"Left Behind" for KIDS? Ewwww...

In My Humble Opinion
61

The problem I have with the LB books (and others of this stripe) being marketed to children is that they are, plain and simple, nothing more than propaganda. When I say ‘propaganda’, I am -not- referring to the message that is being presented, but rather how the message is being presented.

LB is almost textbook definition propaganda in that its message is couched in a way that is specifically intended to elicit a particular emotional response (in this case, fear) rather than encourage rational examination and espousal of a particular belief system. The use of loaded words and highly biased jargon run rampant throughout.

You can tell a story to children about a particular belief system of any sort, be it fundamentalist Christian or atheistic in nature, without having to resort to that type of thing and have it be both thought provoking and informative. IMHO, LB didn’t qualify.

My problem with ‘works’ of that nature is that propaganda has a bad enough effect when directed at adults who either won’t or don’t filter out the emotionally laden jargon to look at the actual message. Kids of the age that that the LB books are being marketed to simply do not have those filters at all yet, developmentally speaking. It’s shooting fish in a barrel. Which, of course, is precisely the point of the groups pushing that stuff out, but I won’t go into that.

Give me C.S. Lewis any day. Sure, you have to make your kid’s brain work to figure out the symbolism, but it makes for a heck of a lot more interesting supper table discussions than LB does.

62

Hey Lionors, I’ll second that. Although people have all kinds of issues with the Narnia books (they portray dark-skinned people as evil etc. . . I don’t remember all of it), at the very least they’re thought-provoking. And I like the “Space” Trilogy too, especially “Perelandra”.

Captain Planet is, in my mind, on about the same level if not lower than the LB For Kids books. In addition to the evil pentacle snigger, it basically stated that everyone involved in industries is evil and that their main goal is to pollute and otherwise destroy the earth. In addition, a lot of their info was just plain wrong. For example, I remember in one eppie the kids found an animal testing facility. We see eyedrops being tested on rabbits. One girls says that rabbits’ eyes are not the same as ours. I vividly recall asking my mother (the veterinarian) about that, and she said that rabbit eyes are identical to humans. It’s kinda annoying that out of all the arguments that they could presumably have presented against animal testing, they would choose one that any expert could easily naysay. Sorry that turned into a semi-rant. . .