I created the article at Citizendium and a talk page. I also mentioned this/. article on the WP talk page. At least Citizendium editors can be reached for comment regarding the articles they edit. Who's UweBayern? Probably not even his real name.
I zapped a new $20 bill for 40 seconds. No discernible heat. Oh, wait. This is incredible! I've just replicated Patterson's cold fusion results. Nobel Prize, here I come!
Granted, I seem to be in the puny Slashdot minority who won't see "South Park" and won't let my kids see it either. But I simply can't believe the bonehead rant Katz has come up with this time.
The voluntary MPAA rating system isn't about censorship; it's about truth in advertising. Chuck Colson said in BreakPoint Commentary #90712 - 07/12/1999:
The movie plot features a gang of eight-year-old kids who sneak into an NC-17 rated film and afterward spout curse words incessantly. The children's parents are portrayed as hysterical prudes, hopelessly out of touch with reality. And in the end, it's the parents-not the children-who see the error of their ways. The film mocks the very idea of childhood innocence and the idea that parents should try to protect that innocence. As cultural critic Neil Postman explains, commercial institutions today view young people as markets to be exploited, not children to be protected. In his book, Saving Childhood, film critic Michael Medved says "this careless cultural assault on the innocence of small children can be directly connected to the development of more dangerous behavior in maturing adolescents:" suicide, drug use, and promiscuity. And entertainment that includes "crude language, vulgar scenes, and steamy sexuality" tends to make children "more aggressive and insensitive," Medved writes.
How absurd can Katz get? What kind of lame-brained "rally the geeks" movement will he think of next? How about trashing vendors at Woodstock for price gouging? C'mon, Katz. You're way outa line here.
Media Index is a company that specializes in quantifying the use of adult language, the number of violent acts, sexual situations, and nude scenes "so parents and other moviegoers can make up their own minds." SP is "minute for minute the most profane movie the... company has ever counted." The Colorado Springs Gazette published an article about it today. (After today, the article will be available for a few months at an archive URL.)
Re:An Investor in the "Morality Industry" speaks o
on
South Park The Movie
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· Score: 1
... "politically correct "what's the big deal?" posturing"??? I'm not sure I agree with you there.
I meant that it is politically correct to be "tolerant," and it is posturing to make a public display of one's "tolerance" by condemning "intolerance."
[Comments about CAP's "rude and gratuitous" review snipped.]
You're demonstrating the "posturing" that I'm talking about. You are condemning CAP's"intolerance." Why should it offend you that they say the movie is straight from Hell? Isn't that a badge of honor in today's culture war? (Depending on the side you're on, of course.:-)
The fact is CAP is an extreme fundamentalist Christian organization.
Interesting. "Fundamentalist" used to mean a Christian arguing for the "fundamentals" of the Faith, but as J.I. Packer points out in "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God, the term became derogatory because the original fundamentalists earned a reputation for lacking -- to put it delicately -- intellectual horsepower. I would say that CAP is a conservative, evangelical Christian organization. The content of their Web site represents an intelligent and informed viewpoint, albeit a viewpoint not popular on Slashdot.
Look at the review of A Midsummer Nights Dream. I mean, C'mon, it's Shakespeare (everything they mention as bad ("other stuff") is in the script.) we should be teaching Children Shakespeare, not sheilding them from it.
I'll ask you the same basic question I asked thal -- are you a father? To assume that CAP is trying to "shield" children from Shakespeare is jumping to a conclusion. When my kids are old enough to read Shakespeare, they'll be old enough to watch a rendition of the play (or film).
And in the review of Doug's 1st movie (which got a good score, by the way), one of the bad points listed was adolescent underware...what?!
Yeah, I read the underwear comment about "Doug's First Movie," but in context it's typical of CAP's uncompromising standard of decency. I'm surprised you didn't react to their objection to the '60s peace symbol. Still, they didn't just give the movie a "good score;" they made it "the first movie to warrant a CAP 'Green Light'".
