Opening Salvo
You may have heard the criticism that Civil War does not explore the root causes of the American conflict. That it’s unrealistic or “lazy” about explaining how things got so bad. I’ve heard this argument, because that was a complaint made by my Space the Nation co-host, Dan Drezner, which he then went on and wrote a whole… oh, wait, he’s now written two of his own newsletters about it… and, hold on…
when I wrote about Alex Garland’s Civil War, I closed by quoting Douthat’s column on the [un-]likelihood of that film being a harbinger of reality. Many folks, including my podcasting partner-in-crime Ana Marie Cox, found the film to be prescient.
I’ve already alerted Dan to his error here. (My text to him began: “DAN!”) Just because I was not bothered by Garland’s fuzzy evocation of the movie’s pre-history doesn’t mean I think he’s predicted anything. I just don’t think the movie’s realism on this specific point matters. The movie isn’t about what might happen, it’s about what’s happening.
I mean, Dan’s a professional political scientist, so I get why the political mechanics of getting to such an extreme point in history matters to him. As I’ve written, some of the film’s note-perfect details about journalism helped me fall in love with it. For Dan, perhaps Garland not putting forward a plausible series of events leading to a second American civil war is like what journalists typing stories straight into Word documents is for me.1
At least Dan still liked the movie — many of those whining “but how did we get there?” are so concerned with understanding what happened before the movie starts, they seem unable to concentrate on what is unspooling in front of them.
This preoccupation with explaining how America came to be laid so low reminds me a lot of how many Democrats reacted to Donald Trump’s candidacy and then his election. The people wanting to know how Garland’s civil war started were the audience for the Times’ pith-helmeted explorations of Red America and the psychology of the deeply misunderstood Trump voter. I suspect they’re the ones who bought “Mueller Time” t-shirts and who now watch the entire MSNBC prime-time slate of Trump Trial coverage.
There are — or were — Republicans with the same sorts of institutionalist preoccupations and faith in systems, if not the same TV viewing habits. Ross is one of them. The article of Ross’s that Dan quotes writes off Civil War thusly:
If you refuse to give those reasons, to explain how exactly the politics of today’s America could yield our own version of 1990s Yugoslavia, you haven’t actually made a movie about an American civil war; you just have war as a generic signifier that happens to have strip malls and subdivisions in the background
In other words: It can’t happen here unless you can prove to me that it will happen here and it hasn’t happened here so it won’t happen here.
Civil War is not, I think, supposed to be “prescient.” I don’t think it is “prescient.” (Again: DAN!) I think Civil War — like all science fiction — is about the present. To be sure, Garland wants to remind everyone that political violence is costly in terms of both blood and soul. (Another way to frame the movie’s primary message: There is a moral “higher” ground in war, it’s just not very high.)
But if you need Garland to write up a flowchart from today’s political problems to the landscape in the movie to find his warning relevant to the United States today, I think you’ve missed several of his points. All are as current as today’s headlines. Here’s a couple of things Civil War got me thinking about, YMMV.
What do you believe in so fiercely that you would have people do violence in your name? (Bonus question: What would you be willing to do “to stay out of it,” since, “with everything that's been going on, it seems like it's for the best?”)
If we are losing faith in our institutions — and we are — who will replace them? Who will you let replace them?
I don’t know, maybe Ross would dismiss these as generic questions; I just don’t think there’s anything so special about America that we don’t have to answer them.
P.S. I’ve taken “every day” out of my mission statement because this really does wind up taking an hour or two or three every time I sit down. Linky thing tomorrow, maybe.
I have a whole thing about how typing is represented in movies, much less journalism.