to be too “far right.”
In a world full of stigma and misinformation, it has become abundantly clear that historical analysis and hard evidence are in increasingly short supply and yet, are needed now more than ever. For, this is also an era of unprecedented amounts of readily available, non-vetted information. It is within this era that we most risk losing our foundation as a country. Libertarianism is American. It is made up of American values and American ideas. Despite what many media outlets may convince one to believe, American values and ideas make the country stronger. The rights of the individual, religious freedom, an economy unabridged by wreckless regulation and taxation (the very causes that led our founding fathers to declare their independence from Britain) are the backbone the country draws its strengths from. If we continue to attack or even dismiss those things within our society that are traditionally and historically American, then this country will inevitably fall from its glory. We are one nation made up of many individuals. This is not to say every aspect of libertarianism is wholly applicable to the American society of today(to say that about any belief system is simple lunacy) but to not see the value in rescuing libertarianism from the stigmatization with which it has been branded and embracing portions of its tenets is, for lack of a more gracious label, completely ignorant.
Public Intellectual Profile - Dr. Michio Kaku
|“Perhaps UFO and alien lore is seeming more like a reflection of human
culture, tied to the space age, motivated by conquering new existential frontiers.”|
Setting aside the question of whether extraterrestrials are currently interacting with Earth or not, it is here that the author seems to claim that advancing into space is a romanticized notion, exclusively cultivated during the second half of the 20th century, and that it is now dying out after a prolonged infatuation following space-race era mania. Along with attempting to make the case for unsubstantiated claims about the “progression” of culture and suggesting that a disbelief in the possibility of extraterrestrials is the mark of a more “mature” societal collective (a claim that could be taken as a demonization of imagination and open-mindedness) the author, Philip Jaekl, does simultaneously highlight a potential problem that concerns humanity as a whole. The problem of our priorities, as a species.
When the idea of space exploration is brought up in common conversation, occasionally one will hear a question of justification arise from certain individuals. These are the same individuals who would see NASA funding drastically reduced or the agency expunged completely. From these groups, questions such as, “Why are we worried about space when we have our fair share of problems down here?” are often heard. This reassortment of priorities, at face value, seems rational and logical. However, based on every possible historical example, the sad reality is that humanity will always possess major problems and as long as we, as a species, are unable to exist beyond Earth, we will always run the risk of extinction (one could call that the greatest problem of all). In this way, the truly logical progression is to embrace our advancement into space, and more specifically colonize another planet. This then begs the questions “How do we do that?” and “Where do we go from there?”
These are the exact questions asked by theoretical astrophysicist Dr. Michio Kaku, a man who has virtually dedicated his entire life to the study, contemplation, and search for our future ventures into the vast reaches of space and what they could means for us down the proverbial road. It is from the results of these contemplations and studies that Dr. Kaku has ultimately claimed that our insured survival as a species lies in the stars, as long as we don’t blow ourselves up first. But before the warranted unpacking of Dr. Kaku’s theories on this topic, and some minor critiques of his oversimplified hyperbole and bias against spirituality and religion takes place, I want to briefly shift the focus back to the article from The Guardian.
These are the exact questions asked by theoretical astrophysicist Dr. Michio Kaku, a man who has virtually dedicated his entire life to the study, contemplation, and search for our future ventures into the vast reaches of space and what they could means for us down the proverbial road. It is from the results of these contemplations and studies that Dr. Kaku has ultimately claimed that our insured survival as a species lies in the stars, as long as we don’t blow ourselves up first. But before the warranted unpacking of Dr. Kaku’s theories on this topic, and some minor critiques of his oversimplified hyperbole and bias against spirituality and religion takes place, I want to briefly shift the focus back to the article from The Guardian.
Jaekl also suggests that this decline in UFO sightings could be a result of an increased indifference, by the public, toward all aspects of life that, he claims, may stem from the current political climate that seems to raise the bar of absurdity on a daily basis.
|“A key factor, however, may be that more people simply don’t care anymore.
As we are accustomed to being inundated with wild claims churned out by
|“A key factor, however, may be that more people simply don’t care anymore.
As we are accustomed to being inundated with wild claims churned out by
politicians, media and advertisers, the next report of a UFO is no more
believed than the long-range weather forecast.”|
believed than the long-range weather forecast.”|
In short, according to Jaekl, people have become desensitized by twitter battles between the President and Speaker of the House that the idea of life on other planets has become stale. Whether it’s the fact that those in office provide the public with a daily dose of discussion material or that the possibility of planetary annihilation creeps ever closer, as world leaders toy with the idea of using their nuclear arsenals, Jaekl is leading his readers to believe that many people, either consciously or subconsciously, are placing space exploration at the end of their list of priorities and if true, that is bad for the future of the species.
