Hello and thank you for downloading this episode of the Speak Life Podcast, episode 475. My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life, and today we bring you a reaction that Glenn did to the latest Apple advert. And it stars Octavia Spencer playing Mother Nature, grilling the Apple CEO Tim Cook and his employees about their net zero targets. So it's an interesting advert, it's generated a lot of controversy online, and Glen is here to unpack all that. So I hope you enjoy this episode, and I will catch you at the end.
SPEAKER_02Apple's new Mother Nature video was premiered at the launch of the new iPhone 15. Here's how it's been covered in the Daily Mail. Apple slammed over cringeworthy zero carbon videos starring Octavia Spencer as Mother Nature, who scolds CEO Tim Cook and staff about their green credentials. Apple interrupted their iPhone 15 release event to show a skit that viewers have called cringy and bizarre. The five-minute-long video bragged about the company's environmental accolades. Oscarwinner Octavia Spencer starred as Mother Nature in the production. I think this video and the reaction to this video speaks volumes about the cultural moment in which we live. It's been critiqued on three grounds that I've seen. It's pagan, it's cringe, and it's hypocritical. And I think some of those punches land and others don't. First, let's think, is it pagan? Well, let's watch. So, nervous panting. Everyone is all aflutter. Welcome to Albert.
SPEAKER_08Welcome to Hartles.
SPEAKER_02Hi, I'm she should be here any minute. She should be. Who's she? What's it gonna be? So he's rehearsing the line, how is the weather coming in? Which is funny.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, all yours.
SPEAKER_02Everyone is very apprehensive. Oh! There's a plant that has died. This will be a lovely little thing they return to at the very end of things. Okay, glass clinking, rumbling. Who's coming? Tim Cook doesn't look a million miles out of place.
SPEAKER_04We didn't keep you waiting.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and here she is. Mother Nature, we're told.
SPEAKER_08Mother Nature. Welcome to Apple. How how was the weather getting in?
SPEAKER_04The weather was however I wanted it to be.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so is this story pagan? Well, in an obvious literal sense, the video tells a pagan story. It just does. You know, there is Mother Nature, which is the Roman term for the Greek goddess Gaia. And in Apple's video, the mortals are negotiating with a god and appeasing her with a bunch of sacrifices, and they will have to do the ritual again next year, apparently. And apparently in perpetuity, they need to make sacrifices to the god who is Mother Nature. And so this is recognizable as paganism. And as soon as I say that, you'll think that I'm just dunking on the video or that I'm saying, you know, necessarily all creation care is pagan. And I say, no, um, you can have a form of Christian creation care, and we'll think about that shortly. So not everything that is called environmentalism is Gaia worship, right? Looking after the planet is not pagan. There's something incredibly Christian about that, as we'll see. But this story is pagan from one perspective. Mortals are negotiating with a god. But in another sense, this video is unrecognizable as ancient paganism. It's not ancient paganism, because nowadays it's impossible for modern Westerners to be truly pagan in the ancient sense. It's impossible because of two irreversible developments in the history of the world. Developments that cannot be undone. I will go into those in just a minute. But first, let me show you how very different ancient paganism was.
SPEAKER_00Gaia is a primordial goddess of Greek mythology and is also known as Mother Earth. The divinity is the daughter of chaos, and her main trait is her fertility. She gave birth to Uranus the sky, Pontus the sea, and Oria, who would be the mountains. Uranus began to reign over the world and started to rule Gaia. With her, he had countless children, among them Titans, Cyclops, and Hecatonsheries.