I would say [South Park is] in the same vein (but not nearly as subtle) as Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal".... Stone and Parker are sharp fellows, if you go beyond the language.
Exactly. They don't have the intellectual horsepower of Jonathan Swift, so they dumb-down what might very well be legitimate political ideas to the point of depravity, thereby missing audience members such as me. They don't want to effect political change -- they want to make a buck by shocking people.
On a related subject, I know of only one real satirical publication that works within the Christian community (as opposed to all the secular publications that ridicule Christianity from the outside). It's called The Door. Check it out.
Re:An Investor in the "Morality Industry" speaks o
on
South Park The Movie
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· Score: 1
...CAP would prefer that every single thing related to south park would suddenly disappear.
I can't speak for CAP, but perhaps your wording is clumsy. I, too, would prefer that South Park would disappear. It's crap, IMHO. Perhaps you meant that you believe CAP would be in favor of censoring crap. There again I can speak for CAP, but I'd rather point at crap and say, "That's crap," than to censor it. CAP took on the distasteful job of viewing the whole film to enumerate why it's crap. That's why I don't think I need to see it to agree with them.
...movies aren't good or bad because they influence people in a good or bad way...
I guess we'll never agree on that point. Quality is directly correlated with positive influence. Having said that, I'll add that I found a semblance of quality in "Pulp Fiction," a film which I'm sure CAP would disapprove of. I liked the original way the story was told, and I liked the theme of redemption. Still, the fact that I couldn't find a single character in the film that I liked lowers my rating of its quality as either art or entertainment.
i do not believe in either of the world views that you describe at the end of your comment. i simply believe that depravity MAY happen. and because it may happen, we should be able to recognize it and not let it hinder our own values. and sometimes we should be able to laugh at it too.
I can end on a point of agreement with you, though I've found my taste for depravity decreasing as I grow older. That's why I am selective about which R-rated films I'll sit through.
Re:An Investor in the "Morality Industry" speaks o
on
South Park The Movie
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· Score: 1
i do not believe [ pro-wrestling's role in the boy's death] is evidence that south park is something that should not exist or should not be seen by anyone under 17.
"Should not exist" is bait for censorship. The debate needs to stick with the issue of what the quality of the movie is. As for children seeing the movie, well, I'll do my part to see that mine won't.
[prose about the link between words/images and actions snipped]
hearing a curse word is not the same as saying a curse word...
What I was trying to say was that reading CAP's review was enough to tell me the film is unworthy of my attention. I can't defend CAP's assertion that it is "dangerous;" however, it's clear to me from CAP's review that the film contains no quality as an object of art that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy.
... parents should concentrate on shaping their children's thinking ability instead worrying about what their eyes might see. it is really much more effective.
How utterly naive. Parents should of course do both. My oldest son accidentally caught a glimpse -- only a few seconds -- of "The Exorcist" when he was 5 or 6. It happened be a scene portraying demonic possession. That brief image continues to haunt him years later. As a child and teen, I myself was polluted with an unrealistic expectation of women and a twisted sense of sex that masked its deeper, true delights because I had access to pornography growing up. I'm sure I'm in the minority of Slashdotters who believes there's something inherently wrong with pornography. I therefore have nothing to do with pornography -- by choice.
I thank God for the innocence that my kids (6 and 8) still possess. In our house, we don't draw the line at obscenities. We draw the line at calling someone stupid, or saying, "That sucks." Why do I draw the line so far back? To compensate for society's pressure to erase the line completely. When my kids do begin exercising their "free speech" in more vulgar ways, they'll have been taught the example of just how far over the line they're going. By the time they make their own choice whether to see "South Park," I hope they will appreciate how far over the line that movie is.
