A Philosophical Look at Planet Krypton from the movie “Man of Steel”

I managed to watch the “Man of Steel” movie. Yes, I always do it with a big delay :) It was brilliant from start to end but that is not why I am writing today.

There was a particular scene in the movie where Jor-El (Superman’s father played by Russel Crowe) talks about the legacy of Krypton and its path to self-destruction which really got me thinking.

The Scenario

As Jor-El narrates in the movie, Krypton was established more than 100,000 years ago, and had already developed scientific advancements far beyond those of present-day Earth, and within a few millennia had conquered disease and learned to delay the aging process and even perfected cloning. All Kryptonians were effectively immortal, “with all the strength and vigor of youth maintained,”and enjoyed an idyllic, sensual existence in an Arcadian paradise.

To sum it up, they were the perfect race and were seemingly indestructible. It was then that the rulers of this city decided to put a process in place to seemingly ensure that everything ran as planned. They focused on cloning with vast banks of non-sentient clones holding multiple copies of each living Kryptonian so that replacement parts were always available in the case of injury.

Every baby was designed for a specific function, some as warriors, some as leaders and so forth. According to Jor-El, it is this which ultimately led to the self-destruction of this race.

Jor-El: What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended? What if a child aspired to something greater?

Jor-El and his wife, Lara decided that the current process was leading Krypton to a path of self-destruction. They decided to go against society and Lara gave birth to Kal-El (Superman), the first natural-born child in Krypton for thousands of years. Kal-El was then sent to earth to escape the destruction of Krypton with a message from his father:

Jor-El: You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.

The Comparison with Today’s World

When I look at this scenario, I can’t help but find similarities in our world today. We have become very subdued and almost robotic in our daily lives. We can no longer think outside the box and have learnt to automatically accept the way things are, without pausing a moment to think. Be it in religion, our daily life or even our work life.

Why do we do what we do?

Have we paused to think about this for a moment? The ones who have paused to think about it have made a change (Like Jor-El). These are the people who are referred to by Steve Jobs as “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…”

Ultimately, we become like General Zod in the movie, who was bred to be a warrior. He could not do anything else and would hold on to this principle till his death. In fact, in his world, he was performing his duty and was unable to view things from a different perspective.

General Zod: No matter how violent, every action I take is for the greater good of my people.

You can look at many businesses as well. They start of being very successful (just like Krypton) and they get to a point of being somewhat decadent without even realizing it. They hold on to principles which no longer make sense and try to enforce them (like the process to develop clones who carry out specific duties in Krypton) that ultimately leads to self-destruction.

The Generation Gap

Looking at the whole Krypton self-destruction situation, you can actually map out the different characters in the movie to a specific generation and realize that they are playing their role to perfection.

According to sociologists around the world, Gen Y (1980-2003) have a very different mindset compared to generations before them. In this movie, we can breakdown the civilization of Krypton to the various generations as well

Baby Boomers - These were the founding fathers of Krypton, the innovators who discovered all the knowledge and technology. In our world today, baby boomers are people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and so on who have set the standards.

Gen X - These are the leaders who implemented the cloning for specific social functions. I call them the “process implementors.” In our real world today, these are mostly people in their early 40s and who were raised by the career and money conscious Boomers amidst the societal disappointment over governmental authority and the scoff-law attitudes coming out of the protest times. They usually look for a firm footing in life. They may be entrepreneurial but always playing safe. Jor-El was of this generation. However his vision enabled him to change the future of his son, a Gen-Y. When later asked by Superman as to why he did not leave Krypton, he mentioned something along the lines of being trapped and unable to make the change.

Gen Y (Millennial Generation) - These are the new breed of individuals, like Superman. Researches have also shown that Gen Y have transcended the ideological battles spawned by the counterculture of the 1960s, which persist today in the form of culture wars. This is further documented in Strauss & Howe’s book titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, which describes the Millennial generation as “civic-minded,” rejecting the attitudes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X.

I don’t have a specific conclusion to this but just wanted to share my thoughts. At the end of the day, my firm belief is that we are defined by our actions and thoughts. We may be a Gen Y on paper but due to culture conditioning, actually behave more like a Gen X. The same applies vice-versa.

As the 76 million kids who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s are beginning to become young adults, certain overall traits are emerging that do tend to distinguish them from the Gen X’ers that came before.

The most significant difference between generations X and Y are that X kids are often thought of as the abandoned generation — raised at a time when both parents had to enter the workforce leaving their “latchkey kids” to fend for themselves — while Gen Y’ers are considered the most parented generation in history.- Source: How Stuff Works

And yes, all the new successful start-ups and businesses are being led by Gen Ys (Marc Zuckerberg, Matt Mullenweg) or Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964) such as the late Steve Jobs, Marc Benioff, Bill Gates and so on. If you actually want to read more about how the year you are born affects your overall trait and thinking, you should check out Malcolm Gladwell’s, Outliers: The Story of Success

Please share your thoughts.