Keily Maldonado english essay - 779 Words

Keily Maldonado Period 1 The Noble Savage Lost in Space Jean Jacques Rousseau was a French philosopher and writer, born in Switzerland, who strongly influenced the theories of the French Revolution and the romantics. Many of his ideas sprung from his belief in the natural goodness of man, whom he felt was warped by society. The story of the noble savage is often a reflection on the ways we are corrupted by the civilization we create. Its a myth that tells us only in the more natural state of the hunter-gathering tribe do we retain a pure connection with the world. The noble savage was the man of nature who lived according to the commands of natural law, thought according to natural reason, and understood God and creation by way of†¦show more content†¦These days, the Noble Savage is usually dismissed merely as a figment of imagination, ignoring the power the image held in the Enlightenment mind, and the impact of its appeal to influential thinkers of the time. They saw with their own eyes, not ours. 1. (A Native American Indian known as the noble savage untouched by modern civilization. Beside him stands a civilized European.) In the film Avatar one of the few true myths of the modern world, the noble savage, gets updated and transplanted to an alien moon. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush comfortable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. The growth of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Navi. The films title refers to a genetically engineered Navi body with the mind slightly like a human, and is used to interact with the natives of Pandora. The film Avatar (2009) I was struck by how easily anxieties that began with an older era of European colonialism could be morphed into a future of space exploration and exploitation. In spite of the miracles of air travel and antibiotics, computers and cell phones, we clearly retain a sense of having lost something. In a world of rapidly approaching limits to population and resources this anxiety is not a surprise. The movie doesn’t give the vibe that civilization is bad. But in a sense, separates technology from