Have I got insight? Back in 2016, five years ago, I wrote a sprightly little satire about Mr. Potato Head being banned by presidential executive order–for reinforcing Hate against “gay families” (a total oxymoron) and trannies.
And this year Hasbro, the company that sells the toy, announced it was dropping the “Mr.” so children could create Potato Head families with “two dads.” See “Canceling Mr. Potato Head,” March 2, 2021.
Actually, it’s not much fun being right about schiff like this. Even silly little toys can’t escape having abominations heaped on them, these days. Our popular culture is very much in the abomination business.
Although I do like to think that canceling Mr. Potato Head just might possibly maybe could wind up canceling the cancel culture itself.
I’ve had similar experiences; being right about something, but wishing that I had been wrong. Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with a friend whose intellect is truly astounding. We were discussing various world events and he referred to certain entities as having “burned through their seed corn”. He felt that China was a good example of this, in that they needed natural resources and were trying to gain the upper hand as a way to survive some shortsightedness.
Then, he mentioned that the US has a similar problem, because the government has effectively squandered the protections of the Constitution. I agree. The years since 9/11 happened have seen our constitutional rights eroded severely, to the point that natural citizens of this country have to go to great lengths to establish their identities.
What has this to do with Mr, PotatoHead? In some ways; nothing, but in other ways; everything. We are in the situation we are in because of shortsightedness. People were outraged that the freedoms on the US could be exploited in such a way as to allow 9/11 to have happened, but they didn’t think through the long-term effects of such a change.
So, when someone decides that Mr. PotatoHead sends a negative message, they are forgetting that they are opening the door to future censorship, which could, in turn, end up being used against them. The power of factual information pales in comparison to the power of interpretation of the facts. Once a society allows themselves to be bound by the interpretations of a relative few, that society will soon find itself rooted, not to factual information, but to the lowest common denominator of interpretation.
Our civilization was based upon facts, for a very long time, and most people could recognize, then subsequently ignore, entities which sought to distort reality. That … was a major part of our societal “seed corn”. But this ability has eroded drastically in the last 20 years. The fact that Mr PotatoHead is seen by some as harmful, is nothing unusual; there have been ideas of this sort for a long, long time. What is disturbing to me is the number of people that pay attention to such ideas.
This is probably why so many people are getting scammed out of their life savings. See my next post.