Via VDARE.COM’s James Fulford comes an alert to another friend’s excellent review on “Big Hollywood.” With flare, Sam Karnick, of The American Culture (and much more), chronicles the PBS “scheme of political and social transformation,” as evinced in its “adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel Oliver Twist.”
According to the PBS’s remedial revisionism, Nancy is black. Men are bad, women good. Fagin is driven to crime by anti-Semitism, “more than any choice of his own.” All “people are driven to crime by poverty.”
And, as Fulford points out, “nineteenth-century England, which had more freedom of religion than anywhere but the United States,” is made to sound “more like medieval Spain.”
Read Sam’s excellent piece about the bowdlerization of a beloved classic.
Via VDARE.COM’s James Fulford comes an alert to another friend’s excellent review on “Big Hollywood.” With flare, Sam Karnick, of The American Culture (and much more), chronicles the PBS “scheme of political and social transformation,” as evinced in its “adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel Oliver Twist.”
According to the PBS’s remedial revisionism, Nancy is black. Men are bad, women good. Fagin is driven to crime by anti-Semitism, “more than any choice of his own.” All “people are driven to crime by poverty.”
And, as Fulford points out, “nineteenth-century England, which had more freedom of religion than anywhere but the United States,” is made to sound “more like medieval Spain.”
Read Sam’s excellent piece about the bowdlerization of a beloved classic.
“If it’s a racist society, the white people are the ones being persecuted because they have to defend themselves” against ‘professional racists’ like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.”
So said the feisty Jewish comedian Jackie Mason, after causing an uproar by referring to Obama as a “schwartza” during a stand-up routine.
“I’m an old Jew. I was raised in a Jewish family where ‘schwartza’ was used. It’s not a demeaning word and I’m not going to defend myself.”
My grandfather, RIP, was an innocent, sweet man. He too used that particular Yiddish word and meant nothing bad by it.
“And there was this parting shot [from Mason]: ‘I’m more talented than Oprah Winfrey and look at how much she makes. I can’t even make a living.'”
We also know of white men who’ve lived to rue the day they’ve spoken the politically unpalatable. Imus was lynched by the mob Mason mentioned. They were joined by willing conservatives executioners.
Here’s hoping Mason doesn’t back down.
Update (March 16): In response to Gunjam, and about the line, “the marketplace doesn’t adjudicate quality.” I wrote this concept in 2003, in the article “MUCH ADO ABOUT CONSERVATIVES AND POP CULTURE“:
“More often than not, the marketplace doesn’t adjudicate the quality of art or pop culture. … The market does no more than offer an aggregate snapshot of the trillions of subjective preferences enacted by consumers. Aguilera (Christina) probably sells more than Ashkenazy (Vladimir) ever did. Britney outdoes Borodin. For some, this will be faith inspiring, for others deeply distressing.”
[Snip]
The concept can be found in its succinct version under “Pop Culture & Populism,” in the “Quotables” section.
Speaking of spooky children, the hallmark of a progressive or left-liberal is a philosophical adulation of The Child. The Child is said to possess uncanny prescience; a primordial, pristine, un-spoilt wisdom. The same awe is accorded to the Nobel Savage, and to the natural world.
This explains why Republicans often have a “wunderkind” in the wings to parade and look up to. These days, it’s the barely-out-of short pants CPAC star, Jonathan Krohn, who’s precocious and off-putting. Krohn is an author no less. The treatise is “Define Conservatism.” From the mouth of the babe himself, the book sounds childish and simplistic in tone and in metaphor. Just what Boobus loves.
Understandably, left-liberals have been slobbering over Krohn as well. To their credit, they’ve not produced a prototype of their own yet.
It’s a repulsive specter. It’s not new. I commented on it in a three-pronged column, in 2002. The column is “The Importance Of Boundaries.” The sub-heading is “Crossover Kids”:
“Permissive liberals and people who need Braille to understand a well-aimed barb will fume at the words of author Florence King: ‘…children have no business expressing opinions on anything except, ‘Do you have enough room in the toes?’ But true-blue cultural conservatism puts a premium on the proper boundaries between children and adults. Such boundaries are essential to the moral hygiene of a society. It is from the progressive, libertine parent that we would expect a child of such narcissism and precocity that he or she thinks of adults as his peers, and takes to preaching to his elders.”
“But no, some of the most hubris-stricken kids are emerging as commentators from so-called conservative quarters. The real cultural conservative knows that even in the unlikely case that the child is the new H.L. Mencken, and is smarter than all the adults around him, respect necessitates that he bide his time. Even the intellectually gifted take years to synthesize intellectual material and make it their own. This process is a culmination of insight, life experience, humility, and authentic intelligence.”
“The cultural conservative adult who lets a kid be a pal and peer is a liberal. He cannot claim to be a cultural conservative. He must, moreover, own up to being mired in self-contradiction. Writing on the topic of Western Civilization, historian Alan Charles Kors reminds us that avoiding self-contradiction is the touchstone of truth—being mired in self-contradiction, the touchstone of error. To the Greek philosophers, to be mired in self-contradiction was to be ‘less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.'”
Update (Feb. 28): I just can’t win, can I? The reader hereunder vows to seek out the kid’s coloring-in book in the library. Lost is my meta-argument against the process of looking to a kid for answers, however endowed in IQ he might be.
Seeking sagacity in a child’s words is perverted, unconservative.
The whole point of this post is that you NOT be piqued by a child; that you not be proud of such precocity. Look to real philosopher Kings for eternal truths. Take the time to rediscover The Federalist or Anti-Federalist papers. So long as you have not read the the words of real sages, you have no business looking for kicks in the kibitzing of kids.
Of course, you have every right to, but little reason to.
THEY MUST BE HOMESCHOOLED. Blogger John was alluding to this delightful clip (I’m posting it hereunder), making the rounds on YouTube. Two precious, fiscally conservative cuties hear that they owe $800 billion. The little boy is especially eager to tease out the details, and is outraged when he gets the goods. Unlike creepy, adult-emulating Krohn, these babes act their age, and are absolutely natural. There is nothing put-on or fake about their conduct. These are kids getting some bad news about a stolen piggy bank.
I would agree that children are naturally acquisitive and, like all normal people before entering the public school, guard what is rightfully theirs.
But there’s more to it. What you have here is an example of decent parenting. In fact, this clip very clearly exemplifies the boundary argument made in this post. The adult is teaching the children a lesson about private property and its theft.
I would further argue that the parent eliciting the little people’s outrage by telling them of the $800 billion they are about to be robbed of—he is the good guy in all this. He probably home schools the two tots. This is clearly a man who, while not indoctrinating his kids, does instill in them right from wrong.
Pay attention to the disparaging comments the filming father gets from YouTubers. Addled by psychobabble, posters protest the emotional harm done to the children; the sentiment shared on the chatboard is that upsetting children is wrong.
Well, the clip has been removed. My guess is that the dad who posted it thought Obama’s New New Deal outrageous, and his kids’ outburst appropriate. The cretins watching it disapproved and disagreed with dad. Maybe father feared Big Brother would removed his kids. … Not that it has happened before.
