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The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

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Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#161

Post by nl »

geowwy wrote: post #124
linkregister wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the bulk of events in the early Old Testament. I will name some examples of God personally meting out the death sentence en masse as punishment for sin in various books of the Old Testament. 1. The Great Flood (Genesis), 2. Sodom (Genesis), 3. The Plagues of Egypt (Exodus), 4. The Exile of the Israelites from the Promised Land (Exodus). Redemption,…

> ...the mainstream Christian opinion that the Old Testament is vengeful and the New Testament is merciful... That's not mainstream Christian opinion. It's called Marcionism and it's universally condemned by mainstream Christianity.

That's not mainstream Christian opinion.

It's fair to say it misses many subtleties of mainstream Christian view, but it is still more true than untrue. The theology of sanctifying grace[1] and the mercy of salvation[2] are both New Testament ideals which are the core of mainstream Christian theology.

It's called Marcionism and it's universally condemned by mainstream Christianity.

Marcionism is a whole other thing, involving two gods: Marcionists believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.

The idea of there being two, separate gods is what made it heretical.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_in_Christianity

[2] https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-merc...

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#162

Post by nl »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #137
linkregister wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your characterization of my viewpoint is highly distorted. No credible mainstream Christian rejects the Old Testament.

The "it" to which gp refers is not the old testament. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism

Yes, but saying that @linkregister's views are Marcionism does misrepresent their views completely.

Marcionism is nothing like what linkregister is claiming.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#163

Post by mseebach »

Retra wrote: post #133
dingaling wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never think for yourself Independent thinking is lauded ( Toad suggesting how to save the whale ), but unilateral action is not. > You have no value until you are 'useful'. In the wider context of society that's entirely accurate. Community doesn't exist unless people contribute to the group.

There is a risk of setting up a situation where "useful" is determined by presumed authority rather than any objective sense of utility. There's also the problem of how to deal with things that are not useful now , but presumably will be (in an emergency, for example.) There's also the problem of usefulness that is not communicated effectively; maybe we don't know how to express the usefulness of some activity. This…

"There is a risk" isn't really a fair standard. What moral, digestible in a children's show (or any form to any audience, really) doesn't have a risk of being applied in a way that isn't beneficial? I haven't watched the show, but it strikes me from the descriptions here that prudence is very much a value it would appreciate.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#164

Post by clouddrover »

paulddraper wrote: post #154
clouddrover wrote: post #9

Henry gets bricked in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO6qIM2WO6k That's hardcore.

And then is unbricked https://youtu.be/dWtNGzGZTCo?t=2m28s Which The New Yorker would know if they had watch more than a tiny clip.

Only after his fire had gone out, his spirit had been broken, and he'd been psychologically disintegrated back to docility.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#165

Post by nl »

geowwy wrote: post #121
humanrebar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

Agreed. That characterization of Old Testament vs. New Testament is one of my pet peeves. There's some horrific brutality and violence in the Old Testament. But the overall story is one of Yahweh's love and compassion for his people in a world where everything is falling apart around them. The same theme carries through into the New Testament. If the Old Testament is really as bad as people say then Judaism really ha…

But the overall story is one of Yahweh's love and compassion for his people in a world where everything is falling apart around them

Sucks to be Job's family though. I guess God winning his bet was more important than this love and compassion in that case.

But in my experience Jews aren't any more violent than Christians

I'm pretty sure any religious group can find something in their teachings to justify any possible position from complete non-violence to outright aggression.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#166

Post by timthorn »

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #20
twiss wrote: post #7

The next episode [1], aired two days later, contains the conclusion of the story, and he gets out of the tunnel. I do agree that 2 days is rather long to leave kids with the conclusion of that first episode though. The final lines are: "Henry doesn't mind the rain now. He knows that the best way to keep his paint nice is not to run into tunnels, but to ask his driver to rub him down when the day's work is over." It m…

The book concludes the same way, with the train, rusty and dirty, finally being allowed out of the tunnel. The tenor is very much that punishment has rendered him meek and docile -- nothing to do with confronting your problems. Similarly, there's a story where one of the trains gets off the tracks in order to smell flowers, or play, or something of that sort. The cure is to hide people in the field, who jump out and…

> Similarly, there's a story where one of the trains gets off the tracks in order to smell flowers, or play, or something of that sort. The cure is to hide people in the field, who jump out and scare him back onto the track.

There is, but it's nothing to do with The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine doesn't appear in the first book) and is by a different author - you're thinking of Tootle.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#167

Post by ux-app »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #152
ux-app wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, that's a great characteristic for things. Not so sure about implying that people should be assessed the same way.

You don't think people should strive to be useful? What virtue/goal would you replace usefulness with?

I find the whole Thomas package distasteful. The subtext always seems to be that Thomas would be fine if he just did what he was told to do by his betters. In that context, Thomas' servile desire to be useful carries sinister undertones.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#168

Post by mseebach »

jcwayne wrote: post #94
umeshunni wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmm, not obviously, IMO. At least the "OMG You will NEVER believe what random insignificant strangers said on Twitter about some shitstorm that we're doing all we can to whip up that an editor would never have allowed anywhere near a vaguely respectable publication except as a "quote" " has correct attribution and doesn't masquerade as actual journalism.

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#169

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

toyg wrote: post #54
stordoff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Better known as Sir Topham Hatt since the 1950s. Seemingly only in the US ("the Fat Controller is always referred to by his real name, "Sir Topham Hatt" in the US"[0]). I was born in 1990 (UK), and as I recall he was almost always refered to as "The Fat Controller". [0] http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Sir_Topham_Hatt#Trivia

Can confirm, "fat controlla" is alive and well in UK. I personally hate the character and agree with Ms. Tolentino, the whole setup is very regressive. What angers me most is that it exploits British pride in their early railway industry (which is basically dead now, ok, but is still venerated, especially outside of London) to peddle a worldview completely based around hierarchies and the duty of subordinates.

More passengers are carried on the British railways now than ever before, so I wouldn’t call it dead.

(Posted from the comfort of an HST on the rural Cotswold Line, slated for part closure 40 years ago and now thriving.)

Re: The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”

#170

Post by Symbiote »

krapp wrote: post #80
ballenf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure they don't feel like they have to identify with a particular character. When they watch a train crash episode, for example, they don't run into walls afterward, they pick up their trains and crash them together.

Children's shows generally teach lessons, which is why I assumed that children are meant to identify with the trains.

I identified the trains with the real trains that went past the house.

It's not too unusual to hear a young boy talking about Thomas while waiting for or in a train. It's often been the only real conversation I can understand elsewhere in Europe. ("Which one is this?" "It's red mummy, this is James!")

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