Wonderful, wonderful Op-Doc - thank you for sharing.
Though I could do without the Christian-bashing. All is good until the first church wrecks everything. Sheesh!!
That diamonds have more than industrial value is hilarious. You can order diamonds by the container. Try that with emeralds or rubies. I remember when hula hoops cost five dollars. It is all in the marketing.
The film is so beautiful and fascinating, a metaphor using a mineral of 10 on the MOHS' scale of hardness to the human consisting, at times, of 75% water. There is no better example of how all things are related. Perfection does not exist, flaws are a component of the living and inate.
The story of the moon turning it's back, the tears of a star falling to earth to form diamonds is as ethereal as a film in the Cherokee Museum in North Carolina. Fire existed on an isolated island and only through monumental efforts by different species did it reach the mainland. A white Raven, due to the smoke, caused those birds to be eternally black by his failed effort. A screech owl after returning with singed dark feathers rubbed his eyes which resulted in the circles around them, snakes attempted. A water spider cleverly swam, wove a bowl to carry an ember back. The sticks they placed upon it resulted in flames. That is how the people acquired fire.
The diamond is a 10 on the Mohs' hardness scale, man has a great percentage of water and they are co stars in a little gem of a movie.
The stone cutter determines the diamonds size, shape and facets after eliminating the flaws of the rough stone in order to create brilliance.
We enter life with innocence. Our minds and and hearts are shaped by multiples that create many facets, some with brilliance, others dull with no reflextion. Unlike the diamond our flaws can not be cut away. Our innocence is chipped away at birth and through life, it never to returns.
The fear, for the future of mankinds heart and soul the artist expressed, is real, I can understand the premise.
The film began with a legend: the moon turned his back, by that rejection, a star crying in sadness caused his tears to fall to earth and the diamond was formed was sweet and so well done.. That little story led to an unexpected metaphor between the inate diamond and humans.
Many comments I read concerned de Beers and mining, rather than the excellent metaphor. Are we losing the capability to view a film and think of the underlying meaning as you would a Shakespearean play or reading a good book? Comments confirmed that loss of ability to stay on track and refrain from dragging in issues not related to the work of art. That creates a souless society as brittle as a diamond.
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My point is it is a poor metaphor. One keeps stumbling into dissimilarities that requires one to force an analogy between diamonds and humans.
Many of the assumptions about diamonds are just not true.
Sounds like synthetic diamonds.
With a billion carats 'in reserve', the lie is that diamonds are rare at all.
Beautifully done. I am reminded of Taoism and the uncarved block (the "pu"). Children begin as pu, and then parents, friends, and larger social structures chip away until the adult's essence vaguely - if at all - resembles the essence of the child.
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Diamonds have many industrial and scientific uses, but for decoration, give me emeralds and blood rubies any time. Colored stones are made in labs every day and don't require all the misery, drama and environmental damage that comes with crystalline carbon. I personally wouldn't have a diamond if they were giving them away.
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Here, Read about Botswana and DeBeers:
http://www.debswana.com/About-Us/Pages/default.aspx
Or here, DeBeers in Namibia:
https://www.debeersgroup.com/content/dam/de-beers/corporate/documents/Na...
None of the diamonds mined and sold by DeBeers are conflict or "blood" diamonds. They don't operate in those countries where conflict diamonds originate.
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When you want to defend De Beers from those who are dubious, it probably doesn't help much to point to web links created by De Beers. De Beers didn't stop trafficking in conflict diamonds because they were being ethical, but because it made good financial sense: it both raised their esteem in the public eye and limited stock on the market, since De Beers had a near-monopoly in getting diamonds to the paying public due to a UN embargo on "conflict diamonds." Limiting the supply increased the demand as well as price paid for each diamond. People willingly pay more for "conflict free" diamonds, though the actual provenance of the diamonds sold is usually not so cut and dried. (See https://nyti.ms/2pJc7Ud)
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Your article describes a change in marketing strategy by a company that still didn’t deliberately traffic in conflict diamonds that originate from countries where Lebanese traders are the primary buyers of “blood” diamonds. The relationships between Debeers and the governments of Botswana and Namibia are established fact, not invented public relations myths.
Well, you're misinformed too.
I appreciate the metaphor behind the diamond in this video, especially the visceral nature of grinding, cutting and polishing the stones. That said, I never understood the strange human fascination with that particular gemstone, other than the cutting utility of its extreme hardness. To value stones -- any stones -- above the lives of most humans seems absurd and tragic. In mines generally owned by wealthy foreign corporations in poorer countries, many people suffer, are horribly exploited and even killed in the search for these rocks; people steal and murder for them; people demand diamonds of a certain size and price as tokens of love and betrothal. All this craziness promoted by an industry that insists a tiny stone costing a month (or more) of one's salary is the only way to one's lover's heart -- no matter how many others have paid a larger price in their labor, their dignity and often their blood. I've told my husband please, no diamonds or other "valuable" jewels -- the cost to humanity and to the planet far exceeds the worth of having a shiny bauble to decorate a finger or ear.
