The Holocaust most assuredly challenges any and all faith in God. Faith in humanity. Faith in nature. Faith in the future. I don't "tell" young people anything. I ask them to consider many things, particularly, their assumptions regarding their natural obligations to be loving towards all living beings. Many of my works - both literary and film - are fictional, like Codex Orfรฉo. And that's because the genre has always allowed me to suggest things that are opinions, spiritual impulses and intuitions, not necessarily provable.
Michael TobiasThe Holocaust most assuredly challenges any and all faith in God. Faith in humanity. Faith in nature. Faith in the future. I don't "tell" young people anything. I ask them to consider many things, particularly, their assumptions regarding their natural obligations to be loving towards all living beings. Many of my works - both literary and film - are fictional, like Codex Orfรฉo. And that's because the genre has always allowed me to suggest things that are opinions, spiritual impulses and intuitions, not necessarily provable.
Michael TobiasI find contemporary Holocausts against other species so unbearable as to make life itself a fundamental question mark. Are we a demonic, suicidal species? Can good conquer evil? And if so, when will that renaissance of virtue occur? This is truly "psychology today."
Michael TobiasAny rational human being is horrified and existentially baffled by the reality of the Holocaust meted out by the Nazis, by the majority of Germans throughout the 1930s and World War II; and by the countless countries, communities and individuals who collaborated with the vast constellation of Hitler's monsters in the gruesome murder of well over 60% of European Jewry. Codex Orfรฉo reminds us that the root of that insanity is continuing in the form of contemporary Holocausts against other species, with equally systematic, atrocious and inexplicable madness.
Michael TobiasPoetry, song, stories, art, our reverence for nature, are key to our survival as a species, and to the survival of all species, I believe. You can't always extract such emphatic hunches and activist stances from a scientific maxim or mathematical axiom.
Michael TobiasCodex Orfรฉo is something you won't see coming at you, but it does. It's all about kindness to other species, and to one another. If we can work that out, the world will take care of herself.
Michael TobiasNon-violent ecological activism, scientific research and art are pillars of my experience. But I am also a story-teller. I merge science, and my passion for literature whenever possible if it helps me to wrestle demons, and to more effectively communicate what I believe to be most important to our lives.
Michael Tobias