This brings up an interesting point. I don't know when I'll begin permitting my kids to read Slashdot, but I do think thal and I would agree that it's the same time when it's "safe" to let them watch South Park. I mean that with all sincerity. It's just that thal and I might disagree about the age when that might be. Just how old are you, thal? Have kids of your own, yet?
south park is a world without fences, yes. if we keep the fences up all of the time, we will forget what is hiding behind them. and that it is when it will come to haunt us. south park is a hilarious reminder why we try to be civilized.
I like to be reminded of why I try to be civilized by seeing examples of the triumph of civilization. Or maybe there are those who want to compare the R-rated content of "South Park" to the R-rated content of "Saving Private Ryan"? Now that would be a good debate, too. I saw SPR twice. And I want my kids to see that movie. Not yet, but before they start reading Slashdot.
There's a worldview that believes depravity is inevitable -- that we need to poke around in the feces until our noses have grown accustomed to the smell and it's as if there's no smell at all. Then there's a worldview that expresses the conviction that the depravity of the world has been overcome and we've merely been living through a "cleanup operation" for the past 2,000 years. I subscribe to the latter worldview. "South Park" appears to subscribe to the former.
An Investor in the "Morality Industry" speaks out
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South Park The Movie
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· Score: 2
Jon Katz wrote, "... as if any exposure to graphic language and scatological humor will damage the fragile young."
I have no desire to see the movie. I can't even sit through the TV show. I never made it through an episode of Beavis & Butthead, either. Heh, heh, heh. Click. I seem to be one of the rare Slashdotters who sympathizes with Childhood Action Project (CAP), though, ( I'm a Christian raising two sons with my stay-at-home wife) so into the fray I go...
CAP is trying to quantify their analysis of the film. They offer their reviews as a tool for parents like me so I can decide which movies we'd like to take our family to see. (I'm not alone, BTW. Financial analysis shows that R-rated movies make less money than G, PG, or PG-13. Nowadays, Hollywood has to make R- and NC-17-rated movies to puff themselves up and say they've created "art." Of course, occasionally those ratings merely serve to attempt to make up for bad writing with less-than-mass-appeal shock value, too.) CAP makes subjective measures of Wanton Violence/Crime, Impudence/Hate, Sex/Homosexuality, Drugs/Alcohol, Offense to God, and Murder/Suicide. Sure, such metrics look like foolishness to the so-called "modern" worldview. In Katz' world, Wanton Violence/Crime and Murder/Suicide are harmless unless they happen in RL; Impudence/Hate is lauded as long as it's targeted at people of faith or anyone with conventional authority; Sex/Homosexuality and Drugs/Alcohol -- the more the better; and Offense to God -- well, he's dead, so he's an easy target.
Am I a repressed fanatic because I do my best to keep my kids innocent and to teach them what I know to be the truth? Hardly. It's my job as a parent to raise them with the values that I believe will serve them best. Do I teach my kids the value of free speech? Certainly, but freedom comes with responsibility.
Those values, BTW, do include tolerance. Intolerant Christians need to be confronted with Jesus' own central teachings -- he freely associated with the outcasts of society while he sharply condemned religious self-righteousness and hypocrisy. But Jesus taught tolerance in the context of having a personal, obedient relationship with God, denying our self-centered nature, and loving -- that's agape (look up the meaning of the Greek) -- one another. Such ideals can hardly be understood by a culture that doesn't even believe in God, celebrates selfishness and self-absorption, and lusts after one another without ever knowing what the word agape means.
My kids will have plenty of opportunities as teenagers to rebel against my values and choose for themselves. But it's still my job as a parent to show them where I stand on moral issues and to teach them responsibility.
Katz declares that, instead of being a comedy, South Park is actually a sharp, political film that exposes the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the so-called "Morality Industry." It's a sad, sad thing that people fall short of perfection. The only perfect man got nailed to a cross for his trouble. But careless critics confuse the Perfect Message with imperfect followers. Let anyone hold up a standard for (conventional) morality, and today he or she is denounced as an intolerant, self-righteous hypocrite.
