Tag: cultural musings

Much Ado About Movies

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

As part of an assignment for my employer, The Chalcedon Foundation ( http://www.chalcedon.edu/ ), I have to read and review a bunch of books about movies. I’ve just finished the first of the lot, Hollywood Worldviews by Brian Godawa, a professional screenwriter who used to write movie reviews for our website. It’s a book about “how to watch movies with your eyes open”–that is, with understanding and discernment.

Every movie tells a story, and every one of those stories is shaped and informed by a particular worldview. Among the most common worldviews shaping modern movies are existentialism, postmodernism, fate, neopaganism, and a few others–including a very few in which the worldview is explicitly Christian.

Funny, isn’t it? The human race plodded along for thousands of years without a single movie until the 20th century came along. Now we have thousands and thousands of movies, and I can’t even make a guess as to how many I’ve watched.

They say it’s only entertainment, but watching movies is also a form of self-education, and God only knows how many hundreds and hundreds of hours we spend doing it. Movies get poured into our minds, and what’s in our minds comes out as our culture.

Well, that explains a lot about the current state of our culture, doesn’t it?

Most modern, mainstream movies subtly teach lessons that, when expressed in bald and simple terms, are ridiculous. There is no reality, there’s only what each of us thinks is reality. Whatever you sincerely believe is right, is right. “Love” is the only thing that counts. And so on. Maybe that’s why I don’t watch many modern, mainstream movies. I can’t stand the banality.

It really is interesting, to watch a movie alertly enough to see what it’s actually saying to us. Most of what most movies have to say is twaddle.

But, boy, if you’re not aware of that, you wind up teaching yourself a lot of stuff that simply isn’t true.

Are Americans Ignorant of the Bible?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

One of the more popular substitutes for an understanding of the Bible–a ouija board.

Consider this statement:

“Shockingly, just 4 percent of children surveyed in 2001 were considered familiar with the Bible, compared to 70 percent in 1950.”

It comes from How to Succeed in Hollywood (Without Losing Your Soul), a 2011 book by Ted Baehr, the founder and publisher of movieguide.org and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, on page xxviii of the Introduction. Unfortunately, there’s so footnote, so I don’t know who did the survey or how they did it.

Near-total ignorance of the Bible would certainly explain most of the cultural trends afflicting us today, though.

This is what comes of farming out your children to strangers to be “educated.” And thinking you’ve seen to their religious education just by shipping them off to Sunday school for an hour a week–well, that doesn’t walk the dog, either.

I consider Ted Baehr a reliable source. And without a huge dose of Biblical illiteracy, I can’t even begin to explain our present cultural mish-mosh of sodomy and transgender-worship, Obamaism, the idolatry of Global Warming, Political Correctness, animal spirit guides, and all the rest.

It takes a family, not a village, to raise a child. It is up to the family–not only parents, but aunts and uncles and grandparents, too–to make a child familiar with the Bible, and to teach the child to resort to God’s Word as the ultimate authority. God is not a man, that He should lie. Without the family, there is no meaningful religious education.

Hey, our Western civilization is currently going round and round and round on its way down the drain. The Gospel can save it. Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, can save it.

But the catch is this: our civilization needs God, but God doesn’t need our civilization. He has seen them all come and go. Ours has no special dispensation. If we humble ourselves before Him, and hear Him, He will heal our land. If not…

Well, then we’ll wind up living in some other kind of civilization that maybe we won’t like so much.

Star Wars Umpteen: ‘The Farce Awakens’

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Star Wars cookies and  candies await the attentions of a liquidator.

Two months before its release, they’re already calling Star Wars: The Force Awakens, “the biggest movie of all time” ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-18/-star-wars-force-awakens-tickets-to-go-on-sale-2-months-early )–“they” being the movie’s publicists.

Crikey. That Star Wars franchise is so old, it’s got moss growing on it. If you’re under 35 years old, you weren’t even born before the first Star Wars movie. This will be Star Wars No. 7. It’s been ten years since the last one. Han Solo is gonna need a walker.

And they’re already selling tickets. Tickets to a movie, two months before it comes out.

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things…

Meanwhile, the “Jedi religion”–something made up by Hollywood screenwriters for a freakin’ movie–is supposedly among the fastest-gr0wing religions in Britain. I wonder how it’s doing here.

At the start of the 21st century, I was in the liquidating business. We were liquidating Star Wars merchandise. That’s where it all ends up, you know–in the liquidator’s bin, to be resold for a few pennies on the dollar.

Somehow our whole culture sounds like it’s about ready for the liquidator.

I’m Back… But Not for Texting

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

My allergy siege is over, thank you. I can breathe again. My eyes have stopped watering. Which means I can get back to work. And the first story I see today is…

Study Finds Teens Texting Compulsively!

