There needs to be a “biblical conservative” response to religio-political conservativism (especially “fundamentalism”)
They have long claimed to be “biblical”, and that any opposition to them is “anti-Bible”
Even in the Civil Rights era, the segregation-holding religious conservatives were allowed to turn the issue into one of “fidelity” to “the Bible”. It was basically the same as with evolution. You either take the Genesis “literally”, and believe in both the young earth 7 day Creation, AND the “curse” of Ham, or you reject the Bible, and follow the “ungodly world” views of natural descent, and “egalitarianism”. When nearly the only opposition to either doctrine took the latter view, it “proved” to them their hypothesis that they were believing “truths” from God, that mankind was naturally in rebellion against.
It seems no one really came out and directly challenged whether their readings of scripture (such as the “curse of Ham”) were truly scriptural.
It was just easier to reject scripture altogether, or at least minimize such portions of it (which were like virtual “admissions” that they were being properly interpreted in maintaining racism). So neither side saw any difference between Creationism and racism. They were allowed to “stand or fall together”; being from the same “Genesis”. People allowed racism to be portrayed as “based on a literal reading of the Bible”, and then when they wanted to question Creationism, which really is based on a “literal” reading, the fundamentalists could lump both issues together under the banner of “believing the Bible”, and then later use that to minimize the race issue, where they really had absolutely no ground to stand on, scripturally, and focus on creationism, where they did have a much stronger scriptural case.
Most criticisms of conservative Christianity have boiled down to them being “meanspirited” and “judgmental”, which they only respond with what they call “hard truths”, and thus further confirms to them that they are the ones who hold the “truth” (and are being “persecuted” for it).
In the race area, most mainstream “fundamentalists” today will profess to reject racism (“colorblindness”; and even go as far as to blame it on evolutionism now!), yet they quickly deflect by denouncing “wokeism”, “activism”, etc. and tag it all as “Marxist”. Then, they will claim the purpose of these movements is “redistribute” the wealth of the nation (and some supposedly “hard working” class), to these people who “refuse to work” (playing off of the same old racial stereotypes used ever since slavery, to justify that system and every other form of discrimination since).
The ultimate taboo obsession
The new “discrimination” issue that has risen to the forefront today is homosexuality. Unlike race, where they have buried the old sentiments behind the “colorblind” tactics, here, they (as we would expect) are firmly, openly standing their ground, and condemning not just the homosexuals themselves, but anyone who supports, or even does not condemn them hard enough.
This stems from an inordinate obsession the Church has had with sexuality (gay or straight), ever since, at least Augustine! Homosexuality was the last taboo; the ultimate “sin” to them (since they assumed it was based not just on “lust”, but on lust driving people to “unnatural” behavior), and while they’ve had to bend on race and other issues (grudgingly), this last area must be just “too much, already”!
Unlike the race issue of generations ago, this current generation has risen up to challenge the “scriptural” arguments in this area more.
However, the conservatives, with their “conspiracy against Biblical authority” narrative by now solidly entrenched and firmly in place (not having been answered well by those previous generations), just lump it in with “liberal readings of scripture”.
Pro-LGBT arguments have focused on the “eunuchs” Christ mentioned, the “arsenkoites” in the NT, and that perhaps even the original command of Leviticus may have been referring to something else (temple prostitutes and pederasty, etc). They do make good points in some of these areas, regarding the original Hebrew and Greek words, though I still find some of the conclusions farfetched. Some have even turned to David and other figures and have tried to say they implied homosexual relations. These I greatly question, and all the conservatives have to do is lump it into the “homosexual agenda” of “making everything gay”, without even really disproving them.
Another common defense is that Christians “make some sins worse than others”, which has been true, but to apply it to this issue is then basically an “admission” that you’re “sinning” and willfully continuing it —based on the premise that “others sin too”, which no one will accept as an “excuse”.
The Biblical, “Gospel” answer to this is that any condemnation of homosexuality was part of the Law (just as many other OT practices the Church now rejects).
When the conservatives scream against the dismissal of the Law and hurl out terms such as “antinomianism”, we must keep reminding them that they do not follow the Law either, and have decided for themselves which parts of it are still in effect or have been abrogated. (they are basically what are called “neonomians”).
And even with parts of the Law being maintained in the NT, the NT period is really an “overlap” of covenants, and the “Blessed Hope” they were all waiting for was the complete end of the condemnation of the “old age[“world”]” of the Law, which would occur in their lifetimes (Matt.16:28). This will be the hardest point to sell, since most Christians believe the “end of the age” is still future, and so the default condemnation and need to get “covered” continues indefinitely (whether by “faith”, “works”, “faith plus works”, “faith” defined as “works”, “proven by “works”, or minus works, with just “belief” as the “duty”, or just plain “unconditional election” of only some, with or without works, as all the various groups argue).
One evidence of this is that Romans 2:7-10 appears to teach salvation by works, and was used throughout Church history to teach that (until Protestantism came up with “Faith Alone”; and cults still use it that way, of course), but the context is those under the Law using it on others, but violating it themselves!
A big outcry erupted when President Obama bathed the White House in the “Pride” rainbow colors, around the time same sex marriage was legalized across the nation. Christians roared that this was an “in God’s face” mockery of the rainbow He gave Noah as part of His “promise” not to punish the earth with a flood again. For one, I don’t even think whoever created the Pride rainbow was even thinking of the Noah story. The colors represented other things. (But of course, Christians will surmise some hidden conspiracy, which may not have even been conscious).
But look at it this way; the Law (Leviticus, etc.) may have condemned homosexual acts, but the “rainbow” of Noah, being about God’s promise to mankind (Grace), foreshadowed the removal of condemnation, which was by the Law (and which still had some authority over the people in NT times, and was finally removed in AD70, though not recognized by the later Church, which still has mankind under the condemnation of the Law until some future event).
Here is one site’s response to the issue, which sums up their whole approach
https://changedmovement.com/changed-on-change:
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Becoming a follower of Jesus includes honoring God’s vision for sexual relationships, whether through opposite sex marriage or in a life of sexual integrity through singleness. In Mark 10, Jesus reveals how He thought about human sexuality:
“…from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:6-9 NASB
Within Jesus’s words “God made them male and female… two” are the Biblical mandate for sexual identity. No matter where we identify ourselves within the LGBTQ spectrum, before God we are none of these. He sees us as we are—the way He made us as a man or woman. Because God knows us as we truly are, we trust Him to renew our minds and our understanding of ourselves so that we may fully enjoy what He placed within us. Our identity as God’s sons and daughters enables us to fully belong within His family. We no longer need to identify ourselves by cultural labels.
In this passage, Jesus points to creation itself—not the Torah law—to understand marriage. He discloses that sexuality, expressed within a covenant only between a man and woman, is a vital part of human creation that uniquely reflects the Divine Image. This sexual union reflects something of God’s identity and personality, and hints at the nature of the Trinity. Marriage is not merely a “Law” or social construct. The theme of marriage is used throughout the Bible to help us understand God’s desire for an unbroken and purehearted relationship with humanity, and is highlighted at “the beginning” to demonstrate God’s particular care and concern about our sexuality.
The binary division of the sexes and the intimacy of “two” are vital parts of God’s message to us. By these, humanity reflects God in the miracle of creating human life. This is a profound mystery of reciprocal communion and fellowship with God. Christopher West points out in Our Bodies Tell God’s Story that men and women are complete, independent entities physically in every way except one: our sexuality. A woman cannot bear children by herself, apart from the reproductive system of a man, just as a man cannot bear children apart from the womb of a woman. They must have each other to be fully expressed.
CHANGED does not believe that sexual union between two people of the same sex adequately reflects the identity and purposes of God in humanity. Such a view actually distorts our understanding of God.
Human sexuality provides a shadow of understanding of God’s intent for intimate, joyful, and unbroken relationship with humanity. Therefore, Jesus’ mission to redeem our identity as His image bearers includes restoring all facets of our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. To embody God, we must be reconciled to our physical and emotional maleness and femaleness, protecting sexual intercourse for marriages that express Jesus’ self-sacrificial and unconditional love.
They have here gone to great lengths to universalize binary gender, and tie it to the “nature of God”. (Notice, the jab at the notion of the commands being from the “Torah law”). This permanently fixed Him to our earthly existence. It leads right to the old argument of fundamentalists that there cannot be life elsewhere in the universe, because we, and we alone are “in the image of God”. The new-evangelicals have dropped that part of it, but are still holding onto this related view. On one hand, they claim this creation is totally corrupted, and God needs to come and destroy it, and recreate it from scratch, and with no sex. But for now, that one part of our existence is everything to Him!
You can see here how Augustine and the Church after him basically become right on everything; the obsessive focus on sex. You can conquer and kill whole nations of other people, and it’s not only OK, but God is likely the one who sanctioned it! That doesn’t “violate His nature”! They were “godly”; compared to today! But just as long as the society as a whole is sexually “pure”, or at least “modest”. Then, to throw the Trinity in there is a further attempt to tie it to the “eternal submission of the Father to the Son”, but this actually eternalizes the “subordination” of the Son, in an ontological fashion (rather than simply “economical”, which was the pre-Augustinian position), which was at that same time in Church history considered a total heresy that denied the Son’s full equality (similar to the Arians, but just moving the “generation” of the Son from Creation, back to past eternity! It is still an unequal division within the eternal Godhead!) We already saw this idea in the organization that produced the big evangelicalism-wide Statement on homosexuality.
They on one hand will say God has no gender, but of course, in the past, it was generally taken for granted that “He” was male; the pronoun is male, for crying out loud, and we still use it, and those who represented Him in art generally drew an old man.
Now, more modern theologians have adopted a “God’s nature includes both male and female elements” view, with such scriptural portrayals as a mother hen, etc. which are generally also used by more liberal viewpoints as well (including those who want to address God as a “Her”), and you would think that would be good, for the modern cause of feminism; but we can see here where this will be used against nonbinary sexual identities and nonhetero orientations (though technically, it could itself be considered a nonbinary identity, as I’ve seen a few articles claim!)
These two arguments (the “spiritual change” concept, and the “God’s nature” argument) are the leading, assumedly ultimate, irrefutable cases they have come up with, and what need to be addressed in a more biblical, theological response.
My first argument is that Christ’s affirmation of “male and female” in marriage indicating we have to live that out in our sex lives is an assumption, and not a “biblical statement“.
But this is what “historic orthodoxy” always does; as can be seen in claiming the later creedal languange of the Trinity, is a “biblical statement”. It’s something the Church put together later, in opposition to other teachings, and then read it back into select scripture statements which were admitted to not be directly “teaching” it, but rather “hinting” it. (Though some, as we see, are ironically willing to compromise even that doctrine in this issue!) This is the same with an official change to Sunday, formally paid leaders, Catholic “oral apostolic traditions” (which include those things), etc. And the IFB’s assertions about what constitutes godly or “ungodly” music. Or Campbellists’ and Primitive Baptists’ “regulative principle” on the use of instruments in the church altogether!
When it’s all put together, this then adds up to scripture “clearly teaching” it. No other possible interpretations are allowed. (In Jungian type theory, this is by a perception process called “introverted iNtuition”. You take disparate bits of information, and “just know” it comes together in a particular, set way. This will even seem like divine revelation and be very “universalistic”, since it’s not really based on the tangible evidence. Some have said “inferential doctrine is just as valid as clear statements”. Then, a judgment process called “extraverted Thinking” appeals to established external authority such as “historic consensus of the Church” as determining “truthfulness”).
I also offer celibacy (which we see they affirm) as technically violating this “divine pattern”. But of course, since that is allowed and even somewhat encouraged for some in scripture, it will be seen as a legitimate exception (and especially since it’s one where there is presumably no sexual pleasure involved). But this still contradicts the arguments, above, of “the intimacy of ‘two’ are vital parts of God’s message to us. By these, humanity reflects God in the miracle of creating human life”. People who frowned on celibacy (such as ancient Israelistes) could then say that forces a different interpretation of the scriptures mentioning celibacy, or reject them as scripture to begin with (especially since they were “New Testament” anyway)!
To the double standard of saying the world is corrupted and to be replaced anyway, they will appeal to before the Fall. But this doesn’t change the fact that they, taking from Christ’s message to the Sadducees, believe we will not be exactly like Adam and Eve, including regarding “marriage and giving in marriage”. So then how can that state of humanity be so much to God, what these teachers are making it out to be? (This is the same as the argument of sabbatarians, that the 7th day Sabbath was “God’s memorial of creation”, which they too, as the premier Millennarians, believe He is going to come and destroy it (yet this somehow proves this “memorial” of this creation to be “eternal”); while “historic orthodoxy” claimed the sabbath was supplanted by an “eighth day”; i.e. the first day of the following week, as pointing to a new creation. Neither group (fully united on homosexuality) sees the inconsistency of their arguments.
But what I’ve suggested is more an argument of what scripture does not say, which tends not to seem as strong as positive claims of what it [supposedly] “does” say. So there needs to be more of an addressing on these points, rather than thinking the current alswers alone disprove them.
But in any case, the different conservative groups all agree that homosexuality is wrong, from being “unnatural”, and that God will “cure” it “supernaturally”, and if one is not cured, it was really because of their “refusal to give up their sin”. There seems to be such “unity”, on this “historic orthodox” position! Yet, one’s strong stance on homosexuality means nothing if you’re seen as erring somewhere else. This particular ministry likely falls within the “new evangelical” category, and so others like IFB’s will still see them as “compromising” on “modern Bible versions”, and various issues of “separation” and “therapeutic” concepts (especially given they mention stuff like “our past traumas”. You only need to just mention those things to be accused of “psychoheresy” and preaching “other gospels”!) Those who are bigger on getting the Trinity right may condemn them for subordinationism. To Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, they’re all wrong on not following the “one holy catholic church”.
Something is just severely wrong with a Church that across the board appeals to “divine guidance” (i.e. by the Spirit who will “lead you into all truth”), yet is so fractured on important doctrinal issues.
(And “united” only on issues like this, regarding control of other people’s behavior! I dwell on the homosexual issue so long, because this is really where the Church is rising up, to offer what looks like a “united” voice, with the appeal to the “historic” position. But in reality, this unity is totally illusory, and only reflects the “unity” in this case being a “historical” obsession with sexual issues).
The appeal to the Spirit as the ultimate condemnation
The Spirit of God is appealed to as offering people “help” in resisting an otherwise unmitigated pull of nature to instincts such as sex, pleasure and other “sins”. This is now the number one argument against the homosexuals. Even those who completely abstain from the act, and are celibate, or even go as far as to force themselves into a hetero marriage (in the name of “surrender”) are still condemned by some if they testify to “struggle” or a non-hetero “sexual identity”.
I should add at this point that I also see there are actually names for the different levels of LGBTQ position in the issue https://www.gotquestions.org/Side-A-B-X-Y.html: “Side A” is totally affirming, while “Side B” is basically the common modern view that you can hold the identity, but just don’t “indulge” in it. “Side X” would be the “ex-gay” movement. So what I’ve been pointing out is that sides B and even X are still being criticized as “denying the power of the spirit” if they don’t eradicate every inkling of gayness. This is likely by those who would fall under “Side Y”, which focuses on the concept of our “identity”, as the above site does. (This would basically be the [racial] “colorblind” analogue in this issue! The link says “And unlike Side X, Side Y does not strive to make all Christians heterosexual” and thus places it “between” B and X, but apparently don’t realize that hetero is basically the default position in the view; they’re just removing the label. They are clearly more conservative than X, [whom they also condemn as denying the power] and are held by groups such as the IFB’s and I believe, the Lordshippers).
The site also says “It should be said that Side A has no scriptural basis whatsoever”, even though it listed their scriptural arguments and didn’t even refute them there. It adds: “The other Sides have varying degrees of biblical support. It is up to Christians to study, pray, and decide for themselves whether Side B, Side X, Side Y, or somewhere in between, best represents their convictions.” Yet even with this somewhat limited “tolerant” approach, they still accuse each other of being unscriptural; namely the more strict position to the less strict! Side B in particular thinks it is being reasonably “balanced” and “sensible”, but this only garners criticisms of “compromise” from Sides X and Y, but also charges of being “just as homophobic as X and Y” by the LGBTQs themselves! They end up pleasing nobody! The only thing agreed on by sides B, X and Y is condemning Side A!)
The formulaic answer given by those condeming the less strict “sides” is that it’s a “complete denial of the Holy Spirit’s power to change one’s thoughts and desires upon repentance and faith.” This has also been used for every other problem man has had, whether “anger and bitterness”, addictions, and even “all psychological problems” (among the IFB Jay Adams followers), etc.
But being this is generally admitted to be “unfelt”, it is not well defined, or it is expounded as a series of mechanical daily ‘steps’ that will change our behavior and our thoughts (paralleling Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and other disciplines the “unregenerate” world practice, and the conservative Church condemns as “godless humanism” when not expressed in a “biblical” frame and terms. (A related term, “God’s purpose for your life” is likewise not well defined, and usually ends up assumed to be some Church or evangelism related “service”, and for women, may just be being a good wife and mother). Yet another one is “the will of God for your life”, and especially the variant “doing the will of God”. This also is typically generalized to right behavior and spiritual activities).
They tell you this “change” is not “instant”, it’s a “process“, yet first, “upon repentance and faith” sounds instant; and sure enough, they harshly judge people (as not “showing signs” of repentance or faith) as if it were to be instant! (Hence, the condemnation of even Side X, while chastizing Sides A and B for ‘giving up’ on their “new identity” when “just offering prayer or fasting” didn’t work!)
It’s really about fighting against it for the rest of your life (for we deserve the discomfort after all, and it is far better than the “Hell” we really deserve), and “positively confessing” basically (though noncharismatics won’t use this term) “victory”, as if the desire was taken away. That’s what represents the instant “change”! (The “secular humanists” at least admit that such a “process” is all on individual human effort in his own “inner strength”. The Christians say it’s “God’s work”, yet then condemn people for lack of good “choices”. We see here the original Calvinist “God’s sovereignty; man’s accountability” premise, which is still present even in Arminian “free will” theology in areas like this).
This is all based on an assumption that the Gospel (or “salvation history”) is about a “tug of war” between God and Satan, where Satan’s goal is to use behavioral “freedom” or “good feelings” to set man at odds with God. Man’s “fall” then became a state of deliberate animosity towards God, (which God “ordains”, and yet holds “helpless” man “accountable”), God became infinitely angry at man and cursed him with a physical life of deliberate pain (hardships, etc.), and an eternal existence of intense suffering, and “grace” was His making an exception (at least for the eternal pain) of a “chosen” people who would be “fixed” to show good behavor, and be persecuted by everyone else who are God’s “enemies”.
So in this scheme, Satan is seen as using pleasure to lure man against God, and God (and His Spirit) are the accusers, using shame and the Law (and later, “conscience”, and leaders and societies maintaining knowledge of “good and evil” to judge all by) to try to fix man (“or else!”), and the Son was His means of showing “Grace” and “Love” by saving the “elect”.
But in the actual scriptural revelation, the Fall was the taking on of the knowledge of good and evil, and shame was its result, which is what led man to run and hide from God, and God then to have to move to be the one to reconcile with man. Satan was the one who “accused” men with the Law, and deceived those who claimed to be God’s spiritual institutions, not to “softening” down teaching of the Law, but to hype it up against the people (while secretly violating it or its true intents themselves).
The “power” (John 1:12) offered by the Spirit was the ‘right’ to be children of God (Rom.8:16), in the face of these accusations by the corrupt institutions.
The FEAR motivation
The final answer to that is that Jesus said that “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is the fulfillment of the Law, and other scriptures mention love, as opposed to fear.
They will say if you teach unconditional grace, then it becomes making it “OK” to sin; but under this assumption, fear then becomes the only reason to repent, and it doesn’t stop those set on doing something anyway; it just scares less resolved people into compliance.
(Those not scared simply ‘confirm’ the ‘deliberate sin’ premise, so we want the world divided between the scared compliers and the deliberate “rebels”, which supports the binary “us vs them“ thinking of conservative religion).
They claim that removing all fear leads to society running out of control, but this is when we can mention stuff like slavery, colonialism and all the evils of the past, where they HAD that “fear of God”, the tough preaching that swayed everyone, great “revivals”, prayer, public reverence for God, [outward] sexual morality, etc. but society as a whole still decided that these OTHER acts they did to other people didn’t matter. Or, they appealed to scriptures (mainly from the Old Testament, such as “kill the heathens”), and then claimed they were in fact on the side of scripture.
So then, fear must not be what controls sin! It didn’t control it then! (Only certain select behaviors, and even then, rules and restrictions often went way overboard). That in fact was the whole lesson in the Gospel, which the people back then in Bible times missed, and the church afterward followed suit!
It only forces sin to be hidden; selectivized as to what is sin or not, and from there, that which society deems acceptable is even justified with scripture. Those fear-preaching leaders will enjoy the control they have over people’s behavior and lives, but it will not be about REAL righteousness (that is, until later generations rebel against their authority; then they will complain of being under “attack”). So this CONTROL is the real aim here!
Their own beloved historical leaders operated on a theology that contradicts this! Leading Reformer John Calvin said that conversion due to “mercenary affections” (trying to get something from God— a pardon from Hell, rather than coming to Him out of ‘love’ for Him) would not save!
Anyone who has ever received Christ after being warned of Hell or told the benefits of Heaven can fit into this category! Who then can be saved, really?
“Fundamentalist” Arminians and “Lordship” Calvinists alike loudly necessitate this fear method of scaring people into being saved (lamenting “all the modern preachers” who don’t preach like this anymore), but according to the original teaching, if they came in because of being scared/fear, they’re not saved! None of them ever thinks of this when praising the “revivals” that followed the ideal they hold up, of Spurgeon and Edwards’ preaching, after people “clenched their seats” in fear! All that mattered was that the fear motivated them to better behavior, good “works”, and more religious “fervency”, such as increased church attendance, and don’t forget, obedience to the leaders, and voilà; there, you have a great “revival”! Regardless of whatever else the peoplel or society may do). Yet according to Calvin, the people were not saved; but it sure was beneficial in getting people under control!)
It should be clear this teaching is of pure evil, straight from “the enemy” (the spiritual one, that is)! But it seems nobody has even questioned this, including the “contemporary” Christians who are being criticized for turning away from these old standards. Thus, nobody ever tries to refute it (and its associated “sin=deliberate animosity against God” and “Satan=pleasure dealer” foundations) scripturally. It’s just easier to call them “judgmental” and just toss out terms such as “love” without ever expounding it scripturally.
The one sided area of “Repentance”
“Repentance” ended up as the sword (i.e weapon) always used by the more conservative, holding on to and defending old ways. Progressives (including moderates) generally declare the old ways to be too restrictive, or “mean”, “unloving”, etc. and then just proceed to try to change them, in both their own behavior, sneak the new trends into the older institutions, and eventually, when they gain some social power, enforce them through what is now dubbed “cancellation” (censorship). But they have not so strongly come up with more logical arguments; and on the Christian front, more scriptural arguments; or, commands of “repentance”. (Ironically, the conservatives end up going from stereotypically anti-intellectual, to becoming the ones claiming “logical” fact!) That the old ways were not just “mean”, but also morally, and most importantly, scripturally wrong, and (just as much as any “modern”-day sin), needed to be repented of. But that is not apart of their vocabulary. It’s always the more conservative telling them to repent, and them appearing to simply “ignore” it and “do whatever they want”. This just ‘confirms’ to the conservatives that what they were preaching was “the truth” all along, and like with parents (or Biblical “Israel” in the days of the prophets), the “rebellious children” are totally wrong.
With this seeming validation firmly in place, the beliefs become completely grounded, and the liberals and moderates wake up one day to find all their “progress” threatened. (Most glaring example, Roe vs. Wade! Within the conservative Church, I could picture possibly a resurgence of ‘old-line’ thinking, and perhaps ignoring some differences and coming together, now that the “godless world” is ‘really‘ coming against them now, with issues such as homosexuality and more active “wokeness”. Moderates again ignored the old-liners, and yet the music and worship changes, and spiritual and doctrinal apathy and other trends they condemned have gone further and further seemingly off the deep end. Some observing this may finally see that the old-liners “were right all along”; we “never should have left ‘the old paths’; they were ‘safer ground’ after all” [which is why they still respect, and won’t criticize them now], and begin renouncing all the modern trends, and “return” to the old “fundamentalism”. We can see in this article https://medium.com/backyard-theology/the-rise-of-the-viral-hate-preacher-1e898485b261 the increasing appearance of a radicalized form of fundamentalism).
Like looking at Jeff Durbin’s “Dissenter” (dsntr) page and an increasing number of similar ones, you see a lot of harping on “modern evangelicals”, and the common targets, the televangelists (Osteen, Jakes, Myers, etc.) As much as he aims for “dissension”, conspicously absent are groups such as the IFB’s (including the KJVO’s), who denounce his movement; apparently, MacArthur “Lordshippism”, (which still falls within the category of “new-evangelicalism”). You would think they would be on the same page, as they say a lot of the same things, regarding both doctrine and secular affairs. The pages resemble each other, with all the modern “false teachers” listed throughout the page. Both are harshly criticizing evangelical trends, along with Catholics, cults and the world in general, and even the SBC (which to the “world” has traditionally been seen as the ultimate epitome of “fundamentalism”, yet is now being denounced by IFB’s and Lordshippers alike).
Yet the IFB’s still see MacArthur and his circle as “compromising” when it comes to “separation”; just like the rest of the new-evangelicals. Since the IFB’s are not doing the things they see the other groups as doing wrong, they probably figure they are “preaching the truth”, and so are not the problem, and perhaps ultimately, “on their side”. Yes, they are more strict than we are, and “don’t agree” with us, but their strictness is at least better than what all of these others are doing! So just ignore them. I’ve seen articles in CRI finally respond to the Bobgans (the leading IFB Jay Adams “Biblical Counseling” teachers), but seem agree with the simplistic “spiritual help/transformation” principles such as “curing” fear of the dark simply by telling the counselee that “Jesus is the Light”. So of course, CRI and others will not respond to them on that point, which is really the basis of their whole denunciation of “therapy”, and consistent with what the modern church still preaches, regarding the Spirit. (And as I said, that actually is the same thing basically as CBT; which emphasized “changing your thoughts, to change your feelings, and then actions”. Recall, the spiritualized “change one’s thoughts and desires”. In both views, it’s a process of “changing your thoughts” as the start of the “process”, but in the latter view, made “supernatural”, and thus a cudgel against anyone who “struggles” or doesn’t get over something. Hence, the whole “Side A/B/X/Y” judging in the gay issue).
So we end up with the criticism going one way, making the most conservative feel as if they are unrefuted, and in fact, unrefutable. Everyone then “punches downward” to those the less strict, whom they can claim as “less obedient” to “the Word of God”. Only when going after “the cults” (meaning those who err on the Godhead and other similar “historic orthodox” issues), do then they punch upward to the more strict (and then will claim stuff like “faith alone”, even though they essentially deny it when going back to criticizing the less strict body of the mainstream church).
