Learning to Grow Roots: Avatar and Leopold

Although the movie "Avatar", has many themes, the one that I found most interesting was the grave transformation of main character, Jake Sully. In the beginning of the film, Sully was a macho marine blinded by his own anthropocentric master narrative. He was completely Gun-ho on persuading the Natives to move out of the needed territory and was quite ready to use force if necessary, regardless of what it meant to the Na'Vi of to their environment. He saw the Na'Vi as an underdeveloped culture with inane concerns. His assumption that this world was filled with precarious life soon changed after he lived among them and felt the sense of community with the clan. He began to understand the importance between the system of trees and developed an ecocentric perspective. By experiencing the symbiosis with the Pandora native, Neyiri, he developed an ecological conscience which allowed him to put his narrative behind him and act on the opposite side of the dualistic view that now told him that the Na'Vi were not people of primitive culture but one of great strength and fortitude. The Na'Vi was able to connect with nature and live without the technology that we thought they needed.
One conversation that I thought illustrated so much about humanity was between Jake and Parker. Parker had told Jake that he didn't understand why the Na'Vi wouldn't just move. They would give them .."schools and education, but they want mud". Jake had discussed in one of his personal diaries that "There's nothing we have that they want". This is really the moment that I feel Jake begins to oppose his original dualistic view to move to the other side. He knew that the 2 cultures are so vastly different, but he realized he may not be apart of the stronger culture just because we have things like formal schools, electricity and technology. These people manage to live fulfilled lives and support and rich culture even without these things. This makes me question who really then is the strongest of the cultures in our own world? Is it the 'super powers' who rule the world with force, domination over all creatures and organisms, those who live through technology and electricity, democracy, and mass manufacturing with a mechanistic worldview, or is the culture manages without technology, sees the intrinsic value in things and not just a price tag, those who live with a sense of sovereignty and whose Master Narrative doesn't include mastery of all, but is incommensurable to us. It is so vastly different from our culture that we are jaded in our judgements and seek imperialism as a way for us to help them live up to our own standard when in reality they are the true top of the hierarchy as they can survive among nature with that which we cannot imagine living without. We are so set in our own humanistic view that choose not to try and understand how and why another culture lives the way they do, but instead force our own paradigm on them. When they chose to decline our "offer" of government and technology driven lives instead of accepting it, we chose to dominate them and push our own views in by force. This video, as comical as it may seem, has many truths in it. It relates Avatar to so much of the real world and where we have previously stood and continue to go.




When we chose to put our own views so far in front of anyone Else's, we miss out on things we could be learning. I believe that Jake's inability to use his legs in the 'real' world and ability to use them in Pandora was a metaphor. When lived in our own culture he followed the paradigm that was the anomaly and saw the Na'Vi as primitive and stubborn for not wanting to leave the area. It's as if he was 'paralyzed' from seeing the Master Narrative of the Na'Vi. After living among the Na'Vi, he began to appreciate their views and not only understand them, but also live by them. He was able to see through their eyes and 'walk again'. He developed a new ability to "Think like a Mountain"(Leopold). The quote from this article by Aldo Leopold "a mountain has live long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf" reminded me of the scene where Jake ties his tail to the tree and speaks to 'her' for advice about the following war(Leopold, p.2). As he know sees himself as apart of the system he asks nature for advice as he is apart of it and is aware that the battle will also effect their environment. He sees the importance of his relationship to the environment enough to know that he isn't fighting for himself or for humanity, but also for the wilderness that's apart of him. The key word in the quote is 'objectively'. The mountain 'objectively listens' and is able to hear the wolf in a way that someone who is not apart of nature cannot. The mountain can understand why the wolf howls and for what. In the article "Thinking Like a Mountain", the hunter has a new perception for the wolf he once loved to hunt, once he sees the "green fire" in the wolfs eyes. He's able to become closer to nature because he saw the emotion and experienced the sadness of the wolf's loss of her babies. Jake was able to feel the same connection after becoming a Na'Vi and seeing through their "green fire(d)" eyes the destruction that his culture was causing.

Jake began to become interconnected within the system of roots in within Pandora's trees that connected the entire community to it's environment. That connection gave both Jake and the natives the ability to appreciate the land around them and have an ecological conscience. "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and the community of the biotic environment. It is wrong when it tends to do otherwise". (The Land Ethic, Leopold, p.9) Jake saw that what Parker and the Colonel were doing was wrong as they were destroying not only the habitat where the Na'Vi lived, but their whole sense of life and community. By taking away their trees they were taking away the Narrative by which they lived by. Although Jake was a marine he was overcome with a feeling of disenchantment by the imperialistic sense of it all. By forcing views on someone you are tearing apart their "....integrity, stability and community...".
" Land, then, is not merely soil; it is the fountain of energy flow through a circuit of soils, plants and animals"(Leopold, p.6). The importance of this Land Pyramid for Jake is what made him stand up and fight against his own kind. It's strong system that connected the community helped him overcome his ignorance for that which was different from everything had ever known and became 'De-paralyzed' by his previous anthropocentrism enough to do what was morally and ecologically right.