 We're back with a live three o'clock rock. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Think Tech. Wow Okay, we special show the economy and you And our regular Chris Lietz and not feeling all that well, so I'm gonna do it and we're talking about promoting Promoting dignity through film. Yeah, we're the filmmaker Jason Scott Jones Filmmaker and author to yes, sir. Welcome to the show Jason. Thanks for having me. All right. Great to have you here So let's define you, you know, that's the first part You're kind of a philosopher and an activist you age graduate you age grads political science Yeah, and you you know, you went you went into the extremes there somewhere in the 90s Tell us tell us about your own evolution. Well, I guess for me as a filmmaker You would say what is the inciting incident of my life or the call to adventure? When I was 16 years old my high school girlfriend wrote her bicycle a couple miles to my house woke me up with the news that she was pregnant and My birthday was a few days away. And so he conspired that I would drop out of high school and join the army and Through a special program a friend of mine just entered for delinquents and I knew I qualified I entered the army on my 17th birthday, which was two days later I went down to the recruiter's office and a few weeks after that. I was off to Fort Benning, Georgia and Enlisted in the infantry and two weeks before I was to come home. My high school girlfriend called me It's kind of a sad story and she called me just wailing crying like I had never heard a woman crying my life and her father Found out she was pregnant. She was trying to hide it till I got back from basic training and forced her to have an abortion Ah, and that what where did that take place in South side of Chicago? Okay, it was where I'm from and Here I was at Fort Benning, Georgia. I've never been at church a day in my life. I was raised in sex ed housing I didn't know anything about religion or politics But this struck me as odd that a young woman in the third trimester could have a forced abortion And and there was nothing the mother or the father could do about it Oh, I'd hardly described a bit the heartbreaking. Yeah, and then it's kind of a I was came to Hawaii was deployed To Thailand My first month here and on a field problem. I remember coming across we were in the middle of nowhere a Young father holding his young son who was very very sick like on the edge of death and I'd asked her translator What was going on? He said that the boy probably had malaria didn't have much longer to live I remember seeing the helplessness in the eyes of that father Which was how I felt just a few weeks earlier at Fort Benning, Georgia I would say at that moment was maybe the inciting incident that I realized how privileged I was To be an American to have access to you know Education and resources and it was at that moment. I think I committed my life. I Wouldn't have articulated it this way at the time But as I think back to just to live my life in solidarity with the vulnerable or the less privileged And then I was blessed because after leaving school field and going to the University of Hawaii I discovered this this professor there who I never had a chance to have Rummel dr. Rummel who wrote a very influential book called death by government and I remember reading that book and That just woke me up to the sorrow that was the 20th century with this genocide Democide and total war and I was able to universalize my experiences and realize what a sorrowful century was So then I was there at the University of Hawaii I said I want to do everything I can to just use my life to promote the incomparable beauty of the human person and Set out to do that after graduating and just been putting one foot after the other ever since Whoa Thank you for defining yourself Jason. Sorry Blow me away now. You know Jason. Yeah, sorry. Sorry for such a sorrowful So what is your credo now you have a philosophical system you have I do organize what is it? I wouldn't say I organized it. I discovered it. You know, I set out as an atheist and I just you know in eighth grade. I read Kurt Vonnegut and I ran and they kind of set my hair on fire Yeah, and you know when I in the army I rediscovered I ran and started reading everything she wrote and Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron if you remember that I read that in junior high Yeah, so I was a radical atheist objectivist And I thought that the problems of the 20th century were caused by collectivism and totalitarianism and socialism and that the answer to the problem was radical individualism and so I started writing a book at UH that was Eventually became this book. It was called generation X manifesto the race to save our century What year was that? This was in 96 when I sat down to write this and I thought I'll finish it This is why you were studying political. I was an undergrad at the University of Hawaii studying political studying political science and Dr. K. Joe was a big influence on me as well and he has she's a libertarian. I can say that now She has tenure. Yeah, she's been here a couple times. Yeah, I know she's great and she influenced me too and greatly but it was Trying to study what were the causes of genocide democide in total war in the 20th century Yeah, I kind of grew from being a radical individualist to sing maybe more of personalism I went from being an atheist to a theist to eventually a Catholic But it was all clawing to try to understand it was really sartanica that led me to