Dead Poets Society
I saw the movie 'Dead Poets Society' a couple of days back. It started at 00:30 am and I couldn't stop until it was over and I had written this...
It was one of the interesting movies I had seen of late. The movie is about an English professor, Mr. Keating, who is inducted into Welton school which is run by a bunch of realists whose sole purpose is to make the students get into the ivy league universities. The English professor is a Romanticist whose principles run against the realists. The realists on pragmatism, proven tradition, discipline... and the romanticist harping on beauty, free thinking and indulgence. Heavy words like 'free thinking', 'tradition', 'wisdom', 'beauty' used freely all over.
Keating inspires a few students to follow their soul rather than the set expectations of the world outside, they do so and when one of the students experiences conflict between the two, he resorts to commit suicide. He decided to loose his soul rather than loose the soul.
The question of the romanticist VS realist struggle boils down to this. How does one have 20/20 hindsight to know what is right and what is wrong? Who is really responsible for the student Neil's sucide? Was it Neil's father's inability to 'freely think' about how Neil's of life should be or was it Neil's inability to look at life the way his father did or was it Keating inability to look at life from Neil's family's unromantic perspective?
In 'real' life we find that, on one side are the romantics of the sixties leading to the ‘woodstock’ hippie phenomena which essentially ended up being the LDS paradise in a romantic world of ‘free thinking’ and extreme sensitivity to beauty, as espoused by Aldous Huxley, leading to serial killings or suicides. On the other side, are the ivy league realists who bring the wall street crashing down taking the whole global economy in a cataclysmic tail spin.
The question again goes back to lack of 20/20 hindsight. Neither the romanticists nor the realists win. Neither 'free thinking' nor 'traditions' win can win on its own. The right balance of traditions and free thinking within the bounds set by the ultimate 'Revelation' alone can win because revelation mitigates the damages caused because of lack of 20/20 hindsight.
It was one of the interesting movies I had seen of late. The movie is about an English professor, Mr. Keating, who is inducted into Welton school which is run by a bunch of realists whose sole purpose is to make the students get into the ivy league universities. The English professor is a Romanticist whose principles run against the realists. The realists on pragmatism, proven tradition, discipline... and the romanticist harping on beauty, free thinking and indulgence. Heavy words like 'free thinking', 'tradition', 'wisdom', 'beauty' used freely all over.
Keating inspires a few students to follow their soul rather than the set expectations of the world outside, they do so and when one of the students experiences conflict between the two, he resorts to commit suicide. He decided to loose his soul rather than loose the soul.
The question of the romanticist VS realist struggle boils down to this. How does one have 20/20 hindsight to know what is right and what is wrong? Who is really responsible for the student Neil's sucide? Was it Neil's father's inability to 'freely think' about how Neil's of life should be or was it Neil's inability to look at life the way his father did or was it Keating inability to look at life from Neil's family's unromantic perspective?
In 'real' life we find that, on one side are the romantics of the sixties leading to the ‘woodstock’ hippie phenomena which essentially ended up being the LDS paradise in a romantic world of ‘free thinking’ and extreme sensitivity to beauty, as espoused by Aldous Huxley, leading to serial killings or suicides. On the other side, are the ivy league realists who bring the wall street crashing down taking the whole global economy in a cataclysmic tail spin.
The question again goes back to lack of 20/20 hindsight. Neither the romanticists nor the realists win. Neither 'free thinking' nor 'traditions' win can win on its own. The right balance of traditions and free thinking within the bounds set by the ultimate 'Revelation' alone can win because revelation mitigates the damages caused because of lack of 20/20 hindsight.