THE CASSANDRA CURSE

In Greek mythology, the luckless Cassandra resisted the advances of the god Apollo.   His revenge was to enable her to see the future; but for everyone to disbelieve her.

     In Greek history, Socrates was condemned to death for undermining the state; but posterity has judged Socrates to have been in the right, and his accusers in the wrong.  A lot of people have heard of Socrates, even if they have only the vaguest notion of who he was.  But how many could name even one of those who prosecuted him?

 

When I saw the film Darby O’Gill as a child, I was on the side of Darby.  He was the only one with the vision to actually see the leprechauns.


 

     Revisiting the film as an adult, I realised that, actually, it is the others who are in the right, and Darby who is deluded.  The captured King Brian is really just a rabbit. The Banshee is just a swaying bush, and her wailing is nothing but the sound of the wind. 

   

     And yet, the impression overall is that Darby is still the one with the truest vision of things.  The credits include an acknowledgment to King Brian, without whose gracious permission the film could not have been made.  There may not be leprechauns, but there are still more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. 

We are in similar territory with the first two Terminator films: set in 1984 and 1995, 1997 and 2029.  1995 and 1997 were still in the future when the second film came out in 1991.   How far the real 2029 might match the film’s nightmare predictions remains to be seen. 

     First some background: for those whose memories are rusty, or who missed the sequence altogether.    

     Skynet, the computer controlling American weaponry develops a malfunction whereby the enemy becomes not the Russians, but the entire human race.  In 1997, Skynet instigates a nuclear war, and then sets itself to creating machines to eliminate any human survivors. 

The worst of these are the cyborgs or terminators:  human-looking killing machines. 

 

     The human remnants in the Los Angeles of the future are rallied by one John Connor.  In 2029, Skynet sends a cyborg back in time to kill John Connor’s mother, Sarah,  before he is born  (Film One), and another to kill John Connor’s younger self (Film Two).

     In Terminator 2, Sarah is directly in the Cassandra tradition. Knowing that a war will occur in 1997 unless steps are taken to prevent it, she has tried to blow up the computer factory where Skynet is to be produced, failed, and been declared criminally insane. 

     In the asylum, she is treated by a Dr Silberman, who regards her warnings about Skynet and the cyborg terminators as the ravings of a lunatic. 

    Two episodes from Terminator 2 stand out for me.  The first is when it dawns on Dr Silberman, confronted with two warring terminators, that his patient has been telling the truth all along.

     The second is when Sarah and her allies break into the Cyberdyne complex to destroy the microchip that will create Skynet and, ultimately, the cyborgs.  They are resisted at every stage by the police: who perceive only a felony, and who completely fail to realise that if they succeed in foiling the intruders they will be ensuring the destruction of themselves and the rest of the human race.

 

There is no Skynet, and there are no cyborgs, but the truth of the film is that there are visionaries who suffer for what they see.

     Jeremiah was persecuted for predicting the fall of Jerusalem.  Religious believers were confined to asylums in the former Soviet Union.  

     In terms of strict materialism, there was a logic to that.  If there is nothing but matter, then anyone who believes in spirit must be mad.  But only if the initial premise is correct.  Otherwise, materialists are the victims of truncated vision.

     There is, it seems to me, a similar - though currently less drastic - pattern in modern Britain.  For secular Utopians, Christianity - with its insistence on the uniqueness of Christ, the sanctity of marriage, and objective right and wrong - is a very great evil to be driven from the public sphere.  And, if the Thought Police, could have their way, from the private sphere as well. 

     “Sancta simplicitas.”  Thus John Huss, to an old peasant bringing a piece of wood to help burn him: the peasant who, by his ignorance, would contribute to the destruction of one who sought the welfare of the peasants. 

     Thus Aslan in The Magician’s Nephew:  “Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good.”