Catholicism And strangely the strange is that might sound because they had said that the church Was the advocate of this anthropology this mythological Anthropology that human beings were made in the image of God and had this incomparable dignity which is a lie and I'm like well it's self-evident and I ran said that she said it's self-evident that answer never Satisfied me. I said that's not an explanation of the source of this dignity and when sart and Nietzsche said well It's Christian anthropology is the source of that dignity. I thought well it must be true because The overwhelming when you look at a human person they're there. It's obvious that they're the most valuable thing in the cosmos Why is that and that led me to Catholicism and then and then eventually the book that was supposed to come out in? 1999 and launch my career that I dreamed of having for myself Realized it's gonna take a lot longer. So then in 1999. I said I want to publish on the 100th anniversary of World War one That's my goal or the Armenian genocide and that's what I did. I published it on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genesis Ah a scheduled publication 14 years. I you know a lot of times you'll say well I have a book coming out in three years. I'm like sure you do well, but I need 14 years Okay, yeah, so yeah, and we have here a show that we called promoting Promoting Dignity through film through film. Yeah, so again dignity is a central part of your whole your whole cosmos So questions. What do you mean by dignity anyway? Well, you know, I think that the inviability of the human person I'm really kind of obsessed with Adled almost with protecting the human person from violence Violence that's a big part violence is it protecting the vulnerable from violence for me It was my vulnerable child in the womb and her teen mother and I was unable to protect my child I felt helpless and so I thought, you know, there's the child in the womb is a human person It's a human being The Supreme Court denied its personhood just like the Supreme Court denied the person of slaves and the Supreme Court of Virginia Denied the personhood of of Native Americans. So I looked back and saw you know, wow We won't deny their human beings, but we'll deny their personhood. So I thought you know protecting the vulnerable from violence We move the line, you know, we look for different vulnerable Communities to destroy. I've been greatly influenced by Rene Girard as well the French anthropologist who talks about that eyes identifying the most vulnerable members of the community to destroy So I started knocking on doors in Oahua in 1989 Talking to people about abortion on my off days Then I eventually did radio with Mayor Fossey and Mark Moses here in the 90s Then ran for chairman of the young Republicans and realized if I attacked governor or cheerwoman lingo at the time publicly I could make statements in the press. They love that and I kept wanting to reach broader bigger and bigger and bigger audiences and One day I said let's just make movies You know, you have captive millions of people. What was that when you make that my first film was a 1999 I realized I wanted to make films at the time. I only dreamed of making documentaries Hollywood was like this castle in the clouds You could never reach Before we go to the films Yeah inquire in detail the book. Yes, race to save our century five core principles to promote peace freedom and Culture of life by Jason Scott Jones and John Zim Zira. It's a miracle Iraq Can you talk to me about this book? Why did you write it? What is it? What is it telling us and what are the five core principles? But again, and when I was an undergrad at UH, I had made a trailer why you should study and Why you should major in political science. I presented it to the poly side apartment. Well, I was a conservative They didn't want anything I had to offer But in making the trailer it woke me up. I put all the up to that time was the mid 90s I started with the Armenian genocide and I just clipped together all these scenes of war and terror over the 20th century I ended it with I went and shot a little video at the the grocery store over there in Manoa by UH and I ended it with that of a lady shopping for like in this huge fruit section And I thought contrast. Yeah, let's say this isn't normal. Our life isn't normal But that kind of said that's when I thought I have to write the book But I discovered one principle after the other and I discovered I I Discovered Catholic social teaching, you know I at first it was this radical individualism which became more of a Christian personalism Then I discovered the transcendent moral order through the Nuremberg trials when you study the Nuremberg trials the West but the 19th century Denying that there were laws above the polity above the state above positive law and then at Nuremberg We had to acknowledge once again. Well, they're actually there is a law that transcends positive law Which is controversial today again. Isn't that it's shocking? And then looking at the totalitarianism in the 20th century that I discovered subsidiarity The idea that is subsidiarity is the idea that you keep powers close to the person as possible And you want to empower intermediary organizations between the person in the state So you want there to be competition between the family and ethnic associations and fraternal associations and labor unions and You want power to be decentralized and close to the person if you look at the great crimes of the 20th century They all