On Saturday evening I took my daughter to see W, the movie.  It was directed by Oliver Stone.

 I was a bit surprised at how Stone decided to paint a rather sympathetic portrait.  Granted, Bush fils came off as a hard-charging, light-thinking, selfish zealot.  But Stone also hinted at another side of the character: a self-doubting, insecure romantic.  And that humanizes Bush…to a degree.

Stone also chose to foreground the tension between Bush the father and Bush the son.  The young man is a stumbling failure, unable to live up to his father's expectations but seeking to gain a certain respect.  The father prefers the other son, Jeb, and this is made plain to George Jr. on several occasions.  But little George doggedly works to come out from his father's shadow, to surpass the old man if possible.

We've heard this story before, especially in reference to the Iraq War – George W. was seeking both revenge (for Saddam's alleged attempt on his father's life) and redemption (to complete the war his father had started in 1991).  I tend not to put much stock in such psychological theories – they're too hard to verify (or disprove, depending on your epistemology), especially when there are other political explanations available for the Iraq War.  But, I must say, as a story device, the father-son tension served rather well for the movie.

And this got me to thinking about Confucius.  Whatever we think of the veracity of the Bush family portrait painted by Stone, it raises a question about filiality.  Let's say that George W. Bush really did have such a relationship with his father.  What would that suggest about the Confucian emphasis on filial loyalty and obedience?

On the face of it, the Bush saga points to a kind of filial dysfunction.  When Confucius tells us to honor our parents, I don't think he means us to become obsessive in our pursuit of fatherly acknowledgment.  Indeed, if Confucius was holding court on this story, he might criticize the younger Bush for not doing right by his father earlier, when the old man made various arrangements for the young man's employment – all to no avail.  George W. failed his father on numerous occasions: not following through in several jobs; drinking and partying to excess; not listening when George Sr. advised against the run for the Texas governor's office.  There are, of course, moments when the son serves the father well, as in the 1988 presidential race.  But, on balance, before W. became president, we might wonder if he had contradicted his father more than obeyed him. 

Under such circumstances, I think Confucius would disapprove of the "I'll finish the job my father started" approach to the Iraq War.  Indeed, Confucius might advise W. to think more about actually following his father's counsel, instead of seeking to overcome his father in the eyes of History.  To push the point further: in seeking to outdo his father in Iraq, W. was not being filial, but was being deeply disrespectful.  He was trying to defeat his father, not obey him. 

Again, the problem with psychological theories is that we can never really confirm or reject them.  We cannot get into the head of W.  But, in this case, even if Bush was trying to do something that might make his father proud of him, he was actually acting in a profoundly unfilial manner.  And perhaps there is something there for all of us to remember: if we are too grandious in our filiaity, it can produce a certain filial dysfunction.