I watched Alex Garland's film "Civil War" on Sunday night. It hit hard for me. I found it deeply effective—well written, brilliantly performed, and masterfully edited. It took me a good ten minutes after the credits started rolling to feel like standing up again. I watched the theater rapidly empty of other viewers and wondered just what they all might be feeling, and how their politics might feed into that... which one could perhaps frame as: I found myself asking what kind of Americans they were, and as indicting as that might be if you understand that reference to the most harrowing and disturbing scene of the film, I think it prompts a useful question that this film begs us to pose of ourselves... to what degree do we already see one-another through lenses that are by their nature divisive and destructive?
Is it possible that the world isn't getting worse, but that our tether to the world is sprouting thorns?
-Savannah Brown
…Something about destructive ontologies… ways of parsing the world that are inherently damaging. Curses—in the somehow mystical and scientific way that Yunkaporta describes them—“a false pattern spoken into the whole from the part”. We might be carriers of the ideological virus which spells the end of the future of this beautiful organism…
Within the relatively brief, 110-minute runtime of Civil War, here are the handful of things and themes I saw Garland focus attention and artistry on:
We do not want a civil war—because war is f*cking terrible for everyone, especially civil war; and anyone who embraces such a thing or considers it a desirable path is seriously misguided. (To accomplish this message, much of the film, like many war films, serves to provide a realistic depiction of the horrors of war.)
The role of journalism in war and politics--how war journalists document realities and individual experiences which might be hidden from view otherwise and lost in the chaos (and hidden due to intentional narrative shaping by strategic actors; but more on that another time…).
Vignettes that depict the vast, diverse, even contradictory nature of individual experiences within war, particularly in how it drives dehumanization, how it devolves into chaos that carries no logic from its initiators or political purposes, how it initiates and feeds downward spirals that become self-reinforcing feedback loops of hatred and violence that persist long after political purposes have evolved and dissipated; how deeply it damages, physically and psychologically.
The approach to that third one makes the film into a work of speculative journalism. Many of the events and vignettes within the film can be mapped to real-world events in wars around the world. Garland is making a point about the nature of reality in actual war and tweaking only a few variables to situate these facts within the United States, into the familiar landscape we occupy and are attached to.
Kirstin Dunst's character, the veteran war-journalist Lee, struggles with an existential crisis about her life’s calling throughout the film:
Every time I survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home - "Don't do this".
But here we are.
-Lee
If I am correct in labeling “Civil War” a kind of speculative journalism, then the question of whether journalism does anything at all might be one that the film poses of itself, that Garland poses of himself. Having been in the speculative fiction game for some time—having sent messages from the future about artificial life indistinguishable from humanity with his film “Ex Machina”, perhaps a warning home—“Don’t do this” and now seeing that here we are when it comes to AI—I can’t help but wonder if he is asking himself, like Lee, Does what we do even matter? Or are the forces which drag us towards these outcomes far too powerful to be stayed by mere art,
or even mere journalism.
I see a lot of critiques expressing frustration with the lack of political explanation for Garland’s speculative fiction. The America depicted is clearly the one we presently live in. The author has tweaked only a few variables in this barely-alternate reality—a president has taken actions which undermine the norms and institutions of a once-functioning democracy, and the result is catastrophic collapse. Texas and California are the Western Forces, pitted directly against a third-term president in Washington (played deftly by Nick Offerman). Various factions have sprung up across the country, and that geographical alignment becomes a primary lens through which many see one-another within this world (e.g. “what kind of American are you?”)…
Garland barely barely touches on the political basis for this reality. We get almost nothing from the characters with regards to how we got here and even what here looks like through a political lens; and the frustration that that causes in viewers—it might say a lot about how we see the world— how we insist on seeing the world.
Is this one of those destructive ontologies? A tether which has sprouted thorns?