As I once heard Ravi Zacharias say, "Before you tear down fences, be careful that you know why they were put up in the first place." Ethics and morals -- whether they are based on examples set by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, old, dead Greek philosophers, or Bill Clinton -- exist to draw boundaries for social behavior. South Park, it seems, wants to show what it's like without bondaries. And... Parker and Stone want to show me this because...?
The Apostle Paul sums it up: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." ( Philipians 4:8)
As has also been said, "If you swim in the sewer, you're bound to get dirty."
One final comment -- if you think hackers can't be Christians, what is to be done with Larry Wall?
I rely on Slashdot to keep me informed day by day, but if I had more time I'd use The Mining Company more. They "mine" the Web for useful nuggets. It's broken down by topic.
Gag. I could virtually see the veins popping out of your neck during yourad hominem attack of Lucas.
Get a life. It's only a movie. And the Merchandise Machine is only a merchandise machine. And Columbine High School was only a shooting gallery. We live in a sick society. Surprise! Just be glad that only half the people on this planet are dumber than average.
Slashdot Mirror
I created the article at Citizendium and a talk page. I also mentioned this /. article on the WP talk page. At least Citizendium editors can be reached for comment regarding the articles they edit. Who's UweBayern? Probably not even his real name.
I zapped a new $20 bill for 40 seconds. No discernible heat. Oh, wait. This is incredible! I've just replicated Patterson's cold fusion results. Nobel Prize, here I come!
Subject says it all.
See for yourself.
And it looks smaller than a credit card.
How about teaming up with CompuMentor? I did a project with them in Colorado a few years ago. I though their organization was alright.
The voluntary MPAA rating system isn't about censorship; it's about truth in advertising. Chuck Colson said in BreakPoint Commentary #90712 - 07/12/1999:
How absurd can Katz get? What kind of lame-brained "rally the geeks" movement will he think of next? How about trashing vendors at Woodstock for price gouging? C'mon, Katz. You're way outa line here.
Media Index is a company that specializes in quantifying the use of adult language, the number of violent acts, sexual situations, and nude scenes "so parents and other moviegoers can make up their own minds." SP is "minute for minute the most profane movie the ... company has ever counted." The Colorado Springs Gazette published an article about it today. (After today, the article will be available for a few months at an archive URL.)
I meant that it is politically correct to be "tolerant," and it is posturing to make a public display of one's "tolerance" by condemning "intolerance."
You're demonstrating the "posturing" that I'm talking about. You are condemning CAP's"intolerance." Why should it offend you that they say the movie is straight from Hell? Isn't that a badge of honor in today's culture war? (Depending on the side you're on, of course. :-)
Interesting. "Fundamentalist" used to mean a Christian arguing for the "fundamentals" of the Faith, but as J.I. Packer points out in "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God , the term became derogatory because the original fundamentalists earned a reputation for lacking -- to put it delicately -- intellectual horsepower. I would say that CAP is a conservative, evangelical Christian organization. The content of their Web site represents an intelligent and informed viewpoint, albeit a viewpoint not popular on Slashdot.
I'll ask you the same basic question I asked thal -- are you a father? To assume that CAP is trying to "shield" children from Shakespeare is jumping to a conclusion. When my kids are old enough to read Shakespeare, they'll be old enough to watch a rendition of the play (or film).
Yeah, I read the underwear comment about "Doug's First Movie," but in context it's typical of CAP's uncompromising standard of decency. I'm surprised you didn't react to their objection to the '60s peace symbol. Still, they didn't just give the movie a "good score;" they made it "the first movie to warrant a CAP 'Green Light'".
Exactly. They don't have the intellectual horsepower of Jonathan Swift, so they dumb-down what might very well be legitimate political ideas to the point of depravity, thereby missing audience members such as me. They don't want to effect political change -- they want to make a buck by shocking people.