They can’t stop, and it’s the girls more than the boys ( http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/compulsive-texting-takes-toll-on-teenagers/?src=twr ). Something like 12% of the teenaged girls in this study, which involved some 400 teens, are compulsive when it comes to texting. (It was only 3% of boys.) Compulsive as in “compulsive gambling”–they just can’t stop, even if it’s messing up their lives.

Now, be patient with me, I’ve never sent or received a text message in my life and have no plans to start now. In fact, I’m not so sure I know what texting is. Is it that stuff that goes like “i got 1 4 U,” or “lmao, mdf, C U at wankys 2morro”?

For this they lose sleep and get mad if you try to talk with them face-to-face? Granted, homework isn’t the most enticing of pursuits, and it’s never hard to distract kids from doing it–but you would think the texting would be just as boring as school homework.

Yo, folks, this is our culture! This is what we ask for, and this is what we get. We consign our children to institutions that teach them that their age-group peers are the most important people in the world, the only people who understand and care about them or find them at all interesting: and both parents work, all the time, that’s how the baby winds up in day care: and what the schools don’t teach ’em, Hollywood will–and we’re amazed they turn out like this?

I love teenagers. They’re fun! They have lively minds.

But when you marinate them for long enough in our schools and in our culture, they’re not fun anymore.

And let the text messages testify to the liveliness of their minds.

Guess What? I Have High Blood Pressure

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So I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning, and, for the first time ever, they took my blood pressure before they did anything. And it’s too high–way too high. On that account, I was refused dental treatment. It’s new rules, handed down from the state dentistry board, nothing to do with us–they just don’t want me having a stroke while my teeth are being cleaned. I promised n0t to conk out on them, but no dice.

Because I’m not on any medications now and I don’t want to be, I will try to get my BP down with diet and exercise. I hate diet and exercise. Meanwhile, various people have asked me why I have high blood pressure in the first place.

Well, it’s an hereditary trend among males in my family. And I have a sedentary job, sitting at the computer for hours on end.

But there’s also the unremitting stress of standing here watching my country get debauched, turned into a joke, and murdered by the very persons who are supposed to maintain it and protect it. The whole ruling class of America hates America and wants to turn it into something else. Dissolve our borders, import hundreds of thousands of Muslims, redefine basic human institutions, butcher babies, persecute Christianity and Christians, trash the whole thing  beyond recognition; and we have a “president” who shreds a copy of the Constitution every morning as soon as he wakes up, and does it again when he goes to bed at night.

Our rulers, our opinion-shapers, our rich and powerful and glorious whoopee crowd, hate us, despise us, and are doing their level best to ruin us.

I long to open my eyes someday to a world in which I will never hear such a phrase as “persons who identify as men.”

So, yeah, you bet I’ve got high blood pressure.

The stuff that’s being done to our country has got to stop.

And one way or another, it will.

A Pedophile, but not a Monster?

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There is an extraordinary article out there on Salon.com by a self-confessed pedophile ( http://www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_pedophile_but_not_a_monster/ ). I have just read it.

Presuming that everything he says in the article is true–and I’ve been given as yet no reason to doubt it–then what we have here is a suffering soul who has not, in fact, done anything wrong. He suffers from the temptation to commit a terrible sin. He has not given in to it. (Again, I’m assuming he has told the truth.) We have all been tempted to a wide assortment of sins. Even Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered temptation (Hebrews 2:18). There is no reason to deny this man our sympathy and fellowship.

Nevertheless…

You see, we have been here before. It always starts with a sob story–the back-alley abortion with the coat hanger, the poor inoffensive homosexual who just wants to live his life without being persecuted. And the next thing you know, we’ve got 50 million aborted babies, with Planned Parenthood “harvesting” their organs while they’re still alive, and organized sodomy with its pals in government crushing and destroying anyone who doesn’t bow down and “celebrate” the moral supremacy of homosexuality.

We’ve been here before, and shame on us if we allow ourselves to be brought here again.

Witch-Doctor for Hire: Have Spells, Will Travel

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Can you believe this headline? “African Muti murders–Hospitals sell body parts and murderers harvest organs from live victims for witch doctors in black magic spells” ( http://altereddimensions.net/2013/african-muti-medicine-murders-hospitals-sell-body-parts-murderers-harvest-organs-from-live-victims-witch-doctors-black-magic-spells ).

Right now you’re probably thinking, “He’s got it mixed up with Planned Parenthood.” Really–witch doctors, black magic? Is this a joke? Has someone been reading too many Tarzan books?

No joke–it’s real. Link to the article above, and scroll down. You will find ads from South African newspapers advertising the services of various witch doctors. I mean, these guys have phone numbers and fax machines and email addresses, witchcraft with all the state-of-the-art trappings.

I stumbled over this phenomenon when my wife read a detective novel, Deadly Harvest by Michael Stanley. The author’s name is a pseudonym for co-authors Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, both of them born and bred in South Africa. Let’s see what they have to say in the Authors’ Note.

“Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, witch doctors hold influential positions in society. Most people believe in them and their powers to some extent. Even Western-trained scientists may carry a residue of belief…

“[T]here are a few witch doctors, regarded as very powerful, who use human body parts in their muti [magic]. They often choose a victim for a specific reason. If a male client wants to be virile, a witch doctor may kill a young boy and make muti from his sex organs to improve sexual energy… Even more horrific is that the power of the muti is thought to be enhanced if the body parts are removed while the victim is alive.”

Of course, like Geraldo Rivera says, that’s how we make progress in medical science.

Hey, all you multiculturalists out there! Is this the kind of thing you want to import into our “pluralistic” society, in which every notion, every custom,  every cultural practice, is equally valid and praiseworthy?

Muti murders happen. They happen because people believe in magic and want it to be used on their behalf. These murders are very hard to solve because there’s usually no connection between the killer and his victim, which makes it hard to pin down a motive.

Africa is full of people who believe in this stuff–people who are every bit as superstitious, as credulous, as any public school- and college-educated voter in America.

‘Lorena,’ a Hit Song of the Civil War

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Here’s another beautiful song which many of you have heard without knowing what it is.

“Lorena” was written in the 1850s and was very popular during the Civil War, and for quite a few years afterward. It’s been used countless times in movie and TV sound tracks. The name is an anagram for “Lenore,” the name of the song-writer’s lost love.

If I can hunt up the lyrics for you, they’ll be here. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_%28song%29 )

We’re Living in Jurassic Park

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From the movie, “Jurassic Park”: This is what can happen when all those little glitches build up to a critical mass…

You know the story. Thinking ahead to nothing beyond getting rich or becoming famous, a bunch of money men and scientists and lawyers decide to clone dinosaurs and put them in a theme park.

They believe they are totally in control of their project.

But one by one, two by two, and three by three, little teeny-weeny things are going wrong. Because they are impressed by their own credentials and utterly convinced that they’re in control, they don’t even notice increasing randomness that’s taking over the park–until it’s too late.

The crowning disaster is brought on by something trivial. Because they had to turn off and then restart the park’s computer, and then they got everything working again, no one noticed that the park came back on line using auxiliary power only, and should have been switched on to the main power supply. Suddenly the auxiliary power was all used up and the dinosaurs started eating everybody. Just a little slip like that, and the whole thing goes up in smoke.

Tell me the daily news doesn’t remind you of that.

Let’s see… whole Middle Eastern populations pouring into Europe, mass shootings all over America (although decades ago, when per capita gun ownership in the U.S. was many times greater than it is now, there were no mass shootings), stock markets tanking, judges throwing people into prison for not taking part in homosexual parodies of marriage, you’re $100,000 in student loan debt and can’t get a job, intellectuals taking the time to invent “gender-neutral” pronouns to be used in place of human speech, and here comes the Chinese Navy…

Sure looks like a lot of our sub-systems breaking down, trending toward total system failure.

But it’s only what we get, and what people have always gotten, for turning away from God and turning toward the mirror when it’s time to worship.

“There is no cause for alarm. Everything is under control.” Not.

When the Lord is really mad at us, He lets us have our way.

Self-Education… Through Entertainment

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I have been dipping into R.J. Rushdoony’s The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (Ross House Books, Vallecito, CA: 1981, 2001 reprint–available from http://www.chalcedon.edu ), and it has set my mind on fire.

Culture, said Henry Van Til, “is religion externalized.” In light of that statement, one good, hard look at our culture of today should send us running madly for the exits. And one of the chief determining factors of a culture is, of course, the education provided to its members.

And here’s the thought that blows my mind:

Our consumption of “entertainment”–novels, movies, stories, television programs, etc.–is a form of self-education.

This entertainment is what we pour into our heads when we are not in a formal “educational” setting. As a society, we have more leisure time than we used to have; and much of that time is spent consuming entertainment.

The horror! The horror!

Take a good look, kimosabe, at what we’re stuffing into our minds. Is it any wonder we’re in such a mess? Given what we educate ourselves into, of course we’re going to redefine marriage, excuse all forms of lawlessness, lie and cheat six ways from Sunday, and in general behave as if there is no God.

Because so much of our entertainment, our self-education, is absolutely, positively Godless.

Think it over–long and hard and carefully. What are we learning from our entertainment?

Our elite “educators” have labored mightily to wean our nation away from Christianity. But their efforts are a drop in the bucket, compared to the weaning-away accomplished by our entertainment.

The point is so subtle as to be well-nigh invisible. We thus defend ourselves: “It’s only a movie, it’s only a novel, it’s only a TV show”–as if our steady diet of it had no effect at all.

I thank Rushdoony for this insight.