Last weekend, and against the better judgment of Rotten Tomatoes, I caught a showing of Independence Day: Resurgence.  The movie is decent.  The effects were amazing (and made me wish I had chosen the 3D route).  The script was okay.  The only actors that got any audience response were the veteran actors, which I thought was interesting.  What ultimately made the movie for me was the current socio-political climate, particularly with the UK referendum to leave the European Union.

Independence Day: Resurgence, much like its predecessor, is based on a particular way of seeing the world (a way that mostly felt emerging back in the 90s): globalism.  Disaster movies, because they catch their characters at their worst, often depend on “everyone putting their differences aside for the sake of the greater good.”  (They are, I suppose, the opposite of a horror movie, where everyone gets knocked off one by one.)  Many pundits have spoken of the recent UK referendum results as a rejection of globalism.  Some have called this a resurgence of nationalism, akind of “Independence Day.” There have been cries of racism and ageism and xenophobia thrown into the discussion.  I’ve seen people identifying themselves as European (as opposed to) British (as opposed to) a Londoner.  What do you do when even the way you describe yourself and what you identify as home collapses?  It’s been an interesting situation to watch unfold, and there are things to be learned (so let’s hope we’re paying attention).  And while actions are a big part of what we should consider, we have to be particularly careful about the words we hear (as well as the words we use).

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Over the next few days, I’m going to post some reflections on a Wendell Berry essay titled “It All Turns on Affection.”  It was delivered as a speech back in 2012.  Over the course of the posts, I’ll point out a few terms that Berry uses that I think might be helpful (at least for someone like me) to understand a better way of being in the world.  For me, at least, they are particularly powerful for this moment.

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A couple of days ago, Slate posted an article about the sad situation of the summer blockbuster titled “RIP, big 4th of July movie: ‘Independence Day’ then and now and monoculture’s slow demise.”  The article reminds us of a time when the “monoculture” meant almost everyone would see and listen to the same movies, the same music, the same television shows.  Independence Day was a great example of this.  It was an interesting way for us to “all be together,” a way that definitely had hints of a kind of globalism.  That “monoculture” is dead.  I cannot help but wonder who will determine the kind of ghost (or zombie) it will leave behind.

(image from foxmovies.com)