Movie Review: A Man For All Seasons

Directed by Fred Zinnemann. 1966.

Has cinema ever offered a more noble character than Thomas More? Often first considered as a saint, theologian, scholar, philosopher, or simply as a historical figure, in A Man For All Seasons he is the hero. Yet rarely has an hero been of such great intellect, wit, austerity, faith, and outright cleverness. A Man For All Seasons, though, is not about Henry VIII’s court intrigues, 16th century politics, or issues of Catholic theology, rather it is about one man’s unwillingness to compromise his most sacred beliefs.

The greatest irony, though, is that while More dies in the end, he unquestionably dominates each and every scene. Not only is More a man of profound scholarship, but his scholarship is ever on the tip of his tongue, and what a sharp tongue it is! Early in the film when an aging Cardinal Wolsey attempts to compliment More’s logic and attention detail by telling him he should have been a cleric, More replies, “Like yourself, Your Grace?” In the simplest, and most defensible, of replies More has cut to the heart of the issue, which is that Wolsey is more politician than priest, that his first allegiance is in fact to King Henry and not to God.  More did not have to say this overtly nor did he have explicitly to condemn Wolsey for planning to pressure the church with land confiscation and taxation, but in explaining his machinations Wolsey left himself open to the criticism.  Yet Wolsey was used to dealing with the Machiavellian Cromwell and his like who would discuss such deceits freely, and not More, who for his intractable stance Wolsey urges to, “come down to Earth.”

Yet it is More’s profound intelligence and erudition which puts the bite in his wit. He has great knowledge not only of the law, his trade, but also of philosophy and theology. Education is of extreme importance to More, who calls it a “precious commodity” when his devoted but simple wife asks why he does not beat his daughter and he replies that it would, “beat the education out of her.” Also, instead of offering Master Richard Rich one of the political appointments he so desires, he repeatedly encourages him to take up a teaching position. Yet Rich is himself not uneducated and early on he quotes Aristotle, saying that if a man raises his status in life it is because he was born into one too low for him. This brings the room in More’s home to silence, since it is clear that Rich does not use his education for any noble humanistic or spiritual purpose, but rather as a tool to advance his political status. He selectively uses his education to justify his desire for power. Likewise, King Henry has a great knowledge of theological matters, but he chooses to use it simply for his convenience.  Like Rich, Henry is not using his intellect to discover the natural and transcendental laws in order to live justly, but rather to “discover” only those which allow him to live as he wishes. Henry is able to quote ancient scripture in Leviticus to try to explain why his marriage to Catherine was in fact not a marriage (because she was the widow of Henry’s brother), but he conveniently disregards the fact that pope has authority in the matter, authority that cannot be put aside when inconvenient. Even More’s hotheaded son-in-law is guilty of this crime of convenience, albeit to a lesser degree. The young William Roper, disgusted with the selling of indulgences by the Catholic Church, apostatized and became a passionate Lutheran. While he realized that certain portions of the church and certain practices needed reform, he neglected to realize that, for people of the Catholic faith, there are portions that cannot ever be forsaken.  When Roper again changes his mind and returns to the church, More replies, “We must just pray that when your head's finished turning your face is to the front again.”  Yet while we are sure he means this wholeheartedly, we also know More understands that Roper’s changes of heart are due more to the enthusiasm of youth than to any malice like that of Cromwell.

Indeed it is ultimately Cromwell who is charged by Henry with the task of bringing down More, and the task is ultimately a contest of legal understanding. In this contest More is unquestionably better armed. He has taken every precaution, never voicing an explicitly dissenting opinion so no one can testify against him, forbidding others from saying treasonous things to him so he cannot be found guilty by association, even retaining second (and witnessed) copies of letters to make sure he cannot be misquoted. While More has refused to sign a document declaring legal the marriage of King Henry and Anne Boleyn because the document also declared that the pope had not the authority in the matter, he also refused to say why he would not sign it. There was nothing anyone could do to More, in the name of the law, anyway. All anyone could allege is that he would not sign it, which is of course not a crime. More had cloaked himself in the laws of the land and the only ways Henry and Cromwell could get to him were by tearing down those laws. In one of the film’s greatest lines More says to the naïve Roper, when the young man says he would tear down any law to imprison the devil,

And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted with laws from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the wind that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.

When More is walking home from being questioned by Cromwell and having ended his friendship with Norfolk a great wind blows. The laws are about to be cut.

Yet even with all of their political power Henry and Cromwell cannot bring down Thomas by themselves. Henry is still allegedly constrained by his conscience, which makes perjuring himself or torturing Thomas out of the question. Cromwell himself is too high up the poll directly to do anything as it would be too obvious a crime. They need someone flexible, someone unknown, someone who can be bought and they find that in Richard Rich. Make no mistake either, Rich knows precisely the character of the man he is dealing with in getting involved with Cromwell, which is why he so desperately courted the favor of Thomas, “If only you knew how much, much rather, I had your help than his.” Yet Thomas, perceiving Rich’s weakness, tries to encourage him toward a life where he will not be tempted by riches and fame. Yet we know the venal Rich will take the bait when he replies to mores offer, “If I was [ a teacher], who would know it?” More, whose life centers around his faith, family, and friends,replies, “You! Your pupils. Your friends.” After Rich has taken Cromwell’s bribe and comments how he has just lost his innocence, Cromwell, who also knows Rich’s weakness and that in his heart Rich was always willing to sell himself, says, “Some time ago. Have you only just noticed?"

In the final courtroom scene More’s wit and intellect is in full form, although he is physically too weak to stand, having deteriorated in jail for months. Of course he is in full form, though. You see, More has already understood the entire matter from the very beginning. He spent his whole life studying the law and theology, he knew the natures of the people he was dealing with and he had all of the facts. As such, he was able to consider every possible permutation of the events and he knew, ultimately, that they would have to break the law to get at him. He just did not know how. He continues to outwit Cromwell when the minister attempts to persuade the jury that More’s silence must be construed as opposition and More reminds the court that the legal precept is qui tacet consentire, meaning in fact that if Thomas’ silence is to be construed at all, it must be construed as consent, not dissent. More also reminds the court that while they may think they know his opinion, that his opinion is not a matter of fact or record and thus is not proven.  He says, “The world must construe according to its wits.  This court must construe according to the law.”

What More was not able to fathom, though, was just how low Rich was willing to stoop for power and glory. To Thomas it is truly an unconscionable betrayal Rich has perpetrated. Here he is about to be executed for following his convictions and there stands Rich, well dressed and well fed, rewarded for betraying his. The betrayal is indeed a betrayal of self more than of friend and country. With great disappointment and sadness More tells Rich, “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Whales?” It is More’s self and soul that he goes to death to protect. Far from selling it as Rich did, he could not even tarnish it for the friendship of Norfolk, the affection of his daughter, or the love of his wife. It causes great pain to Thomas when he has to end his friendship with Norfolk “for friendship’s sake.” Of course they are not real enemies, but they had to have a show of a fight to give the appearance that they are so. Norfolk in fact laughs quite happily as More makes an ass of Cromwell in court.

