Downtown

Like the coronavirus in the early 2020s, HIV/AIDS in the mid-1980s and for at least a decade after then paid little or no attention to national borders or even to nationalities. Even though coronavirus freely walked through the boundaries of our various group-identities with the implication being that they are actually artificial demarcated constructions, AIDS showed us that sub-societal cultural differences do exist. In fact, within a given sub-culture and thus group-identity, one set of values may be ethically and psychologically better than another set, so broad-strokes can be understood as over-simplifications.

The full essay is at "Downtown."

Religion Overreaching: Euthanasia

The Nazi program of inflicting euthanasia on the severely mentally ill in the twentieth century can be distinguished from cases in which suffering people with incurable diseases desire to die voluntarily sooner rather than later. In cases in which such people are mentally ill, the question is more complex, especially if the cause of the suffering is mental. In 2026, the Roman Catholic Church castigated a court ruling allowing the euthanasia of a mentally-ill person whose suffering stemmed in part from severe bodily pain and an incurable diagnosis other than that of the mental illness. Ironically, the Church discounted the element of compassion in putting someone out of one’s misery that would only get worse, and instead focused on “the culture of death” even though Jesus is silent on that issue, as well as homosexuality and abortion, in the Gospels. This is a case, I contend, of religion overstepping onto another domains—ethics and medicine in particular—while shirking its native fauna.  

The full essay "Religion Overreaching." 

The Exorcist

One of the most iconic films of the horror-film genre, The Exorcist (1973) focuses on the duality of good and evil that the film’s director, William Friedkin, maintained is in a constant struggle in all of us. The dialogue between the two priests performing the exorcism on the one side and the Devil possessing Regan on the other not only reveal the duality, but also the essence of evil itself. Once this essence is grasped, interesting questions can be asked that are distinctly theological, as distinct from modernity’s trope of evil portrayed in terms of, and even reduced to, supernatural movements of physical objects. The decadent materialist version of the theological domain stems from modernity’s bias in favor of materialism and empiricism. In other words, highlighting supernatural physics as being foremost in representing the religious realm is how secularity sidelines religion, rather than how religion itself is. The bias of modern society is very clear in the film as the “professionals” go through alternative explanations first from the field of medicine, privileging the somatic (physical) and then the psychological domains of medicine. In other words, the narrative establishes (or reflects) a hierarchy of three qualitatively different levels of descending validity: the somatic is primary, and only then the psychological, and, if the first two do not furnish an explanation, then, and only then, are we to turn to the theological as metaphysically (i.e., supernaturally) real primarily shown by physical objects defying the laws of physics. Science, rather than religion, is thus still in the driver’s seat. The bias in favor of materialism is in the assumption that only after feasible hypotheses from modern medicine are nullified can theological explanations be considered (as credible). In this way, the film reflects the hegemony of materialism that has taken hold since the Enlightenment, and the relegation of the theological as “magical” supernaturalism, as in a bed levitating of objects flying around Regan’s bedroom. The essence of evil is instead interior. If religion is a matter of the heart, then how could evil be otherwise?

The full essay is at "The Exorcist."

Realive: A Film About Extending Life Absent God

In 2016, Robert McIntyre, a graduate of MIT, became the first person to freeze and then revive a mammalian brain—that of a white rabbit. “When thawed, the rabbit’s brain was found to have all of its synapse, cell membranes, and intracellular structures intact.”[1] The film, Realive, made that same year, is a fictional story about a man with terminal cancer who commits suicide to be frozen and revived when his illness could be cured. In the context of McIntyre’s scientific work, the film’s sci-fi demeanor belies the very real possibility that cryogenics could realistically alter fundamental assumptions about life and death even just later in the same century. What the film says about the life and death is timeless, however, in terms of philosophical value.

The full essay is at "Realive."

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1. Candace Sutton, “Human Bodies Frozen in Desert Facility Waiting for Science to Wake them Up,” News.com.au.

The Age of Adaline: Death as No Longer Inevitable

In The Age of Adaline (2015), the age-old “fountain of youth” leitmotif springs forth yet again. In this incarnation, Adaline is forced to come to grips with the fact that everyone around her, including her daughter, is aging even as Adaline herself does not. A strong electromagnetic has altered her genes such that her cells do not divide at slower rates as they age. As she becomes aware of the repercussions, we in turn can marvel at what may be just decades away scientifically concerning the expected human life-span. In short, when the film came out, scientists were already openly discussing whether death itself may no longer be inevitable for human beings.

The full essay is at “The Age of Adaline.”