January 22, 2005
Myths of Leadership
The movie Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou, stands as one of the most beautifully shot, acted films of the last few years, in addition to having some of the most excellent and memorable action sequences since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came along in 2000. But quite a few western critics had misgivings about the subtext and message of the film. Simply put, the film is a kind of apology for concentrated dictatorial power. Not surprising considering the source of the movie (Chinese made), but it got me thinking about the nature of how we regard politics in our culture. We are somewhat better than the Chinese, but only somewhat.
The Return of the King. Surprising that American audiences could enjoy a movie about the return of a monarchy, given our history. Or maybe not. Unlike Hero, we really don't tend to glamorize monarchy or nobility ourselves. We're a rather egalitarian people. Hell, our president affects a provincial accent. But we are also a practical people, and practical people like to see things get done. We like decisive, strong-willed presidents, and when we see them on film, decisive, strong-willed kings.
Of course, that is just so long as they are moral, upright, and attuned to the will of the people. In Return of the King, you have Aragorn, heir to the throne of Gondor, a man who has proved his bravery, his leadership qualities, and his sound judgment throughout the course of the last few films. Then you have Denethor, a bitter tyrant, a man cruel to his remaining son, and ever solicitous of power that is not his to command. Whether that's the ring, the throne of Gondor, or the Palantir, he puts too much stock in his own wisdom and judgment, and capacity to lead by his own will alone.
He's threatened by those who approach with greater claim to authority, greater wisdom at their command. And when the crisis comes, his response is to expend his troops in fruitless battles, over a target that merely represents a point of pride rather than any defensible position.
In one memorable sequence, he sends his son Faramir to lead the Gondorian cavalry against the entrenched Orc forces. The hobbit Pippin, is commanded by the Steward to sing him a song while he eats. The movie intercuts Pippin singing mournfully, with the brave soldiers charging orcs with archers at ready, and Denethor's rather sloppy meal. There's a real nice touch at the end where a bit of blood-red wine drips from the corner of Denethor's mouth, as the film cuts to the orcs loosing their arrows. We don't see the result, but we don't have to. Only his son returns, and near death at that.
The return of the king to Gondor is a cause for celebration, as the noble, self-sacrificing leader takes the place of the paranoid tyrant who was reckless with his people's lives. In its way, Aragorn's story throughout the film is about true leadership in the face of adversity, leadership that combines boldness with wisdom and honesty, humility with confidence, power with compassion for those it affects.
Aragorn is just one example of what we've been taught to look up to in terms of those in power. There are many examples of this in other parts of our culture.
Disney animation has not slouched on this end of things. Prince Charming. The Lion King. The boy Wart in The Sword and the Stone, who is a young King Arthur. Several characters end up monarchs, or spouses to them. Several are royalty or nobility to begin with. The fairy tales that form the center of our folklore as passed to our children are born of periods and places where nobility and royalty were parts of the status quo.
And of course we expect of such rulers the same virtues we expect of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings All the same, when the work is a fantasy or an history, it's not all that hypocritical for our culture to treat such rulers with reverence. We have not yet seen enough time go by for the presidency or democracy to take on such legendary proportions. But it's not that there isn't the potential.
It's a tricky question. In Independence Day and Air Force One, we are offered a pair of heroic presidents who personally go to battle with the bad guys, respectively genocidal aliens and communist terrorists. But that echoes the old notion of Kings being great warriors in their own right, sometimes leading charges.
The nature of our government has far removed most presidents from action in office. Our president is far more likely to lead forces in a debate than lead them in a firefight. Thrillers involving presidents tend to stick them with storylines scandal, corruption, and/or historical events. They can be at turns admirable, cunning, vicious, and incompetent, cyphers for leadership at it's best, it's most skillful, and it's worst and most incompetent.
Democracy is even trickier, because there is always the temptation to insert one's political beliefs, or to place the concepts into the course of the film in an anachronistic, inorganic way. The proper portrayal of it is difficult because much of democracy is boring process. Few people find C-Span entertaining.
