One of my favorite movies is The Last of the Mohicans. It’s a 1992 film based on the famous novel by James Fenimore Cooper. Maybe it’s just me but when I see it, I can’t help but think about the similarities between that time and this one.
There is a scene in it that I really think portrays our society. The British are marching through the forest. The British General’s daughters are being escorted to Fort Henry. They are well raised young ladies. You can tell they have been raised in a well protected fine culture and are well educated. The trip outside of their well protected world is a new experience for them. But they have faith in their soldier escort. Suddenly, the forest erupts and a Huron war party massacres the British. The girls are saved by Hawkeye and his Indian father and brother. I wish everyone could see the look on the young girls faces. The acting was really good in that the young ladies expressions were ones of disbelief and shock. They had no idea that there could be such savagery.
Now, you consider the modern day well educated person in our society. I believe there is a similar disbelief that there is a savage culture that would like nothing more than to cut our hearts out. There are people in our society who understand that we must protect who we are and what we have from this savagery. And there are people in our society who do not believe that other people in the world can be that cruel and barbaric. Magwa, the main villain in the movie is smart, treacherous and filled with hate for the British. He explains very calmly to the French General that he blames the British General for the hardship he and his people have faced. He will not be happy until he has put the British General under the knife and then kills his children. Then, later in an act of savagery he cuts the heart out of the British General as he lays mortally wounded on the battle field. Do our enemies in Iraq hate us any less? Are they any less savage? The daughters of the General, from that moment on, understood the gravity of the hatred they were facing. Do the young, innocent cultured people of our society understand who we are facing?
Even though the young British girls were oblivious to the realities of the frontier, the settlers were not. They were very aware that in order to advance their world into the wilderness, each one had to push back the savage world. And they had to keep pushing it back or the savage wilderness would turn and retake their ground.
In the history of the world, the ability to live in a time and a place where that type of diligence is just not needed is really an anomaly. Many of us think a relaxed and carelessly free society is something that just happens, is inevitable, and is the way it has always been. It is really wonderful that we can raise our children in a time and place where that seems to be reality. But the reality is that this type of carefree living has existed for only a relatively few centuries in relatively small portions of the world. The rest of the time, and in the rest of the places, this savagery has gone on relatively unabated. Only now with the inventions of jet planes and satellite TV have we been exposed to savage reality of the wilderness once again. The movie ends in victory. But it was not without a terrible cost. Good had to be more powerful, swift and mighty than evil. They had to risk all to not just retain their freedom, but to live. It is an old story, written many years ago in an uncomplicated fashion. Today, with movies coming out like Munich and Syriana, things are much more complicated . . . or are they?
There is a scene in it that I really think portrays our society. The British are marching through the forest. The British General’s daughters are being escorted to Fort Henry. They are well raised young ladies. You can tell they have been raised in a well protected fine culture and are well educated. The trip outside of their well protected world is a new experience for them. But they have faith in their soldier escort. Suddenly, the forest erupts and a Huron war party massacres the British. The girls are saved by Hawkeye and his Indian father and brother. I wish everyone could see the look on the young girls faces. The acting was really good in that the young ladies expressions were ones of disbelief and shock. They had no idea that there could be such savagery.
Now, you consider the modern day well educated person in our society. I believe there is a similar disbelief that there is a savage culture that would like nothing more than to cut our hearts out. There are people in our society who understand that we must protect who we are and what we have from this savagery. And there are people in our society who do not believe that other people in the world can be that cruel and barbaric. Magwa, the main villain in the movie is smart, treacherous and filled with hate for the British. He explains very calmly to the French General that he blames the British General for the hardship he and his people have faced. He will not be happy until he has put the British General under the knife and then kills his children. Then, later in an act of savagery he cuts the heart out of the British General as he lays mortally wounded on the battle field. Do our enemies in Iraq hate us any less? Are they any less savage? The daughters of the General, from that moment on, understood the gravity of the hatred they were facing. Do the young, innocent cultured people of our society understand who we are facing?
Even though the young British girls were oblivious to the realities of the frontier, the settlers were not. They were very aware that in order to advance their world into the wilderness, each one had to push back the savage world. And they had to keep pushing it back or the savage wilderness would turn and retake their ground.
In the history of the world, the ability to live in a time and a place where that type of diligence is just not needed is really an anomaly. Many of us think a relaxed and carelessly free society is something that just happens, is inevitable, and is the way it has always been. It is really wonderful that we can raise our children in a time and place where that seems to be reality. But the reality is that this type of carefree living has existed for only a relatively few centuries in relatively small portions of the world. The rest of the time, and in the rest of the places, this savagery has gone on relatively unabated. Only now with the inventions of jet planes and satellite TV have we been exposed to savage reality of the wilderness once again. The movie ends in victory. But it was not without a terrible cost. Good had to be more powerful, swift and mighty than evil. They had to risk all to not just retain their freedom, but to live. It is an old story, written many years ago in an uncomplicated fashion. Today, with movies coming out like Munich and Syriana, things are much more complicated . . . or are they?