SPEAKER_02Hecatonsheries, okay, that's a cool name. So here is what ancient paganism actually looked like. And there's a backstory. All the gods have origins stories because they're not dealing with the supreme source of all being, they're dealing with godlets, um, they're dealing with heavenly beings. And before you get into a universe in which there is Uranus, heaven, Gaia, Earth, and Hades beneath the earth, before you get into that, there is a kind of a pre-creation history of the gods. And the gods are chaotic, and there's death, and there's rebellion, and there's war between these squabbling deities, and all of that happens prior to creation. And then is creation, and then there's humanity created out of chaos and created in order to slave for the gods. Humanity in this ancient paganism is completely at the mercy of the gods and imprisoned within an inevitable history. We in ancient paganism are the slaves of the gods, and we are the slaves of fate. And the best that a human can hope for involves navigating their way through this inevitable pathway towards death. And we navigate that with as much wisdom and justice and courage and temperance as we can muster. Certain tragic heroes might raise themselves up briefly and perform Herculean labors, let's say, and and that will earn them a certain amount of glory that might outlast their lifespan. But such heroes are seeking their own glory or atoning for their own sins, and their ending is always tragic. That's that's paganism in the ancient sense. And in the first minute of Apple's video, the comic conceit is what would it be like if ancient paganism showed up in corporate America? That's that's the comic conceit. But what's fascinating is you can't keep on telling that story in the modern 21st century. You can't keep on telling that story because we refuse to think of ourselves as slaves of the gods or as slaves of fate. We refuse to think that our path is fixed, and we actually want to subdued creation and care for creation and maybe hopefully raise ourselves up in order to through our own sacrifices bring about a happily ever after for the whole world. That is not a pagan thought. And so in this video, uh is this paganism in an ancient sense? No, it's actually it's it's doing something comic. It's it's it's got this conceit of bringing ancient paganism to bear on modern 21st century America. And the the conflict between those two things is is meant to be comedic. It's meant to be funny, it's meant to be arresting. And the clash between ancient paganism and modern corporate America is beautifully summarized by the funny line, right, that Mother Nature says, she says, the weather is whatever I decide it to be. That is what Gaia would have said, right? In an ancient understanding, absolutely, we are merely a cork on the tide, and whatever Mother Nature decides, we just have to lump it, right? Um and yet the rest of the video does not assume that humanity is a slave of the gods or a slave of fate. The rest of the video assumes that humans have a special standing between the gods and the world, that we are specially responsible for the world, and that we can steward the world in such a way that we bring about a happily ever after through our own heroic deeds. And that's not ancient paganism at all. What has happened to us? Notice the switch. Here is ancient paganism saying, weather is whatever I create it to be, and then the rest of the video like runs on, and the rest of the video is, ah no, but humans are in charge of the weather in the end. Okay? That is not something that an ancient person would have thought.
SPEAKER_04Let's cut to the chase. In 2020, you promised to bring Apple's entire carbon footprint to zero by 2030. Henry David Thoreau over here said we have a profound opportunity to build a more sustainable future for the planet we share.
SPEAKER_07I think heard 10 o'clock said the same thing.
SPEAKER_04They all do. All right. This is my third corporate responsibility gig today. So who wants to disappoint me first?
SPEAKER_05Well, we've got some updates we are excited to share with you. Materials status.
SPEAKER_07Is there a materials person here?
SPEAKER_04Yes. We are in the process of eliminating all plastic from our packaging by the end of next year. Let me guess. 50 years from now when someone else is left holding the bag. By the end of next year, actually.
SPEAKER_02This is what storytelling is able to achieve. If this was just like a slide deck at the iPhone 15 launch and they were talking about their creation care, you know, credentials, then they they couldn't really do the same thing. But but when Mother Nature guesses the wrong time frame and is corrected by one of her creatures somehow, um, then we get the sense of, oh, this is much better than you might have imagined it to be. Because they framed their statistics in a story, they can actually present themselves in um in a far more credible sense. Now, whether that's um accurate reporting of the statistics is yet to be seen. We'll see that.
SPEAKER_06And we're also currently using 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosures of all our MacBooks, Apple TVs, Apple Watch.
SPEAKER_04What about iPod Shuffle? Well, it's just a joke. Don't you people make Ted Lasso?
SPEAKER_06That's a different group. Um, we're also phasing out leather in our iPhone cases.
SPEAKER_04What about Brando over there? They phasing you out too? What's next?
SPEAKER_07Electricity.
SPEAKER_04Electricity status.
SPEAKER_07Uh we're operating on 100% clean electricity.
SPEAKER_04What runs on 100% clean electricity?
SPEAKER_07Every Apple Office store and data center runs on clean electricity.
SPEAKER_02Every Apple store and data center runs on clean electricity. You know, they're able to not mention their factories. They're able to not mention um their operations in Africa or China because they're entirely in control of the narrative. It's it's something that you're able to do as a storyteller.
SPEAKER_07It's on clean electricity. Thanks to you and your powerful wind and sun.
SPEAKER_04And Apple offices are already carbon neutral. This building is carbon neutral?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, we we do it with a mix of clean energy and eliminating greenhouse emissions.
SPEAKER_04It's kind of like if you were to You're seriously explaining carbon neutrality to Mother Nature?
SPEAKER_07Right. No, sorry.
SPEAKER_04You want to tell me how photosynthesis works too? Don't.
