Readers Are Unpredictable

To continue my train of thought from the previous two posts—on what the humanities can do, and why we need not worry so much about whether such a claim instrumentalizes them—I want to add the following qualification: it is impossible to say with any confidence, “This is what studying the humanities (or reading good literature or attentively watching good films and the like) will do for you.” There is much that engaging with philosophy, literature, and the arts could do for us, but so much will depend on our disposition: how we approach these things and what we seek to gain from them. So much depends on our hermeneutical framework and whether we have (or at least seek to cultivate) the virtues needed for the kind of reading that has a chance of changing us for the better. 

Regarding our hermeneutic: Are we seeking to learn or be challenged by the text, or only to have our biases confirmed? Are we seeking to understand what the author is intending, or are we projecting our own thoughts and feelings onto the text? 

And regarding the requisite virtues: Are we practicing patient attentiveness? Are we both discerning and charitable? Do we have the humility to be receptive to new or challenging ideas?

Of course, the worth and excellence of the text studied also matters. Some books or films will be much better suited to aiding our moral formation than others; indeed some can only be corrosive. But Karen Swallow Prior is right to say in the introduction to her book On Reading Well that, if reading is to help us become more virtuous, we must practice certain virtues as we read. It will not do to say that if only so-and-so would just read Republic or Pride and Prejudice, it will reshape their vision of the good life. Reading is not a “just add water” solution.

Unfortunately, there are very good readers out there who are terrible people. I think of the scene in the Coen Brothers’ remake of The Ladykillers (2004), in which the lead criminal played by Tom Hanks waxes poetic about the power of literature: “I often find myself more at home in these ancient volumes than I do in the hustle-bustle of the modern world. To me, paradoxically, the literature of the so-called ‘dead tongues’ holds more currency than this morning's newspaper. In these books, in these volumes, there is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, which succors me when the day is hard and the night lonely and long.” He is seen enjoying his reading, but clearly it hasn’t softened his conscience. On the other hand, it’s possible for good people to be poor readers, prone to take passages out of context or just not have the desire to sit down and read at all.

But if anything should give us pause about making grand promises about what the humanities will do for the renovation of a soul or the renewal of a culture, let’s consider the greatest and truest story ever told, which does indeed have the power to change a heart: the gospel. “The Parable of the Sower” in the gospels shows that even the gospel will fall on deaf ears, be rejected, or even just forgotten and abandoned in the course of the cares of life. The Spirit must be at work to make the heart receptive, otherwise mere hearing does nothing.

Lacking God’s omniscience, for us the response of a hearer or a reader is unpredictable. A person could read the Bible and be drawn to faith and repentance, or twist its words to justify selfish ambition or abuse, or think it’s boring, or say, “How inspiring and life-affirming!” and miss the point. And if that can be true of a person’s encounter God’s holy, life-giving Word, how much more uncertain it is whether even the best works of fallible humans in the fields of literature, art, and philosophy will make a positive difference! A person might not have the knowledge of how to read well, or may simply choose not to.

That’s a downer note to end on, I know, but it’s worth sitting with and pondering, and this post is long enough already. 

Admirers and Followers

Here’s a rule of thumb: whenever an artist, storyteller, or some other creative type shows up in a narrative and talks about his or her craft, pay attention if you want insight into the writer’s own beliefs about why we tell stories—and the responsibilities, possibilities, and potential pitfalls this entails.

For example, re-watching Terrence Malick’s film A Hidden Life (2019) the other day, I was struck again by the scene in which Franz Jägerstätter observes the painter, Ohlendorf, adding or touching up images in the chapel of the village. If Malick ever made an autobiographical statement about his vocation in a film, it would be here.

Ohlendorf acknowledges there is a danger that stories can leave people unmoved while giving them the false assurance that they have been moved. He says, “I paint the tombs of the prophets. I help people look up from those pews and dream. They look up and they imagine if they lived back in Christ’s time they wouldn't have done what the others did. They wouldn't have murdered those whom we now adore.” That is, the biblical stories he paints on the walls could confirm people in their complacency rather than shaking them out of it. 