Yet the worst wounds are inflicted by the losses of his wife and daughter and the fact that he was about to die without them really understanding why he had to.  At their last meeting he looks at Margaret with both joy and sadness, joy that she inherited his love of knowledge, keen intellect, and his “moral squint,” but sadness because she is still too young to understand as she tries to guilt her father into capitulating by wounding him in saying how the family does not read any longer in the evening since they have no candles. This is a triple wound for Thomas, since it represents not only the deterioration of his family, but also the deterioration of its intellectual life and that it is his fault too. His wife, Alice, thoroughly does not understand and while she is devout in her faith she is unschooled and, in fact, illiterate. Yet her final gesture to her husband is one of great love as she says, “And if any one wants to know my opinion of the King and his Council he only has to ask for it!” As her husband is to be murdered for his beliefs, she would gladly share hers if it would get her killed along with him. Yet it is as King Henry admitted, that it is because Thomas More is not only honest, but known to be honest that his opinion matters. Hers, as a woman and an uneducated one at that, does not. (Although Thomas tells Alice, Margaret, and Roper to flee the country anyway, fearing they may be executed just to ensure the affair is finished once and for all.) Yet to his death Thomas goes, untainted and untarnished, to protect his innermost self, that “single sinew that serves no appetite,” that most unique part created by God and that loves only God.

Around the Web

For the week of Saturday, October 3 through Friday, October 9.

1) A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Craft, Imagination and Renaissance Wisdom by Alvin Holm at
The Newington-Cropsey Cultural Studies Center.  From the essay:

My contention is that the Renaissance Wisdom, imported from the classical past and delivered to the future we inhabit today, is largely conveyed through a craft tradition, parallel but not completely independent from the monastic and university channels which are most frequently credited.

2) The New Criterion reviews A New Literary History of America, noting that it "is only incidentally concerned with literature" and overall, it is about. . .

the left-wing politically correct worldview in which literature, in which cultural endeavor generally, exists only as a prop in a “progressive” political agenda. Harvard University Press should be ashamed.

3) Discussing a horrible event as reported in The Guardian, Theodore Dalrymple points out a disturbing trend:

The Guardian’s article appears to accept that such behavior, so long as it targets a member of an unprotected group, is merely undesirable—“anti-social” rather than obviously criminal. The rule of law is fast evaporating in Britain; we are coming to live in a land of men, not of laws.

4) In an essay in the New English Review, Dalrymple also discusses how. . .

The desire to blur limits and boundaries, in order to overturn society, has long marked out a certain kind of leftist. Because in social phenomena there are always borderline cases, they wish to undermine the very idea of categories. They are like people who would deny that anyone is tall because there is a fine gradation between tallest and shortest. Thus, because some things were considered crimes that are so considered no longer, and some things that were once legal that are now deemed criminal, they deny that the crime is anything other that an arbitrary social construction. A criminal is someone who merely has difficulty in his relations with society as some men have difficulties in their relations with their wives (and vice versa). What more natural, therefore, than that they should all attend the same day care centre, where they will be cured of their difficulties by psychological means?

5) From Maxwell's House of Books via Diversity Lane, the wisest words on the latest sordid tale from Hollywood:

Regrettably, this small, sordid suburb of Los Angeles is one of the world’s most powerful molders of “public sentiment”, and the recently focused attention on acclaimed director Roman Polanski should serve to remind us of of this fact. Over the years, movies have increasingly relied on the extreme, the perverse and the profane to sell themselves. But this is far from being the mere commercial exploitation of controversially “racy” material by cynical, yet otherwise bourgeois studio execs who “know better.” It is, rather, a clear reflection of the morally denuded minds of its makers–the producers and directors–those unwitting, third-hand consumers and distributors of the philosophical corrosives contrived by Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Sorel, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, et al. For over one hundred years, their destructive ideas have filtered down from academe and into popular culture. What “lesson” did they teach? Primarily, that truth and morality have no objective, universal content, and are nothing more than the arbitrary expressions of cultural bias, or the individual’s will to dominate. Thus, for their disciples, it followed that to free oneself from the fetters of traditional morality was to undertake a bold adventure in self-discovery, liberation and “progressive” thinking.

6) James Pierson at The New Criterion discusses President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize:

In attempting to intervene so obviously in U.S. politics, the Nobel panel is taking the risk that its prizes will be discredited as nakedly political or that its awardees will come to be viewed in America as toadies of the European left, as some of them (Jimmy Carter and Al Gore) already are. Recent awards have raised eyebrows in the United States regarding the motives behind them, but this one may prove to be a real eye-opener.  In the terms of international politics, the Nobel committee is trying to use; its "soft power" (it has no hard power) to reward its allies and rebuke its adversaries in the United States. That tactic will work only so long as it does not become too obvious—and with this award it appears that the Nobel committee has overworked its message.

7) Alfred Brendel discusses music, his retirement, and his poetry.

Revolutionary Education

I love books and I even enjoy studying, but I hated school. I had been trying to get out of the sordid ordeal since I was three and was wholly unsuccessful. My eighteen-year-long education was a good one by any current standard and I came out of it quite alright, but my own experiences and observations have led me to the conclusion that our educational system is quite broken. This is an observation even the politicians and talking heads on the television share and as another president has come to office more educational "reform" is upon us. Unfortunately this plan is the same as the last: throwing money at the problem. This may be a satisfactory solution for someone who measures his success with opinion polls and newspaper column inches, but anyone concerned with the financial, economic, intellectual, and cultural well-being of the nation is bound to be disappointed.

Yet President Obama’s educational reforms share another trait with those of his predecessor, and this one is a philosophical trait: egalitarianism.  President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act,” told us that if we just test our children over and over again. . . well actually I cannot make any more sense of the law than that. President Obama’s program would make sure everyone could go to college and that. . . again, I am at a bit of a loss. Clearly, simply having standards and spending money cannot help a child learn, and simply paying for kids to go to college will not get them through. Yet we are told every child can, and must.

Let us tackle that first notion: that everyone can learn a given piece of knowledge. The theory that every child has some ability, some intelligence which can be tapped is the notion of Harvard Professor Howard Gardiner and which is known in academia as “The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.” This is, as you may guess, in contrast to the notion of a single intelligence element, often referred to as “g” (little “g.”) In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Christopher Ferguson cuts to the point: there is little evidence to support “multiple intelligences” and much to support a unified one. The theory persists, though, because it is politically correct. Every parent likes to think that his or her child can succeed and the multiple intelligences theory, essentially an egalitarian philosophy and not an empirically proven observation, allows them to indulge that pleasant potential. When the student does poorly, it is not the child’s fault for being dim, it the system’s fault for failing him or the teacher’s fault for being unable to tap into his hidden genius. Often also off the table are external factors like the environment of the home and the priorities of the family.  The child is to be dropped off at school and picked up smarter, sort of an educational Martinizing.

