The New Jungle Book

We recently saw Disney's 2016 version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. The exceptional CGI of the new version make it a far more realistic experience than the animated 1967 version. With only a few musical allusions to the original, the new version avoids unnecessary sweetness in its retelling of a coming-of-age story. Its realism notwithstanding, The Jungle Book is appropriate for all but the youngest of its potential audience.

Bill Murray and Ben Kingsley underplay their voice-overs as Baloo and Bagheera and one would hardly recognize the voices of Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson, Christopher Walken, and Gary Shandling ... at least, I didn't recognize them. Young Neel Sethi was very good as Mowgli playing a live role against what must have been almost exclusively a blue screen.

In short, we highly recommend this film for audiences of almost all ages.

Power (Almost) Always Corrupts

Go here: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15328544 — to read an excellent summary of some recent fascinating social research in the 21 January issue of The Economist.  Some clever researchers have established that power does indeed corrupt except when the person wielding power doesn't believe he or she deserves it.  In fact, such persons are more moral with power than without it.  A sense of entitlement rather than the power itself is the corrupting factor.  Coining a neologism, the study's authors call the heightened morality of those humble sort upon whom power is thrust "hypercrisy."

The writer of the article, following The Economist's silly habit of "explaining" human social behavior in the crudest naturalistic evolutionary terms, asserts that "hypercrisy might be a signal of submissiveness—one that is exaggerated in creatures that feel themselves to be in the wrong place in the hierarchy.  By applying reverse privileges to themselves, they hope to escape punishment from the real dominants."  One wonders if the writer is as credulous about passive/aggressive nature of his (or her) work.

Perhaps we should consider the words of the world's most humble and powerful man who noted that the "the greatest among you shall be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Mt 23.11-12)  Or Jesus' follower Paul who enjoined his audience to "do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Phil. 2.3-4)

Power joined with humility—hypercrisy—is indeed rare.  Let us celebrate its beauty when we find it, not cook up what Kipling might have called a "just so" story.