10 - Myth and Utopia

Myth, Utopia and "No Impact Man"

by Marc-André, Katherine and Shashi

Introduction

This week’s topic is about myths and utopia, and how to reach perfection through collectivity and actions that could be considered as belonging to myths.  So this blog is dedicated to the summary of the two screenings No Impact Man and Surviving Progress, which are related to the topic of the week, and also what do these two documentaries can teach to viewers.

Part 1: First screening

“No Impact Man,” an American documentary directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein in 2009, is an interesting look at saving the planet. It shows the measures taken by the Beaven family to try and go for a year without negatively impacting the environment.  The family consists of Colin Beaven, a writer, Michelle, his wife and their toddler daughter Isabella. The purpose of the project was to see what things they really didn’t need to live normally in New York City. To see what things they could plausibly give up, not to necessarily live that way for the rest of their lives. The point was to see what changes they could make.

Their project was done in stages, and the stages got progressively extreme and difficult. Some of the first things they did included eating only local  foods, not buying anything new (used things or borrowed were okay), using only self-propelled transportation (no elevators), getting rid of their television and using a worm bin to compost. The later phases of their project included getting rid of things they didn’t need by donating them to second hand stores, making their own soaps, detergents and other cleaning products, learning how to grow vegetables in the city, volunteering with environmental groups and, for the last six months of their experiment, going without electricity. During their project, they were faced with much criticism. Other environmentalists said that it was this type of extreme action that gave them a bad name. The media made their project into a kind of joke by not focusing on the truly important or good things from their project. Co-workers began to think of them as dirty, refusing to even shake hands because they would not buy toilet paper. 

This film highlights individual actions in a big community, which makes it special. Often, individual action is seen as something that is pointless, because there are so many individuals in a community and you can’t force everybody to take the same actions and make the same changes in their lives. Often, people believe that they have to wait for governments and organizations to take action. While this is discussed and validated in the film, it is also shown that individual action is not something to be disregarded. The actions of one individual can inspire other individuals to act in a certain way, slowly changing the ways we live. This is really brought home when we see Colin talking to large groups about his experiment.

The topic discussed in class this week was utopia and myths. This film shows us a hero’s quest, the sender being that Colin Beaven wanted to write a new book, the subject being the Beaven family, the object being the project. There were also helpers and oppositions, the helpers being those who lent them things such as the solar panel, and the opposition being those who criticized the project. In the end, the receiver was the Beaven family themselves as well as the environment, because they grew closer as a family and became healthier overall. This was a myth based on an idea of utopia. A utopia is basically a perfect world. The term utopia was first used by Thomas More. A utopia is a world that is too good to be true. Such a world can never truly exist because utopia depends on an individual’s vision of the world. With so many individuals, not everyone will have the same vision of what a utopian world would look like; therefore in reality it is unattainable. The link below is to a video that expands on the idea of utopia.

The project presented in “No Impact Man” is based on a utopia. During their one year experiment, the Beavens take measures that even they decide not to take after that year, things like going without electricity and the worm bin. Very few people would be willing to change their lifestyles so dramatically, as we are all afraid of change even when the change is beneficial to us and our environment. We will always have some impact on our environment, so the idea of making no impact is utopian. It would be ideal, but it is in reality unachievable.

Part 2: Additional Screening

Firstly, the additional screening released in 2011, and lasting about 86 minutes in length, called Surviving Progress, accompanies the main documentary, No Impact Man. The filmmakers, Harold Crook and Mathieu Roy, say that their inspiration for creating this compelling interactive documentary came from Ronald Wright’s best-seller of 2004, A Short History of Progress, in which the author claimed that civilization is in an experimental stage as much as the human beings from the Stone Age were then. But in this film, viewers that are trying to know what the main theme of the documentary is only have to look at the title, because “survival” is the central idea for this movie. Viewers are presented with different opinions from a number of economists, scientists, and authors, in which they describe what probably caused civilization to reach the point where it has to worry about its survival, and what can it do to prevent its destruction. After a few minutes in the documentary, Ronald Wright presents to viewers a term that he uses to define the current situation of civilization called progress trap, which corresponds to human behaviours that seem to be good things to provide benefits in a short term, but which actually leads to disaster and unsustainability. By looking at his definition of what a progress trap is, viewers can easily make the link between this, and the current problems of overconsumption, overpopulation, and the refusal of dramatic changes because people think that they are already contributing to a good environment. Another example of denial and scepticism is the critic of this documentary, written by Michael O’Sullivan of The Washington Post, who wrote that “99 percent” of viewers “probably won’t like what the movie has to say”. Now, one might wonder if this movie critic is implying that members of society simply do not care about change, or that they are already discouraged by the steps to take because they feel guilty. Basically, the whole documentary was about how humanity always strives for progress, but what humans see as progress, are not necessarily positively changing the world.

