Hi folks, welcome to the new Thinkery. If you're hearing my voice, you know what that means. David Barr has died eating a sandwich. Yeah.
On the toilet like Mama Cass. One different is the difference is the twist collapsed beneath his weight. I believe. But, ouch.
Yes, that's too bad. No, he's running a little late today. But that's okay. We've got a third.
And I have to say I'm very pleased. Our third is in many ways distinguished, but I feel united with a fellow ball of the brother to be able to overpower, you know, the well-quamped co-hosts I have as well. Guys, our guest is Gary. Shmit, welcome here.
Thanks. That's great. Yeah. So let me give a little bio and we'll return to some of your bio at the end.
We like to sort of get some of these intellectual biography at the end. Gary Shmit, you graduated from, I'm telling you, I'm telling folks, I graduated from the University of Dallas in 1974 and the University of Chicago where you studied under Herbert's story, but then due to a series of unfortunate events, ultimately finished with the great Joe Cropsy. You've had a distinguished career right? You taught at the University of Virginia for a few years.
You were on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, thankfully not the Select Committee on Senate Intelligence because that's not a very busy committee. In addition, you've worked for the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President Reagan. You've worked for, you've had fellowships at the National Interest Brookings Institution, a really distinguished career including work under the Bush Administration, correct? No, it was Reagan White House.
Oh, Reagan White House, sorry. I got it. Anyways, you're author of more books than I have fingers, so I was not able to count all of them. But most recently, McCulloch versus Maryland at 200 debating John Marshall's jurisprudence, and you're working on something right now, correct?
Yeah, Joe Bissette and I are writing a book on the origins of the American presidency. And you're currently a fellow at A.I.'s social, cultural, and constitutional studies program who supports you in your research, correct? Yeah. I recently moved over to that program for when I came on board in 2005, I was hired to do national security topics.
Well, it's great. But we're not talking about, it's not what we're going to have to talk about how you made a transition to that from the study of political science. That's a really, I'm sure that's a fascinating story. I think it's bipolar, actually.
Very nice. You'll fit in right here with all these new things, right? I think we're not going to talk about that. But we're not going to talk about it yet.
I interrupted Alex. Yeah, we're not talking about any of that. Do I guess we're not going to have to have the Newton, not the national policy, not the McCulloch versus Maryland. But in a way, we're talking about a film.
We're talking about a high noon in 1952, right? Right. And this, but this film is, you point out, you've written a piece on it, we encourage everybody to go find it, just Google Gary Shinta, High Noon, you'll find it, it's on the A.I. website.
But you had an interesting comment that's kind of a worship. So in a way, it's kind of a good lens to look at much of American politics and maybe of much of politics simply. But we'll get into all that. But this is, I think, it could be exciting conversation.
You have another webster on the, yeah. So we thought we'd start by, for those who haven't seen it and maybe they want to get a sense of what the movies like, we thought Greg could give us a quick rundown of. Right. So Alex mentioned this is a Western, it's 1952.
Sean Black and White, you can check it out on, I watched it on Amazon for like $2.99 or something like that, could find anywhere else. It was a lovely film. I really enjoyed it. What would I say?
I mean, I think you could actually provide us an option to the film very, very quickly. There's not a lot of plot, so to speak. There's a guy is getting married. His name is Wil Kane.
He's retiring as the Marshall. And he's marrying Grace Kelly, who plays a character named Amy Fowler Kane. The movie opens with him getting married, unless I'm going to be corrected. Their marriage, as soon as they're wedded, someone comes in and says that bad guy's in town who came to put away several years ago.
And the rest of the movie is basically Kane trying to get a posse up to meet the villain before he arrives on the train at high noon. And it's just a comedy of air. It's not a comedy, but it's un-successful. He doesn't even get a posse at all.
And he ends up facing Frank on his own. And so, I guess, I mean, there's a lot more to say. But as far as the plot, like he faces the guy on his own, he successfully, you know, spoiler alert, he succeeds in putting down the posse. He sort of throws his metal down and his shield down and leaves town with his woman.
So that's it. It's a really simple plot, right? Bad guy's going to town. He shoots him up and leaves.
But it's so much more than that. It's so much more sophisticated, it's much more interesting. Like he goes to various contingents in town to see if folks will help him. And at the end, like only one young kid will help him and someone else.
He turns the young kid away. He goes to church at one point to try to get religious folks to help. They don't help. He goes to town hall.
He doesn't help. It doesn't. There are a couple of love interests, obviously, the wife that already mentioned. And one other fascinating detail is that the movie takes place in real time.
It's sort of the whole drama of the movie takes place within the core. I think it's like an hour and a half or something like that, maybe two hours. But that's our 25 minutes. Yeah, our 25 minutes.
I mean, it's kind of intense. It's sort of the speed seems to the pace of the movie seems to sort of add to the intensity of the drama. But I'm sure I left out a lot. But the plot is fairly simple.
Gary, is there anything you'd add to just like the plot? No, I think you go. Yeah, no, I think that's the basics. Was it kind of, was it, so obviously in 1952, I mean, I've mowed in that.
That old, was it, I mean, do you know much about how it was received at the time? I've read a little bit about it. Yeah, no, it was a huge hit. It was the big blockbuster for the summer.
