The Neverending Story and the Power of Names

Two days ago i started reading Michael Ende's The Neverending Story and already it has proven to be much more profound a story than the movie adaptation. It certainly appeals to the fantasy-lover in me, and the book-lover as well.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the premise, the land of Fantastica (Phantásien in the orignal German) is being slowly obliterated by The Nothing (which is precisely what it sounds like) and the Childlike Empress (who is the ruler, and sustaining force that keeps the land in existence) is suffering from some unknown illness. She sends a young boy from a hunter-gatherer type clan to find the source of her illness and the way to repel The Nothing and restore Fantastica. In the course of Atreyu's (the hunter boy, not the lame metalcore band) "Great Quest" he is sent to speak with the Southern Oracle, a being that exists as pure sound. Atreyu asks the Southern Oracle what will cure the Childlike Empress, and she tells him that what the Empress needs is a new name. Atreyu then asks who can give the Empress a new name, and here is an excerpt from the Southern Oracle's response:

"...Born of the Word, the children of man,
Or humans, as they're sometimes called,
Have had the gift of giving names
Ever since our worlds began,
...For wondrous new names have the power to save."

While my theological beliefs may colour the line "Born of the Word" with a certain Christian significance. Whether that was the authour's intention or not, we humans certainly do have power when it comes to giving things names. It was the above quote that inspired this post.

According to the second creation account in the Bible (in Genesis 2) one of the first things God had the newly created Man do was to name all the creatures of the earth, and we humans have continued to do so ever since. Unfortunately, the names we are most ready to give out are often not of the "wondrous" variety that "...have the power to save."

Too often we use names (or labels, to use a more "grown-up" term) to distance ourselves from some individual, or group, we don't want to associate ourselves with. We use names to limit, dehumanize, devalue, or simply distance ourselves from, others that we deem as irreconcilably "different" from us. We all do it. Sometimes it's obvious and despicable, using names like "f-ggot" or "r-tard" or "n-gger" (forgive my spelling, it makes me uncomfortable writing those words even in this context). Other times it's a lot more subtle or nuanced. It's this latter kind that is more dangerous, insofar as it's much more acceptable.

While i would never say that we should abandon our individual indentities and work towards turning humanity into a borg-like hivemind, i also think that we too often use the positive labels that we give ourselves pridefully to distance ourselves from others. We must strive for that almost paradoxical balance of maintaining out individuality while embracing the fact that we are all members of the human family. Our salvation as a species is bound up with each other.