In terms of genre these three films are very different: Lincoln is a historical drama, Waste Land is a documentary, and Traitor is a spy thriller set in the international world of terrorism. In terms of craft, all three are well made films, telling very different stories in ways that show how cinema is able to imaginatively sweep us into worlds unlike our everyday experience. And all three present us with realities that rightly need careful reflection, and if you are a Christian, some unhurried prayer.

            Lincoln (2012) is, of course, the story of Abraham Lincoln, set during his presidency as the Civil War rages and he seeks to lead the Congress and the nation in forever banning slavery through the passage of a Constitutional amendment. Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays Lincoln and Sally Field, who plays his wife, seem to lose themselves in their roles in powerful performances on the screen. One proof the film is great cinema are several scenes in which little happens. Film depends on action, but in these instances we watch people watching a still Lincoln, deep in thought as he faces a crucial decision. Somehow Day-Lewis fills the stillness with tension, so that as the moments slide by we are not bored but filled with anticipation of what comes next. Based in large part on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, historian Doris Kearns Goodwins’ magisterial study, Lincoln reveals the man and the period as heroic yet far from perfect.

            Waste Land (2010) documents a multi-year project in the life and career of Brazilian artist Vik Muniz. Having achieved success in New York City, Muniz decides to return to Brazil and make art in collaboration with the garbage pickers in Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill of the world just outside Rio de Janeiro. The pickers are among the forgotten people of the world, doing a job that is as dangerous as it is unseemly. They dodge trucks dumping dripping, rotting garbage from the city to pick out scraps of recyclable matter to sell for pennies in an attempt to make a living. The film does a good job of revealing Muniz’s conception of the art slowly, so we see it come together in an act of creativity that unfolds before us as it does within the lives of the pickers he befriends. Waste Land reminds us of the humanity of all people even those on the far margins of society, the meaningfulness of creativity even in the midst of filth and decay, and the dignity of all work even in jobs that are despised by everyone except those who have no other choice.

            Traitor (2008) takes us into the world of international terror. Don Cheadle plays Samir Horn, a CIA agent so deep undercover that the FBI has formed a team with the express purpose of tracking and eliminating him as a terrorist threat. Horn is a Muslim, a skilled maker of bombs who is slowly gaining the respect of a terrorist cell intent on striking a significant blow in the heartland of America. The story unfolds naturally, as we follow Horn living in the shadows of a fanatical world and as the FBI team uncovers his tracks, so not until the end can we be certain who are the good guys—or whether any fully good guys even exist. To win acceptance Horn must make and detonate bombs, and in the process innocent people perish. It is a price that must be paid if Horn is to win acceptance and work his way up the ladder among the various terrorist cells to those calling the shots at the top.

            Three remarkable and remarkably different films, yet each truthful in the stories they tell about the human condition. And so they pose questions worth careful reflection and prayer.

            Lincoln. In 2013, as in 1865, America is deeply divided and increasingly polarized politically. Is there on the horizon stateswomen and statesmen who can be principled leaders to help achieve the common good? Are we as Christians, by our rhetoric and involvement in the public square, adding to the division and polarization or are we fulfilling our God’s given call to be agents of reconciliation in a broken world?

            Waste Land. Who are the forgotten people that inhabit the margins of our world? Do we know the names of the janitors, dishwashers, or clerks that work in the background of our lives, and are there small ways in which we can show them the dignity they deserve?

            Traitor. Can we provide a safe place to discuss the emotionally charged and impossibly complex ethical issues that attach to America’s war on terror? Are we clear on the difference between seeking justice and desiring vengeance? Are we supportive of the people—soldiers, spies, or other agents of government—that must inflict harm or perhaps do what they believe to be evil in order for good to prevail?

            Lincoln, Waste Land, and Traitor—I enjoyed them as movies but even more because each, in its own way, reminded me of what it means to be human in a fallen world.

In The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society, Roger Forsgren writes “The Architectureof Evil,” in which he reflects on the life and work of Albert Speer. Speer was the engineer, the architect that built the impressive structures, buildings and monuments from which Hitler launched the Nazi cause.

            Albert Speer did not, as far as any historians know, personally design any death chambers, nor did he personally kill another human being. But Speer did use his brilliant technical expertise and talents to enable the war efforts of the most evil regime in history, allowing it to murder millions of human beings. But even as we condemn him, we must ask—especially we engineers and technicians—is Speer so different from us? How many of us would be willing to compartmentalize our emotions, suppress our consciences, almost to sell our souls, for the opportunity to work on the grand projects that Speer was involved in? How many of us are so focused on solving a technical problem that we fail to contemplate where that solution might lead?

            To many engineers, Speer and his experiences during the war may seem irrelevant today. But although there seems to be little chance (we hope) of a highly industrialized power again waging a war of world conquest, the essential questions that Speer faced still pertain to the work of many engineers today. You may be an engineer sitting in front of a computer-aided design screen, creating a seemingly benign component that will become part of some sophisticated weapons system that will be sold to unknown people in a far-off land. You may be a computer security researcher, or a virologist, and discover some new potential weapon or security vulnerability, and have to decide how to make the information public to shield against such attacks, but without helping those who would launch them. Or you may design automobile parts, and be faced with a compromise between saving your company production costs and protecting the lives of customers.