And actually, at the time, I think, United Artists was, I think it was the biggest profit maker they've had, they've had up to that point. It got a large number of Oscar nominations. It was really quite critically received. And the song that goes along with the movie, the text reader, became the number one hit.
Sorry to believe because it's not that great. It's a song. Yeah, I was just listening to it before he started recording. But it's hard to believe.
So anyway, so no, it actually, you know, had Gary Cooper, you know, famous already, Grace Kelly, this is our first real film. The director was somebody who went on to be direct films like Oklahoma, Man for All Seasons, from Year to Eternity, that had a screenwriter who was blacklisted, but also wrote the rental with a river Quai. The cinematographer was this guy named Floyd Crosby, who's actually David Crosby of Crosby, Stills and Ashes, and his father. Yeah, so it was really quite, I mean, you know, it was a serious film with him.
I didn't realize this was Grace Kelly's breakout, but I assumed like you said, this is Gary Cooper must have been established. After, I mentioned this, the marriage sort of seems maybe it's not obvious, but Gary, Gary, yeah, Gary Cooper is old. This is a bomb, by the way, the word, the name Gary is going out. So I realized the main character is Gary and Gary, but Gary Cooper is, I mean, she's significantly younger than he is when they went.
And so I guess I didn't realize this was her breakout film, but yeah, she was only like 2021. Cooper at the time was probably 50. I was about to say, yeah. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting, because it is striking.
And at first you're like casting Hollywood does this happening, but then part of it is there's a real, though the plot is very simple. There's a lot of odd backstory, like it's hard to figure out. So, right, let me throw out a couple of things that I'm maybe going to see if anything sticks, but the time used to be lawless, right? Cooper's character as Marshall restored order, right?
Is his wife the daughter of the prior Marshall? Do I have that? No, she's wrong. It's not clear where she's from, but she has lost her family.
Yeah, that's right. Her family was killed and she's also not a church girl or he's not a church girl. But she's not a church girl, but her religion is made a lot of. She's a Quaker.
She's a Quaker. So both are kind of separated from the church. Both have had some relationship to violence. He's eager to get out of town, right, and give up the life it seems like and have a peaceful calm life yet he's brought back by necessity.
And then there's also this relationship he's had with this woman in town, Mrs. Ramirez. We don't hear about Mr. Ramirez, which is what he's called Mrs.
and she's a kind of courtesan slash bar owner, you know, entrepreneur. Yes, I should be a modern business woman. Yeah, she seems to be a suggestion that in before the town was cleaned up, she probably ran the Bordello, which is now the hotel. So, no, I think the interesting thing is Kane's, you know, the fact that he has this relationship with previous relationship with her, and Ramirez, and then Mary's a Quaker.
And what's I think sort of telling is both women are really not part of the normal society. I mean, you know, a Quaker, you know, refuses to, you know, to take up arms to defend a community. And Ramirez is not obviously part of the community, which is, you know, somebody who, you know, lives on the outside of what the church goers would think would be civilized. And I think that tells you something about Kane, because Kane himself is not a church boy, he's sort of not really part of the town.
I mean, he's somebody who can, you know, bring order to the town and sort of, you know, remarkable, you know, obviously Marshall, but he's really not part of the town culture or, you know, the civic life. This is pretty common, right? We did an episode on the Managed Out Liberty Balance and John Wayne's character sort of is the guy who brings order to the town, but also lives on the outskirts or something like that. Yeah, I think that's really common.
Yeah. And I think that's part of the reason why Westerns are, you know, so the setting is perfect because you have this, in this video case, this town that went from being, you know, on the uncivilized side, and now it's made into the civilized side, you know, sort of, you know, it's gone from a hobby and situation to a more, you know, civilized, you know, I even say lucky. Yeah. And in a similar way, the civilizing force, and Liberty Balance is John Wayne's character, but in I knew it's Gary Cooper's character, the civilizing force has to depart, it seems like.
But it also comes from within the uncivilized part, right? Gary Cooper's scene, as far as we can tell, was hanging out at the bar and hanging out at the Bordello. He, Mrs. Ramirez was also prior to her relationship with Cooper's character, had a relationship with the outwell that's coming back into town, right?
And now she has a relationship with the deputy Marshall, right? So there's, and the deputy Marshall is a loose cannon, right? And so there's a, there is a sense that he comes from there, but he decides ultimately to bring decency to town. But finally, once the decency's there, and he has to retire in a way go off with somebody else who's not part of the town.
Yeah. So it's, there's a lot of, a lot of detail about this film around it that just don't quite doesn't quite fit into. But he marries him in a way, he sort of, he also becomes civilized, don't a way that John Wayne's character and Liberty Balance doesn't, right? Like he sort of remains on the outside and dies alone.
You know, Gary Cooper here, he, he marries, right? I mean, he's, he's trying to settle down and come civilized himself. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Just not there. Just not there. Yeah.
So what drew you to write about this movie? Well, you know, initially, it was because, I mean, my academic background is really the study, the presidency. Okay. And the movie up until about 10 years ago was my favorite.
When people, when presidents would go to Camp David, this is the movie they most often asked, you know, the, the valleys put up on the, you know, the screen. I don't know what's happened to where the last few years, but that was really quite common. And so that sort of got me interested. And then at one point, I happened to sit in on a seminar one night with Leon Cass, who was talking about the movie.
