| Topic: |
Science > Philosophy |
| User: |
"Sir Frederick" |
| Date: |
22 Feb 2007 12:30:54 PM |
| Object: |
On the Worship of Ugliness |
On the worship of ugliness :
----------------------------------------------
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/02/22/rise_of_the_anti-hero
Rise of the Anti-Hero
By Cal Thomas
Thursday, February 22, 2007
"Anti-hero: A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is
characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as
idealism or courage."
Consider what occupies and diverts our attention from substantive
matters: Anna Nicole Smith; Britney Spears; the astronaut gone wild,
Lisa Nowak; the sleeping, dating, marital and divorce arrangements of
film stars. It is all about the base, the tawdry and the anti-heroic.
Today's heroes are cartoon characters and those (Superman, Batman, etc.)
are from another era in which real heroes mattered.
Some blame television networks, especially cable, for our increasingly
prurient interests. In recent days, TV has climbed into the septic tank
with so many of the rest of us and delivered not what we need ("eat your
vegetables, dear, they are good for you"), but what we seemingly cannot
get enough of ("never mind the vegetables; eat your dessert"). TV
wouldn't be obsessing with it if we didn't demand it.
USA Today reported on a Pew Poll that found most Americans believe the
media overdo celebrity news, but they watch it anyway. Sixty-one percent
say they think the media overplayed the death of Anna Nicole Smith, but
11 percent said they followed it as closely as the 2008 presidential
campaign (13 percent) or the Super Bowl (11 percent).
Can you name the last person you heard about who behaved in a classic
heroic manner? How about our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? The media
ignore their heroism, even when they are awarded medals for bravery.
When the word "hero" is used at all, it is generally to label someone
who is simply doing his job or her duty.
There's little time to explore heroism among a people who prefer to
indulge themselves in stories about a Qantas flight attendant having sex
in the airplane lavatory with actor Ralph Fiennes, or Bridget Moynahan
of ABC's "Six Degrees" announcing that she is pregnant with the child of
ex-boyfriend and New England Patriot All-Pro quarterback, Tom Brady. Who
gets married before having children these days? And what difference does
it make in our "anything goes" culture?
Politically, heroism disappeared around the time of Harry Truman, with
brief reappearances during the administrations of John F. Kennedy and
Ronald Reagan. Now, everything is poll-tested and "leaders" follow the
opinions and base instincts of those they should be persuading to follow
them. Today, when one speaks of "vision," they are usually referring to
Lasik eye surgery.
There is little sign any of this is about to end. Last week, ABC drew 9
million viewers to "The Outsiders," a prime time program about a group
of Arizona polygamists. Commenting on the appeal of such a show,
correspondent John Quinones said, "I guess (it's) the voyeuristic
appeal." It's true - we are a nation of gawkers.
To some extent this has always been so, but television has made gawking
easier and the objects of gawking more accessible. This indulgence in
the base and banal has had a corrosive effect on our collective spirit.
It also lowers our defenses against those who would destroy us.
It isn't as if we haven't been warned about self-indulgence in secular
and sacred writings. In his "Republic," Plato has Socrates describe the
effect on the soul of grace and gracelessness in the material culture:
"Our aim is to prevent our Guards being reared among images of vice - as
it were in a pasturage of poisonous herbs where, cropping and grazing in
abundance every day, they little by little and all unawares build up one
huge accumulation of evil in their soul. Rather, we must seek out
craftsmen with a talent for capturing what is lovely and graceful, so
that our young, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, will receive
benefit from everything about them. Like a breeze bringing health from
wholesome places, the impact of works of beauty on eye or ear will
imperceptibly from childhood on, guide them to likeness, to friendship,
to concord with the beauty of reason."
You won't find such "craftsmen" on television. Better to turn it off, or
get rid of this unfriendly guest, than to allow for the creation of
another generation of anti-heroes and gawkers.
Cal Thomas is America's most widely syndicated op-ed columnist and
co-author of Blinded by Might.
.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: On the Worship of Ugliness |
22 Feb 2007 09:29:47 PM |
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On Feb 22, 10:30 am, Sir Frederick <mmcne...@fuzzysys.com> wrote:
On the worship of ugliness :
----------------------------------------------http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/02/22/rise_of_the_a...
Rise of the Anti-Hero
By Cal Thomas
Thursday, February 22, 2007
"Anti-hero: A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is
characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as
idealism or courage."
