As students return to school and our anticipation for fall colors grows, many of us are putting on classic movies that fit the autumn vibes. One of those perennial favorites is Dead Poets Society, a film that has been praised by a generation of students and teachers for its rebellious defense of the humanities. But as we approach its 35th anniversary, the film is due for a reevaluation.

　　The movie, set in 1950s New England, begins with the introduction of John Keating (played by the late Robin Williams), a new English teacher at Welton Academy, an all-boys boarding school for the elite. In a school that claims to prize “Tradition, Discipline, Honor, and Excellence” above all else, Keating takes an unorthodox approach to teaching the all-male preparatory school. He seeks to inspire the boys to love poetry not because of some misguided sense of “objective” greatness, but because poetry elicits passion for life.

　　For most lovers of this film, Dead Poets Society is a movie about the power of the humanities, the hopefulness of youth, and the fight against mass society. For critics, though, it is a wrongheaded celebration of the rebellion against the values that have been the bulwark of Western civilization. Both of these critiques are incomplete. A proper interpretation of the film shows that the work is a brilliant, if unintentional, critique of liberal society and the dueling forces of naturalism that have brought about the malaise and ennui of modern life.

　　In Democracy and Leadership, Irving Babbitt, the great conservative critic and mentor of T. S. Eliot, points to two forms of naturalism that have come to dominate Western society. The first is modern utilitarianism, typified by Francis Bacon, which champions the conquest of nature and man’s search for progress and material gain. The second, romanticism, whose main apostle was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, promoted the idea that man and his passions are inherently a good thing and that it is society that corrupts mankind and his freedom is found by returning back to his original nature and passions.

　　Babbitt teaches us that while both of these ideologies appear on the surface to be in conflict—they are, in fact, working together to create a synergy that has brought about the suicide of the West. They are the ideological “results of the material success and spiritual failure of the modern movement are before us.” Dead Poets Society is brilliant because it artistically exemplifies how these two ideologies have worked hand in hand to wreak havoc on our civilization.

　　The fact is that both Keating and the school are responsible for the students’ pain in the movie, because both romanticism and utilitarianism ultimately lead to death and despair.

　　In one now-famous scene, Keating begins his first day of class by making his students rip out the introduction to their poetry textbook written by a critic called Evans Pritchard. The soulless essay introduces a “Pritchard Scale” for judging poetry, which measures the worth of a piece on a linear graph based on how well the words are rendered on one axis against the object of greatness the poem is pointed towards on another axis. In the movie, the modern urge towards utilitarianism is represented not only by the “Pritchard Scale,” but also by its advocates among the schoolmasters of Welton. They are concerned above all with their prestige and find ready allies among the parents pushing their children to high-paying careers without regard for their future happiness.

　　Keating stands against all this repression by embodying the Rousseauian ideals of returning man to nature and stripping him of society’s domineering expectations. His romantic ideology is expressed in his two main teachings to his students. First, they should act on their impulses, “Carpe Diem,” by seizing the day. Second, he asserts that poetry’s purpose is to unveil human passion, and to move us to act more human by acting out on our passions. In his crude way, Keating repeatedly tells his students that words exist to “woo women.”

　　His students quickly take to this teaching. After discovering their teacher had a secret society, the titular “Dead Poets Society,” when he was a student himself at Welton Academy, seven of his students refound the society and resurrect the spirit of the secret club which seeks to “suck the marrow out of life”—a phrase lifted from the leading American romantic, Henry David Thoreau.

　　While the film seems to affirm the worldview of Keating and his disciples in the Dead Poets Society, a close reading of its plot reveals (perhaps unintentionally) a critique of their romanticism. Like the prisoners in the Cave of Plato’s Republic, Keating’s students hold their secret meetings in a cave near the school, indulging in the world of shadows, consuming alcohol and Playboy inserts, while glossing their vulgar tastes over with bits and pieces of poetry. Their romanticism is not a high striving after human excellence, but a low indulgence of their base appetites.

　　Keating’s philosophy is evil, and his exhortations to the young boys to follow their impulses and passions leads to deadly consequences. In one instance, his advice inspires one of the leaders of the society, Knox Overstreet (played by Josh Charles), to assault a black-out drunk girl, Chris Noel (Alexandra Powers), that he has a crush on. Knox caresses and kisses Chris shouting “Carpe Diem” before committing the assault. It is a ghastly scene, and the pair’s coupling at the end of the movie is cinematic romance at its worst—it rings hollow, especially in the post-#MeToo era.

