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A question about morality and media

#141
Ziltoid said:
Schindler was a member of the Nazi party.
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I would argue that Schindler had a "conversion". That early on he bought the Nazi propaganda lock, stock and Barrel. But as he saw the reality of it, he became a dissenter and felt he could resist better from with in and use his position to further anti-nazism.

But I'm sorry if you "died" a Nazi, you were part of a group of monsters. And a vast majority of people who bought into Nazism did so for selfish reasons like Schindler in the beginning but they knew deep down inside that it was a gross evil they were participating in. That fits my definition of monster. Sorry to go so black and white on you, but I really don't care about the trains running on time. I have relatives that died in the camps.

I'll take late trains over Nazi's any day. :D
 
#142
burk48237 said:
I would argue that Schindler had a "conversion". That early on he bought the Nazi propaganda lock, stock and Barrel. But as he saw the reality of it, he became a dissenter and felt he could resist better from with in and use his position to further anti-nazism.

But I'm sorry if you "died" a Nazi, you were part of a group of monsters. And a vast majority of people who bought into Nazism did so for selfish reasons like Schindler in the beginning but they knew deep down inside that it was a gross evil they were participating in. That fits my definition of monster. Sorry to go so black and white on you, but I really don't care about the trains running on time. I have relatives that died in the camps.

I'll take late trains over Nazi's any day. :D
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Well you could also say that when you say Nazi you mean carrots and discuss a Nazi soup recipe, but that doesn't change the meaning of Nazi fpr the rest of us. :p

And you second argument is a false dichotomy, there's no choice to be made between Nazis and trains.
 
#143
4dog said:
Sooo what your saying is, parents train up a child in the way he SHOULD go, and when he is old he will not depart.
I agree 100%
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No guarentees on that. We do the best we can with our children but there comes a point where they make thier own deciscions. Still we have to do the best we can, or at least try, none of us are perfect parents.
 
#144
burk48237 said:
My suggestion is they don't see a big market for it because it's not who they are.

As an example. One of the things you'll notice for instance on popular TV is that people are rarely portrayed going to church and when they are it's almost always a staid mainstream older styled church. About 42% of the country goes to some kind of church regularly and if you look at church growth numbers they are attending far more modern type churches. And yet in my whole life I don't ever recall seeing a depiction of a modern church service on a popular prime time show. Why is that?

I'm not suggesting they hate Christians. Just that they honestly don't know any. It's not who they are, and they are too lazy to depict any aspect of culture they don't know with any reality. And I would suggest further that the morality they depict is their morality. You see an awful lot of shows where spouses cheat regularly because they cheat on their spouses regularly. You see an awful lot of shows with drunken loutish behavior, because it's what they do.

It has nothing to do with their capitalism. They just feed our lesser nature because they're lazy and it's easier to for them to portray what they're familiar with.
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I think it relates to Tolstoy's point that happy families are boring. And any non-boring portrayal of overtly religious people would offend people.
 
#145
Silly me, I thought that even in these days of situational ethics and community moral constructs we could agree on Nazis bad.:rollno:

I must admit I have far less hope for society. I suspect we are witnessing a true decline of civilization. And if Nazis bad is too "black and white" for our community morality I would expect a lot more school shootings.:rolleyes:
 
#146
burk48237 said:
Silly me, I thought that even in these days of situational ethics and community moral constructs we could agree on Nazis bad.:rollno:

I must admit I have far less hope for society. I suspect we are witnessing a true decline of civilization. And if Nazis bad is too "black and white" for our community morality I would expect a lot more school shootings.:rolleyes:
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You're deforming what we are saying, we're arguing you can't put all people labeled as "Nazis" in the same basket.
 
#147
fdeck said:
I think it relates to Tolstoy's point that happy families are boring. And any non-boring portrayal of overtly religious people would offend people.
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I do agree that there is some truth to this, Conflict makes for better drama. But I also suspect that the decision makers in our mass media are comfortable with what they know. And some one whose involved in a mega church and volunteering for medical missions to Haiti is something they just simply aren't in touch with. I don't think there's any malice involved in most cases, it's more a comfort zone issue.

You could argue the same about private gun use. We have CCW private carry in 47 states. And yet It's very rare for us to have a portrayal in prime time of a private citizen who takes gun ownership seriously, has been to classes and uses a gun in self defense. Perhaps it's because two of the states that aren't shall issue CCW are NY and CA?
 
#149
burk48237 said:
Silly me, I thought that even in these days of situational ethics and community moral constructs we could agree on Nazis bad.:rollno:

I must admit I have far less hope for society. I suspect we are witnessing a true decline of civilization. And if Nazis bad is too "black and white" for our community morality I would expect a lot more school shootings.:rolleyes:
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Oh please.
You asked who involved with nazism wasn't a monster.
Examples were provided to you of genuinely good people who helped save thousands of lives who were involved with Nazism.
You said they weren't really Nazis according to how you define them.
You were told they were involved with Nazism and essentially that it's intellectually dishonest to re-define things mid conversation to suit your purpose.
You respond with the above.

