What The Golden Compass is all about

By now you’ve probably heard everyone connected with The Golden Compass assure you that the movie makers, in a deliberate attempt not to offend the public, toned down the anti-religious theme of the books by Philip Pullman on which the movie is based. What you probably haven’t heard is revealed by Don Feder at his website:

If “The Golden Compass” succeeds, Pullman’s agenda will be up front in the next two installments.

Director Chris Weitz (the genius who brought us “American Pie”) told MTV MovieBlogs.com: “The whole point, to me, of ensuring that ‘The Golden Compass’ is a financial success is so that we have a solid foundation on which to deliver a faithful, more literal adaptation of the second and third books. This is important: whereas ‘The Golden Compass’ had to be introduced to the public carefully, the religious [anti-religious] themes in the second and third movies can’t be minimized without destroying the spirit of these books.”

And what are the books’ anti-religious themes?

The movie is based on a series of children’s books (“His Dark Materials”), by British writer Philip Pullman, that are rabidly anti-faith. Pullman is an atheist who makes Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens seem sane by comparison.

“I don’t think it’s possible there is a God,” Pullman opines. “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.” “My books are about killing God” and “I am all for the death of God.”

Which, Feder informs us, is exactly what happens in the final volume of his trilogy, in which God is killed.

And how does the book portray Christianity?

Various characters instruct young readers that: “The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all,” and “In every world, the agents of the Authority (Magisterium) are sacrificing children to their cruel god!”

The Magisterium experiments on children, separating them from their animal spirits (called daemons) and turning them into zombies, in an attempt to create a more compliant, docile populace.

What we see here is the paradoxical liberal syndrome I’ve discussed time and again, in which the stronger liberalism becomes, and the weaker traditional religion and culture become, the more evil and oppressive the wan remnants of tradition are portrayed as being. This is because the more secular and egalitarian the society, the more offensive to its secular-egalitarian conscience is any hint of God and moral truth.

Which leads to a final thought. If things reveal their essence when they reach their mature form, then, based on the existence of a popular series of children’s books devoted to the killing of God, I think we can say with assurance that the essence of modern liberalism is demonic evil.

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Feder’s Coldsteel website remains user-unfriendly, with the articles temporarily posted in small, scrolling text boxes, and with the permanent version of the articles only available in pdf files. What web designer told Feder that to provide articles only in pdf files rather than in individual web pages was an improvement?

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Chris L. writes:

I do not think we need to worry about The Golden Compass having any follow up films in the near future. The film is a disastrous failure at the box office. The budget for the film is estimated at $180 million and that does not include the copious amounts of advertising. In two weeks, it has only managed to earn $40 million domestically, half of which the movie company gets. Although the film is doing better overseas, the distributor, New Line Cinema, sold the overseas rights early on to offset the production costs. In the end, New Line Cinema is going to be deep in the red for this film and will not want to make movies out of the second and third books. As further evidence of that, New Line just resolved the disagreement it was having with Peter Jackson over the Lord of the Rings movies payments and have signed him to do The Hobbit. Most analysts figure the agreement was reached because of The Golden Compass fiasco.

As a side note, the Catholic League came out strongly against the film and highlighted the toning down of the anti-Christianity aspects. Meanwhile, on the website for the US Catholic Council of Bishops, a reviewer had almost gushing praise for the film. That review was eventually removed from the site. I sense there is a kernel of resistance still in the country.

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Sebastian writes:

Your observation that the stronger liberalism grows the more oppressive the remnants of tradition are portrayed reminded me of an insightful passage in Nineteen Eighty-Four that is overshadowed by the more dramatic “boot in the face” sentence that appears at the end of O’Brien’s monologue. O’Brien explains the nature of the Party’s rule thus:

“The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible—and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord.” Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part 3, Chapter 3.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 19, 2007 04:26 PM | Send