That said, most governments, when seen for what they really are, are boring when they function correctly. The un-exciting stuff of monarchies and ancient republics is rarely what makes the cut in stories and movies about such things. We get the idea that such strong leadership is always the right thing, always gets things done, when a close reading of history suggests that is not always the case. Monarchies and ancient civilizations, though, have centuries of rationalization on their side, where American Democracy is fairly young at justifying itself.
The concept of freedom in American and American-related cinema is often a strange and superficial conception of it. Commodus kills his wise father Marcus Aurelius when the old man tells him he aims to have Rome a republic again, a strange imposition of democratic notions into the world of Rome, if you know the period well.
In Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie the story takes place in a fantasy world where mages rule over non-magic users, and it's events center around one Empress Savina's belief that "All people should be free and equal". The concept of democracy is put off-handedly into the fictional world. We don't know why the Empress takes this view, we don't know what the history of any such sensibility in that world is. It is simply assumed, and aristocratic sensibilities are subject to automatic, facile criticism, a kind of political cheap grace.
Star Wars does a much better job of grounding the concepts of Democracy in sturdier stuff, though leaders sometime seem to skew a little young. The prequels, though clunky in their exposition of the processes, at least tries to answer the question of why yielding to the impulse to create a strong, central leader with unquestioned power is a bad idea, attempts that take on chilling immediacy given recent history. Lucas intersperses his space opera with questions of how wars and crises can change free republics into tyrannical empires.
All in all, though, Democracy is usually expressed not as some working system, but as a normative value. I think that does a disservice to Democracy. Dramas, adventures, and comedies are about contention, centered on conflict, fueled by the dynamic nature of events in the story. Something changes, something is hashed out. Democracy is a living system, and should be shown in that vitality.
In our fantasies, our science fiction, and our other films, we should show in substantive, well-elaborated, plausible, and emotionally affecting ways, the virtues and realities of democracy. We should approach this by either the positive demonstration of how democracies successfully deal with human nature, or by negative demonstration of the failures and tragedies of other systems of government.
In terms of the positive portrayal of Democracy in mythic fashion, we should fashion stories that show how different factions, races and communities resolve differences. The more substantial, the more tragic, the better. It shouldn't be some simple "can't we all just get along", but a real effort fraught with difficulties and legitimate beefs. The resolution should feel earned, gained by fighting the good fight against our own nature, our own selfish impulses. Democracy shouldn't be portrayed as passive vote counting, but passionate debate and efforts at persuasion.
The negative affirmation of democracy, that is, advocacy by the showing of the fatal weaknesses of other systems, should be constructed with equal artfulness. Though having substantial, obvious evils to fight is not altogether bad, it's also crucial to demonstrate the evils of such systems that are not immediately obvious but nonetheless are just as bad. We should show these systems putting good civil servants in positions where they are obligated to commit evils against their better judgment, or bad people in a position where it becomes difficult for good people to opposed them and remain lawfully in the system.
The important part from either angle of things is that the principles of Democracy are not just background noise, or assumptions taken for granted, but active and plausible agents in the creation and preservation of our freedoms, our happiness, and our prosperity.
For too long in our books and films, we have paid lip service to democracy, while pining for the police powers of fascist's states, the military powers of empire, and the political powers of monarchy and aristocracy in our stories.
It's time we grow into an appreciation of our nation's unique political contribution to the world, and start giving ourselves and other nations in the world a substantive vision of why we choose to be a democracy, and why a democratic system is the system to chose. More importantly, it's time we start telling the tales that will teach our children the virtues of such a system. While the old fairytales and myths deserve to be told, new songs need to be sung of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Posted by Stephen Daugherty at January 22, 2005 09:33 AMThis is really good, Stephen. We all understand the complexities of our world through simple stories. Many of our stories are outdated, suited to a time of men on white horses. I always thought that Bible stories could use an update. The stories of shepherds made sense to people who know something about sheep. I am sure the nuances are lost on most of us modern guys. It is like trying to explain a Seinfeld episode to a Chinese peasant.
Speaking of China, I saw Hero as even more sinister. I think it was meant as a message to Taiwan and maybe some other Chinese diaspora regions.