For an example of this apathy I have seen, when I was in an IFCA church for awhile, and once or twice told “evangelical” brethren what the IFB teaching I was exposed to said about their music and worship, they told me “If you’re in that church, submit to them!” (Like they’re trying hard to prove themselves “the bigger person” and be so reverent to “the Church” and its authority, regardless, and to “not judge another man’s servant” (i.e. Rom.14:4) as one once told me. The IFB leaders certainly wouldn’t return the favor. They would never say that to me if I told them about the evangelical and/or charismatic churches I had been involved with. They would tell me, squarely to get out of those churches as they are “false”! I should have told those people, if I did “submit” to them, I wouldn’t be here talking to you friendly, but rather preaching at you, as a “compromiser”!)
To the “new-evangelicals”; either they’re right and you’re wrong (“compromising”, etc. and then why aren’t you “repenting” of this?) or they’re wrong and slandering the Gospel (evangel) as supposedly being represented by you! (And so why aren’t you defending the Gospel, as you do against supposed “outsiders” like the “cults”?)
A lot of tough pronouncements on “THE TRUTH”, but no UNITY!
But it shows, that no matter how “strict” a path you follow, someone more strict will come along and acuse you of “compromising”. An evangelical will condemn my criticisms of futurist “duty faith” as too “universalistic”, and defense of LGBT as “liberal”, and it’s like I should re-adopt their beliefs. But when I did agree with them on those positions, I saw the IFB’s and Lordshippers accusing us of stuff like not being “holy”. I could give into the Lordshippers and become one of them, but the IFB’s will still say our music and worship are too “modern”, and we’re not standing against the Catholics enough. If I become an IFB, the Lordshippers and other Calvinists will say I believe in a “weak god that depends on man” in salvation. So I can join some group that combines elements of both (like Spurgeon’s church), but now all I have done is take the “lowest common denominator” of “toughness”, and it’s no longer any “Good News”. For all the talk of “orthodoxy”, there is just no unity; only a bunch of men trying to sell their views and control others through tough talk. (Just like in the larger secular world). For every group you listen to and obey, there’s always another one saying it’s not enough!
They’ll all brush off using others as an “excuse”, and tell me to “read the Bible on my own”, but that’s precisely what I have done, and they seem to all be wrong. (Which is possible, while it’s not possible for them to all be right). They’ll cite 1Co 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” So your not coming to their understanding is simply proof you’re spiritually “dead” (so nothing you can argue is valid). Yet everyone is claiming this (including groups considered “cults”! Herbert Armstrong quoted it all the time, and really sounded convincing with it!) Telling me to read it for myself (or also, to “follow the Spirit”) was only under the assumption that if I really did, I would see it promotes their view. Anything else, I’m misreading it, or ignoring the Spirit, to provide an “excuse” to “hold on to my sin”. (And that includes aspects of each others’ views!) So now, we’re right back to where we started! Again, who should I listen to? Any of them? Or myself? Or the “spirit” (but only if it agrees with their views)?
“The conviction of the Spirit” in past society’s sins?
Conservatives will often respond that the horrors of the past were “just the way people did things” back then.
But it must be pointed out that this relativizes morality, which is precisely what they have condemned modern society for!
The answer to that is to point out the double standard, and that they are simply being held up to the impossible standard they are holding the world up to. Jesus had said “with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged” (Matt.7:2), and they should not complain, as if they are above this principle.
The world naturally, understandably and rightly questions a morality demanded of them, with “no excuses“, and supposedly empowered by the Spirit through “conversion” (regeneration, sanctification etc.), when it didn’t really work that way in practice for the “model” Christian Church and society of the past that is upheld as the godly ideal.
If you reject this point, we end up with a “do as I say, not as I do” situation, which is just pure control, and with so many people in the world trying to control others, via different means, then why should they believe you?
If the Spirit can cure homosexuality, mental problems, or anything else as conservative Christians claim, when why didn’t it correct (convict, reprove, etc.) slavery and colonialism, and the upholding of discrimination for centuries afterward? Why, when Christians (from leaders on down) back then read the scriptures (which the Spirit is supposed to “enlighten” us to read properly), and came to Genesis 9:25-27 “And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant“; why didn’t the Spirit direct them to just one verse earlier (24), which tells us who “he” is: NOAH, not God is the one who uttered this curse (and God is never shown granting it; let alone to the present!) Or 2 Cor.6:4 “Be not unequally yoked”. With whom? Another “race”? Just read the next two words: “…with unbelievers”! Yet it was used to justify segregation and condemn “miscegenation”, even if both parties were believers! (and then, fundamentalist institutions holdig oto this reading until recent years are angry at new-evangelicalism for not “separating” from Catholics and “modernists”, when they themselves have not even read the passage properly!)
The plea of “we’re still only human” will only go so far when you’ve loudly told the rest of humanity there were “NO EXCUSES” for “human error” (including wrong scripture exegesis), and claim the enlightenment of the Spirit! These were terrible reading comprehension errors that men don’t even need the Spirit to have read properly! Christians claim one is supposed to read the whole Bible, not just a verse here and there, so how did they even miss the previous verse or even a second half of the verse that “interprets” the following verses itself?
In a typical statement, Peter Masters (of Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tablernacle, and is respected in IFB circles) has been quoted: “When I was a youngster and newly saved, it seemed as if the chief goal of all zealous Christians, whether Calvinistic or Arminian, was consecration. Sermons, books and conferences stressed this in the spirit of Romans 12.1-2, where the beseeching apostle calls believers to present their bodies a living sacrifice, and not to be conformed to this world. The heart was challenged and stirred. Christ was to be Lord of one’s life, and self must be surrendered on the altar of service for him.”
But what they fail to realize is that “bodies” is not just talking about sexual behavior, or drinking (and other pleasure-related things as people assume with these ridiculous fixations the Church has had!) It’s what you actually devote yourself to; whether Christ and His Gospel, or a false “gospel” of dead works! (which are often done and pitched under the banner of such aterms as “consecration” and “service”!)
As always, we get into the assumption that this Anglo-American Christian culture the “old-liners” hold up was so godly. These people hate the race issue, but then that’s because it’s a big spot that destroys their whole premise! So you really insist their “selves” were all “surrendered” in “service” to Him back then? (They seemed too busy making others surrender to them!) It’s just a matter of what works one considers “service to Him”, or “service to self”. All decided according to what exalts what one identifies with, and demonizes others!
Plus, the Church of previous centuries said the same things about stuff the old liners uphold, such as what’s now the ‘old’ music style, for instance (which Masters has been a big defender of); even down to common chords and church instruments being of “the Devil”; etc. so they wouldn’t see that generation as “consecrated” either!
The real truth to be told, is that the race and class issues are deemed simply unimportant to God (and only illegitimate, ungodly “Marxist” agendas for the purpose of taking something away from “God’s” people or nation), as men deserve suffering anyway; while only sexual behavior and reverence for God (and some other cultural and political issues) are important.
They dismiss race as just some modern “woke” issue of the Left, but don’t realize that it only seems this way because they have overfocused on the issues they have defended and preached as most important. (Mostly sexual issues, and the influence religion “should” have), and minimized an issue they didn’t want to deal with because their beliefs or the previous society they identified with were guilty. Yet the racial doctrines are a bigger violation and threat to the Gospel (and thus the “nature of God” and His ideal “Creation”) than people’s personal sex lives, or obedience to an institutional Church or “Christian culture” that is not even biblical. They have long criticized “deciding for ourselves what is sin”, but they had already done just that.
The further truth is that the reason race was seen as unimportant to God was originally because He was seen as being in fact behind it, through the “curse”! But most did not want to admit this anymore, and so brushed off the subject as only something the conniving Left and the discontent blacks themselves (now all lumped together under banners such as “wokeness”) harped on.
What really is “Historic Orthodoxy” anyway?
Their responses to every change in the church and the world, such as, now, the issue of homosexuality, is to appeal to what they call “historic orthodox Christianity“.
This term is usually given by those following what is known as “evangelical Protestantism”. They at this point ignore that the “reformers” they follow, arose in the 16th century, and so were going against 1500 years of [literal] “historical orthodox Christianity”, which was by that time embodied in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. (And themselves already divided as such by that time! Some “fundamental Baptist” groups, as well as various other sects will claim to follow an “unbroken succession” of small persecuted groups, usually including the Waldensians, and leading to the Anabaptists, and from there, to whichever group the teacher is representing. This is called the “Trail of Blood” theory or “landmarkist successionism”. While spme of them can justifiably claim some [limited] amount of continuity with the anabaptists, the other groups were totally unconnected (spread out all across Europe, separated by centuries), and believed vastly different things; many being “ascetic” and even “gnostic”, which fundamentalists and the other sects will reject. They generally respond that this is just the “slander” of the large institutional groups against them, but they have no proof otherwise; they just find a small group with a teaching that resembles one of theirs, and which they were persecuted for, and declare the group as their predecessor. The Waldensians, in fact, still exist actually, and even have churches in the US “Piedmont” area of the South. They had joined the Reformation, and are now a Reformed type group, so “Arminian revivalist” independent Baptists, and other “free will” sects such as the sabbatarians, Church of Christ, etc. who claim ties to the Waldensians, are shown to be wrong).
So that should be the ultimate proof that “historical orthodox Christianity” can be wrong, and is not what we are to appeal to; and that includes in readings and interpretations of scripture!
But I had noticed, in many areas, this is the final arbiter in scriptural interpretation. They say their views are “biblical”, but it’s really what “historic Christianity has always taught” a particular scripture means. (Such as apologist Walter Martin’s final statement against Herbert Armstrong’s anti-trinitarian view in Armstrong and the Radio Church of God). This is identical to the Catholics’ “ubiquity, antiquity, unanimity” criteria they use to justify seemingly unbiblical positions as the Papacy or transubstantiation, and thus, the Protestants themselves are in the same position as “the cults”. They uphold doctrines such as the Trinity, Sunday and Hell where they share the “historic” view, and pretend to have total solidarity with “orthodoxy”, against the modern sects, but deviate against that same “historic” orthodoxy in areas where they decide the historic Church went off track. If they can do it, why can’t anyone else? They will appeal to the same “historic” consensus they are going against in some areas!
The term “Christianity” is not even in scripture! It was apparently first coined in 110AD, by Ignatius of Antioch. This leader also frequently pointed his readers to the authority of the “bishop”. Bishop is mentioned over a hundred times in Ignatius’ seven short epistles; but only six times in the entire NT! One of them referring to Jesus, and another, to an OT quote. It was a simple “overseer”, not a power figure, as the later Church made it out to be. But within a few decades of Ignatius, the one in Rome had already become powerful enough to press other parts of the Church on issues of practice (such as the Quartodeciman controversy, where the original biblical Passover date for the Communion [extending from the old “seder”] was suppressed in favor of what later became “Easter” Sunday). A couple more centuries, and it empressed the emperor enough to make it the state religion. This is now when they used their power to call “councils” where they set doctrines and issued official “creeds” (the first seven shared by many Protestants), and in which dissenters were condemned to death. This is the origin of “historic Christianity”!
So the Protestants (and “independent fundamentalists”) reject the system that was arising out of those centuries, yet have claimed their unbiblical title, and even use it to condemn others, just as that previous institution had done!
The only thing uniting “historic orthodox Christianity” is that there was a man named Jesus, who was a “second member” of a “tripartite” Godhead (a doctrine based on scriptural revelation, but greatly overformulated in the 4th century), with a divine birth, death and resurrection, and now has an organized institution of paid, professional leaders who are to stand in front of a congregation and use a modified divine Law to control others’ behavior through fear, with “faith” as a duty to gain “salvation”, and an obligation to prove it through improved behavior. (Some have minimized the latter points, drawing criticism from those maintaining them, in the name of, naturally, “historic Christianity”. A few cross over into a confession of works salvation, usually by redefining “faith” in terms of works).
—Oh, and of course, that homosexuality is abhorrent to God. Hundreds of evangelical leaders actually spent the time around the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by gathering together to issue a Statement on homosexuality! The rationale was that the very “heart of the Gospel” was at stake. (As we can see based on the above quoted statement). The original Reformation was over the issue of justification and redemption (salvation), which is naturally a foundational issue to the Gospel. People’s private sexual behavior has been elevated to the same thing, with the secular world, and perhaps “gay” Christians they deny as truly Christian, apparently holding the place of the Church institution “persecuting” the faithful, and that need to be “reformed” by God’s leaders! (This is how they generally portray the secular society, as if it were a wayward part of the Church, under their rightful authority).
But again, if “historic Christianity” could have gone so wrong on the doctrine of salvation (pre-Reformation), why do they think it can’t be wrong on this issue (or the whole notion of ongoing “duty faith” altogether, which is what maintains that the Law and its condemnation continues into the foreseeable future; hence the condemnations of people for their behavior!)
So LGBT advocates and others (female pastors, etc.), should not try to infiltrate or change the Church to make it “accept” everything. It only “proves” their conspiracy narratives of being “persecuted” by some evil, subversive “agenda”. Let them have their “historic” institutions, and little power bases. The institutions are not biblical, but rather secular (i.e. legally chartered) business corporations framed around select religious beliefs (many of which are not even always biblical). They’re not what you should be seeking! We can even appeal to Rev.18:4; being the postapostolic Church did follow lock, stock and barrel the errors of the Old Covenant system that was over the NT Church and before. (So with a Preterist soteriology, we can still have a bit of an “Idealist” view, and say the “endtime” scenario does essentially repeat throughout history in minuscule ways).
Coming up with more biblical responses is the better way to handle them and prevent them from having the power to discriminate.
Conclusion
So many people come to us claiming many things and commanding our response. Why should we listen to this one group, using God, Christ and the Bible? Anyone can claim those authorities.
They believe, essentially that God needs to control man’s behavior, and He’s called them to lead this for Him. Why should anyone listen to them, and not anyone else trying to control people?
Conservative Christians will then deflect any pointing out of “sin” among their own ranks, and then appeal to “grace”; that they are saved by their “faith” (which in practice is a set of correct beliefs).
But it needs to be pointed out that they are the ones who start off playing the devil’s game of accusation and works-righteousness, and so should accept being held up to the same standards they have preached to others.
This is actually what the first two chapters of the book of Romans was addressing!
LGBT defenders need to recognize and point this out more.
To properly answer them, you must point out the true context of such passages; that what is so abhorrent was those who come in the name of divine Law, preaching it to others, and yet do the same things themselves. (Rom.2:1, 3)
This then should be held up as legitimately calling into question their statements about the work of the Spirit.
They apparently are not understanding it correctly. They are turning it into yet another burden placed on others, that neither they nor anyone else were ever able (or willing) to bear. (Matt.23:4, Acts 15:10).
This is what we need to bring to the table in the debate with Christian conservatives!
We need to start all over again, in reading scripture, (The IFCA church I was in had a little chorus “Take a new look from the Old Book”, which in that movement is never actually put into practice), and not filter it through “historic orthodoxy”. By their own profession, it has been wrong before, and why should we believe them, and not, perhaps the original “historical” institutions (which similarly have proof-texts for all of their doctrines and practices; appealing to “apostolic oral tradition”, if all else fails, and they even have proof-texts for that concept!)
1994, the middle of the 90’s, and the height of anti-government and economic rhetoric on the Right, with Newt Gingrich shutting the government down, and conservatives placing a steady focus on “big government spending” (of our too high “taxes”), with the loudest decried expense being “social programs”. (This as two brand spanking new federal courthouses featuring amenities such as bronze doorknobs are built in lower Manhattan, over historical sites: one, the colonial era African Burial Ground, and the other, the notorious 19th century Five Points, right next to the state courthouse I worked in. All of this on top of stuff you occasionally heard on the news throughout the previous decade, such as $400 screwdrivers, huge airports in the middle of nowhere, etc. But the biggest concern is “welfare“, which was about 2-4% of the spending! The majority going to the military, which the same conservatives were in favor of).
In some radical Right Christian paper from upstate, I see a retelling of Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”:
The Original Version:
The ant busts his ass in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
The New Liberal Version:
It starts out the same but when winter comes the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show up and show pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be, in a country of such wealth that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Night Line and charges the ant with “Green Bias” and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when he sings “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS evening news and tell a concerned Dan Rather That they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the summer, or as Bill refers to it, the “Temperatures Of The 80’s”.
Finally the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act” RECTRO-ACTIVE to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and having nothing left to pay his Retro-Active taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in….which just happens to be the ant’s old house…. crumbles around him since he doesn’t know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV; which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant’s food, Bill Clinton is standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of “Fairness” has dawned in America.
There was no source attributed to it.
Ten years later, I see the same thing pasted in a discussion on a Christian board I frequented, only with “NAAGB” replaced by “ACORN” (and, IIRC, a couple of other small changes). It seemed people realized “NAAGB” was too “obvious”, and so tried to cover up the implications a bit more. Meanwhile, all the tax complaining had actually been heard, and something was actually for once done; some changes had actually been made! Welfare had by that time been replaced by “workfare” (where recipients had to get little menial jobs to be eligible for the benefits), and at the same time, tax breaks began to be given to the middle class (making it look like “welfare” really was the problem after all), and this did quell the conservatives’ complaining for a bit, but around the 2004 election, it quickly resumed, as if nothing had changed at all! (This is the one where they were so disgusted with the Republican party as not conservative enough, that the radical Constitution Party was all the rage!)
So a decade after that, liberals are finally beginning to rise up and respond more to conservative rhetoric (after the deafening silence I witnessed at the time of the original meme and decades before), including naming things, and the common conservative tactic of using “code language” to imply blacks as the cause of the nation’s problems, has been dubbed “dog whistling”. Only, “NAAGB”, wasn’t really even a dog whistle, but I’d say, pretty audible!
Forward to recent years, the source of the meme is revealed to be Jim Quinn of the radio show “The Warroom”, and who was a close associate to the main conservative mouthpiece of the generation, Rush Limbaugh; —himself a master dog whistler, who then tries to gaslight us all by portraying himself as basically more of a “comedian”. One radio ad on TV had him with a smile, ask “You decide whether I’m ‘the most dangerous man in America’, or ‘just a sensitive guy’“! Yet, he’s always taking the clear conservative talking points, deemed deadly serious when pitched by others, including on the race issue. His followers then become what were dubbed “dittoheads“, as they all ate up and agreed with all of it! The most infamous statement on the subject, being addressing blacks, and saying “THEY’RE ANGRY…!” This, to a white fanbase that already thinks we’re fearsome animals! Meanwhile, look at the anger and utter CONTEMPT and even hatred on his own face right as he’s saying this (or ANY time he addresses the race issue. It BEGS the question “What the hell did we ever do to you?” Rudolph Giuliani, the NYC mayor who dismissed us with “They’re alive, aren’t they?” and claimed Amadou Diallo brought on his own death by “not doing what the officers said”; —and they were plain clothes and jumped out at him, mind you— had this same sort of hostile look on his face when addressing race as well!)
So “anger” is pitched like it’s wrong; but that is, when we’re doing it. It’s actually OK and perfectly justified, when you do it! —being angry about our anger! Why? Because it’s all part of a plot to take something away from you, as you claim was already being done! The same with incessantly leveling terms such as “whining” during that time, when conservatives have been the loudest and most effective complainers; claiming to be no less than “persecuted”, often!
In other words, only you have the RIGHT to be angry; others don’t. We’re told we should only be “thankful”. (But the conservatives certainly don’t sound thankful, except for some past ideal they are steady complaining of losing! And these people would fiercely deny thinking they were “superior”, but then what do you call this?)
We do end up managing to elect a black president, and when his first lady mentions now being able to be “proud” of America, she’s excoriated as “anti-America”. But Rush then shortly after goes the opposite direction, in saying he’s no longer proud of the nation, and this is basically the sentiment of all his followers! She goes from “not proud” to “proud” (positive direction). He goes from “proud” to “not proud” (negative). But she’s “Anti-America”, and he’s “pro-America”! Conservatives often spoke as if to be critical of America is to “hate” America, but both of these speakers had periods where they were not proud of it. One was in the past, with all the racial conflict and other issues (involving oppressive control by one demographic). The other was the loosening of that control. In the latter view, America was only “good” (and worth being proud of) in the past, up until the 1960s.
This is what the Christian Right had been saying ever since that decade! “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), we associate with the next president, Trump, but he only half-heartedly copied the line (didn’t even sound genuine when he first uttered it; it sounded like he was just spouting something he knew his listeners wanted to hear); it was Reagan and the Christian Right who had been saying this (and similar lines, such as “take back America”) up to four decades before!
Today, the focus of the left’s criticism of the right is Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Previously, it was Donald Trump (of course; him being the president, and fully embodying the mindet of the right), and FOX News hosts such as Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck. Limbaugh had all along been the central figure of the conservative media, until beginning to wane in the decade or so before his death last year (and I feel he could have stood more criticism by the Left!) But Quinn is someone who deserves more exposure; being such a “behind the scenes” source of a meme that perfectly embodies the Right’s beliefs about the race issue, and what drives all of their rhetoric and behavior today, from “Great Replacement Theory” to the Jan. 6 2021 insurrection attempt (which both Limbaugh [in his last two months of life] and Quinn seemed to be rather silent on!)
Liberal writers such as Tim Wise and Ian Haney Lopez began speaking in terms of “narratives“; that the conservatives had created narratives they drive their views off of, and liberals needed to create narratives as well, to counter them.
So the conservative narrative (put together):
•We did the blacks a favor by rescuing them from their tribal life and bringing them into our “exceptional” advanced civilization
•They were really well off and happy under slavery and segregation. (We did so well in creating this “exceptional” society!)
•The “godless” white Marxists wanted to destroy the nation, and so decided to “use” the blacks in their scheme
•They took all the money of the hard working “makers” and gave it to the undeserving black “takers”, who no matter how many opportunities and good things they had here, only wanted more “free stuff” and refused to pull themselves up like others.
•This created all the urban decay, crime and financial scarcity of the late 20th century, as the makers withdrew their wealth and jobs.
-i.e. all those horrible violent cities like Chicago were run by “northern Democrats”.
-(The “makers” deserve all the billions they have [stop ‘coveting’, you liberal snowflakes!], but the government has taken it and given it all to the blacks, who have squandered it; so now everyone struggles!)
•So don’t call us racist; we’re actually looking out for the blacks and know what’s best for them; it’s the liberals who did all of this, and are the real racists!
-(The “colorblind” tactic. But it always points right back to colorism, as the blacks were too stupid and greedy for “free stuff” to avoid getting caught in this liberal scheme. The “alt-right” will then conveniently step in to fill in the blank; the problem is really genetic! The “dog whistle” becomes a giant foghorn, and the mainstream conservatives relievedly didn’t have to blow it!)
This is what has been cleverly summed up by Quinn’s “Ant and Grasshopper” story! It’s what they have been telling an already “angry white middle class” that had already long blamed minorities and their issues for the downfall of the country, since the Civil War; all the while the billionaires skate off scott free as the middle class “punch downward” in blaming the poor. (And the financial aspect of it, where the rich benefitting from the status quo get the middle class to look down on the blacks, was the name of the game since slavery as well!)
They also manage to get even black figures to agree with this stuff. Allan West once posted a video spoofing the stereotypical “welfare queen”, which boldly proclaimed “This is where ALL the money goes!”. Larry Elder similarly once had a video claiming that these “handouts” “brought the country to its knees”. The “angry white middle class” continued to eat it all up. Even the alt-right would cheer them on, against any liberal “cucks” in the comments!
The likes of these two are just making money for themselves by attacking their own race, and along with the entire Right, are just serving the interests of the super rich by portraying them as “overtaxed” for the sake of the lazy poor. On Quinn’s website https://www.warroom.com is a “Quick Start Guide”, and on #6, he says the progressive tax code “rewards bad choices and punishes good ones”. So simply making less money is purely bad choices, and making more money is always good choices (and never any form of string-pulling or dirty dealing, including buying out politicians, etc. No, that type of stuff is blamed on “government intrusion” somehow, and of course, that is siphoning all the money to the people making the “bad choices”! So you’ll sometimes admit the rich are in bed with the government, but it’s only the left’s fault, and still the poor “grasshoppers” wrongly gaining everything from that!) In passing, FOX News commentator Michelle Malkin, inspired by Quinn, came up with her own version of the Ant and the Grasshopper, villifying those homeowners caught up in the housing loan crisis; also seen as “irresponsible”, and often associated with minorities). It becomes clear this whole game is about worshiping and justifying the rich!
But the rich in fact already have many loopholes and bypasses where some of them in actuality pay almost no taxes. Where’s the “new wealth” created from this as he says in #17 in praising “Reaganomics”? No matter how much was given to the rich, pundits like this kept complaining all of it was really going to “lazy” poor minorities, and the lack of wealth blamed on “socialism”. Which is precisely what the Grasshopper meme is saying!
So the billionaires in the world are rapidly increasing, and again, have plenty of tax loopholes, shelters and refuges! But this isn’t enough!
So keep blaming poor minorities! Keep telling the angry middle class that this is the source of all their problems! No wonder, many of them would justify police shootings of blacks, and fall to such desperation as to elect Donald Trump as president, have rallies such as at Charlottesville, and then attempt an actual overthrow of the US Capitol, and individuals holding these views continue to produce mass shootings. Just think; if you’re black, and you look around and see abandoned factories and run down neighborhoods; it’s YOUR fault; (i.e. us collectively).
Even libertarians and “paleo-cons”, who are more aware of “corporatism”, “banksters”, “oligarchs”, etc. and their global effects, still ultimately place the most heated blame on “welfare” [e.g. “the nanny state”, etc.] as nevertheless central to [benefitting from, somehow] the whole scheme, or at least still the number one gripe. Those two groups likely make up a good portion of the “alt-right”.
Questions this raises:
•WHERE is all the money given the blacks, then, since they don’t still have it themselves; hence being “stuck” in poverty and government “dependency” where they need more? If they’re wasting it on expensive sneakers and electronics and such, even if they don’t maintain these things, they just go and get more, putting the money back into the economy. (It’s never seen this way!) They’re not the ones sitting on it, or taking it out of the country like the rich. Oh, but then they’re only doing that because of the oppressive tax system! That still doesn’t change the fact of who has the money; aside from the question of who “deserved” it or not!
•Do the rich have all their deserved money, or has it been taken from them too? If they’re the productive “ants”, then all of the ants are portrayed as falling in the end. The meme doesn’t have any characters escaping this unscathed in the end (except perhaps the “Democrat” leaders). If you admit they’ve simply taken it elsewhere because of taxes spent on the ‘unproductive’, then why do we accept them (the “Queen Ants”, basically) punishing all of us because of what some others do?
The real source of this narrative is the old Puritan-derived notion of the “chosen nation”. That’s what drove the colonizers and slavers. Here is their line of reasoning.
•The World is a mess
•There is inequality; some people (including cultures) are on top
•God is in control
The extended backstory of all this is:
•Man “fell”, and became deliberately evil and against God
•The punishment for this is pain and suffering (in this life and afterward)
•God has “chosen” some groups of people out of this state
•Their “hostile” nature is removed, and they are inclined to do right
•So they are qualified to rule over God’s earth
•The “unregenerate” remain against God and His people, and so seek to destroy God’s rule via His “godly” nation, and accuse His people of wrong!
•Part of this “conspiracy” is taking from God’s people to benefit and make “equal” those suffering the punishment for sin. (i.e. countering God’s judgment).
