For most of our contemporaries, ‘Science’ is only the means to impose their own views as dogma without all the difficulties, limitations, and demands of religion.
Thought of the Day
1
Category Archives: Thought of the Day
Thought of the Day
Among its many other marks, one sign that the American education system is a complete fraud is the fact that English classes never present H.P. Lovecraft, Raymond Chandler, R.E. Howard, Walter B. Gibson, or the like as examples of American Literature for students to read.
No Aspirational Heroes, Huh?
Apparently, the star of the latest Marvel film – Shang Chi and the Ten Rings (yeah, I forgot about that movie too) – claimed that this is something he “didn’t have growing up,” namely an aspirational Asian or Asian American hero.
Ahem:
Hell, not even going that far:
And all that isn’t even touching on Anime, video games, most of the Japanese film industry, or the innumerable superhero and fantasy film’s / franchises. Like you may have heard of this obscure little franchise:
That’s really one of the more obnoxious things about these ‘representational’ films and such: the fact that they’re always trying to ignore or hide the people who have come before. Because everyone today is trying to be Sydney Poitier slapping the racist rich jerk in In the Heat of the Night, because that’s all they know how to value in a film: being ‘socially important’ (neglecting the fact that it was also, you know, a good movie). So they have to keep trying to reset the clock and hide the work of those who came before to give themselves the chance to pretend to be pioneers.
Thought of the Day
“Who, thinkest thou, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath appointed over his family, to give them meat in season.
Blessed is that servant, whom when his lord shall come he shall find so doing. Amen I say to you, he shall place him over all his goods. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: My lord is long a coming: And shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and shall eat and drink with drunkards: The lord of that servant shall come in a day that he hopeth not, and at an hour that he knoweth not:
And shall separate him, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
-Matt. 24: 45-51
Of course, when it comes to the under-servants in that parable, the great thing was for them to remain in the house and dutifully at their posts for the Master’s sake, despite the beatings and mistreatment of the steward.
Thought of the Day: Blaming Audiences
I notice that audiences always seem to get blamed for Hollywood’s attitudes: people say things like “audiences wouldn’t have accepted an actor like this in a lead role before such-and-such, but the country was more mature now.” I remember seeing a clip from a Film Noir documentary where someone was saying: “The Bogarts and the Alan Ladds and so on would never have been accepted as leading men by audiences prior to World War II, but the country pretty much grew up during the war.”
Except (ignoring the patronizing attitude) no one tried casting people like Bogart, Ladd, etc. in lead roles before then. It was Hollywood that judged them to be secondary players at best, not the country as a whole. So who can say whether audiences would or would not have accepted them in such a position? The fact that audiences took to them at once when given the chance implies that they might have been just as successful before the war.
Now, maybe audiences wouldn’t have accepted someone like Bogart as a leading man in the 1930s, or maybe they wouldn’t have gone to see a Charlie Chan film starring an actual Chinese man. But the thing is, we can’t say that for sure because no one tried it. And no one tried it because the filmmakers thought it wouldn’t work or were against the idea.
We see this all the time: filmmakers will preen themselves over having ‘the first Black-led superhero film’ or ‘the first female-led superhero film’ or say things like ‘audiences are finally ready for an Asian-led blockbuster’, apparently forgetting that they and not the audiences were the ones in control of whether such films would be made all along.
(Of course, these days when there are very few such ‘firsts’ left available, this sort of thing is even more obnoxious, but that’s another story).
Audiences, by and large, don’t much care, and I frankly don’t think they ever did. It’s Hollywood that worries about that sort of thing, because apparently in all this time they haven’t figured out that all people really want is a good story told well by talented and / or charismatic performers.
Thought of the Day: A Suggestion
You know those lawn signs?
Those are really much too wordy. You can convey the exact same message much more concisely using this one:
Thought of the Day: Interesting Contradictions
There is a stereotype of the old aristocrat that he was utterly helpless without his servants and thoroughly disconnected from reality.
Perhaps, but I notice that many, if not most of those old aristocrats went and served in the trenches in the Great War and then again in its sequel.
To take a more specific case: Winston Churchill never cooked his own meals, never drew his own bath, never would have dreamt of setting his own table or making his own bed. He also survived a stint in a prisoner of war camp and staged a daring escape during which he spent three days hiding out in a mineshaft.
Make of this fact what you will.
Thought of the Day
The proper response to the defensive rhetorical question “Do you think you’re better than me?” is not the standard “No, of course not.” Rather, it is “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Thought of the Day: Offensive to Me
I hear someone say “This movie / book / game / show / joke is offensive because it presents an unflattering stereotype of such-and-such a people.”
I think “Wow. As a Roman Catholic, socially reactionary monarchist who tends to support ‘right wing’ politics, I can’t image what that would be like.”
Thought of the Day: The Elephant in the Room
We supposedly know more today than ever before about human behavior and society. We know more than ever about how the brain actually works, what people actually want and need, and we’ve been steadily throwing off more and more of the old taboos, prejudices, and superstitions that once ruled our lives.
The elephant in the room is that we’ve never been more miserable.
