“Our children shall be
philosopher-kings.1 It makes me so indescribably happy.”
Captain
Fantastic (2016)
This review contains spoilers. Lots and lots of them. You have been warned. We may begin.2
 |
| A forest not totally dissimilar to the one in which the main characters in Captain Fantastic live. |
I’m not quite sure what the logic
was behind the chosen title for the film Captain Fantastic.3
I mean, there’s one point in the film where the protagonist describes himself
as ‘captain’, and another where a dream-version of his dead wife calls him
‘fantastic’, but they’re isolated incidents. Perhaps there’s some kind of
reference going on that’s whizzed straight over my head, because I tend to feel
that, had I done no further research before pottering over to my university
Campus Cinema this last Tuesday,4 I would have been anticipating
some kind of lame or parodic superhero film more keenly than anything else.
Captain Fantastic, however, is definitely
not a lame or parodic superhero film. It actually revolves around a man called
Ben who is bringing up his six children in a forest miles from civilisation
according to an intense physical and intellectual programme that sees them
hunting their own food, running up mountains every day, learning several
languages each, and reading everything from classic English literature to
recent tomes on quantum theory. Formerly, Ben had his wife Leslie’s support in
this endeavour, but she has been hospitalised with bipolar disorder and, shortly
after the film begins, Ben finds out that she has committed suicide. He and the
children then head off on a road trip into the American suburbs with the
intention of crashing Leslie’s funeral (which her parents warned Ben not to
attend) to make sure her body is dealt with according to her wishes.
Essentially, what the film does is
push together these two extremes of worldview and lifestyle choice and let them
spark off one another. On the one hand, there’s Ben’s way of doing things, and
on the other, there’s everything he and Leslie were reacting against when they
concocted their lifestyle plan. Leslie’s parents Jack and Abbey, and Ben’s
sister Harper, are so firmly entrenched in this oh-so-American, normalised,
comfortable, capitalist, culturally-Christian, typical twenty-first-century
suburban world, that they basically caricaturise it, and it’s not a very
attractive picture. In one scene, when Harper and her husband Dave challenge
Ben’s parenting decisions and assert that his children need to go to a ‘real
school’, Ben calls on his nephews Justin and Jackson, both in their mid-teens,
and asks them what they know about the Bill of Rights. The answers he gets are
in one case extremely vague, in another downright wrong. Ben then poses the
same question to his eight-year-old daughter Zaja, who is able not only to
recite the Bill, but also offer some commentary on how it characterises the
USA, and even describe the implications of a recent Supreme Court decision.5
Similarly, the previous evening, when the two families were having dinner
together, the question of the manner of Leslie’s death came up, and Harper and
Dave’s extremely convoluted, patronising, unspecific, barely-truthful answers
designed to protect the children from harsh reality are quite uncomfortable and
stifling to watch; Ben’s uncompromising honesty, treating the children like
rational beings capable of grasping the concerns at hand, is hugely refreshing.
In short, the film constantly showcases how utterly well-founded Ben’s disillusionment with modern America is. At every turn, the society he has rejected is revealed, just as he suspected, to be deficient in health, in ability, in knowledge, in freedom, in honesty, in integrity, in drive. It is a numb, dull, dystopia of wealth, comfort, and ignorance. Ben’s children are patently superior beings, belonging to a better world order. This romantic ideal of retreating into the woods and labouring one’s way up to that status – simply educating away all the problems of the world – is rendered hugely alluring. In fact, more than that, I’d say the viewer is almost disdained for not having done so – why are you sitting here staring at a screen instead of endeavouring to improve yourself, to educate yourself out of this endless sea of numb mediocrity? – although that might just be my own natural tendency to feel the need to justify every decision I make talking. Nevertheless, in any case, it’s clear that we’re supposed to prefer Ben’s side. It would seem his chosen parenting method is validated – commended, even.
And yet it isn’t. Three inadequacies present themselves:
1) “It’s child abuse.”
