Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
I was kind of trying to bait this a little bit with my strawman. Pat refused to bite
Was a good try though.
Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week
- Thread starter Ender Rises
- Start date
Was a good try though.
Dak
mentat
Einherjar86
Active Member
I don't see how.
EDIT: might I also add that I feel there are two analogous debates going on in two threads. In the "Gun Debate" thread, people argue whether or not guns can shoot people on their own; meanwhile, over here, we discuss whether or not films talk to people on their own.
EDIT: might I also add that I feel there are two analogous debates going on in two threads. In the "Gun Debate" thread, people argue whether or not guns can shoot people on their own; meanwhile, over here, we discuss whether or not films talk to people on their own.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
That's a fair point. I'll concede you that one.
So, by your quasi-definitions, humans cannot prove anything to be true and there can be no such thing as propaganda. That's a pretty frightening and depressing place to be.
Einherjar86
Active Member
No, all I said is that humans cannot "make" truths. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
I'd suggest that instead of viewing a film as a "lie" (something evaluatively negative and condemnatory), we try and see how it unconsciously reflects certain socio-cultural, ideological, or hegemonic "truths." For instance, it is a truth that racism still exists; but this does not mean we need to go after specific individuals, or actors, and try and convince them of their ignorance. This is where the film American History X is hopelessly idealistic. No one is arresting Quentin Tarantino for a hate crime (although, who knows, someone might try to assassinate him someday... although I doubt it).
What we can do is analyze and criticize the texts that our culture creates and propagates; not as lies, but merely as reflections of how we already behave. Socio-political and economic views aren't changed on a one-on-one basis. Obama isn't going to eradicate homophobia by convincing people that it's wrong (which is why I'm terrified by some of the people so obsessed with him as a kind of cult leader). The only way views and "truths" like that are altered is through careful, methodical criticism. There are no lies being told here; we're merely gradually altering our perspective of the world.
I'd suggest that instead of viewing a film as a "lie" (something evaluatively negative and condemnatory), we try and see how it unconsciously reflects certain socio-cultural, ideological, or hegemonic "truths." For instance, it is a truth that racism still exists; but this does not mean we need to go after specific individuals, or actors, and try and convince them of their ignorance. This is where the film American History X is hopelessly idealistic. No one is arresting Quentin Tarantino for a hate crime (although, who knows, someone might try to assassinate him someday... although I doubt it).
What we can do is analyze and criticize the texts that our culture creates and propagates; not as lies, but merely as reflections of how we already behave. Socio-political and economic views aren't changed on a one-on-one basis. Obama isn't going to eradicate homophobia by convincing people that it's wrong (which is why I'm terrified by some of the people so obsessed with him as a kind of cult leader). The only way views and "truths" like that are altered is through careful, methodical criticism. There are no lies being told here; we're merely gradually altering our perspective of the world.
Dak
mentat
I think there is a difference in the context though. For example: A film inherently places a value judgment since it is limited by possible perspectives. Viewers further interpret this value judgment with more value judgments.
Regarding guns and The Civil War would be the value judgement implicit in the discussion. Some would see the use of guns by the North or South as "good", some would see it as "bad" and some might be more or less "neutral". This doesn't change the fact that guns were used to kill. We place value judgments on those uses.
Directors do have a personal vision for their work, just as an armed person has a target when he/she uses the weapon. Whether the aim is accurate, or the desired target is achieved/impacted is dependent on much more than intent. This doesn't change the fact of the intent, even if we concede that we can't always be completely sure of the intent .IE, a guy sets up a target as if for practice, fires at it but misses and hits someone else off in the distance. With only that information we couldn't be sure of intent. Maybe a guy hammering nails into a deck, who loses his grip on the upswing and it hits his coworker. We might just assume it was an accident with that information, but maybe for some reason the carpenter wanted it to appear accidental. Etc.
