Careful the things you say, children will listen
Careful the things you do, children will see and learn
Children may not obey but they will listen…
Careful the tale you tell, That is the spell
Children will listen.
Ah yes, I loved that musical because it mixed up characters from several fairy tales. Still the message is clear, people learn from example.
A very wise man once said “What’s so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?”.
It’s not evil we have to fight. Few people are evil, in their own hearts. They simply don’t see the other side of things, that they’re doing wrong.
It’s ignorance. And remember, it’s taking longer than we thought.
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
If this is in response to anything I’ve said I will ask you how arrived at that conclusion. If not, then pardon my intrusion and accept my apology for misunderstanding you.
Hyperbole, signifying the logical outcome for scorn of a TV show you have never seen, setting up the logical argument presented later in the post, to wit, people find inspiration in the most unlikely of places.
The problem is that when humans are behaving well, it doesn’t make the news. The vast–and by vast I mean overwhelmingly vast, somewhere over 99%–number of people are neither particularly good or evil. They just live their lives, more or less mind their own business, are good to their friends and family, etc. We all suffer from our own pain and sometimes that makes us hard to live with, but it hardly makes us evil. I’ve seen plenty of people do good things, quietly and unobtrusively.
As for the hijack, since when can’t we use fiction or pop culture as a springboard for thinking about humanity and morality. I started a long philosophical discussion with a two-sentence quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I suppose gobear could have up with a quote of his own. But why should he when there was a perfectly good one from Babylon 5 lying around?
I don’t get it. (But then I’m just a poor ole tv watching dumbass.)
Right. Try to make a fool out of me by offering to follow up your good deed with another good deed.
As for those firemen who lost their lives in the WTC, that wouldn’t have happened if a) bastards hadn’t flown planes into it, and, b) the police and fire depts. in NYC weren’t feuding, unprepared (as they are still) and unable to communicate with one another. The majority of firemen who died did so because they never got the “evacuate” orders . . . Read 102 Minutes. Infuriating and enlightening book.
Eve… hate to disagree, but a lot of them would still have gone in one last time. And it would have been worth it, to them.
I hate it when I press submit too soon.
A lot of those firemen would have gone back in one last time. If they’d had half an hour to think about it, they still would have gone back in one last time.
The thing is, that same impulse that let them do it is the same that let the terrorists fly the planes into the towers.
If you don’t agree with the sentiment, that’s one thing. It’s hardly an idea that’s unique to that one show, though. It seems your position is, “Life sucks, and nothing can possibly make it any better.” If that’s the case, well… I guess I’m just glad I’m not you.
I’ve never found fiction, of any stripe, to be at all limited.
And I’d say that Babylon 5 definetly falls in the 5%.
Obviously, these are both subjective opinions. To you, it’s barely above Hallmark quality. To gobear (and to myself) it’s pretty deeply affecting. It seemed kind of rude to ignore the spirit in which it was offered, and focus on the perceived quality of the offering.
It did come across as… I guess “ungracious” is the closest word. He was trying to help, even if he was unsuccesful at it. Sort of like giving a panhandler a quarter, and getting cussed out 'cause it wasn’t fifty cents.
Thanks for the kind words, though. I’ve been impressed by some of the stuff you’ve posted, as well. Always nice to have new blood around here.
I have to ask, what genre do you think would be more appropriate?
As for B5, it’s not being broadcast anymore, so far as I know. The whole series is available on DVD, though. You can get them through Netflix, if you’re really interested. I should say, in all fairness, that a lot about the show isn’t very good. Especially the first season. Taken as a whole, though, I think it really does add up to more than the sum of its parts. If you decide to give it a shot, I’d recommend starting a Cafe Society thread about. Lots of fans on the board who’d love to take another crack at dissecting it.
Lastly, my own quote from a cheesy fantasy TV show that I found to be pretty profound.
“If nothing we do matters, than the only thing that matters is what we do.” -Angel
Well, I do know Eve–the trouble is I don’t have a snappy Elinor Glyn quote, so B5 is the best I can offer. She knows my heart and my intentions.
The quotes weren’t bad (I like the second one), but I have to say, I laughed mightily at the idea of someone saying, “here’s a quote from Babylon 5 that’ll make you feel better.”
Good stuff, good stuff.
Next time I’m blue, I hope somone is there with a line from Angel and an ice-cold Martini.
I don’t disagree that they had the best of intentions, but by the time the North Tower collapsed, everyone who could be evacuated was long evacuated, and scores of firemen were resting in the Sky Lobby, because no one told them the South Tower had collapsed and to get the fuck out of there. The NYPD and the FDNY had (and have!) no way of communicating with one another, and a more-then century-old feud which makes it unlikely they ever will have interdepartmental communications.
I actually think this highlights the wisdom of never ascribing to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence. I think I agree with woodstockbirdybird: people aren’t evil so much as stupid. We’re chimps. We’re chimps who’ve been to the moon and produced sublime art, but most of the time we’re just chimps.
No, my position is “Life sucks, and exhortations to ‘buck up’, or stop and smell the roses’, or ‘light a candle against the darkness’ do little to make it better.”
I think that is something we can agree on.
At the risk of sounding stupid, it can’t cure cancer, it can’t bring back the dead, it can’t ease the pain of a torture victim, it can’t put food in the belly of a malnourished child, it can’t restore the face of a woman mutilated by her husband… It is what it is. Imagination processed through experience by effort and inspiration. Does it have influence in the real world? Certainly. Is it sufficient to provide solace to one suffering the loss of hope, the death of the heart? Maybe. In this case, I think not.
I’ll have to think about it. My lack of a ready answer hardly invalidates my point, however.
Please accept my apologies, then. I did not mean to intervene between you and Eve. I will bow out now so as not to further muddy the waters.
My position is “Life sucks. Exhortations are the only thing that will ever make it better.” While we are here on earth, barring illumination or revelation from above, the only thing that we have are ourselves and those around us. We all depend on the kindness of strangers, one way or another, in our daily lives, from trusting people to obey the traffic lights, to being reasonably assured the man in the next cubicle will not shoot us when we ask him to revise the cover sheet for the TPS reports. Bad things happen. But worse things could happen every day, and generally, they don’t. We live, from day to day, in a sea of minor blessings of things not going wrong. This doesn’t say life doesn’t suck. A lot of times it does. But when it does, you have to realize that sucking is just part of life, and the minor blessings are still there. And so are the minor beauties.
What do you mean by “we”? The hundred thousand Iraquis killed in the War against Terror? The thousands and thousands murdered and displaced in the Sudan? The victims of female circumcision in Africa? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. “Feel good” philosophies are written by the survivors. Most of what we deem “good” is merely a response to evil. The OP was not complaining about some paltry thing going wrong in her life. She was bemoaning the state of the world and the capacity that humans have for brutalizing their fellow humans. What is wrong with human society goes so far beyond “sucking” as to render the term useless.
Yes. Each and every one of us, for as long as we live. For example, there is always a miniscule chance that you will spontaneously ignite. As long as you live, there’s hope. When you’re dead, well, that’s another matter, but as long as you live, you can pursue happiness. You may never catch it, but the quest has meaning in and of itself.
Unfortunately, in much of the world, there’s always been a much better chance that some else will spontaneously ignite you . . .
By the way, my thread title comes from the British miniseries I, Claudius (known to my friends and I alternately as I, Clavdivs and I, Clamdip). At one point, John Hurt, as the high-camp Caligula, murders his wife (and sister, same person) and their child, then frames his best friend. As the friend is being dragged away, protesting his innocence, John Hurt turns to a guard and says, deadpan, “Aren’t people awful?”
I love that series.