Reflections on fear and power based on the movie apocalypto

The 2006 film "Apocalypto," directed by Mel Gibson, focuses on an aboriginal's struggle to escape from his captors, from a different culture, and a violent civilization.

Beyond the criticisms and comments ("mirror of American violence") and the possible misrepresentation of the history of the Mayans (a film spoken in the Mayan language that refers to settings of that culture), it is a useful fiction to address the issue of fear and power.

"Jaguar Claw" is taken prisoner to be sacrificed as an offering to Kukulcan. It is a time of famine and disease for that culture, very different from that of the protagonist. Because of an eclipse of the sun he is released (an unexpected turn of fate, interpreted as a divine sign). But, he and his companions are taken to the limits of the city to be "hunted" while they are offered to cross the terrain that separates them from the jungle.

He manages to escape the fallacious test and, from then on, a fierce persecution takes place where the beliefs and different strategies of the persecuted and his persecutors can be observed. In a world ruled by fear and oppression, she must survive to save her family and free herself.

Before these episodes, the film stops to highlight the cultural traits of this character, how his people live together and the skills they have developed. Special reference is made in the way of facing fear and the maintenance of a stable and peaceful social order.

The contrast is obvious. On the one hand, those who have the power to subjugate and subdue those who are different, a culture that tries to control their habitat through violence, a people that fails to realize the serious effects introduced into their environment. On the other hand, dispersed peoples who live in harmony with "a certain ecology", capable of other different alternatives for their subsistence.

From a community that does not rival, although it has warriors for its defense, from a prosperous village based on trust, the film (apart from seeking to entertain or cause some impact) goes on to show a destructive civilization, so damaging that its time is running out. ending up.

Reflections on fear and power based on the movie Apocalypto

Fear

Without having to “reinvent the wheel”, I transcribe the part that I consider interesting from the definition of “fear” that appears in Wikipedia, easy to check…

“Fear or fear is an emotion characterized by an intense sensation, usually unpleasant, caused by the perception of a danger, real or supposed, present, future or even past. It is a primary emotion that stems from the natural aversion to risk or threat, and it manifests in all animals, including humans. The ultimate expression of fear is terror. Furthermore, fear is related to anxiety. "

Still, in many treatises, fear is explained as an emotion or an "intense sensation" shared with animals. I believe that it is almost true, but the causes cannot be reduced to biological explanations or make such simplistic comparisons. In us, the human deserves certain special considerations.

By making culture we are making our world and ourselves. Many argue that the originality of the "human being" is to have broken with the determination of his animal nature to become a "cultural being". Therefore, what determines us is in our social, conscious and unconscious productions. So, taking this idea, fears can be seen as a result of this cultural doing, as forming part of our subjective constitution.

In the movie, at the beginning, there is a scenewhere a group of hunters, from the protagonist's village, meets other people whose lands were razed. Before entering the town “Cielo Pedernal”, the father of “Jaguar Claw” asks him “What did you see in them? And, faced with the uncertainty of his son, he continues:… Fear. A deep fear… It gets into the soul of anyone who deals with it. It has already contaminated your peace. I didn't raise you to see yourself in fear. Get it out of your heart. Don't take him to our village. "

The "fear" is a "lesser fear", a concern that remains as an alert about the occurrence of certain events, allows to face thoughts and feelings or at least take them into account. At the other extreme is "terror", when there is total helplessness, when there is not even a useful thought, feeling that comforts or possible action in the face of the inevitable situation. The scene in Apocalypto where the sacrifices take place is the most significant, you can see both the stupor and horror and resignation.

Fears paralyze or drive us. It all depends on the context, the supports and the shared trust. We possess, by subjective constitution, mechanisms that serve us to "appease" or "remedy" our fears, but we can also learn from them. We can project them onto others as removing them, sending them to stress or overlapping them with illnesses, concealing them in some way and, meanwhile, trying to transcend them. In other words, as we manage to stop or move for other reasons, from other cultural instances, we may find ourselves more loose or empowered to assume changes or anticipate accidents. Therefore, this "function of detention or motivation", which here we initially attribute to fear, can be displaced, until it is postponed or reserved, as a resource and expression,for extreme cases.

In other words, if it is about living intensely or freeing oneself from what anguishes, after calming anxieties and going through the occasional crisis, these fears would dissipate as "words are put to them" or by rehearsing learning and better actions.

Of course, "taking the floor" or "directing the actions" is not easy or as spontaneous as it is believed. But this is the possibility afforded by being spokespersons, of "being able to say" something about what is happening while I talk about what is happening to me and share my reflections.

