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JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 05/02
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its moral message,34 I believe that the trilogy is very ambiguous as to its moral stance. The aesthetic simulation of possible future worlds merely provides op- portunities for reflection for the reader rather than a fixed moral universe or even simple solutions for the ecological crisis at hand. Instead, The MaddAddam Trilogy lays bare the mechanics of world construction through storytelling and discourse and portrays its moral consequences. For example, for Crake and the God’s Gardeners the apocalypse clearly represents something positive. From a post-anthropocentric or eco-centric point of view, it is difficult to totally op- pose the take that “nature”35 and its non-human creatures would be better off without the kind of human civilisation represented in the novels’ pre-apocalyptic world. This idea is reinforced through the extensive portrayal of the God’s Gar- deners and their means of narrative worldmaking in The Year of the Flood. The God’s Gardeners’ belief system is based on a post-anthropocentrism in which animals and other non-human creatures have souls and rights to life simi- lar to those of human beings. They express this value system in hymns titled “Oh Let Me Not Be Proud”, “Oh Sing We Now the Holy Weeds” or “We Praise the Tiny Perfect Moles”, and sermons held by their leader, Adam One, on their feast days, such as “The Feast of Adam and All Primates”, in which he discusses the close kinship between humans and “the other Animals” as well as the moral ob- ligations that follow from that.36 Instead of justifying eco-centrism scientifically or “rationally” only, Adam One connects the Gardeners’ values and lifestyle to God and God’s creation: “By covering such barren rooftops with greenery we are doing our small part in the redemption of God’s Creation from the decay and sterility that lies around us, and feeding ourselves with its unpolluted food into the bargain. Some would term our efforts futile, but if all were to follow our example, what a change would be wrought on our beloved Planet!”37 Many of Adam One’s sermons incorporate scientific findings, yet he clearly points out that the purely scientific paradigm (as represented by Crake) is foolish in its de- nial of metaphysics and spirituality: “God is pure Spirit; so how can anyone rea- son that the failure to measure the Immeasurable proves its non-existence?”38 In the Gardeners’ world, the stories that Adam One tells in his sermons, the songs, and the rhymes all connect a spiritual and religious belief system to a certain mode of material living and especially of interacting with the natural environment in a sustainable manner, for example through community-based rooftop gardening as a form of non-capitalist production. Even though the 34 Bouson 2004, 140–1; Tate 2017, 66. 35 The framing of all that is non-human, or not human-made as “nature” is problematic from certain eco-critical perspectives, like Timothy Morton’s Ecology without Nature. 36 Atwood 2010, 63. 37 Atwood 2010, 13. 38 Atwood 2010, 62. Just Popular Entertainment or Longing for a Posthuman Eden? | 41www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 31–50
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JRFM Journal Religion Film Media, Band 05/02
Titel
JRFM
Untertitel
Journal Religion Film Media
Band
05/02
Autoren
Christian Wessely
Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
Herausgeber
Uni-Graz
Verlag
SchĂĽren Verlag GmbH
Ort
Graz
Datum
2019
Sprache
englisch
Lizenz
CC BY-NC 4.0
Abmessungen
14.8 x 21.0 cm
Seiten
219
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