And so, and it's typically on race, all these really important questions about, about the characters in the plot. And so then that led me to sort of take it more seriously than just something in the presence, you know, sort of what, you know, put on the, put on the screen. So, and the, you know, the more I dug, the more interesting the movie became. Again, there's a lot of, you know, people have read into it, a lot of current events at the time.
And then, and there's, you know, there's some validity to thinking that there's some, you know, issues that are in the background that that's captured by the movie. But the director himself just said, you know, frankly, this is, you know, a movie that's supposed to be timeless. I think, I think that's accurate. Can you talk about some of those political circumstances at the time?
First of all, I'm fascinated to hear the presence really like this movie. I guess maybe they all see themselves as this, the cane character, I suppose, it rings the lizard. I was surprised. Here, Bill Clinton liked it.
But I suspect he thought it was, he thought it was a Chichen John film. He liked the hell in her mirrors. Yeah, that's actually not sticking. One that I'm more teller girls, she's something else.
Sorry, this is the side I looked, I looked her up apparently Marlon Brando fell in love with her from seeing this movie. What? Yeah, and then they had a romance over here. There.
I was on the Carthes and was, yeah, that said, yeah. So McCarthy is in the original sense, but I think again, you said this Worschach line, I think it's really good. But just in general, there is a kind of, the film has like an abstractness about its moral principles in a way, right? It stands for justice and democracy on the loose senses, right?
But it's not really trying to be heavily allegorical about one's history about it, right? No, I don't think so. I mean, the screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted and tried to make the argument that the movie really was about the character per character was really the courageous individual that he had been not responding to the house committee's investigation of communist and Hollywood. And there's a, I mean, the director was an Austrian, immigrating Jewish Austrian refugee.
And there's a bit of people that have, you know, read into the situation in 1952, where, you know, the US, you know, has come to the rescue of Europe once but twice. And, you know, the Gary Cooper character is the US and the town folks who are those piecing Europeans, you know, that we're now dealing with, you know, Soviet Union. So therefore that, but again, the director, you know, doesn't deny that there are some themes that sort of have, you know, relevance at the time, but then it kind of pushed very hard that he thought really was making was a movie that had more classical themes than issues that really would make the movie last longer than just simply whatever time was in 1952. Yeah, one of those themes that really jumps out to me is that this really brings out the problem of trying to engage in noble action for the sake of democracy, right?
First of all, this outlaw character, I'm forgetting his name, Frank. Is it Frank Miller? Yeah, Frank Miller. Yeah.
The reason he was caught once before by Gary Cooper is scared. But then he killed somebody and Cooper, you know, caught him, the judge sent him to death. And so somehow the folks up north as they say, Holly, reduce the sentence to lie, but then all of a sudden he's pardoned by the governor. That's how he's coming back to town.
Yeah, and there reminded me so many issues in political philosophy, just like in Plato's Republic, the critique of democracy, right, as just promoting lawlessness, like you see criminals walking in the street, right? It just reminded me of that as well as excessive mercy, right? Machiavelli's point in chapter 17, when it's excessive mercy being actually more cool and leading to continued disorders. But as a sort of democratic principle, it seems like he wants to save this town.
The town doesn't want to help them at all. And it's not clear. And you brought this out really well, but it's not clear that the town is receiving. And yet his action still strikes us as noble.
So I thought maybe even walk us through some of the moral issues or philosophical issues that you think right away here. Yeah, I think the sort of key is, I think the film tries ultimately to isolate King. And the question becomes why King is doing what he's doing. So when, you know, after he's married, and he has a great scholar in the buggy, and they're being rushed off out of town because Frank Miller is coming back on the new train.
And so they're high tailing it. And he's out in the prairie with her. And he stops the buggy and he goes, you know, I can't run. You know, that's not what I do.
I've never run in the past. And she says, well, what are you talking about? Let's get out. And he says, well, okay, you know, first of all, they may catch up to us anyway.
But then I think the core of it is that his sense that turning tail is just not the manly thing to do, that he can't run, that that's the sum of it. And so he goes back into town, then like, you know, sort of prudent man, he must have ground up deputies. And I think part of the reason for the way the movie plays out is you go through all these various elements of the town. You know, sort of the guys in the bar, you know, this deputy is, you know, the church, church goers, you know, you go through all kinds of, you know, sort of people that should stand up or could stand up.
And they all, you know, for one reason or other, there's all kinds of reasons. You know, envy, there's a calculations, there's a funny scene where the pastor of the church gives a sort of explanation that leads to nothing. And so I think all that's designed to isolate came in his action. And I think that's, that's also, I think, technically why the movie is filmed the way it is, there's all kinds of things that you want to movie that isolates came in particular.
And it means other than the question that's what is the version of these, you know, these exhibiting and I think it's courage. Yeah. What do you mean, can you speak about some of the things that isolate them? I mean, in your article, you mentioned, I did not really picked up on this with color, for example, but what are some of the other things that they do that isolate came out from the other characters?
Yeah. Well, one of the more important things that happened is in the editing process, they, in the original cut, the movie opens with the town being shown to be a ghost town. And then the movie was going to end with the town being a ghost town. And they cut that out.
