I look fwd to seeing the film. And I could not agree more that the belief many Americans have/had concerning our nation’s “exceptionalism” only makes us less vigilant. The corollary being “it can’t happen here”, when considering dictatorship. Not sure there’s ever been a good reason to think we are somehow sharper than other nations.
Filmmaker Alex Garland explained why it makes sense for 'Civil War' to come out during an election year, why Texas and California are allies in the film, and the slammed the political polarization: "One thing history shows us is that [no country] is immune. Nobody is exceptional."
www.hollywoodreporter.com
“At one point, Garland rather passionately pointed out that
Civil War is trying to create a conversation about political divisiveness in general that vilifies the other side; ratcheting up rhetoric into an ethical debate which makes it easier to see others as evil — and once somebody is considered morally wrong, their opponents can justify all sorts of extreme measures to stop them.
“Why are we talking and not listening?” he asked. “We’ve lost trust in the media and politicians. And some in the media are wonderful and some politicians are wonderful—on both sides of the divide. I have a political position and I have good friends on the other side of that political divide. Honestly, I’m not trying to be cute: What’s so hard about that? Why are we shutting [conversation] down? Left and right are ideological arguments about how to run a state. That’s all they are. They are not a right or wrong, or good and bad. It’s which do you think has greater efficacy? That’s it. You try one, and if that doesn’t work out, you vote it out, and you try again a different way. That’s a process. But we’ve made it into ‘good and bad.’ We made it into a moral issue, and it’s ****ing idiotic, and incredibly dangerous … I personally [blame] some of this on social media. There is a an interaction that exists human-to-human that floats away when it reaches a public forum.”
www.ksl.com
