Saturday, April 02, 2005

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Liberty

It's the weekend. So let's lighten up a little. Has it ever struck you that Indiana Jones is the archetypal free man? He is intelligent, caring, enthusiastic and tough. He gets really pissed off if you even try to push him around. He's a linguist, a traveler, a scholar and the best kind of friend. He's fascinated by other cultures, but comfortably rooted in his own.

His opponents are usually the Nazis, the ultimate believers in the subordination of the individual to the collective. He hates those guys.

He is quirky, eccentric and open to spiritual as well as scientific ideas, but is suitably sceptical - "...if you believe in that sort of thing..." "superstitious hocus-pocus" etc. He's careful, but he's brave. He's taken the name of his dead pet, so he's a touch sentimental.

Square-jawed, academic, heroic, fond of animals and free-thinking. Let's face it - he is the Platonic ideal of the free man.

PS: Marion Ravenwood is a pretty good free woman too. "Nobody tells me what to do in my own place" should be the motto of all the oppressed citizens of Blair's sad new Britain.

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