And the reason they did, according to the editor was he wanted the focus to be on Kane and his actions simply, that if you began to talk about the town or some of the other scenes that sort of, you know, complicated the plot, you were taken away from, you know, the core of the movie, which is Kane's decision. And why he did what he did. There's other things like, for example, the movie shot without a filter so that the sky basically is washed out and Kane's is very much kind of gray, a pest each. And again, so there's a little efforts by the director and the cinematographer that sort of isolated Kane, or meant to go along with the actual plot and focus on Kane's actions.
I think his interaction with the deputy marshals kind of interesting. To return to the question of courage, right? The deputy marshal is willing to fight if if Cooper's character declares him marshal. Right.
He tries to stand up and he says, no, I can't do that. So he he'll seek the honor and risk his life if he gets the title and he gets to rule, right? And so he needs the desserts, right? He needs that as a sort of guarantee.
But there's also the way in which, I mean, like one could criticize Kane for not deputating, not saying sure, yeah, you'll be the marshal, right? I mean, so it's not just courage, it is courage, right? But there's something else that like, why not say fine, I'll make you the marshal the town, at least have a second hand. Is it because he also sees these kind of reckless and it wouldn't be very helpful or I mean, surely a second gun would be worth something.
Yeah, it's a little frustrating because even if it was for the moment, I mean, it's okay. Just not guarantee the town would sort of say, oh, yeah, you made that agreement. Right, right, exactly. I mean, so there seems to be, it seems to be that episode of House I'm glad you brought it up.
Like in the movie, like, I think you're right, Gary, that like courage is like, it's his manliness is his courage, like he's turning around, he's going back, right? I mean, I got to rescue this town. But then this one episode, it's like, dude, just deputize the guy and tell him he'll tell him he'll be the marshal when you go and you've got somebody to help you. So there's a second moral virtue that he seems to be exhibiting if we think it's a moral virtue.
And it's, I don't know, honestly, or something like this, or some kind of like some sense of justice that my deputy doesn't deserve to be the marshal. And so I'm not going to do it. Even though even though the situation is dire and I need help, I think he doesn't deserve to be it. But he also that's not the process, right?
It's not just not only because he doesn't he doesn't deserve your advice, like capabilities in nature, but it seems like this was decided through some kind of democratic process. Well, if that's the case, then King's character himself is also like, didn't he he's already resigned his commission? Yeah, it's a little bit it's a little bit of an interesting, I don't know if it's a contradiction or intended or not. But you know, Cain has resigned his marshal even though he's weren't still wearing a badge.
And Frank Miller, who's coming back to town, obviously tried to kill, you know, Cain actually is not a criminal at this point. He's been part of it. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, he's David Crunell.
Yeah, so you have this, you know, shoot out showdown. Again, where everything is stripped away from the conventions, the norms or the not the norms with the laws, you know, it's basically one kind of man versus another kind of man. Right. And it reminds me of the sort of the dilemma with Sherlock Holmes, which is, I mean, Frank Miller is right.
There's no question he's also kind of courage. I mean, he's willing to shoot it out with Cain at the end. It does remind you that Sherlock Holmes issue, which is why is Sherlock Holmes on the side of virtue, you know, it doesn't seem actually to be particularly taken with it or taken with the civilization. So what's the rest of you have in the criminal?
Well, that's the thing is, is character the Marshall, right? He's consistently sides with the democratic process, right, whether it's the deliberation in the Church or the deliberation about the new Marshall, right? And so he won't lie, it seems like there's that kind of honesty there. Maybe that's a defect in his abilities as a ruler, or maybe thinks it's better for him to go down and try to preserve the legitimacy.
But it does seem like there's a concern for democracy that, and this is where I think the throwing down of the 10 stars is quite important. The very thing that the deputy Marshall wanted, right, more than anything, he says, look, I'll take it as necessity and defend the town when these people are coming in, you know, to do, you know, to wreak havoc and get revenge. And then there's a suggestion they're going to rape the women, right, when they just start getting in, he smashes the window and he grabs the bonnet. He's like, that's for later, right?
Right. So there's a, it was a women's clothing. Yeah, which is actually funny. That's the drug guy.
And it's the thing that exposes that they're right around the corner and saves the Marshall's life in a way. But but there is, I think, the sense that he's willing to do it because it's right for him as Marshall to save their lives, right, to save the town's people's lives. But he doesn't feel like he doesn't really care for the honors that come with it, right? And so while it is courage and it is noble, I think ultimately it seems like he almost thinks it's beneath him and it's a, it's really a sign of how poor, poorly governed, poor the morals are in this town.
Is he like a, sorry about Gary? No, no, I was going to say, I mean, that gets to the heart of, I think with the heart of really the, again, whether the director or the screenwriter thought this through completely, but, you know, he does exhibit this virtue that we typically call courage. And then the question is, is it real virtue because it's in the name of saving a town that frankly, you know, doesn't deserve uniquely saving. And so then the question is, is that, is that, you know, a virtue to these, you know, manly in the service is something that's not particularly worth dying for.
Yeah. So, so I think this is the heart of the, I mean, that's the heart of, I think the issue of the book. It reminded me a little bit. I apologize.