I do not know from whence it came or when this notion took root in our educational system but its effects are apparent.  I can say, though, that two of our most educated and illustrious Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, opposed the notion while still being passionate advocates for education. Indeed both men saw it as a bulwark of democratic society and culture. Adams summed its necessity best, writing in his diary at age 25, “I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading?” (McCullough, 223)  This belief ran so deep that both men saw education as an institution that must be coded into the law. Author of the Massachusetts Constitution, Adams wrote the following into Section II of Chapter 6 of the document:

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary or the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people. . . (McCullough, 222)

It is also important to recognize that in the draft of the Massachusetts Constitution he penned, he described men as, “born equally free and independent” and it was the state legislature that changed it to “born free and equal.” (McCullough, 224) Men were equal under the law and equal in God’s eyes, but not equal in ability. Whatever the legislature the thought, they preferred Jefferson’s turn of phrase. But what did Jefferson mean?  I concur with Malone, that “The natural equality he talked about was not that of intellectual endowment, but as Lincoln so clearly perceived, he proclaimed for all time the dignity of human nature.” (Malone, 228)

Jefferson still of course believed in the value and necessity of an educated public, so much that he made proposals for a system for his own state of Virgina. It was to consist of a low-level education provided free for all [white] children, to which parents could continue to send their children beyond the norm, but for a fee, and a higher-level school funded mostly by the parents. “Only the youths of great native ability raked from the rubbish annually," and subjected thereafter to a specified process of elimination, were to be supported by the State. A final survivor of the competition was to be sent annually to the College of William and Mary, at the charge of the Commonwealth.” (Malone, 282) In “Notes on Virginia” Jefferson summarized his ideas:

. . . The ultimate result of the whole scheme of education would be the teaching all the children of the State reading, writing, and common arithmetic; turning out ten annually of superior genius, well taught in Greek, Latin, geography, and the higher branches of arithmetic; turning out ten others annually, of still superior parts, who, to those branches of learning, shall have added such of the sciences as their genius shall have led them to; the furnishing to the wealthier part of the people convenient schools at which their children may be educated at their own expense. (Malone, 283)

Jefferson believed, as did Adams, that ability to some extent varies.  It is not absent from or endemic to any particular economic or social group, it simply varies from individual to individual. Those individuals with intelligence, the intellectual aristocracy, had to be charged with the tasks of society only they could fill. So great was Jefferson’s belief that some men be found who were able to guard “the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens” that he sought to “make higher schooling available without charge to selected youths of marked native ability who would emerge from the unprivileged groups,” that society may not “leave the public welfare dependent on the accidental circumstances of wealth or birth.” (Malone, 282) Today, Jefferson would be skewered by every progressive activist and special interest group for using the word “rubbish” and suggesting there exists some innate aristocracy. Yet Jefferson has not a cold heart toward the intellectually unsophisticated, they are to be educated in the rudiments.

The simplicity of the Jeffersonian model hides its author's perceptiveness. To the chagrin and consternation of small-government advocates and laissez-fair capitalists (myself included), he does advocate publicly-funded education. Yet it is not because it is a natural right, but because an educated people is a prerequisite for any democracy (direct or indirect.) “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,” he wrote, “it expects what never was and never will be.” Perhaps most importantly these ideas on education do not extend government beyond its intended role: securing individual rights. We cannot expect a people ignorant of their own history and system of government, and of its virtues and requirements, long to remain free. For example, it is important for people to understand the concepts of natural rights and republicanism, that they not themselves attempt, or be mislead by others, to increase or misuse government power. An uneducated individual is a threat to everyone's rights. However opponents of public education might disagree, Adams Jefferson’s thoughts offer instructive advice about any educational program and from their words I quote or infer several guidelines:

1. If possible, parents must pay for their children’s education. 
2. Some material is appropriate for curricula, others not.  
3. The most resources should be devoted to the best students.
4. Education is not a right: thus it can be denied if your child is disruptive, et cetera.
5. We must acknowledge that some children will be below others in competence.

Jefferson sought both to broaden the general knowledge of the people and to raise up the gifted that they may do the most good. Today, these simple rules would sink the career of any political candidate who dared voice them.  Today, I see none of these principles in practice, rather I see their opposites.

1. Some parents do not pay directly for the public schools they send their children to while parents who scrimp and save to send their children to private or parochial schools pay taxes toward a public educational system they do not use.
2. Federal funds are doled out indiscriminately to universities, either completely blindly or by the pressures of special interest groups, funding who-knows-what programs.
3. Teachers spend their time trying to find something low students can do while the more capable students languish, and millions of dollars are spent on personal aids for the still-lower students.
4. Education is frequently identified as a right, effectively destroying classroom order since students cannot be reprimanded or expelled for behavior or rejected for advancement due to inability to advanced beyond a particular level, since they are “entitled” to the education.
5. We expect the same results for all students, mistaking equal opportunity for equal outcome.

These ideas from Adams and Jefferson are practical steps toward stabilizing an educational system that is spiraling out of control in every way. These ideas are compatible with our system of government and the precepts of our society. They know no prejudice or discrimination. They give every child the most education he is receptive to. The security of our liberties and the vibrancy of our culture are at stake and we need a change in a rational direction. Perhaps the biggest step forward would be achieved by first glancing backward.

---

[1] Ferguson, Christopher J. Not Every Child Is Secretly a Genius. Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39ferguson.htm accessed 06/14/2009 (subscription required)
[2] Jefferson, Thomas. Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, The. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/foley-section?id=JCE2391 Accessed 8/29/09
[3] Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the Virginian. Little, Brown and Company. Boston. 1948.
[4] McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. New York. 2001.

Movie Review: The Exorcist

Directed by William Friedkin. 1973.

The Devil exists. There may or may not be a god, and if he exists he may or may not be willing or able to help you. From these premises director William Friedken proceeds to assault and assail the filmgoers, twisting their emotions and amplifying their doubts. Rarely are horror movies so carefully crafted and even less often are audiences so thoroughly manipulated. Yet let us move beyond the violence and the chills and let us tease out some of the film’s implications.

One of the film’s principle themes is the impotence of technology in the face of transcendental forces. This is undoubtedly a leap many people will be unwilling or unable to entertain and such is not surprising given the profound scientific achievements of the last and current century. The response of people unwilling to make this leap, I have found, is usually, “Well it is always something causing it, even if we don’t know what it is.” Such implies that in the world in which we live, matter, forces, and all, is ordered, perceptible, and explicable by the human mind. I am not saying such a supposition is foolish or naïve. The fact that I now write at an internet-connected computer suggests the assumption I lean toward. For a moment, though, suppose such a connection, even if it does exist, is not universal, i.e. there is something outside our perception and control. Suppose our multi-million dollar microscopes and MRI machines and other technological marvels whirred in vain. Suppose the psychologists and endocrinologists and neuropathologists told you what they told Regan’s mother, “We just don’t know.” What if we were suddenly stripped of our reason, our science, our ability to know, of our only means of securing and improving our life? Would that not be truly terrifying?

The Exorcist delves deeper though, to a still darker place. Not only does there exist something we do not know, perhaps cannot know, this something understands us quite well. Perhaps better than we understand ourselves. Worse still, it does not like us very much either. Maybe that is not quite right. It certainly does not like us insofar as it does not wish peacefully to coexist with us, yet on the other hand it seems to derive more than a little pleasure out of tormenting us and robbing us of our faith. Not just religious faith, either, but faith in our scientific reason, faith in our ability to act to protect ourselves, faith in our very ability to know. Please stop and reflect on that for a moment: what if you were suddenly robbed those abilities? That eventuality should, in fact, terrify atheists even more than people with faith in a god, since if there exists anything outside your perception and it is not part of any divine plan and there is no god to offer you assistance, you would be quite out of luck, even in a world without demons.

