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I've been thinking about a post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atpo_onm last night in which he tries to demonstrate that a goodly number of people on the far right are crazy. I tend to look at the same data and come to the conclusion that they are just profoundly stupid. It's not that there is a big shortage of people on the left and in the middle who are also stupid. It just seems these days I have no patience with the stupid among the conservatives. Ah, you say these people can't be stupid. They have all the right degrees from the right places. (Okay, Rush Limbaugh went to S.E. Missouri State, not the greatest institution of higher learning on the planet. But I can tell you that I have cousins who went there, who got their degrees, and who neither show any signs of insanity or nor gross stupidity.) I have to say that I've known folks who've attended some of the great educational institutions of the world who've come out educated, but otherwise more or less brainless. It isn't just American schools that educate without improving wisdom. I've known people with grade school educations who were quite wise, and of course, those with the same level of potential, but minimal education who were an embarrassment to be around. I don't know if it's possible to train someone to both think critically and to actually use that skill in making judgements in their daily life. But for now it certainly seems that you can lead a child to school, but you can't make them grow up smart.
Speaking of education, I was thinking ofatpo_onm's post last night when I was watching Sleepy Hollow. It's not that the episode was particularly anti-historical. No, it was that it was typically anti-historical, that bothered me. Typical for Hollywood norm, I should say. In fact, being anti-historical in a fantasy show like Sleepy Hollow shouldn't bother me so much at all, but it did.
Some how after all the political nonsense of the past few weeks here in the US, my tolerance for spreading ignorance is pretty thin. It's as if artistic license had turned into artistic lice and the plague in the episode was really about the spread of mental typhus from our wonderful entertainment industry. Too bad a dip in a pool of knowledge doesn't instantly wash away all the intellectual dung that gets dumped on us from movies and TV shows all the time. But enough of that.
The episode was, I think, supposed to be about Abbie dealing with issues of faith. But is Abbie devoid faith before this? We have this kind of pseudo-Christianity pervading the show that Abbie accepts pretty quickly after Crane arrives in the first episode. I remember having some Jehovah's witnesses who came to my door that I decided to speak to (without making an ass of myself). There seemed to be a disconnect in everything that we discussed that came from the fact that I don't accept the Bible as proof of anything, let alone the word of God. They were certain, I think, that I didn't mean it, and that there really aren't people in the world who don't accept the Bible on faith and whose faith might lie in a different direction. Abbie, I think, has always fallen within their realm of understanding. She comfortably believes in the Bible as they would see it, just hasn't made the connection to God yet. So this episode is kind of about making that connection. So a very Protestant Christian episode that plays out in kind of a unorthodox setting. ;o)
atpo_onm last night in which he tries to demonstrate that a goodly number of people on the far right are crazy. I tend to look at the same data and come to the conclusion that they are just profoundly stupid. It's not that there is a big shortage of people on the left and in the middle who are also stupid. It just seems these days I have no patience with the stupid among the conservatives. Ah, you say these people can't be stupid. They have all the right degrees from the right places. (Okay, Rush Limbaugh went to S.E. Missouri State, not the greatest institution of higher learning on the planet. But I can tell you that I have cousins who went there, who got their degrees, and who neither show any signs of insanity or nor gross stupidity.) I have to say that I've known folks who've attended some of the great educational institutions of the world who've come out educated, but otherwise more or less brainless. It isn't just American schools that educate without improving wisdom. I've known people with grade school educations who were quite wise, and of course, those with the same level of potential, but minimal education who were an embarrassment to be around. I don't know if it's possible to train someone to both think critically and to actually use that skill in making judgements in their daily life. But for now it certainly seems that you can lead a child to school, but you can't make them grow up smart.Speaking of education, I was thinking of
atpo_onm's post last night when I was watching Sleepy Hollow. It's not that the episode was particularly anti-historical. No, it was that it was typically anti-historical, that bothered me. Typical for Hollywood norm, I should say. In fact, being anti-historical in a fantasy show like Sleepy Hollow shouldn't bother me so much at all, but it did. Some how after all the political nonsense of the past few weeks here in the US, my tolerance for spreading ignorance is pretty thin. It's as if artistic license had turned into artistic lice and the plague in the episode was really about the spread of mental typhus from our wonderful entertainment industry. Too bad a dip in a pool of knowledge doesn't instantly wash away all the intellectual dung that gets dumped on us from movies and TV shows all the time. But enough of that.
The episode was, I think, supposed to be about Abbie dealing with issues of faith. But is Abbie devoid faith before this? We have this kind of pseudo-Christianity pervading the show that Abbie accepts pretty quickly after Crane arrives in the first episode. I remember having some Jehovah's witnesses who came to my door that I decided to speak to (without making an ass of myself). There seemed to be a disconnect in everything that we discussed that came from the fact that I don't accept the Bible as proof of anything, let alone the word of God. They were certain, I think, that I didn't mean it, and that there really aren't people in the world who don't accept the Bible on faith and whose faith might lie in a different direction. Abbie, I think, has always fallen within their realm of understanding. She comfortably believes in the Bible as they would see it, just hasn't made the connection to God yet. So this episode is kind of about making that connection. So a very Protestant Christian episode that plays out in kind of a unorthodox setting. ;o)