It reminds me a little bit of that quote in the Genesis, like the Lord can find 50 righteous people in the town, he'll spare it. But here, it's like the inverse of that there are no righteous people in the town, but the, the sheriff still comes to their aid. I don't really point with the age, it's just, it just reminded me of that. I mean, the most startling thing is in the church, we're okay.
So, you know, the pastor, sort of, on the one hand, on the other hand, you know, that's an awesome version of Christianity, sort of things to the capacity. But then the, the mayor who, you know, spends the first few minutes praising King for all that he's done for the town and then turns around and says, you know, if you just leave, maybe they'll, you know, leave us alone and folks up to orthogon start investing again. I mean, very, he's a very, sort of nasty, you know, turn. In this theme of the town being hopelessly lost, does, he's would take this up in High Plains Drifter.
I can't recall. Where's, which film is that? Sure. Yes.
High Plains Dr. Brown read and it's just a, it's debauched place. Yeah. Almost wholly debauched.
Yeah. You know, John Wayne hated the swing. Oh, that's right. For two reasons.
One is he hated the depiction of the town. And second thing, which I think actually gets back to the game before he was not happy with the Gary Cooper presentation where, you know, Cooper obviously is afraid. Wayne just thinks that it's, you know, a manly man should not be afraid. And then it gets, and of course that gets us back to the, you know, maybe our style of definition of courage or, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, somewhere between recklessness and, you know, being afraid.
So, Wayne really hated the scenes where Cooper actually admitted that he's afraid and looked like he was afraid to cry. Right. But it's fear in many ways. I mean, it's a sign of prudence, you know, where, you know, it's not, you can't really, there's moments where he withdraws a little bit, right?
And that potentially saves him from dying, right? When he withdraws, when he's fighting two of them at once, he kills two of the sort of lesser, one of them is played by a young lead, which is kind of cool. But he would, he then withdraws into this place and as he's getting shot at and he pulls back, that actually gives his wife time to shoot the third kind of lackey, a Frank Miller in the back, the window, which then spoiler alert, the Quaker shoots him. Yeah.
And then, then he, Frank Miller grabs her, brings her out and, and then that creates the occasion where, you know, he lets go. So like the withdrawal often gives him the chance and the fear is kind of prudent. I mean, he's not so afraid that he runs. He had the opportunity to leave, but he's wrestling with his fear.
Yeah. No, no. And again, he's not reckless. He doesn't just sort of go walking up the middle of the main main street that take on the floor before that.
He bounces around buildings, you know, that gets them from the side and the black. So it's not like, you know, it's a foolish, you know, version of per inch. So it's a prudent one. And also by the way, one thing that doesn't get noticed as much, he actually only wants it being able to shoot Frank Miller because he's not only has his wife shot, one of the gang in the back, but she's also the one that sort of frees herself in such a way as he gets a clean shot, right?
Ed Miller. So, you know, can he can only survive because the Quaker actually takes action. And it seems like the women in this film are more thematic than the men. Raisin in the Latina.
Yeah. Well, two women. He's the two women. He's sorry, right?
Yeah. Can I say how much I enjoyed the skeevy, Bordello hotel clerk guy? He was hilarious. He was disgusting for looking.
Yeah. It was great. It's been great casting. Like when you had these old Hollywood weirdos, right?
He just had the right face to the role. I mean, he slimy the kind of little rye comments he makes, you know. He reminds me of the villain in another Clint Eastwood film that was based off of the Gary, what was that that the serial killer that they never caught in San Francisco? The first dirty Harry film.
Oh, dirty. That was based off of who's taking. I know what you're talking about, but I think who's his father? That's, uh, there's a yeah.
That's what the one in that first dirty Harry film has a face like that. I was just going to add one little thing, which is one thing I don't, you know, talk about in the article is there's a bit of it. Well, there's more than a bit. There's an education of the indie follower character.
I mean, you know, in our conversations with Mrs. Ramirez, it's clear that she really doesn't quite understand her husband. And, you know, Mrs. Ramirez has to, you know, basically explain to her that, you know, he's a certain kind of man.
And that seems to, that seems to lead her to come a little bit more aware of what she required on her part to do when she turns back from leaving him and helps him out at the end. So there's a bit of education on her part that goes on in the film. Yeah. But there's no, I remember, I hate to keep going back to the name of Shelton D'Valance, but like where there's clearly educational, like they're doing the classroom and there's like the declaration and this, that and the other.
I didn't see anything like that. So that you mentioned the connection, perhaps, so what we're to and the house on Un-American activities, there is there are these references, but they're very veiled, right? It does seem to be there's nothing sort of in your face and explicit of making these things obvious. But also, yeah, also you just don't see the town itself.
You don't know where it is. Yeah. I don't know what the time the actual time is. Can I say one thing about the town?
I'm sorry, surprise to sort of throw this on you and surprise, but I couldn't help but think of it. And then I looked into it a little bit and apparently there might be something to this. Are you familiar with the Mark Twain short story, the man who corrupted Hadley Bird County? No.
Isn't that where you just gets a saying stuck in their head? Right. Is it Punch Brothers Punch Punch in the Fair Punch in the Take of the Passenger? I don't remember.
Is that it? Maybe I'm thinking of another short story. But it's just the only reason I mentioned is it's a short piece. And apparently I guess this was originally Hadley Bird in this and they changed it to Hadley Boke's.