Nonetheless there is a devil in The Exorcist and it is not content simply to lord its invulnerability over us, it is indeed there to rob us of our confidence. Not only can we not harm it, but it will defile even the purest and most innocent of us and kill the most experienced and faithful of us. The uncertainty of the ending, though, is truly the most unsettling aspect of the movie. When the demon departs we do not really know why. Fr. Merrin’s ministrations and exorcism not only failed but he perished in attempting them. We likewise cannot be expected to believe the demon was bound to Fr. Karras’ body and perished with him.  It simply departs, having claimed lives and perhaps faiths in the process. Can we interpret any good from this? On the one hand Karras’ sacrifice tempted the demon out of Regan’s body and indeed saved her life, on the other hand he lost his. Did the sacrificial nature of his actions play a part in demonic or divine intervention? Was it incidental? Depending on one’s values and also one’s faith, his success may be of great or little consolation, but wherever you decide to put your faith, this is one unsettling movie.

Around the Web

For the week of Saturday, September 26 through Friday, October 2.

1) Getting Ahead in America by Ron Haskins at National Affairs

. . . although there is room for government to help advance the cause of economic mobility in America, it can do so mostly by encouraging personal responsibility. Poverty in America is a function of culture and behavior at least as much as of entrenched injustice, and economic mobility calls not for wealth-transfer programs but for efforts that support and uphold the cultural institutions that have always enabled prosperity: education, work, marriage, and responsible child-rearing.

Thus, the inequality debate is not nearly as relevant to the more important question of mobility as it sometimes seems to many advocates and politicians. Inequality is a cloudy lens through which to understand the problems of poverty and mobility, and it does not point toward solutions. Great wealth is not a social problem; great poverty is. And great wealth neither causes poverty nor can readily alleviate it. Only by properly targeting poverty, and by understanding its social, cultural, and moral dimensions, can well-intentioned policymakers hope to make a dent in American poverty — and thereby advance mobility and sustain the American Dream.

2) The New Middle Class Contract by James C. Capretta at National Affairs

The impulse to insulate the middle class from the cost consequences of their choices — an impulse that has defined our longstanding ­middle-class contract — has done great harm and stands to do far more. The remedy must be to redesign our entitlements so that the choices the middle class makes in terms of work, family, and health care will promote more productivity, efficiency, and wealth, rather than the shrinking of the labor force and the growth of government.

3) Capitalism After the Crisis by Luigi Zingales at National Affairs

We thus stand at a crossroads for American capitalism. One path would channel popular rage into political support for some genuinely pro-market reforms, even if they do not serve the interests of large financial firms. By appealing to the best of the populist tradition, we can introduce limits to the power of the financial industry — or any business, for that matter — and restore those fundamental principles that give an ethical dimension to capitalism: freedom, meritocracy, a direct link between reward and effort, and a sense of responsibility that ensures that those who reap the gains also bear the losses. This would mean abandoning the notion that any firm is too big to fail, and putting rules in place that keep large financial firms from manipulating government connections to the detriment of markets. It would mean adopting a pro-market, rather than pro-business, approach to the economy.

The alternative path is to soothe the popular rage with measures like limits on executive bonuses while shoring up the position of the largest financial players, making them dependent on government and making the larger economy dependent on them. Such measures play to the crowd in the moment, but threaten the financial system and the public standing of American capitalism in the long run. They also reinforce the very practices that caused the crisis. This is the path to big-business capitalism: a path that blurs the distinction between pro-market and pro-business policies, and so imperils the unique faith the American people have long displayed in the legitimacy of democratic capitalism.
Unfortunately, it looks for now like the Obama administration has chosen this latter path. It is a choice that threatens to launch us on that vicious spiral of more public resentment and more corporatist crony capitalism so common abroad — trampling in the process the economic exceptionalism that has been so crucial for American prosperity. When the dust has cleared and the panic has abated, this may well turn out to be the most serious and damaging consequence of the financial crisis for American capitalism.

4) In the WSJ, Theodore Dalrymple is displeased, witty, and delightful as usual.

5) In the Times Online (UK), Gore Vidal is displeased, bitter, and unbearable as usual. (And perhaps off his rocker.)

6) As a conservative in the Obama age, P. J. O' Rourke just can't keep up with being racist, sexist, and prejudiced enough for liberals anymore. . . so he's outsourcing the hate.

7) Michael Ramirez on The Empire State Building celebrating China's Communist Anniversary:

via IBD Editorials.

8) At Philosophy Now, Luke Pollard Reviews, "A Sceptic's Guide to Atheism" by Peter S. Williams.

9) On his wonderful site, Classical Notes, Peter Gutmann discusses Alexander Borodin's Symphony No. 2 in B minor.

10) Touching on a theme Mr. Northcutt discussed on this blog not too long ago, President Obama thinks kids should spend more time in school

11)  Roger Kimball and Rabbi Jon Hausman, "attended a small lunch for Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist whose image of Mohammed with a bomb for a turban" was one of several cartoons in the "Dutch Cartoons" uproar a few years ago.  They ponder Yale in the light of its decision to censor a book on the topic.  Hausman concludes and Kimball agrees that,

Honestly, I would not send my child to any school where there is such uniformity and conformity of thought and attitude. . .

Further, it is clear that the university suffers from the malaise of relativist truth and the multicultural ethic. There are no universal truths any longer. When I was in college, it seemed that the point of education at the university level was to use the subject matter under study to encourage independent, critical thinking. Today, all truths are equal. I abjure this notion.

In the final analysis, I believe that the university is lost.

Thoughts on The Magic Flute

James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra. 1991.

The Magic Flute is 218 today. The last opera Mozart completed, he began and completed Le Clemenza di Tito amidst writing The Magic Flute, the work has enjoyed an aura of mystery since its premiere and for a number of reasons. First and foremost is likely Mozart's untimely death, which followed the premiere by a mere two months. The myths surrounding his death add still to the confusion, as does the fact Milos Forman's masterpiece Amadeus, for reasons of compression, depicts the premiere as occurring the night before his death. Second is the nature of the opera's themes. The Rosicrucian symbols and Masonic rituals naturally invite speculation as to their meanings. Last, if you will permit me to name it last, is the music. (I list it last only because I suspect there are many who know of Mozart and the myths surrounding him but not his music.) The three-fold chords of the overture, the solemn marches and hymns, and a simplicity both transfixing and transporting form what Charles Rosen called, "the first genuinely classical religious style." [1] In this atmosphere Mozart gives us exotic locations, fantastic animals, and magic instruments. A religious initiation, a fairy tale, and a spectacle, The Magic Flute will enchant all but the most obtuse listener.

Strange then that such an ethereal work should offer us a most straightforward and imminently practicable morality. We do not have exegeses or debate, moral ambiguity and shades of grey, but rather dark and light, uncontrolled passion and reason. Throughout we have simple wisdom plainly said. Papageno asks Pamina what they should tell Sarastro and she responds, "The truth. The truth, even if it were a crime!" In an aria calming Pamina, Sarastro sings:

Within these sacred portals
revenge is unknown,
and if a man has fallen,
love guides him to his duty.
Then, with a friend's hand, he walks,
glad and joyful, into a better land.

Within these sacred walls,
where man loves fellow man,
no traitor can lurk,
because enemies are forgiven.
He who is not gladdened by such teachings
does not deserve to be a man.