Einherjar86
Active Member
I think I've said all I want to on this, but I would just conclude by noting that even if we admit that somehow a director's intention might be "contained" (whatever that means) in a film, we still can't call it a lie since we aren't entirely sure what it's even supposed to be telling us.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Well personally I learn visually more than audibly; so the film would be "showing" to me by your analogy. It's a fallacious analogy that you're making comparing films to guns. I can ignore or tune out a film for one thing, not to mention spot flaws and propaganda. I find myself without much luxury with a gun. By itself, a gun is a pretty boring thing and certainly can't engage me mentally or emotionally. And it isn't even an argument if a gun can shoot someone on its own; of course it can't. And films? C'mon. Do I need to state the obvious? It's a two-way street.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
That's not the correct way to go about this at all. The problem is culture itself, which is based almost entirely on lies.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
And since you're not gonna read it, I'm going to post this article for others to peruse.
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] Spielbergs Upside-Down History: The Myth of Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Armies of scholars, meticulously investigating every aspect of [Lincolns] life, have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry on his part."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]~ Doris Kearns-Goodwin, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743270754?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0743270754&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"]Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of [/ame][/FONT][ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743270754?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0743270754&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Abraham Lincoln[/FONT][/ame][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif], p. 207.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . . I as much as any man am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white race."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]~ Abraham Lincoln, First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Ottawa, Illinois, Sept. 18, 1858, in [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143447710X?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=143447710X&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"]The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln[/ame] vol.3, pp. 145-146.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Steven Spielbergs new movie, Lincoln, is said to be based on several chapters of the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns-Goodwin, who was a consultant to Spielberg. The main theme of the movie is how clever, manipulative, conniving, scheming, lying, and underhanded Lincoln supposedly was in using his "political skills" to get the Thirteenth Amendment that legally ended slavery through the U.S. House of Representatives in the last months of his life. This entire story is what Lerone Bennett, Jr. the longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine and author of [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874850851?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0874850851&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"]Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincolns White Dream[/ame], calls a "pleasant fiction." It never happened. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It never happened according to the foremost authority on Lincoln among mainstream Lincoln scholars, Harvard University Professor David H. Donald, the recipient of several Pulitzer prizes for his historical writings, including a biography of Lincoln. David Donald is the preeminent Lincoln scholar of our time who began writing award-winning books on the subject in the early 1960s. On page 545 of his magnus opus, Lincoln, Donald notes that Lincoln did discuss the Thirteenth Amendment with two members of Congress James M. Ashley of Ohio and James S. Rollins of Missouri. But if he used "means of persuading congressmen to vote for the Thirteeth Amendment," the theme of the Spielberg movie, "his actions are not recorded. Conclusions about the Presidents role rested on gossip . . ."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Moreover, there is not a shred of evidence that even one Democratic member of Congress changed his vote on the Thirteenth Amendment (which had previously been defeated) because of Lincolns actions. Donald documents that Lincoln was told that some New Jersey Democrats could possibly be persuaded to vote for the amendment "if he could persuade [Senator] Charles Sumner to drop a bill to regulate the Camden & Amboy [New Jersey] Railroad, but he declined to intervene" (emphasis added). "One New Jersey Democrat," writes David Donald, "well known as a lobbyist for the Camden & Amboy, who had voted against the amendment in July, did abstain in the final vote, but it cannot be proved that Lincoln influenced his change" (emphasis added). Thus, according to the foremost authority on Lincoln, there is no evidence at all that Lincoln influenced even a single vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, in complete contradiction of the writings of the confessed plagiarist Doris Kearns-Goodwin and Steven Spielbergs movie (See my review of Goodwins book, entitled "A Plagiarists Contribution to Lincoln Idolatry").[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Lincolns First Thirteenth Amendment Gambit[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]There is no evidence that Lincoln provided any significant assistance in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives in 1865, but there is evidence of his effectiveness in getting an earlier Thirteenth Amendment through the House and the Senate in 1861. This proposed amendment was known as the "Corwin Amendment," named after Ohio Republican Congressman Thomas Corwin. It had passed both the Republican-controlled House and the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincolns inauguration, and was sent to the states for ratification by Lincoln himself. