What does the future hold?

The film Just Add Water displays the themes and values that are shaping the future of America. It seems that family is no longer important, as is displayed by Ray’s wife Charlene, and teenagers are getting more involved with drugs as is demonstrated by Ray’s son Eddie. Two articles, Michael Specter’s “Big Foot,” and Benjamin Phelan’s “How We Evolve,” can also be applied to the way our future is changing. Are these changes affecting the way we evolve? Are we even evolving?

About halfway through the movie, Ray finds out that his wife Charlene has been cheating on him with his brother throughout the entire relationship. His son is not even his. Charlene exemplifies what it is to have poor family values. She was willing to entrap Ray in this marriage (they only married because she was pregnant) for selfish reasons, and not because she wanted a healthy partnership that would give her child a better life. Phelan discusses a similar trend in his article: the fact that marriage is no longer about partnership as it was for thousands of years, but is now about love, and what effect this trend will have on evolution. “Mating is no longer a privilege that males beat each other senseless to secure. As a result, even the less fit get to pass on their genes. Promiscuity and sperm competition have given way to spiritual love; the fittest and the unfit are treated as equals, and equally flourish” (Phelan). Because marriage is no longer about finding a partner who will help produce the healthiest children, hopefully giving them a better life, having children is no longer about passing along the desirable genetic traits.

It is unfortunate that marriage has taken this turn. Many of my friends believe I am crazy for admitting this, but I do not think marriage should just be about love. Of course love is an important element in marriage, but there are other important factors to consider, such as: how my partner will handle financial matters, how they will be as a father, and if we will have a good partnership and agree on things such as how to raise our children, as well as what values to hold about others. People are quick to forget that the love they feel early on in a relationship is quick to fade, thus it is important to have a good base of a partnership.

Just Add Water also focuses on the burden of others. For example, when Ray is trying to overthrow Dirk, the towns own teenage meth-baron, he has to make sure that the others who are helping, his neighbors who are not nearly as smart as him, do not mess up the plan. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, America, as well as other rich nations, is becoming a burden due to the high amounts of carbon they release into the earth’s atmosphere. “Since 1850, North America and Europe have accounted for seventy per cent of all greenhouse-gas emissions, a trend that is not improving. Stephen Pacala, the director of Princeton University’s Environmental Institute, recently estimated that half of the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions come from just seven hundred million people, about ten per cent of the population” (Specter). It is extremely unfair to the poorer nations of the world that they are suffering from the effects of global warming when their impact on the situation has been so small.

If human evolution ceases to continue, how can we adapt to the changes that global warming will have on the earth? When it gets harder for humans to live on this planet, will they build new buildings and think up new machinery that will help them live? Or will humans be forced to forget about ‘spiritual love’ and form relationships with those who will help their children advance in this world?