Nah, not really. But he could play his brother. Don’t you think? And it’d make up for the Super Bowl being so damn boring (aside from the best half-time show I’ve ever scene). Prince should have won MVP for this game.
setting the record straight about robuts
02-Feb-07
It’s not the robuts in movies like “The Terminator” or “I, Robut” or “The Matrix” that are evil. Some would say that they can neither be good nor evil because they only do what they’re programmed to do. But I’m inclined to say that when they’re good (bringing us orange juice and saving children) they’re great, and even when they’re bad (destroying the human race) they still serve a purpose.
You see, the robut is the epitome of Enlightenment thinking, the idea that rationality holds the key to peace and happiness on Earth. When Kant said, in not so few and small words, don’t do anything that you wouldn’t hold up as a universal law, he was basically speaking Robut, a language of simple and rational conclusions designed to make the world a better place.
In the aforementioned films a problem usually arises when the robuts come to the impeccably rational conclusion that humans should be destroyed. At this point in the movie we’re forced to face the fact that as a species we pollute, murder, make war and a whole bunch of other stuff that sex, art and religion couldn’t possibly make up for. It’s no accident that the robuts in these movies usually appear as grotesque replications of ourselves. The robut is an extension of human consciousness, pointing out our uselessness, and threatening the quick fix solution.
Had we been able to come to this conclusion ourselves we would have most likely descended into a suicidal orgy. But as attractive as that sounds, it’s simply not an option for most people. So, in spite of this perennial aporia, these movies usually end with a triumph of the human spirit.
But what is the human spirit? Certainly more than the mere will to go on living knowing that your existence is a plague on the world. Against cold rationality, the human spirit welcomes multiplicity and mystery. It suggests that the robut jumped off Kant’s bus too soon, and proudly sports the old cliche that it’s the journey, not the destination.
The evil robut is a mirror in which we first see our vile and corrupt nature, but come to see the beauty of our spirit.