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] The Corwin Amendment would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. It read as follows:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State,, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Person held to service" is how the Constitutional Convention referred to slaves, and "domestic institutions" referred to slavery. Lincoln announced to the world that he endorsed the Corwin Amendment in his first inaugural address:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which amendment, however, I have not seen has passed Congress to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service . . . . [H]olding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable" (emphasis added).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Believing that slavery was already constitutional, Lincoln had "no objection" to enshrining it explicitly in the text of the U.S. Constitution on the day that he took office. He then sent a letter to the governor of each state transmitting the approved amendment for what he hoped would be ratification and noting that his predecessor, President James Buchanan, had also endorsed it. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] Lincoln played a much larger role in getting this first Thirteenth Amendment through Congress than merely endorsing it in his first inaugural address and in his letter to the governors. Even Doris Kearns-Goodwin knows this! On page 296 of Team of Rivals she explained how it was Lincoln who, after being elected but before the inauguration, instructed New York Senator William Seward, who would become his secretary of state, to get the amendment through the U.S. Senate. He also instructed Seward to get a federal law passed that would repeal the personal liberty laws in some of the Northern states that were used by those states to nullify the federal Fugitive Slave Act, which Lincoln strongly supported. (The Fugitive Slave Act forced Northerners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to their owners).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] As Goodwin writes: "He [Lincoln] instructed Seward to introduce these proposals in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield [Illinois]. The first resolved that the Constitution should never be altered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states." The second proposal was that "All state personal liberty laws in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law be repealed." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] So, go and see Spielbergs Lincoln movie if you must, but keep in mind that it is just another left-wing Hollywood fantasy.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] Spielbergs Upside-Down History: The Myth of Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]by Thomas J. DiLorenzo[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Recently by Thomas DiLorenzo: Why the Totalitarians Among Us Love Lincoln[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Armies of scholars, meticulously investigating every aspect of [Lincolns] life, have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry on his part."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]~ Doris Kearns-Goodwin, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743270754?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0743270754&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"]Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of [/ame][/FONT][ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743270754?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0743270754&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Abraham Lincoln[/FONT][/ame][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif], p. 207.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . . I as much as any man am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white race."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]~ Abraham Lincoln, First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Ottawa, Illinois, Sept. 18, 1858, in [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143447710X?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=143447710X&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"]The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln[/ame] vol.3, pp. 145-146.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Steven Spielbergs new movie, Lincoln, is said to be based on several chapters of the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns-Goodwin, who was a consultant to Spielberg. The main theme of the movie is how clever, manipulative, conniving, scheming, lying, and underhanded Lincoln supposedly was in using his "political skills" to get the Thirteenth Amendment that legally ended slavery through the U.S. House of Representatives in the last months of his life. This entire story is what Lerone Bennett, Jr. the longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine and author of [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874850851?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0874850851&linkCode=xm2&tag=lewrockwell"]Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincolns White Dream[/ame], calls a "pleasant fiction." It never happened. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It never happened according to the foremost authority on Lincoln among mainstream Lincoln scholars, Harvard University Professor David H. Donald, the recipient of several Pulitzer prizes for his historical writings, including a biography of Lincoln. David Donald is the preeminent Lincoln scholar of our time who began writing award-winning books on the subject in the early 1960s. On page 545 of his magnus opus, Lincoln, Donald notes that Lincoln did discuss the Thirteenth Amendment with two members of Congress James M. Ashley of Ohio and James S. Rollins of Missouri. But if he used "means of persuading congressmen to vote for the Thirteeth Amendment," the theme of the Spielberg movie, "his actions are not recorded. Conclusions about the Presidents role rested on gossip . . ."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Moreover, there is not a shred of evidence that even one Democratic member of Congress changed his vote on the Thirteenth Amendment (which had previously been defeated) because of Lincolns actions. Donald documents that Lincoln was told that some New Jersey Democrats could possibly be persuaded to vote for the amendment "if he could persuade [Senator] Charles Sumner to drop a bill to regulate the Camden & Amboy [New Jersey] Railroad, but he declined to intervene" (emphasis added). "One New Jersey Democrat," writes David Donald, "well known as a lobbyist for the Camden & Amboy, who had voted against the amendment in July, did abstain in the final vote, but it cannot be proved that Lincoln influenced his change" (emphasis added). Thus, according to the foremost authority on Lincoln, there is no evidence at all that Lincoln influenced even a single vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, in complete contradiction of the writings of the confessed plagiarist Doris Kearns-Goodwin and Steven Spielbergs movie (See my review of Goodwins book, entitled "A Plagiarists Contribution to Lincoln Idolatry").