—The Concept of Science and Philosophy in "Snow Country Train"
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Words Yinming http://i.mtime.com/notime/blog/7764954/
It is said that this movie Trying to "load the world into a 500-meter train", but it turns out that this is just a beautiful lie, and it is far from putting the world into the train. The train in this film is only presented in several carriages: a slum, a kitchen, a botanical garden, an aquarium, a sauna, a carnival ballroom, etc.... These can't summarize the world. Compared with the unrepresented ambition, the flaws in the plot setting of this film are even more disappointing. The protagonist, the revolutionary leader and the violent villain, did not show much intelligence. The so-called technical experts would only pick two wires to contact and open the door, and the solution that they came up with in the end was simply defying human intelligence. However, if you don’t consider the film’s unsatisfactory visual aspect, you can see that this film contains concepts that are worthy of reflection on the series.
From the main point of view, "Snow Country Train" is basically a brief synthesis of "2012" and "The Matrix." Consistent with "2012", it embodies the catastrophic consequences of the greenhouse effect and the unequal treatment encountered by the poor in the process of responding to disasters; consistent with "The Matrix", it embodies the concept of "anti-system", or specifically express The idea that “revolution is not about getting rid of autocracy, but another kind of social control mechanism”. Although "Snow Country Train" is much worse than the latter two in terms of visual effects, the concept it conveys is not inferior to the other two movies. It is particularly remarkable that this movie contains many concepts built around ecology and concepts that have been re-understood through ecology or ecological philosophy. These concepts are used to understand the main thrust of movies such as "Snow Country Train".
[Concept 1: Global Warming]
The primary background concept of "Snow Country Train" should probably be "global warming". Global warming has almost become one of the most widely known scientific concepts in the world. However, rather than saying that "global warming" is a scientific concept, it is better to say that it is just a phenomenon, or that it is a fact. Different interpretations of facts can be made, and different interpretations lead to different positions. There are two fundamentally opposing explanations surrounding "global warming". One explanation is that global warming is the result of human economic production activities, especially the impact of capitalist production activities since the Industrial Revolution, which means that human causes dominate; the other This kind of explanation holds that global warming is a manifestation of the regularity of the earth’s climate change cycle and has no inevitable connection with human activities, which means that it is not dominated by human causes. The significance of the debate between these two basic explanations is whether people should change their existing economic production methods in response to global warming. If global warming is indeed caused by production activities based on modern European industrial civilization, then this must be changed. Change is likely to mean re-allocation of benefits, or even indirectly depriving a certain part of benefits, and this is something that many vested interests are unwilling to face.
In this dispute, the core is still the dispute of interests. In the explanation of global warming, the human-caused position is the mainstream, but how to change the concept and method of economic production in the future is still in dispute. The problem that "global warming" creates in the international political and economic system is how to adjust the contradiction between the selfish interests of various economies and the public interests of the people on earth.
The film "Snow Country Train" does not show the actual political and economic problems caused by global warming, but uses an unecological method, that is, the use of refrigerants on a global scale to alleviate global warming, which directly changes The context of the problem. However, the core contradiction faced remains unchanged, that is, the contradiction between self-interest and public welfare. This kind of contradiction is exactly what the ecological justice theory is trying to solve.
[Concept 2: Perpetual motion machine (or sustainable development)]
"Snow Country Train" is not a meaningful translation, it means a train in a place called Snow Country. In fact, the train in this story only runs in the snow, and it represents the only surviving political entity on earth. In this way, it might be more appropriate to call it the "train snow country". Among them, train and snow are the qualifiers of the country, which means that this country has the mechanical properties of trains and the closed nature of snow.
The only surviving human political body on this frozen earth, if there is a national flag, should be a train painted in the background of a piece of snow. This train is driven by perpetual motion machines. However, people with a little bit of scientific common sense should know that "perpetual motion machines" cannot exist in reality because it violates the laws of thermodynamics. However, in this film, the train is only claimed to be driven by a perpetual motion machine, and the claim is not equal to the fact. Here, "perpetual motion machine" cannot be understood as a realistic scientific concept, but as having a special meaning different from the literal meaning.
