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Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday

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On 02/06/2016 01:51, Wexford Eire wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 1, 2016 at 10:32:28 AM UTC-4, John Locke wrote:
>> On Wed, 1 Jun 2016 10:35:17 +1000, "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk>
>> wrote:


>>>>
>>>> The visit to B&N forced a sad reflection on the state of
>>>> learning and reason in the contemporary United States. So many
>>>> people prefer magic and nonsense to anything remotely truthful
>>>> or factual or scientific. It seems to get worse every year.
>>>> I've tried to assure that my grandchildren will stay rooted in
>>>> reality, and my children have as well (not a biblebot in the
>>>> lot, not even a church goer), but there is so much propaganda
>>>> on television and in children's literature pushing children to
>>>> believe in spirits and magic, it's disgusting. In my opinion
>>>> its just child exploitation and abuse. Disney is the great
>>>> grandaddy of it all, promising "magic" everything but
>>>> delivering nothing but an overpriced amusement park, a phony
>>>> community, a tawdry lie, and an empty wallet.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Market forces, alas....
>>>
>>> Bricks and mortar book shops have a dreadful time of it, trying
>>> to compete with Amazon and the like.  So they really have to try
>>> and catch every single potential customer, and that does mean
>>> focusing on the lowest common denominator.
>>>
>> ...the movie industry here in the U.S. does the same. Just look at
>> all the brain dead Christian movies that have been coming out
>> lately. Total rubbish but they typically generate 10 times there
>> production costs.
>
> That's true. I grew up watching old "classic" movies on TV. My
> favorites were films like "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet," "Pasteur,"
> "Marie Curie," "Young Edison," highly dramatized stories of
> scientists and inventors, but they made a tremendous impression.
> Today it's all garbage like "Harry Potter," and that loathsome "Lord
> of Rings" trilogy. The godbots are at it, too, with a constant stream
> of Bible, miracle and heaven movies, and there's a steady flood of
> animations that are simply mind-deadening. Why can't we make heroes
> of real people who accomplished truly remarkable things? There are so
> many scientists, engineers, inventors, thinkers who have really
> created the modern world and whose lives if not eternally exciting
> were purposeful (without the god crapola) and profoundly important to
> all of us. I'd love see children grow up who wanted to emulate people
> like Lister, or Fleming or Salk, who made heroes of scientists and
> engineers, rather than Ninja Turtles, and wouldn't have their minds
> bent by godbot propaganda or by the seductions of phony "magic."

On the upside, films like the Harry Potter series or the Lord of the 
Rings (or indeed the never-ending stream of Marvel Comic superhero 
flicks) do help to undermine religion.

Another upside is that it gets young kids to *read*.  Literally millions 
of kids got into the habit of picking up a book through these films. 
That is a Very Good Thing (TM) as a matter of general principle.

I think it simply is that much harder to make exciting cinema when the 
hero is a thinker rather than a doer.  Take Darwin: a titan of science, 
but exciting?  He spent five years sitting in a wooden tub, hopping off 
every now and then to collect specimens.  Then he spent decades buried 
in the English countryside bringing up a family and writing.  Not much 
scope for cinematic excitement, I'm afraid.

On that subject, did you see the biopic of Stephen Hawking, "The Theory 
of Everything"?  A cracking film...


>
>>
>>> It's also a cultural matter.  Different countries have different
>>> reading preferences and traditions.
>
> I don't know whether that's as much culture as marketing, perhaps a
> mix of both.

Marketing works both ways: it not only creates demand where there was 
none, it also feeds pre-existing demand.  If there is a popular 
tradition of reading history, then marketing will do its best to 
maintain and increase that demand.


>
> For instance, popular science and history
>>> books have always been good sellers in Britain; they are
>>> regularly reviewed in the national press, and get lots of floor
>>> and shelf space in book shops.  However, in secular France, there
>>> is a lot more philosophy being touted, and in un-religious
>>> Germany, they tend to fill shelves with fiction (both translated
>>> imports from the UK and US and seriously highbrow German stuff).
>
> There's some really lowbrow German stuff as well.
>

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At Barnes and Noble Yesterday Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2016-05-31 08:50 -0700
  Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday Justice Should Not Enable Sluts <opuzayo@gmail.com> - 2016-05-31 10:56 -0700
    Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2016-05-31 13:24 -0700
    Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday hypatiab7 <hypatiab7@comcast.net> - 2016-06-01 02:12 -0700
  Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday viva padrepio <vivapadrepio@aol.com> - 2016-05-31 13:32 -0700
  Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-06-01 10:35 +1000
    Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday viva padrepio <vivapadrepio@aol.com> - 2016-05-31 17:54 -0700
    Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday John Locke <johnnydemon666@demonmail.com> - 2016-06-01 07:32 -0700
      Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2016-06-01 08:51 -0700
        Re: At Barnes and Noble Yesterday "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-06-02 11:07 +1000

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