Hugh Hewitt is one of the chief patrons of center-right blogging. His book was seminal. He gave many of us our starts by his kindness in tolerating and promoting our early efforts. One of my personal pleasures is chatting with Hugh about, well, anything.
Hugh is an optimist . . . a man of the future . . . and someone who loves his country. Imagine my shock at this exchange.
Following a series of great questions about the nature of the Eucharist, Hewitt began to drift. Or did he?
It seemed, but perhaps I misunderstood, that Hewitt questioned the use of film in the classroom.
Film is the story telling medium of our time . . . an art form perfected in the United States. If a student is to understand his peers, he must lift his head (if only for a moment) from his Plato and learn to understand this American medium.
Some films that make the American Film Institute List of 100 Greatest American Films were the entertainment of our childhood, but that does not destroy their artistic and cultural significance.
A great work of art can be entertaining and inspiring. Surely there is nothing more revealing to a student about a change in our nation than the shift in tone between Ben Hur, the culminating film of the 1950’s, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made just ten years later.
Of course, such inclusion must be done with care . . . at the end of a classical education with emphasis on great texts.
On one point, I must concede Hugh’s wisdom.
Students should read Plutarch. Though the Romans were barbarians until Greece civilized them, some good came from the Imperial City. Hewitt’s point is made when he says that students in war-time need Plutarch’s Lives.
We must add Plutarch to our reading list.
And yet can Hewitt really not want students heading for film careers to learn how the muses of our age impact us? Can he want us merely to consume film or make it merely for commercial purposes and not grasp its power?
Surely, there is something to be said for trying to raise up a Frank Capra to make films that explain “why we fight” .
Perhaps by understanding how films make heroes and saviors, students will be able to tell the tales of those brave soldiers now defending us in Iraq.
I can only point out that power to the Hewitt Show was lost immediately after this display of what we can only hope was Hewitt-irony.
Let me not suggest directly that this was Divine Wrath, but instead merely insinuate with subtlety that Someone may not have been pleased.
Say you are not an educational Luddite, Hugh. Say you do not reject one of the finest contributions of the United States of America to global culture. Say you are the man of the future, the optimist we know you are.
