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

newyorker.com

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

#211

Post by samirillian »

paulddraper wrote: post #13

Thomas & 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…

I just can't believe that a New Yorker article--some blogger's white-labeled ramblings or not--consists entirely of re-digesting wiki's and comment sections from other corners of the internet. It's really coprophagic.

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

#212

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

westiseast wrote: post #186
paulddraper wrote: post #13

Thomas & 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…

It annoys me too. The interpretation ignores all the obvious positive lessons in TtTE and only accentuates the post-modern and political interpretations as if they're the major themes. I remember one episode where the Fat Controller hires new engines to break a strike. There's obvious political overtones there that reflect the times it was written in perhaps. But in the context of the kids watching and learning, it's…

> I remember one episode where the Fat Controller hires new engines to break a strike. There's obvious political overtones there that reflect the times it was written in perhaps. But in the context of the kids watching and learning, it's about not throwing tantrums to get your way, and the new engines being polite and humble in their work.

Do you think there is ever a legitimate reason to challenge authority? I mean, what determines whether going on strike is "throwing a tantrum"? Is it the mere act of disobeying authority?

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

#213

Post by coldtea »

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #85
paulddraper wrote: post #13

Thomas & 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…

>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.

Vanity is a sin in the New Testament too.

And, religion or not, is a silly sentiment that ticks other people off, leads to bad decisions, makes people unhappy, and life itself punishes in several ways anyway.

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

#214

Post by leephillips »

humanrebar wrote: post #191
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,…

> This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the bulk of events in the early Old Testament. Fair enough. But my point was that the analysis was the analysis of the New Testament authors. People are free to provide their own critical analysis, but they're disagreeing with Peter, Paul, and the Jesus of the Gospels even. I think people that hold this viewpoint and care to be rigorous about it…

"a loving father is angry"

And he acts against the man who kicked his child. We call this normal; permitted, even recommended, by our common ideas of morality. But if he went on to commit a genocide against the man's family and every member of his tribe, young, old, and unborn, we call that "biblical". And that's why the old testament god is a genocidal maniac.

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

#215

Post by coldtea »

pavlov wrote: post #132
geowwy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the Old Testament is really as bad as people say then Judaism really has a problem. But in my experience Jews aren't any more violent than Christians. A group of people is not defined by a 3000-year-old folklore collection. You can’t infer anything about the text this way.

>A group of people is not defined by a 3000-year-old folklore collection.

You'd be surprised. Especially Jews, which are an ethnoreligious [1] group.

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

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

ux-app wrote: post #130
geowwy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

dude, c'mon get real. I've read the old testament. It's brutal. Yahwe loved him some genocide.

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by coldtea »

ux-app wrote: post #190
geowwy wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems pretty fked up to me :) I'm sure it does. You're a product of the Enlightenment and when you read you read the Bible you interpret it as a product of the Enlightenment. If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate you need to remember who the Bible was written by and who it was written for. A Bronze-age Middle-Easterners is going to get a very different message from the Bible th…

>If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate Why try to whitewash the bible? The old testament Jehovah was a vile sociopath. Jesus is a cool guy with a dad that has some screws loose. I grew up in a fundie family, the hoops fundies jump through to justify old testament idiot God are ridiculous and I have no time for that.

>Why try to whitewash the bible?

Understanding (and understanding in context) is not whitewashing. There's excellent scholarship in the bible, from religious and non-religious authors.

Knee-jerk reactions about "vile psychopaths" are not that.

For one, the "old testament Jehovah" was the person who gave life, the universe and everything to the people who died (e.g. in Sodom) anyway. So it was his to take. Psychopathy applies to people, not gods.

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

#218

Post by arjie »

dao- wrote: post #151
thatsethnz wrote: post #113

Once upon a time, there was an engine called Henry. Henry was asked to help but refused. So Henry was put in time out. Henry didn't enjoy time out and wanted to be let out. So was let out, and learned to be responsible and helpful. The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious. Once upon a time, there was a journalist called Jia Tolentino. Jia was a special kind of stupid. Allegory, you see, was en…

> The reason you teach a toddler this should be blindingly obvious. Not at all. People should help out others out of altruism, because they understand that society is cooperative, or because they value other people. "Be helpful or be punished" isn't a lesson I'd want to teach my kid.

Do you have a kid? And were the first words out of her mouth a statement of the categorical imperative?

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

#219

Post by coldtea »

nl wrote: post #165
geowwy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

It's not a mere bet, it's a story about life -- one of the more profound in literature, religious or not.

  It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its 
  literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it 
  "the greatest poem of ancient and modern times" [1]
It's not meant as they biography of some family who died and things that happened to an actual person, but as a moral tale.

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

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

#220

Post by humanrebar »

leephillips wrote: post #214
humanrebar wrote: post #191

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. Fair enough. But my point was that the analysis was the analysis of the New Testament authors. People are free to provide their own critical analysis, but they're disagreeing with Peter, Paul, and the Jesus of the Gospels even. I think people that hold this viewpoint and care to be rigorous about it…

"a loving father is angry " And he acts against the man who kicked his child. We call this normal; permitted, even recommended, by our common ideas of morality. But if he went on to commit a genocide against the man's family and every member of his tribe, young, old, and unborn, we call that "biblical". And that's why the old testament god is a genocidal maniac.

In Christian theology, the New Testament God is the Old Testament God. Jesus himself promised to do judge all people likewise:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31...

Implicit in your objection is that people are basically innocent and don't have any kind of consequences coming. That's an understandable opinion. It's just not what is stated in the Bible, either testament.

The above passage is, to apply it to my "upset parents" analogy, "Hey, you all are treating my family (humanity) like garbage. Enough is enough."

What about babies and "good people" that don't have it coming? Well, that's a theological rabbit hole I'll pass on for the moment, but the fundamental characterization of the God of the Bible is that he doesn't make mistakes, so there won't be a fair complaint when everything is said and done. His punishments fit the crimes and He doesn't punish people that don't deserve it.

Maybe you don't buy that. That's fair. But it's the ultimate question of the Bible: Do you trust God? Lots of people answer, "No." or even "Hell, no."

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