One of my favorite science fiction movies is Forbidden Planet. This 1956 sci-fi stars Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielson, Anne Francis and Robbie the Robot. It was nominated for an Academy Award for best visual effects and is considered one of the best sci-fi movies ever made, frequently referred to as a modern version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
The stars of this movie got along quite well and enjoyed their time together. Pidgeon was noted as keeping the company laughing off set with his constant ribald limericks. Nielson described 5-foot-8 Anne Francis as one tall, cool drink of water, and the descriptor stuck. But it is the story that has kept me and many others coming back for yet one more look at this movie.
In Forbidden Planet a wondrously advanced civilization (the Krell) has done away with want, need, bigotry, crime and disease. But on the eve of their greatest invention (conversion of energy to matter by thought alone) they are all destroyed overnight by a force of unspeakable viciousness.
In an ironic twist worthy of O. Henry, the evil force turns out to be their own subconscious thoughts — thoughts they were sure their millennia of civilization had subdued.
In the movie, the subconscious mind is referred to as the Id, an archaic reference. You and I know that same shadowy area as our reptilian brain. These are the basal ganglia, forming a small and primitive form of our brain that is shared by lower forms of animals (reptiles among them).
This reptilian brain eventually was subsumed by our cerebrum. It is this modern brain that allows higher-order thinking, higher functioning and our imposition of civilized behavior over animal instincts.
But make no mistake — the reptilian brain is still there. It still sends out its primitive but compelling messages. Those messages are those that involve the lowest level of survival: food, flight-or-fight responses, aggression, dominance, territoriality. The rule of the reptilian brain involves the three overriding urges of all living things: to eat, to survive and to reproduce. To say that we are too smart and civilized to feel these urges is to make fools of ourselves.
In recent weeks we have seen two presumably smart people, Will Smith and Ginny Thomas, give in to their worst instincts. Smith’s slap was, in the grand scheme of things, a minor incident but devastating to his public standing. Thomas’ endless and embarrassing emails calling for the overthrow of a lawfully elected American president were little less than treasonous.
Why would both these people do such irrational, foolish, even illegal things?
Blame their lack of discipline, blame their sense of entitlement, but also blame their reptilian brains.
Both decided that protecting their strip of territory was more important than obeying the conventions of civility. Both decided to set aside their reason and mature judgment and indulge their egos. Both should know better — do know better — but could not resist the urge to act like bullies and attempt to impose their dominance on other humans.
They were both wrong.
What a scientist would call the reptilian brain a philosopher might call the Id and a theologian would call the devil is, in each case, a part of ourselves that we must recognize and control. Laws are designed to compel that control. A group ethos is developed to aid that control. But each of us must also accept responsibility for that control.
We must be smarter than the Krell. Today would not be too soon to see ourselves for both what we are, and from where we came.
Louise Butler is a retired educator and published author who lives in Edinburg. She writes for The Monitor’s Board of Contributors.