Consider what occupies and diverts our attention from substantive
matters: Anna Nicole Smith; Britney Spears; the astronaut gone wild,
Lisa Nowak; the sleeping, dating, marital and divorce arrangements of
film stars. It is all about the base, the tawdry and the anti-heroic.
Today's heroes are cartoon characters and those (Superman, Batman, etc.)
are from another era in which real heroes mattered.
Those issues are actually important since these instances are examples
of what to do in those kinds of situations. If our minds are software
peakock's tails then that is why we are so tuned into the "plummage"
of the main attraction. And besides that, before the evolution of the
Chief or State, this gossip crap was the only "law" in town, and
people could interact with each other and each have some control so
that if one gets out of line one gets trouble;
Evolutionary psychology argues that human nature--our psychological
architecture as much as our physical form--was shaped to survive and
reproduce under a particular set of conditions. This was the existence
of clan-dwelling primates, who subsisted by foraging and hunting in a
savanna-like environment. It is only in recent biological times that
we left the world of clan-dwelling primates for the world of
agriculture, city settlements and, eventually, business organizations.
We inhabit our high-tech world with Stone Age minds because there has
not been enough time to change our psychology to match our
environment.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_3_34/ai_73537491
Evolutionary Psychology and Hollywood,
The Brain, the Big Screen, and the Origin of Gossip
by William A. Spriggs
http://www.evoyage.com/BillsEssays/hollywood.html
http://www.evoyage.com/BillsEssays/Hollywood2.htm
Ostracism was a procedure under the Athenian democracy where a
prominent citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for
ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the
victim, ostracism was often pre-emptive in character. It might be a
way of diffusing a major confrontation between rival politicians by
removing one of them from the scene, or of neutralising someone
thought to be a threat to the state, a possible tyrant. Crucially,
ostacism had no relation to the processes of justice. There was no
charge or defence, and the exile was not in fact a penalty. It was
simply a command from the Athenian people that one of their number be
gone for ten years.
Shunning is the act of deliberately avoiding association with, and
habitually keeping away from an individual or group. It is a sanction
against association commonly associated with religious groups
following excommunication or dismembership. In some cases, the shunned
person or group is considered anathema, abominable, or spiritually
diseased by shunning group.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.angst/msg/afd1e5ba2d368af6
Some blame television networks, especially cable, for our increasingly
prurient interests. In recent days, TV has climbed into the septic tank
with so many of the rest of us and delivered not what we need ("eat your
vegetables, dear, they are good for you"), but what we seemingly cannot
get enough of ("never mind the vegetables; eat your dessert"). TV
wouldn't be obsessing with it if we didn't demand it.
USA Today reported on a Pew Poll that found most Americans believe the
media overdo celebrity news, but they watch it anyway. Sixty-one percent
say they think the media overplayed the death of Anna Nicole Smith, but
11 percent said they followed it as closely as the 2008 presidential
campaign (13 percent) or the Super Bowl (11 percent).
Can you name the last person you heard about who behaved in a classic
heroic manner? How about our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? The media
ignore their heroism, even when they are awarded medals for bravery.
When the word "hero" is used at all, it is generally to label someone
who is simply doing his job or her duty.
Thats really unfair since if there were a "Civil Rights Era" again, or
other radical times, the heros would rise again. I think that the
politicos have learned just how much to fix things cheaply in order to
stop revolt by the people. Plus the times don't require such
heroicism, but may again in the future. So we are talking about
increases and decreases of something, not its absence.
There's little time to explore heroism among a people who prefer to
indulge themselves in stories about a Qantas flight attendant having sex
in the airplane lavatory with actor Ralph Fiennes, or Bridget Moynahan
of ABC's "Six Degrees" announcing that she is pregnant with the child of
ex-boyfriend and New England Patriot All-Pro quarterback, Tom Brady. Who
gets married before having children these days? And what difference does
it make in our "anything goes" culture?
Politically, heroism disappeared around the time of Harry Truman, with
brief reappearances during the administrations of John F. Kennedy and
Ronald Reagan. Now, everything is poll-tested and "leaders" follow the
opinions and base instincts of those they should be persuading to follow
them. Today, when one speaks of "vision," they are usually referring to
Lasik eye surgery.
There is little sign any of this is about to end. Last week, ABC drew 9
million viewers to "The Outsiders," a prime time program about a group
of Arizona polygamists. Commenting on the appeal of such a show,
correspondent John Quinones said, "I guess (it's) the voyeuristic
appeal." It's true - we are a nation of gawkers.
To some extent this has always been so, but television has made gawking
easier and the objects of gawking more accessible. This indulgence in
the base and banal has had a corrosive effect on our collective spirit.
