Robot Love Can Save the World

Morton had me at Wall•E. That right there was and remains to this day one of my favorite Pixar movies (though I still love you, Toy Story and The Incredibles) if only for the ecological message. It fascinated me that this movie, which contained almost zero dialogue except for the ubiquitous John Ratzenberger, a Hal-like sentient steering wheel, and an old tape of Hello, Dolly could explain to the masses the importance of an ecological conscience much more easily and accessibly than any explanation I had ever offered. I had tried to tell people for years to pay attention to what people have done and continue to do to the planet, gave examples of contemporary disasters, and pointed out the consequences social, political, and enconomic that such degradation has engendered, but most often I was met with condescencion, blank stares, and sometimes outright hostility. Most Texans, I discovered, don't take kindly to someone telling them why their gas guzzling pickup truck might be a bad thing for the planet.

But maybe I went about explaning everything the wrong way. I did exactly what Morton specifically says not to do and talked about nature. "'Nature,'" Morton believes, "fails to serve ecology well...thinking, including ecological thinking, has set up 'Nature' as a reified thing in the distance" (3). Focusing on nature grounds ecological thought in a specific place, somewhere that can be considered "nature." Nature, as a concept, means this far off thing in the jungle or the mountains, somewhere with lost of plants and animals but no people and therefore entirely separate from humanity. Nature has something to do with science, namely biology or the more recent ecology, but nothing to do with any other school of thought. The average person can't possibly be bothered to worry about nature because it exists worlds away from the suburban streets and city skyscrapers, even away from the family farm, and so has nothing to do with the non-scientists.

Well, maybe it's time for an ecological pandemic. The ecological thought Morton describes encompasses everything and everyone, no matter how far removed, and connects everything in a giant web of oneness. Nature is not simply "'over yonder,' alien and alienated," it is the that which connects us all in "the mesh" (5, 15). We need Morton's ecological virus to infect the entire world (planet? environment? galaxy?), to permeate every subject and object, every discipline and ideology, and prove the importance of ecological thought outside the social construct that is "nature." We need more films like Wall•E that use cute Pixar animation and a story about adorable robots in love and the importance of exercise to make ecological thoughts and concerns accessible to all. The ecological virus is here, but has thus far resulted in but a few confirmed cases, far from the pandemic needed to turn the tide against apathy and business as usual consumption and destruction.

I think part of me envies Wall•E and Eve and how their sugary sweet trash compacting robot meets biotic reconosance droid romance plot got the world interested in ecology for at least a few months in only 89 minutes of near silence save the occasional calling eachother's names, but I think what I wish most of all is that more things like this existed, that show the world as it is and as it will be if the human race continues business as usual, but then finishes with a message of hope, something to inspire the masses and prove that "yeah, bad stuff happened and bad stuff keeps happening, but we have the power to turn it around." So much ecological thought is either entirely fatalistic or Morton's "bright green" that refuses to acknowledge the severity of the hole we're in if it even truly acknowledges the hole. I want narratives that show us the hole, but then show us a way out and a way to fill the hole back in so no one falls and get stuck down at the bottom ever again. So here's hoping the ecological virus infects everything from psychology senior seminars to the halls of corporate America to MTV in a global pandemic so great that no one can ignore just how deeply ecology figures into the modern world.