Posted on 08/30/2014 2:54:46 PM PDT by TBP
“If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be,” as Yogi Berra once said. If you want to understand what this means, go see The Giver.
The Giver is in the great dystopian tradition of Animal Farm and 1984, Brave New World, Atlas Shrugged, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and so many more. (It also evoked for me memories of the Ring cycle and Lord of the Rings.) It takes place in a “perfect” society that has eliminated war, pain, suffering, differences and choice. They have created a society where everyone is equal (except those who are “more equal,” of course), and everything is the same. Your job, your clothes, and all other aspects of your existence are chosen for you. The society’s byword is sameness, in which they see safety and liberation from all the evils of human history. Even the climate is controlled.
They also control the language. For example, they have abolished killing; instead they “release” people “to Elsewhere.” By controlling the words that people use, they control the ability to hold certain thoughts, and as we know, thoughts are the cornerstone of conditions. What we focus on expands in our experience, so if you can control the expression of ideas, you can limit the focus. (In many ways, “political correctness” does this.)
A young boy named Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memories, a position wherein he will be called upon to impart wisdom to the Elders, using “the Memories”, including the collected memory of humankind. He is trained for this by the older receiver of Memories. “If I’m The Receiver,” Jonas asks his teacher, “what does that make you?” The reply is, “I guess it makes me The Giver.”
The training, he is warned, will require a lot of strength, because it entails a lot of pain. The pain isn’t so much physical as the psychic and emotional pain brought on by “the Memories.” But what Jonas also discovers is the importance of love, beauty, and all those other “things that make us human.” He is determined to share what he is learning and feeling, even though that is against the rules. He also falls in love with his beautiful friend Fiona, who does not know what to make of this.
In order to reawaken the Memories (and the feelings they entail), he must cross the border of memory. By reawakening the Memories, he can reawaken the ability of the people to live life full out, restoring the joy, love, and beauty that their utopia has taken from them. As Fiona says, “I know that there is more, but I don’t know what it is.”
At one level, this is a brilliant political commentary on freedom, individual expression, and utopianism. That Jonas’s friend, Asher, is a drone pilot is not merely a literary device. But there are spiritual lessons as well.
While Jonas is in training, The Giver tells him not to trust the limited thoughts that have been given to him, but to trust what is inside. Learning to trust our intuition is a key to spiritual advancement. It is one of the most important ways to allow ourselves live in joy, in the fullest expression of who we are and who we are supposed to be.
The Chief Elder at one point says that “when people are free to choose, they choose wrong.” And it is true that sometimes people make choices that do not serve themselves or others. But one person’s wrong choice is another person’s right one. More importantly, if people cannot choose wrongly, then they are not free to choose rightly, and it is the choices we make that define our lives.
In such a perfectly-ordered society, there is no room for beauty or love or any of “the things that make us human.” And yet, these things are central to our humanity. They are central to living the most elevated, human, passionate life that we can. Jonas’s struggle is to restore those things, for himself and for the society.
It is also a society with no diversity. Sameness precludes living your individual purpose and calling, which is essential to the joyful life.
It is that passionate life that enables us to reach for the greater, the richer, the deeper. And that is at the very core of our humanity, as expressions of the Divine.
This is a movie well worth seeing. It’s exciting, stimulating, touching, and very powerful,
I just watched 3 seasons of “Continuum” on Netflix. It’s about time travelers from 2077 coming back to 2012, and the flashbacks shown of life in 2077 are disturbing. The future sounds a lot like in “The Giver,” but as the show evolves, you can see it is far from perfect with many unintended consequences. Waiting for news of its renewal to find out how things are resolved!
“The Giver tells him not to trust the limited thoughts that have been given to him, but to trust what is inside”
That is exactly the advise that the left and totalitarians give in general. Trust your “feellings” not logic or reasons.
Logic, reason, and skepticism are what make conversion from “established truth” possible.
AS I read The Giver, it occurred to me that this is where our society is heading.
Trying to get people to give up their freedoms for promised alleged safety and security.
I heard the movie was made in color, however, and I think it would have been really effective if they had started it in black and white and moved to color as the story progressed.
They used black and white in the community, then partial color in Jonas’s scenes with The giver, and full color in the memories and in the events surrounding Jonas’s actions. Very effective.
Does it follow the book closely?
I’m not familiar with the book.
I was surprised at how pro-conservative the movie was.
I love the subject matter, dystopias, utopias, government control, revolutions.
Despite all that I didn’t think it was a good movie or worth watching.
the book made me sick when I read it
I found it a very powerful movie. I think it’s about the best I’ve seen in a few years. Which, of course, means it won’t win any awards for anything.
I went to see the movie and really enjoyed it, which is saying a lot as there hasn’t been a movie out in a long time that I could say that about.
They did a wonderful job with the black and white vs color scenes.
They changed a little of the story, but in general followed the book pretty well and used some of the dialog that I thought was critical to the story, word for word out of the book.
That movie could have been rated *G* and it was not a computer animation fest.
I thought it was quite effective. I know they changed Jonas’s age, but it works that way.
I just saw “The Giver” and liked it a lot. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s heart is in the right place. This was a 20-year project of Jeff Bridges. He originally bought the rights to cast his father in it. I especially like the ending where a Christmas carol was being sung in the distance. It wasn’t a religious movie, but it was a moral movie. Jeff Bridges deserves a lot of respect for bringing it about.
I am starting to find it stupid that protagonists are always or usually very very young. This whole PC thing where the children are smarter than parents is just ridiculous to me.
And why does every story have a main character who is falling in love, but never “been in love”? Why? does “love” not exist beyond the next page or chapter?
And oppose all limits on your behavior too! Why can't a man marry 3 dogs and a donkey? Who are you to limit that?
This particular book is a children's book, written for older children and young teens. The protagonists of children's books and teen books are always children or teenagers, just as the protagonists in adult literature are adults. Jonas, the main character in this novel is only 11, although he is a few years older in the movie.
The Giver was first published over 20 years ago. It is about a dystopian society where the elitists who “know better” than everyone else strictly control the lives of the citizens. Everyone is told what they will do and how they are to think. They live their lives with little privacy or freedom. As for it being a book that advocates a PC mentality, I found it to do nothing of the kind. Frankly, it sounds like where we are headed with the Left becoming increasingly in control of freedom of thought in our country.
“The giver” seems very anti-PC to me. It’s a nice shot across the bough of the politically correct utopians.
“If everyone stopped being so PC,
Maybe we could live in harmony.” — Avenue Q
In the article, I led by quoting Yogi Berra: “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
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