Democracy isn’t heroic and it can be bad idea to have a leader who is too heroic or too hands on. Speaking of stories, I am a fan of the West Wing with Martin Sheen. If the President’s office really worked like that, however, it would be very frightening. Not only do they take too active part in very small issues that are none of the president’s business, but the staff seems remarkably ignorant of context. But you can’t tell a complicated story in a hour episode. That’s our problem.
Jack-
What’s great about the liberal tradition of understanding stories is that you’re not limited to merely understanding stories of your own culture. One can learn of the nature of the culture and experience their stories in a symbiotic scheme of education. You can learn a great deal about Japan, for example, from the study of their anime. Themes like post apocalyptic thought, strong affinity for American culture and language, trends in their own culture, in addition to the religious and spiritual sensibility of the nation. Curiosity about Christianity is there, but it takes on very strange forms.
We can never understand any culture perfectly, our own culture included! As a Christian who was once a rather secular agnostic, I’ve had my share of exposure to the assumptions of both groups. I know from experience that there is no perfect separation. Human values are often held across partisan boundaries. The more basic, the better.
I think there are ways to work out what some of the differences are, and why they are there, and back from that, understand what people see in the stories of others. Mythological works are good for this, because we understand the basic idea of the hero, and the nature of the differences between cultures are often more telling and transparent in mythological context.
I believe literal readings of the bible are harmful for that reason, because the absence of context renders such stories less intelligible. Because it is of ancient time, we need to understand those times better, and not take our own interpretation as anything approaching perfect. But such humility, I believe, is a good thing, and a check on excessive fanaticism.
Looking at Hero, I saw little to indicate that Taiwan was a matter at issue. I think Hero goes deeper than the present masters of the realm. It deals with the history of China itself. This is Wu Xia film, a genre not unlike our medieval fantasy, only with some of the cultural cache of the Western. The idea here is as centered in the thousands of years of different imperial dynasties.
Don’t get me wrong. I would wager that Zhang Yimou wrote Hero from a patriotic sensibility, regarding his country and government. However, the genre he chose has it’s roots in Chinese culture and history, and the impulse in the story has its kin in our country, with the Arthur legend, the legend of a once and future high king of Britain, ruling over the British Isles as a whole.
I know I felt uncomfortable with the notion expressed in the movie, even as I enjoyed the brilliant action, and well written dramatic story. But even as I felt uncomfortable with the theory, I began to understand that there was an underlying cultural root to his story- that of the warring periods before the Chin dynasty.
Essentially, with Hero, we are dealing with an ancient origin story for the nation. In Chinese history, there was an ancient empire, I think the Shang dynasty or something like that, mostly lost to legend now. After that, you have the period of the warring states, the end of which this is a representation of. After that comes the Chin or Xin dynasty, which unites the territories of the warring states age, and creates China as a country.
The myth of the Chin dynasty is like Russia’s concept of being the Third Rome (after Byzantium and the original), the Arab Caliphate, the Secular Jew’s Zion, Britain’s Camelot, America’s City on the Hill, etcetera, etcetera. It’s a national myth. However sinister it seems, it’s not intended as such for its target audience.
As for the complexity of stories- Well, Aaron Sorkin wrote the majority of the episodes, and one can get into certain writing habits, good, bad and neutral, regarding the content created. In later seasons of Ally McBeal, written mostly by David Kelley, certain words and behaviors became shorthanded, and certain tendencies in the choice of content, and the expression of bias became more pronounced.
If a storyteller accepts more help, and delegates responsibilities, the stories can remain more complex the point of view less ideosyncratic. In the case of the West Wing, Sorkin’s tendencies were pronounced in terms of political lecturing and a less careful hashing out of the circumstances of the plot.
But don’t underestimate the complexity of a good plot. It is not easy to surprise people, to effect them, to shape events plausibly and well. The best complexity, though, will invite underestimation, because the material, though moving and nuanced, will be experience intuitively, rather than by much conscious thought. But it will nonetheless be rich in intellectual thought and emotional nuance. You just can’t cram people’s heads with unfamiliar theories and information. You got to have some sort of system set up during the course of the story to guide people through the chains and networks of meaning
I guess what I’m saying, is that the hidden depths of great stories carry a lot of elaborate meanings. We just don’t notice most of them. Either because it comes to our attention so naturally, or because the medium and its content are so persuasive.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at January 22, 2005 09:51 PMIn our modern society, with its instant communications, we don’t often take time to think about why we believe what we believe and we don’t take the time to really understand metaphor. I commend you on this.
