I was reacting to an apparent supposition that these problems are somehow solved in the current day.
In fairness, I'm probably thinking more globally than within the US, where the slavery, racism, and opression of women are relatively diminished.
Your point of obtuseness is well taken. Sorry for the poor netiquette.
there are many traditional elements that are afoot which are more part of the problem than the solution.
I would return that there are many traditional elements such as personal integrity, responsibility, manhood, womanhood, and the family that are foundational to stable society and which are suffering from severe erosion in the current situation.
It seems that the New Deal, politically, and the Sexual Revolution, socially, are leading to some fundamental shifts. As you've pointed out, some of these are good, with the diminished racism and fairer treatment of women in the workplace. And perhaps some overkill is a natural side-effect.
you seem pretty uptight and close minded.
Well, that's a fair thing to say, given a superficial internet view. Some ideas, like shooting heroin, are outside the common sense horizon, and if my gentle refusual to treat my flesh as a dart board marks me close-minded, then so be it.
What about "traditional values" such as slavery? Slavery goes back a long way, you know.
What makes you think it's purely historical?
The Old Testament even contains explicit instructions from God on how to obtain and treat slaves. Aren't you glad to see that traditional value destroyed?
They (the enslaved) were often using their flesh as collateral. Yes, there were war captives, too. This is an interesting topic, and would require a full survey of the Bible (St. Paul certainly did not denounce slavery when he told Philemon to return to his master) to explore.
Racism is also a very traditional value. Aren't you glad to see that destroyed?
Again, what makes you think it's purely historical? What is racism but naked Darwinism in action? I was in Albany, Australia, and I could not stifle a crawling feeling when I saw some Aborigine women. The xenophobia is buried very, very deeply, and requires something compelling to overcome.
Or the oppression of women. Aren't you glad to see that destroyed?
Are Muslim women willing participants, or opressed?
I can go on and on. Society is not decaying. It is just changing. And in many ways, for the better. Things change. Deal with it.
I'll agree with you in the strategic sense of the human spirit (the existence of which you may reject, but allow me the symbol briefly) being fairly constant.
Societies do age, and die, though. Rome is toast. France looks wobbly. The USSR imploded. Things do change. I wouldn't necessarily agree with Bork that we're "Slouching Towards Gomorrah", but there are a number of ungood elements afoot that are more part of the problem than the solution.
Well, i was going to suggest that you might have something up your butt, but I am afraid you might take that as a justification for homosexuality.
I have some cousins. I don't happen to agree with all of their ideas. Some of their ideas, in fact, are completely unjustifiable to me. This does not their ideas any better or worse than some of my ideas. I'm every bit as liable to the Almighty as they are.
Where they encounter resistance from me is when they assert that I have to accept some of their ideas as justified. I find the ideas themselves utterly false, and no one has (nor is there any requirement for them to) start with Ultimate Truth and derive some theory of human life that justifies these ideas. One should judge the tree by the fruit, and these ideas are fruitless. Sorry.
I dunno. I mentally recompiled the flick on the fly the first time, and enjoyed it.
I also understood The Wall on the first viewing.
Then again, I crochet and play highland bagpipe, so I'm no representative sample.;)
The frequency of remakes would be an interesting IMDB study.
I sort of get the feeling that they're increasingly common, as it's cheapher to recycle a proven vehicle that pay for an exhorbitant script that may suck pond water.
Technology may save us, though, as we lower the bariers to entry for those aspiring ateurs out there.
Concur with you on most reality shows. I did find my attention held, once, by Survivor.
I just don't understand why so many people love this movie.
It's the original immersive fantasy. Not only has it spawned literary immitators by the shelf-ful, it's crossed over into music, if a careful listening of Led Zeppelin and others somehow escaped you.
I agree that the Wheel of Time is not a half-bad successor, but that'll have to be pure CGI, as its size and character base would (I'm guessing) bankrupt most of Hollywood trying to cover the half of it.
Do you want to replace the propaganda you see with more, albeit different, propaganda?
Well, the/. article is about Hollywood being out of ideas, so, yes, I'd like to see the bias of the propaganda return to the vaguely positive from its current, arguably negative, state.
What I'm referring to is the overt and covert attack on traditional values. If you've read Golberg's Bias there seems to be pattern of destruction of traditional values. Goldberg is concerned with the news media, and the book is written in that awful breathless newstwit prose, but there are some points to be made.