On a related subject, I know of only one real satirical publication that works within the Christian community (as opposed to all the secular publications that ridicule Christianity from the outside). It's called The Door . Check it out.
thal wrote:
I can't speak for CAP, but perhaps your wording is clumsy. I, too, would prefer that South Park would disappear. It's crap, IMHO. Perhaps you meant that you believe CAP would be in favor of censoring crap. There again I can speak for CAP, but I'd rather point at crap and say, "That's crap," than to censor it. CAP took on the distasteful job of viewing the whole film to enumerate why it's crap. That's why I don't think I need to see it to agree with them.
I guess we'll never agree on that point. Quality is directly correlated with positive influence. Having said that, I'll add that I found a semblance of quality in "Pulp Fiction," a film which I'm sure CAP would disapprove of. I liked the original way the story was told, and I liked the theme of redemption. Still, the fact that I couldn't find a single character in the film that I liked lowers my rating of its quality as either art or entertainment.
I can end on a point of agreement with you, though I've found my taste for depravity decreasing as I grow older. That's why I am selective about which R-rated films I'll sit through.
"Should not exist" is bait for censorship. The debate needs to stick with the issue of what the quality of the movie is. As for children seeing the movie, well, I'll do my part to see that mine won't.
What I was trying to say was that reading CAP's review was enough to tell me the film is unworthy of my attention. I can't defend CAP's assertion that it is "dangerous;" however, it's clear to me from CAP's review that the film contains no quality as an object of art that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy.
How utterly naive. Parents should of course do both. My oldest son accidentally caught a glimpse -- only a few seconds -- of "The Exorcist" when he was 5 or 6. It happened be a scene portraying demonic possession. That brief image continues to haunt him years later. As a child and teen, I myself was polluted with an unrealistic expectation of women and a twisted sense of sex that masked its deeper, true delights because I had access to pornography growing up. I'm sure I'm in the minority of Slashdotters who believes there's something inherently wrong with pornography. I therefore have nothing to do with pornography -- by choice.
I thank God for the innocence that my kids (6 and 8) still possess. In our house, we don't draw the line at obscenities. We draw the line at calling someone stupid, or saying, "That sucks." Why do I draw the line so far back? To compensate for society's pressure to erase the line completely. When my kids do begin exercising their "free speech" in more vulgar ways, they'll have been taught the example of just how far over the line they're going. By the time they make their own choice whether to see "South Park," I hope they will appreciate how far over the line that movie is.
This brings up an interesting point. I don't know when I'll begin permitting my kids to read Slashdot, but I do think thal and I would agree that it's the same time when it's "safe" to let them watch South Park. I mean that with all sincerity. It's just that thal and I might disagree about the age when that might be. Just how old are you, thal? Have kids of your own, yet?
I like to be reminded of why I try to be civilized by seeing examples of the triumph of civilization. Or maybe there are those who want to compare the R-rated content of "South Park" to the R-rated content of "Saving Private Ryan"? Now that would be a good debate, too. I saw SPR twice. And I want my kids to see that movie. Not yet, but before they start reading Slashdot.
There's a worldview that believes depravity is inevitable -- that we need to poke around in the feces until our noses have grown accustomed to the smell and it's as if there's no smell at all. Then there's a worldview that expresses the conviction that the depravity of the world has been overcome and we've merely been living through a "cleanup operation" for the past 2,000 years. I subscribe to the latter worldview. "South Park" appears to subscribe to the former.
His attitude is a typical media-elite mocking dismissal of the numbing-down of what's socially acceptable. GnrcMan's comments about the Childhood Action Project's review also smack of politically correct "what's the big deal?" posturing. And replies to GnrcMan's comments reinforce the "what a funny, harmless movie" lock-step opinion. But words and images have consequences. A tragic example of that is the story on the Reuters wire yesterday about a 7-year-old boy killing his 3-year-old brother by copying a move he saw in televised pro wrestling.