Kurt Moll as Sarastro in the 1991 production conducted by James Levine

That very aria, "In deisen heil'gen hallen. . ." is the antithesis of the Queen's manic fury:

Diana Damrau as the Queen of the Night in the 2003 production conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Additionally, in considering that both arias, one wicked the other kind, should both be so beautiful, I yield the floor to C.S. Lewis: [2]

Perhaps in the world built by industrialism beauty has become so rare and evil so undisguisedly ugly that we can no longer believe ill of beauty. With the old poets it was not so. They believed that a thing might be perfectly beautiful, might be of a beauty to break the heart, and yet be evil. As for their art, it must be allowed that in one respect art has become more integrated since their times. The old poet, or painter, or musician does seem to have aimed simply at giving each part of his work the greatest beauty. The speeches of wicked characters were made as plausible as the poet could make them, the alluring temptations as alluring as he could make them. He did not feel it necessary to sow hints of falsity in the villain's speech. Perhaps this change is seen most clearly in the history of opera. A modern composer underlines his evil characters or places with discords. An old composer was content with making a courtesan's song soft and melting or a tyrant's song loud and declamatory; within that very general limit he then made each simply good of its kind. Thus Wagner givs Alberich ugly music to sing: but Mozart gives to the Queen of the Night music as beautiful as he gives to Sarastro."

Indeed, consider Alberich's cacophonous "Garstig glatter glitschriger Glimmer" at the opening of Das Rheingold in contrast to the Queen's beautiful, however terrifying, music.

Unfortunately the aphoristic philosophy of the opera and its symbols subject it to many interpretations, even if not wildly different. Perhaps some of its success owes to the fact that so many people with differing beliefs all find them expressed in the opera. Naturally the philosophically-minded will eventually consider whether The Magic Flute's philosophy is elemental and eternal or simply vague. We may desire and extol "love," "virtue," and "happiness" all we want, but without specific definitions of terms we will be hard pressed to come to more than superficial or dogmatic conclusions. Yet we do not go to art for explanation or explication but rather for demonstration and such is why this opera touches me. We arrive at our values by reasoned reflection and The Magic Flute celebrates that fact. We all sense varying degrees of tension between liberty and fraternity, between rights and obligations, loftiness and commonness, each of us leaning one way or another. In this way also, then, is The Magic Flute is a timeless and glorious achievement for in it Mozart gives us the unparalleled feeling of these eternally opposing forces being at once, at last reconciled.

Now anyone familiar with the opera probably does not remember it as being quite so serious and indeed interspersed are Papageno's clowning around and Monostatos' "priapic frenzy." [3] For all of their comedy, though, they are the necessary foils for Tamino. While Papageno can finally cease fretting for his lack of a wife, he does not enter the world of understanding with Tamino. Likewise the aptly named Monostatos, as the schwarz-Papageno [3], does not attain perfection. Regarding Sarastro, I agree with David Cairns that we are meant to imagine him, with his inchoate wisdom, "making way for the 'edles Paar,' the 'noble couple' whom the chorus hail triumphant at the end of their ordeals. . ." [3] Naturally Tamino and Pamina are the heart of the story and their unification is the culmination of all the values everyone has been singing about. In the finale, the chorus rejoices in their union. Not because Tamino, as a prince, takes his proper role as ruler, but because a man, in resisting evil and temptation and embracing reason may fulfill his potential. Likewise Pamina's passage is celebrated not because she is now joined to Tamino, but because once at the mercy of the wills of her mother, Monostatos, and even Sarastro, she is able freely and in understanding to take her place beside Tamino. Both have passed through their trials and now proceed in love and wisdom.

Hail to you on your consecration!
You have penetrated the night,
thanks be given to you,
Osiris, thanks to you, Isis!
Strength has triumphed, rewarding
beauty and wisdom with an everlasting crown!

Francisco Araiza as Tamino and Kathleen Battle as Pamina
in the 1991 production conducted by James Levine.

Will Hartmann as Tamino and Dorothea Röschmann as Pamina,
from the 2003 production conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

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[1] Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. W.W. Norton & Company. NY, NY. 1997.

[2] Lewis, C.S. Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, U.K. 1966

[3] Cairns, David. Mozart and His Operas. University of California Press. Berkeley, U.S. 2006.

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Other Reading On Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

Abert, Hermann. W. A. Mozart. Yale University Press. New Haven. 2007

Chailley, Jacques. The Magic Flute Unveiled: Esoteric Symbolism in Mozart's Masonic Opera. Inner Traditions. Rochester, VT. 1992

Dent, Edward Joseph. Mozart's Operas: A Critical Study. Kessinger Publishing, LLC. Whitefish, MT. 2008

Simon, Henry W. The Festival of Opera. Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1957.

Tovey, Donald Francis. Essays in Musical Analysis Vol. IV Illustrative Music. "Essay CXLII. Overture, Die Zauberflöte." Oxford University Press. London. 1937.

Movie Review: Playtime

Directed by Jacques Tati. 1967.

The cinema is loud. Not just your Hollywood blockbusters, I’m not talking about your Star Wars and your Die Hard, but rather your 2001: A Space Odyssey and Wild Strawberries. There are many calls to action, so many tragedies, studies, commentaries, epics, and films otherwise fraught with portent and even more that aspire to such loftiness. Now surely there are at least as many films with trivial messages or none whatsoever (the cotton candy of the cinema.) Yet the "loud" movies think they are important and want to convince us, appealing to us by educating, dumbfounding, terrifying, confusing, or shocking us. Playtime of course has an intellectual purpose as well, but Tati does not beat us over the head with it. To understand Playtime one does not need to wade through a Joycean array of symbols, attend to a lecture on the ills of society, or submit to an anguishing cinematic experience. Such is precisely why Playtime catches us by such surprise, because it appeals to us by most rare means: subtlety and charm.

What is it about? The scholarly and academic answer is that Playtime is about how technology and newfangled gadgetry, modernist architecture, and city planning isolate and alienate us from our neighbors. In this line of thinking, Playtime is a scathing critique. That is a rather misleading answer. Another director might have seen the same effects in the same places on the same people that Jacques Tati saw and made a "loud" movie, but not Jacques Tati. The tone of Playtime is not, “Good God man, look what we’re doing to ourselves! We must stop! The humanity! Alas, alack!” Nor is its theme even quite specific as the academic jargon above, but something more general and more personal, rather like taking a gander at a new building and saying , “Hmm. I remember when things were all open and we just kind of mingled. When did these come up? I get in how? How odd. Well I’ll give it a whirl. Uh oh, well I seem to have left something outside. What do you mean I can’t get back out? What a funny situation I am in, no? Why did you build this again?”

Still we would be remiss not to discuss the physical world of the film which does much of the characterizing of urban life. The world is clean, but to the point of sterility. The cars flow in smooth traffic patterns like clockwork or a circus circle. Lights blink neurotically and obnoxious buzzers jar the ear. There is much glass, but it does not function to let you observe something pleasant on the other side that an opaque wall would have blocked, rather it serves to cut you off, usually from someone you want to talk to. This is a central theme of the movie, communication, specifically how our supposedly efficient designs sometimes make it more difficult and less personal. Take the scene when, against all odds, Mr. Hulot runs into an old friend who invites him into his apartment. The focus of course is on the “stuff”: the apartment, its view, the television, the lamp, the projector and so on. Mr. Hulot does not so much reconnect with his old friend so much get a tour of his junk. The viewer, however, has a grand time with this scene, since we see what the people are missing. Just on the other side of the wall, the couple is watching television, staring intently at the very spot Hulot and his friend are looking at, just on the other side. Not only that, but it’s the man Hulot accidentally hit this afternoon. Then as the cars go by, it is not just any bus that passes but the tour bus carrying the folks from the airport Mr. Hulot passed earlier in the day. All of these near-acquaintances are buzzing about each other, but cut off just ever so slightly.