SPEAKER_02Um I love that I love the don't. Now, it's played for laughs, and the comedy we we will get on to, but it's very interesting how very unmotherly Mother Nature is here. I think that is part of the comic conceit that's going on here. We are juxtaposing the ancient view of the world where Mother Nature is a real person who you can interact with, with corporate America. And I think it is a leap of imagination to say what would it be like if Gaia showed up in a boardroom? And so they're playing it for laughs, but it is interesting in modern 21st century society. Can Mother Nature be motherly anymore? Or is Mother Nature forced to wear a suit and be corporate and be in no way nurturing? Um it's it's an interesting kind of commentary on where this interaction of the sexes has gotten to uh post-industrialization.
SPEAKER_01Also, over 300 suppliers have committed to using 100% clean renewable electricity.
SPEAKER_07What's next? Transportation.
SPEAKER_03I'm proud to report that we're shipping more products by ocean rather than air, which reduces transportation emissions by 95%.
SPEAKER_0295%? This is so disingenuous because he's just he's just said, look, going by ship is 95% less, you know, carbon emitting than going by air. And this guy has repeated the 95% thing. That's not because Apple are reducing their carbon emissions by 95% at all. He's just said we're gonna ship things a little bit more. And shipping, by the way, is more effective by 95%. 95%? But Apple at a but this is something you're able to do if you're telling a story. And so it's a it's a very clever way for them to present themselves to the world. It's also very triggering for people who sniff out hypocrisy. But we'll keep going. Not too bad.
SPEAKER_03I'm also happy to report that we're investing in projects around the world that protect the earth's soil, plants, and trees.
SPEAKER_04Everyone says they're planting trees. We've planted forests.
SPEAKER_02Boom! Right, and that again, it's what you can do with with storytelling. Um, because just saying we we plant forests isn't um particularly uh arresting until someone mistakenly says, Oh, you're planting trees. We pro we plant forests. And like whoever's written this, and and certainly the actors are doing a tremendous job, they know how to get a story across. But again, this is going to trigger people who wonder what are they actually hiding behind the story? What's the what's this propaganda masking beneath the surface? And is this a a massive greenwashing that's going on?
SPEAKER_05Oh, hello. Where? Paraguay, Brazil?
SPEAKER_04What are you trying to say the tropical savannah?
SPEAKER_05Yes. And we've also restored mangroves in Colombia. What else? Grasslands in Kenya. Why? Our aim is to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_02Your goal is to remove carbon from the atmosphere? There's I mean, I mean, this is just a hilarious line. Like when you think about it, like they've just said we're we're going to like we've planted forests all over the world and we're going to starve them. Like, we're going to permanently, we're going to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere. You would kill everybody if you did that. But you can say this in a story. It's well produced. Um, did you know it's been shot on iPhones? Actually, they shot the whole thing on iPhone 15s, which of course, um a wonderful conceit. And doesn't it look fantastic? And aren't the actors brilliant? And isn't the writing terrific? It absolutely is. And yet, um, it just raises questions because we we are sick of corporations being like some kind of moral mouthpiece. We'll get onto the hypocrisy in a minute.
SPEAKER_05What about your water usage? We've reduced it by how much? 63 billion gallons. 63 million?
SPEAKER_02Billion. Mother Nature doesn't seem to be quite aware of what's going on on her planet, but anyway. Good use of music. There's Tim. Have they appeased the God?
SPEAKER_08As you can see, we've innovated and retooled almost every part of our process to reduce our impact on the planet. And we'll get to that in in a in a minute.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful scene in which have have they done enough to appease this god? Um so remember the first issue? Mother Nature shows up and she says, the weather is whatever I decide that it will be. But then they instantly switch to actually the weather is in the hands of humanity, and if we can reduce our carbon footprint, then maybe the weather will be advantageous to us. And this brings me to the first thing that has irreversibly happened to the world since the days of ancient paganism, and it means that we really can't be pagan nowadays. The thing that has happened to the world is Christianity. So Christianity has a completely different view of God and the world and ourselves. When it comes to gods, uh there are not a bunch of squabbling deities before and behind the world. We are not made out of chaos and warfare and death. Genesis 1 says that a good God made a good world. And having made this good world, he places humanity at the very head of the world to look after it, to have dominion and to rule. We are not made as slaves of the gods or slaves of the world. We are made to steward and bless the world. And this is what makes sense of creation care and environmentalism and things like that. You know, whales do not have an organization called Save the Whales. Humans have organizations called Save the Whale because humans are in charge of whales, whales are not in charge of humans. Whales are not even in charge of themselves in a very profound sense in the Bible, but we are meant to take care of them, and that is a good thing. Looking after the world is a really good thing, and environmental concern is a really good thing. Environmental concern is not Gaia worship, looking after the environment is not nature worship, it is creation care. And that is why the video ends in the way that it does. It's fascinating. Here is Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, puts himself into the video. Everyone else is an actor, he he is the actual CEO. And by the end of this, he has raised himself up and he is looking his maker in her eye. It's a fascinating ending. But there's still a lot more work to do.