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I feel the same. They're not magical or mystical; they're a stone that we have imbued with such value that it often exceeds human life.
I didn't want a diamond engagement or wedding ring. In fact, I own no "precious" stones because love itself is too precious to represent with a highly marketed and advertised piece of rock. The romantic emotional manipulations and price inflations stand in contrast to the reality of mining conditions.
I feel the same about gold, although I guess it has utility as a means of exchange. I wish the millions spent on diamonds and gold could be repurposed to help those poor people, rather than exploiting them to further enrich that thin sliver at the very top. But that's never been the human way.
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Too true, Trista... And even gold has utility (it is a great conductor), but monetarily we could choose anything to represent value -- after all, we place faith in the value of a hundred dollar bill when it is really only a symbol. Like you, I wish we placed more value on our fellow humans -- and other creatures, plants, the environment, etc. Maybe someday humans will see the light...but I'm not going to hold my breath. It is good to know in reading these comments, though, that there are other folks who see through the "precious" stone/"precious" metal hype.
Diamonds are like Bitcoins: a commodity of no intrinsic value besides it's contrived scarcity, controlled by powerful commercial enterprises that have been ruthless in producing, mythologizing, monopolizing and profiting off it.
The story of human greed and the evil (dare we say stable) genius of creating dominance and power through the hoarding of a useless commodity transformed into wealth is also the story of diamonds.
The evil genius of the global diamond trade it invented and dominates is De Beers, a white South African conglomerate founded by notorious racist Cecil Rhodes, (of Rhodes Scholars and Rhodesia), who ruthlessly exploited Black South Africans and played a key role in sustaining Apartheid. Last year it had sales of $6.5 billion.
De Beers was among the first practitioners of sophisticated marketing techniques using product branding, Hollywood films, celebrity product placement, modern advertising, and media stunts to establish the myth of value created in large part by artificial scarcity and market dominance.
De Beers through its devious marketing established diamonds as de rigeur status tokens for engagement, marriage, anniversary, even tennis bracelets. De Beers successfully sold the world on diamonds as the only meaningful embodiment of love, forever.
The truth is diamonds -- and De Beers -- represents the ugly atrocity of European powers devastating Africa as a subjugated continent, stealing its wealth and the future of all African people.
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You are completely wrong and much misinformed about DeBeers, but it's a popular false narrative you won't be convinced of otherwise. I can only suggest that an interested party make the effort to look it up in an authoritative, factual account of the DeBeers company. They have done more to help African nations and their people than you are willing to even acknowledge.
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@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
De Beers' sophisticated public relations and marketing is dedicated to hiding its sordid history behind token make-goods as the public has become aware of blood diamonds and the subjugation of Black South Africans.
De Beers compelled early white South African regimes to tax Blacks to force them from a self-sustaining barter economy into dangerous and poorly paid jobs as De Beers diamond miners. South Africa even taxed dogs because Blacks lacked taxable items to force them to earn income to pay taxes.
De Beers' publicity machine monitors all press references to diamonds. I'm not surprised buy your reply. (Freudian slip, I'm sure.)
Defending De Beers as a positive force in Africa is akin to asserting Hitler as a creative disruption of European history.
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Apparently an ardent shill for DeBeers. I wonder why there is a standing indictment for their executives if they enter the US if they're such a nice company.
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Beautifully told. Thank you.
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Lovely ideas, beautiful expression. Point made: No matter how diamonds are treated to make them 'perfect', yet there is still the essential untamed core. True for diamonds, true for human beings. If we look within, we will find the untamed core, always.
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Diamonds are not as special or rare as they are touted as being. Neither are people, polished or not.
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Beautiful film. Give me an uncut diamond any day. Conformity is unimaginative and lazy, yet what so many strive for.
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how good of you to humanize your art with this common stone, to point out how dehumanized it must become to appeal to the pedestrian human trade.
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The video didn't complete playing, but it really has very little to do with real diamonds or actual diamond history, only superficially. Perhaps she is borrowing from the philosophy of the jeweler Carl Faberge who only designed one of a kind pieces of jewellery. He marketed to royalty because they had the money to pay for it. Same for the famous jewelers of France. It's a business, it's capitalism. Curiously, the jewelry trade in France proliferated during times of war.
I think the movie presents a poor metaphor. There is nothing remarkable about a rough diamond. Only a discerning eye will notice the difference from another pebble. It's only after they are cut and polished that the true beauty and distinctive sparkle shows. That is the value of a gem diamond. Boart is a horse of another color. It's value is not beauty, although it's an excellent abrasive, better than most anything else. One can't put lipstick on a pig and one can't cut and polish boart to make it beautiful. Maybe a good marketing campaign will convince you otherwise.
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