It sounded like Hollywood too much, something like this. But in any event, it's a nice Twain story. It's about it's a particular robber baron. So this seems to be the obverse of that.
I don't know if that's right word, but any event, something worth talking about. You were talking about education. So actually, the only time education that's really mentioned is when he runs into the judges, pack in his bags of his books to get out of Dodge. And he talks about civics, any civic education.
And at the same time he's pulling down the flag. And then he talks about fifth century Athens. So if there's education, it's a different sort. Sure.
But I think also Cooper's character goes through a kind of sobering education, right? Where he's trying to get people on his side. And he's like, Oh, this person has this BS excuse this person. This person will only fight.
He's eager to fight. But only if there's a lot of other people who can get shot instead of them to sort of reduce his chances. And I think that puts him in a kind of maybe this is what's going on in the crying scene, but the only one who's willing to help him among the men is a 16 year old kid. And I think he's sort of left in the situation where he's like, well, here I am.
And I'm expecting the townspeople to come help me and we'll all be together. And this will be a side of our virtue. But they all say no. And so they're vicious.
And so now I'm trying to preserve these people. This like, I don't know if like, you know, you know, people just don't have the spine to stand up for their own well being. And they're just concerned about making money. That's why they're worried about the gun.
They don't want investment. What's all for? We brought the civilization that then they're just, yeah. But then what happens?
What does he do? Does he say, well, then I'm not gonna do it, right? And then he's no different than that. Right.
So in a way, it's a kind of limit case of courage, right? Where you literally you're either one of them, or you're saving something not worth saving. And and either way, it's in a way, it's like one of the bitterest pills to swallow as a person committed to this kind of life, because you are really forced to say, even in this situation, I would do it because it's just decent to save people's lives who haven't done any law, right? Though they're not excellent.
They are still law-abiding. Yeah. Up to me again, the question is whether he's doing it even sort of, at that point, is he really doing it for the town or is he simply for himself, for himself in the sense of his own sense of shame or not having shame. The one thing I think is this actually kind of interesting is, okay, so the town is portrayed rather poorly in very broad terms, obviously.
I mean, go through the judge and the pastor and people in the bar and all kinds of people in the church, and the civic leaders and the rest. So, but what's interesting is the movie was so popular. I mean, people didn't take offense at this portrayal. They actually were like, you know, goth smack in favor of the Cooper.
Because everybody, everybody puts themselves in his place. They don't see themselves like the president's. Why they're so popular to the president's, right? They all see themselves as the Gary Cooper.
They don't see themselves as the judge. Whereas I'm pretty well aware. I'd be like, grab my cheese and I'm getting out of dodge, right? Well, that's the funny thing is like the arrogance of like a 20th century president looking at 20th century president early 21st, just being like, yeah, just as I tried to push that, you know, marginal tax cut through Congress.
So to am I like Gary Cooper. That's the question. I mean, again, just the presidency. They all feel like they're alone, you know, they're the executive.
And so, can I slightly different direction? I mean, I realize this analogy is not going to hold some. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on it. But I actually was reminded of Corey Lance and I know that Gary, your article is largely about the courage that Kane exhibits.
But I kind of got a whiff of the great old man actually here. Like, like that he's sort of, I mean, yes, he's, I mean, you're mentioned maybe he has doing this for his own second half of the town because there is a kind of disdain for the people there, but they don't deserve him. Especially at the end, right? The throwing down of the shield or whatever it is, the badge, right?
Like this town doesn't deserve me. Yeah, no, I think there is a whiff of Corey Linus. That's right. You know, I have all I have this martial virtue that really, you guys went survive unless I had it.
And then, you know, and you really don't deserve me. Yeah. So he does it though. I mean, that's kind of the fascinating thing.
Like, he still steps in and, I mean, I realize the boy is a little more complex, but like, at least in the play, like, he sort of, he leaves the town and fights the town, right? Because they don't, they don't appreciate his, and he refuses to sort of condescend to them. Whereas it seems like here Kane does condescend to them, but then like, is upset about it at the end. Like, I did it.
So I don't know, maybe it's a sort of Democrat, maybe this maybe this is the great old man in a democratic time. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a fair way of thinking about it for sure. Yeah.
Yeah. And again, I mean, again, yeah, sure. Yeah, we have to look at things like, you know, sort of, you know, sleeping with the town, Adam, right? But on the other hand, again, I think, you know, essentially great great soul man is somehow not really part of, you know, larger societies, certainly consistent with how Kane is portrayed here.
So, very good. He's both necessary, outside as well. Have you done work on other Western scariards? There's only one that you, oh, you know, we all do a few Westerns.
What are some of your favorites? Well, actually, despite the fact that the real profit was done, it's to actually be a counterpoint I think that's a. Right. I think we pair them up.
They're interesting discussions, the re-balance of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah. The other Western is the godfather.
Is that right? Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.
Well, I mean, at a certain point in the show, we like to sort of especially have guests on like to talk about their own intellectual biography. Is there anything else about the movie that we should probably hammer home for folks before we move on or? I think we pretty well covered it. Okay.
So why don't you go ahead? Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead, David. I'm sorry.
Actually, no, no, please jump on out. We're asking some late. We'll flog you later. So Gary, do you suspect McCain would have been more successful had he had the qualities of a leader?
