Many seem to be perceiving this film strictly as a metaphor for climate change or the straightforward risk of a literal asteroid.
But to me, this piece of cinema captures the epitome of modernity’s issue and serves as a much greater warning and metaphor for much more than just climate issues.
It’s a reflection on how humanity by and large treats epistemic and intellectual matters, largely disregarding finer details; our unwillingness to communicate and to relinquish ignorance; and our inability to perceive epistemic and existential risk—all of which deliver us into suffering.
From our complex love affair with capitalism, to social narcissism, and the tendency to refuse to confront or even acknowledge new information—avoiding even the slightest consideration that our model of reality can be wrong—and the grave consequences of this.
Don’t Look Up is reminiscent of the plight of the philosopher. A tale as old as time itself. Except instead of Spinoza being exiled for saying true things, we have a cast of characters trying to convey an existential risk to a population that, by and large, is so caught up in itself and its cultural prescriptions, it simply does not care.
Instead, the cast is greeted by a populace which embarrassingly and arrogantly disregards epistemic care for detail—a society trapped in a sort of neurosis of avoidance—to avoid looking at the thing that makes them uncomfortable
—a deliberate avoidance of reality—to stay inside of a feel-good narrative, even if the narrative completely rails against reason, in order to remain in a wireheaded state of ignorant bliss.
Even if new information suggests we should be concerned, attentive, and careful. Even if the price of not doing this is the ultimate suffering.
Despite the films humor, Don’t Look Up is a serious reflection on modernity and its predicament. And a reminder that care itself should be epistemic and intellectual in nature. Because tradeoffs are real.
One fear I have is that this film, although a comedy, is much closer to what might actually happen if an asteroid were definitively heading for Earth.
But if planet Earth were actually a rational place, we would all have a Spinozan refinement and care for all of the universe’s details. We would all be philosophers, scientists, and creators—beings of meaning—sharing the utmost epistemic and intellectual care—rather than indulging in the kind of anti-epistemology culture which largely dominates Earth now.
But I think that’s the even greater irony—perhaps the most disheartening realization—is that there are already many metaphorical asteroids we are already ignoring.
To paraphrase Slavoj Zizek: Hollywood’s love of apocalyptic films is a reflection of a much greater and darker truth—that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine change.
