Brave New World

Pardon the hyperbole, but I wonder if we can't trace a goodly portion of the decline of Western culture in just the drop-off from Walt Disney's Pinocchio to Steven Spielberg's A. I.: Artificial Intelligence. Despite the surface similarities between these tales of a wooden boy on the one hand and a robot boy on the other, both of whom hope to become real, and despite Mr. Spielberg's quite conscious attempt to implicate Pinocchio in his film, it is really the differences between the two that are instructive. Pinocchio is a story of the moral education of boy, an education which when completed makes him human. A.I. is the story of the emotional retardation of a boy, a retardation which sees him live for thousands of years without ever progressing beyond a desperate need for his mommy's love. It may well be that both stories are about becoming human, but what they tell us about how our culture perceived humanity at these different times is rather depressing. In 1940, to be human was to be a moral being. In 2001, to be human is to fixate on your own emotional needs. That's progress?

In Pinocchio, the kindly woodcarver Gepetto has made one particularly beguiling puppet of a little boy. Because of all the joy he has brought to others, when he wishes upon a star the Blue Fairy grants the puppet life. Pinocchio mistakenly believes himself to have become a real boy, but the Blue Fairy explains: "Pinocchio, if you are brave, truthful, and unselfish, you will be a real boy someday." She evens gives him a conscience, in the form of Jiminy Cricket, to help him tell right from wrong.

The task before Pinocchio then is plain enough, if not simple. And so begins the familiar series of adventures that sees him skipping school, joining a theater troop, being kidnapped to Pleasure Island, and ending up finally in the belly of the whale, Monstro. Along the way he learns vital lessons about what is expected of him, most memorably in the scene where his lies to the Blue Fairy make his nose grow, because a lie too grows until it's as plain as the nose on your face. In a harsh but fair judgment, the Blue Fairy warns: "I'll forgive you this once, Pinocchio. But this is the last time I can help you.