One of Ben’s sons, Rellian, grows increasingly disillusioned with his father’s way of doing things throughout the film, and ends up running away to live with his grandparents Jack and Abbey. When Ben shows up with the intention of retrieving Rellian, Jack confronts him about the way he has been raising his children, with reference to various incidents that occurred earlier in the film, notably Rellian having broken his hand while the family was rock-climbing – at which point Ben told him nobody was going to magically show up and rescue him, and exhorted him to think his way out of the problem, which he duly did. Jack also reminds Ben that Rellian is covered in bruises and scratches and refuses to be placated by Ben’s dismissive comment that so is the whole rest of the family. Eventually, Jack spells the situation out in uncompromising terms: “It’s child abuse.” And I sat there suddenly thinking, “Oh blimey, it is, isn’t it?”
It’s a clever moment in the film, because when we saw the rock-climbing incident earlier, Ben’s exhortation and Rellian’s response did seem like a kind of beautiful triumph of reason and resourcefulness over a crisis that would have left lesser humans totally helpless. It takes Jack’s bluntness to make reality hit home. Still, much as it leaves us viewers shaken, that’s not even the real culmination of this issue: a subsequent attempt to ‘rescue’ Rellian from his new home sees his sister Vespyr sneak daringly over the roof of the house, only to fall to the ground just outside his window, thereby coming within inches of life-threatening spinal injury.
Up until then, Ben had consistently maintained that the way he was raising his children was actually saving their lives, not endangering them, but Vespyr’s accident shatters that belief. Reeling from the revelation that by trying to rescue his beloved sons and daughters from the evils of modern society, he might easily have ended up getting them killed, he arranges for them to stay with Jack and Abbey. His parting speech includes reference to his parenting experiment as ‘a beautiful mistake’ and a declaration that if the children stay with him, he will ruin their lives.
2) “Unless it comes out of a book, I don’t know anything!”
Near the start of the film, it emerges that Ben’s oldest son, Bodevan, has made successful applications to a whole host of top universities, but he conceals the fact from his father for quite some time. When Bodevan eventually presents him with the stack of acceptance letters, Ben feels both impressed and betrayed: what corner of education could his rigorous programme possibly have failed to offer Bo, that he should have to resort to so mainstream a method to be taught it? Bo replies exasperatedly that he doesn’t know how to do anything that doesn’t come out of a book.
In short, the film constantly showcases how utterly well-founded Ben’s disillusionment with modern America is. At every turn, the society he has rejected is revealed, just as he suspected, to be deficient in health, in ability, in knowledge, in freedom, in honesty, in integrity, in drive. It is a numb, dull, dystopia of wealth, comfort, and ignorance. Ben’s children are patently superior beings, belonging to a better world order. This romantic ideal of retreating into the woods and labouring one’s way up to that status – simply educating away all the problems of the world – is rendered hugely alluring. In fact, more than that, I’d say the viewer is almost disdained for not having done so – why are you sitting here staring at a screen instead of endeavouring to improve yourself, to educate yourself out of this endless sea of numb mediocrity? – although that might just be my own natural tendency to feel the need to justify every decision I make talking. Nevertheless, in any case, it’s clear that we’re supposed to prefer Ben’s side. It would seem his chosen parenting method is validated – commended, even.
And yet it isn’t. Three inadequacies present themselves:
1) “It’s child abuse.”
One of Ben’s sons, Rellian, grows increasingly disillusioned with his father’s way of doing things throughout the film, and ends up running away to live with his grandparents Jack and Abbey. When Ben shows up with the intention of retrieving Rellian, Jack confronts him about the way he has been raising his children, with reference to various incidents that occurred earlier in the film, notably Rellian having broken his hand while the family was rock-climbing – at which point Ben told him nobody was going to magically show up and rescue him, and exhorted him to think his way out of the problem, which he duly did. Jack also reminds Ben that Rellian is covered in bruises and scratches and refuses to be placated by Ben’s dismissive comment that so is the whole rest of the family. Eventually, Jack spells the situation out in uncompromising terms: “It’s child abuse.” And I sat there suddenly thinking, “Oh blimey, it is, isn’t it?”