Mrs. Doubtfire is a funny movie. Robin Williams is a genius. Setting aside the baby and peering into the bathwater, isn't the flick a disturbing assault on fatherhood? Tactically, the movie is an enjoyable escape, but, strategically, do I want to see men desperately mis-representing themselves to gain access to their children? Are we advocating an "end justifies the means" mentality here? Has my wife overstarched my underwear again, and I need to lighten up? Certainly: if there are too many flaws in the painting, take a couple of steps back and don't lose sight of the picture.
At what point have I been against taboo subjects?
I submit that we may be converging on the same point from two different directions.
I'm no fan of Disney, that happiest place on earth. Give me Warner Brothers, where there is a variety of surprisingly mature material going on, even to the point of Bugs Bunny cross-dressing.
I know I didn't grow up in a shoebox. Mom and dad de-mystified such topics as pornography and alcohol really early.
As an adult, these and the other common vices bore me senseless.
Meaning, man: it's all about meaning.
Would that somehow advocate or encourage homosexuality? Is it off limits, in your opinion?
At no point in this thread have I advocated any external censorship. Certainly, homosexuality exists, and it would be as honest to deny that as to deny racism, incest, drug abuse, paternal dereliction, theft, etc.
I appreciated the fact that Brokeback Mountain (to drop an example) was well publicised as to its content. The viewer was smoothly able to choose whether that material was of any interest, and make a reasoned choice before parting with any cash.
To drop another specific example, The Full Monty had the scene with the two fellows looking at each other significantly. While the idea itself does nothing for me whatsoever, I'd give that a thumbs up for good taste.
Tom Hanks has got to be about the most versatile actor of all time. Philadelphia very strongly made the point that no one should be mistreated, without attemptying to justify an idea that, in my very personal opinion is about as valid as 2+2=3.
I think your use of the term "potty mouth" implies some closet prudishness. Try: cursing, swearing, or cussing.
That is certainly one interpretation.
Another might be that, in using a rather childish term, I'm seeking to defuse the power that some seem to think is acquired through the use of strong language.
There is nothing particularly powerful about any of the words banned by the FCC.
Furthermore, I can be just as offensive by calling somebody a priapism as a dickhead. Does using a medical term launder the offensiveness?
Profanity, sparingly used, makes for useful punctuation.
Haven't seen Big Lebowski, sorry.
I am saying that all stories are messages, some positive, some negative.
You seem biased against anything positive ("contrived", "uninteresting", and "unrealistic"), and to feel that negative imagery only triggers vicarious learning.
Now, we're exchanging brief notes on/. here, so this is doubtless an unfair oversimplification.
Do feel any of the stories correlating negative media imagery and negative behavior, particularly among children, have merit?
Possibly I'm shifting the thread from the individual to society, and you quickly run into the Ecological Fallacy.
And yet...personally, I have tapered off on all of the negativity. While not contrived, it is certainly repetitive. While perhaps interesting, it becomes repetitious. Negative people are concerned with maintaining their problems, as opposed to mature solutions to the problems. Unrealistic? Well, reality never escapes the subjective, and if I'm weak for eschewing a Nine Inch Nails existence, so be it.
You're not after good taste, you're after propaganda. A media fed force against the decline of Western Civilization as you see it.
About this we can reach no consensus, for our worlds fly apart at different seams
Are you implying that what comes out of Hollywood is somehow not propaganda?
For a rebuttal, I'll let it slip that the wife and I have been watching a lot of "Rosemary and Thyme" and "The Red Green Show" on DVD lately. Now, if you want to accuse Red Green of being a duct-tape driven, media-fed "media fed force against the decline of Western Civilization", go right ahead. You might accuse it of being a moronic pile of trip, too. I consider it the most consistently funny thing I've seen in too long.
R & T is also relaxing, and quite well acted. Yeah, there is the occasional body part. But I'd call it a reference for tastefully dealing with "the evil that men do".
To drop a specific example, if you show a heroin needle, as well you might for considerations of plot, I expect that the movie is not an advertisement, yes.
If you're going to talk about it, by all means show the ensuing misery.
The challenge for society is the partial messages coming out of Hollywood.
This, however, tends to change greatly both between societies and time periods. smitty one each does not want movies of "good" taste, he wants movies of "his" taste.
Disagree on both counts. There are taboos that have been proscribed across the overwhelming majority of societies over time. Maybe there is some room for subjectivity, but I disagree with the idea that there is significant variance over time.
Nor am I trotting out some closit prudishness here.
For example, I though Pulp Fiction had an excess of potty mouth. However, the title is Pulp Fiction. Truth in labelling never had a more concise example. And the random vignette approach to the movie marks it a classic.
Request you re-consider my original post.
As if people will stop getting divorced by seeing enough movies projecting an unrealistic ideal.
Unselfishness and forgiveness are unrealistic?
