Your Weekly Watchlist

Dear Wags,

When we were in college, there was a prevailing attitude — Western Civ, with which we’d only lately become acquainted, was thoroughly rotten. It propped up countless sinister isms and archies. It was responsible for the world’s hardships, and it was high time the oppressed masses shrugged off the whole kaboodle.

This view, in which we were as steeped as sachet of Ché Guevara’s favorite tea, was wildly compelling. It also has a long history in universities—in the 1920s, our grammy was allegedly a communist before quickly beating a path to Hadassah—and, for a variety of reasons, it’s resurgent. The excesses of the left do mirror those on the right, and to anybody with a dim recollection of the the 20th Century, that ought to be worrying.

The appeal of reductive ideologies, particularly to the very young, is obvious. How lovely to have neat explanations for thorny problems, and a program for solving them (don’t look too closely at what’s happened when it’s been tried). When we were hanging around the quad, we eagerly signed up for Women and Social Change in the Third World and Comparative Peasant Revolutions. What did our capitalist elders think when we went on (and on!) about hegemonies and the male gaze? That they’d seen the Brecht production before, in 1968.

The assumption was that we’d drop our radical pretensions when confronted with the complicated real world, which never granted tenure to Herbert Marcuse. If you are lucky, you outgrow militant posturing and hold on to a kernel of truth smothered by stultifying jargon, which is that far too many people suffer and their lives ought to be made better. In any case, playing guerilla fighter in the safety of Harvard Yard is a half-century old cliché.

These days, the extremities of youth — the all-or-nothing talk, a tendency to punish those with whom you disagree, the habit of policing language and framing arguments in terms of personal victimization—have spread far beyond campus. These poses are deleterious to the serious left and trigger nasty reaction on the durable right. Social media tends to freeze people in ideological camps, and defections are met with hellfire. Now you never have to graduate from rigid certainties held at 19, and can create mischief for those who try.

This sort of immaturity is on abundant display, abetted by platforms that not only make it easy to mouth off but immortalize the stupidest things you ever said. In recent days, many of those who have spouted off have come to regret it. Not a few are experiencing digital retribution for these missteps (something previous generations never had to worry about), which may obliterate their futures.

That’s a heavy tax to pay, but it’s been levied all over. For years now, fear of saying the wrong thing at school, at work, wherever, has played havoc with an open society. Many who find themselves being hounded for their views on the Israel-Hamas war were a moment ago hounding those who disagreed with them about the aims of Black Lives Matter. A great many bystanders are terrified of saying anything at all. If your goal is making a fractious world a better place, identitarianism is a cul-de-sac.

Turnabout may just open the eyes of some who deny this sort of bullying exists and has taken a real toll on people in the academy, the creative professions and the culture at large. Real lives have been wrecked, over words. When this sort of misery is dumped on ideological opponents, you may feel a momentary rush. But it always spins around. It has bred a fearful society, and that fear is entirely warranted.

The chasm between elite universities and an increasingly diverse Middle America is as large as it was during Vietnam. Some people would love them to tip into the abyss. That’s not good for anybody. This civilization is battered and flawed, but it allowed for people at some of our most lavishly endowed institutions to say so, and that is precious. Little wonder free speech is among the things immigrants say they appreciate most about this country. The erosion of openness and tolerance maims us all. Whatever you believe, agreeing to disagree is about the most revolutionary act there is.

Fight for it.

Thomas Stockmann

A Wee Thriller

Payback (Britbox). Morven Christie, Queen of Britbox, returns as a Scottish accountant caught between the heat and a very scary crime family. Her husband has been stabbed, millions of pounds have gone astray, and the mobsters think she knows where they went. What a palaver! Never refuse a Line of Duty-style potboiler. —Alison McIntosh

Robber Barons and Debutantes

The Gilded Age (Max). Is the Gilded Age great television? It certainly is lushly appointed, and populated by hugely talented people. Dame Carrie Coon, as a climber determined to crack high society, is taking the fight to Mrs. Astor (None Other Than Donna Murphy), and there are dozens of upstairs/downstairs plots besides. It all makes for a big fuzzy comforter, as designed by Sir Julian Fellowes. —Ellen Olenska

From AFI Fest

Leave the World Behind (Premiered at AFI Fest Oct. 25/Nov. 22 theaters/Dec. 8 Netflix). It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke are a pair of stressed-out Brooklynites who hole up at a swank Long Island retreat with their kids. But then a man and his daughter show up (Mahershala Ali and Myha’la Herrold), claiming it's their house. Sam Esmail’s handsome adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s dystopian novel is a bit stretched, but it will remind you that Roberts is a movie star of rare intensity. — Moira Davidson

First Out of the Gate

Killers of the Flower Moon (theaters). We endorsed Wag Supremo Martin Scorsese’s epic rendering of David Grann’s bestseller when it made its Cannes debut. Now that it’s in theaters, audiences have a chance to absorb a truly cinematic entertainment. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, as men driven to evil by greed, are terrific, but Lily Gladstone, as the innocent woman at the center of their machinations, is likely to vault into the best supporting actress race. — Jack Crabb