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The Martian Is a Tribute to Human Exceptionalism

Mountain_in_Wadi_Rum,_Jordan.jpg

I took our kids to see The Martian the other day and while I was buying tickets in the theater lobby, my 12-year-old daughter said, “Hey, Dad, turn around. It’s Steffin Meyers or Casey Luskin or someone else from your work.” She has met both Casey and Stephen Meyer — whose name for some reason she can’t quite keep straight — on multiple occasions. When I turned around, neither Steve nor Casey was there. Instead, it was Steve Buri, Discovery Institute’s president, who was there for a different movie.

For my daughter, my colleagues all blend together. I mention this because the remark was cute coming from a kid. From an adult, not so much. It’s also relevant to The Martian, which insists vigorously on the unique value of a human being.

For those who haven’t seen it, you should. It’s terrific. The story told by director Ridley Scott involves a monumental, heroic, costly, and perilous international effort to rescue an American astronaut stranded on Mars. The astronaut is Mark Watney, played wonderfully by Matt Damon. Mars is played well, too, by a desert location, Wadi Rum, in Jordan.

The movie is a paean to human exceptionalism. Writing about it at Real Clear Religion (“Why Save Mark Watney?“), Bishop Robert Barron hits the nail on the head:

The circumstances are certainly unique and Watney himself is undoubtedly an impressive person, but it remains nevertheless strange that people would move heaven and earth, spend millions of dollars, and in the case of the original crew, risk their lives in order to rescue this one man. If a clever, friendly, and exquisitely trained dog had been left behind on Mars, everyone would have felt bad, but no one, I think it’s fair to say, would have endeavored to go back for it.

By “strange,” I think he means “striking.” Because it’s not strange. It makes perfect sense. He concludes:

We will go to the ends of the universe to save an endangered person, precisely because we realize, inchoately or otherwise, that there is something uniquely precious about him or her. We know in our bones that in regard to a human being something eternal is at stake.

In the context of what Pope Francis has called our “throwaway culture,” where the individual human being is often treated as a means to an end, or worse, as an embarrassment or an annoyance to be disposed of, this is a lesson worth relearning.

Yes indeed. The Martian is a refresher course in man’s exceptional status, from which all our exceptional responsibilities flow, and the point about animals is exactly right. Most of us understand that going back, all the way to Mars, to save a man or woman, despite the danger and trouble involved, is just what we would feel moved to do. It’s the stuff of compelling drama. Going back for a dog, even the best dog ever, or a chimp — the smartest chimp on record — would be utterly absurd. If you can imagine a movie about that, it could only be a comedy.

I love dogs, but you can always get another dog, or another chimp. They are exchangeable — meaning, not unique in any ultimate sense, and, like Discovery Institute staff in the eyes of my little daughter, pretty much blur together over the long haul. However, a man, a woman, or a child is unique and completely irreplaceable.

This is one of Wesley Smith’s themes. The idea of man’s exceptional status in nature is unpopular, to put it mildly, in academic and media circles. But we recognize that status implicitly, however some might deny it, which is why The Martian resonates with moviegoers as powerfully as it does.

Image: Wadi Rum, by Daniel Case (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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