So that's one thing that I'm when one watches this film, it's like you're pleading with him. He doesn't do a good job to excite the martial spirit of the men in the town. You can say, look, we have a plan. I'm going to post Alex here on this corner.
Gary's on that corner and this is what we're going to do. And you kind of get them excited to follow you into battle. He's just like, Hey, I've got a pistol like, you know, it's like, and so I don't know if that's a variance with the internal fortitude that he exhibits facing the bandits alone. But it's like he has an inability to rouse people through the hour of need.
If I interpreted that. I didn't notice he was oddly passive in the church scene, right? The debate takes place around and he doesn't mean that's part of the Coriolanus thing, right? You should all be just there.
Or maybe that's a strange party. He doesn't exercise rhetoric. Right? Yeah.
Well, he just doesn't, he isn't a comment. So in a way, I would say rhetoric. Look, I'll say this. I think I'll say this.
I think courageous. I'll back off of it a moment. I think there's a certain sense of morality and courage that would disdain rhetoric. Like, why should I have to resort to fancy words to persuade you to do the right thing?
Just do the right thing. Right? It's sort of dishonorable to have to resort to these things. Yeah.
Any kind of rhetoric is always vowing to whatever your audience is. Yeah. Coriolanus. And he's not that kind of character.
He also doesn't much condone it when people start giving their reasons for abstaining. He's like, just go, let's hear me to hear your arguments. He's kind of like, he's like, he's like, I'm going to be a fine guy. By the way, one little footnote about this, I just reminded of, when he gets married, it's a public event that marriages.
And what he really wants to be along with her, he doesn't even want to have the marriage in a kind of a civic arena at all. So he takes her off to the , before he really kisses her, he takes her off to another room. So this is a guy who doesn't seemingly get along with many people. And so I think it could be pretty possible for him to provide the kind of rhetoric that would move the townspeople to do anything but what they did.
To David's point, I think it wasn't only in unwillingness. I did sense of sort of inability. I said, you're right there, David. It doesn't seem like he had that skill.
It is in his holster, so to speak. So Gary, at this point, like we talked a little bit before we started recording, but the folks at home, usually when we have folks on who are sort of established and have had successful careers, we like to know how they got married up. No, no, very much like you. But we also wanted to know who are interested in political philosophy.
So a couple of different lines here, but the question that we typically ask at any rate is, how did you get interested in political philosophy? We've noticed a theme for guests, but like, how did you know all along? There was an accident. Like everybody grew up in the early one to high school in the 60s, it was science and math.
The smart kids in science and math and the dumb kids in language, it's an history. So that was a 60s thing? Was it the space race or competition? So it's, I thought it was my high school.
I thought it was going to go to MIT because that's what science and math people did. And at a certain point in the process, my dad asked me who was going to pay for it. So I wanted to go into where my brother had gone to college about 10 years before University of Dallas, because he offered me money. And it was an accident, but then I had been interested in philosophy because my brother had been a philosophy major.
And so then I ran into Paul Heidelberg and Leopoldi Alvarez. And I got the bug. Wow. And who were the professors by chance that you happened to pawn?
Oh, it was Leopoldi Alvarez, chairman. And then the two associate professors were Doc Malitz and Paul Heidelberg. And then when you were at Chicago, Gary, who did you really connect with? Well, I went to Chicago and studied principally with proxy.
And then also, obviously, it was nice to have storing there as well. And actually, my master's thesis was on Nietzsche. But then I gradually sort of figured out that the proxy was talking about things at the fifth floor. And I was still on the first floor.
And I got along very well with storing. There was a there's a lot of overlap of interest. And so I moved to be more his student than student proxy. Did your brother stick with philosophy?
No, he became stockbroker. He finances philosophy. Fantastic. And then tell us about your move into the policy world.
How did that happen? You did get an academic job. You're one of the few lucky to proud that you got a job at UVA, right? Yeah, no, that was not a good school, like a real university, right?
Yeah, well, storing accepted a chair at UVA and was going to set up a program on studying the presidency. And so he brought myself, Joe Bissette and Jeff Tullis to be sort of a junior faculty. And we were going to help put the center together. And on our first day of meeting with him to set up what we were all going to do, storing it, made arrangements go off and play a handle tragically die that day on the handball court.
So anyway, I had a contract for two years and after that, the parts of the UVA said, you know, you're out of here. I see. Have you recently given an adjusted Congress or anything? No, you're thinking, this is also tragic the month before Marty Diamond had given testimony about the Electoral College in the Senate and then went back to the seat and then also died of architects.
So, yeah, these two guys that were at the top of their game, you know, that passed away with basically a month of each other. Basically, when the longest order was. He died in Congress? He died in the Senate hearing.
Oh, are you there? Yeah. Yeah. So, one of my neighbors who obviously I knew as a friend of friends was carried forward, consular, and one of his best friends was, would come down from Washington, D.C.
Because he had a job on the Senate Intelligence Committee. That was Abe Sholsky. I don't know if you guys know him, but it was kind of Wayne Edwards's mentor right now. So, you know, this is all sort of like, you know, seven, you know, removes a bacon, all these versions.