The film’s last scene is surely the jolliest and occupies the entire last hour of the movie. It concerns the opening of a fancy new restaurant, an opening which proceeds to go as far awry as possible. In this scene, though, everyone is together in one big room. They are sitting at different tables, of course, but what isolates them is only their ignoring each other. People are cut off, but not by their surroundings. They are free to interact if they wish, but they do not yet realize it. Then when things start to go wrong, people are jostled about and brought together. A great big party erupts, and every further mishap and accident at the restaurant turns into another eclectic addition to the impromptu celebration. In the wee hours of the morning the patrons stumble out and go their separate ways, a little buzzed and a little befuddled about the evening. What happened? They interacted with and got to know their neighbors in a way they had not expected, all because everything went wrong and they were free to play. The "loud movie" answer is that our happiness lies in chaos, and in not making plans, and that we do not have and should not want any control over matters. Such is not the point of this scene, rather it is that sometimes we sap the less obvious joys from life without realizing, and a plan going a little awry can be an opportunity to rediscover those joys. Sure we are often isolated, but only just so. Like the patrons in the restaurant we are free to act, and sometimes just a little disorder might remind us of that (and jazz things up a little too.)

The movie nonetheless ends on a wistful note. The morning after the party, as Mr. Hulot buys a scarf for a young woman he has been trying to get to know, the tour bus is prepared to leave outside the shop and she runs to catch it. He has paid for scarf, but the party is over and the rules are in full force again, which means he is stuck behind the register line because he is not “allowed” to exit via any space other than the “out” aisle, which is blocked. He gets her the scarf, but indirectly. The task is performed, and he conveys his kindness to the girl who is very pleased, but the act is robbed of just a little of its humanity. Not enough to make Hulot shout, not enough to make us weep, but just enough to make us all sigh.

It is not all disaster and horror when Mr. Hulot gets lost amidst a maze of corporate corridors or trapped on the wrong side of a pane of glass, although it is a little sad when he cannot himself give the young lady the scarf he bought for her. The result is that we realize as Hulot does that he really does not fit in this micromanaged little world. Perhaps we do not either, perhaps no one does. Perhaps it is a little too coarse to be pleasant, a little too clean to want to touch, and a little too predictable to want to play in. It is not horrible, but it is far from delightful, and considering we made it, why did we make it like this? How odd.

To learn more about Jacques Tati and his films, and to see stills from Playtime and hear some of its music, visit delightful Tativille.

Around the Web

While this post is slightly tardy, I plan on using future Fridays simply to highlight or briefly comment on articles, images, and goings on germane to the themes of this site but that I do not intend formally to address. Items here may be already well-discussed, of self-evident significance, et cetera. Without further introduction, the first installment of Around the Web.

1. The new season at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC began with a new production of Puccini's Tosca. Reviews from the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The production was apparently greeted with booing, displeasure, and a touch of ennui. Here are some images of the previous production and the current, courtesy The NY Post:

The Met's new general manager, Peter Gelb, explained, "For those people who are unhappy, what do they want us to do? Run the same production for the next 50 years? If we don't update productions, this art form will die out." This is an odd remark in two respects. First, it assumes people did not like the production simply because it was new, instead of what seems to be the case, which is they disliked it because it is ugly. Second, (and if by "art form" he means opera) it assumes that the opera must be updated to remain relevant, and under that assumption also assumes that a change of sets qualifies as necessary change to achieve relevancy. It is also possible he simply meant that if we do not build new sets there will not be enough of a demand for people to build them and thus the craft of set-making will die out. I'm note sure if that is plausible.

Franco Zeffirelli, designer of the previous production, reportedly gave what I think is the appropriate response, "You can't stage an opera without keeping in mind what the author wanted." Productions may of course change, but the changes must be appropriate to the work and explicable as improvements.

2. At the WSJ, Paul Marshall reviews the new book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe by Christopher Caldwell, observing of Europe's secular suicide, that "Western Europe became a multiethnic society in a fit of absence of mind. . ." and while "Many Europeans are determined to defend their values. . . it is hard to defend what you cannot define."

3. Lionel Chetwynd and Roger Simon over at Pajamas TV's Poliwood discuss the recent NEA uproar. Specifically, they consider that while a civilization has an obligation to pass on its culture to subsequent generations, or at least the best of and most essential aspects of its culture, perhaps it is simply impossible to have the government perform the task without opening wide the doors to corruption.

4. Earn Big $$$ the NEA Way!

5. Christopher Hitchens laments the sad and unfunny state of liberal comedy.

6. Similarly, movie critic Christian Toto points out how the satirical news source The Onion saw fit to mock the Alzheimer's Disease of a deceased American President who held office twenty years ago instead of poking fun at the incumbent.

7. A bevy of economists weigh in on the likelihood of short-term and long-term inflation.

8. John Ziegler points out that liberals are apparently still apoplectic and frothing over Sarah Palin.

A Libertarian Case for “Free” Health Care?

Last month author, columnist, and intellectual-at-large Christopher Hitchens spoke about George Orwell and Hitchens’ new book, Why Orwell Matters, with Russ Roberts of the Library of Economics and Liberty. (A link to the audio recording of the interview is in the footnotes. [1]) It is always a pleasure to listen to Hitchens even though, perhaps especially, when I disagree with him. This interview is no different and I would like to draw attention to one argument Hitchens offered regarding the issue of health care insurance since I have not heard it from anyone else of late.

Long time member of the left, one might expect from Hitchens one of the typical arguments for “free” health care for all. Seemingly, he offers something different. Is he even more inclined today “to stress those issues of individual liberty,” as he said several years ago in a Reason interview? [2] Paraphrasing, Hitchens said: if you offered people health care and freed them from the burden of worrying, “if I lose my job and fall ill, I’ll be doomed,” you will be making them more free. It appears an interesting and novel argument in favor of the proposed “health care reform.” Amongst the many arguments offered in favor of the proposal in recent months this is interesting insofar as it appears to have a legitimate philosophical base. Who doesn’t want freedom? Freedom is great! America is founded on the notion of freedom, we should make people free!

We must first, though, define freedom before we can know whether or not we possess it. In this task I turn to the great author and scholar C.S. Lewis, whose indispensable book Studies in Words will assist us. The modern English free like the Ancient Greek eleutherios and Latin liber originally carried connotations of both autonomy and legal status. The words also contain both ethical and social connotations: that a man is both free insofar as he is not a slave and free insofar as he acts as befits one who is free (as slaves were thought inherently to be nosy, ungenerous, carry grudges, et cetera.) Additionally, the English free grew to be used in the sense of “enjoying the freedom of a city” and by extension, being a citizen of that city and enjoying the commensurate rights, namely the right to vote. With those notions in mind, we may examine the cultural meaning of free. Chief amongst these distinctions is there are certain occupations that befit the free man because he undertakes them for their own sake and not for utility. Even commercial work does not make one free in this sense, since it is done to contribute to some other end. Lewis adds, “Only he who is neither legally enslaved to a master nor economically enslaved by the struggle for subsistence, is likely to have, or to have the leisure for using, a piano or a library.” I believe this definition is most similar to what Hitchens means by “freedom.” If only we could free people of the fear they might not be able to support themselves, they will be able to do their jobs better, more joyfully, et cetera. These are variants of what I call “Star Trek Syndrome,” which is the supposition that if we removed from man his need to support himself, he would be free to devote his time to some worthy pursuit. Yet Hitchens’ idea still sounds credible, as no man living with the anguish of uncertainty can be happy.