[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Lincolns First Thirteenth Amendment Gambit[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]There is no evidence that Lincoln provided any significant assistance in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives in 1865, but there is evidence of his effectiveness in getting an earlier Thirteenth Amendment through the House and the Senate in 1861. This proposed amendment was known as the "Corwin Amendment," named after Ohio Republican Congressman Thomas Corwin. It had passed both the Republican-controlled House and the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincolns inauguration, and was sent to the states for ratification by Lincoln himself. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] The Corwin Amendment would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. It read as follows:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State,, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Person held to service" is how the Constitutional Convention referred to slaves, and "domestic institutions" referred to slavery. Lincoln announced to the world that he endorsed the Corwin Amendment in his first inaugural address:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which amendment, however, I have not seen has passed Congress to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service . . . . [H]olding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable" (emphasis added).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Believing that slavery was already constitutional, Lincoln had "no objection" to enshrining it explicitly in the text of the U.S. Constitution on the day that he took office. He then sent a letter to the governor of each state transmitting the approved amendment for what he hoped would be ratification and noting that his predecessor, President James Buchanan, had also endorsed it. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] Lincoln played a much larger role in getting this first Thirteenth Amendment through Congress than merely endorsing it in his first inaugural address and in his letter to the governors. Even Doris Kearns-Goodwin knows this! On page 296 of Team of Rivals she explained how it was Lincoln who, after being elected but before the inauguration, instructed New York Senator William Seward, who would become his secretary of state, to get the amendment through the U.S. Senate. He also instructed Seward to get a federal law passed that would repeal the personal liberty laws in some of the Northern states that were used by those states to nullify the federal Fugitive Slave Act, which Lincoln strongly supported. (The Fugitive Slave Act forced Northerners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to their owners).[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] As Goodwin writes: "He [Lincoln] instructed Seward to introduce these proposals in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield [Illinois]. The first resolved that the Constitution should never be altered so as to authorize Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states." The second proposal was that "All state personal liberty laws in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law be repealed." [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] So, go and see Spielbergs Lincoln movie if you must, but keep in mind that it is just another left-wing Hollywood fantasy.[/FONT]
Dak
mentat
I think that might be a deeper subject. What is culture? I think we all make so many assumptions about what culture itself is, what our cultures are, that it would take a lifetime to undo the knot.
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Dak
mentat
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
"If stealing 100% of the product of someones labor is slavery, at what percentage is it not slavery?"
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Dak
mentat
Prismatic Sphere
We Carouse
Einherjar86
Active Member
If a thief steals a flat-screen television while its owners are out of the house, has the thief achieved a position of "mastery" over the "enslaved" owners?
I'm not sure I would classify the relationship in that way.
I'm not sure I would classify the relationship in that way.
Dak
mentat
Yes, he has done exactly that. He achieved complete mastery over their time and labor required to purchase said TV. Possessions are purchased with money, which is merely a medium to denote value created by time+work in an economy with a division of labor. There is no difference between the breaking in and stealing of a TV, and the thief holding them captive while they earn enough money so the thief can buy the TV.
This is why taxes make you little more than a "Sharecropper", or a feudal serf. We just have more toys now. You give half your earnings to the state for protection and the "privilege" of using their land to earn. Of course the best gig to have in such an arrangement is being in the praetorian class or in the court "wizard/advisor/philosopher" class. Academia. You get paid off the labor of the rest. Paying off those left on an ever increasing margin with the pennies and nickels of "Welfare" is a trick born from necessity to prevent the inevitable rioting.
This is why taxes make you little more than a "Sharecropper", or a feudal serf. We just have more toys now. You give half your earnings to the state for protection and the "privilege" of using their land to earn. Of course the best gig to have in such an arrangement is being in the praetorian class or in the court "wizard/advisor/philosopher" class. Academia. You get paid off the labor of the rest. Paying off those left on an ever increasing margin with the pennies and nickels of "Welfare" is a trick born from necessity to prevent the inevitable rioting.
Einherjar86
Active Member
You don't think so? What about the fact that they go about their work freely, i.e. without the coercive apparatus of a master-slave system? They could have chosen not to work and purchase the television.
