I watched Dead Poets Society again after many years. As I like to live dangerously, I put it on for a group of children between the ages of 10 and 13. Too soon, you might say. Maybe, but kids at that age today think they know what those of us from yesteryear thought we knew at age 20. So, if crap is getting into their minds earlier, maybe it’s not unreasonable to give them a chance to be exposed to something that might do them some good earlier too. First victory: None of them fell asleep. Second victory: None of them made me swallow the DVD. Third victory: One of them exclaimed, “Carpe diem means something like turn off the cell phone and live life.” That’s more than I expected.

I’ve never been a fan of the film and I find it increasingly difficult to watch post-1960s cinema, but the fact is that Dead Poets Society is a good dose of the medicine that a whole generation of today’s teenagers needs, much more than previous teenagers might have needed it. These days it’s amazing how scarce are propositions like: “Live your own way,” “Think for yourself,” “Don’t be manipulated,” “Don’t cheat yourself.” If someone were to make a respectful remake of the movie, the Left would do everything it could to ban it. This gives you an idea of how much things have changed on the left side of life.

Enthusiastic teachers can change your life. Okay, they can also ruin it. But the biggest lesson in this movie, for me, has always been the moment when Professor John Keating gets up on the table and invites the kids to do the same, in order to “see things in a different way.” One of the greatest problems of our time is that, because disagreement is forbidden and you risk being canceled, most people don’t bother to get up on the table and see what happens if things are looked at differently, even if it is just to silently draw one’s own conclusions. 

Think about Pride Month — do we not need to breathe a little freer, i.e., to stand on the table and take a look at these demonstrations from an angle different than the one that has been crammed into your brain by the White House and your favorite brand of take-out hamburgers? It would be wonderful to be able to come to the conclusion that all these people have gone crazy, because they act, think, and talk like automatons. Twenty-first-century courage is not about taking up arms, or even raising your voice in the midst of a dissenting mass. The courage of the 21st century consists in thinking for yourself, in doubting what your eyes see, especially when all that is placed in front of your nose is a dense and closed ideological brick, which must be worshiped if you don’t want to suffer the consequences. 

And then there is the love of literature. That can be transmitted by enthusiastic teachers. I have had them in art history, literature, language, history, and philosophy, and I can never be grateful enough to them for having infected me with their enthusiasm for the humanities. They were guys who became truly moved, their voices breaking sometimes, when projecting on the wall the great works of art of history, or when reciting an evocative poem, or when explaining the core philosophies of St. Thomas Aquinas, and how his contributions forged the Western Christian civilization we knew for so many years and that now, although still in place, is hidden behind a mountain of woke litter with no foundation other than the fear they instill.

Maybe Keating didn’t end up with the most dedicated students, studying the most important degrees, but the truth is that he taught young people to fight for what they wanted. Today no one is willing to do that — can’t you see that you have to get off the couch and close TikTok? The most popular efforts made among young people today are those viral challenges against malaria or whatever, consisting of dumping a bucket of ice water on your head and uploading it to Instagram. I think Keating would have something to say to all of them. Something like: You’re leaving half of life’s apple uneaten.

Translated by Joel Dalmau.