Whichever way you feel about this topic, it’s important to remember the promise that space offers us. Our advancement into the cosmos is something that keeps the human machine turning and has since the beginning. Dr. Michio Kaku himself put it best. In a televised lecture, he opened his talk by explaining where the current technological boom, which includes the internet, robotics, and A.I., came from,
|“People call me and they say to me: professor where did the internet come
from? The iphone? All these wonders, it happened so suddenly. It must
have been from aliens from outer space. Nope. It came from the space program.”|
Here, Dr. Kaku illuminates how integral the lasting effects of the space program are for the establishment of an age of unprecedented global communication. If the article from The Guardian is truly any sort of litmus test of the current public opinion of all things space then now, more than ever, we should be promoting individuals among us that make scientific topics, particularly the ones that make our brains whirl, more accessible and easier to see the immediate benefits of and simultaneously make those scientific topics “cool.” Dr. Michio Kaku is one such individual.
Dr. Michio Kaku was born in San Jose California in 1947. As a young child, he became enthralled with science and famously built his own atom-smasher in the garage of his parent’s home (this was later revealed to be a slight exaggeration by Kaku himself). Nevertheless, with the ability and means to carry out the construction of such a machine, it is safe to say that Dr. Kaku was given a generous amount of freedom by his parents. This point is crucially important in order to fully understand the way Kaku thinks. His upbringing evidently allowed for him to be inquisitive, curious, and to seek out the answers to any questions he had, whether it was through reading or through experimentation. It is no surprise then that Dr. Kaku gained notice by his “atom-smasher” experiment and ultimately earned a scientific scholarship to attend Harvard University (where he finished first in his physics class), out of high school. He then continued on to receive his P.h.D. from UC Berkeley where he excelled in the radiation laboratory program. More recently, Dr. Kaku has pursued a life of teaching and publishing, holding a lectureship at Princeton University as well as both NYU and City College of New York over the past several decades, while simultaneously writing several New York Times best-sellers that both tackle complex scientific topics as well as extrapolate on Kaku’s own thoughts and theories that pertain to the future of the human race and what is necessary, often societally, to get us there. One such theory involves placing the human race on a societal scale that Kaku devised himself.
In his book, Physics of the Future, Dr. Kaku explains the criteria for each of these stages. The first stage is one of planetary control, wherein the civilization in question would be able to manipulate every aspect of the planet they live on and harness said planet’s energy completely. The second stage involves the ability to harness the energy of every planet in the solar system. It is here that Dr. Kaku makes an analogy to Star Trek explaining that, as in the show and movies, the characters are interplanetary, just as a stage 2 civilization would be. The third and final stage in Dr. Kaku’s scale involves harnessing the energy of an entire galaxy. Here, Dr. Kaku uses Star Wars as an example. As the characters of Star Wars are able to jump to lightspeed at will and traverse solar systems as we would cities, so too would this hypothetical third stage civilization. Dr. Kaku goes on to unceremoniously declare that humanity is currently a stage zero civilization, not even “on the board.” He explains this stage zero to be a sort of crossroads. A test to see if we can even make it onto the board. Dr. Kaku asserts that it is within this era, this attempt to rise to stage one, in which we will either go extinct from self-harm(such as nuclear war or unchecked environmental change that can spiral into uninhabitability) or we will ascend, our survival virtually secure. According to Kaku, at stage one we will be able to deflect asteroids that would otherwise cause extinction and manipulate the weather at will, avoiding any sort of meteorological disasters. While Dr. Kaku’s predictions are grounded in science and reinforced by historical analysis to better understand our societal trajectory, there are times when Dr. Kaku seems to be so damn sure that he begins to express disdain for the institutions that cultivated some of the most accomplished scientific minds throughout human history. The institutions of religion and spirituality.
Understanding that the methodology behind branding an individual as a public intellectual seems to rely on a healthy blend of academic pursuit as well as accessibility with the layman, makes Dr. Michio Kaku a “no-brainer.” He’s most definitely “in the club.” His admittance into the public intellectuals group was never in question. Rather, the issue at question here is one of Dr. Kaku criticizing his fellow public intellectuals. If his public comments, and more importantly his comparisons, involving religion are any indication, Dr. Kaku would most certainly denounce the idea of most people from the theological realm as fellow carriers of the title of public intellectual. While Dr. Kaku’s writings are an impressive blend of scientific jargon and relevant pop-culture comparisons and references that make topics like technology of the future or space exploration more accessible, there are times in both his writing and his publicized lectures that he shifts to extraneous and arguably non-conducive hits on religion. For example, in one mini-lecture, Dr. Kaku mentions that our stagnation toward advancement into a stage one civilization is a product of the archaic savagery and fundamentalisms that we cling onto in the modern day. This isn’t a cut and dried slight against religion, but it is for that reason I chose it as an example. Here, in the same way that Jaerkl navigates the topic of his article with implication, Dr. Kaku claims, indirectly, that in order to ascend to the next stage of civilization we must abandon the rigid ideologies and pillars of thought that accompany religion. It is within these moments that Dr. Kaku both comes across as arrogant of the unifying effect of many religions, as well as negligent of the great scientists, of both the past as well as the present, that have either benefitted from religion or furthered our understanding of it. This is an issue tackled by Dr. Stephen Mack in his essay entitled “The Cleric as Public Intellectual”.
