Pog's Blog

Metropolis
“The mediator between brain and hands must be the heart”

The obvious metaphor for this is the important means of communication between the upper and lower classes. That it is only through "the heart" or compassion and understanding of where each person comes from that compromise can be made. Of course there are much larger real world implications of what the heart could stand for. Understanding human nature, we can't all work in perfect harmony and hope that we can depend on everyone to be trustworthy and not abuse power.

Ultimately the heart could stand for any number of things from the establishment of unions, to the invention of democracy. I assume government is the heart mediator that ensures that abuse does not go on, and guard against a serious divide between the economic power of the lower and upper class. Now the question is what system help establish a fair working order for all those involved? The idea of capitalism allows the room for growth and is perhaps one of the most profitable economic systems out there. Of course the only way to make that system work would be to ensure a government could regulate everything necessary to ensure standards were fair for everyone. The scenario played out in the film would be an existence where the companies own everybody, and the opposite would be a government that ran the economy.

It can certainly be argued into today's day in age of political corruption and a system that is loaded head to toe with powerful lobbies that influence our politics more than the regular vote, taking the power out of the hands of everyone and favoring the elite. We are approaching a divide between upper and lower classes that only existed during 1920's era. Some would say this is an inevitable result of capitalism, but a purer system of politicians could ensure that the worker is guarded against the oppression of Elite.

The system works in the reverse extreme (which we don't see often today, but exist) when systems like trade unions grow too powerful, making demands for lifestyles that a company cannot afford to perpetuate (I believe an example would be the union struggles with the auto industry.) This a teaspoon sized opinion on what could help a government re assume a fair role in mediating between worker and employer.