Political correctness poisons everything it touches with dishonesty. But perhaps the honest ways of 40’s and 50’s American films have come to an end like the ways of the Apache! Political correctness poisons everything it touches with dishonesty. But perhaps the honest ways of 40’s and 50’s American films have come to an end like the ways of the Apache!
More honest than leftists, Pilgrim.
Traveling in New York — and blogging on the fly — I read an interesting book review in the Wall Street Journal this morning: Newsday’s Daniel Akst reviewing Sincerity by R. Jay McGill Jr. — a book about how the idea of sincerity developed and whether honesty is good for society and, if so, how much.
The review put me in mind of the old John Wayne western Hondo — a 70-minute long adaptation of a Louis L’amour novel, sort of a rip-off of Shane but well worth while all the same. The thesis of the story is that Wayne, a friend of the Apaches, has learned their highly truthful ways and essentially has to learn to tell the “noble lie” in order to join white civilization. Wayne laments the death of the more honest Apache way: it was a good way, but its time has passed. Compare this with Fort Apache, also with the much-maligned-by-leftists Wayne, in which the Apaches, led by Cochise, come off as peaceful and reasonable people abused by dishonest US government agents and by Henry Fonda’s martinet cavalry leader.
In both these excellent films, we see a nuanced portrayal of Apaches and white men both. No one has a monopoly on decency. Red and white humans are both humans, given to corruption and war.
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