Captain Fantastic | An Exploration in Idealism

Pragmatism and idealism are fairly immiscible fluids. Just this year, the Democratic Party split between an avowed pragmatist and a staunch idealist. There are few exceptions to the rule; mixing the two concepts rarely forms great results. Those results which can survive an inevitable clash of the idealistic and the pragmatic, we call the institution. Institutions are the result of a natural selection of idealistic concepts (like lifelong love in the case of monogamy) by pragmatic uses (a constant partner). In ancient Greece, pragmatism was at its least selective. Plato and Socrates lived their own versions of idealism, building Lyceums to commemorate a life of thought and abstraction. As societies have grown and specialized, idealism and pragmatism have seemed ever more difficult to reconcile, and institutions like marriage which were once pragmatic now become less and less realistic. Idealism has now been largely connoted to the realm of the arts. Captain Fantastic tells the story of the struggle to maintain idealism in a world riddled with pragmatic minefields and looming institutions which seem difficult to question.

Captain Fantastic details the story of a father who tries to provide for his children a life free of institutions which have been predefined societally, and rather presents them with an opportunity to use intellectualism to choose their own religions (or lack thereof), paths in life (with or without canonical institutions of college or dating or marriage), or forms of education (without needing a formal school to detail their path). He takes his children into a secluded neck of the woods and teaches them to live without the luxuries that fill modern society, from Coca-Cola to corn syrup. In one poignant scene, the movie demonstrates this when leading father Viggo Mortensen teaches his young daughter, no more than five years of age, of the grisly details of sex. This idyllic ideal world is shattered when the children’s mother abruptly commits suicide. The entire experiment is called into question, as the family must venture into the world beyond the forest where their commitment to asceticism and intellectualism is overtly challenged by members of their family and others.

“Our children will be philosopher kings.”

A citizen of the United States in the 1800s would find this story somewhat relatable, seeing as societies like the Shakers and the Oneida separated themselves from the mainstream in order to conquer the ideas forced on them by societal institutions. For example, the Shakers found that an increasing trend of sexualization, as the early cults of the 1800s collapsed, was dangerous, and secluded themselves in order to shake this trend. In the same way, our hero Captain Fantastic seeks to take his children away from the rampant taboos associated with sex and what he perceives to be a surface-deep society triggered into conversations that are truly meaningless. An interesting scene to watch is one in which he chastises one of his children for using the word “interesting,” stating that this term is actually an attempt to deflect truly intellectual conversation. The movie raises some interesting points in this regard, about a societal institution of image and chastity.

However, Captain Fantastic’s idealism does not necessarily continue when faced with the grand institutions of society itself. Perhaps the most frustrating moment for a viewer is, when confronted with arrest, Captain Fantastic and his children are forced out of their own wife and mother’s funeral. It begs the question as to how such small yet potentially promising ideals can fare against the monolithic machines that society has created to establish harmony. Let us not, however, only mount praise on such idealism. Institutions safeguard us from idealists who attempt to harm any intrinsic liberties we might take for granted. Captain Fantastic is, at his root, a terrorist, but the terror he causes is just out of the unknown. His father-in-law is terrified at how he choose to raise his children, as is his sister. But like many idealists, when asked to defend his way of life, he can show his hand.

If this sounds vague, it is because the idea of an institution is in and of itself vague. When Captain Fantastic realizes that he may be trapping his children into a way of life just as he felt trapped by church, government, and school, his entire way of life is called into question. The institutions which pervade our daily life do so because they have helped a majority of people at some point in history. Captain Fantastic’s world is “fantastic” because it seems to break away into a world where he can define himself; but as soon as he starts pressing his ideals on his children, he realizes that the world outside, the pragmatic world, may not let these ideas survive into lasting institutions.

To be certain, the defining characteristic of Captain Fantastic’s style of parenting is his inherent distrust of society’s institutions. Institutions like schools, universities, video games, the media, and even capitalism as a system. He raises his children to rebel against these systems every day of their life. They shirk TV and radio in favor of literature. He plays Bach and guitar solos in lieu of the Top 40 Chart. As he raises his children to distrust the systems that he’s worked so hard to keep them away from, however, the movie stresses that he himself has become a form of institutionalization for his children. He espouses Marxist rhetoric — which his children can recite from memory, and he and his children even celebrate “Noam Chomsky Day,” where they sing a special song to celebrate the works of the humanitarian. All of this ritualism starts to look and feel like a modern day institution — just without the technology. Soon enough his oldest child, B0, decides to rebel against his father’s institution of rebellion, and applies to college. He gets in, thus successfully completing the lesson his father taught him: rebel. Rebel against any institution that tries to tell you what to do, even if that institution might be your own father.