This was the original basis of the institutions of colonialism and racism, as well as the defenses of them! When they were challenged and brought down, the people losing power, instead of realizing the systems of control handed down to them were wrong, then had to justify them. They began speaking of the “godly founding” of the nation, and that all problems were “ungodly” people, not only bringing down Christian “morality”, but also forcing the inferior subhuman race on them as “equals”; bringing it down even faster. And this is what passed down all the way to the present, with more and more code and innuendo piled on top of it as each layer of racism was stripped away (i.e. first, slavery, then Jim Crow, then poverty, now “institutional” racism, etc.) and more and more racist expressions became censored. So now, they can claim, and hide behind a “colorblind” premise and deny any “racism” and instead blame it on others.
Rather than a “northern Democrat” plot to use blacks to destroy the nation; the most obvious cause of all the urban decay was “white flight” (which occurred in the South as well!); where because blacks could no longer be isolated from them, they ran (citing “lowering property vaues”, in addition to “rising crime”), yet still owned the property, which they allowed to run down, and often abandon (or even set on fire, to collect the insurance)! Services and most importantly, education were cut, rather than the “Democrats” pumping all of this money into the urban minority communities and they letting it decay, as Quinn’s story insinuates. This was just patently ignored; so as much as the blacks were the ones suffering all that blight and crime of those cities, conservatives callously fit this into their phony “colorblind” narrative against the blacks via the liberals!
Just think; fathers had told their sons “When you grow up, all of this will be yours”, but by the time they did grow up, large chunks of the power had been taken, and they were increasingly demanded to share what was left. So instead of realizing their fathers promised them something ill gained, and which couldn’t be kept, they blamed the forces making them share, as well as the recipients. This is why they began praising the nation’s past, and demanding it be given “back” to them.
This is the basis of Quinn’s “Grasshopper” story. It is one of the most insidious, boldface, hardly attempted to be disguised attacks on blacks, painting us as both stupid (can’t maintain all the stuff we’ve “taken”) on top of destroying the entire society. (Even if one tries the “colorblind” deflection and claim the “takers” are really anyone of any race, gaming the system. But all the “green bugs” references make it clear it is about color; you’re still using color; just substituting a different one! (Spoofing the name of an agency named after a racial ‘color’) —But I guess we’re supposed to be too stupid to see right through that; right? “ACORN” did little better in covering it up! So at best, it’s basically implicating blacks as the symbol of everyone and anyone abusing the system!)
This is why I would focus on this one person here. It is not even a feeble attempt at covering up the racial blaming.
But then looking more on his Quick Start Guide seems to confirm he’s not really trying to hide it, as it gets worse! #11 says “Racial profiling” is “an act of common sense” they speak pejoratively of “when they have a problem that they don’t want to talk about” — which is a frequent alt-right “race realist” dog whistle phrase for the “pathologies” that signal black inferiority and “negative affect on society”! “This conveniently puts the onus on you and not the perps.” So everyone who gets pulled over and/or harassed because of their race is a “perp”! Even worse, regarding another scapegoated group; #14 says “Islam is a global mental illness. It is a sickness, it is a cancer and it is evil.” This is a classic “snake”; lying in the background supplying propaganda like this, as his friend Rush and others get the spotlight. (And yet, they’re the ones who fire back at “the race card” being played on them!)
You can easily see all of this borne of the same seething anger that appeared on Rush’s face whenever talking about race. You despise these people so much; all you want to do is sling muck and blame at them, and can’t even hide it. Again, what have these people ever done to you, really, aside from the lies you’ve created to maintain that despisal? Quinn’s rhetoric can for all purposes classify him as “alt-right”, though Rush, being mainstream, wasn’t considered as part of that radical movement! Yet we see how closely under the surface the radical sentiments were!
People like this and their clever rhetorical tactics need to be exposed more.
Quinn was once supposedy a liberal, but then got in trouble for some remark he made on his show about women, and then turned to conservativism in revolt. Today, on his website, the first things you see is a section, “Worth dying for”, with links to the texts of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Of course, to show that they are the “true” Americans, but we see how quickly on this “wing” of politics that loyalty goes right out the window when they don’t get everything they want. Starting with Trump, liberals are the ones who have been defending the Constitution more against the antics of him and his followers! (Of course, each side interprets it in their own ways).
Also noteworthy is QSG #19, where God, “whether [he] exists or not” is effectively just a mascot and a utility, as he’s only “necessary for the maintenance of freedom”! (And Christians want to follow the ideology of someone like this?!)
You would think the “Grasshopper” story would be some past embarrassment hidden, and maybe even disowned by now (after first trying to change “NAAGB” into “ACORN”). When you click on “about us”, you see first, a restricted Youtube imbed about D-Day, and then three article links, and look; the middle one is the Ant and the Grasshopper! And not only that, but the original version, with the “NAAGB”!
(And at the bottom of his Quick Start Guide page is the gloat: “There is nothing you can do about this show, Get over it!” Liberals’ tactics had been what’s now dubbed as “cancel culture”; just banishing the person, and this has only played right into their narrative that the liberals are the true oppressors, and the conservatives are only valiantly standing up for “freedom”).
This is still the way these people believe (and wrapped up in the cause of the “Constitution”), and this sort of subtle, partially hidden source material to Right Wing mindsets needs to be recognized as a big source of the rest of the Right’s belief systems. And pundits on both sides are pointing out how divided the nation has become, and we seem to be headed to a new Civil War. It’s rhetoric like this that is keeping the racial resentment going. It’s recent events that all are what kept reminding me of Quinn’s meme! But conservatives will counter; no, it’s the incessant “race baiting” for the purpose of getting “free stuff” (and the liberals using this to “buy votes”) that is causing these tensions —thus yet again reiterating the classic (and untrue) racist stereotype, and all the more proving my point!
“Grasshopper”-like narratives are just a tactic of deflection, so that those riding off into the sunset with all of the wealth and power will have us too busy fighting each other to see what they are doing; if not outright justifying them (as “deserving” it), as they continue to blame the other side, including those with less power than them. It plays upon racial resentment, from the “equality” that had to be forced on them for nearly 200 years. This is why these things must be called out and challenged, wherever and in whatever form they are seen!
(Here, BTW, is another side of the story. https://www.amazon.com/Grasshopper-Narrated-Fanciful-Truthful-Other/dp/1515828727 Haven’t read the whole thing, but it right away looks like it applies!)
In June of this year, when I heard they were doing what amounts to a sort of two year-behind 50th anniversary special for Scooby, I decided to contact WB (which can be a rather difficult task, of trying to contact big business empires these days), finding the Twitter DM to be the best looking shot, and wrote:
Glad to hear they are doing a Scooby Doo reunion this fall. But in the past 20 years, retrospective moments have always become occasions to have negative references to the Scrappy Doo character. With this plus, passing shots in nearly every production up to “Guess Who”; I think this has gone way beyond ‘enough’ already! The first live action movie reference was already over the top, and marked the beginning of the trend (And notable references in SDMI and the 13th Ghost), and it was appealing to a small but vocal band of fans who didn’t like him years ago. But many other fans, especially younger ones DO like him! It’s time to start considering them, and this would be a great time to instead redeem him in some way in the story!
Other Scrappy fans voiced a desire to contact WB as well. But upon watching it, they did not listen, as they haven’t for over 20 years.
The gang in the story at one point bring up Scrappy and talk about how he was “never part of the gang”, and was “bad talking them on AOL Chat”! Wait a minute! Are they serious to write something like that? The online forum is precisely the place where Scrappy was the one receiving mountains of bad talk for probably 25 years or more! This is totally flipped around! He’s a fictional character who cannot do anything himself online or anywhere else (including change the show), but this was how many of those online posts were treating him. As if he were a real life person who had done something to them!
So now, every momentous occasion in both the Scooby and larger cartoon world has become a platform for this silly hatred.
One of the first produced uses of him, breaking total silence previously, was a “Blair Witch Project” parody on Cartoon Network, where Scrappy is the voice in the forest, and when Daphne screams in terror, Freddy says it’s only Scrappy, and Daphne says “I know!” A far cry from the middle of Scrappy’s original run, where Scrappy was her partner in splitups, where they did the serious work of clue-finding. Had these people ever watched that show?
With the internet now firmly in place, CN opens up a nice site that includes games, and for Scrappy, it was “Scrappy Stinks”, where you sling muck at him. Scholastic’s Cartoon Network: Extreme Scooby trivia book, while including references to Scrappy episodes, only mentions him once, in the trivia question on p.35, where choice “A” to answer the question “What does Scooby say he’d buy if he had $500,000?” is “A diamond studded muzzle for his cousin[sic] Scrappy Doo”. (The correct answer is “One million hamburgers”, of course).
None of us never imagined this was only the start of nearly a quarter century of official cartoon media trashing him!
Of course, the pinnacle of this was Scooby’s long awaited first live action movie (2002), where he was made the villain. And not just any villain, but transforming into a hideous giant monster who tries to KILL Scooby for not making him the leader of the gang. Again, which is exactly the way all the online haters saw him. (The head writer later came forth and said this was a last minute change of the original script, and expressed hating his guts. You can get more of a sense of where this guy is coming from here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-gunn-fired-tweets-pedophilia-rape_n_5b5238d6e4b0fd5c73c5390a So of course someone like that who makes some crazy inhuman “joke” of that sort would see nothing wrong with having a good character turn into a monster and try to kill his beloved uncle! This marked the dark, sadistic mindet of the period, as seen in many of the other references in Adult Swim shows and elsewhere. This was the sentiment that was totally indulged in and allowed to fester and completely take over!)
The hatred spreads to the production studio!
This movie reference marked the start of the pickup of negative references to him in new animated stories, where they mostly ignored him before. But on the other hand, this one actually made even haters think it was out of character, as well as getting fans to finally start speaking up. So while writers intensified their expression of hatred, the blogosphere that once fomented it now began to cool off, and you could actually find more people defending him and saying they liked him, the movie was trash for doing that, and also, some even saying he be brought back and/or “redeemed” from the movie portrayal!
So 10 years later, it’s CN’s 20th anniversary, with a panoramic pose of every cartoon star that ever appeared on the network. And look, there’s Scrappy in the lower left, and in front yet! Are we finally getting somewhere, and him being accepted as part of the CN universe? No; he’s only there for that weird Adventure Time mutt to push out of the way at the very last minute as they count down for the final shot. (Wow; with all the other characters involved, that they would take the time and money and do the extra work of putting him there and animating that sequence, just to take another shot at him! These people are really into this hatred thing!)
Forward to right around Scooby’s actual 50th anniversary, they decide to close the hole in the old “Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo” series (the one Scrappy era show generally liked by nearly all, despite his presence), in which, it was realized, only 12 ghosts had been captured. There were 13 episodes but the first episode is where they were released, and the remaining 12 saw one ghost each captured. This series had Scrappy, of course, plus a new, even more “Cousin-Oliverry” character, Flim Flam.
So surely now Scrappy would have to be brought back in a positive light, right? No; they just restore the original gang (Freddy and Velma weren’t in the original, of course), and when Flim Flam (who was brought back despite being acknowledged as more annoying than Scrappy, and also made a bad guy in an earlier modern story) asks where’s Scrappy, the others have this silent look, and Velma asks “What’s a scrappy”? So now, she’s never even heard of him! (She’s the one who introduced us to him in a retrospective look back in the live action movie as well as telling us in this new story about his AOL attacks, yet you would think they would use the movie premise as the reason they shun him now, rather than making up this new justification. But nothing is being kept straight in these modern canons, except Scrappy just being bad, and now rejected by the gang).
(Reportedly, it was “Warner Bros.” who requested Flim-Flam and Scrappy not be in the film; however, both were taken into consideration by writer Tim Sheridan, and Scrappy was ultimately cut from the film due to “not fitting” into the story. So we see here at least one writer who tried to do the right thing, but it’s this monolithic “Warner Bros.” entity that, again, remains against him!) Aside from all this, being one of the things Scrappy is hated for is supposedly “changing the show”, including the real monsters of his second and third seasons, these would-be “purists” go on and undo that also, by making this 13th ghost a standard fake villain, which completely ruins the premise of the Thirteen Ghosts, where they were also real. (In fact, first twelve ghosts were completely undone by being portrayed as hallucinations due to the Himalayan thin air! Even though I haven’t seen it said anywhere, this would likely imply then that Scrappy was another of these hallucinations, and thus never really existed; which I guess would perfectly explain why Velma never heard of him! If so, then now, they’re writing him out of existence!)
So now, what’s basically a belated 50th anniversary special for Scooby, continues trashing him.
Here, the writer of the special, Jonathan Stern, justifies the hatred:
https://www.animationscoop.com/interview-jonathan-stern-on-new-cw-special-scooby-doo-where-are-you-now/
JM: There are several bold, wow moments for Scooby-Doo fans, not just learning the information but there is a moment in this when the characters bring up Scrappy-Doo and I just went, “Whoa!”
JS: (laughs)
JM: Was that a risk? Did you need approval to say what you say about Scrappy-Doo?
JS: Well I certainly needed approval, and I think [the Mystery Machine Gang] actually bad-talked Scrappy-Doo a little bit more in the first draft of the script. And that got noted out. There is enough consensus amongst the many people that I was working with that Scrappy-Doo is not a high point of the Scooby-Doo franchise. I think there’s a lot of comfort level in making Scrappy-Doo the butt of jokes. If you watch the Scrappy-Doo episodes, he’s not nice to Scooby. He’s kind of a d*ck. I feel if you watch it, you feel protective of Scooby and the other characters. Scrappy doesn’t belong here. Stop bothering them! And little things. Why does he have such a more fluid way of speaking English than Scooby? It really undermined… it suddenly made Scooby the dumb one of the partnership. I didn’t like that. Obviously Scrappy has not become a permanent fixture in the Scooby universe. I’m sure there are some Scrappy fans out there. But also every reunion special has its dramatic moments, so we had to find our dramatic moment.
(“Dramatic moment”? It was just another cheap pot shot toward the beginning of the show, that had no further bearing on it! What a ridiculous, lame excuse! Honestly, I thought Scrappy was going to end up possibly being the villain again, once again getting revenge on them for their rejection. But they kind of almost did just that in a roundabout way, by introducing this lady as a disgruntled “sixth member” of the gang, who had been quickly rejected from the initial casting, and she turns out to be the villain getting revenge! —which is exactly what Scrappy was in the movie! All they had to do was have her actually be him in a second disguise, and it would have been identical to the movie setup! I’ll bet it was at least a provision to allow the possibility of making him the villain. Maybe that was one of the additional negative references left out? Or perhaps it was done deliberately to make us think it might be Scrappy again, and that was the “dramatic moment”?)
One thing here is that we finally get more of a rationale of why his speaking normally was such a big deal (which I heard frequently in the old hate comments, and could never understand). “Made Scooby look like the dumb one”. (The group dynamic in the seasons leading up to Scrappy had already done that pretty well).
So we see here Stern claim simply “I didn’t like that.” This must be what the others he alludes to are also feeling. So for that reason, Scrappy must be trashed in this and every other production where he’s mentioned. Screw the fans, even, except for the vocal haters from years ago. There are a lot of things in cartoons, and in life we don’t like. But we don’t go and and get all all murderous, in an effective effigy about them. So why is there such low tolerance among these people of this character?
On Facebook, I posed a question to cartoon aficionado Jerry Beck, who actually appeared in the special and then posted the link to the above interview, and his response was:
Scrappy-Doo hatred is all a matter of when you were born and your lifetime POV of all things Scooby-Doolia. To many of us older folk, the introduction of Scrappy-Doo was a “jump the shark” moment. He’s the fifth or sixth Beatle; the fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh Stooge. An unnecessary addition to a perfect(?) quintet. To those born later on, who grew up with Scrappy as an accepted member of the gang, the character is a bit more accepted. I don’t know for sure, but I assume Scrappy was a character that was added to the show by clueless network higher ups – and they may have gotten away with the character if it weren’t for those meddling network executives. Or something like that.
This has been another claim that was often tossed around. It’s the older viewers, who all hated him from the very beginning, (and we should know, as we were there), but the “clueless” network execs didn’t care and just forced him on us anyway. Of course, there was no internet back then, for people to voice their opinions, like now. So people now can say anything. They likely assume if they didn’t like him, then nobody did. (But this would have eventually leaked out onto some form of the media). They can ride off of the intensity of the hatred that surfaced when the internet finally did arrive, and claim it proved it had been brewing all those years, and it sort of looks like that might be true. The only input the networks had back then was the ratings systems. (And perhaps old fashioned “snail mail”) And they seemed to favor Scrappy, hence, the show being renewed (in one form or another) throughout the bulk of the decade.
Of course, who were these ratings “families”? I didn’t have a box, and didn’t know anyone else anywhere who had one. They seemed like some sort of ghost population “out there” somewhere that you never saw, and changes to TV would be made we didn’t like or understand, and felt were bogus (shows cancelled or changed, etc.). Still, the Scrappy critics are claiming the hatred of him was universal (at least for that whole generation), so unless the ratings families were paid shills for Scrappy, the fact the ratings had improved means that at least some sample of the populaton liked him! (The topic of generations will be further addressed later).
Where did all of this start?
In the late 90’s, I enter the world of the internet and find venues such as the old Usenet, and later on, sites like jumptheshark.com, filled with hostile invective against Scrappy. I thought “they acted like he became real and killed their mothers, or something!” Many imagining the horrible things they wished would be done to him, and some even saying he ruined their childhood. Which is exactly what they were acting like! (So you have to wonder if it’s really even hyperbole or not!)
It was extremely hard to find a Scooby site on the numerous “web-rings” of the day, that spoke well of him. He was apparently deliberately ignored on many of them.
Oh, but wait; there he is, on the bottom of the page, on this ribbon covered with pictures of him. Occasionally, it’s on the top of the page. (That might be a good sign, couldn’t it?) Nothing else is mentioned about him next to it, and it’s not a link to a Scrappy fan webring or site or anything else.
Turns out, it was actually a hate symbol created by one person apparently (a female with a geocities site, IIRC, and I wish I had remembered the name, when it was given somewhere years later), that haters placed on their page to show solidarity in their hatred of him. Shaped like the familiar Breast Cancer Awareness ribbon and others generally associated with death, it must have been wishing his death! What in the world? What other character had such a cult following against him?
This hadn’t spread everywhere yet, as Burger King around this time included him in their Scooby Doo promotional, with a windup version that boxes, like on the cartoon. (Typical of those things, just one wrong pull disables it completely!) In 1999, he was featured on a comic book in the Cartoon Network Presents series, though WB subsidiary DC had already been aiming to stop using him. As late as 2001, The Learning Company produced a series of PC education games, such as “Scooby Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx”, where Scrappy, while not in the story, is in a bottom menu tray for “?” information (this seems to be the “suspects and clues” menu), and also at at the end, tells you (Scott Innes doing the voice) “Who do YOU think the [bad guy] is? Make your selection on the screen!” (This I say is a good use of him, that should satisfy everyone: he’s not in the story, but still a supporting character!) These would probably be the last produced good uses of him.
1998 was a big year for Scooby, as for about four years he had been gradually ascending in popularity and exposure on Cartoon Network which he arrived on fully in 1994. So this was when Scooby Doo on Zombie Island was released, which was the first all new animation and full story of him, and the start of the modern WB-produced era of DTV’s, which has been the main venue for new Scooby productions for these past 23 years (with some new series appearing every few years inbetween). This was also the height of the Scrappy hatred on the aforementioned early internet forums, the main one being Usenet. So the forums were all abuzz about the new movie, and in one discussion, which was likely on alt.tv.cartoonnetwork; someone asked “What ídiots made the decisions to add celebrities, add Scrappy, kill off Velma, Fred and Daphne, and add Flim Flam?”
The response, by a prominent cartoon fan named Jeff Harris, gave me the first articulated glimpse of the full thinking of the “haters”, yet in a very level-headed and informative yet concise synoptic format. (This guy must be an INTP like me, as the Introverted Thinking with tertiary Introverted Sensing really stands out).
Subject: Re: What is your opinion of Movie
11-2-98 4:42 PM Standard Pacific time
Scooby-Doo Where Are You! is the classic show and lasted 25 episodes, one more than Pup and was more mystery oriented. The New Scooby-Doo Movies were 24 hour-long episodes featuring celebrities that had contracts with CBS, which was responsible for the show airing in the first place, and characters that Hanna-Barbera had either created, like Speed Buggy, or had animated rights to, like Batman and Laurel and Hardy. ln 1976, ABC, which Saturday morning programing was ran [sic] by Michael Eisner (I kid you not ), made 24 episodes of Scooby-Doo which was similar in format to the original 1969 series, but didn’t have the edge of that version. Plus, this version introduced Scooby’s extended family. Hanna-Barbera also recreated the look of the original show with 16 new episodes of Scooby-Doo Where Are You! two years later.
ln 1978 [sic], the coffin was nailed shut when Scrappy was introduced in The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show. With a name change like that, and 16 episodes featuring the brat, you should have known that the end was nigh. From 1980 to 1983, 86 Scrappy and Scooby seven-minute shorts were made and ABC wanted them to be paired off with new talent such as Richie Rich and Yabba-Doo. ln order to do that, the show became more comedic straying away from mysteries altogether. Thus, it was ABC who got rid of Freddy, Velma, and Daphne from the show (even before Disney took over ABC, they were ruining shows). ln 1983, The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show not only brought back Daphne , but it also brought back some of the mystery the snow had been lacking for quite awhile. The brat was still there and the show had two 11-minute shorts making up 13 complete episodes. Renamed The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, a year later, the show added 13 more episodes and even featured occasional appearances of both Fred and Velma. The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo was somewhat truer to the original show, but since Fred and Velma wasn’t on the show, and brats such as Scrappy and Flim-Flam hogging the camera, the show just wasn’t the same. Audiences didn’t like it either and the Scooby-Doo franchise was over. For a while at least
ln 1987, Hanna-Barbera started the Superstars 10 moves, in which Scooby Doo, Shaggy, and Scrappy Doo were featured in three of them. The final one, Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf was the final Scooby-Doo featuring Scrappy-Doo. Apparently, the animators wanted to write off Scrappy-Doo, and literally started from scratch, bring back the original cast and de-aged them to be preteens. Now, with Scooby-Doo on Zombie lsland, the animators have completely written off Scrappy-Doo, as if he had never existed. That’s Scooby-Doo in a nutshell.
Of course, within four years of this, they would no longer be “writing Scrappy off as if he never existed”, but on the contrary begin to constantly continue bringing him back up in passing in stories or even outside spoof shows to trash him in one way or another. The culmination being the live action movie, which had me thinking back to this post and saying we were better off with the “as if he never existed” treatment! I figured Harris must have been totally gratified by this, but by that time (with ToonZone replacing Usenet as the main discussion forum for cartoons), he seemed completely silent on Scooby, at least as far as I saw him. After the post, Scooby of course continued blowing up exponentially, with new DTV movies following, a new series, more daily airing slots, many more marathons, “Dog Bowls” with him always the winner, CN promotional spots, and of course, the live action movie. Harris became one of the main voices complaining about so much Scooby all over the place, even [a bit sarcastically] calling CN “The Scooby Doo Network” (himself wanting more anime).
So here, we have an instance of someone who is at best ambivalent about Scooby (e.g. quick to grow tired of him), yet caring about it enough to believe Scrappy ruined it. On jumptheshark.com, some of those wishing the most harm to Scrappy also trashed Scooby as well. They would rant about how the whole Scooby format had “jumped” from the very beginning, and was no good, too repetative; the same old format, etc. and at the end, stick on some even worse thing about Scrappy. (I thought, why do you even care, if you don’t even like the show at all?) Even Mark Evanier who developed the character and wrote a blog about it mentions “I never quite understood the sentiment being voiced so long after Scrappy had done this alleged damage, and coming — as it often seemed — from people who weren’t that wild about the show before Scooby’s little nephew joined the team.”
And the post is full of misinformation, which has characterized Scrappy hatred all the way to the present. To begin with, we have the claim that “new episodes” of the original show “Scooby Doo Where Are You?” were made the year before Scrappy was introduced (1978). This error first appeared in the 90’s in Jeff Lenburg’s Cartoon Encyclopedia, and went on to corrupt even the DVD releases, so now this has been officially canonized; though when you play the DVDs, perhaps eager to see this “Season 3” of the original show, you just get the Scooby Doo Show opening the episodes were syndicated with (which being a scaledown of the “Scooby Doo – Dynomutt Hour” opening, bears no resemblance to the classic Scooby themes), and find episodes whose background music and other elements (including even the gang dynamic, villains, etc.) made it the furthest thing from the original show at the time! This apparently sprang from a programming mistake early in the season, of some episodes reportedly airing in the separate SDWAY slot that accompanied the “Scooby’s Allstars” supershow the episodes were actually made for.
People blame Scrappy for causing Freddy and the girls to “fall to the background”, but it actually already occurred by this season, with Shaggy and Scooby sometimes spending the bulk of the episode sent out alone to encounter the monster and have all the slapstick chase moments, while the others (who practically could have been played by a single character much of the time) usually find all the clues, and have to explain the mystery to Shaggy and Scooby who often don’t even know what’s going on, at the end. (Big example: “Fortress of Fear”. As I say in my synopses, Scrappy might as well have already replaced the others then!) Velma splits up with Shaggy and Scooby only ONCE the whole season (and this in the Warlock of Wimbledon episode which was left out of the 1980 syndicated package, so you didn’t even see that back then!) Her voice and personality had also changed by then, which was a big blow to the feel of the old show.
To someone who grew up with the original show and really cares about the original format, where there was more of a UNITY in the gang, and more fitting music and settings, THIS was the “jump the shark” period; and by the time the new character was added, I was already pretty much gone and it really didn’t matter at all. Many others, also, apparently. It was already a completely different show, though the changes were very subtle, yet added up.
Just keep in mind; THIS was the newest season that was airing, when ABC determined the show had run out of steam, and needed a big change, or else be cancelled! Some of the things that were good about it were gone, and all that was left was what had gotten old.
But this “SDWAY third season” myth has helped foster the illusion that everything was fine with the “original” show, and then Scrappy suddenly appeared in the middle of this and single handedly destroyed it. Continuing from Evanier, “Others seem to view the pre-Scrappy series as animation that compared favorably with Fantasia…but suddenly when this one character was added, it abruptly turned into a Saturday morning cartoon show.”
So this season seems to be generally liked and respected by many of the same people hating Scrappy. Harris says they “recreated the look of the original show”. (Graphics I would say were actually improved, being crisp and clear, but the settings were very different, and often more abroad. You rarely had a good haunted house like the old show). To wit, several of its villains have been revived in the modern movies, such as the tar monster and Iron Face, so the modern writers must have loved that season just as much as seasons 1 and 2!
Next is the “coffin was nailed shut” by Scrappy, and the almost conspiratorial mindet of how future Disney CEO Eisner was “already” ruining shows. This is also echoed by Beck’s “clueless network executives”. But as it later became revealed, and confirmed on Evanier’s blog, it was the RATINGS they were going by, which suffered before Scrappy was added, but then improved after he was added. Execs (animation studio and broadcast network) back then were were doing whatever they could to save the show from cancellation. And it must have worked, for Scrappy to go on for 9 years! They weren’t trolling all these viewers who (supposedly) really hated him the whole time, as people have practically claimed.
If he improved ABC’s ratings, and CN kept airing him, there must have been a fanbase, though relatively silent compared to a possibly small group of very vocal haters who managed to sway popular opinion!
You also have no recognition that Scrappy had changed, and by the time Daphne came back, was no longer a “brat hogging the camera”, but completely mellowed out into what I always considered a “new Freddy”. So from this, I got the sense that the critics had never even watched past the first season, when that assessment of him was more accurate.