It’s a clever moment in the film, because when we saw the rock-climbing incident earlier, Ben’s exhortation and Rellian’s response did seem like a kind of beautiful triumph of reason and resourcefulness over a crisis that would have left lesser humans totally helpless. It takes Jack’s bluntness to make reality hit home. Still, much as it leaves us viewers shaken, that’s not even the real culmination of this issue: a subsequent attempt to ‘rescue’ Rellian from his new home sees his sister Vespyr sneak daringly over the roof of the house, only to fall to the ground just outside his window, thereby coming within inches of life-threatening spinal injury.
Up until then, Ben had consistently maintained that the way he was raising his children was actually saving their lives, not endangering them, but Vespyr’s accident shatters that belief. Reeling from the revelation that by trying to rescue his beloved sons and daughters from the evils of modern society, he might easily have ended up getting them killed, he arranges for them to stay with Jack and Abbey. His parting speech includes reference to his parenting experiment as ‘a beautiful mistake’ and a declaration that if the children stay with him, he will ruin their lives.
2) “Unless it comes out of a book, I don’t know anything!”
Near the start of the film, it emerges that Ben’s oldest son, Bodevan, has made successful applications to a whole host of top universities, but he conceals the fact from his father for quite some time. When Bodevan eventually presents him with the stack of acceptance letters, Ben feels both impressed and betrayed: what corner of education could his rigorous programme possibly have failed to offer Bo, that he should have to resort to so mainstream a method to be taught it? Bo replies exasperatedly that he doesn’t know how to do anything that doesn’t come out of a book.
 |
| These pages are, of course, quite literally coming out of a book. Scandalous book abuse here. |
A catalyst for this conversation
was Bodevan’s encounter with a girl named Claire, who was staying in the same
trailer park as Ben’s family. The two chatted – Bo revealing in virtually every
sentence his ignorance of even the smallest strand of popular culture – and eventually
kissed, at which point Claire’s mother showed up declaring that she hoped those
two lovebirds hadn’t been doing what she thought they’d been doing. Bodevan’s
response was to get down on one knee, make the most incredibly passionate,
endearing, thoroughly awkward proposal speech possible, and end up confused and
dejected when Claire laughed him off.
Bodevan might have been relentlessly honed to be more accomplished than his peers in every possible sphere, but he has no idea how to relate to them. Frankly, the situation calls into question not only the future happiness and success of the children, but also the purpose of the whole endeavour to bring them up to be philosopher-kings. What good is it to be so superior to everyone else if one is also so far removed from them in culture and understanding that there is no way for that benefit to be transmitted and shared? How are Ben’s children supposed to make the world a better place if they don’t have a clue how it actually works?
3) “You would prefer to celebrate a magical fictitious elf instead of a living humanitarian who’s done so much to promote human rights and understanding?”
The primary festival in Ben’s family’s calendar is Noam Chomsky Day,6 which they decide to celebrate early this year. There is a cake, each child receives a present in the form of a knife or a bow, and a cheery chorus addressed to ‘Uncle Noam’ is performed. Rellian, however, is far from satisfied. “What kind of crazy person,” he demands, “celebrates Noam Chomsky’s birthday like it’s some kind of official holiday? Why can’t we celebrate Christmas like the rest of the entire world?” His father’s incredulous answer certainly has a ring of logic and reasonableness about it. That’s actually kind of the problem.
Ben might claim that he’s willing to be convinced by Rellian’s argument in favour of Christmas over Noam Chomsky Day if Rellian lays it out persuasively, but we all know that Rellian simply doesn’t have the ammunition to do anything of the sort. Ben clearly wants his children to be able to think and discuss and reason, and yet, ironically, by removing them to a space where there are no constraints on such things, where every disagreement is an occasion for a debate and unspecific answers like ‘interesting’ are banned, he has separated them not only from the intellectual limitations of society, but also from the opportunity to encounter and engage with alternative views in any meaningful way. Ben’s whole philosophy is to facilitate the expansion of his children’s minds, and yet how can their minds actually be anything but narrowed if they never learn anything except through the filter of Ben’s own particular worldview?