Perpetual motion machine, on the one hand, contains people's pursuit of an ideal political system, on the other hand, it shows the effect of the policy of fooling the people. Perpetual motion machines, this machine that can transform all energy without producing consumption, is equivalent to the kind of perfect political system, in which every rule and system is regarded as the most reasonable, and worships the highest leader. Connected together. And machines like perpetual motion machines that violate the laws of thermodynamics and political systems that violate human nature like the perfect society can be accepted as truth. This is of course a powerful proof of the policy of fooling the people.
In addition, the concept of "perpetual motion machine" is accepted as a sacred thing in this film, while the concept of "genetically modified" is demonized into a terrible conspiracy product in real life. Both of these can reflect the impact of scientific concepts in the face of lies created by actual political and economic interests. Science does not seem to be able to kill superstition. After all, science is not a power, although power often pretends to be science. When science faces conflicts of interest, it cannot be based entirely on itself, otherwise it is likely to produce results unforeseen by science. After all, science is not an absolute truth.
In the actual ecological concept, the concept of "perpetual motion machine" should of course be discarded and replaced by the concept of "sustainable development". For the train snow country, it is impossible to keep it running on perpetual motion machines, but it is possible to keep it running continuously.
[Concept 3: Spaceship Earth]
Compared with the "perpetual motion machine", the concept that can describe the train snow country more practically is the "spacecraft economic theory". This theory regards the entire earth as a "spaceship", which is relatively isolated from space and is a relatively closed ecosystem; the reason why this spacecraft, the earth, can be maintained is because the resources and energy in it are in circulation In order to ensure that resources and energy can be recycled, human beings, the crews of these earth spacecraft, must treat the earth in the way that the ecosystem exists.
There is a direct correspondence between "Train Snow Country" and "Spaceship Earth": The train corresponds to the Spaceship Earth, and the Snow Country corresponds to the Earth. This train, as stated in the spacecraft economic theory, is a relatively closed ecosystem. For this relatively closed ecosystem to operate sustainably, it must promote resources and energy in an ecological cycle like an ecosystem. middle. This is the basic guarantee for its maintenance. But this does not mean that it is absolutely closed, that is to say, it is not like a perpetual motion machine that can run forever without external energy. Of course, as discussed in "Concept 2: Perpetual Motion Machine", the train driven by "perpetual motion machine" is not really a completely closed system in essence. It is not a "physical concept" but a "political concept". Concept" is a concept that governs.
The direct and brief conclusion of the spacecraft economic theory is the circular economy, which is in contrast to the "shepherd boy economy" or "cowboy economics" that emphasizes linear economic growth. The latter is considered to be the kind of economic production mode that led to global warming-the mode of production of modern European capitalism-which regards nature as an unrestricted resource that can be developed at will, and primarily cares about economic growth rates, not very much Care about the destruction of nature. The train in Snow Country obviously does not have resources that can be developed at will. It must recycle the limited resources and allocate them in a planned way. It's just that the situation shown in the film is not as glamorous as the term "circular economy" mentioned in China's realistic policy. In the film, it means that low-level people will eat junk-like boring food. Compared with those foods, food such as waste oil is high-end; it also means that in the case of extremely scarce resources, " "People cannibalism" can be regarded as a reasonable way of survival.
[Concept 4: Lifeboat Ethics]
If the concept of "Spaceship Earth" is used as the background of thinking, how should people make choices in the face of global warming and other ecological environmental crises, and how should they change? Lifeboat ethics provides a solution for this, which has been widely discussed in ecological ethics.
