I mean, there is also the complication that the other side of the humanism equation is being expressed by someone so..."evil" (in quotes because I'm not an absolutist but, you know what I mean). It kind of suggests that the show doesn't give equal weight to those concerns.
That said, his frustration and anger, while juvenile, were compelling and given a lot of time and space in this episode.
And while the Final Five made the eight models in the image of humans, Ellen's attitude toward them and decisions in their creation betrays a decidedly nonhumanist perspective. In that she made hoardes of identical copies and sees no oddness in the fact that Cavil is simultaneously an old man and a little boy. Indeed the very fact that Anders says they cherished him, having truly believed that they were creating life full-sprung from their own foreheads - like them, not inferior, even if conceived in a different fashion argues against a binary view of human and machine (although...they're also all machines in this equation).
So like...on the one hand, I wish someone who was likely to end up on the "winning" side would point out how much the Cylon lose when they embrace humanism at the expense of their Cylonicity (multiple copies, gestalt identity, resurrection). That someone who matters would say, "Hey, why are these limitations a good thing?"
But at least someone's saying that, and is making rather compelling arguments about it too. To be honest, Cavil is treated much more complexly here than Zarek was last week.
Ultimately I think Boomer could be instrumental in this - if she doesn't lose her views entirely even as she rejects Cavil's more petulant, violent and vengeful twist on them.
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Date: 2009-02-14 08:31 pm (UTC)I mean, there is also the complication that the other side of the humanism equation is being expressed by someone so..."evil" (in quotes because I'm not an absolutist but, you know what I mean). It kind of suggests that the show doesn't give equal weight to those concerns.
That said, his frustration and anger, while juvenile, were compelling and given a lot of time and space in this episode.
And while the Final Five made the eight models in the image of humans, Ellen's attitude toward them and decisions in their creation betrays a decidedly nonhumanist perspective. In that she made hoardes of identical copies and sees no oddness in the fact that Cavil is simultaneously an old man and a little boy. Indeed the very fact that Anders says they cherished him, having truly believed that they were creating life full-sprung from their own foreheads - like them, not inferior, even if conceived in a different fashion argues against a binary view of human and machine (although...they're also all machines in this equation).
So like...on the one hand, I wish someone who was likely to end up on the "winning" side would point out how much the Cylon lose when they embrace humanism at the expense of their Cylonicity (multiple copies, gestalt identity, resurrection). That someone who matters would say, "Hey, why are these limitations a good thing?"
But at least someone's saying that, and is making rather compelling arguments about it too. To be honest, Cavil is treated much more complexly here than Zarek was last week.
Ultimately I think Boomer could be instrumental in this - if she doesn't lose her views entirely even as she rejects Cavil's more petulant, violent and vengeful twist on them.