I can understand why Lions for Lambs, Robert Redford’s recent movie, received mixed reviews; in fact, I can completely understand why many people would hate it. It is preachy, very preachy. Nearly one-third of the film portrays Tom Cruise’s character (a Republican senator) lecturing Meryl Streep’s character (a veteran reporter) in support of the administration’s fight against terror, while the reporter in turn lectures the senator about the misguided war in Iraq. As the film progresses, Cruise’s character and Streep’s character lecture each other about their complicity in America’s misfortunes.
That is already a great deal of preaching.
The genius of the movie is that it questions whether the political debates in government and academia have any meaning at all. The sympathetic heroes of the movie are two young men who tire of the arguments and choose action, to wit, going to Afghanistan to fight for their country. As a result of political decisions that are being debated in offices and hallways a long way away, they end up in mortal danger.
The film itself has four vital venues. The senator’s office is the first setting. In the second, a university professor’s office, Robert Redford’s character debates a promising but disengaged student about his role in life. In the third setting, the reporter is arguing in her editor’s office about the role of the press. The fourth is a cold and wintry mountain ridge in Afghanistan.
The senator and reporter have the first Great Debate. Both are consummate insiders. The senator is a crucial player in a new hard-hitting military strategy in Afghanistan, with repercussions for Iraq, Iran, and the entire Near East. The reporter’s initial job in her profession concerned Vietnam, and her left-wing sensibilities — anti-war and anti-Republican sentiments come through loud and clear. After running through the worn out pros and cons for, and against, military action in Asia, the two end up challenging each other over who is using who in the relationship between media and government. When the reporter takes the argument back to her editor, it takes on a different slant: what is the relationship between the corporate world and ‘real’ news?
The more accessible argument is between the professor and the student. The professor is a Vietnam vet turned protester, who became a professor. He thought that he could use his mind, his words, and his professorial credentials to change the world. He was unsuccessful. He resigned himself to a different mission: to single out a few exceptional students and push them toward greatness.
At this time, those teachers who educate students in the social sciences can be forgiven, I think, for considering the teacher something other than a failure. We educate our kids about history and geography and politics, but these are things that don’t necessarily interest most kids, but for good reason. They do not have a frame of reference for understanding the vital importance of these subjects. But as the kids develop, they will utilize what we teach — though most likely without awareness —- as they connect the mental dots and make sense of the world.
The student opposite Redford’s professor became a cynic, figuring at a young age that certain elites make the decisions, and that even entering those elites is corrupting. So earn some money, live a charmed life, and don’t take any responsibility for any of the decisions made in the halls of power.
This brings me to Afghanistan. Two soldiers were in the professor’s class. They decided on action, they decided to do something. They thought that serving their country gave them credibility as the driving forces of change that academia did not. The professor tried to dissuade them, but they joined the Army, as special forces soldiers. This put them in grave danger, and this tied them to the other debates.
Should the student stay home and live the good life, or take the chance of being pinned down by the Taliban in an icy gorge in the Hindu Kush? To what degree does it make a difference if the senator’s military plan is the right one? Does it diminish the soldiers’ nobility and exonerate the professor and student who choose a battlefield of words in a cushy college setting? If soldiers are killed, is the reporter culpable for playing the insiders’ games instead of sounding the alarm? Does the path of action turn the soldiers into pathetic pawns in a game played for the benefit of distant powers? Or are they the lone bona fide players, and the pitiful ones are the suits who send our hopes into the snowy skies over a shadowy and barren country?
Maybe the world is just too complicated for regular folks, and the noble life of action is the morally correct one. Maybe the debates of wonks in Washington or New York no longer connect to the real world.