I have no desire to see the movie. I can't even sit through the TV show. I never made it through an episode of Beavis & Butthead, either. Heh, heh, heh. Click. I seem to be one of the rare Slashdotters who sympathizes with Childhood Action Project (CAP), though, ( I'm a Christian raising two sons with my stay-at-home wife) so into the fray I go...
CAP is trying to quantify their analysis of the film. They offer their reviews as a tool for parents like me so I can decide which movies we'd like to take our family to see. (I'm not alone, BTW. Financial analysis shows that R-rated movies make less money than G, PG, or PG-13. Nowadays, Hollywood has to make R- and NC-17-rated movies to puff themselves up and say they've created "art." Of course, occasionally those ratings merely serve to attempt to make up for bad writing with less-than-mass-appeal shock value, too.) CAP makes subjective measures of Wanton Violence/Crime, Impudence/Hate, Sex/Homosexuality, Drugs/Alcohol, Offense to God, and Murder/Suicide. Sure, such metrics look like foolishness to the so-called "modern" worldview. In Katz' world, Wanton Violence/Crime and Murder/Suicide are harmless unless they happen in RL; Impudence/Hate is lauded as long as it's targeted at people of faith or anyone with conventional authority; Sex/Homosexuality and Drugs/Alcohol -- the more the better; and Offense to God -- well, he's dead, so he's an easy target.
Am I a repressed fanatic because I do my best to keep my kids innocent and to teach them what I know to be the truth? Hardly. It's my job as a parent to raise them with the values that I believe will serve them best. Do I teach my kids the value of free speech? Certainly, but freedom comes with responsibility.
Those values, BTW, do include tolerance. Intolerant Christians need to be confronted with Jesus' own central teachings -- he freely associated with the outcasts of society while he sharply condemned religious self-righteousness and hypocrisy. But Jesus taught tolerance in the context of having a personal, obedient relationship with God, denying our self-centered nature, and loving -- that's agape (look up the meaning of the Greek) -- one another. Such ideals can hardly be understood by a culture that doesn't even believe in God, celebrates selfishness and self-absorption, and lusts after one another without ever knowing what the word agape means.
My kids will have plenty of opportunities as teenagers to rebel against my values and choose for themselves. But it's still my job as a parent to show them where I stand on moral issues and to teach them responsibility.
Katz declares that, instead of being a comedy, South Park is actually a sharp, political film that exposes the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the so-called "Morality Industry." It's a sad, sad thing that people fall short of perfection. The only perfect man got nailed to a cross for his trouble. But careless critics confuse the Perfect Message with imperfect followers. Let anyone hold up a standard for (conventional) morality, and today he or she is denounced as an intolerant, self-righteous hypocrite.
As I once heard Ravi Zacharias say, "Before you tear down fences, be careful that you know why they were put up in the first place." Ethics and morals -- whether they are based on examples set by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, old, dead Greek philosophers, or Bill Clinton -- exist to draw boundaries for social behavior. South Park, it seems, wants to show what it's like without bondaries. And ... Parker and Stone want to show me this because ...?
The Apostle Paul sums it up: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." ( Philipians 4:8)
As has also been said, "If you swim in the sewer, you're bound to get dirty."
One final comment -- if you think hackers can't be Christians, what is to be done with Larry Wall?
I rely on Slashdot to keep me informed day by day, but if I had more time I'd use The Mining Company more. They "mine" the Web for useful nuggets. It's broken down by topic.
>Calm yourself,tho.
Gag. I could virtually see the veins popping out of your neck during your ad hominem attack of Lucas.
Get a life. It's only a movie. And the Merchandise Machine is only a merchandise machine. And Columbine High School was only a shooting gallery. We live in a sick society. Surprise! Just be glad that only half the people on this planet are dumber than average.
That's why ESR has the job he has. Whenever you want to say something "sucks," you have to translate it to "stinks" for the press. :-)