A few days ago I saw the new Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino which is ably reviewed by our own Peter Suderman here. Lots of critics have charged the movie, and Eastwood’s directorial efforts generally, with a kind of bleak nihilism that finds hope only in the heroic but feckless struggle against the meaninglessness of life. Whether that holds true for Eastwood’s previous movies is a matter for another post (and another blogger) but with respect to Gran Torino it seems to miss the mark.
The primary struggle in the movie is between tradition and culture, on the one hand, and the rootlessness often promoted by American liberalism, on the other. Eastwood’s character, Walt, finds himself completely dislocated, living in a neighborhood suddenly unrecognizable to him, populated with people that are not only strangers to him but culturally unfamiliar. He is largely estranged from his family– his sons are depicted as basically decent people but Walt is clearly incapable of connecting to them, partly because of his own austere traditionalism and his sons’ embracing of modernity and partly because of the emotional toll war took on him. Traditional culture is never given an unambiguous three cheers in the movie–one disadvantage of taking seriously the particularity of cultures and their competing claims to embodying the truth is that different cultures inevitably clash; Walt benefited from a tradition that provided him with a cetain work ethic and moral compass but it also debilitated him.
The central point of comparision in the movie is between his grandkids and the the two sets of young Asian teenagers who live in his deteriorating neighborhood. His own grandkids are depicted somewhat heavy-handedly–they are incapable of respect for others, reject Walt as an ancient relic, and seem lost in the fashionable, technology driven consumerism that dominates the day. In a sense, they’re a much softer, more banal version of the gangster teens who terrorize Walt’s neighborhood–also rootless and directionless, also driven by the most crass of desires, also living a kind of self-encapsulated nihilistic nightmare. In their case, however, deprived of the comforts that come with material success, their nihilism is often of a brutal and violent variety.
The third set of teens, also Asians, are caught somewhere between their very traditional culture and the liberalism that tolerates its exercise but also encourages the conditions that prove inhospitable to its flourishing. Walt befriends two of them despite the awkwardness created by the strangeness of the culture in is eyes. They are both more modern and more Amercanized than their parents but respect the tradition their parents impart; they seem able to weather the tumult and danger of their neighborhood only because of the moral grounding it provides. They are the central protagonists of the movie, even more so than Walt, precisely because their lives are exemplars of the struggle between their inherited tradition the reflexive iconoclasm of modernity.
One interesting proposition the movie seems to endorse is that there’s a way in which modern liberalism can save itself through its own tolerance and prosperity–as long as we continue to attract more tradition bearing immigrants to our country with the allure of economic opportunity we can counterbalance our own rootless tendencies. This is an imperfect solution, of course, and the movie suggests that this merely postpones the issue to the next generation who face the perils of our cultural cynicism all over again. Nevertheless, Gran Torino manages to capture a central paradox of American life: its openness to cultural diversity and its general dismissal of the importance of culture.
January 19th, 2009 | 11:58 am
“a central paradox of American life: its openness to cultural diversity and its general dismissal of the importance of culture.”
This isn’t really a paradox when you consider that liberalism lies on two dogmas: the universality of rights, and the self as a rational monad. Put these two together and culture becomes something that limits human freedom and should be resisted.
January 19th, 2009 | 1:37 pm
“as long as we continue to attract more tradition bearing immigrants to our country with the allure of economic opportunity we can counterbalance our own rootless tendencies.”I couldn’t help but see another moral: Reject your forefathers, and your inheritance will pass to foreigners.
Apparently Gran Torino has become a favorite among older folks. My parents went to a Saturday evening showing and said the theater audience was the oldest they had ever seen.
January 20th, 2009 | 11:59 am
Empedocles, I agree with your take on that “paradox.” It seems logical that a dismissal of the importance of culture (especially in the sense of a consumeristic cultural relativism) could lead to an openness to cultural diversity.
It’s precisely because ice cream flavors are in a sense unimportant that I’m fine with having as many flavors as possible.
January 20th, 2009 | 2:14 pm
Of course I should add that I don’t believe either of those things are true. Our tradition of rights is just another part of Western culture, like ice cream, they are not a supra-historical laws of nature. And the atomic self doesn’t exist either as all of the facets of the self are also derived from history.
January 20th, 2009 | 5:21 pm
Well, that all seems to assume that the America is tradition-less–nothing but a set of Lockean principles, theoretical in character. However, while once could argue that the Lockean premises have been increasingly emphasized to the neglect of other components of our republic, that’s clearly not all there is.And the liberal tolerance of competing cultures is not culture neutral: it prioritizes some cultures over others (those more accomodating of liberal premises), compels others to at least partially modernize (those clearly not made in a liberal spirit), and denies the claims all cultures to make to capture the whole of the truth. As far as Empodocles’ claim goes regarding the the self as nothing other than a historical construction, that contradicts not just our historical and political experience, not to mention any ordinary observations of human behavior, but also the bulk of available scientific evidence.
January 21st, 2009 | 10:54 am
I don’t think you understand what I mean when I say that all facets of the self are derived from history (not that I made it at all clear). All I meant is that our values, tastes, desires, and beliefs–in short, the self–are determined by history. Our values are passed to us through our education, ideas are copied from person to person as they are passed to us. Even our bodies are copied through history but here is is out genes that are copied and passed to us. That is all I meant by saying that the self is derived from history. This site is very concerned with fostering a respect for culture cultural identity and honor of ones history. Liberalism destroys this respect and honor by rendering culture and history secondary. Only be seeing the historical origins of the self, and not seeing it as an isolated monad, will people see the importance of culture and history to their identity.
January 21st, 2009 | 4:47 pm
If all the blank slate talk is true, then why did the mass remakings of the 20th century all fail. By your thinking there should be no reason that I could not take children and simply remake history. People are influenced by the past, but if they were so deeply connected to their cultural history then we could assume they actually might have learned something and would not be supporting things that logicly will move them back into a darker time. Multi-culturalism is about killing the spirit of the american founding by forcing people to either say they are better than someone else or conceding the point. Most lack the courage to stand up for their beliefs so whatever the founding culture was is deameaned and eventually lost. We no are a flock of sheep who instead of giving our wool we give our labor in order to fulfill our contract to be consumers with our shepards. At least we get to be happy little lambs with our telescreens, ipods, iphones, ect. With all this great stimulous to occupy the mind who cares if we are in fact slaves.
January 21st, 2009 | 4:50 pm
i think the movie could be made out to be 1984 vs. brave new world. Do you want a harsh tryanny with violent people redused to a Hobbesian state of nature or would you prefer brave new world’s vision of a people so distracted they are unaware that they are slaves.
April 9th, 2010 | 10:49 pm
i think the movie could be made out to be 1984 vs. brave new world. Do you want a harsh tryanny with violent people redused to a Hobbesian state of nature or would you prefer brave new world’s vision of a people so distracted they are unaware that they are slaves.
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