I went to see the Golden Compass last night. Although I have not read the book, I enjoyed the movie. In the first ten minutes I told my girlfriend, that the author is either an anarchist or an atheist. The Magesterian seeks to control all of humanity (sounds like government ehh?).
There are several epics and trilogies against government. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars (it even shows how democracy turns into an imperialistic dictatorship), Harry Potter (he doesn't like the Ministry of Magic), and now Golden Compass.
Why are there so many good movies and books that millions of people own on their bookshelves and movie shelves that are clearly against government? These movies make millions of dollars, so clearly people enjoy watching them. Why don't they take the morals of the movie and implement them? I find it hypocritical if somebody loves a movie such as Star Wars and enjoys the lessons it teaches, but they are pro war in Iraq and the patriot act etc. What do you think?
I believe there is a shift slowly moving in that direction.
As a culture, we've been apathetic, looking at the annointed front runners and opting for the lesser of two evils (if we made an opinion at all). It feels like the anesthesia is finally starting to wear off.
Many people, like myself, who haven't traditionally followed politics, are finally becoming more aware of whats going on around us and looking for our voice. The desire for change has always been there, however many of us have long felt that are own decisions didn't matter.
I feel the vast majority of American's in past years have consistently taken the sound bites fed to us, and accepted that the government was acting in our best interests. Finally, the incompetence of government is becoming more publicized, and the people are waking up to its flaws.
For me, personally, it really was shows like "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" that made me realize just how incompetent or "leaders" really are.
ShaneC:I believe there is a shift slowly moving in that direction. As a culture, we've been apathetic, looking at the annointed front runners and opting for the lesser of two evils (if we made an opinion at all). It feels like the anesthesia is finally starting to wear off.
I'm curious: what makes you think there is a net shift in the direction of liberty? And doesn't it seem far TOO slow to do any good? What evidence is there that apathy is 'wearing off'? I see little such evidence, and what little there is seems swamped by evidence that it doesn't matter. The vast majority of the trendlines indicate a continued acceleration toward Statism, and precious few - home schooling, internet based info/news/communities, Ron Paul campaign, etc - point decidely the other direction, and those are too peripheral to pose an effective counterforce.
I'm not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, and if you can give me good reason to hope, I'd love it, but I think a realistic appraisal of the situation is that we're well past the boiling point, so the fact that a few - a very few - frogs are now starting to wake up is essentially meaningless.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe
ozzy43:I'm curious: what makes you think there is a net shift in the direction of liberty? And doesn't it seem far TOO slow to do any good? What evidence is there that apathy is 'wearing off'? I see little such evidence, and what little there is seems swamped by evidence that it doesn't matter. The vast majority of the trendlines indicate a continued acceleration toward Statism, and precious few - home schooling, internet based info/news/communities, Ron Paul campaign, etc - point decidely the other direction, and those are too peripheral to pose an effective counterforce. I'm not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, and if you can give me good reason to hope, I'd love it, but I think a realistic appraisal of the situation is that we're well past the boiling point, so the fact that a few - a very few - frogs are now starting to wake up is essentially meaningless.
Like you said ozzy there are several info/news/communities and Ron Paul etc. I think the problem is that we are too dispersed. I'm sure that there are millions who have cared, but they are isolated from one another. If the info/news/communities combined together, along with making more people aware that there are others that think like them then the libertarian movement would be a formidable force.
SMacaskill: Why are there so many good movies and books that millions of people own on their bookshelves and movie shelves that are clearly against government? These movies make millions of dollars, so clearly people enjoy watching them. Why don't they take the morals of the movie and implement them? I find it hypocritical if somebody loves a movie such as Star Wars and enjoys the lessons it teaches, but they are pro war in Iraq and the patriot act etc. What do you think?
Because not only have the vast majority of Americans not been taught how to reason effectively - let alone how to extract and apply lessons from history, literature, etc - we have been explicitly conditioned to be unable to do this.
I really don't mean to play the role of Mr Pessimist today, but it seems to me that reality is pretty clear on this. Generations of conditioning in socialism via a public school system (aka government managed youth indoctrination camps) whose stated purpose is to churn out obedient workers and soldiers (per Prussian police state school system upon which ours is modeled) has an impact, after all. See, these individuals enjoy watching the movies, but the next step you assert - that they enjoy the lessons they teach - is, IMO, wrong. Most people do not even grasp these lessons, and even if they did, it would never occur to most to apply them to the entity that the entire educational and cultural environment has conditioned them to think of as there to help and protect them.
The Incredibles was movie with a very strong libertarian, almost Randian, subplot (if everyone's special, then no one is), but of all the people I asked about the movie who were not libertarians to begin with (and an awful lot of people who were!) never even got that part.
We Amerikans - we're just not very good 'thinkers'. We leave that to our masters, as we have been trained to do.