Subjectively, it is a necessary "maneuver". But, when silence and repression sink deep, the subject suffers or sees her life mutilated. By not being able to carry out this "maneuver", sooner or later, it will be noticed that something ugly or unbearable happens. Although it is almost inevitable to feel such a thing, due to the same vicissitudes that life imposes on us. So from then on, what really counts is the opportunity to exercise a choice. I am not referring to the circumstances and decisions that lead us to such states, but to moments in our life where everything is played out as if we were on the edge, living the uncertainty of the impotence of not being able to continue or go back.

In Apocalypto, the persecution takes on other nuances when "Jaguar Claw" takes hold, strengthened by his identity as a hunterSurviving in the forest means a great legacy in their culture. He is no longer afraid to continue, he is now in his territory and, instead of fleeing, he chooses to face his adversaries.

Basically, these choices have to do with accommodating life in terms of "power" and "trust." Its purpose is the availability of energy to give it up in order to control or dominate situations.

Fears are so naturalized or internalized that almost no one sees them as resources, as necessary means to cope with becoming and affective development. Such knowledge, made evident, would provide a confidence that would help enormously to revitalize the subjectivity that is needed. Perhaps, starting from a shared, almost sterile discourse, until arriving at a generative dialogue, which grants more vital perspectives or innovative ideas. This is what is usually called "socialization", exposing and arranging the alternatives.

Power

The word "power" has such weight in our culture that it is hardly possible to think of human expansion in its absence. But… What do we understand by human expansion?

The fixity of social conditions with respect to a rich, truly diverse life corresponds to policies that regulate that wealth. The "global watchword" is that nothing happens to alter the illusion of a world where promises are kept or, at least, are tried to be kept. Simulation of the genuine human world, where the forces of the instituting are combined with the social institutes. Rulers and governed are accomplices of discomfort or co-authors of well-being.

In a passage of the film fear takes the form of a prophecythat, sustained in such a scenario of illness and death, expresses the end of the power of that people. “The man who brings the Jaguar, reborn from the mud and the earth, will destroy the wicked. The sacred time is near ”.

With less governance, more corruption, the figure of power shifts from those who want to do things well to those who want to control things for their own benefit. Protected under the idea, almost implicitly agreed by the majority, that nothing can change because otherwise a social catastrophe would occur. The sectors of power are homogenizing the culture from a selfish vision, a version that is imposed by coercion and "forces" to naturalize violence.

In Apocalyptus, the offerings that must be made to Kukulcan function as a pretext to annihilate the neighboring towns. In this way, military power is reaffirmed and the closeness or favor of the gods is reassured.

This is more than possible, they are mechanisms that have been perfected throughout history. It is what the facts and objects of structured cultures conceal from closed or rigid conceptions. Otherness, if it diversifies, is ungovernable from a system so tendentiously discriminating, greedy for power.

If we stop taking into account the "religious" or "magical" content of the film, what we are left with is violence physical and symbolic, as a configuration of power, easily embodied or transferable.

From the point of view of fear, power is presented as the most natural way to face conflicts and changes. Controlling fear basically means reinforcing security and reversing polarities. Maintain certain variability, within known parameters, avoiding unnecessary risks. Also, attribute the causes of problems and disagreements to the opposition or sectors with some capacity for criticism.

There are no “middle ground” on these issues, there is no “soft control”. In any case, if something does not seem so bad or less severe it is due to a fault or misfit. Just as cultural diversity is neither denied nor well regarded in the concrete field of daily life, almost no one realizes how the fields of interpersonal and inter-institutional relationships can be shaped.

There may be a bid for power or sectors that can act against "the power of the day", situations that also affect the quality of those instituted. The most disastrous consequence is that, without there is nothing that opposes such power, the much feared catastrophe, which one wants to control, ensues. An "ecological disintegration" or a "social collapse", due to pride, laziness or fidelity to an outdated economic model, appear, late but surely, as explanations of the manifestations of violence and the crisis in general.

Trust

The "power" needs "confidence", its power. It does not constitute a source of energy, but rather a "mechanism or apparatus" that depends on its own conditions of existence: control and management of wealth. If we were not human beings, beings only comparable to things or artifacts, then trusting would not exist or it would be too much.

The final stretchde Apocalypto has something of this, it shows how fear or mistrust yields to wonder or curiosity. Also this of "being able to count on another". To know that there is an other, not only capable, but also the sense of trusting the familiar and shared affection.

I mean to trust outside of power and of any instituted. "Trust" here has nothing to do with capital or economic investment. There is a kind of identification "strength = power", but when we can replace "power" with "confidence", "strength = trust", movements occur that represent us better or situations that better reflect our human character. This is important for the realization of more just societies and a dignified life. It is not a universal panacea because of the difficulty of installing trust in relationships, although with time we all benefit. We are human, we all need this to be viable, for there to be this "affective translation" on a large scale, both to enjoy the here and now and to build a civilization totally opposite and evolutionary to that shown in Apocalypto.Sure we have come a long way since those early days, but…