Secondly, the documentary being an interactive one is composed of many interesting interviews of experts, where the viewers can have their personal opinions of how the world is, how it got to this point, and how it can be fixed. For example, Michael Hudson, an economic historian and former Wall Street economist, claims that 2000 years ago, it was normal for countries to cancel their debt when it was too large, so that society can renew. But he adds that Rome became a powerful and rich empire by going to war against other countries before the kings could cancel their debt, and stripped them from their economic power to prevent equality. Basically, the gap between the rich and the poor may well have been caused because of this manoeuvre by the Romans, and could explain the current situation. Another memorable moment is the interview of Margaret Atwood, author of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, gives the perfect argument against capitalism by saying: “Unless we conserve the planet, there is no economy.” At one point, Kambale Musavuli, spokesman of the organisation Friends of the Congo, makes a very interesting remark on debts by saying that the people are working to give the money they earn to someone else. This surely makes viewers uneasy, because of course Mr. Musavuli talks about the population of Congo, but isn’t it the situation in which every member of society find themselves into? Although, probably the most intelligent, simple, and jaw-dropping comment of Surviving Progress must be when Vaclav Smil, a population scientist, says that the solution to contribute to the environment and society in general, is that humans have to use less. This could fix the overconsumption, environment problems, but by fixing these, it could save humanity from its progress trap. So, if readers look at the examples given, they might notice that their words act like myths, because their words are the vehicle of their metaphysical insights, meaning that they convey words of wisdom concerning the values that society should acquire, or keep.

Thirdly, readers of this blog might try to find a link between this documentary, and the theme of the course, but should clearly see that they both treat of the same concept: Utopia. While Sylvain Duguay’s PowerPoint presentation Myths and Utopia: Imagining a Different World defines what is Utopia, the film illustrates an almost utopian vision of the world when the people interviewed, consisting of Stephen Hawking, Jane Goodall, David Suzuki, and many more, present their solution or vision of how to make the world a better place. Viewers might see a sense of collectivity, primarily because humanity is strongly connected to the Earth, but also, because of the challenge that humanity, as a whole, has to face. Another interesting subject that this documentary touched is the quest for answers. Daniel Povinelli, a cognitive psychologist that was interviewed, says in the documentary: “Humans are constantly probing for unobservable phenomenon to explain the observable”. So, it is easy to see that the fact that this documentary serves to warn viewers of the consequences of civilization’s actions, which is a quest of its own, but another is the quest that viewers are urged to undertake. Viewers may see many links between the film and the course, but there are also many between the first and second screening. One of the most significant links that viewers can make between the two screenings, would obviously be the fact that Colin Beaven, in No Impact Man, takes an enormous task as an individual, but finds himself against society and its criticism, while in Surviving Progress, society as a whole has to confront some challenges. This certainly leads to say that a person can make great changes in his life, but only if society cooperates and acts like a whole, can the world be change for the greater good.

Review of Surviving Progress:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/surviving-progress,1224566/critic-review.html

Part 3: Personal Reflection of the two Screenings

From watching the documentaries Surviving Progress and No Impact Man, there is a common subject that is emphasized from the two documentaries which is change and progress. Humans are capable of great change but the changes we make in society aren’t enough to be considered as “change”, instead it is referred to as progress. But as human beings we don’t realise that we are progressing too quickly as a species, so quickly, that the changes and progress we make could threaten the very existence of humanity, basically a progress trap (as Ronald Wright would call it)!