Finally, that A Pup Named Scooby was deliberately created to eliminate Scrappy. (Or as someone else put it back then, when Warner Brothers bought out HB, they stopped production on the Scooby series “almost mercifully” for awhile to give it time to recover from Scrappy). Even recently, on the Scooby wikia, someone at some point added to the Scrappy article the claim (completely unsourced) that “Although [Tom] Ruegger had warmed up to the version of Scrappy-Doo he had worked with in the few years before Pup, he was ultimately never that thrilled about him and believed doing Pup would be a chance to redo the franchise without him.” (This since changed to “Tom Ruegger saw it as a chance to do the series over, forgetting Scrappy.”) So now, we have an actual [and fairly familiar from cartoon credits] name of someone introduced! But I then went and asked Ruegger myself, and he said he liked Scrappy; and the obvious point that in A Pup Named Scooby Doo, Scooby was young so Scrappy [naturally] wasn’t born yet. Younger versions of cartoons was the next fad after younger sidekicks, sparked off by the popular “Muppet Babies”. He concluded “I am against Scrappy-bashing and I did not like seeing Scrappy as the villain in that live action movie. No way Scrappy would or could ever go evil. The makers of that film didn’t understand that Scrappy is loyal and heroic and scrappy. Never evil”. I asked if he knew of others back then, (such as other insiders, writers, etc) who didn’t like him, and he said no.
So we see that a lot of total fabrication of facts is involved in this hatred. Yet it’s been put out there as such universal “truth”, and now taken solid hold in the production studio itself!
So it was this well-presented but largely distorted reading of Scooby’s history, and reflecting what seemed to be universal online feeling about Scrappy, that inspired me to write my own “Scooby story” page (to set the record straight before these sentiments became immortalized and canonized in official publications), which I did that year and sat on for about two years (2000), until I realized I could publish my writings myself on AOL’s “members” space. (My immediate response to the post formed the basis of my separate page on Scrappy).
Today’s online climate and a contradictory behind the scenes industry climate
There are now so many differing levels of opinion on him. 20 years ago, the haters were very vocal, and it seemed almost no one ever defended him. Hence, when I did question haters, one of the things they would often say would be “everybody hates him”. It did look like that. But today, things are very different! But the writers seem to be still living in the past. “Generations” is really no excuse. Even if that was the cause of the hatred, the younger generations who like him more are here, and speaking up. Why aren’t the writers listening to them? This Stern guy says “I’m sure there are some Scrappy fans out there…”. Like they are hypothetical fairyland pixies he has never seen any actual signs of. He claims it as a running “joke”, but people who aren’t even fans of Scrappy are saying it’s no longer funny!
But even over the course of the years, certain things didn’t quite add up in the idea of the fans being so negligible.
The first thing I feared upon seeing all this invective in the 90’s was that when WB catches on to all of it, Scrappy will be pulled from the air and never shown again. (A big chunk of Scooby’s career; —an entire third of it in fact at that time, gone!)
Thing is, that NEVER HAPPENED. While completely omitted from all new productions for a time, through all of that those early years, Scrappy remained a familiar part of Cartoon Network, and then Boomerang, and this going past even the live action movie. They even had Scrappy Doo MARATHONS during that whole period! Several of them, for several years! One of the first shots at him on CN itself was the Blair Witch parody —which was the bumper for one of these Scrappy marathons that were apart of the larger Scooby celebration going on! The aforementioned CN promotional around the time of the movie that proclaimed the network “The place for toons”, had him adding “Not for me, man!” [get it?]; but he did remain a prominent fixture in its programming! So, [WB] he’s so hated, yet you’re still taking hours out of your schedule to show him! It was a bit surprising.
(The incarnation of Scooby that disappeared after awhile, and pretty much never aired again until the modern streaming services, was actually the Scooby Doo Show; which, again and ever so ironically, seems to be well liked by the same fans and writers who hate Scrappy!) On the DVD’s, while he was omitted from the cover art on the releases of the three Hanna Barbera Superstar 10 movies, and 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, they still managed (to our astonishment) to eventually release the first season of the Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show, as well as the first season of the Richie Rich-Scooby Doo show (containing the second season short episodes; though with Scrappy again omitted from the cover)!
But if they kept airing him (and even releasing DVD’s), there must have been a fanbase, albeit relatively silent. With these companies, the bottom line is MONEY. They’re not bent on annoying the fans by forcing this character on them even though they all hate him! (As haters seem to think). James Gunn a few years ago identified himself as behind the live action movie reference, but then, even more recently, I’ve seen cited as saying he ended up regretting it, or realizing it was a mistake, due to some sort of backlash. The online comments in the aftermath of its release, rather than being 100% gratified, as you would expect, instead then actually began to turn at that point, with many thinking this was way over the top and ruined the whole movie! This, way back then in ’02! (Yet the sentiment would after then pick up increasingly in new productions, from other writers). I myself saw the movie with a young kid, who as we were leaving the theater, asked in total bewilderment, “why, why?” they made him the villain!
Seeing that Stern mentions needing “approval” to mention him at all, it’s looking now like a difference between WB production, being strictly against him, and WB broadcasting (which is really the old Turner company), being more favorable, at least due to the existence of viewership. So from this combined company, he’s a good enough thing that you can watch his old stuff all day, while they trash him in any new productions, because he was so bad. But all anyone has to do is watch those many airings (now streamed) to see what he was really like for themselves, but these writers seemed to be just repeating assumptions based on very limited watching. Anybody who would say Scrappy was mean to Scooby in the 83-4 series, where he was so busy being Daphne’s cluefinding partner (like Fred and Velma previously were) to have much interaction with Scooby at all, (who was once again paired strictly with Shaggy as the “comedy relief”; —it wasn’t Scrappy who made them look dumb!) just hasn’t watched it. That they would leave him out of the 13th Ghost movie (and only include yet another potshot at him) for that same reason shows they didn’t watch that series either (especially the other way they messed it up, making the ghosts fake).
The live action movie portrayal had even haters saying it’s not funny anymore; and online hatred began cooling off!
Where over 20 years ago, you had all the hate in comments, and nearly every Scooby fan site displayed the hate ribbon and otherwise omitted any mention of Scrappy, today, comments sections (as in the YT videos, below) are very mixed, with still a few saying he’s no good, but more people actually saying they liked him, some even saying they wish he would come back to the show. (I would say to them, we have to reverse this ongoing runaway trend among the writers first, before you can even think of something like that!) You had the “Scooby Apocalypse” comic, which seemed to practically redeem him from the movie-influenced premise of being bad (which looked hopeful to his fans that the tide was turning). The Scooby pages on Facebook include him in their range of post topics, and again, the feelings are generally mixed, and the climate is overall at least “fair” to him.
Picking up on them cutting out more negative talk from this special, it sounds like there must be others higher up in WB who don’t want the negative references either (even if they might not like him). It sounds like Stern is voicing others’ opinions moreso than necessarily his own personal feelings.
So where exactly this is coming from? This is what Evanier basically asked, years ago on his blog series on Scrappy. It’s been like a total mystery in itself (with haters then using it to validate their belief that he’s just universally bad). Since feelings about him are so mixed in the larger fan culture, everybody in WB can’t possibly feel that way. It looks like some small cadre of people who didn’t like him, getting together and just steamrolling their “comfort” at attacking this character over everyone else. “We don’t like him, so NOBODY likes him, and he’s just plain BAD, BAD, BAD!“* (Just like it was 20 years ago, when it was just online and not yet institutionalized into new productions). Even Evanier said “My read is that the folks who don’t like Scrappy are few in number but loud in voice.” Who are these people, and why don’t they just cut it out already?
*(Think, the old rooster describing the bad little chick Foghorn would then babysit).
It’s time they stop getting to control the direction of new productions, regarding Scrappy! Or, they need to start thinking about others’ perspectives sometimes. Who wants to see every momentous occasion becoming a platform for this silly hatred of one one-time (years ago) character (and who wasn’t even bad, really)? Is this even going on (TO THIS EXTENT) in any other franchise?
More on the “generational” perspective: my view
I’m an older viewer too, and grew up with the first four seasons, which were so inspiring, I got up on Saturday mornings and sat through the Patchwork Family (and often earlier stuff like “Channel 2 Eye On”) waiting for it to come on at 8. My mother said she had to make me watch it when it first debuted, which is incredibly hard to believe! (Perhaps because it was more serious looking than the other stuff I watched, like Tennessee Tuxedo?) But soon, I was totally hooked! When it moved from CBS to ABC, the steam started running out, and due to some subtle changes, it just wasn’t the same thing. There were still some interesting ideas, but overall, it was just “blah”.
So by the time Scrappy was added, I was barely following, and it was the same season Fang Puss (from “Fangface”) and Baby Plasticman were added to shows that only debuted the year before, so I saw Scrappy as just another instance of a common current fad to try to add something new to a show, but I myself wasn’t interested, actually. But then as much as I loved the old Scooby, it never occured to me to have any negative feelings like that about this new addition. I remember laughing at him with a friend, at how silly it was of him trying to beat enemies much bigger than him. (I wasn’t thinking of Henery Hawk at that time, who he was based on). But neither we, nor anyone else I saw anywhere took that to hate him. It was just a silly cartoon! (It seemed back at that time that Scooby was a bit out of fashion anyway, and the kids were more into action-adventure, and especially anime. And the most popular “flagship” cartoon stars of Hanna Barbera were still the Flintstones and Yogi and friends, as you can even see in promotional art from that period.
So I admit; it was “not the high point” of the franchise; it was the low point. But it was already at that point for various reasons!)
I watched Scooby into that period, with it all going in one eye and out the other, and not even remembering anything, until it got up to “Hang In There, Scooby” (a few weeks into the second season where it was just a short episode with no mystery or Fred & the girls), when they’re riding the wing of the plane and the passenger with Marilyn Schreffler’s voice (think Olive Oyl on the new Popeyes of the time) says “There’s a man out there!”, and I thought to myself “Why am I forcing myself to watch this? What really does this have to do with the classic Scooby?” So I turned away for good, and then just focused on the old series, which had just entered weekday syndication. (The highlight being the Comedy Movies, which hadn’t been shown since the CBS run. Was so nice to see those again after so many years! THAT was the classic Scooby I was missing, with episodes like Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair and Loch Ness Mess my all time favorites, but now only vaguely remembered! It was also here that the inferiority of the “Scooby Doo Show” seasons really stood out!) Every new season I checked back, and if I only saw Scooby, Scrappy and Shaggy, I quickly turned it off again.
It was actually when they began circling back around to the mystery format, with cool new ideas that I became interested in new Scooby again. At the end of the ’82-3 season, I happened to peek at the show, and caught Beauty Contest Caper, which was a cute semi-mystery/crimefighting story, and even used original ’69 score! This is what won me back, and if that weren’t all; lo the surprise that summer, on a McDonald’s tray liner with a promotional for the new ABC Saturday lineup that hinted “danger prone Daphne” was coming back! (So surprising it was her, when she was almost never paired with Shaggy and Scooby on the old show! Though she was then developed, as not as “danger prone” anymore!) By this time, Scrappy had been totally developed, to the point he became Daphne’s cluefinding partner, sort of like Freddy was.
In 1984, the ’80-1 series were repackaged as “The Scary Scooby Funnies” and played right after the New Scooby Mysteries with a similar new opening, so I at first thought they were new, and watched, falling in love with the earlier, yet already somewhat developed “invincible” Scrappy, and the comedy format. Hang In There Scooby (the only one I remembered from the original run) was apparently not apart of this package (to verify that these were apart of the same series of episodes), and I hadn’t watched long enough to see the much better written later ones, like the fairy tale spoofs, which were prominent in this new show, so they were now truly “new” to me!
As I’ve said elsewhere, it was still the same old Shaggy and Scooby, crying “Zoinks!” and “Yow!” as they always had, but now it no longer pretended to be a classic mystery, and you didn’t have Freddy taking both of the girls, finding all the clues, and constantly criticizing Shaggy and Scooby as they run off and leave them alone to face the most danger, as in those last seasons with them. It was like the chase scenes of the mysteries framed as episodes by themselves, and the chase was apparently the main attraction by then anyway. So as I’ve said, it was a great relief from a format that had become completely worn. (The selection of background music was very nice, as it combined the new 1979 first season score with a lot of revived early 70’s “Pebbles and Bam-Bam” era stock, and even occasionally, a Magilla or Wacky Races era piece thrown in on occasion!)
So I long noted that a lot of the people hating him 20 years ago were slightly younger than me (Harris being my first example; he I believe was born in 1978, and would only have been 1 year old when Scrappy was introduced), as the younger end of Gen. X. It seems some of these modern writers are about that age as well. So they likely didn’t watch Scrappy be added to the show; they grew up seeing the whole run from ’69-88 side by side in syndication or cable, and thus the Scooby Doo Show was “original” after all; so Scrappy stuck out (and to some, the special guests of the Comedy Movies as well, which also were included as a “jumptheshark” point), and then aimed to speak for everyone. (The older members of this generation would have been in their 30’s already when all of these ridiculous internet posts were made, and a bit old for a lot of that stuff. So that’s why it seemed to have been the younger ones doing it. If it really was the older ones, at that age, they needed to ‘grow up‘ [mentally and emotionally, that is] already, rather than holding on to that stuff and then carrying it into the animation industry! When I was a kid, if I got this much into some feeling about a fictional character or story, my parents would say I watched too much TV and needed to come out of the dream world and back into reality! Gunn, for instance called Scrappy, among many other things, “an awful person”. Sounds almost like he forgets this is not a real person!)
The criticisms aren’t even consistent; now they’re criticizing him for things they (often wrongly) claim he does, rather than him simply being added later.
Scrappy himself was cited as saying in the 1999 comic (the end of the period where he could still be found in good uses), that he “get[s] this [i.e. dislike] a lot from these Gen. X guys”. Gunn is my age, while Beck is a decade older (a “Boomer”; though he wasn’t necessarily hating on Scrappy, and I’ve never seen him do it; just explaining this generational viewpoint. BTW, he does love and frequently post on the other “Scrappy”; the black&white one from the 30’s). I can’t find any age/birth date listed for Stern anywhere, but he seems like a later X. Sheridan, now is that “younger” (Millennial) generation, saying the original 13 Ghosts was out when he was young. (While his “couldn’t make Scrappy work with the story I was doing” I don’t quite understand, and sounds like a lame excuse, he did genuinely say he “would have loved” to have redeemed Scrappy the way he redeemed Flim Flam in the story. (You can hear this here). He even speaks of a hopeful “Scrappy Renaissance” someday! (And the host says “it was nice that there was an attempt at Scrappy”!)) So here’s someone in WB who thinks differently from the others, but some higher up(s) were opposing it. But of course, he’s a different generation! The president of WB Animation is Sam Register was born three months before Scooby debuted and thus in my older, cynical generation, so I wonder if he could be the one opposing Scrappy and only allowing negative references. (Though he’s only been in the title for about a year, but was still involved with WB and CN way before that. To be fair; never heard his position on Scrappy, though, but it would likely be someone, along with others, up on that level).
I guess, looking at my generation, other subcultures of it included the “death metal” fans in high school wishing death to disco: —that’s the way they think; if you don’t like something; then death to it; and write this all over the walls and desks!— and so I guess it figures they would grow up, and the new medium of the internet would become the new venue for their extreme feelings, and a few who got involved with the entertainment industry would then create this dark mindset we have seen since we came of age, where Shaggy and Scooby must have been “stoners” like they were (“sex/drugs/rock&roll”, after all), let’s bust up that “too perfect” goody-goody gentleman Freddy and “develop” him into a complete idiot, and those who didn’t like Scrappy would then project all of this evil onto him. But I think this has been completely indulged long enough, and needs to be reined in now!
I have to admit that these members of my own generation here are being very childish with this feeling that the powers that be of our youth were just trying to destroy our childhoods just for the fun of it; like this is all about us (and hence, why hatred toward one of those decisions, Scrappy, would be so deeply and intensely PERSONAL. They’re acting like it is still 1979, and some mean parent took all their toys away or “grounded” them for years and laughed!)
Plus, the uncharacteristic cynicism of modern productions. (Willaim Fischer’s article on the Scrappy hatred objects “I don’t get why Velma, confident and affable in the first series, has since been made a cynical, deadpan nerd with self-esteem issues.”) and utter darkness at times. (Like it wasn’t enough to have Avenger on Harvey Birdman snatch Scrappy away, but then in several further episodes of that show, continue to show his dead corpse!) I usually reject judgments of “generations”; most often by an older one claiming younger ones are more “selfish” or “spoiled” or something like that, but in this case, there has been a point to it!
Where do we go from here?
Some fans are reacting tho this, with even a petition being created. for him!
https://www.change.org/p/warner-brothers-scrappy-doo-deserves-better-reintroduce-the-scooby-doo-character-in-a-positive-way?recruiter=11135209
In addition to this, we must also include the need for writers to stop projecting their own personal feelings about him into their productions, and aiming to speak for everyone. Yes, there is “artistic freedom”, but a fixation like this is more that just that. They’ve had over 20 years for their “jokes”, and it never seems to satisfy them to where they’ve vented their feelings and made their statement, and becomes boring and they move on. They act like Scrappy has been pushed in every production the whole time, and they’re the ones trying to convince their higher ups and the world that he’s no good. Or worse, they act like the series before him was erased and replaced by him, or that he was crudely spliced into every copy of the old show. If you didn’t like him, just skip over those seasons! Don’t force your hatred of him on everyone!
This is some kind of deep psychological issue (it’s called “Shadow projection”; especially when you see a lot of the stuff in that “Capacity to Hate” video, below. Some of this stuff is a bit psychotic, so people must not have been exaggerating when they said Scrappy ruined their childhoods, because that’s exactly how they’re acting! This stuff shows what people might wish to do to real people they don’t like if they thought they could get away with it! Or if not particular writers themslves; whoever they have carelessly allowed to shape their thinking.
Scrappy has been made into a “trope” (“the Scrappy”), or basically “archetype” (ruling pattern) of a later addition to a show that people hate (building upon the earlier “Cousin Oliver”). But he’s obviously having another (more classical) archetype, called the “Demonic Personality” projected onto him; most manifest in Gunn’s “Scrappy Rex” mutation (and one of those early Usenet posts calling him the “demon bastard puppy”!) It’s about ultimate evil, and “undermining” (recall, Stern using that very term regarding Scrappy’s supposed effect on Scooby!) It often accompanies stuff like trauma, and involves feelings of the fear of the destruction of the ego, which is clearly evident, when people accuse Scrappy of ruining their childhood, and then wish sadistic things on him as if he had actually done so. A “projection” is when you see stuff that’s actually inside you, in others on the outside, including fictional characters. “Shadow” is the darkness we don’t like to think is in ourselves, and so usually suppress into our own unconscious, so we only see it in others! That’s why their portrayals of Scrappy, from the live action movie on down, bear no resemblance to the actual character. But they are so sure this was who he was! It’s all stuff inside them, not him, as evident in all the other dark things they have done on some of these cartoon shows. (I on the other hand, project the “Hero” archetype onto Scrappy, because of how he burst in and broke the rut Scooby was in, and challenged bullies who attacked Scooby. I feel many other cartoon characters could have used a sidekick like that, and would have loved to have one or even be one myself in real life. Positive things can be projected as well).
Another example of the projection is that what the critics and haters (including these current writers, apparently) are accusing the TV executives of doing 40 years ago, is exactly what they themselves, the current WB staff, are doing today with Scrappy. Making their decisions not based on the objective factor of the ratings (i.e what the actual fans want), but rather their own basically sick (and ‘clueless’) little agendas. (Modern production being more free than old network TV standards).
But why? Why are they projecting this stuff onto this shortly lived fictional character from decades ago? Something not done with other cartoons; not even the worst villains from them! I even tried asking a Jungian analyst, John Beebe, who discusses these archetypes as appearing in popular movies, and uses them with the common Myers Briggs typology, (also based loosely on Carl Jung), what this is about, but being older, he hasn’t paid much attention to Scooby.
These people really need to look into this, and maybe even see an analyst, instead of forcing their feelings on everyone else, and ignoring different opinion as virtually nonexistent. (We see this, again, with Stern’s statement “I GUESS he has fans…”). You’re supposed to be producing this stuff for US, the fans; not for some therapeutic gratification of some old resentment toward what was really an impersonal industry decision over 40 years ago!
The haters also should realize, this whole thing has the potential to ultimately backfire on them, who wish he never existed. The live action movie and all of these negative references afterward have kept drawing attention to him, and stoking the ire of people who do like him, and of course, also, these “younger viewers” Beck and others mention, who would have started out more neutral, but then notice the disparity between these modern portrayals and his actual appearance on the old show. If they had simply stopped with “Scrappy Stinks” and the Blair Witch spoof, he might have by now been largely forgotten, and perhaps thought of little more than Scooby Dum. As we see now, this is slowly creating a demand, along with blogs, videos and podcasts now discussing the absurdity of the hatred, along with a comic series (that I heard will be produced as a movie) that uses him more positively.
If one day, all these hating writers and producers suddenly find themselves ordered by their bosses; higher up WB execs, to produce something with a good use of him, or even to bring him back permanently, then they will have only themselves to blame. (Hope they enjoyed their good laugh these past 20 years!) The overall media company, while going along with their feelings now, again, is driven by profit, created by demand. And these younger viewers who like him are growing up, and will become more vocal and influential. If they see a demand, they, unlike these lower level people (writers, etc.) will put feelings aside, and no longer care about Scooby “jumping the shark” over 40 years earlier. (Just like they continued airing him all throughout the period of open hatred).
The real casualty in the hatred!
It is just so hypocritical (another example of projection) for the whole issue with Scrappy being that he “changed the show”. The same writers have at times changed the other characters beyond recognition; my prime example being Fred in SDMI. This is the series with the biggest attack after Gunn’s movie, where Fred and Daphne are in a museum showing statues of old partners such as Vincent Van Ghoul and Flim Flam (here’s where it’s revealed he became bad). But then, when they get to Scrappy, Daphne is looking with curiosity, and Fred says “Look away, we promised we’d never speak of him again. Not ever!” (Which isn’t even true, as they HAVE continued speaking of him, nonstop to the present!) Keep in mind, now, all of this is because of the writers not liking him “changing the show”. This same “Freddy” in this series would go on to try to play an eight track tape cartridge on a record turntable! (This tops even anything on A Pup Named Scooby, which is where Fred first became an idiot!) Keep in mind, this was originally the intelligent leader of the gang!
And all this rampant cynicism (starting with Zombie Island, basically). “Protective of the original characters”, are you? “Character development”, right? (The common excuse for Freddy. It’s really character destruction!). So they claim Scrappy was a “d*ck” to Scooby? Look at Skip (toward the whole gang) in last year’s Funky Phantom crossover. And also, really, Velma towards Mudsy. (I believe they similarly screwed up the Magilla/Mr.Peebles underlying relational dynamic as well. Notice, in the typical dehumanizing attitude of the day, how Magilla, [who only grunts and doesn’t talk!], is now an “it”, rather than “he”, to Peebles! Somewhat paralleling Scrappy and Scooby, Magilla may have been a big nuisance to Peebles he wanted to get rid of, but at the end of the day, there was a love there and they were inseparable!)
The original Comedy movies showed that the gang could handle additions well, and it wasn’t a jump the shark moment (especially, being it was liked enough to be revived), as the spirit of the original show was still maintained (and in fact, depthened), so “additions” are no reason for the hate either.
(The other big departure from the original format I thought the modern writers were hypocritical for adding, was the ROMANCE between members of the gang; mainly Fred and Daphne (first joked about in “Bravo Dooby Doo”, which set the stage for the modern generation of Scooby, and it then picked up afterward), and even Shaggy and Velma in Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated! This to me was VERY out of character. In the teenage angst of wanting girls and being frustrated, it was nice to turn to Scooby and be able to forget all of that, and a beautiful and sexy girl was not taken or even pursued by some man (and especially the “perfect” man who was also there, who wasn’t presented as a ‘ladies man’). Both Josie and Funky Phantom had quabbling by an underdog character wanting the sexy other member who always goes with the other “perfect” attractive member of the group in splitups. Scooby had none of that!
I’ve cooled off with that now, because in SDMI, the premise was that they were younger, and tried dating each other (but Shaggy was too attached to his dog to notice Velma, and the stupified Freddy was too in love with the Mystery Machine, or devising traps to notice Daphne), but then settled on just being friends. So the romance seems to have been mostly dropped in subsequent productions
Likewse, as far as “cynicism”, this has affected the DC universe, where the characteristic modern cynicism or darkness actually happens to fit the original comics, where it was TV that made them more ‘lighter’ or, in the words of the modern cynics, ‘campy’. I didn’t like that either; favoring “Superfriends”, but realized they wanted to go back to the comics style of the characters).
All of this changes the character of the show. “He doesn’t belong”! Is THIS what Scooby is about? You can’t look at the gang the same way!
I should further explain that my annoyance about this is not simply about someone bashing a character I like; it’s about how this changes the character of the show itself; i.e. the other characters. It’s no longer merely a “joke” he’s the butt of; it’s no longer an out of control Mystery Machine running over dolls of Scrappy, or even Avenger snatching him [totally different franchise in a spoof show], now they’ve made it totally personal; it’s the gang themselves openly rejecting him, even though this doesn’t reflect how they interacted in the actual show (even if he was “annoying” at times), or even the characters apart from Scrappy (where they all annoyed each other, but still loved each other, and anyone else who joined them). So as I point out in a comment in the article in the link, (in reference to “he doesn’t belong”; “Is THIS what Scooby is about? Is this what it’s come to?” This stuff actually makes it hard to see the gang in the same way. So generation or no generation, the writers are injecting too much of their own feelings into it.
I think the lastest Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry shows finally nailed the spirit of those classic series (save for some of the gore in the former), and these “golden age” franchises are 80 years old now. So it seems like that’s when some future generation stops reimagining characters and tries to restore the original feel of the Hanna Barbera series? So I guess it might be another 30 years before Scooby enters this phase (and the generations who grew up liking Scrappy are the studio executives).
The definitve chronicle on all the hatred:
https://collider.com/why-is-scrappy-doo-hated/ (William Fischer)
A site with several articles, including one discussing my fantasy idea (from my “Facts on Scrappy” page), of a “Nega-canon” that explains the movie portrayals (and correputed portrayals of the rest of the gang as well):
https://www.ranker.com/list/why-people-turned-on-scrappy-doo/donn-saylor
other videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T726ELyvFs4 (Why is Scrappy hated)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AKx5Ajpaew (Brief history)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj2tqs7zhow (Wasted Plotential)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fdQS-rjsnk (Rise and Fall)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhJFr2pjeis (Character Chronicles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm2SZnoUxj8 (“Scooby Addicts” panel discussion)
I’ve long mentioned, including on my Scooby page, an edited out scene from the episode “The Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair” (my favorite in the whole franchise; and the first with Batman) containing a very intellectual sounding discussion between Velma and Batman on the dangers of counterfeiting. I last saw this either in 80’s syndication, or perhaps USA in the 90’s (didn’t watch that channel’s run of Scooby much). In the middle of the decade, when the entire Scooby franchise finally moved to new owner Turner’s Cartoon Network, I noticed this sequence was removed (as well as parts of, it seems every other Scooby Doo Comedy Movie episode). CN was by then airing their new “Cartoon Cartoon” shorts, and seemed to have reserved the last 10 minutes of the hourlong Scooby Movies show, for these new one-off shorts. So I assumed the scenes were cut for that reason. Only thing, when the DVD’s began coming out, The cut scenes were not restored.