began with eradicating intermediary competitors intermediary organizations between the person in the state So subsidiarity to me is very important if you can have flourishing civil society the human person is safe It sounds like political science on steroids Yeah, I don't take any performance enhancing drugs not even and not even riddle in which I probably should But so what are the five principles? So The Christian personalism or I would say the incomparable dignity human person to there's a transcendent moral moral order There's a law above the laws of man Subsidiarity is you know, you want power as close to the person as possible Three is solidarity or for his solidarity the strong have an obligation while they're strong because we're not going to be strong forever While we're strong and while we have privilege to share our strength and our privilege with the most vulnerable members of our community and Five is is the humane economy that adjusts social order is grounded in private property rights set within Commonwealths so we own a right to our private property, but we also have to acknowledge we hold that and trust Several commonwealths at a time pathway to a better world to manifesto it is it was to explain to my family really and friends Why I'm so obsessed and the idea is that drive me are that's really why I wrote you say to race to save our century implies Not only that you're trying to save the century within the century, but that there's a race What is the race well? It's really sad when I started writing this book the editors were throwing out the stuff On the Ukraine in Poland and you have so much in here and 600 pages when we submitted it You're not Henry Kissinger your mother's not going to read this get it to less than 200 and We had a lot on Armenia and this Assyrians and the Kaldians in Iraq and Syria This was before ISIS when we submitted to the publishers Well, is that it's shocking that a hundred years after the Armenian genocide Which is what gave Hitler permission. He said that no one cared about the Armenians. No one will care about the Jews and Interesting yeah, and in 19 for in 2014 ISIS again You see the destruction of the Kaldians the Assyrians and the Armenians and Nobody will care about them and no one does care do they you know who cares and I'm a Republican, but I I just I cry when I think about how heroic is is is Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. It's just amazing that this this Congresswoman, you know from Hawaii Has been one of the loudest voices for the most vulnerable people on the planet And you want to see Tulsi part of the the Trump administration? Um, I would love to see her have the most influence possible in shaping foreign policy Because she's a veteran. I'm a veteran as a veteran. I want a veteran there She really seems that experience seemed to really change her looking at her from a distance And it seemed to really focus her it was her Insighting incident, maybe I think her family raised her with a sense of civic duty, but but that I Think her experience in Iraq Changed her and really focused her attention not only the Kaldians the Assyrians the Sunnis You know she and the Iraqis but also our soldiers that we send over there one last question before we go to the break Yes, this fellow Johns Mirac. Yeah, does he like you how much like you completely opposite No, my wife we talked for two hours a day. The way we write is I rant He takes notes and then he sends it to me and then we change it. We go back and forth He's a he's I'm a high school dropout from Chicago who's lived in Hawaii for 30 years. I have seven children He went to Yale and then and then he went to LSU and then back to Yale for his PhD He's a New Yorker and my wife is a New Yorker So when we're on the phone she just laughs because he's such a New Yorker you guys couldn't be different He's salty. He's a very salty character Perfect match or perfect match not your salty, too Yeah, maybe let's take a salty break here for about one minute. We'll be right back with Jason Scott Jones Aloha everybody. My name is Mark Shklav. I'd like you to join me for my program Law across the sea on think tech Hawaii calm. Aloha. Thank you for watching think tech I'm Grace Chang the new host for global connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m We'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs So please tune in and Aloha and thanks for watching Aloha, how you doing? Welcome to you by she talk Gordon the techs are here. We're here every Friday from One o'clock till about 145 when we talk tech with many many great guests I got the end of the security guy who helps me co-host and I got poppy chulo who comes in once in a while to Help us through the show. So please come join he by she talked every Friday Angus will be here, too So remember like we say at the end of every show. How you doing bingo? Not finished with writing books either. Are you know you got one in the hopper now at four and a hopper on the hopper? Oh god so much going on. Yeah, so I'm the one you spoke about during the break is Socrates and Auschwitz Yeah, what exactly is the connection? Well, you know, I look at the people who really have inspired me like Hannah Iran to Leo Strauss Eric Vogel and Elizabeth Anscombe They were you know lived through this just most shocking period in human history and they looked to reason to address The horror that was going on around them and they spent the rest of their lives Thinking about that and so I think there's a lot that we can learn from these men and