|“One of the great ironies of this debate is that historically, public intellectuals
in America are a product of both our secular and religious traditions.
Indeed, our entire liberal, secular democratic tradition is an extension
of our religious origins.”|
Here, Dr. Mack refutes the assertion that anything involving a religious connotation should be ultimately considered academically invalid, countering comments, like Dr. Kaku’s, that involve baseless and generalizing abandonments of religion as a whole.
Imagine for a moment that humanity had absolute peace. Imagine that all of the problems plaguing the world today were gone. There is no threat of nuclear annihilation. No threat of environmental catastrophe. No hunger. No sickness. What would the logical progression forward be, for our species? In our stagnation we, as curious beings, would incontrovertibly take to the cosmos with full force. Now understand that this reality will never come. One must remember that while the aforementioned problems may one day be solved, new major and global problems would undoubtedly appear. So then how do we break this cycle of solving and creating problems as a species? It doesn’t matter. This very ponder would be moot if a large-enough asteroid struck the Earth right now, for our ultimate problem as a species is our inability to survive an extinction level event. To ensure our survival as a species we have to exist on more than one celestial body, and the way to do that is to have space on the mind, more specifically on the societal mind. Space exploration and planetary colonization must be a global priority and without public interest in space, we will never be a priority. This is why public intellectuals such as Michio Kaku must be championed to the forefront of media outlets and be allowed to make topics like space exploration something to be desired.
SOURCES
http://mkaku.org/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufo-sightings
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/michio-kaku-sees-amazing-things-our-future-except-those-scary-ncna851226
http://www.stephenmack.com/blog/archives/2013/08/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKjvL6ugpKU&t=568s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NPC47qMJVg
Whichever way you feel about this topic, it’s important to remember the promise that space offers us. Our advancement into the cosmos is something that keeps the human machine turning and has since the beginning. Dr. Michio Kaku himself put it best. In a televised lecture, he opened his talk by explaining where the current technological boom, which includes the internet, robotics, and A.I., came from,
|“People call me and they say to me: professor where did the internet come
from? The iphone? All these wonders, it happened so suddenly. It must
have been from aliens from outer space. Nope. It came from the space program.”|
Here, Dr. Kaku illuminates how integral the lasting effects of the space program are for the establishment of an age of unprecedented global communication. If the article from The Guardian is truly any sort of litmus test of the current public opinion of all things space then now, more than ever, we should be promoting individuals among us that make scientific topics, particularly the ones that make our brains whirl, more accessible and easier to see the immediate benefits of and simultaneously make those scientific topics “cool.” Dr. Michio Kaku is one such individual.
Dr. Michio Kaku was born in San Jose California in 1947. As a young child, he became enthralled with science and famously built his own atom-smasher in the garage of his parent’s home (this was later revealed to be a slight exaggeration by Kaku himself). Nevertheless, with the ability and means to carry out the construction of such a machine, it is safe to say that Dr. Kaku was given a generous amount of freedom by his parents. This point is crucially important in order to fully understand the way Kaku thinks. His upbringing evidently allowed for him to be inquisitive, curious, and to seek out the answers to any questions he had, whether it was through reading or through experimentation. It is no surprise then that Dr. Kaku gained notice by his “atom-smasher” experiment and ultimately earned a scientific scholarship to attend Harvard University (where he finished first in his physics class), out of high school. He then continued on to receive his P.h.D. from UC Berkeley where he excelled in the radiation laboratory program. More recently, Dr. Kaku has pursued a life of teaching and publishing, holding a lectureship at Princeton University as well as both NYU and City College of New York over the past several decades, while simultaneously writing several New York Times best-sellers that both tackle complex scientific topics as well as extrapolate on Kaku’s own thoughts and theories that pertain to the future of the human race and what is necessary, often societally, to get us there. One such theory involves placing the human race on a societal scale that Kaku devised himself.
