Nolan’s Dunkirk & the need for a Social Purpose
Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan’s novel depiction of the infamous 1940 evacuation of the northern French town of the same name. With its novelty arising from its lack of an individualized narrative structure, it quickly places spectators into the pulsing humanitarian military operation, and enables their experience of the military operation in its violent, frantic, heroic and inherently social essence. This essence illuminates something about the passion and possibility of human coordination and achievement. When working through the legal authority of the state to establish a social purpose of moral ends, people can extend the bounds of the possible. Unfortunately though, this phenomenon is historically associated within the context of war. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If the nearly 400,000 men languishing on the beaches of Dunkirk were to return home safely, it would take a miraculous civilian and military mobilization. Nolan’s moving portrayal of the heroism on display during the evacuation of Dunkirk is a remarkable example of what can be accomplished when the public authority employs all of the resources at its disposal. The miracle at Dunkirk demanded the direction of the British legal authority to requisition and pay for needed boats, fuel, etc. The miracle also demanded the willingness of civilians to risk their lives in offering their labor and time to sail into a war zone. Naturally, there was never a question of monetary cost. It was an outcome oriented operation, and an unambiguous moral good.
The miracle at Dunkirk is by no means the only historical example of the employment of all available resources in the accomplishment of military objectives. History is riddled with such events. What is rare however, is a Dunkirk scale mobilization to combat more implicit forms of social harm.
US President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” is perhaps the closest social analogy to the broad military mobilization at Dunkirk. And while the “War on Poverty” was not without its victories, it failed to eliminate poverty or alleviate the US of economic and social privation. There are assuredly many reasons for this, but in order to chart a future path, I am going to isolate specifically the concept of social purpose.
The war movie genre that Nolan’s Dunkirk loosely inhabits is a genre that is often popular among spectators of all types. From WWII epics like Saving Private Ryan, to more contemporary films like American Sniper, war films often define the ways in which western cultures interpret war and our mutual history. The heroic soldiers at the center of these films are perhaps the only popular subjects of pop-culture that are government employees. And despite near universal contempt for “the beauracracy”, spectators often feel a passionate urge to be apart of some broader social purpose when they watch these films. I know I do. And while actual military service can often be more alienating than its on screen portrayal, the popularity of the portrayals unearth a potential for a meaningful and inclusive political economy based upon goal oriented public service, and not war.
It is with this unearthed insight, that I claim that the essential missing premise of LBJ’s “War on Poverty”, and nearly all post-War western economic models, are inclusive non-Military public sector works programs that empower and dignify citizens with a social purpose of mutual care.
If we create inclusive, and goal oriented public works programs that address rising housing costs, failing infrastructure, rising child and elderly care costs, drug and alcohol abuse, and many other societal ills, we can unearth a social purpose in all of us. We have the resources. We have the legal mechanisms. What we don’t have is the political will. What we need to do is come together, and disregard those that say that we “can’t afford” such things. If we do this, and generate the political will for such programs, then we will be the ones setting sea toward the beaches of Dunkirk; in service of an unambiguous moral good.