The syndicated version had cut some scenes as well. They originally aired in two parts, and a lot of things were being cut in the 80’s, in that age of greed where they wanted more commercial time. CN put these scenes back, but cut others. In my second favorite episode, “Loch Ness Mess” (the second with the Globetrotters), I had remembered Fred later on in the story making a comparison, or essentially telling [Shaggy and Scooby] to choose between “the ghost with the lantern” and the other haunt in the story (which was a sea serpent), but now it was missing. In CN/WB’s copies, that dialogue is back (not sure what else from that episode they cut. Probably something earlier on, as the story now progresses a bit faster than I remember). In “Guess Who’s Knott Coming to Dinner”, the gang now sends Scooby up the fireplace (as a means to escape the trap they were in) right away. I remembered them trying several things looking for a “secret passage” for a long time, before considering the fireplace (as “the last resort”. It turned out to activate an inside secret passage after all). The “Spooky Fog” (the other one with Don Knotts) had the highly unusual splitup where Fred takes Velma to check out a cave they saw, and leaves Daphne with the others, instead of taking Daphne, or both girls. They then return to the sherriff’s office for the others, to go inside the cave. In the current view, it looks like they all go out together the first time. Fred and Velma say they’re going to check it out, but in the next scene, the whole gang is there; but several lines of dialogue among both groups had been cut. In the Cass Elliot episode, you don’t see how Scooby got into the purple goop (taffy) with the others. Though there’s some evidence that scene might have been a blooper all along.
It’s been close to 30 years since the USA run, and these older prints of the show aired, so it’s hard to remember everything!
But I figured someone’s old VHS copy of the show might apparently be our only hope of seeing it again. You can also find the end of part 1 [i.e. “Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the conclusion of…”] audio and titles in other videos as well!)
So in Dynamic Scooby Doo Affair, I don’t remember what was missing from the syndicated version that was put back by Turner. People have been mentioning another cut scene, taking place in the funhouse, and I do remember there being more to that sequence (around the time the gang enters and first splits up, IIRC). Perhaps, that was what syndication removed, and Turner didn’t restore it? This one hasn’t turned up, or been posted yet.
So in this scene, the cut was made so cleanly, it was hard to tell where exacly it was made. After everyone has gone through the rotating house into the underground cavern where they follow the hooded man, they find a trap door leading to a toy warehouse. Batman climbs up first, then pulls up the others, and they then begin searching the warehouse. It looks like they simply cut from Bat logo to Bat logo (which is used for scene changes, just like it was in the original Batman show). So he pulls them up first, then begins the cut scene, and it picks up where he tells them to follow him, “…and above all, be quiet”. (Before, I wasn’t sure whether the cut scene was before him pulling them up, or after).
Robin: “Holy jumping jacks!”
Velma: “Look it’s a warehouse full of toys”
Batman: “And it’s my guess the criminal intends to toy with us! Well two can play at these games!
Shaggy: “Hey, like where’s Scooby?
[Scooby is growling off screen]
Shaggy: “Wow I think Scooby cornered the bad guy !”
[He’s actually getting ready to fight some more punch clowns, not learning his lesson from the one in the beginning, in the farmhouse]
Shaggy: “Come on Scoob like quit fooling around!”
Batman: “Obviously the phony money is shipped from this warehouse inside those clowns”!
Velma: “If we don’t stop him from flooding the money market with crooked cash, it’ll undermine our national economy!”
Batman: “Yes kids for the sake of our country’s financial system we must catch this criminal here and now!”
Shaggy: “I just love that kind of talk!”
(Bold is what I clearly remembered. I wasn’t sure of what Batman said it was “for the sake of”, and for some reason thought it was something “global”, which if you think of it sounds silly. Also, ironic how Shaggy says he loves that kind of talk! Didn’t remember that, or the earlier exchange, which shows how they came to realize that this was where the phony money was coming from).
The video has been up for almost a year. I was at that point still too enthralled with the sudden turnup of FRSC [see last entry]; in addition to COVID, of course, to be looking for this!)
Hope more of these turn up; AND that they are added to WB’s masters and released on future media!
This past month, someone on the Cartoon Research FB group posted the “Evolution of Sylvester & Tweety” video by a YouTuber named Dave Down Under. Right in the middle of it, when discussing the period when Bob Clampett left the studio, it actually shows a portion of a storyboard for his version of Sylvester and Tweety, which was said to be “recently uncovered”.
I first heard about this way back in Jerry Beck’s I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety, on p45 where he says “When Clampett left Warner Bros. in 1946, he was working on Tweety’s next film, pairing him with the cat (later named Sylvester…)”. p.38, he mentions a size comparison chart drawn by Clampett unit layout artist Tom McKimson that was the first sketch to show them as a pair. Lenburg’s Cartoon Encyclopedia p.140 also mentions that a “preliminary story” had been done by Clampett, but I didn’t know if that meant simply written out (text), or a storyboard. So here now, we get six panels of an actual storyboard! And we also even get a title: “FAT RAT AND THE STUPID CAT”!
At the time I first read these books, I was just getting married, and we didn’t have cable yet, but reading this and the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies guide the Sylvester & Tweety book was scaled down from, was becoming more interested in the “pre-48” Looney tunes, which were never shown on the network TV shows I was familiar with, but by this time were strictly on Turner cable, including the brand new Cartoon Network, and which I was awaiting.
I had vaguely remembered the pre-48’s from syndication on ch.5, which I would generally be forced to watch whenever me and my ENTJ cousin were in the same house. So I saw the early Bugs, and the early Elmer, including him being fat at times, etc. Pepe Le Pew actually pursued a disguised female dog once! (I didn’t remember his first film, where it was a male cat in disguise!) There were many things in the early years that were so different from the popular later stuff. I remember Bugs and Yosemite drawing higher numbered “shooters” on each other, until Bug pelts him in the nose with a “pea shooter”. They also had some post-48’s mixed in, such as the obvious title idea “Hare Brush”, the one where Elmer is in a psych ward pretending to be a rabbit and switches places with Bugs to avoid going to Alcatraz for tax evasion, and the one with Baby Faced Finster (Baby Buggy Bunny), and several with Bugs and Daffy competing on TV shows. (Their “Tea for Two” tapdance from “Show Biz Bugs” was cleverly used as the opening sequence. Sort of paralleled the network “This is It” opening).
But a certain batch of post-48’s were always kept on the CBS or ABC Saturday morning shows, and these included the big Oscar winners, such as Sylvester and Tweety, and the later Bugs vs Yosemite Sam series. (Director Friz Freleng grew tired of Elmer, and wanted a stronger character to go against Bugs, so Elmer eventually fell by the wayside). It was these that I took notice of in the late 70’s (when it was the huge 90 minute “Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show” on CBS).
Very dialogue-oriented compared to the Tom & Jerry’s I had become a huge fan of, there was a lot of verbal ingenuity, and I was fascinated by the Rabbit Fire trilogy (where Bugs and Daffy try to use verbal or visual schemes to get Elmer to shoot each other), or Foghorn trying to talk his way out of being eaten by the chickenhawk or weasel and send them after the dog instead, or struggle to understand the brainy little chick who writes out the math formula for every impossible thing he does. (I remember him once explaining to the weasel. “I could have told you, to get at those chickens, you have to get rid of that dog”. I wished there had been someone to explain that to Tom sometimes, when Jerry would be using Spike as refuge!)
“Windblown Hare” cleverly fuses the story of “The Three Little Pigs” with “Little Red Riding Hood” and the wolf, common to both stories (and rather Sylvester–like, in this one), has to read the books to know how to play out his roles, as Bugs Bunny gets caught up in one story and changes it to the other.
The Oscar-winning “Birds Anonymous” (where Sylvester goes on a 12 step program to avoid eating Tweety), and the similar “Last Hungry Cat” (where he thinks he’s eaten him, and is plagued by his conscience, stoked by the Hitchcock-esque narrator) were truly ingenious! (In this last one, he passionately pleads “Other cats have eaten birds; why pick on me? Why, Why?!”) In another film, yet another “Lennie” (Of Mice and Men) caricature explains his inaccurate addressing: “But I can’t say ‘Sylvester’, George!” And when his son accuses him of being “inhuman” for devising a plot to catch a bird; “Of course I’m not human! I’m a cat! And cats catch birds!” (Not to mention all the times he’s said “I’m a cat— I think. Meow! Yep, I’m a cat”!)
But as I discuss here: https://erictb.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/when-does-one-root-for-the-good-guys-or-the-bad-guys/ the series overall, aside from these moments of brilliancy had fallen into a bit of a rut, as nearly everything had become patterned after the Sylvester and Tweety or Coyote and Roadrunner chase. The former winning the studio its very first Oscar, that became the winning formula. WB cartoons were then dominated by specific repetative premise series (like Hippety Hopper being mistaken for a mouse, Pepe LePew thinking a cat is a skunk, etc.) most of which followed these formulas (and increasingly with hard “win/lose” endings, rather than more funny neutral punchlines like earlier on), to the point that even Daffy ultimately became a Sylvester or Coyote-like stooge to Bugs!
So (the point I’m getting to), it was interesting to see that Tweety had a life before Sylvester (once they were paired, Sylvester was determined to be the only other character Tweety could work with for some reason —even though he didn’t talk in the first cartoon, and could have been played by any cat).
The different animation units and the origin of the duo
Each director tended to have their own characters, except for the biggest, oldest stars: Bugs, Elmer, Daffy and Porky, who were used routinely by all of them. So Sylvester was by Friz Freleng, and Tweety was by Bob Clampett. The styles of these directors were very different. The early 40’s were Clampett’s heyday (and Tex Avery, when he was there, earlier on), and both had very “wacky” stories and animation, while Freleng’s older stuff tended to be more dry and lame (his high point back then was “Red Riding Rabbit” and “Rhapsody in Rivets”, but most of the rest of it is forgettable).
In the middle of the decade, Clampett suddenly left the studio, along with Avery’s eventual replacement, Frank Tashlin, and at the same time, both Freleng and the similar Chuck Jones and new upstart Bob McKimson began cranking out a new generation of characters who would become mainstays to the present: Pepe, Sylvester, Yosemite, Foghorn, and eventually Marvin Martian and the Roadrunner; some of which were being noticed by the Academy, including Sylvester, whose debut, “Life With Feathers” was nominated. (A fourth director, Art Davis, took over Clampett’s Goofy Gophers debut film. Freleng and Jones also began improving their story ideas, such as “Baseball Bugs”, etc.).
Sylvester obviously had a very distinct character; sort of a feline Daffy, the voice and lisp being the same, but not sped up. Daffy himself then even quickly adopted the new character’s very first line: “Sufferin’ succotash!”
The other directors quickly became interested in him as well, starting with Clampett himself, who at the end of his run at the studio, decided to use him (still unnamed all this time) against Porky, instead of Tweety, who was in between films at the time. (He did make a very brief cameo appearance on the baby assemblyline of “Baby Bottleneck”, which was Clampett’s last animated use of him. Also, directors had to get permission to use another director’s creation who wasn’t already big enough like the aforementioned top four).
Tweety had begun against a feline version of “Babbit and Catstello” (I didn’t remember this version of them; I only remembered the two later films where they had become mice!) Next was just a single black cat, similar to Sylvester, but more dopey. And finally, the same cat, redrawn yellow, and with this wacky looking red cat added, who’s patterned after Jimmy Durante. Originally drawn on model sheets more simple, by the time the film was animated, they gave him this crazy eggplant-like “Humpty nose” (think “Humpty Dance”, which was big around the time I got this book), and a weird looking mouth and teeth. (I kept thinking “You look like Screwy Squirrel on crack, Humpty!“)
Seeing that Durante cat is part of what begged the question of what Clampett would come up with ‘next’ after that!
So Clampett must have liked Freleng’s cat so much, he then decided to quickly use him again, as Tweety’s next opponent.
You could even see where Clampett had already modified his cat design around him! Right after the Porky film, “Kitty Kornered”, came the Daffy solo classic “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery”, where one of the “Duck Twacy” villains is “Pussycat Puss”, who looks like a yellow Sylvester, even taking on the [Freleng-esque] characteristic side scruffs and the bigger snout and nose! Previously, Clampett’s cat characters had shorter snouts and pretty much round bulbous heads with jowls (instead of scruffs), like the rest of his characters; all of which seemed to be framed on that baby picture of himself (See I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat p.40) that Tweety was patterned after. (They all basically had this “Tweety” look. The main exception being the Durante cat [aka “Colonel”], because of the redrawn nose taking prominence. I may have vaguely remembered one of those last two films, as they use the same piece of animation, when the other cat [“Snooks”] first eyes Tweety sleeping in the nest, with the huge head and eyes that bulge out at him. It looked very familiar).
But then as Clampett started work on this project, that was when he left the studio (due to some sort of conflict with the difficult to work with producer, Eddie Selzer, who had taken over after Leon Schlesinger left).
So Freleng decided to pick up the project, but instead of completing the story that had been drawn, he simply took the rights to Tweety (which now became exclusively his), and used him to replace another character in a project he was already working on.
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Sylvester’s first film was about a lovebird who wants to die because of his nasty wife. So reverse of the future cat and bird chase premise, it was about him wanting Sylvester to eat him, but Sylvester being suspicious (“There’s something phony about you! Ya didn’t even try to escape from me! Ya just stood there! You’re probably poisoned! Yeah! You only want me to eat you, so I’ll die! Well I’m not falling for it!”).
He within a year did a second film “Peck Up Your Troubles”, that was truer to the later form, where Sylvester chases a bird, this time a woodpecker, and keeps annoying a bulldog that gets in his way, sometimes protecting the bird.
It was this film he was doing a “followup” to, and then decided to replace the woodpecker with Tweety. Right before Freleng died, I was still working the courts, and one day after work, had wandered over to Chatham Square for some reason, and the former (1870’s) New Bowery Hotel tenement had a small magazine store on St. James Pl. and I was probably looking for a snack or something, and went in and saw an animation magazine where Freleng was being interviewed, and this being around ’95, this whole mystique of “Clampett’s next Tweety film” still fresh in my mind, read it to see what further light it would shed.
That’s where I read that when he took over the project and merged it with his own, he told either his unit or Selzer that they “might as well stick Tweety in there”, but Selzer kept opposing it, wanting him to use the woodpecker. (He probably really did not like Clampett, and wanted to see anything associated with him retired and forgotten!) It mentioned the incident of Freleng slamming the pencil down on his desk and saying “well finish it yourself!”; Selzer gave in, and yet then was all too glad to receive the Oscar for the finished product, “Tweetie Pie” when it won!
I wish I could find that magazine, to provide the source, to be added on sites like Wikipedia and elsewhere. (Edit: It was likely Animato! #32 which lists a feature on Freleng on the cover, which was probably what drew me to it in the first place, and this was from the Spring, before he died, and thus not about that subject). Many people aren’t aware of this woodpecker project, and that Tweetie Pie was based on it, and not on Clampett’s story.
It seems all Freleng used from the Clampett project was apparently the layout, and now with the long lost original credits to the “Blue-Ribboned” Tweetie Pie also recently surfacing, the layout credit still goes to the Freleng unit’s Hawley Pratt. He probably took it, to get the basic idea, and just redrew it in his own unit’s style. (Tweety’s Freleng design is notably “sweeter” looking and even a bit more feminine presenting, especially the smile, which apparently had led to questions about his gender at times. His “Tiny Toons” younger counterpart, “Sweetie Bird” was made a female!)
You can easily visualize the woodpecker in Tweety’s place, like in the opening, outside next to the cigar, and then the lady of the house takes him in, and it would make sense that when Sylvester piled up the wooden furniture to reach him, the woodpecker would peck it, instead of Tweety having to saw it. Since in the first woodpecker cartoon, neither character spoke (Sylvester uses signs, like the Coyote would do later!), this explains why Sylvester doesn’t speak, but they had to make Tweety speak, to stay in character, but the lines are not really integral to the story.
(He was in this film oddly named “Thomas”! What were they thinking? Were they pretending MGM didn’t exist, like at the very same time having Bugs Bunny go against a mouse in a “Hungarian Rhspsody #2” performance?! He was first addressed as “Sylvester” by Porky a year later in “Scaredy Cat” which was Jones’ first use of him).
Imagining what this story would have been like
Clampett’s Sylvester, from Kitty Kornered, seemed like a smart leader. I had always vaguely remembered one where he stood up and gave a speech to other cats, on how to deal with the threat at hand. (The frame of this shown in the book always reminded me of that famous picture of Malcolm X giving the speech, with his pointing hand similarly raised). When the youngest kitten twice says something stupid, he backslaps him (“Sssmack!“) What a far cry from the later Tweety-pursuer who would helplessly allow dogs and other characters to slap or punch him around, if not worse! (Sylvester’s mix of toughness and weakness is likely what made me identify with him, and thus why I’m so into this).
So I always wondered how this would translate to the Tweety chase, since all of his earlier pursuers were either dumb, or a smart leader with a dumb sidekick who screws things up, and of course once Sylvester was paired with Tweety under Freleng, he became largely a hapless passive/aggressive losing wimp also. This still could have happened now (just like he had a strong personality in his debut, but instantly took on the wimpy role in the second film), but since Clampett had only one use of him at the time, you don’t really get a sense of the full range of roles he would have done with him. (He does parallel Colonel, even down to the “And furthermore…!” I also imagine he wouldn’t have been allowed to “kill off” Freleng’s new character, as had basically been done with the cats in the last two films, and so you expect it to have a different kind of ending! Everything about this is so intriguing!)
Kitty Kornered was an extremely rare role for Sylvester, as the pursuee rather than pursuer, and thus as the winner, as the pursuees often are in these cartoons. He technically had a similar role in Life With Feathers, though it played upon him being the natural predator, and concluded with him resuming that role. Otherwise, both Freleng and McKimson kept him largely as an antagonist, or in other ways, a helpless loser (only Jones had completely different kinds of roles for him, mostly as timid companion to Porky, but had only used him in about four films).
He appears as heckling pursuee again in Freleng’s “Back Alley Uproar”, against Elmer (so unusual seeing him coming with his hunter’s rifle against Sylvester!) but this was actually a remake of an earlier black&white Looney Tune feauring a generic cat against Porky. (Even though he ends up losing all of his nine lives, he still has the final hurrah, as one of the lives swipes Elmer’s halo, since he had died also, and is yet still plagued by the cat’s singing!) There’s also Davis’ “Doggone Cats” and McKimson’s “Crowing Pains” (though he’s a dumb sidekick in the former, and still loses in the latter).
This is an illustration of what I pointed out above, that earlier stories had more of a variety of plots and roles, but fell into more formulaic patterns later on. Sylvester was technically pursuee in some later Freleng films, such as the two with Chester and Spike/Alfie, the little girl who prefigures Elmyra (“A Kiddie’s Kitty”), and “Pappy’s Puppy” (essentially Sylvester’s entry in Freleng’s “Wentworth” premise, except that he was not marrying into the role of mother’s babysitter for money; it was the father who just came after him for that purpose), but he’s clearly not on top of things in these.
So again, it’s hard to tell where exactly Clampett would have gone with Sylvester. But for now, it’s hard to tell if he’s dumb or not in this one. He asks the snoring Tweety, in the cage “Are you sleeping?”, and then Tweety responds “Shhh!” So possibly. (Though he still doesn’t otherwise look particularly stupid there. But we see he does talk in this one. It seems he was putting on some kind of “act” in the story, that he hoped would impress Tweety somehow, but apparently only puts him to sleep. Come to think of it, wouldn’t that be better, to be easy to catch him, if he’s asleep? So you have to wonder is it even a regular chase premise then?)
But then the next question is, if he’s the “stupid cat”, then who’s the “fat rat”? Even though the six panels so far only show Sylvester and Tweety, I’m thinking there must be another character in the story, who could be a literal rat, but could also be any kind of character, like perhaps even another bird, who betrays Tweety in the chase. So the title seems to be portraying Tweety (the star of the Clampett series) against both foes, which would match the three films before that: “Tale of Two Kitties”, “Birdy and the Beast”, “Gruesome Twosome” . (I had always wondered what the next title after this would be!)
And that title would have perfectly fit the premise of Davis’ contemporary film “Catch as Cats Can” (which I had long eyed as possibly where the Clampett story might have went to), featuring an altered personality Sylvester with a pair of birds patterned after Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby (with Crosby as the underdog against the more suave Sinatra). So the jealous Crosby parrot would be the “fat rat” sending the “stupid cat” (Sylvester, as he was made in this story) after fellow pet bird, the Sinatra canary.
Davis had come out of the Tashlin unit and taken over the Clampett unit, and finished some of his other projects. He apparently liked the whole “Sinatra vs Crosby” premise, as he (under his former unit) had animated “Swooner Crooner”, where the singers are portrayed as roosters who compete to make Porky’s farm hens lay the most eggs, purely by their “crooning”.
So the canary’s violent self-defenses always reminded me of Clampett’s Tweety, and looked to me like what “the next Tweety film” could have been like. So in the Tweety story, it could even be a parrot who’s not Crosby, but keeps giving Tweety away, by saying “he’s in there, he’s in there”, or something. (Like on “Buccaneer Bunny”, which Boomerang has been playing a lot). Davis would have then taken the parrot and canary premise, and framed them as Crosby vs Sinatra. Perhaps it was this other character telling Sylvester to get close to Tweety by trying to impress him.
From the six panels shown so far, there’s no conclusive evidence of any of this. Only the title points to more in the story that might point that way. (I also have to consider the remote possibilty that the “fat rat” could be Tweety himself; perhaps ratting on Sylvester trying to catch him, as he would do in Tweetie Pie and most stories after!) Hopefully, the rest of the story will become visible at some time, and we’ll see!
Sylvester displays big Clampettesque “Kool-Aid smile”
Clampett completing this would have changed history. For one, this film likely wouldn’t have won the Oscar. (None of Clampett’s stuff was ever even nominated. Probably because a cynical Selzer didn’t care to submit any of his stuff to the Academy; while most of the nominees and other winners were by Freleng! Clampett would ironically do a film where Bugs crashes the Oscar ceremony, demanding the award!)
Since they liked “Tweetie Pie” so much, then I could see “Woodie Pie” [jk]* still winning, assuming it was exactly the same, minus the bird’s speaking lines. Not sure if that would have made the difference, though. *(I believe it would have probably ended up titled “A Peck Of Trouble”, which was a few years later taken by McKimson, when he paired the same woodpecker with his own cat).
If it had won, then Sylvester’s permanent partner would have possibly been this woodpecker. Not sure where Clampett would have gone with Tweety after that, or of course, he could have still left, and then’s the question whether Tweety would have just fallen by the wayside, or could have still been picked up by Freleng, but I wonder if without the initial Oscar, the series would have had the same momentum (they didn’t win another one until much later).
One of the first things that always comes up in my thinking of counterfactual timelines, is what would have happened if Clampett had stayed! (He would continue to be to WB, what Avery by then was to MGM; the genius animator who kept the other directors on their toes! The other big curiosity similar to this, is if Stevie Wonder had stayed with engineers Margouleff and Cecil, and produced a followup to Fulfillingness First Finale, instead of Songs in the Key to Life. John Swenson’s biography mentions that “what exactly would follow FFF” was a “burning question” to the music industry! Several songs or clips from that project have been leaking out online for several years).
And what would the animation look like?
The final question is what would the final animated sequences have been like? Obviously, nothing like “Tweetie Pie”. Tweetie Pie is similar in flow to it’s predecessor Peck Up Your Trouble, which is nothing like the last Clampett Sylvester or Tweety films. That final year, Clampett had stepped up the wackiness, adding exaggerated angular perspective (obvious in Baby Bottleneck, Kitty Kornered and Great Piggy Bank Robbery), characters turning liquid to get out of tight spots, etc. Like Avery, he had very wild “double-takes”, with the huge eyes popping out, etc. In Baby Bottleneck, Daffy is running on a conveyor belt, and one of his legs had been stretched out, and he still runs with it (on the floor) and the normal sized one (on the belt) at the same time. He pulls the leg back to normal size with one of the feathers on the top of his head.
The final film, “The Big Snooze” has Bugs heckle Elmer through a surreal dream world. The highlight of Kitty Kornered is the alien costumes the cats wear, to scare off Porky. Then, a Teddy Roosevelt charge up the stairs! Before that was the sequence of Porky scaring the cats (with those wild double take reactions) and chasing Sylvester through the house, pulling him and a whole family of mice out of their hole, and then pulling him off a moose head, with the whole live moose then breaking out and galloping away. Before he entered the mouse hole, he started running up the wall above it, does a sharp take, and then does this 360° loop curl into the hole. (It’s fascinating to stop the video and see individual frames!) When giving the speech, he’s slobbering all over one of the others, who then has to duck (pull his head into his body) when Sylvester belts out the word “boot”. Freleng’s work, was in contrast, again, very straight laced.
It seems Clampett’s bird chase stories were a bit less like his other stuff than these stories, but still had their moments of wackiness. Birdy and the Beast has the cat stop his wild feline stalk for a moment to humanly tiptoe, showing a goofy face. Then, he’s climbing the tree, whose trunk curves away for a bit, but he continues climbing straight. Then you have the flying with his arms gag, and him only realizing he can’t fly when Tweety points it out to him. Then, displaying the eggs in his mouth like teeth until Tweety smashes them. And Tweety shouting “BOOM!” at the top of his lungs when recounting how the cat cashed to the ground. These aren’t too difficult to imagine for any character or director. But Gruesome Twosome gets a little wackier, with the “Colonel” design. It starts out like it wasn’t a Tweety story at all, but about the cats, competing for a girl, with Tweety simply added in as the bird they have to catch to win her affections. The theme of this one is the violence, with Snooks repeatedly clobbering Colonel, who then repeatedly pumps him full of bullets. You then see the liquid effect when Colonel tricks him into crashing into a washtub. (Also repeated is Tweety’s loud “BOOM”) The final gag is them trying to sneak up on him in this crude floppy horse costume.
We don’t see anything in this storyboard that compares to this. It looks like it would be not too different from Freleng’s stories. But then a storyboard doesn’t have all of these details, which are probably added in the actual translation to animation. (The book shows part of a storyboard for Birdy and the Beast, and you don’t see all the gag details).
So it’s really hard to know what this would have looked like, being a late Clampett product that would follow characteristically totally wacky films like The Big Snooze and Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
What we see in the current portion
It shows Sylvester with the same basic design as in Kitty Kornered. (The first panel shown is totally weird looking though! Like a cross between him and “Birdy and the Beast” in the beginning, where Snooks momentarily tiptoes with this goofy look on his face; but this one looks goofy and devious at the same time). Included is the frame of [the for the first time, caged] Tweety’s “I thot I saw [sic] a putty tat!”, referring to Sylvester for the very first time! There’s also a scene of an encounter on the floor, away from the cage, and Tweety (flying in from somewhere else and landing before Sylvester, who looks ready to pounce) says “So, here I am, Mithter Putty Tat”, and Sylvester responds “Yesss, yess, so I s-s-see, so I s-s–see…”. Again, hard to make out where exactly this is going, or what the whole context even is. This looks very different from the previous three Tweety films, which were simple cat chases bird plots. (It’s reminding me of “Snow Business”, where they’ve actually been getting along as pets, but are snowed in with no cat food, so Tweety never even catches on that the “games” Sylvester is playing with him, are to try to eat him! Funny, as that one also has a mouse, who’s so hungry, he’s actually trying to eat Sylvester! Wonder if there may be any connection of this to this story!)