The truth I see in your remark is that the emotional costs should not be trivialized; therein lies the unreality.
Couldn't agree less.
I wouldn't accuse myself of being a) interested, or b) competent to judge others.
The act of teasing others into reflection upon their actions, now, that is worth pursuing.
OK, I'll play along. The animes grow increasingly fantastic. How is this sustained? Where does it go? What meaning does it hold? With what value do we walk away?
I don't know how sexual it was, but my roommate in college was a huge MUD dude. He would log in, and the system would output the time online. At one point, it showed an entire, solid week of his life had been spent in that thing.
Now, this is not a moral argument. I was a big Civilization junkie at the time.
Yet the question nags, and should nag us all, about our diversions: are they buying us anything? At what point does relaxation go past the reasonable?
Diversions and entertainments that teach something are great.
I'll even go out on a limb and say that no movie can rise above the level of passable but forgettably simple entertainment unless it challenges some of the widely held perceptions of what is acceptable in society. Any movie that makes such a challenge is certain, almost by definition, to conflict with what a large number of people in that same society would consider "tasteful."
Bring on the challenges.
Your next set of blockbuster flicks:
Simple farming community successfully fends off big-money developer who wants to spew McMansions.
Gritty military hero has opportunity to snap the pencil neck of the foppish journalist who smeared his unit based on false propaganda, shows mercy and dedication to the ideals of the Constitution.
Drama about marital misunderstanding nearly resulting in yet another ruinous divorce and shattered children, but the spouses forgive each other.
The real things needing challenging are the decay elements in society.
Slashdot Mirror
In fairness, I'm probably thinking more globally than within the US, where the slavery, racism, and opression of women are relatively diminished.
Your point of obtuseness is well taken. Sorry for the poor netiquette.
I would return that there are many traditional elements such as personal integrity, responsibility, manhood, womanhood, and the family that are foundational to stable society and which are suffering from severe erosion in the current situation.
It seems that the New Deal, politically, and the Sexual Revolution, socially, are leading to some fundamental shifts. As you've pointed out, some of these are good, with the diminished racism and fairer treatment of women in the workplace. And perhaps some overkill is a natural side-effect. Well, that's a fair thing to say, given a superficial internet view. Some ideas, like shooting heroin, are outside the common sense horizon, and if my gentle refusual to treat my flesh as a dart board marks me close-minded, then so be it.
Societies do age, and die, though. Rome is toast. France looks wobbly. The USSR imploded. Things do change. I wouldn't necessarily agree with Bork that we're "Slouching Towards Gomorrah", but there are a number of ungood elements afoot that are more part of the problem than the solution.
I have some cousins. I don't happen to agree with all of their ideas. Some of their ideas, in fact, are completely unjustifiable to me. This does not their ideas any better or worse than some of my ideas. I'm every bit as liable to the Almighty as they are.
Where they encounter resistance from me is when they assert that I have to accept some of their ideas as justified. I find the ideas themselves utterly false, and no one has (nor is there any requirement for them to) start with Ultimate Truth and derive some theory of human life that justifies these ideas. One should judge the tree by the fruit, and these ideas are fruitless. Sorry.
I dunno. I mentally recompiled the flick on the fly the first time, and enjoyed it. ;)
I also understood The Wall on the first viewing.
Then again, I crochet and play highland bagpipe, so I'm no representative sample.
The frequency of remakes would be an interesting IMDB study.
I sort of get the feeling that they're increasingly common, as it's cheapher to recycle a proven vehicle that pay for an exhorbitant script that may suck pond water.
Technology may save us, though, as we lower the bariers to entry for those aspiring ateurs out there.
Concur with you on most reality shows. I did find my attention held, once, by Survivor.
Philadelphia
I agree that the Wheel of Time is not a half-bad successor, but that'll have to be pure CGI, as its size and character base would (I'm guessing) bankrupt most of Hollywood trying to cover the half of it.
A study of the life of Abraham Lincoln is helpful, on this and other levels.
What I'm referring to is the overt and covert attack on traditional values. If you've read Golberg's Bias there seems to be pattern of destruction of traditional values. Goldberg is concerned with the news media, and the book is written in that awful breathless newstwit prose, but there are some points to be made.
Mrs. Doubtfire is a funny movie. Robin Williams is a genius. Setting aside the baby and peering into the bathwater, isn't the flick a disturbing assault on fatherhood? Tactically, the movie is an enjoyable escape, but, strategically, do I want to see men desperately mis-representing themselves to gain access to their children? Are we advocating an "end justifies the means" mentality here? Has my wife overstarched my underwear again, and I need to lighten up? Certainly: if there are too many flaws in the painting, take a couple of steps back and don't lose sight of the picture.