In summary, then, Ben’s parenting experiment threatens his children’s physical safety; it threatens their ability to relate and contribute to society; and it even threatens the very intellectual improvement it was designed to enable. The whole thing really can only be considered a beautiful mistake. It’s a mistake because it dooms itself to failure – but a beautiful one because the allure of the ideal remains. I think it’s hard to watch the film without feeling some kind of jealousy of Ben’s children. Even if it’s not of their whole situation – and I certainly don’t envy them those daily mountain runs – there remains an attraction to the idea that it would be possible to extricate ourselves from all the ills and troubles of modern society if only we undertook a radically thorough education of ourselves and our children. I use ‘education’ in quite a broad sense: think παιδεία (paideía) if you know any Greek.7 It’s not just about knowledge or intellectual ability, though that’s certainly part of it; it’s about accomplishments of all varieties, the process of becoming a generally better adult. The notion that, given the proper training, we would all be transformed into superior beings capable of bringing about a better world, is a pretty irresistible one.
And indeed, education is fantastic. I love education (hence why I’ve stuck around in it for such an awfully long time), and I think a good all-round one is one of the most important things a person can have access to. I’m a huge admirer of the work of people like William Lord Shaftesbury8 and Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow9 and Malala Yousafzai10 who invested and/or still invest huge pieces of themselves in labouring to ensure others’ access to education. I certainly don’t want to understate how significant education can be for transforming lives and, yes, making the world a better place.
But, as is the bittersweet conclusion of Captain Fantastic, even the most rigorous, ambitious, nuanced education can’t solve all the problems we wish it could. The film actually ends on a more satisfying note than that: a happy medium is reached, with Ben and his family living on a farm, where they still grow their own food and so on, but the children are enrolled in a normal school. I’m a sucker for a good happy ending and this one certainly ticks the right boxes: the tension between these two contrasting lifestyles is finally resolved, the best aspects of each featuring in the eventual compromise. But, agreeable as the result is, it is still a compromise. Something of the rigour and ambition and nuance of the children’s education has undoubtedly been lost. The integrity of the romantic ideal has been breached.
The thing is, the idea that we can educate ourselves out of the evils of the modern world betrays a hopelessly positive view of human nature. The implication is that, deep down, we have contained within us the inherent quality necessary for us to become these superior beings; all we need is the proper training to strip us of our dross and polish that quality to perfection. Our greatest deficiency is merely ignorance and a failure to apply ourselves.
I simply don’t buy that. Our greatest deficiency is something far, far worse.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…
Bodevan might have been relentlessly honed to be more accomplished than his peers in every possible sphere, but he has no idea how to relate to them. Frankly, the situation calls into question not only the future happiness and success of the children, but also the purpose of the whole endeavour to bring them up to be philosopher-kings. What good is it to be so superior to everyone else if one is also so far removed from them in culture and understanding that there is no way for that benefit to be transmitted and shared? How are Ben’s children supposed to make the world a better place if they don’t have a clue how it actually works?
3) “You would prefer to celebrate a magical fictitious elf instead of a living humanitarian who’s done so much to promote human rights and understanding?”
The primary festival in Ben’s family’s calendar is Noam Chomsky Day,6 which they decide to celebrate early this year. There is a cake, each child receives a present in the form of a knife or a bow, and a cheery chorus addressed to ‘Uncle Noam’ is performed. Rellian, however, is far from satisfied. “What kind of crazy person,” he demands, “celebrates Noam Chomsky’s birthday like it’s some kind of official holiday? Why can’t we celebrate Christmas like the rest of the entire world?” His father’s incredulous answer certainly has a ring of logic and reasonableness about it. That’s actually kind of the problem.