The lifeboat ethics believes that since the earth is a relatively closed ecosystem like a spaceship, resources and energy are limited. When a disaster strikes, the inherently insufficient "earth-spacecraft" space will certainly not be able to accommodate everyone. To survive well, then people or countries with good economic conditions and who can afford a "lifeboat" should be given priority to get a good chance of survival. For the lifeboat ethics, this kind of morality is undesirable and unrealistic to help the poor in distress; the result of saving those poor is that no one should have a good chance of survival. Everyone suffers and loses. Dignity as a person. Ecology is not used to provide people with moral illusions, but to recognize the laws of the ecosystem, so as to survive more naturally.
It can be said that a slightly less cruel and moral person would not agree with lifeboat ethics. Some people think that the solution expressed by lifeboat ethics is "anti-human". The films "2012" and "Snow Country Train" both embody lifeboat ethics. Since they are not so "anti-human", these films seem to express critical elements of lifeboat ethics. It can be seen in "2012" that the international community is committed to building super lifeboats in response to the floods caused by global warming. As the lifeboat ethics conveys, only those who can afford the tickets can board the lifeboat. Others His life and death are not considered. Those who cannot afford lifeboat tickets can only go through the back door to get a chance to board the boat, or simply get on board secretly. "Snow Country Train" does not focus on how people board the train that is like a lifeboat. It shows how people get on the train, the poor people are treated similarly to the lifeboat ethics. Passengers on the train are divided into classes. Lower passengers-like feet-can only have a dark, narrow and unfavorable living space. They live without dignity as rejected by lifeboat ethics; higher passengers can enjoy bright and spaciousness. Elegant living space, they live with dignity as approved by lifeboat ethics.
The train in "Snow Country Train" and the lifeboat in lifeboat ethics are essentially the same. What happens in it seems to make people with a sense of morality feel uneasy. However, if one considers the operating conditions of the Celestial Train in real life, people with morals will not be so repulsive of lifeboat ethics. The celestial train is too similar to the lifeboat in lifeboat ethics: people are grateful to get a celestial train ticket like a lifeboat ticket, and then stuffed into the carriage like rushing on a lifeboat; the celestial train also follows the ticket From high to low, the price is divided into three levels: soft sleeper, hard sleeper, and hard seat. People in hard-seat cars are often crowded in flood-like disasters such as the Spring Festival Transport. Pigs and dogs are better off standing or squatting...Since Tianchao Passenger Transport The operating conditions of trains have been so reasonably accepted in reality, so what is unacceptable in lifeboat ethics?
[Concept: 5: Ecological Capacity and Revolution]
The primary premise of spacecraft economics and lifeboat ethics is the finiteness of ecological capacity. Just as the passengers and cargo that the train can hold are limited, as the "Spaceship Earth" is a relatively closed ecosystem, the passengers and the resources it can hold are also limited. Ecology textbooks usually mention the example of a simplified ecosystem of "wolf-flock-grassland". In this example, the wolves are smaller than the flock, otherwise there will not be enough sheep to eat; the number of flocks Large, but the herd is too large, it will also cause the grassland to be in short supply, so that a large number of sheep will starve to death, so that the wolves will not have enough sheep to eat, thus threatening the harmony and stability of the entire ecosystem. You must know that harmony and stability are very important value orientations. In short, due to the limitation of ecological capacity, to maintain a relatively closed ecosystem, it is necessary to maintain an appropriate ratio between the wolves, sheep and grassland. When this ratio is out of balance, especially when the herd is too large, it is necessary to bring in death to return to the proper ratio. For the social ecosystem, such a thing is the so-called "revolution."
A revolution is an activity that frees up living space through the death of some survivors after the survivors exceed the ecological capacity of the system. In short, revolution is a way for the social ecosystem to regulate itself. The main performance of "Snow Country Train" is a revolution, a self-regulating activity of the social system of the Snow Country Train; the reason is that the number of passengers in the Snow Country Train, especially the number of "flocks-ruled" exceeds Because of its ecological capacity, it needs to kill a part of the passengers-after scientific calculations by train experts, it needs to kill 74% of the passengers-so as to reorganize a hopeful country. In order to realize such a revolution, there must be a revolutionary leader to lead the "herd-the ruled"; such a revolutionary leader can be produced in the "herd" or come from the "wolf" to the "herd" For the enlightened people in ", it doesn’t matter where the revolutionary leaders come from. What’s important is that as long as they can stimulate the sense of resistance of the “herd-the ruled,” they realize that they can sacrifice for the revolution. The spirit of sacrifice is very important. Otherwise, how can the revolution appear to be sacred?