But the work he does also poses a danger for the painter himself. “I paint all this suffering,” he says, “but, I don't suffer myself. I make a living of it.” While he “paint[s] their comfortable Christ, with a halo over his head,” he can profit off the pleasant, uncomplicated feelings it creates in the viewers. Ohlendorf, like any other storyteller, could be praised for being a truth-teller while never saying anything that upsets the lies people love to tell themselves. And, if he wasn’t honest with himself, he’d be in danger of deceiving himself that he has experienced “what I haven't lived.” This is why he hasn’t “venture[d]” to “paint the true Christ.” He doesn’t want to fool anyone, especially not himself, that because he has created a portrayal of Christ he knows something about following the true Christ. He worries about letting himself off the hook, just like he is worried his paintings let viewers off the hook. Making or receiving art about Christ cannot fulfill or exempt from the “demand” that “Christ’s life” makes upon everyone.

Through Ohlendorf, then, Malick is challenging us, and challenging himself. We could be inspired by Franz and Fani’s sacrifices to resist Hitler for the sake of Christ, and go right on paying to Caesar what isn’t Caesar’s to maintain our comfortable lives. Malick and his collaborators could be tempted to think that, because they have poured so much care and thought into telling us Franz and Fani’s story, they have been changed by it as a matter of course.

But while Ohlendorf’s words caution that stories—even good, true, noble ones!—can be used to insulate us from the call to practice hard virtues, his words also suggest they can nudge us toward answering that call. Notice I used the word ‘nudge,’ not ‘push.’ It’s very easy for storytellers and the popularizers of stories (critics, teachers) to overstate their importance, to believe things like, “If only we could put the right stories before audiences, the culture would change!” For one thing, the Parable of the Sower tells us that even the truest and best story of all, the gospel, often falls on unreceptive ground. How much slimmer are the odds that any man-made story could change a heart!

Appropriately skeptical, then, Ohlendorf’s view of the storyteller’s role is modest, restricted. He says, “What we do, is just create—sympathy. We create—we create admirers. We don't create followers.” Some might hear those lines as a dismissal of storytelling, or art generally; if it can’t create followers, if all it can do is create sympathetic admirers, it can’t be worth much. But before someone can become a follower, he must first become an admirer of the person to be followed. And how does one become an admirer? Through sympathy. And sympathy is what narratives are so very good at creating. Stories are empathy-workouts. They draw us into caring deeply about characters, sometimes like us and sometimes very unlike us.  

It’s significant, surely, that it’s after this meeting with the painter that Franz makes his final resolution to turn himself in for refusing to make an oath to Hitler. I’d suggest the painter’s images and words prompted him to consider, in a new or sharper light, the true Christ. The painter stirred Franz’s sympathy for the sufferings of Christ—and perhaps spurred a recognition that Christ will reciprocally sympathize with him in his sufferings for His sake—and this sparked a greater admiration for Christ, and that compelled Franz to follow Christ, even unto death. The painter didn’t make Franz a follower of the true Christ, but he did help make him a greater admirer. And that counts for something.

As a former filmmaker, an amateur film critic, and a scholar (and soon-to-be teacher) of literature, all my life I’ve been asking why stories matter. Does it make a difference what kinds of stories we tell or receive? What can our stories do in the world? The answer Malick gives to these questions, in this scene, is that stories shape our affections. That’s what sympathy and admiration are: expressions of what we love. Once an affection becomes strong enough, through repeated exposure to a story or a set of similar stories, actions will follow. This is why it matters which stories we tell ourselves. For a negative example, look no further than the mayor of Franz’s village, who spews hatred because he has been shaped by the mythology of Hitler. 

Watching A Hidden Life will not, in and of itself, inspire someone to follow the Jägerstätters’ example. But if the film, in concert with other stories about sacrifice, can establish sympathy and then compel admiration, maybe some day they will have followers.