Anyway, so, make long story short, Abe, a lot of being the staff, one of the staff directors on the Intelligence Committee, had hired me to be on the staff and then after about a year or so, Abe moved into the Reagan Defense Department in Senator Moynihan, Vice Chairman, and asked me to become the staff director. So, during the little secret of course, when I got hired, the Intelligence Committee staff, I knew virtually nothing about the topics. And then, while you look at my crook, and then then moved over to the Reagan White House in 1984. Wow.
Do you ever do any work with the Office of Net Assessment? No, I know those folks. They always struck me as a very interesting, uh, yeah. No, there was sort of the, you know, the, they were the new Thinkery inside the Pentagon.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Andy Marshall was very brilliant at posting questions that couldn't possibly be answered by the bureaucracy.
Yeah. You know, provided the whole couple generations of analysts that do much more interested work than can do normally government positions. Yeah. So, I mean, any insights from working in those circles, like, did you mean, did it help you understand things about politics that you hadn't understood before?
Or any, or, or, you want to, you want to agree with the aliens or, yeah, I've got great more stories, but then it would take us forever to get to be. Okay. No, I was also thinking conversely, did your education anyway prepare you for what you did or you're like, oh, absolutely. Oh, okay.
Good. Okay. Yeah. So I said, no, absolutely.
No, no, I, I firmly believe that the liberal arts education, I had better prepared me for the high level policy issues that I mean, you can always learn, I mean, I have to always learn, you know, you know, how, you know, a satellite works and which I need done or not done. I mean, there are experts who can ban upon them. But the bigger issues of our important issues require a broader perspective that you only get to hear from, I think, from the liberal arts in this way. Take that MIT and I think we all know if you're, if you got an MIT to MIT, go to a university of Dallas instead, right?
Yeah. That's a lesson. And you two can be impoverished. So were you able to, during that all the time, you were able to sort of keep us serious on your, you're able to read on the side, you kind of interesting sort of things going on for yourself.
Yeah. I did. Work of course is interesting. But yeah, no, even during all that period, I was writing on presidential issues, constitutional issues, and separation powers and not as much as I always wanted to, but nevertheless, I fairly, and you've worked a lot with the set, it seems like over the years.
Yes. Yeah. Again, it's easy to do because we're both drawing students and so, so on saying white-length, we've written a number of essays. I think I want to have him on to do Booker T.
Washington because he did so many interesting things on Booker T. Washington. He didn't, he didn't edit Storming's book on, yeah, collection at AI. Yeah, right.
That's such a great collection. That is a great collection. Yeah. Well, if you don't mind, we do this little thing at the end, it's called lightning round.
Alex is already, not gripping. I do. It's grimacing already. He's grimacing already.
So just some questions, just so the folks at home get to know you. So feel free to pass. We can always, you know, cut, delete, delete edit out but you do. Do you have a favorite philosopher?
Oh, I'm so boring. Plato. Plato. That's fine.
Do you have a favorite work of philosophy? Again, boring, other republicans. That's not boring at all. It's a good answer.
It's one of our more comments, which is probably, do you have a favorite non-philosopher writer? Yeah, Shakespeare. I don't like Porter Langgary. That's a boar, he's a philosopher.
No, he has a number of scientific works like the New Work at On. That's true. That's right. I forgot about those.
We're not going to follow up with big shape. You're a lobby. Yeah. Yeah.
I actually almost decided to write on Shakespeare as an graduate school for my PhD thesis. Very nice. Crossy convinced me that I really, if I ever wanted to get a job, I should have done something else. Very good.
What about favorite work of literature? Yeah, I'm not a big, well, measure for measure. That's my favorite. In terms of fiction, big fan Josephine Tae's daughter of time, highly recommended.
And then just to show you that, I'm poorly, I am in terms of the literature. I'm a big fan of Henry James's, the American, which all the critics say is the worst of its not fault. That's a good novel. Yeah.
That's, it's not always, it's not like one of the typical Straussian movies. It's like, actually the really bad work is the best. But when it's a complete mess, it's intentionally such. That's the one one you can actually read without searching your hair out.
I mean, trying to figure out what he's saying. He's good recommendation for Alex to read them. Yeah, it's true. That's a hard one.
Yeah, because he's bald. All right, good. Are we running nicknames? Well, so my name is spelled S-C-H-M-I-D-T.
Sometimes people would drop out the M. Oh. I don't, I don't follow. I've an easy to say a college professor at the University of Texas.
Oh. Apparently, she's a tough grader. The students often have coined the phrase after the exams that they've been shmitted on. So.
That's pretty good. I like that. I think the past is, but. What was your first car?
A four-barreoll, 350, 69 lemons. There we go. Gasoline was 19 cents a gallon. I'm back then.
So. Wow. That's not it. That was your first job.
Very first job was Y-N-C-A, Camp Counselor, and I helped run the baseball league. Oh, did you play ball? I did all the jock things in high school. Yeah.
Baseball football and basketball. Very cool. Let's see. Do you have a favorite western?
High noon. High noon is the fair western. I think that's about rounds it up fairly well. Alex Dave, you guys have anything else tonight?
Well, so Gary, I was confused. Greg asked us, he said that we were talking about high noon, or Alex I think proposed initially. And turned us on to your piece. And then Greg thought it was a movie about marijuana.
It took us a long time to convince him otherwise. Now that was, I know it kind of filmed you like David. Or a little, never mind. Yeah.