While I expected two general types of pushback against my recent post that was (only tangentially) related to “This Is me”, the volume and lockstep uniformity of those knee-jerk responses surprised me.
To recap, first we have the pop culture copper tops who’ve been plugged into the mass media Matrix for so long they’ll reflexively lash out at anyone who even questions the system.
Here’s another example from Twitter.
And from another branch of the same thread:
Let’s hit the highlights.
- Admits the song denies the concept of sin.
- Proposes a moral calculus that divorces ends from means, i.e. consequentialism.
- Overlooks the fact that morality is central to the discussion.
- Correctly identifies the song’s “You were born this way!” Narrative and cites it in the song’s defense!
- Completely misses the underlying point that the “Fly your freak flag” ethos he just mentioned IS the current, Left-imposed cultural norm I advocate defying.
- Blatantly misrepresents my clearly stated position not once, but twice.
At least one commenter took me to task for not engaging Val with logic and not clarifying my position. As I pointed out, cat-lady (and now Andrew) weren’t using logic. They were deploying emotional arguments under a thin veneer of rational-sounding jargon.
You can tell they weren’t really using dialectic because both of them
- Either didn’t read the original posts or read them until the onset of CogDis, at which point they were reduced to skimming till offended.
- Flagrantly distorted my position, as a result of 1. above.
- Made incoherent arguments.
Whether the snobbish critics in the East and West Coast bubbles loved or hated a particular entertainment product has exactly zero bearing on that product’s effectiveness at pushing the Left’s Narrative. Who cares what bubble-dwellers like? In fact, movies embraced by Progs–e.g. The Last Jedi–are LESS useful vectors since normies are getting wise to overt propaganda. The Greatest Showman is a more effective arrow in the Left’s quiver precisely because it’s so palatable to normies.
As for the implied accusation of hypocrisy, Knock it off. It doesn’t make you look morally superior. It makes you look catty and butthurt. Conservatives have been impotently accusing Leftists of hypocrisy for generations. Pro tip: That trick only works on Conservatives because only Conservatives base their identities on “I am a million times more principled than thou art!” posturing.
An explanation of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions is in order. A story must place entertainment before message (if it has one) and, if it does have a message, it must promote heroism, virtue, and truth.
In short, the moral of the story must be moral.
Denying the reality of sin is the diametric opposite of morality. It is anti-morality. The Greatest Showman promotes that anti-morality, however cunningly the message is hidden. A story that upholds evil instead of good is not a story. It is propaganda. And error has no rights.
This reminds me a lot of the hoopla over "Let It Go" a few years ago. It's a song about selfishness and hedonism, but you'll have some autist argument about how the plot is actually condemning her words so it's okay! The song is catchy, right?
Here's the thing about music. In musicals and concept albums, songs have to stand out on their own apart from the whole. If you've ever listened to either then you know how easy it is to take a song out of context of the whole piece and still keep the meaning for a different audience. How else do people play them on the radio or on compilations?
"Hakuna Matata" works in The Lion King because of how the plot works. Standalone it sends a certain message just as "Be Prepared" does. But "Hakuna Matata" was sold as dumb (Listen to the lyrics. They're obviously ridiculous.) and "Be Prepared" was never packaged for radio play.
But "Let It Go" was.
"Let It Go" was originally the "Be Prepared" of Frozen. She was supposed to be the villain, and it shows. If you want to know why the plot is a nonsensical mess ducked tape together it is because they wanted to make her sympathetic and had to cobble together a new villain that makes no sense on closer inspection. "Let It Go" was concocted for one thing then repackaged as something else.
So why did they market a villain theme standalone to a mass market and hide it? Why did they write a song like that for the villain in the first place and then tweak it? Why do people lie to defend the song?
Really gets the old noggin joggin'.
"I Kissed a Girl" by Katie Perry almost single handedly normalized homosexuality among Millennials.
Brian
The title of your post brings up how troubled and conflicted i am about shame. How do we recuperate shame so ot promotes virtue and not the histrionic Red guard/cultural revolution diatribe?
Quick question what's wrong with the the Greatest shoownan? What evil foes it promote?
xavier
You're going to see histrionics exceeding the Red Chinese struggle sessions, only from the other direction this time, unless we can rein in the SJWs and cucks with ubiquitous, low-level shaming.
But will they even accept the shame and modify their behaviour?
xavier
And here I held out hope that The Greatest Showman was just the thing for a Christmas movie. Nope.
Is The Man Who Invented Christmas also deceitful?
Heian-kyo Dreams,
What's wrong with the movie?
xavier
Xavier, Isn't The Greatest Showman the movie Brian is referring to?
Yes. The song "This Is Me" is from the movie The Greatest Showman. The former denies the reality of sin, and the latter is a vehicle for it.
Your ideas aren't like most, and I know very little about you – except the posts I see in my stream – how about an interview? I'd host it on DraconicMagazine.com…
No, thanks.
To those who think shame is horrible, oh so horrible, you need to take a moment and ask yourself:
1) who/what kind of people taught me that all shame is just terrible and icky Christian garbage…
2) why is the context of the very bad shame always about shame and homosexuals, or infidelity, pregnancy out of wedlock, and other grave sins and bad behavior…
3) and what types of people defend such shameful behavior?
Shame is a tool. If used to encourage people towards virtue and positive behaviors by leveraging their guilt or fear of social ostracism, it is a good. The satanic Liberals, with their word games, declared that shame was bad in every and all contexts in order to reduce social pressure on their degeneracy and perversion and to even normalize it.
The Left has no problem shaming Christianity, maleness and whiteness.
"Shame is a tool. If used to encourage people towards virtue and positive behaviors by leveraging their guilt or fear of social ostracism, it is a good."
Exactly.
"The Left has no problem shaming Christianity, maleness and whiteness."
Leftists try to convince you that shame is bad in the social realm are the same ones who try to convince you that guns are bad in the political realm. Don't let them disarm you.
Apropos comment considering that tweet on Pope Francis’ twitter handle today. If the Leftcasks you to disarm, you respond by locking and loading.