　　In another instance of Keating’s misleading advice causing adverse consequences, Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), an inspiring stage actor and a member of the secret society, ignores his father’s demands that he focus on his studies so he can go to Harvard and become a doctor, and instead tries out for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream after remembering the romantic slogan “Carpe Diem!”

　　Neil’s decision—and Keating’s romanticism—proves fatal. His father discovers his son is the lead of the play, and after his performance tells him that because he disobeyed his wishes he was pulling him from Welton Academy. Instead, he will be shipped off to military school, where he will study diligently until he can enter Harvard to become a doctor. That same evening, Neil shoots himself, unable to cope with what he sees as ten years of slavery, a life of pursuing a career over free-spirited art.

　　Neil’s death is the climax of the film, and results in the firing of Keating after the administration discovers he has inspired the boys to recreate the Dead Poets Society, which they blame for Neil’s death. The movie ends with the remaining members of the Dead Poets Society standing on their desks and saluting Keating as he leaves the school in an act of resistance against the schoolmaster. It is meant to be an inspirational scene of students honoring a master-teacher, but something darker lurks just beneath the surface level.

　　A superficial reading of DPS leaves one with the impression that the boys are right that the patriarchal tyranny of the parents and the school drove Neil to his death of despair. The fact is that both Keating and the school are responsible because both romanticism and utilitarianism ultimately lead to death and despair.

　　A better teacher might have taught Neil that the beauty of poetry lies not in its appeal to our animal passions, but rather in its ability to point us towards truth and goodness. Instead of letting the boys sneak off to the woods to get drunk while gawking at pornographic magazines, a great teacher might have redirected their poetic interests toward the pursuit of human excellence and artistic achievement.

　　Neil’s death shows the vapidity and inability of Keating’s teachings to survive basic contact with the vicissitudes of life. Forced with the prospect of focusing on school so he can get a job and seeing that he will be disconnected from the passions Keating champions, Neil shoots himself.

　　The blame does not lie solely with Keating, though. The parents and schoolmasters of Welton Academy have no vision of the good life outside of encouraging young men to pursue money and prestige. The schools oft-repeated motto of “Tradition, Discipline, Honor, and Excellence” is a mere dead ritual—no one in authority ever acts in a way that shows they believe in any of these higher ideals. They are oligarchs hyper-focused on prestige, not genuine aristocrats pursuing excellence.

　　In the closing scene, the schoolmaster takes over Keating’s class and tells his students to “read aloud the excellent essay by Dr. Pritchard on Understanding Poetry.” Welton’s leadership, like Keating, does not believe in pursuing the beauty of poetry for its own sake, but believes that poetry should be pursued scientifically. Poetry is a gimmick, a cheap tool to be used on our path to material and personal gain. They may be more convinced about the value of delayed gratification than Keating is, but their sights are no higher than the aesthete they run off campus.

　　In the final analysis, the Dead Poets Society reveals to us that both these ideologies, the utilitarian and the romantic, are guilty of the same sin—namely strip-mining poetry to use all its riches for selfish purposes while ignoring the higher beauty it points to. Both Pritchard and Keating are what C. S. Lewis might call “mass men,” worthy of Dante’s second circle of hell where the lustful are punished for worshiping their passions.

　　The English philosopher Roger Scruton reminded us that beauty, like truth and goodness, is an ultimate value, worthy of a lifetime of pursuit. “Beauty matters,” Scruton said. “It is not just a subjective thing, but a universal need of human beings. If we ignore this need, we find ourselves in a spiritual desert.” He sought to lead men to self-actualize towards the Beautiful and out of the tyranny of the “cult of utility” and petty passions. He would have been a much better teacher for the boys of Welton than either its administrators or John Keating.

　　Dead Poets Society is best understood as a warning about what this spiritual desert looks like. The movie’s inability to produce a real hero who believes in ultimate values points to the continuing rotting of a society that has hitched itself to utilitarianism and romanticism. Poetry is far too precious to abandon to either of the vacuous factions at Welton Academy.