In his book, Physics of the Future, Dr. Kaku explains the criteria for each of these stages. The first stage is one of planetary control, wherein the civilization in question would be able to manipulate every aspect of the planet they live on and harness said planet’s energy completely. The second stage involves the ability to harness the energy of every planet in the solar system. It is here that Dr. Kaku makes an analogy to Star Trek explaining that, as in the show and movies, the characters are interplanetary, just as a stage 2 civilization would be. The third and final stage in Dr. Kaku’s scale involves harnessing the energy of an entire galaxy. Here, Dr. Kaku uses Star Wars as an example. As the characters of Star Wars are able to jump to lightspeed at will and traverse solar systems as we would cities, so too would this hypothetical third stage civilization. Dr. Kaku goes on to unceremoniously declare that humanity is currently a stage zero civilization, not even “on the board.” He explains this stage zero to be a sort of crossroads. A test to see if we can even make it onto the board. Dr. Kaku asserts that it is within this era, this attempt to rise to stage one, in which we will either go extinct from self-harm(such as nuclear war or unchecked environmental change that can spiral into uninhabitability) or we will ascend, our survival virtually secure. According to Kaku, at stage one we will be able to deflect asteroids that would otherwise cause extinction and manipulate the weather at will, avoiding any sort of meteorological disasters. While Dr. Kaku’s predictions are grounded in science and reinforced by historical analysis to better understand our societal trajectory, there are times when Dr. Kaku seems to be so damn sure that he begins to express disdain for the institutions that cultivated some of the most accomplished scientific minds throughout human history. The institutions of religion and spirituality.
Understanding that the methodology behind branding an individual as a public intellectual seems to rely on a healthy blend of academic pursuit as well as accessibility with the layman, makes Dr. Michio Kaku a “no-brainer.” He’s most definitely “in the club.” His admittance into the public intellectuals group was never in question. Rather, the issue at question here is one of Dr. Kaku criticizing his fellow public intellectuals. If his public comments, and more importantly his comparisons, involving religion are any indication, Dr. Kaku would most certainly denounce the idea of most people from the theological realm as fellow carriers of the title of public intellectual. While Dr. Kaku’s writings are an impressive blend of scientific jargon and relevant pop-culture comparisons and references that make topics like technology of the future or space exploration more accessible, there are times in both his writing and his publicized lectures that he shifts to extraneous and arguably non-conducive hits on religion. For example, in one mini-lecture, Dr. Kaku mentions that our stagnation toward advancement into a stage one civilization is a product of the archaic savagery and fundamentalisms that we cling onto in the modern day. This isn’t a cut and dried slight against religion, but it is for that reason I chose it as an example. Here, in the same way that Jaerkl navigates the topic of his article with implication, Dr. Kaku claims, indirectly, that in order to ascend to the next stage of civilization we must abandon the rigid ideologies and pillars of thought that accompany religion. It is within these moments that Dr. Kaku both comes across as arrogant of the unifying effect of many religions, as well as negligent of the great scientists, of both the past as well as the present, that have either benefitted from religion or furthered our understanding of it. This is an issue tackled by Dr. Stephen Mack in his essay entitled “The Cleric as Public Intellectual”.
|“One of the great ironies of this debate is that historically, public intellectuals
in America are a product of both our secular and religious traditions.
Indeed, our entire liberal, secular democratic tradition is an extension
of our religious origins.”|
Here, Dr. Mack refutes the assertion that anything involving a religious connotation should be ultimately considered academically invalid, countering comments, like Dr. Kaku’s, that involve baseless and generalizing abandonments of religion as a whole.
Imagine for a moment that humanity had absolute peace. Imagine that all of the problems plaguing the world today were gone. There is no threat of nuclear annihilation. No threat of environmental catastrophe. No hunger. No sickness. What would the logical progression forward be, for our species? In our stagnation we, as curious beings, would incontrovertibly take to the cosmos with full force. Now understand that this reality will never come. One must remember that while the aforementioned problems may one day be solved, new major and global problems would undoubtedly appear. So then how do we break this cycle of solving and creating problems as a species? It doesn’t matter. This very ponder would be moot if a large-enough asteroid struck the Earth right now, for our ultimate problem as a species is our inability to survive an extinction level event. To ensure our survival as a species we have to exist on more than one celestial body, and the way to do that is to have space on the mind, more specifically on the societal mind. Space exploration and planetary colonization must be a global priority and without public interest in space, we will never be a priority. This is why public intellectuals such as Michio Kaku must be championed to the forefront of media outlets and be allowed to make topics like space exploration something to be desired.
SOURCES
http://mkaku.org/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/what-is-behind-the-decline-in-ufo-sightings
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/michio-kaku-sees-amazing-things-our-future-except-those-scary-ncna851226
http://www.stephenmack.com/blog/archives/2013/08/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKjvL6ugpKU&t=568s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NPC47qMJVg
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