Readers Are Unpredictable

To continue my train of thought from the previous two posts—on what the humanities can do, and why we need not worry so much about whether such a claim instrumentalizes them—I want to add the following qualification: it is impossible to say with any confidence, “This is what studying the humanities (or reading good literature or attentively watching good films and the like) will do for you.” There is much that engaging with philosophy, literature, and the arts could do for us, but so much will depend on our disposition: how we approach these things and what we seek to gain from them. So much depends on our hermeneutical framework and whether we have (or at least seek to cultivate) the virtues needed for the kind of reading that has a chance of changing us for the better. 

Regarding our hermeneutic: Are we seeking to learn or be challenged by the text, or only to have our biases confirmed? Are we seeking to understand what the author is intending, or are we projecting our own thoughts and feelings onto the text? 

And regarding the requisite virtues: Are we practicing patient attentiveness? Are we both discerning and charitable? Do we have the humility to be receptive to new or challenging ideas?

Of course, the worth and excellence of the text studied also matters. Some books or films will be much better suited to aiding our moral formation than others; indeed some can only be corrosive. But Karen Swallow Prior is right to say in the introduction to her book On Reading Well that, if reading is to help us become more virtuous, we must practice certain virtues as we read. It will not do to say that if only so-and-so would just read Republic or Pride and Prejudice, it will reshape their vision of the good life. Reading is not a “just add water” solution.

Unfortunately, there are very good readers out there who are terrible people. I think of the scene in the Coen Brothers’ remake of The Ladykillers (2004), in which the lead criminal played by Tom Hanks waxes poetic about the power of literature: “I often find myself more at home in these ancient volumes than I do in the hustle-bustle of the modern world. To me, paradoxically, the literature of the so-called ‘dead tongues’ holds more currency than this morning's newspaper. In these books, in these volumes, there is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, which succors me when the day is hard and the night lonely and long.” He is seen enjoying his reading, but clearly it hasn’t softened his conscience. On the other hand, it’s possible for good people to be poor readers, prone to take passages out of context or just not have the desire to sit down and read at all.

But if anything should give us pause about making grand promises about what the humanities will do for the renovation of a soul or the renewal of a culture, let’s consider the greatest and truest story ever told, which does indeed have the power to change a heart: the gospel. “The Parable of the Sower” in the gospels shows that even the gospel will fall on deaf ears, be rejected, or even just forgotten and abandoned in the course of the cares of life. The Spirit must be at work to make the heart receptive, otherwise mere hearing does nothing.

Lacking God’s omniscience, for us the response of a hearer or a reader is unpredictable. A person could read the Bible and be drawn to faith and repentance, or twist its words to justify selfish ambition or abuse, or think it’s boring, or say, “How inspiring and life-affirming!” and miss the point. And if that can be true of a person’s encounter God’s holy, life-giving Word, how much more uncertain it is whether even the best works of fallible humans in the fields of literature, art, and philosophy will make a positive difference! A person might not have the knowledge of how to read well, or may simply choose not to.

That’s a downer note to end on, I know, but it’s worth sitting with and pondering, and this post is long enough already. 

Admirers and Followers

Here’s a rule of thumb: whenever an artist, storyteller, or some other creative type shows up in a narrative and talks about his or her craft, pay attention if you want insight into the writer’s own beliefs about why we tell stories—and the responsibilities, possibilities, and potential pitfalls this entails.

For example, re-watching Terrence Malick’s film A Hidden Life (2019) the other day, I was struck again by the scene in which Franz Jägerstätter observes the painter, Ohlendorf, adding or touching up images in the chapel of the village. If Malick ever made an autobiographical statement about his vocation in a film, it would be here.

Ohlendorf acknowledges there is a danger that stories can leave people unmoved while giving them the false assurance that they have been moved. He says, “I paint the tombs of the prophets. I help people look up from those pews and dream. They look up and they imagine if they lived back in Christ’s time they wouldn't have done what the others did. They wouldn't have murdered those whom we now adore.” That is, the biblical stories he paints on the walls could confirm people in their complacency rather than shaking them out of it. 

But the work he does also poses a danger for the painter himself. “I paint all this suffering,” he says, “but, I don't suffer myself. I make a living of it.” While he “paint[s] their comfortable Christ, with a halo over his head,” he can profit off the pleasant, uncomplicated feelings it creates in the viewers. Ohlendorf, like any other storyteller, could be praised for being a truth-teller while never saying anything that upsets the lies people love to tell themselves. And, if he wasn’t honest with himself, he’d be in danger of deceiving himself that he has experienced “what I haven't lived.” This is why he hasn’t “venture[d]” to “paint the true Christ.” He doesn’t want to fool anyone, especially not himself, that because he has created a portrayal of Christ he knows something about following the true Christ. He worries about letting himself off the hook, just like he is worried his paintings let viewers off the hook. Making or receiving art about Christ cannot fulfill or exempt from the “demand” that “Christ’s life” makes upon everyone.