It also lowers our defenses against those who would destroy us.
It isn't as if we haven't been warned about self-indulgence in secular
and sacred writings. In his "Republic," Plato has Socrates describe the
effect on the soul of grace and gracelessness in the material culture:
"Our aim is to prevent our Guards being reared among images of vice - as
it were in a pasturage of poisonous herbs where, cropping and grazing in
abundance every day, they little by little and all unawares build up one
huge accumulation of evil in their soul. Rather, we must seek out
craftsmen with a talent for capturing what is lovely and graceful, so
that our young, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, will receive
benefit from everything about them. Like a breeze bringing health from
wholesome places, the impact of works of beauty on eye or ear will
imperceptibly from childhood on, guide them to likeness, to friendship,
to concord with the beauty of reason."
You won't find such "craftsmen" on television. Better to turn it off, or
get rid of this unfriendly guest, than to allow for the creation of
another generation of anti-heroes and gawkers.
Cal Thomas is America's most widely syndicated op-ed columnist and
co-author of Blinded by Might.
.
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| User: "ZerkonX" |
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| Title: Re: On the Worship of Ugliness |
23 Feb 2007 07:17:05 AM |
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On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:29:47 -0800, Immortalist wrote:
Thats really unfair since if there were a "Civil Rights Era" again, or
other radical times, the heros would rise again. I think that the
politicos have learned just how much to fix things cheaply in order to
stop revolt by the people. Plus the times don't require such heroicism,
but may again in the future. So we are talking about increases and
decreases of something, not its absence.
I disagree with you. I think these are very radical times.
Three points:
1) War is radical. However, it certainly may be so much a part of American
culture that it is no longer seen as a radical condition.
2) Hero's and heroic times can be product of hindsight. As in the "civil
rights era", MLK was not thought of as a hero by most of this country.
Quit the opposite, in fact.
3) The internet, as is, and as the gateway to what is to come, is radical.
I believe we have very little understanding, now, what this is doing to
us. As you quoted: "..high-tech world with Stone Age minds.."
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| User: "tooly" |
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| Title: Re: On the Worship of Ugliness |
23 Feb 2007 10:00:57 AM |
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"ZerkonX" <ZERKON@zerkonx.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2007.02.23.13.17.03.393394@zerkonx.net...
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:29:47 -0800, Immortalist wrote:
Thats really unfair since if there were a "Civil Rights Era" again, or
other radical times, the heros would rise again. I think that the
politicos have learned just how much to fix things cheaply in order to
stop revolt by the people. Plus the times don't require such heroicism,
but may again in the future. So we are talking about increases and
decreases of something, not its absence.
I disagree with you. I think these are very radical times.
Three points:
1) War is radical. However, it certainly may be so much a part of American
culture that it is no longer seen as a radical condition.
2) Hero's and heroic times can be product of hindsight. As in the "civil
rights era", MLK was not thought of as a hero by most of this country.
Quit the opposite, in fact.
3) The internet, as is, and as the gateway to what is to come, is radical.
I believe we have very little understanding, now, what this is doing to
us. As you quoted: "..high-tech world with Stone Age minds.."
I agree...radical times. I read that all human culture before the 20th
century had evolved around deity...values promulgated through idealization
of self in those deities. It's not simple of course; and then came along
industrialization, and then intellectual design of new societies whereupon,
we have in recent decades pulled away in high gear from old world traditions
toward visions based in intellectual ideals as knowledge has led us.
Today, we are still in a transition into new societies based entirely upon
reason and logic as distributed to the masses via academia. Things like
social engineering, deconstruct/constructionism, political correctness,
multiculturism, and a vast re-evaluation of all things old world, even to
question things like the family unit, or even our mores...all the while
discarding any argument of a higher domain from which authority and
absolution could be assigned, embracing now, a new code of morality based
upon 'relative' assignment per individual.
Is there anyone else who might see something I think is absolutely amazing
and new in the world as of late...and quite mysterious as a phenonemon.
There is something going on between the white woman and the black man...and
it is quite extraordinary. It is as if either is preferring the other over
their own natural mate. I think there has always been some racial
intertwining between any given race or people, but mostly just marginal
stuff.