At what point have I been against taboo subjects?
I submit that we may be converging on the same point from two different directions.
I'm no fan of Disney, that happiest place on earth. Give me Warner Brothers, where there is a variety of surprisingly mature material going on, even to the point of Bugs Bunny cross-dressing.
I know I didn't grow up in a shoebox. Mom and dad de-mystified such topics as pornography and alcohol really early.
As an adult, these and the other common vices bore me senseless.
Meaning, man: it's all about meaning.
I appreciated the fact that Brokeback Mountain (to drop an example) was well publicised as to its content. The viewer was smoothly able to choose whether that material was of any interest, and make a reasoned choice before parting with any cash.
To drop another specific example, The Full Monty had the scene with the two fellows looking at each other significantly. While the idea itself does nothing for me whatsoever, I'd give that a thumbs up for good taste.
Tom Hanks has got to be about the most versatile actor of all time. Philadelphia very strongly made the point that no one should be mistreated, without attemptying to justify an idea that, in my very personal opinion is about as valid as 2+2=3.
Another might be that, in using a rather childish term, I'm seeking to defuse the power that some seem to think is acquired through the use of strong language.
There is nothing particularly powerful about any of the words banned by the FCC.
Furthermore, I can be just as offensive by calling somebody a priapism as a dickhead. Does using a medical term launder the offensiveness?
Profanity, sparingly used, makes for useful punctuation.
Haven't seen Big Lebowski, sorry.
I am saying that all stories are messages, some positive, some negative. /. here, so this is doubtless an unfair oversimplification.
You seem biased against anything positive ("contrived", "uninteresting", and "unrealistic"), and to feel that negative imagery only triggers vicarious learning.
Now, we're exchanging brief notes on
Do feel any of the stories correlating negative media imagery and negative behavior, particularly among children, have merit?
Possibly I'm shifting the thread from the individual to society, and you quickly run into the Ecological Fallacy.
And yet...personally, I have tapered off on all of the negativity. While not contrived, it is certainly repetitive. While perhaps interesting, it becomes repetitious. Negative people are concerned with maintaining their problems, as opposed to mature solutions to the problems. Unrealistic? Well, reality never escapes the subjective, and if I'm weak for eschewing a Nine Inch Nails existence, so be it.
The literature is literally stacked against you.
Driving a marriage off a cliff is also a "marital training film", of a different sort.
I would support and defend the right of anyone to make such a flick, and hope that it was well labelled externally.
For a rebuttal, I'll let it slip that the wife and I have been watching a lot of "Rosemary and Thyme" and "The Red Green Show" on DVD lately. Now, if you want to accuse Red Green of being a duct-tape driven, media-fed "media fed force against the decline of Western Civilization", go right ahead. You might accuse it of being a moronic pile of trip, too. I consider it the most consistently funny thing I've seen in too long.
R & T is also relaxing, and quite well acted. Yeah, there is the occasional body part. But I'd call it a reference for tastefully dealing with "the evil that men do".
Yes, there are some for whom it's a video game. Poor breeding, indeed.
To drop a specific example, if you show a heroin needle, as well you might for considerations of plot, I expect that the movie is not an advertisement, yes.
If you're going to talk about it, by all means show the ensuing misery.
The challenge for society is the partial messages coming out of Hollywood.
The truth I see in your remark is that the emotional costs should not be trivialized; therein lies the unreality.
Couldn't agree less.
I wouldn't accuse myself of being a) interested, or b) competent to judge others.
The act of teasing others into reflection upon their actions, now, that is worth pursuing.
OK, I'll play along. The animes grow increasingly fantastic. How is this sustained? Where does it go? What meaning does it hold? With what value do we walk away?
I don't know how sexual it was, but my roommate in college was a huge MUD dude. He would log in, and the system would output the time online. At one point, it showed an entire, solid week of his life had been spent in that thing.
Now, this is not a moral argument. I was a big Civilization junkie at the time.
Yet the question nags, and should nag us all, about our diversions: are they buying us anything? At what point does relaxation go past the reasonable?
Diversions and entertainments that teach something are great.
Your next set of blockbuster flicks:
- Simple farming community successfully fends off big-money developer who wants to spew McMansions.
- Gritty military hero has opportunity to snap the pencil neck of the foppish journalist who smeared his unit based on false propaganda, shows mercy and dedication to the ideals of the Constitution.
- Drama about marital misunderstanding nearly resulting in yet another ruinous divorce and shattered children, but the spouses forgive each other.
The real things needing challenging are the decay elements in society.