Alas, there exist two flaws in this argument. The first is this: it assumes the government is a “rights bursar,” that it exists to (or even simply, may) create and grant freedom. This is an incorrect assumption, as our society, unlike those that heretofore defined free, is one founded upon the principle of natural rights. In a society in which social mobility is impossible, where one is either citizen or slave or lord or serf, where there is neither legal ability nor practical chance for improvement, freedom is essentially inherited. The connotations and prejudices contained in the ancient definitions are foreign to our definition of liberty. In our society, freedom is simply the ability to act uncoerced by force and it is considered distinct from prosperity or happiness. Our government exists but for one purpose, to guarantee our natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government does not exist to invent additional rights and to grant them to the people, nor can it do these things. The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America contain acknowledgments that men are inherently, i.e. already, free. In the definitive biography of our third President, Dumas Malone summarized the Jeffersonian outlook:

Like so many of his ‘enlightened’ contemporaries, Jefferson believed that men had originally been in a state of nature; that they had then been free to order their own actions and to dispose of their own persons and property as they saw fit; that government was instituted among them in the first place by consent.” [3]

Thus the government’s purpose is to safeguard those freedoms, neither to add to nor subtract from them. This concept of natural rights represents a fundamentally different worldview from both its predecessors and successors.

A second flaw is this: who would provide these rights? If, as we have said, a man is born free, then he inherently has a right to his life and thus must be left free to use his mind to decide how best to support himself. The concept of making a man more free by alleviating him of the necessity of supporting himself is in contradiction with the above principle. In creating a legal responsibility for supporting a man, you in fact diminish everyone’s rights, enserfing both the poorer and richer parties to a distributive entity. The only way to “free” one group of people from the “burden” of supporting themselves is to have another group of people support them. The underlying assumption here is that it is not my job to support myself, but someone else’s, i.e. that I am entitled to my own freedom at the expense of someone else’s. Here we must differentiate between two concepts, freedom and prosperity. In the ancient definitions, the prosperous man is free. In our era, the free man is able to become prosperous. To impose the older definition on our society would be to mandate an average level of prosperity, i.e. the more prosperous must be brought down to average to raise those below average to the same point, that way everyone can be said to be prosperous, and thus free. The root of this conclusion is an egalitarian assumption: that equal opportunity must result in equal outcome. If we are all equal in ability, this argument goes, then it must be an unjust system or society that represses some. Without commenting on the truthfulness of this claim, I will say only that it is a concept alien to our foundational laws. It is an extra-legal belief which, of course, your are free to adopt and live by, but not free to impose on others.

If we exercise our memories (or hit the history books) we will recall this view is not new. Proposals for “additional” rights have been made before by many 20th century Progressives. In his 28th Fireside Chat on January 11, 1944 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Necessitous men are not free men." Clearly we see the old arguments and the new are one and the same. From the same speech: [4]

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all-- regardless of station, or race or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of farmers to raise and sell their products at a return which will give them and their families a decent living;

The right of every business man, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, and sickness, and accident and unemployment;

And finally, the right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security.

Aside from the problem of the authority by which those rights would be precisely (i.e. actually and usefully) defined and administered and the myriad problems of implementing them, author and philosopher Ayn Rand succinctly addressed the fundamental problem of these supposed rights in her 1963 essay, Man’s Rights, asking: “at whose expense?” [5] Is a nation in which some men work to provide these “rights” for others more or less free than one in which each works to support himself? Rand added, “A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort.” [5] One is free to pursue happiness, one is not owed happiness itself. In a time of great crisis, FDR asked Americans to sacrifice liberty for security. Americans have, at various points over the past 60 years taken that offer from various people, parties, presidents, congresses, et cetera. We accepted Social Security, which is now bankrupt. We accepted Medicare, which is now bankrupt. We accepted a government monopoly on education and national education standards, and school systems are in shambles. We incentivized home ownership and regulated our economy with disastrous consequences. All of these programs were supposed to make some people, the unfortunates, more free. All of these programs and more will have to be supported at the expense of some: are they more free or less free?

Today, amidst another crisis gladly not as great, our current president asks the same. Perhaps more of the poison is the cure? Yet FDR’s “rights” have indeed secured something: a government continually growing in size and power. Let us return to the understanding that freedom is the right to life, liberty, an the pursuit of happiness. Admittedly, these rights do not spell security. They spell liberty, which cannot be invented, bought, and doled out, only recognized, fought for, and preserved. What man, then, shall we call free? He, “whose life is lived for his own sake not for that of others.” [6]

[1] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/hitchens_on_orw.html
[2] http://www.reason.com/news/show/28208.html
[3] Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the Virginian. Little, Brown and Company. Boston. 1948. p. 175
[4] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16518
[5] Rand, Ayn. Man’s Rights. Signet. New York New York. 1961 (p. 113)
[6] Aristotle. Metaphysics 982b

Lewis, C.S. Studies in Words. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK. 1960 (Ch. 5: “Free”)

Movie Review: Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World

Directed by Peter Weir. 2003.

Rarely can a movie exist in two worlds and succeed in either, let alone both, but in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World Peter Weir brilliantly manages the feat. On the surface the film exists in several genres, the seafaring adventure, the period piece, and the war film. We see grand shots of oceans and untouched islands and of the HMS Surprise triumphantly gliding across the globe. We look back into the world of canons and muskets and swords. We glimpse into the world of naval hierarchy and discipline. Yet under the surface Master and Commander has a deeper split, with one foot in our world and one foot in the one that preceded it. The essential split is between the era of Liberal Humanism and the one of faith and mysticism. Alone, this ponderous topic would have made for a weighty, cerebral, Bergmanesque movie, but in Master and Commander Peter Weir handles this philosophical divide deftly, allowing the issue to percolate to the surface during a voyage of the HMS Surprise.

This philosophical conflict is most obviously manifested in the relationship between Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey and his friend, the ship’s doctor, Stephen Maturin. The doctor, a naturalist and surgeon, is a man of the modern world: well educated, skeptical of authority, wary of capital punishment, only grudgingly a soldier. He would prefer to study nature and advance the knowledge of science and only reluctantly admits to being a “fighting naturalist,” as he finds the two do not combine well. Now the obvious contrast to Maturin’s liberal, rational approach is naturally the captain. While I agree that this is so I think the more perfect contrast to Maturin is the rest of the crew. Where Maturin is skeptical of any authority, including Jack’s, to the crew the captain’s authority is practically sacred. Where Maturin reads his science books, the crew refers to the bible and seafaring myths and traditions. What the doctor attributes to simple coincidence the crew attributes to bad luck or ill omens.

Now in contrast to both of these groups we have “Lucky” Jack. Unlike the doctor, who sees authority as inherently corrupting, and the crew, who see it as his sacred right, Aubrey sees the need for an authoritative leader as a necessary evil. The crew follows him unquestioningly, but they do not bear the responsibility of others’ safety or the success of the mission. Stephen is able relentlessly to question the purity of his motives, but he is not responsible for maintaining order on the ship. It is Jack who must govern with wisdom, as he advises one of his lieutenants who is faltering in securing the respect of the men:

Don’t make friends with the foremost jacks, lad. They’ll despise you in the end, think you weak. Nor do you need to be a tyrant. You have the knowledge. . . find the strength within yourself. Without strength, true discipline does by the board.