Ben might claim that he’s willing to be convinced by Rellian’s argument in favour of Christmas over Noam Chomsky Day if Rellian lays it out persuasively, but we all know that Rellian simply doesn’t have the ammunition to do anything of the sort. Ben clearly wants his children to be able to think and discuss and reason, and yet, ironically, by removing them to a space where there are no constraints on such things, where every disagreement is an occasion for a debate and unspecific answers like ‘interesting’ are banned, he has separated them not only from the intellectual limitations of society, but also from the opportunity to encounter and engage with alternative views in any meaningful way. Ben’s whole philosophy is to facilitate the expansion of his children’s minds, and yet how can their minds actually be anything but narrowed if they never learn anything except through the filter of Ben’s own particular worldview?
In summary, then, Ben’s parenting experiment threatens his children’s physical safety; it threatens their ability to relate and contribute to society; and it even threatens the very intellectual improvement it was designed to enable. The whole thing really can only be considered a beautiful mistake. It’s a mistake because it dooms itself to failure – but a beautiful one because the allure of the ideal remains. I think it’s hard to watch the film without feeling some kind of jealousy of Ben’s children. Even if it’s not of their whole situation – and I certainly don’t envy them those daily mountain runs – there remains an attraction to the idea that it would be possible to extricate ourselves from all the ills and troubles of modern society if only we undertook a radically thorough education of ourselves and our children. I use ‘education’ in quite a broad sense: think παιδεία (paideía) if you know any Greek.7 It’s not just about knowledge or intellectual ability, though that’s certainly part of it; it’s about accomplishments of all varieties, the process of becoming a generally better adult. The notion that, given the proper training, we would all be transformed into superior beings capable of bringing about a better world, is a pretty irresistible one.
And indeed, education is fantastic. I love education (hence why I’ve stuck around in it for such an awfully long time), and I think a good all-round one is one of the most important things a person can have access to. I’m a huge admirer of the work of people like William Lord Shaftesbury8 and Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow9 and Malala Yousafzai10 who invested and/or still invest huge pieces of themselves in labouring to ensure others’ access to education. I certainly don’t want to understate how significant education can be for transforming lives and, yes, making the world a better place.
But, as is the bittersweet conclusion of Captain Fantastic, even the most rigorous, ambitious, nuanced education can’t solve all the problems we wish it could. The film actually ends on a more satisfying note than that: a happy medium is reached, with Ben and his family living on a farm, where they still grow their own food and so on, but the children are enrolled in a normal school. I’m a sucker for a good happy ending and this one certainly ticks the right boxes: the tension between these two contrasting lifestyles is finally resolved, the best aspects of each featuring in the eventual compromise. But, agreeable as the result is, it is still a compromise. Something of the rigour and ambition and nuance of the children’s education has undoubtedly been lost. The integrity of the romantic ideal has been breached.
The thing is, the idea that we can educate ourselves out of the evils of the modern world betrays a hopelessly positive view of human nature. The implication is that, deep down, we have contained within us the inherent quality necessary for us to become these superior beings; all we need is the proper training to strip us of our dross and polish that quality to perfection. Our greatest deficiency is merely ignorance and a failure to apply ourselves.
I simply don’t buy that. Our greatest deficiency is something far, far worse.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…
And since
they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to
do what ought not to be done. – Romans 1:18, 2811
We can educate ourselves as much as we like, but because we have failed to acknowledge God rightly, our debased minds are capable only of suppressing truth, not comprehending or sharing it. The problems in the world – the things that ought not to be done – are not down to the fact that we just haven’t been properly trained: they are down to our failure to acknowledge God. And they aren’t even the most major consequences of that failure; a day is coming when God’s wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of human beings will be revealed in its entirety. To be numbered among the ungodly and unrighteous on that day will be the most appallingly, unbearably dreadful thing there could ever be. The extent to which we have educated ourselves, be it ever so rigorous and ambitious and nuanced, won’t make a blind bit of difference; in the end, such education is nothing more than the application of strategies devised by debased minds for the attempted improvement of other debased minds.
