In the reaction papers I have been receiving, many students have noted that they have a dislike or even disdain for westerns. This makes me sad, because I frankly think the genre of the western made some important statements about the nature of freedom, individualism, courage and patriotism that other genres are unable to communicate in such a complete package. To these human qualities add the grandeur of nature and the theme that Nature is greater than ourselves, that the majesty of Nature is something that makes our problems and conflicts petty in comparison, and you can see that the western has strong possibilities.

One of the elements of a good western is the open, untamed land where there is no law, no rules, except the law of the people who make them out of scratch. This is a land where it is logical to make the crime of horse stealing a hanging offense, because the people who came to carve out a society in this land realized that to deprive a person of his horse was tantamount to killing him. Laws were what the laws needed to be. Society was not something a person was born into. Society was what the people made the society to be. If the social atmosphere was not pretty, it was because the people weren't. If it were civilized, it was because the people were civil.

The western was about people who fought to create a world out of nothing. You want freedom? You fight to make yourself free. No one will do it for you. You want good to prevail? You must meet and face down evil. You must defeat it, otherwise you must absorb it into your community and it becomes a part of you. The western is an elemental representation of society. It is ourselves at our rawest, and our boldest, if we dare.