Take-away From The Giver

Here I go again, writing about a movie I haven't seen yet, but since people are talking about The Giver now, and I won't see it until it hits the video store (too late to be relevant), I am going to comment anyway. I do know the plot, since it is based on a novel by Lois Lowry and a summary is available on Sparknotes. From the reviews I have read, the point of Lowry's novel, that to have meaning, life must have passion, is preserved in the movie.

The mistaken idea in Lowry's imaginary Utopia is that restraint (moral or otherwise) is the cause of the unrest and unhappiness in society. In her fiction, Lowry creates what I would call a "soul-less" society: no love, no hate; no right, no wrong; no passion; no striving; nothing that makes life worth living. With Robin Williams death, I am reminded of a line from my all-time favorite movie of his: Dead Poet's Society.   As Professor Keating said, "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion….  poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

When someone like Robin Williams takes his own life, many people express surprise. His public persona would lead one to believe he had it made. A deeper look reveals a dark, troubled soul. Like so many before him, his tragic end proves that money and fame do not buy happiness -- not even a down payment on happiness. In another award-winning role in Good Will Hunting, a Williams' character (a psychologist, ironically) encourages a troubled young genius to follow his passion even if it means rejecting the offer of almost certain wealth and fame.

The Giver seems to imply that a society without passion, without soul cannot satisfy the human spirit. I agree. But there is more to making life work than passion; there must be a way to regulate that passion, or it will run wild into anarchy. Humans are hard-wired for control, for boundaries. It is a practical impossibility to allow everyone to have complete freedom; eventually what I want will conflict with what you want, and one of us will have to defer. The trick is finding the best way to manage that deference.

There is an age-old answer to managing human passion: it is the moral code handed down from the Creator and revealed in the Bible. The One who made us knows best how to manage us. Societies that have followed this management system have fared well; those which have abandoned it have collapsed. A study I mentioned in an earlier post proves this is true regarding sexual morality, a large part of the moral puzzle. Societies collapse when the management system known as marriage is dissolved. This should be no surprise since family is the most basic unit of any society. Wreck family and you destroy the foundation of society.

The Muslim extremists have a pretty good handle on what it takes to make life meaningful: you need a passion, and you must believe that passion aligns with the fundamental elements of the universe. They are correct in their philosophy, but they have the wrong understanding of the universe. The universe is not controlled by a stern magistrate who just waits for us to step out of line so he can zap us as they believe. Nor is the universe simply waiting for us to discover our passion as Lowry seems to imply.

The universe, as I understand it, is created and controlled by a loving God who has laid out a plan for his creation to align their passions with His and live a truly fulfilled life. We don't need to ride a bike (or a sled) to some imaginary "Elsewhere" to find our purpose. Our purpose, as the Westminster Catechism says is to, "glorify God and enjoy Him forever." That's my "memory" from the True Giver.