Through Ohlendorf, then, Malick is challenging us, and challenging himself. We could be inspired by Franz and Fani’s sacrifices to resist Hitler for the sake of Christ, and go right on paying to Caesar what isn’t Caesar’s to maintain our comfortable lives. Malick and his collaborators could be tempted to think that, because they have poured so much care and thought into telling us Franz and Fani’s story, they have been changed by it as a matter of course.

But while Ohlendorf’s words caution that stories—even good, true, noble ones!—can be used to insulate us from the call to practice hard virtues, his words also suggest they can nudge us toward answering that call. Notice I used the word ‘nudge,’ not ‘push.’ It’s very easy for storytellers and the popularizers of stories (critics, teachers) to overstate their importance, to believe things like, “If only we could put the right stories before audiences, the culture would change!” For one thing, the Parable of the Sower tells us that even the truest and best story of all, the gospel, often falls on unreceptive ground. How much slimmer are the odds that any man-made story could change a heart!

Appropriately skeptical, then, Ohlendorf’s view of the storyteller’s role is modest, restricted. He says, “What we do, is just create—sympathy. We create—we create admirers. We don't create followers.” Some might hear those lines as a dismissal of storytelling, or art generally; if it can’t create followers, if all it can do is create sympathetic admirers, it can’t be worth much. But before someone can become a follower, he must first become an admirer of the person to be followed. And how does one become an admirer? Through sympathy. And sympathy is what narratives are so very good at creating. Stories are empathy-workouts. They draw us into caring deeply about characters, sometimes like us and sometimes very unlike us.  

It’s significant, surely, that it’s after this meeting with the painter that Franz makes his final resolution to turn himself in for refusing to make an oath to Hitler. I’d suggest the painter’s images and words prompted him to consider, in a new or sharper light, the true Christ. The painter stirred Franz’s sympathy for the sufferings of Christ—and perhaps spurred a recognition that Christ will reciprocally sympathize with him in his sufferings for His sake—and this sparked a greater admiration for Christ, and that compelled Franz to follow Christ, even unto death. The painter didn’t make Franz a follower of the true Christ, but he did help make him a greater admirer. And that counts for something.

As a former filmmaker, an amateur film critic, and a scholar (and soon-to-be teacher) of literature, all my life I’ve been asking why stories matter. Does it make a difference what kinds of stories we tell or receive? What can our stories do in the world? The answer Malick gives to these questions, in this scene, is that stories shape our affections. That’s what sympathy and admiration are: expressions of what we love. Once an affection becomes strong enough, through repeated exposure to a story or a set of similar stories, actions will follow. This is why it matters which stories we tell ourselves. For a negative example, look no further than the mayor of Franz’s village, who spews hatred because he has been shaped by the mythology of Hitler. 

Watching A Hidden Life will not, in and of itself, inspire someone to follow the Jägerstätters’ example. But if the film, in concert with other stories about sacrifice, can establish sympathy and then compel admiration, maybe some day they will have followers.

New Article: Reading with the Jedi

I have a new article, titled “The Dead Speak!: Reading with the Jedi,” that was published today over at the Mere Orthodoxy blog. It combines several of my favorite things: Star Wars, reading and reading ethics, and quoting from C. S. Lewis and Alan Jacobs. I am grateful to Tim Lawrence for his feedback on the early drafts, and to Jake Meador for publishing the article.

Disney Animation and Expressive Individualism

It is often said that Disney films, at least in the past few decades, espouse expressive individualism. I have thought the same thing, and still think it is largely the case. However, over time I have realized that three among my favorite Disney animated films, all three of them from what to me is the most eclectic and daring period in Disney Animation’s recent history—The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), Treasure Planet (2002), and Brother Bear (2003)—each show the dangers of expressive individualism and suggest that maturity involves submitting to community standards and accountability. So, in fairness to the creators of these films, while the generalization is mostly true, we shouldn’t paint all of Disney’s productions with such a broad brush.

First, in my debut article for FilmFisher in 2018, I had this to say about Brother Bear:  

Charles Taylor has described secular individualism this way: “People are called upon to be true of themselves and to seek their own self-fulfillment. What this consists of, each must, in the last instance, determine for him- or herself. No one else can or should try to dictate its content.” [The quotation is from Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Harvard UP, 1992, p. 14.]

This statement could describe the hero’s journey of several Disney protagonists. But Brother Bear subverts Disney’s individualistic mythos. To adapt Taylor’s words: Kenai is never told to be true to himself. That would actually be disastrous, because what Kenai learns about himself is ugly and shameful. In biblical terms, he is a sinner at heart, not a saint. Instead, he is told by Tanana to pattern his life after love, something outside himself. In the end, he does not seek his own fulfillment, but another’s good. If Kenai had had his way, he never would have determined that path for himself. At first, he outright rejected it as folly. Others dictated the content of his attainment of mature manhood. The spirits chose his totem, Tanana and his brothers told him to follow his totem, and the spirits set him on a path to reconciliation when he abandoned his totem. If Taylor is right, and my analysis of Brother Bear is on to something, this truly is a counter-cultural message.