SMacaskill: Like you said ozzy there are several info/news/communities and Ron Paul etc. I think the problem is that we are too dispersed. I'm sure that there are millions who have cared, but they are isolated from one another. If the info/news/communities combined together, along with making more people aware that there are others that think like them then the libertarian movement would be a formidable force.
I agree with this - and it's one of the few areas where I see some significant promise. But that's an awfully big IF! I mean, libertarians, austrians, ancaps, whatever, have been trying to educate people in this country about rapidly vanishing freedoms/encroaching State for decades and decades. The internet has fueled this beyond what could have been imagined 20 years ago, but I wonder to what real effect, in the end?? I suppose we'll have to wait and see. The Ron Paul campaign will be a good indicator, I think - the timing is perfect, so if he can't get the support of a truly sizable chunk of the population - I'm talking near majority - then I don't see a helluva lot to hope for. That is, if people are unwilling to understand this message of liberty in light of the mindbogglingly egregious violations of the Rule of Law under Bush, then what reason for hope for the future? IMO, it will be time to look to other nations where the fight for liberty has a better chance.
On the front page of mises.org there is Murray Rothbard's article on the strategy of liberty:
http://www.mises.org/story/2651
Maybe it will take time for changes to come about. But with an attitude of, no one is doing anything then neither should I, it will only take longer. One person can bring back the ideas of liberty into politics, maybe it's Ron Paul, maybe it's somebody else. But at least people are trying. As the article states, we need to demand for liberty right now.
ozzy43:I agree with this - and it's one of the few areas where I see some significant promise. But that's an awfully big IF! I mean, libertarians, austrians, ancaps, whatever, have been trying to educate people in this country about rapidly vanishing freedoms/encroaching State for decades and decades. The internet has fueled this beyond what could have been imagined 20 years ago, but I wonder to what real effect, in the end?? I suppose we'll have to wait and see. The Ron Paul campaign will be a good indicator, I think - the timing is perfect, so if he can't get the support of a truly sizable chunk of the population - I'm talking near majority - then I don't see a helluva lot to hope for. That is, if people are unwilling to understand this message of liberty in light of the mindbogglingly egregious violations of the Rule of Law under Bush, then what reason for hope for the future? IMO, it will be time to look to other nations where the fight for liberty has a better chance.
IMO I think many people have missed the mark in trying to educate the public. They are using economic academics instead of "media education," (if that makes any sense).
During the 1920s and 1930s, the majority of people never read John Maynard Keynes. Who did? The media and politicians read his work and translated it into something that appealed to the masses. "Jobs for everyone" "Mass government spending" "Retire without saving a dime" and all that other crap. I think the libertarian movement needs to do the same, but in reverse. Tell the masses why liberty should appeal to them using simple words. Don't say government is the cause, not the solution. Use examples like people who live in the slums and are unemployed because of government created monopolies and protectionist laws.
Ron Paul is good, but he appeals to the academia world who understands what he is talking about. I don't think he has the personality to appeal to the majority of Americans.
Actually, SMacaskill basically hit what I was refering to.
Many of us want less government involvment in our lives and the Ron Paul campaign struck a cord that this is possible.
The mainstream Democratic party tried marketing themselves as "anti-war" when they took over Congress. The front runners of the Democratic party want us "out of Iraq" - to which Hiliary said it would be sometime in 2013 if memory serves. Obama just wants to go towards other countries,etc.
The Republican party has become (mostly) the "Pro-war Party" of facism and greed.
More people are seeing that the two main parties don't represent them anymore. They're seeking alternatives.
Many of them don't really know what they're searching for, until they hear the message of liberty, and it speaks greatly to those who hear its message.
SMacaskill:Why don't they take the morals of the movie and implement them?
Human nature.
While liberty is often an appealing concept, I believe most people find it appealing from a very self-centered point of view. Liberty for me is wonderful, but liberty for you... not so much.
News flash: Most people dislike their governments and "the man" in general. That doesn't mean they wouldn't like government if they were in charge. Libertarians are unique in that they even reject power themselves.
SMacaskill:Maybe it will take time for changes to come about. But with an attitude of, no one is doing anything then neither should I, it will only take longer. One person can bring back the ideas of liberty into politics, maybe it's Ron Paul, maybe it's somebody else. But at least people are trying. As the article states, we need to demand for liberty right now.
But in the meantime, the police state is imminent. Things are NOT standing still while the proponents of liberty slowly gather their strength. It's not a matter of 'only taking longer' - every day, the power of the State grows, and more individual liberty vanishes. As Spencer put it:
"A comparatively small body of officials, coherent, having common interests, and acting under central authority, has an immense advantage over an incoherent public which has no settled policy, and can be brought to act unitedly only under strong provocation. Hence an organization of officials, once passing a certain stage of growth, becomes less and less resistible"
I have been watching people (including myself) 'try' for over 20 years and I've seen precious little in the way of real progress in this direction and lotsa progress in the other - it seems apparent to me that we've gone way past that stage to which Spencer referred to (he wrote that in reference to European governments back in the 19th century!).
