`Body Snatchers (5) Our Fundamental Humanity

Nicole Kidman as American psychiatrist Carol Bennell finds herself engaged in a quietly pivotal debate with Roger Rees as Russian ambassador Yorish.  I'm not quite sure that even in the right situation, we are all capable for the most terrible crimes.  But for better or for worse, aggression in one form or another does seem to be an inviolable part of human history.  Perhaps the irony of what Yorish argues is this: The predatory, albeit dispassionate, nature of the body snatchers speaks to his very definition of what it means to be human.  In this light, we cannot say that the body snatchers rob humanity of its humanity.  Instead, it simply captures an essence of that humanity.   

Professor and author Vivian Sobchak speaks wisely about, and alludes to, an area of import in Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm: Much as we in Western culture may value the rational, scientific and logical, we as human beings are simply not just rational, scientific or logical.  We are very much non-rational, intuitive and emotional, too.  To advance one, to the neglect of the other, as scientist and artist sorts may do, is to paint a terribly misguided, incomplete picture of humankind.  

Note: In the DVD for `The Invasion (2007), the fourth film adaptation of the classic Jack Finney novel `The Body Snatchers, We've Been Snatched Before is a feature program.  I couldn't find an upload of it on YouTube, so the next best thing, I thought, was to capture this thought-provoking program via the foregoing screen shots.

`Body Snatchers (4) Fear as Contagion

What makes disease in an pandemic or epidemic so pernicious is this: The very fear of disease, in and of itself, is a contagion.  In general we seem to pride ourselves on our intellect and rationality, our objectivity and logic.  But as Sigmund Freud began to argue more than a century ago, this is just one aspect of ourselves.  Indeed we may be more emotional, irrational and subjective than we'd like to imagine or acknowledge.

So, to understand and remedy disease better, we must turn to more than just medicine and science.  Psychology, culture and lore are complementary frameworks, too.  In brief, we must take into account complex human nature.

Note: In the DVD for `The Invasion (2007), the fourth film adaptation of the classic Jack Finney novel `The Body Snatchers, We've Been Snatched Before is a feature program.  I couldn't find an upload of it on YouTube, so the next best thing, I thought, was to capture this thought-provoking program via the foregoing screen shots.

`Body Snatchers (3) Battling Disease, Ourselves

There is a complex set of Venn Diagrams here.  Imagine these diagrams in animation, and we see that our relationship with - views and experiences of - disease evolves with the times.  It is never static.  It breathes and pulses as much as each of us does.  

At heart of my Algorithm for Disease is the notion that we are engaged - humankind and disease - in a elemental, aeons-old battle for life.  We as a life form grew our intelligence over hundreds of thousands of years, and we forged the tools with which to defeat disease.  But let us not underestimate the smarts and means that disease has at its disposal.  So one reason we fear being overcome by an epidemic or pandemic of disease is, as `The Body Snatchers suggests, it seems to know perfectly well how to attack us.  

What's more, we as the human race seem intent on battling ourselves, and ultimately destroying our very own, via those smarts and means of disease.  In recent months, for example, as the war crisis in Syria rages on, there were allegations that its government used bioterrorism against its own people.  

It's very insightful to say that Jack Finney's classic novel has Shakespearean mobility.  For me, it's less about their work per se, brilliant as it all is, and more about the novelist and playwright themselves.  They clearly had a pulse on the very nature, the very essence, the very dynamic of humankind.  Which makes their so-called mobility all the more remarkable, yet all the less surprising, because their work simply follows suit with the evolution of humankind.

Note: In the DVD for `The Invasion (2007), the fourth film adaptation of the classic Jack Finney novel `The Body Snatchers, We've Been Snatched Before is a feature program.  I couldn't find an upload of it on YouTube, so the next best thing, I thought, was to capture this thought-provoking program via the foregoing screen shots.