Tuesday 4 November 2014

Project Nim


Also Known As:
Unknown
Year:
2011
Countries:
United Kingdom… United States…
Predominant Genre:
Non-fiction
Director:
James Marsh…
Outstanding Performances:
None
Premiss:
A chimpanzee is taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child.
Themes:
Alienation | Destiny | Emotional repression | Grieving | Identity | Loneliness | Narcissism | Political Correctness | Pornography | Science | Solipsism | White culture | White guilt | White supremacy
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
Unknown
Review Format:
DVD

When is cancer going to be cured?

The claim that human evolution can be better understood by teaching a chimp to communicate with humans via sign language - and language itself be better understood thereby - is such a non-question that one soon begins to wonder what the ulterior motives of the scientists here really are.

During interviews one sees Whites with obvious communication difficulties and emotional constipation talking about developing a relationship with a dumb animal as if this were a substitute for genuine communication with other humans. The latter would have been a much better means of learning about language, as such, and of developing the Evolutionary Hypothesis into a fully-fledged Theory.

What we see instead are humans unable to be fully human because they refuse to learn about communication by communicating - with other humans. In reality, of course, talking to Black people would be far more productive in terms of learning about language - since Blacks have lived on the earth far longer than Whites - but that would put Whites in a position of learning from Blacks when White culture regularly denies the very possibility of learning from other cultures.

This raises the question as to whether Whites study the very subjects that they have the greatest personal difficulty with - not subjects they happen to be good at? Simians are not sentient in human terms and so their communication will be more concrete than abstract and, even if they could talk, humans would not really understand what was being said because of the lack of shared experience.

One wonders if Western science is going backward with such self-indulgent nonsense given that we see more of the emotional problems of the humans here than learn anything about chimpanzees. The inability of the scientists here to separate their feelings from objective research makes the research more about the researcher. This is demonstrated by the scientists concerned constantly talking more about their relationships with each other than anything else. If these researchers were honest, they would ask the questions about their own secret need to both understand their own psychological hangups while evading their meaning.

One wonders if simians find humans as interesting as humans claim to find them, especially given that the humans here exhibit so few human characteristics?

Anthropomorphic tripe: Are there not more serious areas for scientists to explore - or for documentary film-makers?

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.