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dragoness_eSomething I have pondered from time to time over the years are the distorted lessons taught by the carefully "sanitized" TV shows and movies shown to children when I was growing up, and for years afterword.
For those of you who don't remember the days of the Comics Code, and network TV standards, the fictional world was morally black and white. You were either a good guy or a bad guy, and the bad guys always lost. Even if they tried to go straight, it was rare that they were allowed to--usually it was just a ploy, or they died badly, or fell back into evil ways. Good guys always did the right thing, even when they didn't, because they were Good Guys. Moral ambiguity and shades of gray were Not Allowed--it might confuse the children. Police were always honest and trustworthy, and never corrupt. (Although in the Vietnam era and later, there were an awful lot of insane Army generals...) Insane people were always bad guys. Good people never had mental problems beyond being suspicious of or angry with their friends, and that always turned out to be a misunderstanding easily cleared up.
Does anyone see the questionable lessons being taught here? Lessons that were taught to generations of children who grew up to be your current politcians and business leaders?
1) If you're Good, what you do is always good. No self-examination needed.
1a) Since you are Good, and always do Good things, you never need to be forgiven. Or to apologize.
2) If someone else is Bad, they are irredeemable, and anything they do is probably Bad.
2a) There's no need to listen to Bad people, because they only say bad things and probably lie.
2b) You don't really need to forgive Bad people, because you're not like them and couldn't ever be in the same position, because you're Good.
2c) Since Bad people are irredeemable, any plan for "rehabilitating" Bad people is just a scheme to let them Get Away With It.
3) Police and Trusted Government Officials are always Good, and never corrupt. Always trust them and do what they say.
3a) If I am a cop or a government official, I am Good, and everything I do is For The Best.
3b) If you question the always-Good police and government officials, you must be one of the Bad guys.
4) Mentally-ill people and people with fetishes/kinks/just plain different are Evil. Seriously, when comics and cartoons wanted to show that a villain wasn't just a garden-variety criminal (Bad guy of the greedy persuasion), they made him mentally-ill or a fetishist.
4a) I can't even flesh out the corollaries to this one; it's just too offensive.
This, parents, is the problem with restricting your kids to stories with black & white morality, designated heroes, and designated villains. They end up with a distorted picture of humanity that hurts everyone.
Producers of children's cartoons: when the bad guy coalition (Hello, G1 Decepticons!) is more accepting of people with mental and physical infirmities and eccentricities than the good guys are, something is very wrong with this picture.
For those of you who don't remember the days of the Comics Code, and network TV standards, the fictional world was morally black and white. You were either a good guy or a bad guy, and the bad guys always lost. Even if they tried to go straight, it was rare that they were allowed to--usually it was just a ploy, or they died badly, or fell back into evil ways. Good guys always did the right thing, even when they didn't, because they were Good Guys. Moral ambiguity and shades of gray were Not Allowed--it might confuse the children. Police were always honest and trustworthy, and never corrupt. (Although in the Vietnam era and later, there were an awful lot of insane Army generals...) Insane people were always bad guys. Good people never had mental problems beyond being suspicious of or angry with their friends, and that always turned out to be a misunderstanding easily cleared up.
Does anyone see the questionable lessons being taught here? Lessons that were taught to generations of children who grew up to be your current politcians and business leaders?
1) If you're Good, what you do is always good. No self-examination needed.
1a) Since you are Good, and always do Good things, you never need to be forgiven. Or to apologize.
2) If someone else is Bad, they are irredeemable, and anything they do is probably Bad.
2a) There's no need to listen to Bad people, because they only say bad things and probably lie.
2b) You don't really need to forgive Bad people, because you're not like them and couldn't ever be in the same position, because you're Good.
2c) Since Bad people are irredeemable, any plan for "rehabilitating" Bad people is just a scheme to let them Get Away With It.
3) Police and Trusted Government Officials are always Good, and never corrupt. Always trust them and do what they say.
3a) If I am a cop or a government official, I am Good, and everything I do is For The Best.
3b) If you question the always-Good police and government officials, you must be one of the Bad guys.
4) Mentally-ill people and people with fetishes/kinks/just plain different are Evil. Seriously, when comics and cartoons wanted to show that a villain wasn't just a garden-variety criminal (Bad guy of the greedy persuasion), they made him mentally-ill or a fetishist.
4a) I can't even flesh out the corollaries to this one; it's just too offensive.
This, parents, is the problem with restricting your kids to stories with black & white morality, designated heroes, and designated villains. They end up with a distorted picture of humanity that hurts everyone.
Producers of children's cartoons: when the bad guy coalition (Hello, G1 Decepticons!) is more accepting of people with mental and physical infirmities and eccentricities than the good guys are, something is very wrong with this picture.