women who We're in the middle of this the greatest genocides and democides in human history We're trying to use unaided reason to address what were the causes of so there's a Easier comparison between that and the book of you know the book where you studied the Armenian genocide Yeah, well in this book this book looks at a lot of genocide I was drawing on these writers to kind of discover what we can do how we can order our lives But in this case, you're gonna you're gonna move much quicker. You're gonna do you Socrates in ten years a lot faster. You I guess you you're improving your writing technique Hey, I have a lot of reading before I can write. Okay. I don't know my material philosophical treatises Well, let's move to film okay, okay, so now you that's what interest people you've developed this this this world view This philosophy a very complex in-depth philosophy calling on many thinkers and many ideas And then it dawns on you one day that you have to express yourself The book is one way to express yourself the four other books. That's another four ways to express yourself But film you got to the film why film film is it and how did you do that because we love we know about film here Why did you do that? I think I started knocking on doors and then writing press releases doing radio and then I did a documentary in 2000 and then I met some young filmmakers in Mexico City by chance and we did our first movie Bella And then we win the Toronto International Film Festival. Whoa, our first movie first movie and we're just in shock And we're celebrated by the world. I mean we had 11 screenings at the White House and At the UN and so what about Bella? What is Bella? What is it? Bella's is it's such a beautiful film It's direct written and directed by Alejandro Monteverdi whose most recent film little boy Was in theaters last year But it's it's just a day in the life of a young woman who finds herself pregnant Doesn't want the baby and she's from a broken home and she'd be friends a cook in the restaurant She works played by Alejandro Monteverdi Tammy Blanchard 20-word winning actress Tammy Blanchard plays Nina and it's just a they spend one day together in New York City. I should set this up. This is not easy You know, it was a young guy at a film school a lawyer a Colombian lawyer and a Mexican soap opera star and we didn't have a lot of money We had less than three million dollars to shoot New York and it just really everything came together You got to do a lot of outreach you got to find people who participate who will to invest will invest Yeah, and you did and you found the talent that pulled it off and we did and and then the marketing of the film was really there Then you find out I deal with filmmakers all the time now who they make a movie and they think they're done And you have to tell them brother. You're in a 12 round fight and it's the third round And they're like what I'm out of breath. I have no energy. Well, you better you better reach deep It's just beginning. Yeah. So what what happened in the one day of Bella's life? Well, I'm gonna plot spoiler Nina What's gonna have an abortion in and Jose? Whisper something into her ear. He takes her. He doesn't give her any arguments as she's sharing all the reasons She wants to have an abortion and but he whispers something into his ear It's the last scene of the film at all makes sense sort of M. Night Shyamalan ask you figure out what's going on He whispered what he whispered into her ear was I'm gonna. Please. Let me adopt your baby And so the movie ends with him on the beach With his daughter and that's how the movie ends that is looking at this is Mexican guy looking at this This little blonde girl running around the beach and then this help begins and how it ends and she's coming to see her daughter For the first time six years later our goal with the film was to know the name of one Baby whose mother chose life after seeing our film within ten years of our theatrical release and we've received over a thousand letters Oh, and on social media on friends with all of them I get to see them all grow up spectacular. Yeah, and they message me and we talk and how long ago that would you make the movie? The movie came out in theaters in 2007 our 10th anniversary is coming up and we're looking at inviting them all who can make it will pay for the You know what will help with the accommodations, but we want to bring them all to Disneyland. Ah, so where can I find Bella? Bella's an Amazon that often on Netflix a very successful little film and The next one is a little that was three million dollar budget, you know, okay? It's a sweet film. It's the production Qualities over the top Alejandro is a genius and he's a genius. Yeah, okay Bella success Yeah spectacular and it sounds like a movie. I have to see I'll be I'll be watching it tonight Oh, you know when your leadership goes up by one, you know, I'll be there I'll be the one but what what other movies followed Bella well after Bella I was asked by Steve McAvie the producer of Braveheart and Passion of the Christ and when we were soldiers to Come on and help with the stoning of Soraya M and what an experience that was it was a film in Farsi The true story of a woman who was framed by adultery framed for having adultery by her eyes It's a real story. The true story was stoned to death. It was a you know, really celebrated book and Very hard movie to watch, but it's a necessary movie. I think I would wish everyone watch it watch the message once How fragile and vulnerable, you