SPEAKER_05And there's something else we wanted to share with you.
SPEAKER_04You're not trying to bribe Mother Nature with Apple swag.
SPEAKER_05It's Apple's very first carbon neutral product.
SPEAKER_04I want to see you do more of this.
SPEAKER_08You will. When? By 2030, all Apple devices will have a net zero climate impact.
SPEAKER_04All of them?
SPEAKER_08All of them.
SPEAKER_04They better.
SPEAKER_02They will. Toe-to-toe with God, right? But there is humanity raising itself up and having an impact on the world. Changing the world. Okay? You can stare down your maker somehow.
SPEAKER_04See you next year. Don't disappoint your mother.
SPEAKER_02Don't disappoint your mother is a great last line. What is different, what is what is profoundly Christian about this actually, is that humanity has a role in the world and can change things, and there is a happily ever after, perhaps, to move towards. There is hope. Notice how at the end, remember the plant that it died? The plant rises again, right? There is hope at the end if we just do our bit. Humanity can save the world somehow. Now, there is a dreadful theology to that, but there's also a recognizably Christian theology to that. Because humanity has a special place in the world. Humanity can steward the world, and maybe there can be a better tomorrow than there was yesterday. That is not an ancient thought. The Greeks thought that we're all descending down from a golden age, down and down and down and down, into an iron age, and that's the worst. So there's something profoundly Christian that has happened to the world, and we cannot be ancient pagans anymore. We are people of hope, and certainly Christianity can be paganized to a degree, and it can be turned into a hopeless religion. And secular thinking can certainly be paganized to a degree, and the world is gonna burn up in 12 minutes if you don't do X, Y, and Z, that sort of thing. But something of the Christian story has come into our cultural bloodstream to the point where humans are significant, the world can be stewarded and not simply suffered. Our destiny is to some degree in our hands, and there can be maybe a happily ever after, maybe that little pot plant can come back to life again. That note is a Christian note, and I would say creation care is a Christian thing. Now there are pagan elements to many forms of environmentalism today, absolutely. Self-consciously at times. But even self-confessed pagans are unaware of how Christianized they have been. So that's the first question. Is it pagan? And I would say yeah mm yes and no, right? Um second question, is it cringe? Is is this just completely unfunny? I think again, this is a complicated one because I I think it's definitely funny, but it doesn't work as comedy. Okay, and we need to figure out figure out the difference between something being funny and something not being comedy. It's definitely funny. There are laugh-out loud moments, and I'm actually glad that the comic conceit of this video was contemplated by Apple. They didn't just uh want to run a slide deck at the launch party and just have somebody talking through some figures on PowerPoint. They thought of a perfectly decent comic conceit. Let's bring an ancient deity into the boardroom. That's a funny idea, right? And they decided to own the idea and they went, heck, let's get an Oscar winner to play the lead and let's write it well, which they did. And if we're just judging the video as a Saturday Night Live sketch in which you mash up Mother Nature with corporate America, job done. Ten points to Hufflepuff. But they didn't just film a comedy skit, they broadcast a morality tale, and moralizing an Comedy are very difficult to mix. Unless you are the butt of your own joke. In comedy, you do not take yourself seriously. When moralizing, you take yourself very seriously. And the big problem with Apple's video here is in telling a story, they've cast themselves as the hero to the point where the CEO, Tim Cook, by the end of the video, has done such a great job of appeasing Mother Nature that he is able to raise himself up so that he is eye to eye with his maker. And that triggers the Daily Mail. And many of us, they had a comic conceit in which Mother Nature comes to scold the directors of Apple. And actually, Apple have not covered themselves in glory as regards all manner of things. Their carbon footprint is larger than that of Sri Lanka. And there are all sorts of question marks over working practices in cobalt mines in Africa and sweatshops in Asia and suicides at Chinese factories and never forget that this video was premiered at the launch of the new iPhone 15. And the big question we should all be asking is why do we need another iPhone? Why do we keep getting updates? And the answer is because of planned obsolescence. Apple have decided that our phones will only last a couple of years, so we have to go back to Apple and get another one and get another one and get another one. Is that environmentally friendly? Of course it's not environmentally friendly. So we rightly look at this and we think, are there funny moments? Yes. Is it a comedy? No, it's a morality tale in which Apple are the heroes. So it doesn't work as comedy. But then that brings me to the third question. Is it hypocritical? And this is where we're at, isn't it? Isn't it? There is hypocrisy about the environmental credentials at Apple. And I've just listed off some of the some of the hypocrisy about the environmental credentials at Apple. I've already noticed the ways in which they framed the statistics that they give in the story. There's hypocrisy, and that triggers us. It