I don’t know if you have experienced the physical joy of reading poetry. Try it with something like the Iliad (of course you need a good translation) or in English you can do with something like the Song of Hiawatha. Read it loud. Don’t worry about the meaning. Just let it flow over you. Some things are not meant to be read silently.
Our education system has done us all a disservice by almost eliminating rote memorization. I like to memorize passages of literature or poetry and then play them back in my mind. But I am really straying from your subject.
I had the privilege of knowing the poet Czeslaw Milosz. He was in his old age, but was the most contented man I have ever met. Of course, he had a lot to be happy about. He spent his winters in Berkeley and his summers in Krakow and was esteemed in both places. But most of his contentment was based on his integrity built over years of contemplation of life through poetry.
jack-
I think we would do well to re-introduce rote memorization, but the problem is that teachers assign so much homework that the child has no time to do all the rehearsal that such a system requires. We overload our children with practice problems. All the standardized test prep that’s taken the place of actual instruction hasn’t helped.
Trouble is, we’re not teaching kids the underlying reality of what they’re learning. They goof off with computers, cellphones, game consoles and TVs that require complex mathematics to operate, and yet they ask, “when could I ever use this?” When so many can’t even keep their checkbook straight, such questions are lamentable indications of just how unintegrated our education is with the world we live in.
Our understanding of how our government works, and what power we have over it is also lamentably behind the times. Only through a string of crises is interest even picking up. We are suddenly discovering that no, it really does matter who we have as president, and yes, it is vastly important whether we plan well for our military ventures in the world.
We can no longer afford to be anti-intellectual in todays world. We cannot live on heart and gut alone, because without the head, the rest of us doesn’t know what it’s dealing with in the rest of the world.
We have to start examining, dramatically speaking, the underpinnings of our society. We have to reintroduce notions of honesty and honor that seem to have been pushed aside by greed and egotistical expedience. Morality has too long remained something we discuss in the context of gay marriage and abortion, and little else. It has, for too long, been something we only bring into the media when we want to take something out, not put something in.
I am convinced that people want more out of their heroes, more principle, more wisdom and intelligence. They want more than just folks they can identify with, they want heroes and heroines they can admire. Part of that is making them human enough to where the admirable traits in a person can shine through the imperfect all the brighter, and normal people like ourselves can be comforted that such heroism isn’t out of our reach.
Our culture has unfortunately gotten rather big on the self-esteem kick, not understanding that faith in oneself without deeds is a dead faith. What we need is a society that connects all the different parts of itself in the educational sphere, that makes children feel better about themselves by making them more capable, because capability will continue to give them confidence, while false encouragement will only undermine things.
Kids are smart enough to figure out how far they’re falling short, and how far they are expected to rise. They aren’t wise enough, though, to distinguish innate faults of intelligence from temporary faults of ignorance. I have experience times, on many occasions, when I’ve gotten the impression that people are smart enough to understand something, but they underestimate their capability to understand those things.
We need to contemplate reality and then have the courage to respond to it in the best way possible. We should not settle for second best or third-rate in our evidence when we seek to do world-changing things. The risks are too high to deal with such things in anything but the most serious spirit of critical inquiry. We should work the problem to death, and work it that way again until we can live breath and respond to the situations as they arise, and not six months after they arise. If anything about the study of storytelling has told me anything, you can’t convince people with a story when the evidence tells a different story than you’re willing to admit is there.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at January 23, 2005 05:59 PMStephen
I guess nobody much cares about literature and leadership except you and me, and we seem mostly to agree. It was a good post that deserves more comments. You should have said something nasty about President Bush in the title. That draws a crowd.
One of the lesser-known WB Yeats poems seems appropriate for me.
Why should not old men be mad?
Why should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher’s wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all of Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
and when they known what old books tell,
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