Kitty Kornered was notable for changing his red nose to black, and giving him yellow eyes. (Like Tom. That was the only time he ever appeared like this. All the other directors kept the original coloring). Another cat, who looks like a “deflated” version of the one from Birdy and the Beast (he even escapes by flowing down the drain as a liquid), now has the red nose. The other two are colored like Sylvester, and are very short, and having different shaped heads, though not too different from Sylvester.
So on this storyboard, since it’s in black & white pencil, it’s hard to tell what the coloring would be, but it seems to still be a completely dark nose. (Something red would usually translate to a lighter gray). The distinguishing feature of the Clampett interpretation of the character is the long, exaggeratedly dumbbell shaped snout, with the big round nose sticking straight up. Freleng’s design was more compact than that.
Bob McKimson was the next director to borrow Sylvester, against his new Foghorn character (and with Henery and the dog), oddly enough, (and very quickly afterward, starting his own Sylvester series, with Hippity Hopper), and his early Sylvester generally had the stronger character as well. McKimson had been the Clampett unit’s main animator in the days of the Tweety films, but then was promoted to take over Tashlin’s unit. So in some respects his stuff bears some resemblance to Clampett at times (as does Davis; and then some other early stuff of theirs resembles Tashlin as well). McKimson also added some wacky animation at times, like Sylvester’s dramatic reaction to the egg Henery was hiding in, and then going crazy and pulling his head in and out of his body using his tail.
But while the Sylvester of “Crowing Pains” (and the early Hippety Hopper films; like the sketch of him from “Hop, Look and Listen” that appears in Putty Tat p.95) does have a similar scruffy snout design as Clampett, and mouth animation is very similar (and the ridiculous slobbering), the main visual difference between the two directors was the upper head. Where Clampett’s big heads would have big eyes, with big pupils (that “baby look” again), McKimson’s heads (above the mouth/nose/jaw line) and thus the eyes, were very notably small (and often, with very heavy eyebrows). In fact, that became his characteristic look for talking characters. You would see a big mouth, with all the teeth shown prominently, but the head and eyes above it would be tiny. (I think of “Hare We Go”, where Christopher Columbus says he prefers “WHITE!” meat, or Elmer, in “Easter Yeggs” saying “I’ll catch that Easter Bunny if it’s the WAST thing I do!”, or his very first directed film, “Daffy Doodles”, where Porky says “I HATE that d-d-duck!” While the mouths appear to be Clampett holdovers, the eyes often look like remaining Tashlin influence).
So no go, in looking at early McKimson products to get a sense of what this would have been like!
Successors to Clampett? Art Davis and Bob McKimson offer similar styles (Catch as Cats Can, and Crowing Pains)
Should also mention that Tweety looks different than the earlier storyboards; like more compact, and as the video points out, it seems he’s now become a feathered canary. Though Beck’s book says “Gruesome Twosome” is where he became a “yellow feathered canary”, and the frames shown in the book look like it, but watching the actual film, he still looked more flesh-colored like before. (I remember I couldn’t wait to catch the films on TV, and so rented the old Turner [pre-48] Sylvester & Tweety VHS, only to have my new bride flip, “A pink Tweety?”) So Freleng’s design is usually credited for that.
He’s also clearly become domestic (as he did for the first time in “Tweetie Pie”, though he started out wild in that one), and the video mentions Clampett being accused of “falsely” taking credit for things like this.
I asked Dave where he got it from, and he linked me to this auction site. “110” in parentheses appears to be the number of pages or plates! It started at $6000-8000! Don’t know who bought it, but I hope it’s a library or museum that makes good use of it! Wonder if with this new retro-themed Looney Tunes production going on and set to debut soon, if it would be possible to hand it over to them and let them finally animate it, after these 74 years!
This looks very interesting, and is a significant find!
https://profilesinhistory.com/flipbooks/A116Animation/mobile/index.html?#p=12
Haque, a Medium writer is a another powerful writer on a level with Tim Wise, especially, and Robert Reich, on economics and race. He really shows the detrimental effects of “pure” capitalism, and also discusses “Anglo” civilization. (and the two are indelibly intertwined, as “capitalism” is the primary means the Anglos try to dominant the world through, with colonialism and slavery as simply an earlier means of accomplishing that, and now, conquest dome directly through economics, and thus made to look like the subjects are really “free”.
I had been tacking his articles to other threads (mostly the Reich review), but knew all along, he deserves his own thread. So here is what’s being untacked from Reich (and there are still other comments in other pertinent threads, such as “the Political Spectrum is really 3D” and “Iceman Inheritance”).
How Capitalism Convinced Americans the Only Things That Matters is Capitalism
Why Americans Put the Success of Capitalism Above Their Own Lives Falling Apart
And yet the average American was not just left uneducated about this — he was conditioned against it. He was only told one economic principle, over and over again — the very one he is still told today: his living standards are not the economy, only capitalists increasing their capital is the economy, and therefore, as long as capitalism is succeeding, the economy is roaring, and everything is fine. But note the implication of this logic. If what it takes for “the economy”, which is really capitalism, to go on increasing its capital, is to chew through his life — his savings, his income, his home, his retirement, his opportunity, town, city, community, future — then that is perfectly justified, right, and acceptable. He should celebrate it — because the economy is booming!! That boom will one day shower him with fortune, too.
Do you see the weird, backwards, illogic? It’s something like a bribe. Capitalism promises the proles the glittering rewards that capitalists win — but it has no intention of ever giving it to him. It makes that promise by dazzling him with the idea that the economy is just capitalism — not his daily bread, and that if he needs to give up his daily bread to capitalism, today then he should do it, and that is a small price to pay, because one day, capitalism will make a baron and tycoon of him — it will make a king of everyone, after all.
Should point out the blame of liberal social policies for the proles’ hardships. I.e. that it would be working as designed, if only the liberals weren’t giving all the money to undeserving minorities and others.
How Capitalism Cost Americans Their Dignity
Why Dignity is the Highest Kind of Freedom
https://eand.co/how-capitalism-cost-america-dignity-5df15cef18a6
Why the World is Giving Up on Freedom
Or, Why Neoliberalism is Ending in Authoritarianism Rising Around the Globe Again
https://eand.co/why-is-the-world-giving-up-on-freedom-e50a9bec5303
But it’s one thing for everyone’s incomes to flatline — and quite another for the rich to grow super-rich, while the average stagnates. The second great cost of neoliberalism was inequality. It wasn’t just that incomes got stuck — it was that rich grew fantastically, absurdly, grotesquely richer. That meant that a predatory economy had emerged. Growth was being siphoned off by the rich from the average — unless you believe that teacher, engineer, or doctor contributes nothing to a society’s prosperity. The rich were getting richer by doing things which made the average person poorer, not richer, too — things like financial engineering, stock market bubbles, property investment, all glorified ponzi schemes, which create less than no real lasting well being or value for anyone at all.
The Price of American Greatness
Does a Nation Need to be Great to be Worthy?
https://eand.co/the-price-of-american-greatness-c04bf800d7dd
Great is a word that has many meanings, but they can be divided into two halves. Greatness as magnanimity, as overcoming, as a kind of giving — as standing beside. Or greatness as superiority, as outdoing, as a need for admiration — as standing above. Whether or not you think that America somehow made a transition from the first to the second, it should easy to observe that the second kind of greatness is what America has aspired to in recent decades. Call it the degeneration of greatness, if you like.
What happens a society is built upon that second kind of greatness, greatness as superiority? When that is the fundamental norm, value, code, which governs it? Well, if that nation must be the best, then the people in it must be the best, too. But that means they themselves have created a kind of paradox. They cannot all be the best. Some will just be average, ordinary people. Some will struggle and languish. But what will a society devoted to greatness think of them?
It will scorn, despise, and loathe them, won’t it? They will be punished. They will be seen as liabilities and burdens. Soon enough, a kind of ethical and moral perversion will happen. Because only the best are good enough, the ordinary are bad. And what is perfectly right and just is to punish and neglect and admonish them. So the meaning of the “best” when greatness is superiority is itself the ability to trample others, and be the last one left standing. The “best” ends up meaning ruthlessness, cunning, self-preservation, and egotism.
Isn’t that exactly where America has found itself? The average person doesn’t deserve the following things, we’re told: healthcare, education, finance, a retirement. A life of dignity and respect. Instead, what is morally just is for a person who is merely average to live a life of unrelenting fear, anxiety, and despair, to be crushed every day by the dread of paying one’s bills and providing for one’s kids. Ordinary is not good enough — it’s only deserving of punishment.
Only if one is mega rich does one deserve anything like psychological peace, safety, happiness — not to mention dignity, respect, and belonging.
Capitalism is Why Americans are Subsidizing the World’s Richest Man (LOL)
Why American Ideas of the Way Societies Grow Wealthy and Prosper are Obsolete
https://eand.co/capitalism-is-why-americans-are-subsidizing-the-worlds-richest-man-lol-8a775a22fdbb
Let’s start at zero: capitalism isn’t the platonic ideal of self-correcting competition— that’s a fantasy, a fairy tale. This is the self-evident reality of capitalism— monopolies extracting wealth. How much? Well, first, no amount of wealth will ever be enough— not even the most wealth in human history is. There is no boundary condition, no point of satiation, which means there is also no line of conscience or morality. So, second, capitalism will never do the “right thing” — aka in this case, help a broken society build the systems it desperately needs— out of the kindness of its heart, because it doesn’t have one. Third, capitalism’s central principle is to exploit— which means that I take as much as I possibly can get away with, from you.
Societies have turning points on the way to maturity, and one of the most crucial for a modern one is to grapple with the difficult truth that capitalism at the mega scale is a harmful, abusive system, whose greed is boundless, literally never-ending— instead of pretending, as immature societies often do, that capitalism is some kind of noble and virtuous contest.
Now, note the assumption here: the only way a society grows is through capitalism, and that means that capitalists, too, have the power to withhold prosperity from a society — and that way, to hold it ransom. What if they decide to do that?
The Greatest Lesson From History You Probably Never Learned
The Lesson the 20th Century is Trying to Teach the 21st
https://eand.co/the-greatest-lesson-from-history-you-probably-never-learned-e73c861b9682
What’s unique about America? It’s that it got the social contract of modernity — people provide each other the necessities, and capitalism provides the luxuries — absolutely backwards. America, unique amongst rich nations — all nations, in fact, tried a social contract where capitalism provides people the necessities, and the luxuries, things like yachts and mansions and so forth, are often had by way of a kind of weird, inverse socialism — cronyism, how close you are to powerful politicians and capitalists and so on, how many subsidies you can grab, how much you take from others.
In other words, America has always been testing the hypothesis that more exploitation leads to more prosperity. First, it did it through slavery, and then through segregation, and now, through capitalism. Milder forms, maybe — yet the principle remains the same.
Six Myths About Capitalism Everyone Should Know
https://eand.co/six-myths-about-capitalism-everyone-should-know-f5d582b225ae
Why Most People Who Believe They’re Capitalists Are the Opposite of Capitalists
Why Americans Have a Textbook Case of False Consciousness
https://eand.co/why-most-people-who-believe-theyre-capitalists-are-the-opposite-of-capitalists-a631f7450bdf
In other words, my friend [who imagines that as CEO, he’d make sure that he maximized fairness, decency, equity, a square deal, goodness, truth, justice.] imagines that the problem is not the system — it is the people. If only the people were different — maybe people like him (or maybe not, and maybe I am being unfair) — if only there were virtuous and noble people at the heads of all these institutions, then overnight, a magical wonderland of capitalist utopia, a place of self-regulating markets, happy people, and better lives, would dawn. The problem is that none of that is true. The problem isn’t the people, really — it’s the system. You can be the noblest and kindest and nicest person in the universe. But if I made you a CEO in American capitalism — you would have to do terrible, strange, and backwards things. Things that you probably didn’t want to do. But you would have no choice in any way whatsoever.
This is basically the conservative “the problem with capitalism is capitalists” sentiment (where the “problem with communism is communism“; i.e. the system is inherently bad, while these imperfect, flawed capitalists have managed to create this perfect system, but they’re only human, so ‘boys will be boys’, and so that’s why this system is so rough for many. Oh, and also, those meddling closet communists with their taxes and regulations, are making it fail!
America’s Choice is Collapse or Social Democracy (And So is the World’s)
Why the Future Won’t be Made by Liberalism versus Conservatism
https://eand.co/americas-choice-is-collapse-or-social-democracy-and-so-is-the-world-s-7c147a0f7c51
America’s politics, uniquely, remained stuck, split, in a weird, binary way, between “liberals” and “conservatives” — mostly because America was clinging on to old notions of supremacy, still institutionalized in segregation, which ruled out any kind of social democracy absolutely.
So what did decades of binary liberalism versus conservatism accomplish for America? Did the dialectic lead to progress? Not at all. It led to stagnation. The answer to what did liberalism and conservatism achieve for America is: precisely nothing. Less than nothing, in fact, one could argue.
The average American’s life isn’t more prosperous today than yesterday — it’s less so. Life expectancy is falling. His income is less than his grandfather’s. He’s broke, though he works longer hours, at a less stable job. Suicides are soaring — and maybe he himself is giving up on life. Who could blame him? He faces bizarre, weird, and gruesome problems, like his kids being shot at school, and having to beg strangers for money for healthcare online. He spends sleepless night wondering he ended up impoverished, despite playing by the rules — maybe not quite understanding that the rules were designed to exploit him.
Decades of liberalism versus conservatism didn’t lead America forward — they turned it into a surreal, bizarre dystopia.
Why didn’t liberalism and conservatism lead to progress? Well, because in America, they converged to two flavours of largely the same thing — “neoliberalism” and “neoconservatism.” Neoconservatism was a little more trigger happy, always ready to start a war, and neoliberalism was a little more utopian, but their foundational precepts didn’t end up being very different. Wealth would trickle down. Trade should be free, but movement shouldn’t. A person’s worth was how much money they made. And, most crucially of all, given these first three — society must never, ever invest in itself.
Hence, this fatal convergence of “neos”, of liberalism and conservatism to the same lowest-common-denominator, produced modern American dystopia: a rich society of impoverished people, a powerful one of powerless people, a generally decent one somehow ruled by bigots, fools, and ignoramuses. It’s a place in which people are quite literally left to fend for themselves, as best they can, with zero support, investment, care, or consideration.
American pundits and intellectuals act like it’s still 1962, and act as if social democracy never happened, still pitting “socialism” against “capitalism” in a Cold War that no one really won — unless the wrecked state of America today means “winning” to you.
Why America is the World’s First Poor Rich Country
Or, How American Collapse is Made of a New Kind of Poverty
https://eand.co/why-america-is-the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-17f5a80e444a
Why the American Dream Collapsed
We’re Forgetting America’s Greatest Idea. It’s Time to Start Remembering It.
https://eand.co/how-the-american-dream-broke-78fb19c56733
The Age of Primal Rage
How Implosive Capitalism and Technology are Causing a Spreading Global Epidemic of Violence, Hate, and Fear
https://eand.co/the-age-of-primal-rage-12e4c4df4d42
Several great articles on “Anglo” civilization!, see:
https://erictb.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/review-bradley-the-iceman-inheritance/#comment-7466
Great article on Fascism, see:
https://erictb.wordpress.com/2016/01/17/political-matrix-is-actually-3d/#comment-6695
Why the Predatory Theory of Human Nature is False (And Foolish)
Or, Why People Aren’t Just the Sum of Their Appetites
https://eand.co/why-the-predatory-theory-of-human-nature-is-false-and-foolish-c91279cd872
There’s a strange and ignorant theory going around, in these troubled times. A theory of human nature. Which is leading young men astray, making fools of old men, and beginning to lead whole societies into the darkness.
Let me call it the Jordan Peterson theory of human nature. It goes something like this:— Nature is red in tooth and claw. Creatures in the natural world are only born to compete — so that they consume and prey on each other.
— Human beings are just such creatures.
— It is thus natural — right, just, noble — for human beings to express their most vicious competitive tendencies. Anything less is contemptuous and weak.
— Therefore, might is right, greed is good, power is predation, and the strong should justly trample the weak.
(Why) Americans Don’t Understand What Capitalism Really Is
Or, How The Opposite of Capitalism Isn’t Socialism — It’s My Local Record Store
https://eand.co/why-americans-dont-understand-what-capitalism-really-is-155ab92203d8
Americans have the same relationship to capitalism as the Soviets did to socialism — since it’s the only idea allowed in society, nobody really understands or thinks about it well at all. One consequence of growing up in a Soviet society — in this case capitalism, not communism — is that people grow miseducated about that very system. It becomes all things, everything, and in the end, nothing.
Hence, today Americans conflate capitalism with all the following — all business, enterprise, entrepreneurship, endeavour, industry, trade. But capitalism isn’t all those things — and by failing to understand that, Americans remain stuck because they can’t unpick the basic nuances and distinctions of how to build a better society and political economy.
Capitalism is a very specific thing. It has a few critical elements. Maximizing profits — a legal obligation to. Returning those profits to shareholders, people who “own” a legally contracted “share” of them — which they can “trade.” Those “shareholders” are the ones who decide how to govern the organization, and sit on its board. Those are the basic ingredients of capitalism.
Business, trade, commerce, industry — these things long, long, predate capitalism. And yet we, especially Americans, imagine that “capitalism” means anyone who was ever in business, or ever traded anything, from the beginning of time — yet when you think about it for even a moment, nothing could be further from the truth.)
What does that tell us? It tells us that capitalism is a kind of tiny subset of business, entrepreneurship, trade, commerce. It is just one way to organize these things — far from the only one. It is the one we use now — and we can and should question whether it’s doing us any good anymore.
Just as the Soviets thought “socialism” meant you could never open up a dry-cleaning shop, today Americans think questioning “capitalism” must mean you want to shut down all the dry-cleaning shops. But it doesn’t. Questioning capitalism just means the following things (as a brief, incomplete summary) — which are common sense.
That we disagree with the idea that there should be a legal obligation to maximize profits, above all else. That we don’t believe that an organization should be “owned” by “shareholders”, versus say employees, cities, towns, managers, or anyone else, partially or wholly. That we disagree with the idea that “shareholders” should be the only ones to manage an organization.
I’ve put that all very technically, so let me make it a little clearer. That every business, enterprise, project, endeavour, should be legally obligated to be as greedy and selfish and predatory as possible, because the only goal we should ever want is to “grow” into a giant, soul-crushing monopoly of profit — which also means they have to narrow-minded, short-sighted, and end up abusive and harmful to everything from the planet to democracy. That being exploitative and predatory is OK, desirable, good — not corrosive to democracy and survival and prosperity. We’re saying there should be more business, enterprises, endeavors that don’t have to or want to or need to become Goldman Sachs or Big Pharma or Facebook or the lobbying industry.
The Heroes and Villains of American Collapse
Have We Become Readers of the Comic Book of Our Own Decline?
https://eand.co/the-heroes-and-villains-of-american-collapse-d664b69f0f4c
In a Capitalist Society, Everything’s For Sale
How Capitalism Brainwashed Americans Into Being Perpetually Surprised by its Ugly Truths
https://eand.co/in-a-capitalist-society-everythings-for-sale-23b9fb3e1193
Why are Americans so powerless? Because they have to do what capitalists say. It’s true that they have “choices” — but those choices are between kind of option: doing what this megacapitalist wants, or that one. If you want to do something a megacapitalist doesn’t want in the first place…well, my friend, good luck. A life of poverty, hardship, and invisibility await (though if you do toe the line, all you get is precarity and hardship, too.) Americans are powerless because they literally have to obey the whims of capitalists, in every arena of life. And yet there they are, surprised that in their society, everything is for sale.
(Canada and Europe…have many forces softening capitalism, fencing it in, whether families or social bonds or communities or socialism or all of those. That is why they are kinder, gentler places, too.)
What Happens When People Find Out Capitalism Was a Lie?
Or, the Age of Disintegration
https://eand.co/what-happens-when-people-find-out-capitalism-was-a-lie-78137aca7072
If the Economy’s “Strong” — Why Are 40% of Americans Struggling to Afford Food?
Why Economic Indicators Don’t Tell the Sad and Shocking Story of America’s Descent into Mass Poverty, Hunger, Misery, and Despair
Have you ever wondered? Why public discourse doesn’t reflect your reality?
I often say that Americans are the weird, terrible paradox of being the world’s first poor rich people.
So why this constant myth that the economy is “strong”? Well, the first thing to understand is that it is a myth.
When suicide is skyrocketing, when people can’t afford to feed their families, when half a society says they can’t find a decent job…the economy isn’t doing well. But as long as you believe it is…then it’s your fault if you’re struggling. It’s not your fault. It can’t be your fault if you’re struggling when close to half a society is having trouble eating. That’s a social problem. It points to a terrible, epic, systemic failure, in the absence of a giant famine.
Let me make that even clearer. Hunger, poverty, misery, and inopportunity are not a strong economy. They are a weak one. In fact, they represent a collapsing one, if they are new things, like they are in America. If hunger, poverty, misery and inopportunity are a “strong economy”…what on earth could be a weak one? Aliens enslaving everyone?
So where does this bizarre, astonishing, spectacular fantasy come from? What does it tell us?
It comes from the fact that Americans economic statistics don’t represent the economy anymore. By “the economy” we should mean “people’s welfare”, how well their lives are actually faring. But since American economists and thinkers are ideologically blind, because they only study one system, and they assume from the get-go that that system is the answer to every one of society’s problems, quite naturally, they developed a set of indicators that look at the health of…that system. Not people’s lives. But those are two different things. A system is never anybody’s life.
That system, of course, is capitalism. Now, I use “capitalism” in the European sense. That’s Wall St, Bezos, the Waltons, Silicon Valley, etc. In the American sense, you might call it “corporatism”, if you like.
America’s thinking classes don’t know how to think about the economy anymore — economists, journalists, pundits, and so forth — because they imagine that as long as the indicators that exist are ticking up, then everything must be fine. In other words, they imagine that all the real problems have been solved — and all there is to do is apply the solution, which is always more capitalism, as in markets for healthcare, less public schools, smaller government, and so forth.
The indicators that American thinking relies on — the stock market, GDP, the unemployment rate — only really tell us about the health of capitalism. (or corporatism, if you like.) They don’t tell us anything whatsoever about how well people are doing. It’s perfectly feasible for GDP, which is the sum of profits — and the stock market, which is just tomorrow’s profits, counted today — to grow by…stealing your life savings. That’s exactly what is happening.
As a result, you get this incredibly bizarre, weird, and grotesque picture. The stock market’s booming! GDP’s growing! But 40% of Americans can’t afford to…eat. What the? Do you see shades of Versailles in that? Shades of Soviet collapse? You should. It’s predatory growth — American are growing hungry, poor, and ill precisely because their ultra rich are preying on them, or maybe deluding them into preying on each other, dangling little rewards before them, just like so many time before in history.
The Soviets, too, had a set of indicators that their elites and leaders used to assess the health of the economy. And as long as those were OK — everything was fine. Did we make enough tractors? Did we employ enough people at that factory in Gdansk? Everything’s fine! But everything wasn’t fine. People were growing hungry. Afraid. Angry. Bang! Collapse. When a society can’t feed its people…it’s on the way to collapsing, my friends. There is no surer sign.
But America…just like the Soviet Union, it’s thinkers and leaders can’t see even that. They can’t see that hunger, poverty, powerlessness, misery, and illness are now endemic, chronic, systemic — things that exist at a mass level, on a social scale. That’s because they’re trapped in the fairy tales of ideology, which in this case is capitalism’s final triumph over the world. They can’t see how badly reality has diverged from the fantasy, the fairy tale.
The Soviets believed that communism was the answer to everything, that if there was a problem with it, it wasn’t “true communism” yet, that every issue in society was to be solved with more communism, life was always better than everywhere else, and no questioning or dissent of any of the above was to be allowed in the public sphere. Hence, you couldn’t open up a little dry cleaning shop until 1989.
But that’s America in 2019, too. Capitalism is the answer to everything. If there’s a problem, it’s because it’s not “true capitalism” — since every issue in society is be solved by capitalism to begin with. Life is always better than everywhere else. And no questioning or dissent from this ideology is to be allowed.
Can you think of any other rich country in the world where nearly half of the people in it struggle to feed their kids? I can’t. Do you know how many people eat one meal a day in Venezuela? 30%. That’s not a direct comparison — it’s just to give you a sense of how dire American collapse really is.
America’s leaders and elites are so badly blinded by an absolutist ideology that they can’t even see it when their society has ended up starving, broke, poor, miserable, sick, and hopeless — en masse. Instead, looking at a set of indicators that have absolutely no connection to reality anymore, they simply keep on declaring that things are “great” or “strong.” They’ve never been better! The main job now, it seems, of America’s elites, is to defend, and reproduce, that ideology — to keep it powerful, ascendant, for it to monopolize discourse and truth. The only real difference is that in this case the ideology in question is totalist capitalism — capitalism as the answer to everything, the only set of indicators that matters — instead of totalist communism.
(Why) The Future is a Choice Between Two Socialisms
Why Capitalism’s Collapse Feels Weirdly a Lot Like Communism’s
https://eand.co/why-the-future-is-a-choice-between-two-socialisms-c675654b78e7
NEW:
The Majority of Americans Die in Debt. What The?
How America Became the World’s First Poor Rich Country
https://eand.co/the-majority-of-americans-die-in-debt-what-the-2e20b5a08030
A coffin made of unpayable debt, that the average American’s now laid to rest in. In plain English: they never make enough to break even their whole lives long. He or she finishes up a pauper. Not just worth zero — but with a negative net worth. That means that over a lifetime, the average American will effectively save nothing, own nothing, and earn nothing. Stop and reread that. America’s supposed to be the richest country in the world. Again: what the?
Let’s think about what that really means. It’s not as if the average American ends up impoverished because he or she doesn’t work. Americans work harder than anyone else in the rich world, in fact. They work so hard that multiple jobs are an everyday reality. They don’t take vacations, they don’t get leisure time — whereas Europeans and Canadians, by American standards, live lives of idle pleasure.
So the reason that Americans are dying paupers — not just broke, but less than broke — isn’t that they’re lazy. It’s not about them at all, in fact. It can’t be. If an entire nation is dying in poverty — it can hardly be the people’s fault. It must be the system’s. Despite lifetimes of grueling work — Americans are left with less than nothing. What kind of a life is that?
This…tells us in stark, explosive terms that if you play by the rules, if you do your job, if you’re a good and decent person — what’s your reward? It’s less than nothing. (Sure, you might “buy” a home and fill it with possessions — but if you’re dying in tens of thousands of dollars in debt, you didn’t own any of it, you just rented it.)
The American Dream? The dream is a distant, painful memory of better times.It’s not just that Americans are indebted. There’s a subtler point here. It’s that Americans now have unpayable debts — debts which simply can’t be repaid, even with a lifetime of hard work. That is what the average person dying in debt means — American debt is literally now unpayable. So go ahead and breathe easy, it’s not just you, it’s everyone. That’s how the system’s designed, in fact. How so?