The captain’s wisdom is not the dogmatic “authority corrupts” script of the doctor or the “follow orders” mantra of the crew. He does the right thing, in the right measure, at the right time, continually balancing and adjusting so the ship does not degenerate into either tyranny or anarchy.

In still more instances the captain is the voice of moderation between the extremes of his liberal friend and the superstitious crew. When the voyage is subjected to a series of incidents including being happened upon by a faster enemy ship, sailing into a squall, and losing both wind and rain, the crew takes to seafaring and biblical myths about “the Jonah,” whom they take to be lieutenant Hollom, who was present at the outset of each unfortunate occurrence. In contrast, the doctor considers the events simple circumstances. When the captain expresses concern to Stephen about the events and the fact that while the crew is obedient, they “cannot abide a Jonah,” he adds to the skeptical doctor, “not everything is in your books, Stephen.” Aubrey has neither resolved himself to Maturin’s philosophy that every thing in our world is knowable and explicable nor turned to any specific mystical explanation of the events. He simply has observed that sometimes events occur which elude explanation.

Now while Aubrey is the wise median between Maturin and the crew, he is also the intermediate figure between two other characters, Hollom and Admiral Nelson. Hollom is one of Aubrey’s lieutenants and hopelessly misunderstands command in war. When the captain offers the above advice about authority to Mr. Hollom and the lieutenant simply reiterates his words, Aubrey replies with disappointment, “unfortunate business, damned unfortunate.” The captain is greatly saddened by the fact that while Hollom has the raw facts he is unable to find the inner confidence and strength with which to assert himself and become an effective officer, despite that he is twice the age of the other lieutenants. When Mr. Hollom tragically takes his own life, the captain speaks a eulogy with his characteristic wisdom:

The simple truth is, not all of us become the men we once hoped we might be. But we are all God's creatures. If there are those among us who thought ill of Mr. Hollom, or spoke ill of him, or failed him in respect of fellowship. . . then we ask for your forgiveness, Lord. And we ask for his. God be praised.

Aubrey chooses not to read the biblical passage about Jonah, which would effectively declare there was indeed something intrinsic about Mr. Hollom that made him a pariah. Nor does he avoid the issue with generic sayings. Rather he chooses to emphasize what keeps men together both on ship and off: fellowship.

In contrast to the tragic story of Mr. Hollom we have Admiral Nelson, who looms like a mythic figure over the whole film. In an early scene when one of his young lieutenants is injured and resting up in bed, Aubrey brings a book about the admiral’s campaigns to the boy for reading. When the boy asks what Nelson was like, Aubrey hesitatingly replies, “You should read the book,” because, of course, you cannot simply or glibly sum up a man like Nelson. He is not just wise or brilliant, but so bound up in the events of Great Britain, naval life, and the war against Napoleon that he is essentially of all these things. Later, when another young officer presses for an anecdote about the admiral and Aubrey tells a funny story about him, the boy is disappointed. The admiral is not a lay person, capable of being in humorous scenarios, he is a hero. Sensing the disappointment, Aubrey then explains that once, when offered a blanket on a cold night, Nelson replied that his zeal for king and country kept him warm. The doctor naturally rolls his eyes and says that Nelson must be, “the exception to the rule that authority corrupts” but the captain asks them to suppress their skepticism and acknowledge that sure the story was corny and were it anyone else you would cry foul. . . but this is Nelson At the same dinner, sailing master Mr. Allen explains that some would say Nelson, with his penchant for disregarding strategy and simply charging at the enemy, was not a good seaman, but a good leader.

Aubrey is both, of course. His naval genius and successes have contributed to the aura of “Lucky Jack,” a persona that makes the men believe his is capable of anything, not just escaping the faster “phantom” French privateer that dogs them, but taking her. In every detail of his actions Aubrey sets the tone for the ship. You may carouse and joke with a little wine over dinner, but you do not so much as slouch on the quarter deck, even under fire. You maintain discipline and punish an insubordinate man, but you reward him too when he goes beyond the call of duty. He studies the formal battle plans in books, but he also makes use of guile and cleverness to outwit the enemy. He rallies the troops by solemnly praising duty and homeland, but also by calling Napoleon a raggedy-ass. Again we see that it is by the careful balance of extremes that Aubrey leads.

We would be remiss, though, not to discuss Aubrey’s friendship with Stephen in more detail. In their conversations he is often Aubrey’s conscience, and his contrasting character makes him an effective one. For example, after Aubrey overextends the ship and loses a man during a storm in an attempt to catch up with and take the Acheron, Stephen reminds him on the one hand that they are only out here because of the war, and thus it is the French that killed the man, but also on the other that the expedition is beginning to reek of pride since he has exceeded his orders of following the ship past Brazil. Later Maturin describes the mission as a “belligerent expedition” and still Aubrey persists. It is not until the doctor is accidentally taken ill and Aubrey must choose between the Acheron and his friend’s life that he relents. What do we make of this? On the one hand, he has put aside his pride once the threat of losing his friend has put matters into perspective, but what of his orders? As was said he had exceeded them and as such, he was indeed acting on pride. . . and he was wrong.

As Aubrey learns about himself and the value of his friend, so Maturin learns about the nature of the service and burdens of command on his friend. After much persisting as to why he thinks Jack should keep his word and allow the doctor to stay at the Galapagos and examine the wildlife, Aubrey is finally frustrated enough to bark, “We do not have time for your goddamn hobbies!” Britain is at war, and all other tasks are subject to the demands of the service. He also sees the toll command takes on Jack, for example when he has to order a seaman to cut loose his friend tethered to the ship (thus condemning him to die) so the ship will not sink, and then later flog that same man for insubordination. What Maturin never really comes around to is the nature of military service, the naval tradition, and the limitations those solidifying structures impose on the liberal pieties he proposes. Surely the captain would wish not to have to flog any man, but he cannot opt to throw the rum overboard instead as the doctor proposes, for several reasons. First, it is a threat that can only be used once. Second, the truth is that the lubrication of rum helps to govern the ship. The simple fact is that the men will put up with much (albeit not a Jonah) but they need their rum, it is as simple as that. Aubrey says, “I’d rather have them three sheets to the wind on occasion rather than have a mutiny on my hands.” Last, the British naval tradition of including rum as part of the sailor’s rations dated back to the mid-to-late 1600s. Such a tradition was not to be cast aside lightly, nor could it be. When Stephen goes on to say how he sympathizes with mutineers because the men are pressed from their homes and jobs and confined on wooden prisons, Aubrey replies rather sadly, “I hate it when you talk of the service in this way, it makes me so very low.” He is saddened that his friend intellectually does not see what holds the ship together, and worse emotionally does not find any joy or beauty in the centuries old tradition of British seamanship. Perhaps seeing the crew’s incredible discipline pay off in the great victory against the Acheron moderated the good doctor’s views.

The very fact that these contrasting forces, philosophies, and characters not only coexist in conditions that could breed anarchy, but also permit the ship to act as one unit with one purpose (defending Britain) is a beautiful thing. Just as the contrasting doctor and captain are able to come together and play beautiful music, so the entire crew is able to come together to produce the beautiful sailing of the ship and the noble deed of defending their country. Yet for all of Nelson’s example, the lieutenants’ enthusiasm, Mr. Allen’s sailing expertise, and the doctor’s liberalism and erudition, it is Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey’s defining characteristic that makes it all possible, his wisdom.