Exnihilo2, that is an astonishingly insightful, well-written post. I realize you’re analysing Cameron’s artistic output, and not proselytising. So please take the rest of my post as an argument against Cameron’s views, and not a criticism of your analysis.
This of course symbolizes the self-destructive aspect of technological materialistic culture, most notably represented by the threat of nuclear annihilation.
We’ve been using myths to capture this doomsday fear of self-destructive hubris at least since Icarus. While those fears are not necessarily naïve or entirely misplaced, it is but one theme running parellel to that which is construed by this doomsday scenario as naïve, namely, the technological Utopia which advocates of industrial “progress” would have us believe. Yet both are true: we do have the power to destroy ourselves, and we’ve used that power in limited doses throughout our history. And yet it’s also true that with our technology we are providing greater prosperity, health, longevity, information, communication, access to resources, and understanding of our existence. By failing to include either side of this dichotomous truth,
either reductionist view becomes naïve. You characterize “naivete” as the remedy. I believe it is the problem, because it is either a dismissal of the danger by the Techno-utopians, or dismissal of the
solution to that danger by the Enviro-utopians.
The question posed is how one reacts to the revelation of one's shared culpability in a culture headed for armaggedon, and whether the individual has viable options other than continuing to participate in that culture.
This question assumes culpability for something that hasn’t happened, and may never happen. It also assumes that a “viable option” is necessary to avoid the doomsday scenario. Continuing to participate in this culture may in fact continue to bring more of the positives outcomes I listed above, and that increase of positive effects may itself be the key to avoiding the armaggedon. Look how the Cold War threat dissolved with economic progress in one nation, and the insistance of similar progress (and the freedom necessary to achieve it) by citizens in the other nation. At no point in our history have the threats posed by technological advancement ever resolved themselves by accepting the naïve premise that the technological advancement is itself the problem. The opposite has consistently been the case. Pollution is resolved by making our factories more efficient and technologically advanced. Political strife is resolved by improved standards of living and weaving interconnected global markets.
Then you have Terminator 2: Judgment Day which continues the Terminator themes, although man's infernal drives have been distilled into that modern bogeyman the Corporation as dehumanizing institution. The action centers around attempts to counteract the Corporate threat despite the feeling that these attempts are in some sense futile.
The feeling of futility against the “threat” of corporations is an illusion (perhaps that’s why you say it’s a “bogeyman”). Unions were the 20th century remedy to the problem of corporate power (which was really a problem of monopolies combined with government corruption). However, unions have become so powerful against corporations, that the existence of unions actually threatens the very basis of corporate power in the free market: profit. (Look at GM). On the consumer side, we can easily bring down a corporation by refusing to purchase its product. The reason that we feel futile against corporations is because we have created an illusory enemy. A bogeyman.
Ultimately the choice is made to sacrifice the security of technology itself (a battered Arnie into a pool of molten steel) in the hope of reconnecting with some more genuine and less destructive way of being human.
What is a “more genuine” way of being human? Technology and the construction of machines is quintessentially human. It is intelligence manifested in the real world. While our machines can be destructive, some destruction is always necessary for advancement. Though I agree that we don’t need as much destruction as we’ve caused in history, the amount we’re led to fear seems to always reside in the same realm as enviro-utopias: in our myths.
Then there is Titanic, which is of course is a metaphor for civilization itself. The characters' merry confidence in a bright and limitless future is shattered like the steel of the hull by the iceberg. Ultimately the question becomes, if tomorrow is not promised, and civilization is a sinking ship, what can give life meaning? The answer is given when Jack's loving self-sacrifice becomes the noble fulcrum on which Rose's entire future depends. We are told that love gives meaning, but also that love transcends mere affectation to require genuine sacrifice, even our lives.
Titanic can’t possibly be a metaphor for civilization itself. At most it is metaphor for one feature of civilization (its temporary setbacks). We have built bigger boats since Titanic. The sinking of one ship—no matter how much it captured our dreams—doesn’t make a dent in the fact that millions of other (many of them larger) ships still carry these dreams just fine. At what point do we recognize that these “cautionary tales” which are supposed to make our ambition and hope seem naïve, are only sustained by ignoring reality? What lesson were we supposed to learn from this metaphor? Turn the ship of civilization around? Don’t build the ship of civilization to begin with? In reality, the actual lesson we learned worked just fine: build
better ships. Why can’t the inevitible sacrifice of a ship here and there be the “fulcrum” of a noble future, instead of harbinger of armeggeden? This metaphor only seems attractive to those who couldn’t afford passage on the ship—or those who weren’t powerful enough to get a place on one of the lifeboats. But we can’t define our future by the metaphors created by the poor and the weak, the shore-bound or the drowned. We can do better than that cynicism.
Even if we are as apparently dependent as crippled Jake on modern technology, the choice to cling to technological civilization as currently constituted is the choice to destroy the planet and ultimately ourselves; not least the spirit before the body. This is not a Disney platitude; this is a warning that reverberates with resounding finality, like the words of an Old Testament prophet busy shaking the dust off his sandals. (Who better to give us this warning than a man so adept at presenting images of archetypal horror.)
As an atheist, I don’t really make much distinction between Old Testament prophets and Disney platitudes. I think that the “crisis” of destroying the planet and ourselves is about as realistic as the mythical Flood. Even if the worse predictions of global warming come true, the planet and its inhabitants—even civilization itself—will survive. Will some coastal cities be flooded? Sure. But did the sinking of the Titanic stop ocean travel? No. We’ll surivive global warming.
Perhaps the Navi are naive (the pun is no mistake in my opinion) but perhaps also that naivete is the very essence of what makes hope possible, the will to believe in a higher purpose or power despite the ubiquity of alienation and cynicism within western culture. What else other than naivete can overcome that ultimate corrosive of all-that-is-good, cynicism. In Cameron's cosmogony cynicism is a kind of spiritual starvation, an excuse to sit there and perish along with everything else. It is naivete that offers sustenance, and more importantly, love. In the end, the finger is pointed squarely at the viewer and in that sense the movie succeeds, whether or not you buy the premise in whole, part, or even at all.
Naivete makes
false hope possible. The “ubiquity of alienation and cynicism” is perpetuated by the very people who are warning us against it! It is created by naivete, by failing to see the positive side of our technological society, and peddling Disney Doomsday scenarios. It is created by those who think the solution to Titanic is to stop making boats, or to start becoming little self-sacrificing Christs for each other. That is defeatism and nihilism. You don’t create a “higher purpose” by condemning the world. You do it by accepting the world. Nietzsche said, “A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist.” While we shouldn’t believe that there is no danger in technological advancement (techno-utopian naivete), neither should we judge these negative aspects against societies that do not (cannot) exist (anti-techno-utopian naivete). There is a middle ground, and most of us in Western society are walking it. While it’s true that we have lost our tribal, communal connection to our neighbors and “nature,” we have gained a global network of interconnected minds tele-communicating. I don’t have a tail that plugs into mythical animals, but I’ve got an ethernet cable that plugs me into your mind. We are building the world-mind ourselves.
* 