Call me pessimistic, if you wish, but I am just trying to be realistic - where are the signs that the people of America actually *want* liberty? Where are the signs that they have the faintest notion of what real liberty would entail? Seems to me that the Bush power grab of the last 6 years and the near lack of any serious nationwide outrage - not to mention Bush's re-election - tells us just about everything we need to know about Americans and their desire for liberty. As Napolitano's new book puts it - we are a nation of sheep. Timid, fearful, self-absorbed, steeped in the mentality of Statism thanks to the corporate media and public schooling - this is not a populace ready for liberty.
I hope that Ron Paul's candidacy proves me wrong. That's what I'll be watching to see if there is still hope for a free America.
I think it's the anarchists who actually reject power themselves. Libertarians of the minarchist persuasion think that only a little power is necessary. Unfortunately, that "only a little" soon becomes "only a little more", and then "just a little bit more, I promise!" until we're stuck with yet another Leviathan. Power corrupts, and the first sign of corruption is the desire for more power.
The biggest (and most difficult) changes to obtain in life are usually related with ideas. Man´s biggest virtue is reason, but other human traits distort that reasoning. Therefore, just being convinced that something is "bad" isn´t enough. When thinking of government, it seems to me, that there is a built-in safety check that defuses thoughts on questionning it´s utility, and that it´s very existence is a matter of doubt at all (in other words, it´s taken as an absolute). Von Mises stated that the young must always doubt everything, even those monoliths handed from their forefathers must be submitted to veracity in the light of new knowledge and technology. At this time, there seems to be many people who are least traveling in that continuum of doubt towards an anarchist form of organization. Unfortunately, I´m reminded of Einstein who stated that we´ll always be just reaching half the distance, of half distance ad infinitum. The core issue here is abolishing the idea of the inevitabilty of government... that´s the quantum leap. Unfortunately, the status quo puts up a hard fight. This fact is obvious, the lifestyles and very existence of politicians, intellectuals and other members of the "inner circle"are at stake, so they aren´t going to surrender so easily....remember, they control the system, including education. Plus, self-interest (in the unrational, non-randian sense) is always going to approve of a system that caters to the whims of pressure groups in society, making government "redistribution" policies necessary.
This is why the discusion and communication of libertarian ideas is crucial (see document on strategies in this web site)
I've not seen the movie, but other commentors suggest that the book is more strongly athiestic in its message while the movie has toned the athiestic message down to more of an anti-establishment one. I know that the Catholic Church has indicated it's disapproval of the book and movie since it sees the evil antagonist as a thinly veiled reference to itself. That strikes me as somewhat disingeneous, though. There's certainly precendent. From the perspective of Protestants, Muslims, and Jews, the Catholic Church, as an institution, has played the role of establishment/antagonist through a chunk of history. That makes the Catholic Church fair game, in my opinion - the same as any institution that has (or has had) a regional monopoly on force and coersion ... which makes a good lead-in for addressing the questions:
SMacaskill:Why are there so many good movies and books that millions of people own on their bookshelves and movie shelves that are clearly against government? These movies make millions of dollars, so clearly people enjoy watching them. Why don't they take the morals of the movie and implement them? I find it hypocritical if somebody loves a movie such as Star Wars and enjoys the lessons it teaches, but they are pro war in Iraq and the patriot act etc. What do you think?
Epic movies, of realistic or fantastic sorts, are typicaly popular because the stories (as told) resonate with peoples values and their fundamental expectations of good vs. evil and right vs. wrong. Moreover, it's exciting to watch underdogs triumph over overwhelming or impossible odds, and it's hopeful and reinforcing to watch people endure struggles in which the character(s) cling to and do what is "right" despite the powerful seductions to do what is "wrong." A big part of the problem is, in my opinion, that most people don't really consciously consider the themes and meanings of such stories. They instinctively enjoy the stories, i.e. they feel good after watching them, but they are far removed from any interest in self-conscious analysis of the story, it's morals, it's instructions, etc.
It takes a kind of cognitive maturity to transition from simply "enjoying" stories to digging into the deeper plot layers and then to extrapolate onto oneself any particular nuggets of truth and wisdom that are found. It takes even more effort and maturity to be motivated to action beyond the comfortable inertia that our current lifestyle and conscious mindset represents - particularly if such action involves discomfort or sacrifice. Of the subset of people who, shall we say, think more deeply than the average person, there will always be some who wind up holding what you or I might consider to be inconsistent or contradictory views. In those cases, I would argue, people have selectively established a set of rationalizations that allows them to hold the views in balance without seeing them as conflicting. However, as a word of gentle caution, we ough to be careful of throwing the epithet "hypocrite" around, because compared to someone like Gandhi or Jesus, you and I might be considered hypocrites, too.
Silver Badger:I know that the Catholic Church has indicated it's disapproval of the book and movie
Boy, that right there is a good enough recommendation for me to go see it, thus indicating my disapproval of the Catholic Church.