know, the human person is René Girard Says what's different about Christianity and and myth is Christianity's myth inside out It puts the ugliness of violence on the outside puts the ugliness of the mob on the outside and it puts Those who stand with the vulnerable In an elevated position where myth celebrates the mob and it celebrates the violence and violence And I told Steve I when I read this from René Girard I said you know what you and Mel Gibson's business partner and you guys make movies together and separate But in all your movies together separate they have one thing in common you leave the film repulsed by violence Whether it's the Passion of the Christ or heart Hacksaw Ridge, which I think is probably the most moving film. I've ever seen Steve McAvey has a movie that's just coming out called Man Down starting Shia LaBeouf. It looks at post-traumatic stress Disorder in our soldiers. That's a good message to leave people was repulsed by violence Yeah, and in fact Mel Gibson made a movie in Scotland wasn't I can't remember the name brave heart brave heart Where I mean I still think about that movie today about the violent end of that movie I was repulsed by it. Yeah, it's the same thing and violence is repulsive should be repulsive But it goes back to your thing about dignity doesn't it? Yeah, you're still I mean I shouldn't say still you're playing out your original rule about was it Promoting dignity through film. Yeah, this is it We have other things you know we do something in Hawaii that I love is we do it actually has going on around the world now But my daughter and I started it here. We have backpacks You'll probably see them all over town that say I am made in the image of God We film with the necessities of life and we give them to the homeless So you'll see our local neighbors without homes With their bags neighbors without our neighbors and we have to remember they're our neighbors Yeah, and they just don't have homes and and it but it says I am made in the image of God and That's what we just want everyone to know the inviability and beauty of the human person so in Converting your method of expression from writing To film. What did you have to learn about film about you know the technical? Aspects, you know the different approaches that you have in creating a film as opposed to writing it down Well to be honest I learned that I don't know anything and I'll never know it I don't have the talent or aptitude and so initially I thought it's got some tips on me No, that was my first tip to know what I don't know and hire really talented people and let them be them You know as the producer my job was to find the money find the script and find the right people and let them Because I was so insecure initially. I just never Stoning of Srayam is where I learned I should express myself a little more It's like we shouldn't call the stoning of Srayam Nobody wants to see you shouldn't tell the ending in the movie, especially at the endings repulsive just we should call it Soraya, it's a great title for the stoning of Srayam people didn't want to go We took as polls and it didn't do as well as we'd hope that and they said the name was why they didn't go see It was just your gut on these things. Yeah, but but now I've learned to really love writing and to love the art of filmmaking and storytelling and And that anyone can actually learn it enough as a producer to assist the writers The director the creative producers. That's true. So you you're the conceiver You know the message that the fellow who sets up the message and the film is an instrument of all of that So what where does it go for you going forward? I mean, are we are we fixed for a career young man? Are we fixed for a career now in filmmaking? Is there some other way that you want to extend your message? What kind of films do you plan to make in the future? Well, we're working on a documentary right now I can't talk too much about it's very controversial. It's gonna have some of the biggest stars in Hollywood It should be out next year But we have a short film. I work. Well, we want to kind of address the black lives matters and this kind of Can put you in a how I think the black lives matters movement is really started by people who don't feel That they belong have participation or historical roots in the United in America And so I said, how do we address that with a friend of mine? He's a black actor and a great stuntman in Hollywood, but he so Stan We he we conceived the project and he wrote the script on James Armistead and James Armistead is the most important spy in US history He was a slave Who was Washington in general off yet's most effective spy and there would be no United States of America If not for the courage and the daring of James Armistead And so I thought how do we address this feeling that is is is is causing people to not My ancestors were in Germany, you know at the time and but if you're black and you're an American You keep pretty confident that a lot of your ancestors were right, you know in the mainland and So let's tell the story Let's tell the story of the important roles that that strikes me that you you have the flexibility to To follow these stories anywhere and everywhere He from a Bella to the stoning to this one. I mean that you have no geographical boundaries But the one consistent thing is you're protecting you in dignity. Yeah, I think that's great Jason Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me. It's been a treat. It's been a whirlwind of a veritable fire hydrant Thank you