Captain Fantastic is right, then, to indicate that education, however radical, is simply never going to be up to the task of neutralising the world’s problems. In fact, the pleasing little happy ending is perhaps rather necessary to mitigate the utter pessimism of such a conclusion, because Ben’s assertion that no rescuer is going to magically show up extends into more scenarios than rock-climbing accidents: he sees the power to change the way things are as resting entirely in the hands of human beings. And if even the most thoroughly educated and improved human beings on the planet aren’t up to the task of fixing the world’s problems, who will? Like it or not, we need a rescuer to show up. Mercifully, he does.
The message of the gospel is not that we need to educate and improve ourselves according to a particular philosophy and moral code in order to be acceptable human beings, but that we stand no chance of educating and improving ourselves such that we be acceptable human beings. Jesus is the one human being who really was cut from a superior cloth, who understood everything without falsehood or bias, and he didn’t isolate himself from the rest of us or fail to relate, but forwent paradise in order to save us. By his death and resurrection we are able to inherit his perfection – and then begins the process of shaping us to match our new identity. Educating us, if you like, but not according to the schemes of our own debased minds; rather, by the work of God’s Spirit in us. Education isn’t the solution our greatest problem; in fact, it can only really come into play once that problem has already been solved.
Footnotes
1 This is an idea that comes out of Plato’s Republic, in which he describes how the ideal state would be run by philosopher-kings, i.e. either philosophers would somehow have to gain control of the state, or kings would have to learn to philosophise. If you fancy a read, it’s all over the Internet. Perseus is never a bad shout: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0168.
2 Although before we do, quick note on the title of the post: I feel I owe an acknowledgement to the band After Edmund for the rather pleasing phrase ‘Strange Education’, which is the title of one of their songs. I’d provide a YouTube link but nobody seems to have uploaded it, so you’ll have to scout about on your preferred music-streaming platform if you fancy a listen.
3 Here’s a rather lovely trailer if you’d like to get a sense of what the film looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1kH4OMIOMc.
4 I will always plug Campus Cinema, http://campuscinema.co.uk/, because normal cinemas are expensive and annoying (for the full rant, ‘Cinema’s Suicide’ under January in the box on the right) and Campus Cinema is neither.
5 Some kindly human has uploaded the scene to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgvtmO7c-UU.
6 Yeah, I didn’t know who he was either. If you’re dying to know all the particulars, the Britannica article on the subject would appear to be very thorough, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky, though frankly I can’t imagine knowing more about Noam Chomsky would have that much impact on one’s viewing of Captain Fantastic, and certainly none at all on one’s reading of this review.
7 Click on ‘LSJ’ in the second box on this page, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=paideia&la=greek, for a thorough consideration of the meaning of the word as according to the ever-useful Liddell-Scott-Jones dictionary.
8 Also known as Antony Ashley Cooper; he was a Victorian social reformer who, among other things, worked against child labour and set up schools for poor children: http://spartacus-educational.com/IRashley.htm.
9 Founder of Mary’s Meals, https://www.marysmeals.org.uk/, which provides children with meals in a school environment, the idea being that if school is a guaranteed place to get food, they will both be fed and be far more likely to stay in education. Genius.
10 You’ve surely heard of Malala. Her autobiography is well worth a read; why not get it on Hive to avoid lining the pockets of Amazon? http://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Malala-Yousafzai/I-am-Malala--The-Girl-Who-Stood-Up-for-Education-and-Was-/15662795.