  In No Impact Man, the film taught us that as humans, we have the capability of making great changes to help better the world for the tomorrow to come as seen with Colin and his family, which consists to live a “no impact towards the environment” lifestyle for one year, in New York City. His idea was successful but really, there is one question that we should ask ourselves, if one man and his family could do it, why not the rest us? Is it because humans are afraid of change, or that we simply don’t care? Right now, we are living in a society in which our way of living is harming our nature our very habitat. We are polluting, extracting, using up all of our natural resources, and destroying habitats for our personal needs. We need paper so we cut trees; we need land to build homes so we destroy forests etc…  Our actions always have consequences and as consequence for our actions we are committing towards the earth, we are slowly progressing to lose nature itself. Forests, animals, natural resources, all would disappear if we continue in this path but when people begin to realize about the harm we are causing, we take small actions (example: recycling, living a no impact lifestyle etc…) to better ourselves and Earth and hope that this will eventually progress into a big change but sometimes the progress we make to help better ourselves and the world isn’t quite helpful at all.

From the documentary Surviving Progress, it seems the documentary emphasizes the idea of how sometimes, progress isn’t that perfect. As humans, we strive to make change, but yet we don’t realize that the human race is something that affects our planet. We are growing in numbers so our demand increases and affects our nature etc… “Humans are the most intellectual creatures to walk on planet Earth yet us intellectual beings are destroying are only home” (Jane Goodall). We are problem solvers, if there is something wrong, we will work it out but when the topic involves change in our habits, or ourselves, we merely ignore the problem or we simply don’t do anything. For example, when people discuss about the environment, usually you’ll have people who talk “big” but in the end you don’t do anything, because you’ll still drive your car, still throw garbage, consume natural resources, and etc…    

Both Surviving Progress and No Impact Man teach us that we live in a very small world and that rather than taking care of our planet, most people do the opposite, even if “The world is small and it can’t grow or be big” (Margret Atwood).  Earth is not a humongous planet with an infinite amount of natural resources. It is small. The only thing that is enormous is our population. Almost seven billion people live on planet earth and the number will continue to rise throughout the years but that’s not the only variable changing, year after year our natural resources are diminishing to a point that eventually, we’ll have nothing left. Why you ask? Because of consumerism, earth provides us with what you will call “Natural Capital”, (water, oxygen, forests, minerals, oil etc…) all of these resources that Mother Nature has provided to us, is used as capital because for humans, everything is about money. Eventually our situation will progress to a point where (as said by Stephen Hawking in the film Surviving Progress) the human race would have to leave earth and venture out into space to find a new planet to live on search for new resources (like in a science-fiction movie), because our instinct as a species is to explore, possess and consume. 

Films like No Impact Man and Surviving Progress were created to transform our vision of the world by showing us the consequences of our actions and emphasize on them so that we can change our ways just like how Colin Beavan did. Surviving Progress showed us that our world is dying and we are killing it. We are making progress so that our earth can live on but the progress we make isn’t enough or that the progress we make isn’t making a difference we’re just making it worse. While No Impact Man has proved to us that it is possible to make change by fixing our lifestyle and habits, humans have the capability of making the world a better, environmental friendly place by taking small progressive steps in order to make a change. This is something that society has to learn because if society doesn’t learn that the things we do on earth is merely killing it and we have the capability of change then who will? This is something we have to learn and this is what is considered as real progress.   

Reviews of Surviving Progress and No Impact Man:

http://www.theboulderstand.org/2012/02/20/surviving-progress-asks-deep-questions-but-fails-to-provide-answers/

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/movies/11impact.html?_r=0

Conclusion

After watching the two documentaries and making links between the two of them, it is easy to present to readers of this blog things that the team learned. Although, these films show viewers how they can act to make tomorrow a better world, but the filmmakers did not go to the extent of showing these solutions as actions that will lead humanity to the point where it has finally reached Utopia. Readers of this blog might have their own opinion and are invited to contribute by commenting about what they have thought of the blog, and other subjects or details of the documentaries.