Live Historic

Why it was built

A technological society has to weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. That is not a complaint about machines. A system that runs on scale, mobility, and consumption cannot afford the friction of a household that owes it nothing, or a town that answers first to its own people. So it smooths them out. It teaches that your first loyalty is to the system.

A family is a chain of people. You were given a way of living by the people before you. Someone will be given one by you. You have about seventy or eighty years in the chain. In those years the work is to keep what was worth keeping, and to pass it on in a condition the next people can actually use.

The evening is part of that work. For two or three hours, a story is showing the house what a life looks like. Who keeps a promise. Whether work matters. Whether a child is safe. Whether anyone owes anything to the people who will still be here after we are gone.

Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Prime Video choose most of those hours now. Their business is the next click. Live Historic is not trying to replace them. You still watch on their service. This desk stands in front of the play button and puts a score on the story, so the house can choose with a longer view than the next click.

The Amish are not a museum. They are a working answer to the question we spend all our money avoiding: what if a people built something they intended to hand on? That is what Live Historic exists to defend, and to equip other people to defend.

Getting more visitors is not the goal. We measure success by the fruit of the household, not the traffic of the site.

What we do

The work is threefold.

1. Measure. Score stories against the eight measures, with the reasoning shown, never the verdict alone.
2. Teach. Train families, teachers, churches, and small groups to make the same judgments for themselves.
3. Preserve. Build a durable, searchable archive of what has been judged fit to keep, so the link between generations is not broken in our own time.

We publish no ratings on the basis of blood, party, or worldview. We publish no score we have not reasoned through in public. A score is a reader’s answer, not a state’s award.

How the score works

The score is called the Living Meter. It runs from 0 to 100. A higher number means the story is more fit to hand on.

We look at eight things. Each one is scored from 0 to 10. We add those eight numbers, divide by eight, and multiply by ten. That is the number you see. There is no hidden step. A 10 means the story loves this and you leave more able to practice it. A 7 means it is present and taken seriously. A 5 is split. A 3 treats it as naive or in the way. A 0 teaches the opposite and enjoys the teaching. Showing a fault is not the same as praising it. The question is what the story loves, excuses, and leaves a person more likely to do.

• 100 means the story honors all eight.
• 0 means it teaches the opposite.
• 80 and above is fit to keep.
• 65 is worth an evening and a conversation.
• 45 — watch it awake or not at all.
• Under 45, it will not make you better.

The number is a judgment, not a fact from the past.

1. Work

Does the story honor real work, a skill, and earning what you eat? A high score means someone finishes a real job, the work feeds a house, and the person is more useful at the end than at the start. Rest comes after the work. A low score cuts getting loose from making. Ordinary work is a joke, or a windfall is the moral. This is not a lecture about hustle, and it is not a wage. A poor person who does the work can outscore a rich person who does not.

2. Home

Are a marriage, a promise between two people, and children treated as a life, or as a prop? A high score keeps a vow, or breaks it and pays the cost. Children are people. Adults still have authority. A low score treats the home as furniture, a prison, or a laugh, or uses a child and does not protect that child. A story does not have to be about a family. One with no house in it can still honor a house, or show what the absence costs. The family is the first institution, and the answer to a system that wants every loyalty negotiable.

3. Conscience

Is a person allowed to answer to God, or to a real sense of right and wrong? A high score lets conscience stop someone. Reverence is allowed. Someone answers to more than appetite and the crowd. An honest believer can be in the story. A low score uses faith only as the setup for a joke, or leaves no room for conscience at all. We are not scoring which church a person attends. A story that never mentions church can still pass. A cross in the background is not an automatic pass.

4. Courage

Does someone risk a thing that matters, for a reason that is not only himself? The cost can be a name, a job, a fortune, a friendship, or a body. A high score means the person pays that price and is changed by it. A low score is noise, revenge dressed up as bravery, or a hero who risks nothing he cares about. A fight by itself is not courage. A quiet refusal can be.

5. Liberty

Does anyone owe a neighbor, a town, or a law, or is every person out for himself? A high score means a person belongs to other people, freedom still has a limit someone can enforce, and duty is not the punchline. A flawed town can still be worth keeping. A low score treats every person as a predator and every office as a fraud, and enjoys that conclusion. This is not a score for a political party. A story can criticize a town and still believe the people in it are owed something.

6. Temperance

Drink, sex, anger, money, and the habit of wanting the next thing. A story may show all of them. A high score shows the excess and then puts it back in its place. A person in the story can stop. A low score makes the pleasure of the story the loss of the limit, and trains the viewer to want more of it. Showing a fault is not the same as teaching it. A night of drinking that ends with a bill can outscore a binge the story treats as glamorous.

7. Truth

Does a spoken promise still bind the person who made it, and does a lie come due? A high score means a promise costs something. Facts stay facts. The viewer is asked to notice a deception, not to enjoy being fooled. A low score makes the lie the whole charm, and nobody pays. A surprise ending is allowed. A life built on deceit, and rewarded for it, is not. We say plainly what we have not watched.

8. What you leave

What is left for the people who come after? A child, a field, a trade, a house, a name. A high score means someone keeps a thing they will not live long enough to finish enjoying, and refuses to strip a place for a short gain. A low score ends with one person. Nothing is owed forward. A skill taught, a house kept, and a name left clean all count.

If you save titles for one person, that person’s number is the average of those titles. The household’s number is the average of the people in the house. Once a week, the site names one title to take off the list and one title to put in its place.

This is not a medical test. It does not say that anyone is sick, and it does not say that a child is behind. It is a judgment of a story. Parents already make that judgment. The site writes it down, in the same way every time, so the whole house can see it.

What you will see

Open the site. At the top is a list of forty titles. They are new, or people are watching them now. Each one already has a score. The highest scores come first, and the first picture is the King James Bible. A title is not put in front of you until it has a number.

Below that is a search box. Type the name of a movie or a show. You get the score. You do not need an account to look.

Share sends that score to another person. You can copy a link, send a text, or save a one-page sheet you can hand to someone.

Annie is a voice on the site. If you would rather ask a question out loud than type, you can talk to her.

Join is how a household is written down. There is no password. We never ask for your Netflix password, or the password of any other streaming service. A child does not get an account. A parent may write a child’s name, because the parent is the one deciding. Whatever you enter stays on that phone or that computer. We do not take it off the device. We do not sell it. We do not share it. You can erase it. There is no monthly fee.

What this is not

This is not a score of blood, party, or confession. A story may be set anywhere and feature anyone. If a review can be predicted from the identity of the people in it, the review has failed.

This is not a blessing. A score is a desk’s answer to one question. We will not tell you a story is fit to keep without also telling you what it costs.

Live Historic is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. LiveHistoric.org. The same eight measures apply to this organization: clean books, intact promises, named bias, and our own future tense in view.

We will not add passwords. We will not give a child an account. We will not sell what a family enters. We will not put advertising on the site.

What to do

Watch the film. It is a minute and forty-three seconds. Then open the website and look up one movie or show your house already watches. Read the number, and decide whether you would still put that title on.

Read the charter. Work, a home, faith, courage, freedom, self-control, telling the truth, and what you leave behind.