MovieChat Forums > Medicine Man (1992) Discussion > Doesn’t it make you mad?

Doesn’t it make you mad?


Doesn’t the arrogance with which we think we can destroy everything that nature has created without consequence make you made?

Why can’t we live in a little more harmony with nature?

I love this movie but it makes me mad.

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Same here. It seems like people are cursed - on the mass scale - with not being able to see past the short term with this world. Maybe that's why people act so foolishly and wonder, at the time of consequence, how things got so bad.
Robert Bakker, a famous paleontologist, said that humans are very proud of themselves, so much so that beginning in at least the 19th century, natural science was focused on purporting the greatness of Homo sapiens as the most superior organism in Earth's history. Hell, the Industrial Revolution, which occurred about that same time, was the untimate testament to the greatness of humankind's dominance over nature, according to 19th century scientific dogma.
We have done so many wonderful things with science in our short time on Earth, but it has not been without its consequences; one notable consequence is one that is more subtle than most: all our technology and development has separated us so much from nature that the natural world is now like a foreign country to a lot of people - especially Americans and other 1st world citizens.
So to answer your question, we can't live more in harmony with nature b/c we've accepted a current lifestyle and mode of thinking that doesn't have much room for harmony with nature, other than admiring it on TV like some bourgeois idiot. It's our responsibility as stewards of the Earth to take that step to restore our relationship with the natural world; and it's more an individual choice than a group choice.

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That is realy, realy sad. And you are apsolutely wright - it is an individual choice. That's the only way out, the only way this thing can be fixed. Thanks for responding, that's very well said and you understood my point exactley even though I didn't put it in words. I hope others feel the same as well.

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This is a great movie! But it is also thought provoking. *The Redsox rule!

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I agree--but it's not the movie that makes me mad, it's the fact that this stuff really DOES happen, and all too often at that. I truly believe that this story might as well have been true, even if it isn't *technically* (which I don't know what it is)--selfish, greedy, arrogant, and prideful people are chopping down the rainforests day after day with no regard for the consequences. Which will be GIGANTIC. Not only are we displacing indigenous people, but we're also DESTROYING plant and animal life--we're completely ridding the world of some organic compounds that, like in this movie, could be the key to solving some of the world's hugest problems. I personally believe that we're headed down the road to ruining the entire planet, and I believe in karma, and I believe that the people who are doing such horrible things as in this movie (destroying our only chance as a race, etc.) will one day be responsible for the complete obliteration of the Earth.
You're right. It does piss me off. Beyond all belief. The fact that people will do things like this is lost on me...and okay, maybe you think I'm overreacting =/ But I promise you, I'm not. This is the only world we'll ever have we're talking about here. How many future generations have these people--who disgust me, by the way--doomed? Not only with destroying the cures to so many things (because I honestly think that the solutions are all out there somewhere, it's just a matter of finding them and being intelligent enough not to RUIN them, like what happened in this movie), but with creating more global warming, and so on and so forth.
UGH!
Sorry! =/ Got a little bit heated there. But I seriously think there's nothing that makes me madder than people who completely disregard all other life to pursue their own revolting agendas. They're basically saying, "Hey, all you people out there, who, unlike us, have been smart enough not to murder the planet from the inside out with toxic waste! You don't matter. Bye-bye." And that pisses me off so much I would hurt someone if I got the chance. Argh! People like the villians in this movie make me sick. And it horrifies me that one day, innocent future generations will have to pay the price for these horrendous mistakes.

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I try to take solace in the long-term view of the planet. We modern humans are but a blip in Nature's long dance. We will eventually become extinct, and then Nature can replenish the planet with rich biodiversity. In a few millennia, thanks to a dynamic earth, there will be absolutely no evidence that humans were ever here.

Of course, in the truly long-term, biological life is doomed here anyway. Create / destroy. Live / die. Yin / Yang.

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Hello everybody

Just to play Devil's Advocate a little here in an effort to expose the ultimate reason for deforestation and climate change and all the bad things being done to our planet Earth... News flash: it's not greed, it's not arrogance, and it's not pure evil. It's us. It's humans. It's more and more and more and more humans popping up and more and more and more humans living longer on a daily basis. It's the fact that all of these people need to eat and that the food needed to feed them all and the materials needed to wrap them in clothes, and the resources needed to get them from point A to point B...it all has to come from somewhere, no?

Those tomatoes that a lot of you enjoy during winter, where do you think they're being grown? That banana you have in your hand in February, where do you think that warm-weather fruit came from? Those mangos on display in the supermarket in December; the avocados in January; the potatoes in March; year-round lettuce; all the beef you're eating... All of these things that you think magically show up at your grocery store, they all come from somewhere with a climate that supports year-round farming. And what area of the Earth has that particular climate and millions of acres to support such large farms? The Amazon. Bingo!

This is the reason thousands upon thousands of acres of lush and diverse rainforest have been slashed and burned. This is why, as is the case in Medicine Man, companies come in to create roads. It's not borne out of wonton destruction and distaste for the environment. It's done so that you and your family can go to Costco and buy extra large boxes of Hot Pockets and pizza and hamburgers and dry-aged 14oz rib eyes and ready-to-eat salads in plastic bags, and so on and so forth.

So we're the root of the problem. All of us. If you live in a city or the suburbs or even a log cabin out in the woods! You're part of the problem. Ever city, suburb- and, yes, log cabin- happened because one, two, twenty, or twenty thousand trees were cut down to make room for progress. We're all standing on the graves of a million dead trees and the animals that called them home.

So feel and understand this guilt. Wear it humbly. Use it to inform your decisions on what to buy, where to buy it, and when to buy it. Let this guilt guide you when it comes to your worldview, and ultimately, let it force you to look inwards to wclx amine your own faults and shortcomings so that it may lead you to have a better understanding of others and what makes the entire world tick.

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