Mississippi Burning

In class, we watched the movie "Mississippi Burning". A few weeks later we had a test where we had to choose between a couple of questions and write a text. This is the text that I wrote.

The movie Mississippi Burning is based on a true story and it focuses on the hatred against colored people, the segregation and Ku Klux Klan. Back then, colored people were treated very badly in the southern sates. For example, they had to go to their own churches and live in their own little communities outside of the town, as shown in the movie.

When people from the North came to the southern states, they thought that everyone there were racists and that everyone hated black people, just because many of the citizens thought of black people almost as animals. We know that some people thought of black people of animals, because in the movie, when Agent Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) asks one of the citizens if he would kill a “negro” he answers: “I wouldn’t have given it more thought than twisting a cats neck.” I think that this line expresses some of the white people’s way of looking at the African-American race. Another example is when a news reporter asks a random lady about how she thinks that the blacks have been treated “down here”, she answers “about fair”, even though they obviously have been treated awfully badly for a long time.

When the people in the North look at the people in the South and think “They are all ugly racists” and “they should all be ashamed of themselves”, do they not almost do the same thing as the racists in the South did to colored people? They generalize them, think of them as all the same, just as the racists thought of all the blacks as thieves and bad influence. They were not all the same, the people in the South, even though the racists that controlled the city wanted them to be. They wanted everybody to hate colored people. Just as Mrs. Pell said; “At school, they say that segregation what’s in the bible.” They did the same thing to kids as Hitler did, during his time of controlling Germany. Propaganda. Teaching them that colored people are dirty and less worthy than themselves from when they were young and gullible, and not able to think and reason for themselves. When everyone tells you that “these people hate, they hate our country and they came here to destroy everything for you!” enough times when you are that young, you believe it. When the hatred is a part of the society, it becomes a part of you. “You live it... You breathe it.”

I think that what Mrs. Pell meant by the quote was that even though people may think of everyone in the South are racists, there were many persons that were not. She said that she thinks it is disgusting that they teach kids to hate colored people, but she understands that it is hard for kids to understand that this is wrong. I think that this was a great movie, and it brings up a very important subject, racism.

The picture shows Agent Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe). The picture is taken from the movie. You can read about the movie and watch its reviews here and you can watch the movie trailer here.

Digging our own grave

Arne Næss was a Norwegian philosopher and environmental activist. He was the youngest person ever to achieve a masters-degree in philosophy, and he was 27 years old when he was hired as a professor in philosophy at the University of Oslo. Arne was an active man. He was an active mountain clamber and boxer his entire life, and he led climbing expeditions to the mountain Tirich Mir in Pakistan. But the thing that Arne Næss bacame most famous for was not climbing a very high mountain or winning a boxing match, but it was to create the ecosophy and deep ecology.

Ecosophy means wisdom of nature or nature wisdom. The ecosophy and deep ecology is basically the same thing, but the deep ecology is a branch of the subject ecosophy. The deep ecology platform, which is the basics of many environmental activist groups, is that:

1. Every life is equal valuable
2. Every species in the world knows that every life is equally valuable, and that has value itself.
3. The human beings have got no rights to reduce the amount of life forms for no other reasons than vital means.
4. The population growth must be limited
5. The humans way to act with nature now-a-days is destructive
6. At the political level, changes in the economic growth to sustainable development, the ideal of equilibrium society where production correspond to the exhaustion, the birth rate correspond to the death rate, exhaustion concentrated on the basic needs, decentralized subsistence societies.
7. People should focus more on life quality than on life-standards.

The deep ecology focuses on the belief that the humans are, like every other species on this planet, a part of an ecological community, meaning that humans can not live without the nature. That means that if a species is extinct then that will have an impact on the human race as well as the rest of the world. Arne Næss founded the deep ecology in the believe that to solve the global problems we are facing, we need to think about the nature on a deeper level, by including both philosophy and ecology in the way of thinking. Thats why it is called deep ecology, because it reflects and thinks about the nature on a deeper level, asking questions concerning “how” and “why” concerning the humans impact on the ecosystem.

One of the biggest mistakes that us humans do according the ecosophy is pollution. We chop down the rain forest, extinguishing species after species, ruining the eco system and poisoning the air by driving big bulldozers to do this work. We poison the oceans, drilling after oil while ruining wonderful nature and making it impossible for fish to live while we are doing it. After we have brought the oil up to the surface (which also takes a lot of energy) we use this oil to make plastic or gasoline, just to use this to destroy our own planet. And the reasons that we are ruining our own world is to make it better for ourselves to live. I think that that is a little bit ironic. We are ruining the only way for us to live by polluting the air and ruining our sources of oxygen to “live” better. Because people nowadays apparently needs hundreds of unnecessary gadgets and clothes to be “happy” and live good. We are actually destroying the source of our lives to be able to live better. I think that if we think about it we all understand this. But what should we do about it? I sit behind this computer, writing my opinion about this and trying to make everyone else out there look so bad, when the truth is that I am just as bad as everyone else. I also want more useless stuff, bigger house and a faster car. But why do we have this eternal thirst for new things? Is it instinctual? I guess we will never know.

At least one thing is clear as the water was before: we need to change our behavior if we want to continue to live on this planet. I think that this is what Arne Næss and the deep ecology wants us to do. Change our behavior to the benefit of both us and the planet. Because no one can live without this earth even though we act like we think that we can. So therefore: better for planet earth = better for the human species

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_N%C3%A6ss 24/01 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology 23/01 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosophy 23/01 2012

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98kosofi 23/01 2012