A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

Originally published December 2012.

MY REFLECTION OF LINCOLN

Steven Spielberg does it again with Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis giving an awe-inspiring performance of Honest Abe and Tommy Lee Jones giving one of his finest performances as the quick-witted Thaddeus Stevens. While Sally Field looks a lot like Mary Todd Lincoln, I personally felt that casting the actress who was 20yrs older than Ms. Lincoln at the historical time period of the movie removed elements of consistency (it's easy to age an actor; it's much harder to make them look younger). Another Oscar is in the future for Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis.

Movies like these remind us how human the players of history really were--full of imperfections and shortcomings as we are. We take for granted when we read our history books that the passing of the 13th Amendment meant that our nation just came to terms with slavery and then got sidetracked with Reconstruction. If you don't like C-SPAN, scenes dramatized inside the 19th century chamber of the House of Representatives will seem boring with some great one-liners, but if you're like me who enjoys being informed by the likes of C-SPAN, you will eat up the political humor, drama, and wit of these particular scenes. If you are a political junkie, the jokes on both political parties will leave you chuckling for most of the 2.5 hours. But a lot of the film deals with philosophy, and only if you are one to sit through discussions of equality, politics and history will you entirely enjoy this movie.

Lincoln reminds us that while we are not equal in strength, talent, ability, endurance, wherewithal, power, wit, genius, integrity and honor--it is by God alone that guarantees our equality in worth, opportunity and justice, and therefore it is the responsibility of man through law to protect this equality, for otherwise we bow down to the Lord of the Flies in anarchy and tyranny.

As an educator, I believe that as Americans this must be our rallying cry: that each student is equal in worth and deserves equal opportunity to pursue a just education equal to their worth as individuals. The following exchange comes from the 1993 film Philadelphia:

Judge Garrett: In this courtroom, Mr. Miller, justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion and sexual orientation.

Joe Miller: With all due respect, your honor, we don't live n this courtroom, do we?

Joe Miller was correct: we don't live in the courtroom which is by its nature blind to all of the labels we go around slapping on one another, which dictates the necessity of the protections guaranteed by the courtroom, the Constitution and equally important: the classroom. For of all places, in light of the events of this past week in Newtown, CT, the safety and security of each student's mind, body and dare I say soul must be equally protected and garnered equal worth and justice, and therefore the practices of each educational institution must reflect this philosophy.

Any less renders us all a failure.

~Michael DeNobile