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you I knew that shape of water would win
the Academy Award for Best Picture and I
do have witnesses who can verify this
that the minute I saw that movie I said
this is gonna win Best Picture and why
do I say it well because it checked
three of the major boxes you know for
Hollywood today which is a celebration
of oppressed people a valorisation of
complete sexual freedom and a Christian
villain well it used to be true that a
black hat or shifty eyes or maybe a
German accent would give you away the
villain now is pretty much someone that
quotes the Bible we know that's gonna be
the bad guy well none of this should
really surprise us because the ootah
behind this movie is the Mexican
filmmaker Guillermo del Toro who's gone
on record many times as a despiser of
religion especially Catholicism he said
in a Charlie Rose interview many years
ago that he was a raging atheist and
then a later interview he said this
about structure and I just want to read
it
he said I'm quoting him I hate structure
I'm completely anti structural in terms
of believing in institutions I hate them
I hate any institutional social
religious or economic holding one might
wonder what he thinks about the banks
that hold and invest his money or the
studios that distribute his movies but I
mean I'll leave that for another time
but you know the title of the movie it
pretty much gives away the game right
the shape of water because the one thing
water doesn't have is a shape water
means fluidity and formlessness and
permanent you know open-endedness and
that's what's celebrated very much in
the movie so you know that the story is
about this amphibian creature that's
been discovered by the government and
captured and now is held of course
government boo anything it's
institutional is bad and the the Aquaman
is being held in this facility well this
young woman I'm an oppressed
marginalized woman
establishes first in relationship with
the amphibian man they they build up
trust over time and then they they start
to fall in love and then with the help
of well-intentioned friends and despite
enormous obstacles they they actually
get together and they they do the deed
so what's being celebrated is sort of
the flouting of sexual conventions this
sort of trans-species love that's on
display is meant to be celebrated
because sex is like water it has no real
objective form or shape or finality it
just flows with the desires of those
that want to engage in it so the shape
of water is what's being celebrated okay
all of this oddly put me in mind of
German philosopher and theologian Paul
Tillich now why do I say Paul Tillich
throughout his writings talks about what
he calls ontological polarities these
are the tensions that are kind of built
into finite reality they characterized
being he thought at all levels but we
human beings are able to reflect on them
in a very focused way well the first of
these polarities he calls dynamics and
form so there's this natural and indeed
healthy tension between dynamics and
form at all of them being but especially
in living things
so what's dynamics well dynamics is
energy its life its open-endedness its
the capacity for change now think of any
living thing think of a plant or a tree
or an animal without dynamics these
things wouldn't survive without the
capacity to react to one's environment
to change with changing circumstances
right dynamics is essential to life at
the same time dynamics is in creative
tension with form now its form but these
basic structures of reality now think of
a dog roaming through the the
neighborhood dynamics sure looking and
reacting and barking and so on but the
dog has a formal structure that a
how's it to subsist precisely in that
manner of being and what if that
structure fell apart whether we're
talking about its molecular structure
its cellular structure its bone
structure if that fell apart the dog
would cease to exist and in fact what we
call the life of the dog is a subtle
play a tensive relationship between
dynamics and form now plants animals
certainly true of us a moment's
reflection will show that this is true
of human life as well the second of the
ontological polarities Paul Tillich
calls freedom and destiny so now think
in terms of a human life freedom without
freedom we wouldn't exist for long
I mean freedom is my capacity to react
to choose to go in my direction to
follow changing circumstances to to
establish myself right and and all of us
have this desire to be free good says
Tillich but freedom is in tension with
what he calls destiny now what's destiny
destiny is the stuff with which freedom
works or it's the foundation upon which
freedom stands so for example I'm free
to a degree to determine my life that's
true thank God however my freedom is not
in some void or abyss but rather my
freedom works with a whole set of Givens
think of the family that I was given the
language I was given to speak the
institutions and structures in which my
freedom came to expression the education
that I received etc there's a given Asst
to life that's in tension with freedom
and it's in the subtle play of those two
that we find something like our
integrity now the last one Tillich calls
individualization and participation it's
very interesting to guess Tillich lived
and worked in the middle of the 20th
century he's a German and came of age
and was was
ding you know professionally as the
Nazis were coming to power what's
individualization well that's my desire
to be me to have my own identity right
that I have my thing my way of being my
choice is my life and everybody needs
and wants that think of a teenager right
coming to maturity he or she has to find
his or her identity what are what are
you about that you set yourself off from
your parents and your family and and
what you've received and you find
yourself ok individualization is a good
thing
however Tillich says that's in healthy
tension with participation which is what
the desire to be part of something
bigger than yourself that together with
many others I find my identity now this
could be in terms of your family in
terms of your culture in terms of your
political situation in terms of a church
we want to be ourselves and we want to
be part of something bigger a tradition
and it's in the healthy play between
these two the tension between them that
we actually find our integrity ok maybe
a sense where I'm going with this now
Tillich felt the great danger both
personally and collectively societally
is that we tend to oscillate between
these two extremes that we don't find
the right balance but we oscillate from
one side to the other now in his life is
very interesting someone coming of age
in Nazi Germany what did he see there
but a hyper stress on participation
right a hyper stress on what's given to
you on destiny a hyper stress on you was
one leader there's one people there's
one government all of that and Tillich
reacted against that he fled from that
but he also worried as he looked at the
Western democracies that we had a hyper
stress on individualization on freedom
and so on now using Tillich's categories
I think it's pretty clear to say that in
our culture today especially in the in
the high culture
you see a dangerous oscillation in the
direction of dynamics freedom and
individualization right how often those
things are sung and their valorized and
they're praised right that you find your
own path that you do what you want that
your freedom determines what your life
is all about do you see how freedom
individualization dynamics all have the
shape of water they're open-ended
they're fluid but the point is we have
to find the right balance between those
legitimate values and their opposing
values but our culture has shifted so
far to one side that were actually in a
spiritual danger let me close with this
water in the Bible is certainly a
positive symbol you know a symbol of
life etc however water is also very
clearly in the Bible a negative symbol
think of the watery chaos at the
beginning of time in Hebrew beautifully
it's called the Touhou Wabo who and
biblical people that were afraid of the
water
water was a symbol of chaos they didn't
want to wander out too far into the sea
right they realized the danger of
formlessness the danger of it's all up
to us the danger of sheer dynamics
because he actually I'd say this if all
we've got is the shape of water then we
have no real shape which means we're
actually in pretty bad shape
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