triggers us because we've been very Christianized by Jesus. Okay. Jesus coined the phrase hypocrite. In the ancient world, a hypocrite was just a masked actor. There was nothing moral to say about if you describe somebody as a hypocrite, you're just describing them as an actor. But Jesus pointed at the religious authorities of his day, and he just said, they're actors, they're whitewashed tombs, they're wearing masks. And Jesus has taught the world to be incredibly sensitive to hypocrisy. And so if we sense hypocrisy here, those are Christian spidey senses that Jesus has given to us. So there's the hypocrisy about their environmental record. There's also hypocrisy about the exquisitely diverse cast that plays Apple's directors in this film, compared with the actual directors of Apple, which look like this. Reminds me of the episode of Succession where Greg Roy is outside the board meeting of Waystar, and at the same time he's watching the corporate promotional video for Waystar. It's utter hypocrisy. So does the shoe fit when it comes to hypocrisy? Yeah, it absolutely does. I think that there are hypocritical aspects to this film, which is why we have reacted so strongly to it. It's been ratioed, they've turned off comments on it. We sniff hypocrisy at a thousand miles away, and we do not stand for it. But then, what about my hypocrisy? Because, like, what is this? Right? This is this is a MacBook, right? This is Apple stuff. And even if I'm an Android guy, I am complicit in the exact same ecosystem in which I'm always trying to upgrade, in which I always want more and higher and better and faster. And this is having an impact on the planet. I don't care what you think about carbon footprints and I don't care what you think about how linked climate change is to carbon, let's say. Um you cannot deny that humanity is having an impact on the planet in all sorts of ways, including plastics, including the extinction of species. Um, there are all sorts of environmental impacts that we have had, and this is the second thing that has changed since ancient paganism. Christianity has come to the world, and a second thing that has come to the world is industrialization. We are all so much richer than we used to be. We are all so much more in hockey to mammon. And if those on the right, and it tends to be those on the right who are dunking on this video, if those on the right and more conservative types are really triggered by the environmental hypocrisy of what they see as wokeism, then I think all of us need to take a long-hard look at whether we are being hypocritical about money and about our own outsized impact on the planet. Um, that doesn't always mean that everybody who comes to you as an environmentalist has the right diagnosis or the right remedy for the problems with this world. But it does say that since industrialization, we have had an outsized impact on the planet, and we're meant to be stewarding it, not simply consuming it. And so those who are anti-woke are looking at those who they deem to be woke, and they're just saying, hypocrites, you're your virtue signaling. But I think those who have a proper concern for creation care can think, well, it's very easy to call me a virtue signaller. There might be some virtue to talk about here, some genuine virtue, and there might be some ways in which humanity can better steward the world that we've been given. So those are three things. Is this video pagan? Uh yes and no. Um two things have happened since ancient paganism that make our modern life very different. Christianity has happened and industrialization has happened. But yeah, this video very interestingly brings an ancient paganism into conversation with modern corporate America. Okay, that's interesting. Is it funny? Yeah, at times it's funny, um, but it is cringe as well, because I think it uses comedy uh not to tell a joke about itself, but to actually raise itself up and tell a morality tale. Is it hypocritical? Yes, this video is hypocritical, and so many complaints about this video are hypocritical as well, which means we all just need to return to Jesus who gives us this fresh vision for God. God is not this capricious or arbitrary deity that I need to buy off and appease. He gives me the this fresh vision for the world. The world is not just going to hell in a hand cart. Okay, there is hope for this world based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And it gives me a fresh vision for myself. In myself, I am a hypocrite. Doesn't matter what my politics are, doesn't matter how good I am at X, Y, and Z, I'm a hypocrite, you're a hypocrite, and we just need Jesus. We need to be connected to Him so that we can share in His future, in His Father, in His Spirit. That's the good news. And if you want to find out more about the good news about God, the world, and you we're putting together a course called 321. And October the 2nd, we are going to launch this new course called 321, and we would love to have your company. There are details below. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01Well, there we go. I hope you enjoyed that reaction. We'll be back soon with another episode of the Speak Life Podcast. Stay tuned. Do subscribe on your podcatcher of choice, and leaving us a review, especially on Apple Podcasts, feels a bit ironic uh mentioning Apple Podcasts in a reaction to an Apple advert. But uh, if you leave us a review there, that will really help uh the podcast to be seen and heard by more people. So if you've been blessed uh by this content, why not pass it on? Sharing is caring. Uh well, thanks so much for listening and goodbye.