It’s almost like people need to know all the facts of the case here in order to make a judgment about whether this dystopian nightmare is in fact a justifiable condition. Those to whom this is all a finite game—zero sum, where my gain necessarily requires your loss—they would set out to employ an artistic instrument like this as a weapon against their ideological adversaries. And Garland made intentional efforts to prevent that.
Garland's point... I believe... made in part through omission, is that there are few political facts that would justify such an outcome. The choice to give very little time or attention to the political premise of this civil war itself in my eyes makes a strong statement about their unimportance. It’s not about what one side or the other side needs to do or needs to stop doing. It’s about what we must understand and commit to doing together. I think it's a really interesting premise... and I also find it interesting how challenging it might be for people—how clearly challenging it is for people already… I mean… I find it challenging.
Avoid at all costs is a compelling rallying cry. Avoidance means realigning ourselves to shared values over the positioning and posturing of political clans.
I think what Garland is trying to offer, in lieu of a shared vision of a desirable future, which for the moment eludes a more or less divided America, is a shared vision of an undesirable one… which some suggest might already be closing in. This whole exercise here is a national pre-mortem.
We must first and foremost seek to remain unified in our alignment to the values of this democracy, and therefore support the mechanisms that would keep it intact, even when doing so would prevent our side from “winning” political battles.
I suppose I wrote about this at some length in the piece “January 6th, Values, Self-Organization, and the Goals of this System”. In that essay, I arrived at the simple axiom that within the realm of politics, winning at all costs is an unacceptable posture. Here’s an excerpt:
…our politics are supposed to exist on top of an underlying framework of democratic values. Democracy is founded on the idea that governance is best modulated by diversity of demographics, of thought, by inclusion and compromise. This is an operating system intended to navigate the complexity of human experience at scale, and it will never be perfect. There is this whole system in place intended to represent the people, prevent the tyranny of the masses and put checks on any office or branch that might be leaning too dangerously hard in a particular dogmatic direction. Monocultures are structurally weak. Inclusion and equity are an important part of the answer.
James Carse, in his book Finite and Infinite Games describes evil in this way:
“Evil is never intended as evil. Indeed, the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate evil. Evil arises in the honored belief that history can be tidied up, brought to a sensible conclusion. It is evil for a nation to believe it is the last, best hope on earth. It is evil to think history is to end with a return to Zion, or with a classless society, or with the Islamicization of all living infidels. Your history does not belong to me. We live with each other in a common history.”
Carse describes evil as “when an infinite game is consumed entirely within a finite game”.
He says evil is the “restriction of all play to one or another finite game”.
That is precisely what I see in allowing politics - mere theories of governance- finite games about winning this match or this round at all costs - to supersede what ought to be our more sacred and well-bounded values - democracy, inclusion, equity, and a genuine concern for the well-being of one-another.
Stop trying to just win at all costs.
The costs of winning might be more than we can afford.
I found “Civil War” accomplished its goals. Or it at least accomplished mine. It ignited in me a deep fear of that maelstrom of an event and outcome which feels looming and latent, like a bit of unexpressed genetic code which only requires the right conditions to start working its cursed function. It made me wonder how we might be carriers of that ideological virus which would spell the end of the future of this beautiful organism, and how we, with the mere power of relatedness—by choosing non-destructive, regenerative, mutualistic ontologies—might avoid it.
Great essay, Daniel. This is why I'm doing work as an Ambassador for Braver Angels (https://braverangels.org/).
"La Via Negativa" - The Negative Path/Cautionary Tale.
The "tether sprouting horns" is worth thinking about- thanks for that. I haven't seen the movie yet but I've read several piece about it.
Loved this bit: "We must first and foremost seek to remain unified in our alignment to the values of this democracy, and therefore support the mechanisms that would keep it intact, even when doing so would prevent our side from “winning” political battles."
The challenge is most people are more afraid of censure from their own tribe than the alternative, fearful of appearing weak or "giving our opponent a victory."
We need courage from individuals, to prioritize our shared values and identity rather than sub-group ones.