Film Friday
New York Times columnist David Brooks had a recent column where he talked about the need for idealistic young people to toughen up. While admiring their commitment to service, he noted that they underestimate the problem of disorder and human darkness. They are naive, he believes, in thinking that compassion and resources are enough and that one can avoid the grimy reality of politics.
His suggestion? Do what the “greatest generation” did and model yourself on Sam Spade. Here’s Brooks:
The noir heroes like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon served as models for a generation of Americans, and they put the focus squarely on venality, corruption and disorder and how you should behave in the face of it.
A noir hero is a moral realist. He assumes that everybody is dappled with virtue and vice, especially himself. He makes no social-class distinction and only provisional moral distinctions between the private eyes like himself and the criminals he pursues. The assumption in a Hammett book is that the good guy has a spotty past, does spotty things and that the private eye and the criminal are two sides to the same personality.
He (or she — the women in these stories follow the same code) adopts a layered personality. He hardens himself on the outside in order to protect whatever is left of the finer self within.
He is reticent, allergic to self-righteousness and appears unfeeling, but he is motivated by a disillusioned sense of honor. The world often rewards the wrong things, but each job comes with obligations and even if everything is decaying you should still take pride in your work. Under the cynical mask, there is still a basic sense of good order, that crime should be punished and bad behavior shouldn’t go uncorrected. He knows he’s not going to be uplifted by his work; that to tackle the hard jobs he’ll have to risk coarsening himself, but he doggedly plows ahead.
This worldview had a huge influence as a generation confronted crime, corruption, fascism and communism. I’m not sure I can see today’s social entrepreneurs wearing fedoras and trench coats. But noir’s moral realism would be a nice supplement to today’s prevailing ethos. It would fold some hardheadedness in with today’s service mentality. It would focus attention on the core issues: order and rule of law. And it would be necessary. Contemporary Washington, not to mention parts of the developing world, may be less seedy than the cities in the noir stories, but they are equally laced with self-deception and self-dealing.
Jesus advocated a similar balance to his disciples: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves”(Matthew 10:16). And why not wear trench coats while you’re doing it?
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The lines that interested me were these: “A noir hero is a moral realist. He assumes that everybody is dappled with virtue and vice, especially himself.’
My problem with the article is that Brooks himself seems to paint these young idealists with clean white brush strokes, the problem seems to be (if I understand his perspective) that these young idealists aren’t realists about the dark world they inhabit. But surely the point of the noir film analogy he uses is that we are all a part of the dark world out there…the vice and virtue of the world is made from our own complexities as human beings. These young idealists are not perfect specimens of human beings; and perhaps they need to be as much aware of the imperfections within themselves as they need to be aware of the imperfections in the world they hope to change.
Here at home and perhaps in other countries…so many young white people come here with the intention to save and change Africa and I guess by default to change Africans.
I have seen twenty year olds open NGOs; ostensibly to educate and heal and all the other things one assumes Africa needs. And one wonders what a twenty year old American knows of people in my country and their needs? The answer is “next to nothing”. Compassion and resources are indeed sometimes not enough. Especially when you don’t understand the society or people you are supposedly helping; and indeed have little interest in really understanding the people or society. This may be one of the reasons Aid to Africa has failed in so many ways (well that and the corruption of both the recipient countries and the donor countries).
The people who come here to help (and they are indeed mostly white)… have as far as I can tell little nuance in their understanding of themselves as bringers of good in the societies to which they come. They see themselves primarily as saints versus the sinners they have come to save. Whatever their political persuasion or religious persuasion…they are good and wise and we are bad and very unwise(to put it mildly).
Yes, I am generalizing and the are plenty of people form the West doing great things on this dark continent. But there are many as well who could do with some serious reflection on the work they do, how they do it and how they see themselves in the context of the developing world, and look beyond their understanding of themselves as saints versus the sinners. Another side to the problem is that many uneducated Africans still also see white people as primarily benevolent souls: innocent, good and wise…..in their intent.
There are also very large numbers of white people coming to adopt in African countries, particularly here at home where the laws are still frighteningly and horrifyingly lax. I support adoption, but when the people adopting have little understanding of the lives of the children they adopt except that the children are poor, cute and in need, then it is troubling. Even more troubling (and although I am again generalizing) is that so many adopters seem to have little interest in understanding the cultures from which they adopt their children. And so many see themselves in the role of “saviour”…which may well be true; but there seems to be little acknowledgement of the complexities of adoption: interracial/intercultural or otherwise. And I see an increasingly large number of young couples coming to adopt; brimming, I guess, with idealism and the idea that compassion and resources are enough. Sadly, life is far more complex and a little reflection on the darkness and our light of our selves as human beings even as we endeavour to be compassionate and to do good works would make the world a better place.
I’m not sure what Brooks means by “self dealing”, but there is certainly a lot of self deception going round. I include myself in the number.
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This is a vital perspective, Farida, and I think you go more profoundly into the issue than Brooks does. I like your satiric reference to “the dark continent.” (I assume the sun shines in Uganda.) Heart of Darkness comes to mind in this discussion, and even though Conrad too was guilty of using Africa as a symbol of darkness (as Chinua Achebe has pointed out), at least he called Western Christianity out for its naivete.
I heard a story not too long ago on National Public Radio about some missionary group coming in and “saving” Ugandan children. (I think it was Uganda.) Speaking of Achebe, it reminded me of Things Fall Apart and the attention the missionaries paid to those who had been exiled from the community. It’s good that these people had someone to speak up for them for the first times in their lives, but as Achebe made clear that was more the counterbalanced by the evils of colonialism.