I am confused as far as the characters in the film. I mean, you are trying to get a conservative, evangelical, mostly baptist (I bet) audience and one of the heroes is a catholic priest? I mean were there not enough letters to make the character Muslim? The opinion of the Pope and Catholicism to these people is about that low.
Yep. Thatâs why I think it is so reminiscent of addictive behavior. Any time you confront an addict and threaten them with the loss of their âdrugâ, they become irrational, angry, and even violent. You have to somehow insulate yourself from being harmed by their addictive behavior, while at the same time compassionately waiting for them to hit their âbottomâ and realize their need to get free of the addiction. I have been part of this process in family counseling. I wonder what it looks like to enact it on a social scale. But somehow I think taking the âaddiction recoveryâ tactic is better than going eye or eye and tooth for tooth with the âculture warâ tactic.
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Oh, itâs toxic go both. Granted, itâs magnitudes worse for the persecuted, but the hangover for the majority lasts generations. Actually, sometimes it manifests itself only a generation later.
Indeed. Although, (again with my damn caveats) wouldnât it appear that approaching this from the perspective of addiction and recovery be seen as very condescending?
Scratch that, even my own view, that it is a cycle of self reinforcing fear, probably seems equally condescending. At least to the people Iâm referring to. Compassion is an admirable goal, but trying to voice compassion rarely works when youâre up against people who see you as evil. And even if they donât see you as evil, they certainly see moderates and liberals as the other in a tribalistic sense, and thatâs part of their goal. Women who want to have premarital sex are all whores, people of non-heterosexuality are liars/tricksters/sinful/child molesters etc. Trans people reject the bodies god blessed them with (and they should be happy about being blessed by god no matter how unhappy they are with their gender/sex). Abortions are murder and always wrong, even if not having an abortion means an 11 year old has to undergo serious medical risk.
Itâs fear, and the fear of powerlessness especially so. âbecause those heathens donât worship my god, my god will do bad things to everyone, unless I do my best to make those dirty sinful unbelievers like I am. Holy and righteous and pleasing to god.â They may not admit it, or know it on a conscious level, but thatâs pretty much the main reason why the religious right is so damned persistent about enforcing their biblical law on everyone.
So, in conclusion, I donât understand how the addiction metaphor can inform our actions in this situation. Both sides think they are right, and the other is wrong. One side can give evidence as to why itâs correct, and the other side canât, but to the side that canât give evidence, whether something is likely true doesnât have a basis in evidence or fact anyway.
Itâs an age-old standoff, and I donât see any way to avoid either each side cutting the other off, conflict lasting as long as humans are irrational and afraid.
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Iâm not sure thereâs enough weed in Humboldt to keep the bile down and make this funnyâŚ
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After 13 years itâll take some digging to find itâŚ
Yeah, the tax rate is the first thing conservatives forget about the 1950sâŚ
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To be fair, it was a conservative christian, Pat Buchanan, who said this was a âculture warâ as opposed to a âculture disagreementâ, and started turning this into a super-polarized ideological battle. The âProgressiveâ side seems like theyâd rather do things your way, given the chance, or talk things out from the beginning instead of turning political orthodoxy into the new heroin.
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Yeah, but fins tho.
Some interesting quotes from the American Taliban:
http://adultthought.ucsd.edu/Culture_War/The_American_Taliban.html
As usual, Pat Robertson takes it to a new level:
âThe Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers?â
âJust like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. Itâs no differentâŚMore terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.â
âWhen lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals â the two things seem to go together.â
âThe feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.â
âYou say youâre supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I donât have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.â
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The reason is that the central core principle of their belief system- The one that stands above all others- Is that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They are the chosen people. Theirs is the one true god. Theirs is the only way to get to Heaven. Their book and only theirs is the truth.
It is literally impossible to treat other people as equal under these circumstances.
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This one has every chance of being a big hit with evangelicals, as it plays right into their institutionalized delusions.
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At one point religious conservatives were the majority (or at least seemed like the majority), and they are slowly losing their influence in America, hence they feel âpersecuted.â It was only about a decade a go that lots of states passed laws against gay marriage, and now those laws are all being struck down.
Plus you have Fox News pushing the idea that there is some sinister liberal conspiracy afoot (itâs a great business model for them-- Fox News alone has the âtruthâ, everything else is liberal propaganda-- voila: dedicated audience) so it feeds this idea that they are being persecuted.
The trailer makes it seem like their protagonist is a man of deeply held convictions and a solid moral compass, except he appears to be pushing the idea that one part of society is evil based on ancient scripture; how do you think he feels about homosexuality being outlawed and gays being locked up? Is that the kind of âmoral compassâ they want us to live by? Humanity has been there before, and it wasnât good.
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This is how I try to explain it to people:
My right to swing my arm ends at your nose.
Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.
Tolerance means allowing people to do what they want as long as they are armâs length away.
It also includes the difference between speaking against someoneâs lifestyle, and trying to prevent them from living it.
I tolerate your teaching your kids creationism.
I do not tolerate your teaching my kids creationism.
My kids are inside my arm-swinging radius, not yours.
You are allowed to say that homosexuality is wrong.
You are not allowed to prevent them from marrying each other.
Other peoplesâ marriages are outside of your arm-swinging radius.
If you would stop trying to pass legislation that restricts other people, we would tolerate your opinions.
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Itâll only work if Weird Al can be convinced to write the soundtrack.
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Perhaps we could start by encouraging these folks to read the first four books of the New Testament, rather than relying on clergy to cherry-pick for them. Read it multiple times, if necessary, so as to understand what this Jesus guy of yours was actually trying to preach.
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I like your general idea, but I have some honest questions about how to approach it.
You canât help someone who doesnât want to be helped. As you said, they need to realize for themselves that they have a problem (usually by hitting rock bottom). How do we encourage them to have that epiphany without trying to force it on them from outside?
Secondly, the whole culture war framing- When the other side is actively fighting a war against you, how do you help them when it takes all your energy just to shield yourself from their attacks?
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Itâs a decent analogy, but I think one big difference is the likelihood of (and reasons for) hitting âbottom.â With an addict, thereâs a whole social message that addiction is wrong and bad; something to be hidden and (if possible) overcome. By contrast, most of society sees religion as a positive thing that should be encouraged. Itâs a whole lot easier to hit bottom when you feel like a misfit. When all of your family and friends, and everyone else in your town, and pretty much everyone youâve ever heard of, are all doing the same thing you are and telling you how awesome it is, youâre a heck of a lot less likely to even think about whether what youâre all doing is a bad idea, let alone want to actively change your behavior.
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The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers? (Quoted from Pat Robertson)
Fun fact: The Southern Baptist Convention started life as a religion of slavers.
Granted, Iâve seen some modern churches make attempts to diversify their membership, but history has momentum.
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I like that the trailer doesnât reveal this mystery legislation that goers against God and results in the entire thriller plot of the movie.
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