Second, when I wrote an article on Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2020, I argued the former may not be as individualistic as it certainly seems to be:

The trouble with making the moral of the film “chart your own course,” in the individualistic sense, is that the film, intentionally or not, presents strong reasons against that kind of philosophy. Captain Flint charted his own course, and died alone. Silver charts his own course, but realizes “you give up a few things, chasing a dream” — in his case, parts of his own body. Worst of all, Jim’s father, for all we can tell, charted his own course, and he abandoned his wife and son. But the moral exemplars of the film — Sarah, Dr. Doppler, and Captain Amelia — are marked by their principles, discipline, and service. They take initiative and responsibility for themselves, but never without regard for others. Jim matures when he honors his mother, submits to Captain Amelia’s leadership, and follows Silver’s instructions. When Jim does start charting his own course, he fights to protect his friends, not to pursue his own interests. When Silver invites Jim to join him for a life of open, endless possibilities, the course he charts instead is toward a life constrained by limitations. He enrolls in the Naval Academy — and militaries, schools, and military schools especially, are not places for expansive, self-determining individualism.

In the next paragraph, I quoted the same Charles Taylor passage I had used in the Brother Bear article, and then continued: 

Up until I was working on this article, I always thought Silver’s speech exemplified this kind of thinking. That may still be the case. After all, Taylor’s description encapsulates the Disney ethos. But as I now consider the speech within the context of the film, it seems to take on a newer and truer meaning. Perhaps, even as Jim is called to be true to himself, he is also called to be true to others. Perhaps those others still need to tell him who he should be, and even better, help him become who he should be. Otherwise, if Jim pushes everyone away, who will be there to catch the light coming off him?

Third, I haven’t written an article on The Emperor’s New Groove—not yet—but here is the short version of my argument it is not in favor of expressive individualism: Is there any character in all of Disney who is more expressively individualistic than Emperor Kuzco, and isn’t he clearly portrayed as a terribly selfish and destructive person who needs to change and start showing concern for others?

All this leads me to two takeaways: 

One, as seen with Treasure Planet, the characters in these films can say one thing (“chart your own course”) while the story can silently undercut those words (the character saying those words is not a moral exemplar). This is why we have to consider every scene in the context of the whole. We have to consider subtext. 

But, two, this presents a difficulty: the target audience for these films is not very good at detecting subtext. When I grew up watching Silver say “Chart your own course,” I took it as the unchallenged viewpoint of the whole film. Similarly, most of the kids who grow up with Frozen likely do not pick up the irony that “Let It Go” is being sung by someone who, swinging the pendulum too far the other way in a response to a restrictive upbringing, is in danger of hurting herself and others. So, those who are reluctant to show these films to children, lest they encourage them to have a me-first mentality, have a point. However, what if these films could be used to help young viewers, when they are ready for it, learn how to recognize subtext? In the context of a discussion with a parent or teacher, these films that seem to espouse expressive individualism could be used to help inoculate against it.

Maybe You Should Give That Film/Book/Album a Second Chance

How many times have I been underwhelmed or upset by a first viewing of a film, or a first reading of a book, or a first listening of an album, only to be glad I gave it a second, third, fourth chance later on? 

For the past few years I have found this to be a helpful rule of thumb: so often, the first viewing/reading/listening is for finding out what the film/book/album is not. It isn’t until the second viewing/reading/listening that I can begin to appreciate what the film/book/album actually is. 

This rule of thumb is especially true if I come to the work with definite expectations. My disappointment with it will be directly proportional to how much it deviates from what I wanted it to be. But if I can get over how it doesn’t meet my terms and try to understand the work on its own terms, then a funny thing can happen: I become glad that it isn’t what I wanted it to be, because what it turns out to be is so much better.

Really, wouldn’t it be boring and dispiriting if my favorite band’s latest album, or my favorite film franchise’s latest sequel, or the book that multiple friends recommended I read, turned out to be exactly what I pictured in my head? The dissonance between expectation and reality can be a very good thing. I won’t gain or learn much of anything from familiarity and predictability.

This is not to say I should give everything that’s ever disappointed me a second chance. There are many works that, after a first viewing/reading/listening, I can fairly confidently predict will not be worth a second appraisal. But if a trusted friend or critic makes a compelling, plausible argument praising the work for something I didn’t notice in it, or if I suspect there’s more going on under the surface than I could comprehend at first, then I am willing to give it another try. More often than not, I’m thankful I did.

P.S. August 27, 2024: See Tim Lawrence’s elaboration on the above.

P.P.S. June 30, 2025: I wrote a sequel to this post.