Agent Smith on Humans as a Virus

In the spirit of my colleagues posting on environmental films, and following on the Evil Animals post from last week and Professor McAllister's May 24 post on consumption, I thought I would highlight one of the most profound environmental insights in cinema (sci-fi cinema at least!).  The movie "The Matrix" came out in 1999. At that time, the thought of my being involved in legal academics had never even crossed my mind, and had it done so I wouldn't even have known what that meant. Yet one clip in the movie had a deep impact on how I viewed our place in the world - and provided a theoretical framework for pushing me further along the path of environmental concern. The clip involves an interrogation of Morpheus by Agent Smith....

 

...The day after watching "The Matrix" I went to the Galleria Mall in Birmingham, Alabama. I stood at the top of the escalators above the food court and watched the people swarm. Hundreds of people scurried across each others' paths. Shopping bags filled with plastic and metal goodies were draped across arms, backs, and strollers. Hundreds more people sat in the food court stuffing their faces with hamburgers, chicken, pizza, cotton candy, cookies, ice cream and every other American delight you can imagine (a time release camera from 1995-2000 would have demonstrated these people getting larger as well, as the number of obese people worldwide increased by 100 million during that five year period). I couldn't help but feel the pall of depression come over me as I thought "Agent Smith was right!" And worse still I am sure I had just washed down an endorphin rush to the frontal lobe from eating an over-sized burger with an endorphin rush from purchasing some copious quantity of plastic play-things.

If everyone on earth consumed as much per capita as Americans do, we would need at least 5 earths to sustain us. I say "at least" because the number of earths we would need is increasing as our consumption increases. Stating the obvious, something needs to change. 

The great thing about humans though, as the robots found out at the end of the Matrix Trilogy, is that we can think and do not always perform according to expected and established protocol. We have the ability to adapt and change and learn from past mistakes and previous destructive behaviors.  Though we certainly can operate like a virus, and currently are operating like one at the rate at which we are consuming the earth, we have a chance and ability to change course.

The World Wildlife Fund's Jason Clay, in his talk "How big brands can help save biodiversity," provides some interesting insights into how we can actually harness components of our consumptive culture to protect the environment. His thoughts can be seen here:

 

- Blake Hudson