11 Whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+1&version=ESVUK.
We can educate ourselves as much as we like, but because we have failed to acknowledge God rightly, our debased minds are capable only of suppressing truth, not comprehending or sharing it. The problems in the world – the things that ought not to be done – are not down to the fact that we just haven’t been properly trained: they are down to our failure to acknowledge God. And they aren’t even the most major consequences of that failure; a day is coming when God’s wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of human beings will be revealed in its entirety. To be numbered among the ungodly and unrighteous on that day will be the most appallingly, unbearably dreadful thing there could ever be. The extent to which we have educated ourselves, be it ever so rigorous and ambitious and nuanced, won’t make a blind bit of difference; in the end, such education is nothing more than the application of strategies devised by debased minds for the attempted improvement of other debased minds.
Captain Fantastic is right, then, to indicate that education, however radical, is simply never going to be up to the task of neutralising the world’s problems. In fact, the pleasing little happy ending is perhaps rather necessary to mitigate the utter pessimism of such a conclusion, because Ben’s assertion that no rescuer is going to magically show up extends into more scenarios than rock-climbing accidents: he sees the power to change the way things are as resting entirely in the hands of human beings. And if even the most thoroughly educated and improved human beings on the planet aren’t up to the task of fixing the world’s problems, who will? Like it or not, we need a rescuer to show up. Mercifully, he does.
The message of the gospel is not that we need to educate and improve ourselves according to a particular philosophy and moral code in order to be acceptable human beings, but that we stand no chance of educating and improving ourselves such that we be acceptable human beings. Jesus is the one human being who really was cut from a superior cloth, who understood everything without falsehood or bias, and he didn’t isolate himself from the rest of us or fail to relate, but forwent paradise in order to save us. By his death and resurrection we are able to inherit his perfection – and then begins the process of shaping us to match our new identity. Educating us, if you like, but not according to the schemes of our own debased minds; rather, by the work of God’s Spirit in us. Education isn’t the solution our greatest problem; in fact, it can only really come into play once that problem has already been solved.
Footnotes
1 This is an idea that comes out of Plato’s Republic, in which he describes how the ideal state would be run by philosopher-kings, i.e. either philosophers would somehow have to gain control of the state, or kings would have to learn to philosophise. If you fancy a read, it’s all over the Internet. Perseus is never a bad shout: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0168.
2 Although before we do, quick note on the title of the post: I feel I owe an acknowledgement to the band After Edmund for the rather pleasing phrase ‘Strange Education’, which is the title of one of their songs. I’d provide a YouTube link but nobody seems to have uploaded it, so you’ll have to scout about on your preferred music-streaming platform if you fancy a listen.
3 Here’s a rather lovely trailer if you’d like to get a sense of what the film looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1kH4OMIOMc.
4 I will always plug Campus Cinema, http://campuscinema.co.uk/, because normal cinemas are expensive and annoying (for the full rant, ‘Cinema’s Suicide’ under January in the box on the right) and Campus Cinema is neither.
5 Some kindly human has uploaded the scene to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgvtmO7c-UU.
6 Yeah, I didn’t know who he was either. If you’re dying to know all the particulars, the Britannica article on the subject would appear to be very thorough, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky, though frankly I can’t imagine knowing more about Noam Chomsky would have that much impact on one’s viewing of Captain Fantastic, and certainly none at all on one’s reading of this review.
7 Click on ‘LSJ’ in the second box on this page, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=paideia&la=greek, for a thorough consideration of the meaning of the word as according to the ever-useful Liddell-Scott-Jones dictionary.
8 Also known as Antony Ashley Cooper; he was a Victorian social reformer who, among other things, worked against child labour and set up schools for poor children: http://spartacus-educational.com/IRashley.htm.
9 Founder of Mary’s Meals, https://www.marysmeals.org.uk/, which provides children with meals in a school environment, the idea being that if school is a guaranteed place to get food, they will both be fed and be far more likely to stay in education. Genius.
10 You’ve surely heard of Malala. Her autobiography is well worth a read; why not get it on Hive to avoid lining the pockets of Amazon? http://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Malala-Yousafzai/I-am-Malala--The-Girl-Who-Stood-Up-for-Education-and-Was-/15662795.
11 Whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+1&version=ESVUK.