Compared with natural ecosystems, the wonderful thing about social ecosystems—the unique laws that society has different from nature—is that the “flocks” in it can be transformed into “wolves”. In the revolution, a large number of deaths are always "the flock-the ruled", "wolves-the ruler" will not be absent, will not be reduced sharply, the position vacated by the dead wolves will be vacated by the flock Occupy by the powerful in the middle, this is also the law of "sheep transforming into wolf" that happened after the revolution. For the supporters of the revolution who are full of hope and expect freedom, the "herd-the ruled", the revolution itself is a huge irony: its ending is exactly the situation it resists.
The revolutionary leader in "Snow Country Train"—initiating a revolution toward freedom and equality—he always thought he was leading the people in the last carriage to freedom, thinking that after he captured the locomotive, he could establish an equal society . During the revolution, he doesn't seem to know that what greets him after the revolution is the opportunity to "transform the sheep into a wolf." He will be able to get rid of the identity of the "sheep-the ruled" and become a "wolf-the ruler." This is similar to the situation where Neo saw the Matrix Creator in The Matrix, where the choice of waiting for the anti-system Neo is only a choice to rebuild the system under the system of the machine matrix. Faced with such a choice, any anti-systemist will be the most powerless person. They have no firm reason to deny the choice they encountered after the revolution: rebuilding the system. Faced with such a choice, Neo in "The Matrix" can only be treated with "nonsense", while the anti-system in "Snow Train" can only be treated with silence. Regardless of whether they accept it or not, the revolution is another mechanism for control.
[Concept 6: The theory of social contract (or the origin of human inequality)] The
reason why the revolution returned to the system is probably because the system is an irreplaceable part of people's hopes for society. The system satisfies people's desire for social order, and the rational explanation for it is social contract theory. The system is the continuation of the group lifestyle in nature, but it is almost impossible to find the ideal freedom and equality from the group animals in the ecosystem. Many systems that seek analogy from biological facts can always find a reasonable basis for their own hierarchy and inequality. The Indian caste system (Varna system) uses the human body as an analogy to classify different levels of high and low: priests are the mind, administrative and military rulers are arms and hands, farmers, herdsmen and others are the legs, slaves are the feet, and untouchables are It's dust. Similar arguments are cited in "Snow Country Train" to establish the basis for its hierarchy. The feudal hierarchical system will also be based on the composition of group animals, in which rulers have the same rights as "wolves eat sheep", as is the case with the feudal system of the celestial dynasty.
The social contract theory explains the transition from the natural state to the social state in an unnatural way. Social contract theory is not used to defend hierarchy, but to criticize hierarchy. The social contract theory believes that the appropriation of private interests is the root of human inequality. This is exactly what the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau expressed in "On the Origin and Foundation of Human Inequality". As a story adapted from a French comic, "Snow Country Train" embodies this view of human inequality. The unequal or hierarchical society presented in the film, the inequality or hierarchical division between cars, stems from the occupation of high-class cars to protect the private interests of the occupants. It is not directly presented, but through lines it describes the chaotic state before it formed a system, a terrible state of cannibalism. This chaotic state is a tragedy for everyone. In order to avoid this terrible state of chaos, a social contract emerged-this contract is used to limit "excessive" self-interest-on the basis of this contract, the social system of the Snow Country was established. When the social system is established and the ruler is separated from the ruled, the social contract deteriorates. In "Snow Country Train", the train carrying this system first exists as the great benefactor, the personal property of its ruler, so its stability and order reflect the wisdom of the great benefactor, the ruler. Personal thoughts that violate this wisdom are sinful, and the "holistic interests" determine the boundaries of personal interests.
