It's hard to imagine George Carlin would associate himself with anything repressive and authoritarian.
Or anything written by an Anglican minister, Reverend Wilbert Awdry. Surprised me as well.
The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
91–100 of 279 posts
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I'm well aware of the definitions of a corporation, and totalitarianism, and dystopia. But a priest who appears to have spent the early 20th century pottering around the English countryside writing stories about trains was not informed by having lived in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia. So your earlier assertion that this is what Thomas the Tank Engine represents seems specious. It's a modern reinterpretation…
Unless he was a hermit living in a cave, he was well immersed in society. And in fact his stories are about one of the main symbols of modern corporate industrial society: The train.
>And in fact his stories are about one of the main symbols of modern corporate industrial society: The train.
He liked trains. He made up stories about them as a child, imagining them as characters talking to each other, then wrote those stories down for his own son years later. He didn't consider trains to be a symbol of corporate oppression or dystopia.
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I'm well aware of the definitions of a corporation, and totalitarianism, and dystopia. But a priest who appears to have spent the early 20th century pottering around the English countryside writing stories about trains was not informed by having lived in a corporate-totalitarian dystopia. So your earlier assertion that this is what Thomas the Tank Engine represents seems specious. It's a modern reinterpretation…
Priests are the public face of the most totalitarian dystopian corporation ever to menace humanity. I guess if we're talking about an English priest he probably worked for a different such corporation that split off from the original about 500 years ago... They didn't split in order to cut back on the dystopian totalitarianism!
Ok, you're just shitposting.
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#94I am certain that this story was inspired by the reporter reading this recent reddit thread that pointed out the absurdity of this show: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6zgpig/what_is_t...
Modern "journalism" is mostly copy pasting content from Reddit. BuzzFeed turns AskReddits into listicles, higher quality publications turn Reddit posts into long form content.
That's a step up from the 2 sentences plus 20 tweets approach.
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#95in other news, bourgeois-liberal publication takes issue with other media promoting traditionalist collectivism
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#96I am certain that this story was inspired by the reporter reading this recent reddit thread that pointed out the absurdity of this show: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6zgpig/what_is_t...
Modern "journalism" is mostly copy pasting content from Reddit. BuzzFeed turns AskReddits into listicles, higher quality publications turn Reddit posts into long form content.
you forgot the down-spinning of corporate and government press releases to make them seem like legitimate reportage..
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#97My mother didn’t let me watch anything but Thomas and Friends. She said after watching Rugrats or Spongebob i would turn into a disobedient brat, but after watching Thomas I was apparently well mannered and well behaved. I ended up becoming a soft well mannered programmer. Fuck you Thomas!
You’re a really useful engineer
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#98> In 2009, the show went completely C.G.I. As much as I love the New Yorker, my fondest hope is that one day the N.Y.C. media will free themselves from whatever repressive authoritarian soul compels them to put those dots in every single acronym and initialism, when the rest of the country abandoned the dots long ago. They even put them in names that once were initialisms but now are genuine names on their own: they…
The New Yorker also insists on typographical affectations such as coöperate and reëlect. Most publications have a "house style." The New Yorker's is particularly eccentric, and I think they like it that way.
I used to think this was annoying and snobby, but after seeing the New Yorker deëvolve into a less funny BuzzFeed over the past couple of years, I long for the over-the-top snobbiness of the old New Yorker. At least it was a distinct identity.
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#99Thomas & Friends is gold. The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility. It isn't there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn't blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it's been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes). Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV…
The comparison with Mr. Rogers is instructive. Both shows seem rooted in a minister's desire to encapsulate ideals derived from the Bible. But while Mr. Rogers is New Testament, the Thomas books are Old Testament. Henry, for example, gets punished for the sin of VANITY -- he doesn't stop in the tunnel in order to shirk work, but rather to avoid getting his nice new paint messed up. To see the difference between the s…
I think the New Testament disagrees with your characterization of the Old Testament. Pretty much the entire New Testament goes on about how the Old Testament is a series of stories about how cycles of rule making and rule breaking do not lead to real justice, peace, or life. In particular, both Romans and Hebrews (though not exclusively those books) cite Old Testament stories to make the case that the Old Testament (a.k.a. the law and the prophets) is largely misunderstood to be about a world full of crime and punishment.
For example, Romans 1 talks about how people (not a vengeful God) set up the worst consequences for themselves. God's "wrath" is unfiltered humanity. Romans 2 goes on about how there's plenty of blame to pass around (so there's no room for "good people" to blame "bad" ones). And Romans 4 holds up Abraham, an Old Testament character, as an example of how life should be lived, in faithfulness to a forgiving God. All through this passage, and in the rest of the book, a case is built from the Old Testament itself.
Anyway, I don't have strong feelings about Shining Time Station, but I think the Old Testament is more humane, sensible, and subtle than people seem to appreciate. At least the apostle Paul seemed to think so.
Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”
#100> As one commenter writes, “What moral lesson are kids supposed to learn from this? Do as you’re told or you will be entombed forever in the darkness to die?” Geez, don't let that commentator see a Warner Bros cartoon...
Or Tom and Jerry.