But this thing between the white woman and black man...there is an
electricity...a force, a new energy that...well, I don't think it's ever
been seen in the world before the last few decades [not this mass movement
that is snowballing]. There is a phenonemon going on. Like a new comet in
the sky, I would think there would be an army of onlookers, astronomers, and
hobbyists setting up shop to study and understand something so new and
extradorinary. But with this thing between white women and black men, there
is such a political minefield that everyone just looks away as if nothing is
happening. This phenonemon would absolutely have shocked our forebears
[black and/or white]...but today stands as something radically different and
changing the world in a vast way. I'm not talking about individuals
here...but the 'mass grand march' going on...the macro view. It is quite
extraordinary...and very radical.
I'm like Copernicus here arguing the world is round...but because of polical
mindwashing and fear, I may be burned at the stake as some heretic. But I
tell you...it IS happening; it IS going on. Something NEW is happening.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: On the Worship of Ugliness |
23 Feb 2007 02:36:01 PM |
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On Feb 23, 5:17 am, ZerkonX <ZER...@zerkonx.net> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:29:47 -0800, Immortalist wrote:
Thats really unfair since if there were a "Civil Rights Era" again, or
other radical times, the heros would rise again. I think that the
politicos have learned just how much to fix things cheaply in order to
stop revolt by the people. Plus the times don't require such heroicism,
but may again in the future. So we are talking about increases and
decreases of something, not its absence.
I disagree with you. I think these are very radical times.
Three points:
1) War is radical. However, it certainly may be so much a part of American
culture that it is no longer seen as a radical condition.
2) Hero's and heroic times can be product of hindsight. As in the "civil
rights era", MLK was not thought of as a hero by most of this country.
Quit the opposite, in fact.
3) The internet, as is, and as the gateway to what is to come, is radical.
I believe we have very little understanding, now, what this is doing to
us. As you quoted: "..high-tech world with Stone Age minds.."
I like those three points actually. But even if water is appraoching
the boiling point and the temperature continues to rise, it doesn't
boil till it reaches a particular temperature under normal atmospheric
pressure. The internet may be warming up to the boiling point, but it
doesn't seem to compare to people marching in the streets and shutting
down businesses across a nation simualtainiously, forcing the
government to decide against it's will.
.
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| User: "ZerkonX" |
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| Title: Re: On the Worship of Ugliness |
05 Mar 2007 08:32:20 AM |
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On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:36:01 -0800, Immortalist wrote:
The internet may be warming up to the boiling point, but it doesn't seem
to compare to people marching in the streets and shutting down
businesses across a nation simualtainiously, forcing the government to
decide against it's will.
Agree completely.
However, you are using the boiling point as the measure. What I am saying
is that it's the "normal atmospheric pressure" that is changing. So it's
the difference, or the inter-relation, between a forest fire and global
warming.
The question that hangs is, does the change I am talking about promote or
undermine the actions you are talking about?
Two examples that cancel each other out, maybe.
NOTE: We can agree not to get side tracked by politics here? I believe I
am making a neutral observation but if not then correct me.
1)
The largest concerted mass demonstration in world history took place at
the beginning of the latest Iraq war. The backbone for this was the
internet.
2)
Your example has not happened in fact, yet the intensity and scope of
dissent has grown over the Iraq issue.
.
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| User: "ZerkonX" |
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| Title: Re: On the Worship of Ugliness |
23 Feb 2007 06:53:32 AM |
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On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:30:54 -0800, Sir Frederick wrote:
Some blame television networks, especially cable, for our increasingly
prurient interests. In recent days, TV has...
become less popular..
http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=viewers_desert_tv1
what IS Thomas' real point? This topic has been done to death. The speech
by Edward R. Murrow in 1958..
http://www.rtnda.org/resources/speeches/murrow.shtml
being the high water mark, I would say.
There is a significant difference between Thomas and Murrow however.
Thomas blames viewers, Murrow blames producers.
This is the important issue but for another time maybe.
Thomas throws this out..
".. Sixty-one percent say they think the media overplayed the death of
Anna Nicole Smith, but 11 percent said they followed it as closely as the
2008 presidential campaign.. "
Huh? Ok, what IS going on since this does deeply under-mind his argument.
Could be the whole reason behind this article is his weeping over the lack
of 'hero' images, another topic done, done and re-done..
"Can you name the last person you heard about who behaved in a classic
heroic manner? How about our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? The media
ignore their heroism, even when they are awarded medals for bravery..."
Is the medicine that he thinks he needs to coat up in this otherwise
hackneyed treatment of an important issue? As for his sincerity on this
issue, one only needs to google his views on John Kerry who, like him or
not, went off to war and did receive medals for bravery, unlike Cal
Thomas.
Sorry, about this has-little-to-do-with philosophy nose-dive! Thank god,
Immortalist is here to save the day!!
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