The social conditions presented in "Snow Country Train" are similar to lifeboats, both of which are to avoid the destruction caused by the expansion of private interests, but at the same time they all lead to unequal private interests. According to the man-made point of view, the subjective cause of global warming is caused by the narrowness of selfish desires. For example, when people use air conditioners to enjoy the coolness in summer, they hardly take into account that the air conditioners emit more heat into the environment; when a single country is pursuing its own economic development and satisfying its own desires, it pollutes the entire earth's environment. The social system in "Snow Country Train" is consistent with the consideration of lifeboat ethics, just to avoid the "community tragedy" caused by the narrowness of selfish desire: each party destroys the environment they rely on in the process of pursuing their own best interests. . But the two also reflect the maximization of the selfish interests of some people. It is the party who preaches and protects those who occupy the economic interests first: for "Snow Country Train", those who occupy the high-class carriages; for the lifeboat ethics, It is the self-interest of developed countries in Europe and America. Justice theories such as lifeboat ethics imply that the private interests of developed countries are higher than those of developing countries, and the private interests of the rich are higher than those of the poor. Equality or freedom is nothing more than a beautification of self-satisfied self-interest.
[Concept 7: Social Organic Theory (or Social Evolution Theory)]
Global environmental issues such as "global warming" are, at their roots, nothing more than human dilemmas raised in a new context. The so-called sustainable development, lifeboat ethics, ecological revolution, social contract theory, the human dilemma involved in these concepts is a series of ancient contradictions: desire and poverty, selfishness and public will, mutual assistance and persecution... and these problems and contradictions pass through the ecology. The explanation obtained by the combination of science and philosophy can be summarized as a concept called "social organic theory" or "social evolution theory".
From "Snow Country Train", we can see the viewpoint of understanding the social system from an ecological point of view. For example, the metaphor of "the positional relationship between shoes and mind" is a defense of hierarchy; in order to maintain the ecological stability of the train society, it must be killed by revolution. Some passengers died. This kind of view belongs to social organic theory. The social organic theory compares society to the body or ecological system, similar to ecology, to understand the role of society as a whole and its various parts. Social organic theory is especially based on the theory of biological evolution, so it is also called the theory of social evolution. Since evolutionary viewpoints such as the struggle for survival and the survival of the fittest are reasonable for the natural world, there are good reasons to think that it is also reasonable for the social system.
The position of social organic theory is both ancient and novel, conservative and radical. It can be used to support change, or it can be used to oppose change. The concept of social organic theory that compares society with ecological systems has been similarly expressed in the Indian caste system and the feudal system of the Celestial dynasty. It values the harmonious relationship between the various parts of society and the dependence on the whole. It believes that the meaning of the individual depends on the family, organization and the country. Therefore, the social organic theory is also regarded as an embodiment of the values of conservatism. On the other hand, the modern ecological view is different from the original organic view after all, and it is also different from the mechanistic view of the industrial revolution. Therefore, the social organic theory tends to support the reform of production methods.
The revolution in "Snow Country Train" happened because of the ecological point of view. As considered in [Concept 3], the ecosystem of the train society needs a revolution for sustainable development. It takes a struggle for survival. The social organic theory has become the basis for defending the existing system. For those revolutionaries, what they want to overthrow is exactly the kind of hierarchy based on social organic theory, and they are unwilling to obey the division of living space derived from the natural state. In short, the plot of "Snow Country Train" is premised on the ecological viewpoint, but it also struggles with that ecological viewpoint. Success and failure and right and wrong are all condensed in the ecological viewpoint, which is exactly what "success is ecology, failure is ecology".
[Conclusion]
People are born free, but they are everywhere in chains.
People who think they are the masters of
everything else are more slaves than everything else.
-"Social Contract Theory", Jean Jacques Rousseau
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