No one is saying the Nazi party was the best thing to happen to Europe since Swiss cheese, so stop acting so melodramatic. You're an adult, you ought to know that there are exceptions to every rule, and that speaking in broad generalizations is poor form and dangerous, especially with people who are educated enough on history to at least hold some kind of conversation with.

Adults should realize that nothing in this world is really as black and white as it seems, and that there are nuances to pretty much everything, and exceptions to pretty much every rule. Do children need to know that before they're old enough to understand it? No, probably not. Should adults should be able to handle that. Absolutely.
 
#150
aborgman said:
Because there is no market for it.

If there is money to be made making a show like that - someone will make it.
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Not necessarily.

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This year, 168 films have carried the "restricted" rating, which requires youths under 17 to be accompanied by an adult, and they have taken in $2.3 billion at the box office. That compares to 113 PG-13 films, with a $4.7 billion take, and 52 PG movies with a combined gross of $1.8 billion.
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In 2011, nine of the Top 10 movies were rated PG-13 with the remaining slot taken by "Cars 2," with the all-but-extinct G rating
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On the other end of the ratings spectrum, the "G" rating has essentially vanished. There were only nine films released with that rating this year (2012).
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If it were only about money Hollywood would put out more PG and PG13 movies than R. But they don't.

Like music, TV and film is both business and art. Artists tend to make art out of what they know.
 
#152
burk48237 said:
But I'm arguing you can. It is black and white, and some things just are.
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And a lot of people disagree. Even black & white TV came in shades of gray.

Frank Tuesday said:
I think I see what you're getting at.
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Yup. We own the entertainment industry. You didnt know?

nutdog said:
Not necessarily.

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If it were only about money Hollywood would put out more PG and PG13 movies than R. But they don't.
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Actually, they do. Just look at the ratings of a lot of contemporary horror and action flicks. There is a huge push within the industry to get these movies rated PG-13 instead of R. Not all producers budge, but there are a lot of edits being made these days.
 
#155
Some people became Nazis because they thought they had no other choice. Germany wasn't in the best spot coming out of WWI as I'm sure you know. Many people were jobless and penniless, so when the Nazi party came along, promised jobs, financial security, and even had a scapegoat to all their country's problems many people went along with it because they just wanted their families to survive.

It's easy to say the Nazis were all bad people, but many of them were people just trying to survive the only way they thought was possible. Did horrible things come from it? Yes! Were some of the people monsters? Without a doubt! Would I have acted differently had I been in the same position as many of those Germans who were just looking to feed their families, and who had no clue what the consequences of that action would entail? I'm not so sure. It's not black and white, especially when you place yourself in the context and really try to imagine yourself in that situation.
 
#156
We are responsible for our culture, no one else, us. If no-one goes to movies mentioned they won't make money. Simplistic? Yup. We are better off looking at our own lives than worrying about "them." And that includes me too, I struggle with this sometimes.
For example, we don't want our grandson to be exposed to certian types of movies, so we don't have those movies in our home, so he won't get confused. I didn't want to do it, I let go of some DVD's I really liked but I resisted. My parents didn'
t want me taking drugs, but they didn't connect drinking in front of me with that. Not saying it's theif fault I got in trouble, it's just something to think about.
When I get angry and act poorly my grandson is watching, etc, etc, etc. Each of us has a part in this no matter how small and whether you have children or not. Society is a reflection of us, after all aren't we society.
I'm sure many of you can think of small ways you can make a difference.
 
#157
burk48237 said:
But I'm arguing you can. It is black and white, and some things just are.
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Black and white aren't even black and white.

6 boxes on a gray background. Which are white, and which are black.

2yjynv5.jpg
 
#159
burk48237 said:
2) is a false premise. CBN has very little if any original programing. They do some syndication. But to compare their resources to a network like a Time Warner or Sony is a non-sequitur.
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So capitalism doesn't work?

They have less resources than a network like a Time Warner or Sony because people don't watch them.

If there is a large demand for the type of programs they produce their viewership goes up for those programs.

If viewership goes up for those programs, they can charge more for commercials.

If they make more money, their resources grow - and if as many people want to see their programming as want to see what comes out of the mainstream... pretty soon they will have resources just like those media giants.


...and it isn't like CBN is the only player.

ABCFamily, Disney Family, Hallmark Channel, Sprout, Inspiration Network, HOPE Channel, GOD TV, EWTN, Trinity Broadcasting Network, BYU TV, etc, etc.

burk48237 said:
The reality is almost all prime time TV programing is controlled by very few people. A new networks ability to break in is very borderline.
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Yes, because the number of people interested in it isn't large enough.
 

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