I despise how everyone wants to jump to the conclusion that the woodland Na’vi critters are indeed the heroes. What other role can they play? In what possible way can tribesmen be the aggressors?
Obviously, when competing against the military industrial complex, the Na’vi and other tribal clans of Pandora can not be the aggressors. James Cameron and his predecessors conveniently use this blatantly imbalanced juxtaposition to their advantage in persuading viewers that the more technologically sophisticated a population is, the more likely they will become invasive aggressors.
As the aggressors, the destructive Earthlings with their grandiose mastery of technology mercilessly murder the Na’vi people. On the other hand, the innocent, naturalistic Na’vi exhibit no aggressive tendencies (or any other villainous behaviors for that matter) until provoked to not only defend themselves but also their homeland. In essence, how can one cheer against their Na’vi? Every sequence involving their species highlights a positive virtue.
I’m optimistic. I like to think that once our civilizations finally gets to the point when they can dissmiss the state our technological and intillectual capacities will sky rocket. I like to think that if we were at that point technologically, as it were in avatar, we would be an entirely different culture all together.
In addition at the end of Avatar it mentions that the earth is dieing. “They return to their dieing planet”. I think this is a fallacy. I think man is due for another technological renascance. It could come in the form of extreme economization of goods and services. Further increasing man’s wealth and minimizing his ‘economic footprint’ if you will. (Gawd environmentalists have destroyed the footprint analogy ) In other words man will continue to do more with less, making things cheaper and more widely available. His greatest intellectual wall is the state.
I feel like that in the last several hundred years there has been a very strong attack on logic in the sciences. I think it has had a negative effect but I think we’ll over come it. All of the worlds greatest philosophers, scientists, artists, took an a priori stands first, and a posteriori second. Today ‘experts’ ignore a priori all together and focus on a posteriori. When you read Human Action, Listen to Beethoven, and rustic things of the like. You feel as if they were on an intellectual plane far and above even todays most brilliant scientists and scholars.
Take the Mongolian hordes for example: the military of Persia was much more advanced than the Khan’s. Their mailed horsemen with his long training and heavy steed, shaped by centuries of war against the Byzantine and the Turks, were much more highly regarded than the Mongolian bowman with his light horse and leather armor. Yet it was the Khan who took the offensive and won.
And don’t forget the Swiss: after discovering their pikemen were the bane of the European chivalry not only the managed to successfully defend their homeland from the Hapsburg and Philip the Bold, but they also became an aggressive military power, taking over many former free cities and becoming the masters of the Duchy of Milan. Yet according to the contemporary art of war they were nothing more than peasants armed with a long lance, nothing that could threaten the heavily armored and well trained knight.
Morale: advanced military technology is not automatically linked to an inherently aggressive civilization. The Byzantine armies of the VIII to X centuries, regarded at the time as the world’s finest, were eminently defensive in nature. It was only when the Muslim States started to show signs of decadence that they took the offensive. The Byzantine military took the smart gambling of beating large numbers with elite forces and they won.
Second morale: I see Rousseau and the myth of the “Good Savage” is still going strong after all these years.
The Mongols were not very advanced as per science or standard of living but every Mongol was a freeman and a horseman. So their military was actually comparatively capital intensive. There is more capital invested into a mounted bowman than into any foot soldier of the period.
True, but as you may have noticed I haven’t even considered foot soldiers. Back at the time the epitome of military power was the mailed horseman armed with a lance (contus, to use the original Germanic word) , which was even more capital intensive. We have both Frankish and Lombard codes concerning the enormous costs of outfitting a mailed horseman: the cost of a mail and a good heavy steed were simply staggering, not to mention riders and chargers had to start training from a very early age to be effective. This was true for the Franks (derogatory term for all Christian nations), for the Byzantines, for the Persians etc. It’s also true that by the XII century mail armor had become increasingly cheaper and good chargers were easier to procure but outfitting a mailed horseman was still a very capital intensive affair. Poorer horsemen often had to do with lighter horses and a gambeson (a quilted jerkin acting as light armor). The fact that many noblemen often belonged to the latter group speaks volume about the costs involved.
True enough. We would really need to examine induvidual battles to see which of the sides had more capital invested. But it is at least possible that overally it would be the Mongol side because they were an all-horse force (except for any local allies). While their enemies would be primarily on foot, horsemen only a minority among them.
they could have been fatalistic aggressors against the technologically mighty but peaceful humans. its a logical possibility. it simply wasnt the story that was imagined. i don’t think it would be a story I would get much out of though.
) In other words man will continue to do more with less, making things cheaper and more widely available. His greatest intellectual wall is the state.