(If the average person’s dying in debt to the tune of more than the average income — then short of winning the lottery, the “debt” you incur simply for existing and living is unpayable. What do we call people with unpayable debts? Bankrupt.)
Well, whom are Americans indebted with unpayable debts to? To their super rich and ultra rich. Americans effectively owe unpayable debts to a class of oligarchs and tycoons — a tiny number of people, hedge fund managers and CEOs and so forth, most of whom have gotten filthy rich for doing, quite frankly, nothing much of any real worth or value. Yet these debts are now so large, so massive, that the average American now simply dies without ever being able to pay them.
Can we call people who live and die in debt that they will never repay — which they can’t repay — genuinely free? Or are they the modern equivalent of peasants and serfs and untouchables? If you have a debt you can never repay, you’ll have to spend your life toiling away at whatever work you can find — no matter how grim or dismal or pointless. Hence, something very much like a caste society is emerging in America: those crushed by debts they’ll never be able to repay, versus ultra rich. Those in the lower castes are born in debt, and will die in debt, no matter how hard they work, or what they do — they owe a portion of the harvest, just like a medieval peasant. But why? For what?
The next thing this statistic tells us is that America has pioneered something new and bizarre: more and more toxic kinds of debt. The 80s saw the rise of credit card debt. The 90s, student debt. The 00s, medical debt. And now? Lunch debt. Debt has proliferated not just in quantity — but in kind. Americans are so poor that they’ve had to mortgage everything — right down to school lunches. But what kind of a society won’t feed its schoolchildren?
Who pioneered this bizarre reality — a nation of people who trapped all their lives long by unpayable debt they struggle, in vain, to pay off? The combination of Wall St and Washington, DC did. DC’s neoliberals put forth the crackpot economic theory that society should never invest in people — that mega corporations maximizing profit were the answer to everything, from healthcare to retirement. Wall St loved this idea, needless to say, and showered money on said mega corporations. As Americans grew poorer, because the only idea at work here was that markets solve everything, the only answer was to sell them loans, on markets, in the form of all the kinds of debt above. Bang! A kind of debt explosion unseen since the second world war.
The only difference [between Germany 1929 and America 2019], really, is that Germans owed unpayable debts to France and Britain, but Americans owe unpayable debts to their own class of ultra rich.
Umair now goes Jungian on us and tackles the issue of the “shadow” in politics:
(How to Do) the Hard Work of Growing as People and Societies
Why the Work We’re Doing Today is Shadow Work
https://eand.co/how-to-do-the-hard-work-of-growing-as-people-and-societies-f899648369df
Umair addresses the point of “scarcity” amidst “abundance”:
Why the Paradox of Scarcity Amidst Abundance is Driving the World Insane
20th Anniversary!
Today, it’s been 20 years I’ve officially been online!
I actually had my first AOL screen name in 1997, when my wife and I shared a computer with our close friend, who held both the computer and the main account.
Leading up to this, after the much heralded release of Windows 95, many more regular people began getting their first computers. So in 1996, we began looking to getting one of our own. I remember being intrigued by TV ads for early services like “Prodigy”. It sounded so interesting, having all the world at your fingertips, right from your own home. No longer having to hike to distant libraries, who still may not have what you’re looking for.
Anticipating this, I even jumped in a job-sponsored after work class on computers (and I used to hate any kind of classes! Now I know, with introverted Thinking; I need to learn at my own pace, and filter what I think is most relevant and not have information crammed down my throat) Using Computers A Gateway to Information (Shelly, Cashman, Waggoner, 1995) was the textbook (still have it!), but for some reason, the class just stopped after just a few sessions.
This was also the exciting time of the announcement of rewritable CD, and the soon released new medium DVD (see https://erictb.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/recordable-5-inch-optical-discs-20-years-later), which would figure heavily for computers, since they were the first and main venue the new drives would be used on.
Finances pushed the computer back a year, but finally, it came. Everyone remembers the sound of the dialup tones, and waiting to get connected (loved seeing that “people” logo AOL used when it finally got connected), getting knocked off, annoyed at how many others must have been on at the same time, and then conflicting with someone in the house needing to use the phone (and incoming calls would knock you off too).
But in addition to all of this was having only limited time to be in the other person’s house to use it! Don’t know how I ever survived!
Knowing nothing about the brand new medium of the Internet or “World Wide Web” I didn’t know if it was wise to use my real name (as our friend and others I saw, all used aliases); so I chose a cryptic-looking array of letters, based on my main interest, the subways. (And wasn’t even working there yet. Still braving the “Five Points” Collect Pond air of the County Clerks’s office).
Even though I had recently married into the distant Ridgewood/Bushwick area, my mind was still on the other side of Brooklyn I grew up in. Back in those days, that part of the subway was stuck seemingly forever in the “Manhattan Bridge North Side Open” pattern, where the “south” side, leading to the Broadway line, was closed, the N line banished to the longer tunnel route, and the Q moved to 6th Avenue. It was taking forever to finish the work on that side, to then move to the next phase, swapping sides (another four years away at that point, and it had already been like this for a whopping eight years already), and then finally, the work complete, which would be seven years later.
So I was always thinking about those lines over there, and what would happen when the bridge work advanced; drawing up suggestions and sending them in, etc. My last time at WTC was this same year, when the MTA had an “East River Crossings” presentation, with volumes of material on the different “alternatives”. Including a lot of wild ideas, they nor we would never imagine the final plan, where the B and D were swapped from where they ran continuously in one form or another, for 34 years!
So I chose a sequence of route letters. Since 34th Street (Herald Square) was like the “center” of the affected part of the system; a huge hub where the 6th Avenue and Broadway lines cross, and the truncated 6th Avenue lines would terminate when that side of the bridge was closed; plus one of my favorite areas from being the center of NYC Christmas, with Macy’s and all; I wanted to use the lines that crossed there: BDFNQR.
However, I didn’t live on any of those lines anymore. I lived on the M, which at the time didn’t even go to midtown, but rather looped from one side of Brooklyn to the other, through the short, downtown Manhattan Nassau St. line. So I instead chose the next best thing; the downtown Brooklyn hub where the M did cross with most of those other lines (and then some): the Atlantic terminal-Pacific St. complex (now known as “Barclay’s Center” from the arena more recently built there), and thus BDMNQR.
This is what my original screen name and e-mail address was, and what I would post under on early AOL interest boards and the old USENET. Main boards were transit, cartoons, and music (Stevie; EWF. On the latter, I was surprised that another member recognized what my screen name was).
Since the friend had long dropped AOL, upon calling them to find out when my accounts started, they did not have on record her old account. Not sure how long we shared. Didn’t seem that long. It may have been since December (1997), and the original plan was to do this article that month sometime, being the absolute 20th anniversary of my internet life completely; but working on other projects, I let it slip, figuring I wasn’t sure anyway. However, I was able to get the date of when I finally got my own AOL!
June 1st, 1998!
Our friend got a new computer, and gave us the old one, a 1.7 GB Packard Bell.
However, since I had the screen name under the old account, I couldn’t simply make that a new main account, so I had to create a whole new e-mail. I chose to add “2”, which served both as indicating it’s the second one, but then also was another line that ran through the same hub (along with the 3, 4, and 5). Thus, “BDMNQR2” was finally born!
So that was the main account I used to the present!
(The irony would come in 2010, with another, [even more] “unthinkable” service change, of actually rerouting the M up 6th Avenue, to Forest Hills. So now it actually goes through 34th St! I could have chosen the Herald Sq. lines including the M, if I created the screen name today: “BDFMNQR” or now, “BDFMNQRW”, with the W eliminated with the service changes that merged the M and V, recently brought back! I actually thought of changing it, but having the name so long and especially with the 20th looming, I decided to keep this one!)
In 2000, after getting nowhere having my two main religious and one political writing published (Trinity, CCM Controversy, Right Wing politics), adding another one on fundamentalism and psychology (this and the CCM one after having attended IFB classes on both issues), and wanting to post my own narrative of the rapidly re-burgeoning Scooby Doo cartoon (after finding this new internet medium filled with hatred toward the Scrappy Doo character, and the whole decade of the show when he was present); I then learned I could host my writings on AOL.
(It had gotten so bad, that someone had taken the “breast cancer death awareness” ribbon and emblazoned it with pictures of Scrappy, for all the haters to display on their pages. There usually would be no other reference to him —they pretended he didn’t exist; and then that ribbon, often at the bottom would let you know they were deliberately ignoring him. On Usenet, and sites like “jumptheshark.com” [later integrated into TVGuide.com] people then spewed out all of the hatred, of what they wished they could do to him, and how he ruined their childhood. One cartoon fan had crafted this whole history where Scrappy’s arrival singlehandedly ruined the whole show, and this became the inspiration for me to write my own history of Scooby free of such bias toward one temporary character.
This thinking, believed to be from a small but loud minority [as the character’s developer Mark Evanier mentioned on his blog after discussing original voice actor Lennie Weinrib’s total befuddlement at all the hatred he found on the internet], then spread like wildfire into the production studio, where he was still basically barred from any positive uses in new stories, but nevertheless thrown in as a cameo to take cheap shots at him; the worst being the live action Scooby Doo Movie, where he was in a last moment afterthought made the villain.
The entire TV animation studio Filmation [second only to Hanna Barbera in the 70’s] also received constant criticism in these early days of the internet, due to its “limited animation”. Thankfully, as more cartoon fans spoke up, the atmosphere became more balanced for both of these entities.
I had already learned a bit of HTML from using one transit forum whose posting feature used the code, and then arming myself with HTML For Dummies and Sam’s Teach Yourself To Create Web Pages, then learned how to create them from scratch. (Hence, them being so simply text formatted, which one visitor described awhile ago as “like a simple early page from years ago”).
The address format was simply “members@aol.com/[screen name]”.
Since I was writing against cranky old fundamentalists, I felt the need to separate the less serious Scooby project, and so created a second screen name, etb700 (as in “700 Club”, which I never followed, but couldn’t think of anything else religious, and by that time realizing it was safe to use my initials) to host my Christian writings, and correspond with ministries I wrote to.
On a side note, the most shocking and ominous occurrence these past 20 years was on Sept. 10th 2001; fresh out of “school car” for transit, and having worked the F, with the view of the skyline on the highest point of the system, the “Culver Viaduct” over the Gowanus, and not knowing that would be the last time I would ever see the skyline in that form.
At almost 9PM that evening, on the aforementioned transit board, someone starts a thread called “100 Years From Now” talk.nycsubway.org/perl/read?subtalk=262068:
One hundred years from now, assuming that an H-bomb or an earthquake (it is possible you know) doesn’t wipe the place out I wonder what the transit system in New York will look like. I doubt not that the underground portion of the subway system will be intact. Most of the Els, but possibly not all of them, will be gone as well as some of the East River bridges. I’m pretty sure that the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings as well as the World Trade Center will still be around though I suspect that the rest of the skyline will be up for grabs. There will still be a Pennsylvania and Grand Central Station with the LIRR going to the latter. None of us will be around to see it but I doubt not that it will be interesting.
Thought nothing of it; just a routine post on what we think will happen in the future. Well, noon, next day (I was off), I’m then responding to this post, adding to it’s title “NO, NOT EVEN ONE DAY!!” http://talk.nycsubway.org/perl/read?subtalk=262272:
“How eerie…who would think that 12 hours after this original post it wouldn’t be around!”
This, of course, after hours of watching this unbelievable event unfold. It was the biggest shock any of us had lived through!
In about 2003, I joined Yahoo which used a “listserve” format, for a coworker-oriented group, and then joined a few others, and re-used the original BDMNQR. After learning about type a few years later, I quickly joined one on temperament (Keirsey), but learned it was populated by mostly Feeling types who thought I was being rather “impersonal”, not just for all my logical theorizing, but also my unusual cryptic “handle”, and didn’t even know my real name. At the time, when you posted on Yahoo, it just defaulted to using your e-mail, and I didn’t know how to change it to show a different screen name (like you can do now). But that eventually cleared up, and I’m still there.
This is how it was, until 2008, around the tenth anniversary of the AOL account, and halfway to the present, that AOL suddenly announced it was shutting down all of its members space. (But the e-mail box would of course remain). So I then bought my own domain name, and moved everything over to there. (By this time, having added dozens of interest, religious and political pages. Didn’t bother keeping the less serious interests separate. This blog came about three years later, for smaller articles and current events).
So then, here we are today!
I had remained mostly on boards until the up coming new venues called “social media”, namely Facebook, which I imagine was initially supposed to be a mostly photo sharing site (like Instagram is now), but then became an all around “news” and socialization site; and it was so amazing being able to connect with a range of people I’ve known, spanning my whole life; many of whom (including some distant relatives) I used to hardly ever contact otherwise; and then making new friends!
I’m thinking this whole dynamic actually does funny things with the introvert/extravert scale. I’m Supine, which is very reserved as a technical introvert, yet “wants” like an extrovert. So the internet is the perfect medium to interact, without the difficulties of face-to-face interaction. I can also think out what I want to say, being a much better writer than speaker. So on one hand, it seems like an introvert’s paradise, but many other introverts, such as Melancholy types I know of, are just as avoidant of the medium, and there are many extraverts (such as Sanguine types, like ESFP’s) who also love the interaction and attention. My wife, however (ESFJ), is not big on the internet, saying her Sanguine needs depend more on face to face interaction. You would think the pure Sanguine would be like that, and perhaps some are, but the difference might be that their “Feeling” attitude is actually introverted (this is the auxiliary function, and they’re extraverts because of the dominant extraverted Sensing), and the ESFJ’s dominant extraverted Feeling might be more likely to want an actual tangible environment of people. (extraverted Sensing would want that as well, but if they can’t get it, then I guess a screen will do).
So me, having “so much to say” in the world, the internet is one of the greatest things to have been invented!
The most neglected statement of Jesus is that Hillel’s “Golden Rule” is what “SUMS UP” the entire Law. His detractors were of course focusing directly on the Law, even atomizing it into more and more “principles”. Christianity followed suit, only dropping the more “Jewish”-associated laws, and eventually placing a great emphasis on sexual-related principles. Islam, drawing on both religions followed suit, exchanging some Hebrew laws for more Arabic-flavored ones.
All have at times aimed to keep their respective “cultures”, (if not seeking to expand them to the world), “pure”.
This will always involve believing oneself has met the “standards” of the Law, and is thus now “called” to enforce them on others, in the name of “preserving morality” if nothing else.
So, recently taking a job “Security Awareness” class, and hearing about the latest threats from ISIS, to create easy to build rail devices to derail trains, and various ways to attack Times Square, I kept thinking, “Who appointed these people the judges and executioners of the ‘infidels’?” The same thing with many conservative Christians; and though it may seem unfair to compare them, the MINDSET, and its underlying presumptions (“righteousness” of the Law, and the need to spread “God’s truth”), are the same. What’s different is the power held.
Judaism once held formidable power over its people in Bible times (even enough to influence the mighty Romans over them, to a certain extent). What we saw in the New Testament was the final death throes of its power, as it was rapidly going down, and would end as a power structure only a few decades later.
The church arose from this, but quickly followed suit, gaining tremendous world power, even over the big bad Romans, and the Western civilizations that sprang from it. But with this power comes great compromise of Biblical principle, and great corruption, as a lot of stuff has to be justified, which in turn is often attempted to be compensated by overemphasizing certain other points of “morality”, in order to maintain the “righteous” appearance.
So it too reached a peak, and it was technology (starting with the printing press) that caused it to crack and start to come down. Hence, all the complaints of loss of power, beginning with the Enlightenment, and continuing through the last century of sociopolitical developments.
Islam, being the youngest of the three religions, is simply not as far down that pattern, but still vying for power. Christians have naturally turned up the heat on them as a “false religion”, and also political enemy, but both seem to be in agreement that America is sinful and needs to be punished. When natural disasters hit here, and conservative Christians pronounce them as “curses”, you would think they should be on the same side as the Islamists who simply seek to punish us directly, themselves, as “God’s agents” (which Christians also used to do, when they had more power, and some more radical groups wish they could still do today).
But the Christians are the ones who upheld the Gospel teaching that no men are “good”, for “all have sinned”. Many had loudly leveled this at the modern “world” and liberal segments of the Church, which had begun arguing for the “goodness“ of man, especially in the face of the teaching of Hell.
But the problem was, when it came to applying that to themselves (and those under their sphere of control, which included the whole “nation” or “culture” of past times), they essentially overrode it with concepts like “regeneration”, “providence” and “exceptionality”. They now could act like every other greedy or warring group of people while in the very breath of condemning them for it, because it’s “different” when they do it. They were the “called”, and “chosen”, and “sanctified”. But then that’s what the religions before them said.
The difference they claim is that they follow Jesus, the Savior. But He taught that the Law was fulfilled by “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you”. By going back to the points of the Law, they could actually engineer it so that killing, stealing, and even raping, could sometimes be justified, even while “normally” condemned in the Commandments, as they preached them to others.
Going along with this, Christians were also instructed “If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18. When it comes to this chapter, many focus more on the first two verses, and then believe living peaceably is not possible as they see “the world” encroaching on them. But they don’t see the many ways they actually provoke the world, including under the premise of trying to control it).
They’ve gone from excoriating modern liberal culture for turning from the overly sensitive propriety of the past (where even the word “pregnant” was too ‘dirty’ for TV), to now trying to be John Wayne and mocking them as “snowflakes” and “whiners” who need to “grow a pair” instead of running to their “safe spaces”. They themselves largely follow this current president, who embodies everything they used to scold society for, from vulgarity to infidelity. Is being “tough and insensitive” ungodly, or is it now the new “godly”? Make up your minds!
The standard always changes, when focusing on point-by-point morality. (Which is basically opposite of what Christians have always said; that turning away from black and white rules “relativizes” morality! They’ve long preached against the “relativism” or “situational ethics” of people saying “what we’re doing is OK as long as we’re not hurting anyone else”, but this is actually closer to the intent of the Golden Rule).
To show how this happens, if you go strictly by the letter, of “thou shalt not steal”, then you can engage in (or at least condone) various devious financial practices, yet maintain it was all technically lawful (such as “predatory lending”, or the reasoning that “prices and wages are what you agreed upon, and if you don’t like it, go elsewhere”) and be able to truly reason that you (or the system you’re defending) have not violated the commandment. You can even go as far as to appeal to “conscience”, and “the conviction of the Spirit” (which many will say is what supersedes “the letter” of the Law, and is supposed to be all the “more binding”, and “proof” of salvation), and just the technical legality of it can still justify just about any measure taken.
Even the so-called “spirit of the Law” from the Sermon on the Mount you can excuse yourself from. You can condemn others for “bitterness” and “envy” (“spiritual ‘murder'”) towards those who have the upper hand, while displaying a lot of hostility towards those you think you have “just cause” to be angry about, especially by declaring them “anti-God”, or any other entity you identify with, such as “the nation”. We end up with only certain people ever having the right to voice displeasure at anything, while the standard (we preach to and judge others by but aren’t following ourselves) is that man is supposed to only be “thankful”.
But if you go by “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”; that would instantly sweep away all of these sorts of rationalizations. So it’s actually much easier (for the “flesh”, believe it or not) to stick to a discrete “commandment”! You look “lawful” and “obedient”, and get to compare and preach to the “lawless”, on top of it!
Meanwhile, what they continue to step up their energies against is leftism, gays, in addition to Islam, of course. The Gospel that starts with the sinfulness of all men (and therefore no room for them to “cast the speck out of someone else’s eye”) is left out, as it’s presumed that some have “repented” into a virtual goodness, and so it’s them against all the bad, [unrepentant] “sinners”.
One common statement I’ve seen is “The Christian view of our moral condition is that, apart from Christ, ‘no one does good, not even one’ (Rom. 3:12).”
This makes it sound like once you “receive” Christ, then you CAN do good, in the sense Paul is denying here (instead of that ‘goodness’ being imputed from Christ). This leads both to presuppositionalism (my interpretations, anger at others behaviors, etc. must be right, because I’ve been ‘regenerated’ and the other side’s position can be dismissed because they aren’t), but also judgmentalism toward those not seen as doing good enough.
On top of this is “God gave His law (filled with commands and comfort) so that we’d know how to live as His image bearers in a broken world.” Both of these statements from CRI articles (one of the centers of mainstream evangelical doctrine); it clearly indicates a notion of the Law being given to maintain order, to help fix the world, as well as benefit the individual. So, putting it together, with Christ, we are more able to do the “good” of keeping the Law, and thus be both more “moral”, and more emotionally healthier. They will all admit that we’re “not perfect” at it, but in practice, it becomes at least we are better than the unbeliever, the doubter, the “backslider”, etc.
In actuality, this position is already moderated down from earlier teaching, whose modern adherents will often criticize the “new evangelicals” for “making God’s Law all about us”. While they have a point there (which I often cite in regards to the popular “Christian victory” teaching), still this often stems from a view where God’s Law and order is a totally disconnected thing that just happens to benefit man sometimes (such as the niceness society would have without killing, stealing, etc.), but it’s really about “His own pleasure/Glory/holiness” etc.
So we had better order our lives by the moral Law, just to make Him happy, but it really in the end doesn’t matter how we treat our fellow man; that’s just a fringe benefit, if other people are deserving of it; but most really aren’t, since man defaults to being a sinner. This is another way we can justify a lot of unkindness toward men (appealing to instances such as the Canaanites, or just God’s “hatred” and judgment of sin in general).
Jesus had showed people what that Law really required, making it obvious it was really futile to seek justification through it; and leaving people to walk away thwarted, but likely to pretend it never happened, and just go back to where they were and keep plugging on as much as they could (and then pointing at others). The people had taken the “letter” and focused on certain aspects of it, even adding to them, to make sure the basic commandment wasn’t violated; while omitting “the weightier matters”.
I keep thinking how the Islamists need to hear the Gospel message which begins with the fact that “none are good”, but they’ve already heard overall Christian messages, and never got from them this sense. Instead, what they heard was basic agreement on moralism, but the difference was which religion, and associated culture was to bear the rule in enforcing it. So the Islamists maintain that it’s theirs, and the Christians insist it is theirs. They talk right past each other, and then the only thing left to do is to fight.
Both groups seem to believe that “sinners” have forfeited their right to live freely (if, at all). But to live is our natural instinct, and so people have the right to at least resist being under the control of those who show themselves to be a threat to living. They don’t get the whole “chosen ruler” concept, and see no difference between all the different people and groups claiming it. Anyone and everyone can and is saying that. They can’t all be true. God or conscience can’t have “showed” anyone that all of them are right. But they can all possibly be wrong, though!
(PS, in the class, someone asked why the Las Vegas shooter wasn’t considered a “terrorist” like the Islamists, which is a big point liberals are making to show the categories are racist, and we were told “terrorism” is defined as having a religious or political motivation, while they still don’t know what exactly the Vegas shooter’s purpose was. That’s why people like him get assumed to be simply “mentally ill”. If they find that the shooter was some Christian or other conservative trying to punish “Sin City”, would they then upgrade him to “terrorist” status? Possibly, as Timothy McVeigh was considered a terrorist).
There had already been a demonstration by White Nationalists in May, which was eerily comparable to Klan rallies of old, complete with flaming tiki torches, designed to evoke fear. This when plans were announced to remove Confederate statues. So forward three months later, when they’re removing them, new demonstrations occur, which erupt into a full blown unrest, with one driver charging into a crowd and killing one person, injuring many others!
The reacting left is being dubbed the “antifa” (antifascists), with Trump adding the term “alt-left” and casting them as violent.
Is this the start of a new Civil War, as some have feared?
White Supremacists Show Up To A City That Didn’t Want Them, Chant ‘Blood And Soil’
A state of emergency has been declared after violent clashes in Charlottesville.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-nationalist-charlottesville-virginia_us_598e3fa8e4b0909642972007
Ex-KKK Leader David Duke Says White Supremacists Will ‘Fulfill’ Trump’s Promises
“We are determined to take our country back,” Duke said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/david-duke-charlottesville-rally-trump_us_598f3ca8e4b0909642974a10
Driver in custody after car rams into crowd following Virginia white nationalist rally
http://abcnews.go.com/US/car-hits-crowd-protesters-white-nationalist-rally-virginia/story?id=49179590
This Is What ‘Oppressed’ White Men Look Like
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-oppressed-white-men-look-like-charlottesville_us_598f2ff4e4b09071f699f123
How To Tell If You Go To A White Supremacist Church
How To Tell If You Go To A White Supremacist Church
(And all of this as the other major story is the way Trump’s words with N Korea escalates:
Why Black America Isn’t Worried About the Upcoming Nuclear Holocaust
http://www.theroot.com/why-black-america-isnt-worried-about-the-upcoming-nucle-1797754315)
Elle Dowd (FB)
These Neo Nazis, Confederates, and Klansmen have jobs. Inside institutions.
They don’t just protest one day and then put their prejudices on the shelf when they go to work.
They are bankers who deny loans.
They are teachers who file kids of color through the school to prison pipeline.
They are police officers. Did you see all the Blue Lives Matter flags on the livestream, next to Nazi symbols and Confederate flags?
They vote. They sit on juries. They run for office.
AND. They coach little league and watch Netflix on the couch with their wives and seem like “good guys.”
They have families and friends who have been too nervous or too polite to confront them.
Neo-nazis and white supremacists are celebrating Trump’s remarks about the Charlottesville riots
http://www.businessinsider.com/neo-nazis-celebrate-trumps-remarks-about-charlottesville-riots-2017-8
His “many sides” is obviously designed to be ambiguous and easy to fill in by the Right, to whom these “sides” are all subsets of the “other” side from them: the blacks themselves, BLM, the liberals, the Democratic Party, etc. or “the real haters: the SJW/Marxists who’ve attacked our guys”, said one commenter on the far-right, pro-Trump subreddit r/The_Donald, or the “Antifa”, which is short for antifascist organizations. —Anyone but the Right and the confederate sympathizers themselves.
When Does a Fringe Movement Stop Being Fringe? (Is Charlottesville a turning point?)
Even the most feared white supremacists in the lore of Jim Crow were just regular white men.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/whats-the-tipping-point-for-white-supremacy/536673/
I’ve also seen two people now point out that instead of racism “dying out”, most of the people in these protests are in their 20’s.
I think a large part of the problem was liberals not taking the Right seriously through all those decades of “dog whistling” (the coded racial language made to look “colorblind”), where they ignored it and simply pushed agendas (probably figuring “well, they’re gonna die off soon anyway”), while the conservatives built arguments, that went largely unanswered and thus took root as an entrenched narrative of blame.
This is what could sway a whole new generation, when it really should have been dying out by now. So now, many look up, with Trump in the White House, Hillary who seemed certain, lost, and all of these alt-right people coming out in full force, and it’s like “what happened”?
Of course, with all of this comes a new wave of whitewashing Lee, claiming he was actually against slavery:
The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
The legend of the Confederate leader’s heroism and decency is based in the fiction of a person who never existed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
Here is part of a quote from him:
The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.
On the alt-right site, they’re even trying to disown the driver, claiming there’s a difference between the alt-right and white supremacists, even, he’s a Jew, etc. and right after insinuating he was only reacting to car “being attacked on all sides by a roving mob of Antifa when he slammed the gas pedal and accelerated”. (So which is it? Is he one of you and justified, or not justified, and not one of you?)
