Inherit the Wind by Stanley Kramer - Essay Example

Inherit the Wind” By “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” Bible, Proverbs 11:29 “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” Albert Einstein “Inherit the Wind” by Stanley Kramer is a brilliant example of a movie that speaks about socially controversial issue which is interesting as a discussion topic. “Inherit the Wind” is based on the real historical event that is better known as “The Monkey Trial”. This confrontation between rational thought and blind bigotry, progressive thinking and conservative obsession had a great impact on the image of the modern society. “The Monkey Trial” showed one more time how arrogance, hate and intolerance can once again rule over the freedom of the ideas and liberty of the word. “The Monkey Trial” appears in another light taking in consideration that such event took place more than half century after the first publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”. When talking about the time of 1920s which is the time of the events occurred in film we surely must say that it was a strange time in the history of America. Probably the most interesting thing was the Prohibition that banned circulation, buying, selling and consumption of the alcohol according to the “Volstead Act”. What is common between the Prohibition and Monkey Trial? Simple: religion. It is exactly religion that dictated and forced government to forbid alcohol just as well as it done it to the teaching of evolution in school. Religiously obsessed, boring with their own neo-puritan life and overall blind, arrogant and worthless masses of housewives, their domestic husbands and conservative deep to the core republicans with all their shortsighted efforts done only harm to the fair judgment and rationality of the thought that was developing in the Western world for the last couple of centuries. Of course middle class average man from the South knew nothing about The Enlightenment, Renaissance, Constitution and Reformation, about the war for the freedom of the thinking and saying just as well as he knew nothing about the Evolution, Freud and Marx until he started to hate. Nevertheless, even in his hate common man from the masses is inconsistent and incoherent. He hates but he doesn’t know what he hates. “Inherit the Wind” being a great movie with high-class actor performance and brilliant work of camera more than anything is a movie about the never-ending battle between the sense and chaos, between the reason and ignorance. Darwin’s theories found a huge and admirable audience in the most creative, intelligent and smart people of those times. French philosopher and writer Anry Bergson, a Nobel Prize laureate and a great thinker developed his philosophical and ethical model of reality basing on the Darwin’s theories. Sigmund Freud with his cynical, strictly materialistic and pessimistic approach to the man’s existence made one more move towards the fact that man is an animal and nothing bestial is alien to him. But this is not the place for the philosophical discussions of that kind. What is appropriate is observation and analysis of a struggle between church and state, between faith and knowledge, between religion and science. These opponents have a long history of active and destructive relationships and to understand the nature of their relationship we must look back to the history as it is said that nothing is new under the sun and history teaches man that man studies nothing from his history (as Hegel said in his paradox) (Hegel 1988). Remember Voltaire because Voltaire is not a simple man but a man of his age, man representing his age and a man of idea if not an ideal man. Voltaire headed the war with prejudices and religious bigotry and fanaticism. Voltaire started and ended an Age of Enlightenment, revolutionized the way of thinking and paved the way for further generations of scientists, artists, and politics. Voltaire as a moving force of change completely redeveloped our civilization stating along with other enlightened individuals that there is nothing more noble and significant than the mind itself, justice and liberty. It is Voltaire’s, Montesquieu’s Russo’s, Locke’s and Diderot’s ideas that created democracy and lead to the two greatest revolutions – American and French (Horkheimer & Adorno & Noerr). Nevertheless Voltaire wasn’t an atheist (he was a deist) but he stated that church and state must be disconnected once and for all. Along with him more radically Diderot declared that “no man will ever be free until the last king will be hanged with the last priest’s bowels” (Diderot 2001). Russo along with Locke and Montesquieu created and developed the concept of the three branches of government with which tyranny and dictatorship could be finally erased from the surface of the Earth. Science also goes face to face with real knowledge, philosophy, wisdom (where would we be without Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras Archimedes, Kant, Newton?) and art. Religion is needed for the moral, ethical and spiritual purposes (we can see that in the final shots of the film when Spancer Tracy takes both books – Bible and Origin because they are both needed). Without religion there would be nothing exceptional in the man that could make him different from the beast though it is known that the man is a crown of creation and his responsibility is to rule the earth. Despite that and the fact that science helps to make our life more comfortable, deep, interesting, creative and useful religious fanaticism was always popular for how easily it ignored all those things just to defend the faith, God and church. What a helpless being must Christian God be if he needs so much help and can’t stand a reasonable opposition? Remember the Popes that started bloody Crusades hired and fired Kings and were the most influent and rich people who decided the fate of countries not to say definite people. Dark ages, witch-hunt, exorcism, Jordano Bruno’s execution and Galileo’s process. What does it all talk about? If everything would be in the hands of Christian church we most probably would live in Dark Ages now again. There must be faith because man must have something to believe in, because he is the only creature that thinks about his place in the world, his fate, his destiny therefore his life is most bitter because being on the top of the nature he often thinks of himself as not a part of nature. Poets help here because we are the part of the nature and we just as well could be butterflies in the past as we were apes and fishes because everything is moving and we can only strive for the better with the help of the science and faith in our power, with the help of God because it is said that if there wasn’t God he must have been invented Voltaire 2000). Judging people, killing them and torturing them just because of the difference in opinion on the matter of belief is crazy and just as crazy is to stop progress just because it doesn’t fit in the book (most wonderful book it is but still a book). That one who troubled the house had really inherited the wind. The whole process served only as a well and useful advertisement and with the help of the independent news agencies small city process reflected the illusive and shaky line between common sense and truth, intelligence and hebetude. Overall it is a rather interesting clash of interests. References Diderot (2001) Political Writings. Cambridge: CUP Hegel, G. (1988) Introduction to The Philosophy of History: With Selections from The Philosophy of Right. Chicago: Hackett Publishing Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T., Noerr, G. (2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Boston: Stanford University Press Voltaire (2000) Candide and Related Texts. 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