These are good issues. To be seduced by the magnitude of a project so that we begin to make a series of tiny compromises is easy, and the danger involved can seem small enough to not count. Having a worldview rigorous enough to sustain the necessary reflection and a community lively enough to nourish such reflection is essential for all of us. All of us live out our vocations within an ethical context because we live in God’s world and bear his image.

There is another danger, one that we all face. It is to so pursue excellence in our work, to so bury ourselves in the demands of our vocation that we get lost in the details until we no longer are committed to anything larger. This is a creeping danger, a slow process, not something that suddenly arrives with trumpets blaring. Still when Work and Vocation are elevated to the status of idolatry, they are cruel masters. If excellence in architecture is capturing in design the vision and purpose of a structure, Speer achieved a rare and brilliant excellence. But at a horrific cost.

It might be said that Speer exemplifies what happens when a technical person becomes too absorbed in his work. Speer claimed at his trial that he was simply doing what nearly any other architect would have done; he was too busy “studying far into the night” to even discuss the political world exploding all around him, too lacking in the ability to think discriminately and critically, and so he found himself “unable to deal with the arguments” of his cohorts, and instead just went along. Perhaps it is the inherent nature of the technical disciplines that brings their practitioners to view the world with a practical eye, to possess a preoccupation with efficiency and order—even to the point of ignoring the humane values of dignity and justice. These are characteristics that will surely sound familiar, to some extent, to those who have worked with engineers, even if in far less sinister contexts.

The difficulty with this is that few of us are like Speer: we are not engineers working on great projects. We are ordinary people working on ordinary things. The danger here is to assume our smallness automatically shields us from hard choices, or that our hard choices do not matter so much because they are small. As Francis Schaeffer was fond of saying, in God’s economy there are no small people and no small places. The children of God are to pursue their callings, their work, their vocation with excellence—and that cannot be accomplished unless our pursuit is shaped by a growing discernment that brings all of our life consciously under the Lordship of Christ.

Source: “Evil’s Architect,” on The Dish (25 Nov 2012 08:07 AM)

Stanley Fish is an academician, a literary and legal scholar who teaches at Florida International University. I’ve heard several people refer to him as a postmodernist thinker, though it’s my understanding that he prefers to be known as an anti-foundationalist.

This is oversimplified, but for those not familiar with these terms, here is a quick definition. Foundationalists are convinced there is some value or ground or foundation that is available to all thinkers of all cultures upon which knowledge can be based. So, anti-foundationalists, like Fish, argue that no such ground exists, and so knowledge or ethics or ideas can only be explored within their specific cultural and historical context. As a result, anti-foundationalists are usually said to be pragmatists (whatever works is correct) and relativists (no final moral standards) though they argue that isn’t necessarily the case. Anyway, that’s the general idea.

In any case, Dr Fish writes a blog for The New York Times (which you can find here), and I always read his posts. I find them well written, often provocative, and always thoughtful. I may not always agree, but disagreeing with Stanley Fish is a bracing experience.

Anyway, Fish’s December 21, 2009 post, “’Tis the Season,” caught my attention both for the provocative conclusion he draws, and for the description of his experience of public speaking. The reason his description interests me is that he is describing my experience—exactly.

The speaker must worry about doing a good job.

With that in mind he or she will try to learn something about the nature of the institution, the likely make up of the audience—some audiences will regard a basic introduction of the topic as an insult while others will welcome it—the names of previous speakers in the series, the special concerns that may be animating university conversations. (Even with a lot of preparation, you never really know what you’re walking into.)

The occasion is, by definition, make or break. You only get one shot. The visit is short but you leave behind an impression that will last for quite a while. You will be judged by multiple measures. Did you seem well-prepared? Were you attentive to the needs of the audience? Did you present a coherent thesis supported by the relevant evidence? Did you speak clearly? Did you handle yourself well and honorably in the question-and-answer session? Were you responsive and courteous to everyone, even to those audience members who rose with the hope of handing you your head in a basket? Did you remember to thank everyone many times? It is clearly a pressure situation, and when it is over and you are heading out of town, you will be busily assessing your own performance and asking yourself, “How did I do?”

Now comes the curious part. If I have done badly, I feel badly. No surprise there. But if I’ve done well (at least in my estimation), I feel worse.

Why is that? I’m not quite sure, but I have a few notions. It may be a feeling that if I had stayed around for another 20 minutes, the jig would have been up; everyone would have seen through me; I got away just in the nick of time. It may be a feeling that my success was merely a piece of theater; there was nothing of substance in it. It may be a revulsion against hearing myself say the same old thing once again; someday—maybe tomorrow—I’ll run out of audiences. It may be a suspicion (actually more than that) that I am less interested in doing justice to my subject than in bringing glory to myself.

I thought it was just me.

(Be certain to read “’Tis the Season” and reflect on Dr Fish’s conclusion.)