So they are the ones “cucking” now! (there’s also a dispute among them as to whether Trump was cucking in his statement).
Finally, a much needed call for the Church to take a clear stand:
White Christian conservatives should oppose protests by white supremacists
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/08/12/white-christian-conservatives-should-oppose-protests-by-white-supremacists.html
you should really dig into black African slave trade and the black slavers that allowed it to happen.
So, by your rationale, ALL aspects of white Europeanism, automatically transfer to American decendants? We’re all Nazis, all rapists, and all racists and slavers at heart because white europeans did? That’s the same rationale that actual racists use to say all blacks are criminals and hoods.
We are a fallen people, utterly imperfect, so, yes, white europeans CAN claim to be the founders of the most moral value system, framed into a governement, that the world has ever known, WHILE being decendants of, related to, or from the same place as, people who committed those terrible atrocities.
The thing is, when you appeal to the Fall, (e.g. “we are all fallen people”, etc.) you don’t get to use that to excuse one group’s participation in the evils of fallen humanity, but then turn around and get to claim for that group the most virtue in human history. You mention the Fall, you’re appealing to the Biblical Gospel, and in that Gospel, it doesn’t work like that. That’s basically “our good outweighs our bad”, and any conservative Gospel tract will tell you no one will be justified by such reasoning. We all have good, from bearing the image of God, but because man did fall, then ALL nations are “concluded under sin”, and all of our righteousness is “filthy rags” (Romans 3).
So it doesn’t matter who did more good. (the point there is, that Western civilization may have done the most good, but ALSO did the most evil, so it basically balances out. And before God, the bad wipes out the good, not the other way around!)
And this is talking about individuals. How do we even figure a “nation” or “culture” we are apart of will carry some merit for us? This is exactly the way the corrupt countrymen that rejected Jesus thought; that because they were apart of the “chosen nation”, they would be “saved” through becoming the rightful rulers of the world through their inheritance and lawkeeping. But in reality, they were as lawless as anyone else, and it came out, and escalated, in the immediate time after Christ (just like things are escalating now, as one group thinks they’re being eradicated), and they too declared in slightly different words that their nation would “rise again”. America or other “Western” nations aren’t even the Biblical children of the Promise; they just assumed they replaced ancient Israel because of their Christianity, but then they’re making all the same mistakes, but should have known better.
This is where conservatives went wrong, and unfortunately, liberals usually didn’t challenge it on a soteriological level (like this post is doing now), but only on a “social justice” level. (Which is why conservatives now think social justice causes are unbiblical).
When Does a Fringe Movement Stop Being Fringe?
Even the most feared white supremacists in the lore of Jim Crow were just regular white men.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/whats-the-tipping-point-for-white-supremacy/536673/
(another small post: “if DonaldTrump had seen Amistad he’d have been like: well, yeah the slavers were violent but I mean c’mon, both sides…”)
If it’s a civil war, pick a side: Donald Trump, white nationalism and the future of America
Tim Wise
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/if-its-a-civil-war-pick-a-side-donald-trump-white-nationalism-and-the-future-of-america/
But statuary to confederates are not intended as history texts, and those who erected them — mostly in the early 1900s, long after the war, and during a time when lynching and the re-assertion of white supremacy in the South was at its zenith — never intended them to be so. These are altars of worship, where the faithful come to drink of the blood and taste of the flesh of their Great-Great-Grandpappy Beauregard, whose perfidy and characterological rot they still refuse to face. To defend these statues on the grounds of historical memory is perverse, for they misremember that history entirely and the cause for which Lee and others were fighting.
Yes, Jefferson was a slave owner, and this fact should be understood and not sanitized or considered a mere time-bound failing on his part (as it often is at the University of Virginia, for instance). But still, there is a difference between someone who said “all men are created equal” even if his actions suggested he didn’t mean it, and those who said (as did Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens) that white supremacy was the “cornerstone” of their new government. One provided us with a flawed yet visible exit from the national nightmare in which he himself was implicated. The others — including leaders in the states who issued declarations of causes for their secession, and in each case named the maintenance of slavery as their purpose — would have extended that nightmare in perpetuity, and without hesitation. Whether Jefferson intended it or not, he gave us a blueprint, however blood-spattered, for building a functioning democracy. Lee and his cohorts had no interest in such things, nor the vision to even imagine them. And that matters.
The Real Story Behind All Those Confederate Statues
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/the-real-story-of-all-those-confederate-statues/
“Most of these monuments were not erected right after the Civil War. In fact, all the way to 1890 there were very few statues or monuments dedicated to Confederate leaders. Most of them were built much later…during times when Southern whites were engaged in vicious campaigns of subjugation against blacks…to accompany organized and violent efforts to subdue blacks and maintain white supremacy in the South.” [Particularly 1895-1915 with Jim Crow, and 1955-1970, the Civil Rights era. The statue in Charlottesville, IIRC was inbetween that, in the 20’s, when “Jim Crow reigns safely throughout the South”. This is “something that even a lot of liberals don’t always get”].
See also: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/whoseheritage_splc.pdf
Tools of Displacement: How Charlottesville, Virginia’s Confederate statues helped decimate the city’s historically successful black communities.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2017/06/how_charlottesville_s_confederate_statues_helped_decimate_the_city_s_historically.html
Race, the Gospel, and the Moment
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/race-the-gospel-and-the-moment
Franklin Graham: Blame White Terrorism On Those Who Voted To Remove The Racist Monument
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/franklin-graham-blame-charlottesville-voted-remove-racist-monument/
Also addressed now (as I’ve mentioned before) is why the Jews are being included in the hatred:
Why the Charlottesville Marchers Were Obsessed With Jews
Anti-Semitic logic fueled the violence over the weekend, no matter what the president says.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/nazis-racism-charlottesville/536928/
‘Jews will not replace us’: Why white supremacists go after Jews
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/14/jews-will-not-replace-us-why-white-supremacists-go-after-jews/
“The successes of the civil rights movement created a terrible problem for white supremacist ideology. White supremacism — inscribed de jure by the Jim Crow regime and upheld de facto outside the South — had been the law of the land, and a black-led social movement had toppled the political regime that supported it. How could a race of inferiors have unseated this power structure through organizing alone? … Some secret cabal, some mythological power, must be manipulating the social order behind the scenes. This diabolical evil must control television, banking, entertainment, education and even Washington D.C. It must be brainwashing white people, rendering them racially unconscious.
What is this arch-nemesis of the white race, whose machinations have prevented the natural and inevitable imposition of white supremacy? It is, of course, the Jews. Jews function for today’s white nationalists as they often have for anti-Semites through the centuries: as the demons stirring an otherwise changing and heterogeneous pot of lesser evils.”
I had focused on Jews being blamed simply because blacks did not have enough power to be blamed for everything, such as world economics, so they had to shift to another group, which happened to be the Jews, who had already originally been blacklisted by corrupt Christian views as the “murderers of Christ” and then blamed for the problems of Germany. But this shows they are also specifically being resented for supposedly promoting this other race of “inferiors”. The Nationalist site Firstfreedom mentions “the ultimate goal of the One World Order – to brown AmeriKa and annihilate our Anglo-Celtic-European culture!”
When you look at the insistence of how the white race is the greatest and has created everything good in civilization, yet their domination is nevertheless on the wane, and their prided civilization is going down (you can even see this discussed in the Stormfront forum discussion “Are We Really White Supremacists?”), it’s like “that wasn’t supposed to happen!” Everyone knows all about the patterns of other great historical empires: Rome, The Muslim empire, Egypt, Babylon, etc. and the lesson of no matter how powerful they are, they still get too big for their own or anyone’s good (and often become decadent as well), and then burst. But no; not us!
There is just no thought (even among those on this board who disclaim “supremacy” in favor of mere “separation”, but still as “more intelligent”, etc.) that you are still just a mortal man, and everything mortal man does is stained with corruptibility and will fail). So someone else has to be blamed for this, and attributed this power that is [for the moment] greater, but nevertheless evil, with the promise that the good power will eventually prevail.
This has clearly become a religion, and as it emanated from a “Christian worldview”, you wonder what happened to the conservative teaching on the sinfulness of all men (which they loudly and incessantly berated liberals and other religions or irreligion for rejecting)? That no man or nation can point to their technological advancement as having any merit before God.
For one of the other familiar sellouts:
https://www.allenbwest.com/2017/08/13/ok-folks-heres-really-happened-charlottesville-everyone-missing/
He just needs to be sent back into the past and see how good this political philosophy he defends would have treated him. (Or if they got their way and took the nation back, where he would be. And this isn’t even the mainstream Right we’re dealing with anymore; this is the alt-right, and you ain’t even a “good one”, no matter how much you champion their beliefs; there are no “good ones”; you got the brown skin, you got the genes; you’re still just an “n_____”!).
This one does make a point I’ve noted on “privilege theory”, which may be true in one sense, but it’s a matter of tact, in constantly shaming all whites for it:
http://thefederalist.com/2016/05/23/how-anti-white-rhetoric-is-fueling-white-nationalism/
Maine Gov. Paul LePage Says Taking Down Confederate Statues Is Like Removing 9/11 Memorial
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-lepage-911-memorial_us_5995e421e4b0a2608a6aa557
FB discussion:
Christian Pyle “Would only be true if the 9/11 monument was to the terrorists.”
Mel Stewart “Here’s an idea. We erect a monument to Bin Laden at ground zero so we never forget. Sound good?”
Sharon Thomeczek Brohammer “You make too much sense for this group!😉”
Stephen Tonnies “…taking down the statues doesn’t change history. These statues are nothing to do with history. They just glorify men who were on the wrong side of history. These men were traitors to the legitimate government of the United States. They seceded from the USA to form their own country. Why do we revere them? You won’t find many statues of Washington and Jefferson in Great Britain. Washington and Jefferson were at least fighting against a Distant government that was screwing the colonies over with no representation. Very very different to the reasons for the Civil War.”
Connie Jaquess “9-11 memorials are for the victims. Confederate monuments are honoring Confederate War heroes. Big difference.”
One big story all day is that even:
Stonewall Jackson’s Great-Great-Grandsons Call for Removal of Confederate Monuments
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/17/exclusive_stonewall_jacksons_great_great_grandsons
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-monument-beautiful-statue_us_5995a71ae4b06ef724d6ef65
Decided that the best way to frame the perception perspectives is simply
S=SPACE
N=TIME
Where S was said by Jung to “register reality as real” or cover “what is”, N was connected to time; “where it’s heading”. This does not explicitly mention space for S, but when you think of it, all sensory perception is spatial. We see or hear waves that come to us through space, smell particles that float to us through space, and touch and taste things we reach out for through space. This occurs in time as well, but all the perceived objects are experienced through space. Time is where occurs the “idea” of them and the “possibilities” of where they can go. I got into this a bit here: https://erictb.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/another-crack-at-function-definitions-relationships-of-objects/#comment-1962
Like you can have a tangible unit like a building or even our bodies, but if every part (or our cells) are replaced one by one, then is it still the same material? What passes down through time is really an “idea” that the tangible “here and now” parts simply make up instant by instant. Matter itself may actually be waveforms that transfer from one string to another as the forces of acceleration or inertia “push” all the energy of the string from one location to the next, relative to other objects. The best way to think of this is a moving image on a screen of pixels. Nothing’s actually “moving” except an “image”, conveying, essentially, an “idea” programmed into the electronic circuits. Again, functions are by nature “mixed together” or “undifferentiated in reality, and only separated out by our consciousness.
Hence, both S and N are involved in these examples. But to divide them, S is the spatial (random access) aspect, while N is the sequential (causative) aspect.
So, “What is” refers to what is sitting there in space, while what “could be” implies a time element; what could take on a tangible shape in the future, or even what could have been, in the past.
So now, to factor in the attitudes, extraversion deals in the “environment“, while introversion is about the individual. Both space and time consist of linear “dimensions”, of biploar “directions”, by which every conscious entity immersed in it divides reality. (And I’ve been expressing the functions and attitudes themselves as divisions of reality). Space has three (randomly accessible, again), and time has one, which is one way.
So Se is basically what you experience in the immediate environment, as you look out into any of the three dimensions of space. Again, the visual and audial waves, olfactory particles, and gustatory and tactile contact.
Si is the same spatial data, but stored individually in memory.
So Ne then involves what you experience when following the chain of occurrences when looking through the dimension of time. Its inferences occur along this time line (its “environment”). Hence, what “could” happen. Also, following past patterns, and continuing their trajectories to get a sense of what will happen. (Of course, things can change, and so Ne remains “open”).
So then Ni (what I devised all of this to continue to try to get a better understanding of and way of expressing) also looks at the dimension of time, but its inferences do not come from the timeline, but rather from the individual, which is the unconscious. This is the domain of the “archetypal” (images that are collective, and not tied directly to our external experience), and what do we often describe archetypal images as? “Timeless“! (meaning pervasive through time; not on our individual timeline of experience).
So, for the perception attitudes, space and time are the corresponding “environments” that define the extraverted perspective. Introversion, (just like the stereotypical picture of an “introvert”) withdraws from this, to the individual perspective, to conjure up images either of spatial reality, or temporal patterns.
The way this was once described to me, was that N overall dealt with patterns or the salient points of a pattern that can be abstracted from one situation to give meaning to another, transferring the acquired patterns to new contexts, largely unconsciously, in order to get the gist of a subject; and operating by inferring from a few elements some larger arrangement in which they’re characteristically included. Ne attempts to understand a situation (or otherwise disparate external elements) in terms of a pattern (the larger arrangement that give them meaning; and also “stored in memory”), while Ni begins with and looks outside of the pattern (the existing arrangement of elements) and infers what’s being left out; what it doesn’t take into account.
This was helping me get a better understanding of the difference, but for some reason wasn’t totally clicking. Me, in my Ti fashion, needed a better system of parallel, like S, T and F all handle the same things (tangible, mechanical and anthropic or “soul”-related), but the “e” attitude determines what “is”, is “true” or is “good” from the environment, while the “i” attitudes determines them from within the individual.
The obvious word I took notice of for N was “pattern”, and it was tempting to simply define “N=patterns“. But I held off from that, because for one thing, “patterns” could be sensory as well, such as a “pattern” on a fabric, or music. (Actually, these, especially the latter, are timelike as well as spatial/tangible, and with visual patterns, you can think of them as timelike, in it requires time to compare one part to another and see the markings look the same).
Also, because I thought the general N description, and Ne sounded similar: involving comparing or transferring one thing to another and the “larger arrangement that gives them meaning”. (But of course Ni deals in this latter part; the so-called “big picture” too. And I had to think whether the “pattern” referred to the “larger arrangement” for one or both attitudes, or if the “larger arrangement” was what’s outside the pattern, or if both the initial thing and what it was being compared to were both “patterns” and “larger arrangements” in this particular description, etc.).
And Ne dealt directly with the external pattern, making me think then that Ni was inferring from a “subjective pattern” (such as the “templates” I mentioned in my earlier descriptions of Ni). But instead, it looks “outside” a pattern.
So what really was the common “element” or “product” that tied together both attitudes of iNtuition? It’s clearly not the “pattern” itself. If anything, it made Ne sound internal (“patterns stored in memory“, which also makes one think of Si) and Ni sound external (“outside the pattern”).
Really, the problem in distinguishing Ne vs Ni was the need to determine what exactly the “environment” of iNuition was to begin with! (It was obvious for S, T and F, and so what happened was that we assume the same “environment”, often called “the outer world” held true for N. But what really did that mean; especially since iNtuition is all technically “internal”, and imagines possibilities for things on the external world?)
So upon reading Beebe’s book, where he pointed out Jung associated N specifically with time, that got me thinking more about it. (Also, even more recently, in reviewing The Iceman Inheritance, where time was mentioned as the awareness that came with our sapience as developed hominids).
In my view, space and time together make up sort of a partial “trinity” reflection, with space comparable to the “Son” who appeared physically in space, and time, with the invisible “Spirit” who afterward came over the time since, to indwell man. I for some reason had not directly associated S with “space”, because I realized time was involved as well. But just in the past few days, “trying on the idea”, it really fits!
Ne’s patterns “stored in memory” by which it actually does its looking down through the dimension of time is precisely what makes it work with its opposite tandem mate, Si. Hence, both are associated in the new “Intentional Styles” model, with “Inquiring”; which is basically going mentally through (e) time (N) to access previous (i) spatial experience (S).
So Si technically also has a time element, as stored memory is from the past. But the difference is that N is about objects or models that play out in time, while Si is about models of objects in space remembered through time (and also current internal senses).
Se’s immediate (e) space (S) orientation then works with Ni’s immediate “outside (i) the [timelike(N)] pattern” awareness, and hence are called “Realizing”.
Lenore had defined Ni in the book (p223) as “liberate our sense impressions from their larger context, thereby creating more options for perception itself“, which might be hard for non-Ni types to really grasp. The timeline idea explains it. The “larger context” is what occurs in the time dimension, but the “unconscious impressions” are from outside of the time dimension, and so you can get more kinds of interpretations than what were available in the temporal environment.
The example given is raising the question in one’s mind of the possible reasons a suntan is valued by people today, when the original circumstances that gave it its meaning have changed. Again, we see the time element of this, and the pondering steps outside of this timeline to raise the question of why it’s still considered attractive.
(Likewise, “perspectives” is the single word nickname Personality Hacker gives to Ni, and they describe it as “not married to its own perspective”, and “watching your mind form patterns”, and eventually, over time, you’re going to get the ‘pattern of the pattern'” [hence, “meta-awareness”], and so when listening to another person they can shift out of their own perspective and into the other person’s perspective and get a sense of what’s going on with them, and be able to guess “I bet this is the pattern created in the other person’s mind”, so it looks like reading their mind. These would be the “internal connections” corresponding to Ne’s “external connections” They also describe Ne as asking “what if” and Ni as asking “why”?).
So Ni is like Fi in thinking “if that were me, I would…”; Fi says “feel this way”, and Ni says “perceive it this way”. This affinity is why both are so “deep” and the hardest to understand or explain. Both N and F are the most complex as their products only have meaning to sapient beings, where S and T is “what is”, whether anyone is there to perceive or assess it or not.
I would also say if you consciously compare patterns, that’s Ne, while a feeling more like a premonition of what something means, or what will happen is Ni.
(For me, when the premonition is good, I don’t trust it; when it’s bad; I try to resist and fight against the outcome playing out in life,or I just grudgingly go with it and become totally down and pessimistic).
Looking at the temporal patterns limits us to what we can see from them, where we can’t see the future, and so the possibilities in the environment remain “open”. A lot of different things “could” happen. Looking outside the pattern is “open” in an internal sense, as you don’t have to rely on patterns of experience. However, it ends up creating less “open” environmental possibilities, and also working with extraverted judgment, which makes the observations and solutions more “closed”.
As Ni looks “outside the pattern” to access the unconscious, Si could likewise be seen as looking “outside the immediate [material] environment” to access the stored images of experienced tangible reality.
Beebe quotes from Joseph Henderson (San Francisco psychiatrist regarded as the pre-eminent American Jungian analyst, d.2007) on the difference between the two functions: “Introverted intuition perceives the variety and the possibility for development of the inner images, whereas introverted sensing perceives the specific image which defines the psychic activity that needs immediate attention”.
So it’s like the “model” of space and time, respectively, with the “image” itself being the spacelike static “item” in this imaginary space, and “where it can head” as the time dimension in the inner world. (Where Ne is described as spotting “the still unrealized possibilities in things”; and thus referencing “the real world”; i.e. actual “things”, which may be technically “images”, but if we make time itself the “environment” of N, then as stated before, both attitudes of N deal with images that have never matched the [spatial] environment (where with S, they either do currently match the environment [e], or once did match it [i]), but Ne’s images are based more on real world objects or sequences (that can be shown to others, even if by implication), where Ni is like the “image of the image” (and hence, the “meta” form again).
So if we make the S/N environment “space/time”, then by extension, T/F could be something like things vs people (i.e.“social”). (And we are also still “things”, hence we can be looked at through a T lens).
So:
space—time—things—people = the environment of reality
tangible—potential—mechanical—anthropic = our immersion in reality
More examples of N=time:
Typology; patterns of behavior observed through time.
Numbers: represent hypothetical sensate objects in space (like if we see three groups of three items, and we know the total is really nine objects sitting in space), but when we begin representing them with numerals and operator symbols, we have turned them into ideas that only work through time.
“Discover vs uncover” [Ne vs Ni, discussed here] further betrays the timelike nature of N.
Things like higher dimensions are hypothetical ideas of things we can’t see, but would be waiting [i.e through time] to be “discovered” or “uncovered”.
Bruzon (“Fundamental Nature of MBTI”) description of N as the “motion” component (represented as a whole grid) while S was the “static” objects on the grid.
“Motion” of course is only possible in time.
I once read about tests that had been done in type classes, of showing an image of a triangle with horizontal bands. With a surprising amount of consistency, the Sensates describe it just like this, or as a three-sided plane with parallel bands. The Intuitives say they see a railroad track or a striped dunce cap. Each side can see why the other described it the way they did, but the S’s heard: “What are the properties of this image?” and N’s heard “What does this image mean to you?”; that is, what pattern is it like in your tacit memory?
This is timelike in that these “patterns”, again, are constructs formed over time, where the S’s simply described exactly what they saw immediately in space.
I had begun using the term “implications”/”inferences”, in addition to “conceptual”, “ideational”, “mental constructs”, “filling in”, “intangible” etc.; and implications and inferences point through time (which is intangible in the moment) via the mental ideation and constructing and filling in processes used to become aware of them.
“The big picture” also, is in practice timelike, as it’s something that “comes together” or basically revealed in time. Ni deals with an existing “big picture” by “filling it in from the images of the unconscious. Ne forms its sense of the “big picture” by putting together the “objective” patterns, stored in memory, filling in the patterns with fitting elements of each other. Both the “putting together” and “memory” are technically “internal”, to the “subject”, which is what made this confusing; but it is in the dimension of time, not space, that they are external objects!
So about Ne sounding like N in general; N can be described as grasping a pattern that two otherwise disparate situations have in common, and gambles that the new situation is going to operate in the same general way as the one already known. First, here we see the clear time element; the predictive sense; based on “patterns” that themselves deal in some kind of “motion” (change) that is not necessarily spatial. Both Ne and Ni do this, but Ne simply looks along time at the motion component (whether temporal, spatial, or just mental) of the pattern to make the “guess”, while Ni references the archetypal images to gain something more like a “hunch”.
So to do the completed function attitudes:
Se awareness of objects in space is stimulated by the environment (as it emerges in the external world)
Si awareness of objects in space is stimulated by individual reference (filtered through internal recollection)
Ne awareness of patterns through time is stimulated by the environment (one pattern implies another “externally”)
Ni awareness of patterns through time is stimulated by individual reference (looks outside the pattern to the internal subconscious)
Since all of science (including psychology) realizes naturally that we deal in space and time (in addition to impersonal mechanics, and personal affect), putting the functions in these terms (again, one or the other preferred by our divisions of reality) would have a better chance of proving the theory is not some ridiculous idea like astrology.
(I also thought, if S as space corresponds to the Son and N as time corresponds to the Spirit, then what corresponds to the Father? It would be the “transcendent function” of course, which would correspond to what I’ve considered the Father-like continuum, or “Patrix”, the “chance” medium. But that’s on the axis of S and N. What about T/F, which is the other axis the transcendent function lies between? I would think T would be more material, like the Son, and F, dealing with “the heart” as like the Spirit. I had considered T=”matter” and F=”soul”, but I used “material” for S; and again, this shows that both S and T deal in “what it is” in their own ways; and “soul” could include animals, but they don’t have a Feeling “function”; it’s all instinct for them, and though I use “soul-affect” for F, this does extend to animals, inasmuch as we relate to them and their emotions. But without our sapience, F would have no meaning).
I’ve also been informed that Socionics considers S as space and N as time (and T as “objects” and F as “energy”) http://en.socionicasys.org/teorija/dlja-novichkov/aspekty.
An example of Ne’s time orientation:
| Like I liked to look at possible subway service patterns, and was particularly interested years ago, when the Manhattan Bridge was stuck, seemingly forever, in the “north side tracks open only” configuration, allowing the 6th Avenue traffic to run over the bridge, but not Broadway. So the Broadway “Q” was moved to 6th Avenue, while the express “N” was moved to the Montague tunnel, where it could access the Broadway line, but as a local and via a much longer path. The next phase of the work was to close the north side, and reopen the south side, allowing the Broadway expresses to cross, but not the 6th Avenue service. It had switched from this pattern several years before, but since this was initially planned to be temporary, they created a makeshift arrangement where the 6th Ave. B and D service ran in two sections; one rerouted to Broadway, and terminating at one of its terminals in Manhattan or Queens, and the uptown halves already on 6th, from uptown, terminating at 34th St. The two halves actually overlapped between 34th and 57th, so that you had two separate routes with the same letter, and different route colors running through midtown Manhattan. I thought this was an incredibly sloppy arrangement. But then when I found out that there was a time when 6th Avenue didn’t connect to the bridge at all (the north side used to connect to Broadway, and the south side, to the now severed Nassau St. loop, which had very little service as it was), and that the old service pattern included a “T” train that was replaced by the “B” I was familiar with, and a “family” of “Q”‘s replaced by the D, and the primary Nassau service was on the West End, much the way the M had been moved from the Brighton to the West End, so that was similar also. So I got the idea for the next time to just restore that old pattern and the letter “T” instead of a second “B”, and since the Q locals used double letters, which were no longer used, then the new Brighton local would be “U”, because it sounds like “Q”, is used with “q” in written language, and the lines were really just an express and local version of the same line, not going anywhere different, like when a 6th Avenue and Broadway line run there. I took the pattern from one situation, and moved it to a similar situation according to the infrastructure, and then forecasted what “could” be done. This also involved judgment, in determining from an internal framework what would be “correct” (different lines should each have their own letter, and letters should be allocated to the same line, even if unused for a long time). Thankfully, however, the same “environmental” criteria; this time, rider confusion, led them to eliminate the “split” B and D, which had already had provisions on the new signs, with both orange and yellow sets of both routes. Instead, they used an existing “W” (which was allocated on the signs for the Whitehall St. short line service it appears as today) for the West End (it had become my second choice in suggestions, for the Brighton local when I found out about the letter being on signs), and came up with a “diamond Q” sign for the Brighton express (with the circle as the local, since they had decided diamonds would now only be used for express versions of local lines that run at the same time; the only other examples now being on the 6 and 7. While I had also had ideas for a dreaded “bridge fully closed” scenario ⦅that looked like a real possibility throughout the whole time⦆, and we imagined what the final “bridge fully open” scenario” could be like, as it turned out, the B and D would not even return to their old lines when the work was finished, but actually switch places). I’m not sure how Ni would handle this. From what I heard, it would gather a final conclusion, and “work its way backward” to find holes in the pattern and see which way the data “wants” to go, which I imagine would then be assessed for the correct course of action with Te. The decisions of Transit are basically Te+S (with computers doing the “timelike forecasting” work, and decisions based off of the “tangible” spatially perceived data produced). |
So we see how it’s all timelike, in comparing the patterns over time, and what could be done in time. Those “patterns” in this case also involve the routing of trains, moving from one place to another.
"ERIPEDIA" 