High standards come from unrealistic expectations and, as we often say, the moral high ground. Generally, there will be no more than a few kinds of people with high standards, young children, idealists, and people who stay out of the world. The protagonist in the film is the first, and the cider house's rule maker is the third, a man who has never lived in the house. It is clear that the tone of the film is negative for such high standards. Because whether it's the protagonist's insistence at the beginning of the film that everyone should take control of themselves instead of having an abortion or the rules posted in the cider house, they all have one thing in common, that's unrealistic.
Rules are the cornerstone of world stability. It exists in every corner of nature and human society. Where there are groups, there are rules. It can even be said that the world can have no laws and no morals, but it cannot have no rules. As in prisons and prisoners, although they do not obey the law and violate part of the morality, they have their own rules, and they obey it and respect it. But can you say they have no morals? can not. In the prisons of American TV dramas, as long as there are prisoners who rape young children in prison, they will be punished the most severely by the group. This is very clear, the embodiment of group morality. Prisons just have a completely different set of rules from society. So no one, anywhere, can escape the rules. Even beyond human society, nature has its rules. As we often say, you can escape the punishment of society and the law, but you cannot escape the cycle of heaven and inner self-condemnation.
However, the rules also have limitations in different situations. Sometimes it's realistic, sometimes it's historical, sometimes it's time and space, and sometimes it's national and regional. As the film repeatedly mentioned the immigration issue. The main point of entry into the film's discussion of the rules is abortion, an issue that remains a dilemma in many countries and societies today. So how to choose an individual's behavior and how to deal with it, whether to support or oppose abortion, involves the question of what are the rules of conduct that each of us deeply agrees with. This involves several aspects, the law of the country, the morality of religion, and the concept of right and wrong of human nature.
None of us are exactly the same, and individuals grow and change as we age. So the rules of individual behavior are not fixed. Everyone's value judgments or things they care about are completely different. Just as one can be an ethical apple brewer and an unethical father at the same time. A person can be a doctor with a very human morality, and at the same time a citizen who violates the rules of law. The coexistence of these two points in the same person is not contradictory. Because everyone's value judgment is different, the real rules are not written on paper and pasted on the wall. Just like the rules of the cider house, it can be said that the title of this film is extremely mocking and ironic. In the film, the director shows the truth that one cannot blindly follow the rules and act according to circumstances through the practice of doctors breaking the rules by performing abortions against the will of Christianity and teaching children to tell white lies about death.
When it comes to breaking the rules, one has to mention Martin Luther King's dream and the laws of black slaves. Is the law sacred? The director answered this question clearly with the help of the doctor's tone. I can only say that the law, like society, needs continuous improvement and improvement. Just like the law on black slaves in the United States, almost all the cider houses in the film are black. I think there is also an insinuation of the director here, and of course their immigration issues with the doctor's mother and so on. In fact, the action of the protagonist picking apples also has a strong symbolic meaning. Human beings were exiled to the Garden of Eden from the beginning of Adam and Eva eating the forbidden fruit. Human beings violated the rules of God for the first time.
Each of us has our own set of personal rules of conduct within us. Although sometimes the individual's rules of conduct do not conform to the morals and laws advocated by social propaganda, as in the case of abortion in the film. The doctor of the orphanage in the film does not hesitate to help a female patient to have an abortion, because he knows that by doing so, he is not strangling or taking life, but is just helping his female patient to carefully choose the direction of life and solve the problem. Unexpected distress. He knows that he is doing what is in line with his inner rules, what he thinks is right, so he will not hesitate or be disturbed, even though what he is doing violates social laws and religious morals. In fact, what is human nature and what is soul? I feel that sometimes it is precisely reflected in our maintenance and adherence to the internal rules. Without judgment and choice, blind obedience to the rules on paper can sometimes seem unrealistic and pedantic. Because what really binds us are the rules that each of us has rooted in our hearts.
Be a useful person and take care of your own business. If you're going to stay, you've got to be useful. This is a point repeatedly emphasized in the film. It is also the default rule of the society. After all, just like abortion, slave law, immigration, etc., there are too many complicated things in this world that cannot be easily judged on a piece of paper. So, what's your business? The director used the role of the incestuous father to repeatedly question the characters in the film. The first answer is apple, and the second answer is the answer of the protagonist, doctor. It is also the time when the protagonist in the film admits his identity for the first time. That is to say, you must find your own position and do your own thing well for everyone. In society, it is the work of each of us. As the old doctor mentioned in his reply later, he did not want to play anyone's god, and he often just did it according to the circumstances. He still had to rely on the wishes of the parties and respect the ideas of the parties, even though this might lead to many problems. Several orphans.
So what are the real rules? The society is constantly progressing, and the laws are constantly improving. The film explores the laws of the country, the morality of religion, the code of conduct of small groups and so on. The director's answer is very clear, the law is flawed and needs to be constantly adjusted according to reality. Like slavery law, like abortion, like the juvenile protection law we're talking about now. The code of conduct of the small group needs everyone to agree with it from the heart, otherwise no one will listen to it, just like the cider house rule. The morality of religion needs to be realistic, just like the reality of orphans. Therefore, all external rules actually have prerequisites and loopholes. As ordinary us, the most important and the only thing we can do is to maintain our inner order and rules, and abide by the principles of life that we agree with.
In the film, the director gave his answer with black lines. "The rules should be made by us, and we do it every day." That is, the rules of the house should be made by the people who live in the house, using a figurative metaphor to express the view that citizens are the masters of the country, especially those who participate in society. Citizens who produce labor and support the functioning of society. But at the same time, it can also be interpreted as the body is the house, and the existence that provides our survival nutrients is ourselves, and the living soul has free will.
In fact, the cider house rule, picking apples also symbolizes Adam and Eve's stealing the forbidden fruit, so we all violate the rules of God, which is the original sin theory of Christianity, but what is the difference between adults and children? It is to have his own opinion, no longer like the lines of the protagonist in the film, I will do whatever you ask me to do, so the old doctor said that he was still a child. A person's adulthood actually originates from the rebelliousness of adolescence, the ability to insist on what he thinks is right, instead of blindly obeying parents or some authority, and forming his own independent values. True psychological adulthood actually comes from selective and judgmental disobedience rather than blind obedience. This is also the highest form of morality defined by psychology. It is the kind of Martin Luther King, who does not blindly obey the existing rules of the world, but bravely does what is right in his heart.
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