"ye shall be as gods"

Daniel Larison on Avatar:

From everything I have read about Avatar, [pantheism] is not the most remarkable and theologically subversive aspect of the story. Some reviews have mentioned in passing where the word avatar comes from, noting that it is the Sanskrit word used to refer to a deity that has taken human (or animal) form. The great Hindu epic cycles revolve around such avatars, chief among them Rama. In Sanskrit, the word means "descent," and its equivalent in Christian theological language would be sunkatabasis, which means condescension. The interesting thing about the word's use in this film is the implication that the human who takes on the form of one of the aliens is actually vastly superior to the kind of being his mind is inhabiting, and that he is willingly lowering himself to their level. In the end, he decides to protect them against others of his own kind, but this is not all that different from the idea of a deity manifesting himself to defeat the demonic forces that are menacing his people.

Annalee Newitz (via Rod Dreher):

These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the "alien" cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become "race traitors," and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It's not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it's not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It's a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

1/8/10: Daniel Larison:

The truly offensive thing about all this is that Brooks will safely deride the fable and its assumptions when it appears in a meaningless blockbuster film, but he isn’t going to challenge or reject those assumptions when they inform real and destructive policies around the world.

Dostoevsky "felt thought"

Michael Dirda reviews the new one volume edition of Frank's Dostoevsky in today's Wall Street Journal:

Today we aren't used to novelists openly espousing such ardent religious belief. But faith in Christ formed the core of Dostoevsky's being and from it, as Mr. Frank shows, he confronted what he viewed as the ills and horrors—the demons—of his time. He took ideas personally, a friend [Nikolay Strakhov] once said, and actually "felt thought."