Posted on 03/14/2006 12:17:07 PM PST by raccoonradio
I don't want to see "Brokeback Mountain."
Normally that would mean nothing. There are hundreds of movies I haven't wanted to see and nobody cares, which is how it ought to be.
But we do not live in normal times. According to the ultra-sophisticated movie critics who double as social engineers, I'm supposed to be consumed with guilt about being a homophobe.
I guess I'm in good company, or at least much more liberal company. Hollywood is about as welcoming as it gets for what we are required to call "alternative" lifestyles. You can be homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, transgender or just about anything else you can imagine having to do with private parts and Hollywood will celebrate you not just as normal, but better than normal since you're pushing the boundaries, and pushing the boundaries is always a good thing, especially if it insults the standards of traditional or conservative people.
But even Hollywood is being scolded by the all-knowing critic community for giving the Best Picture Oscar to "Crash", instead of "Brokeback". This, they declare, means that even Hollywood is forcing gays back into the closet--that even liberals harbor unspoken prejudice against gays.
The closet? Please. This is not forbidden love. As has been said for awhile now, this is the love that won't shut up. And all this ranting about it is coming from people who generally contend that nobody is allowed to say what is good or bad, right or wrong, because the only things good or right are what is good and right for you. You'd think they'd be applauding a bunch of self-absorbed people like them who decided what movie they liked better for whatever reasons.
These are the people who say if there is a single sin in this world, it is to try to "impose your values" on somebody else. Yet they are trying to impose their values on the majority of Americans and even Hollywood lefties.
And this is very much about values. Cinema is a notoriously subjective art form. After every Academy Awards ceremony, there is always debate. Some critics always like the losers better than the winners. But this is not just a debate about artistic merit, but about bigotry. There are guilt trips to be awarded: i.e., those who voted for "Crash" were just trying to hide their prejudice against gays by voting for a movie that explores the "safer" topic of racism.
That is not the only level at which there is the stench of hypocrisy. If we apply the critics standards for "Brokeback" to everything else out there, I've got a lot more to feel guilty about than just not wanting to see a movie about an affair between two men.
I also don't want to see "Nanny McPhee," "Date Movie", "Curious George" or "Dave Chapelle's Block Party". So I'm a nannyphobe, datephobe, monkeyphobe, and Davephobe. Or blockpartyphobe.
(snip) Finally, the critics who are hectoring everybody from Middle America to Hollywood itself about how bigoted we all are--aren't they the same people who are always telling us that if we don't like something just change the channel, don't see the movie, or don't buy the book? Now they are telling us we must watch it. Not only that, we have to like it and give it awards.
How can what we are currently living in, not be normal times? What would be normal times for 03/2006?
I don't want to see that movie either.
That being for the specific reason that I don't want to see men push up on each other.
Now, if someone called me a homophobe, I would tell them that they are absolutely correct.
And I would move on, wishing I had the last 11 seconds of my life back.
Always a classic line!
There are many, many things they don't understand, but yes, that is certainly one of them.
CA....
When it becomes clear that the lunatics are demanding to run the asylum, if they aren't already, and decent folks are cowed into fear of resisting.
It's the only time we got.
The films I want to see I watch without much regard to the actors' political beliefs. The films I have no interest in I don't watch.
Trust me on this one, I'll never watch Brokeback Mountain and I won't lose one bit of sleep worrying about not watching it either.
The meaning of tolerance has been twisted by the left to mean moral relativism. Secular liberals have no moral compass to guide them. They have no coherent philosophy of human nature. A person cannot have tolerance without first having a set of morals. Therefore, I submit that secular liberals are the truly intolerant.
Probably no concept has more currency in our politically correct culture than the notion of tolerance. Unfortunately, one of America's noblest virtues has been so distorted it's become a vice.
There is a modern myth that holds that true tolerance consists of neutrality. It is one of the most entrenched assumptions of a society committed to relativism.
The tolerant person occupies neutral ground, a place of complete impartiality where each person is permitted to decide for himself. No judgments allowed. No "forcing" personal views. Each takes a neutral posture towards another's convictions.
This approach is very popular with post-modernists, that breed of radical skeptics whose ideas command unwarranted respect in the university today. Their rallying cry, "There is no truth," is often followed by an appeal for tolerance.
For all their confident bluster, the relativists' appeal actually asserts two truths, one rational and one moral. The first is the "truth" that there is no truth. The second is the moral truth that one ought to tolerate other people's viewpoints. Their stand, contradictory on at least two counts, serves as a warning that the modern notion of tolerance is seriously misguided.
Three Elements of Tolerance
Many people are confused about what tolerance is. According to Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, the word tolerate means to allow or to permit, to recognize and respect others' beliefs and practices without sharing them, to bear or put up with someone or something not necessarily liked.
Tolerance, then, involves three elements: (1) permitting or allowing (2) a conduct or point of view one disagrees with (3) while respecting the person in the process.
Notice that we can't tolerate someone unless we disagree with him. This is critical. We don't "tolerate" people who share our views. They're on our side. There's nothing to put up with. Tolerance is reserved for those we think are wrong.
This essential element of tolerance--disagreement--has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.
This presents a curious problem. One must first think another is wrong in order to exercise tolerance toward him, yet doing so brings the accusation of intolerance. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible.
Three Faces of Tolerance
Adding to the confusion is the fact that tolerance could apply to different things--persons, behaviors, or ideas--and the rules are different for each.
Tolerance of persons, what might be called "civility," can be equated with the word "respect." This is the classical definition of tolerance: the freedom to express one's ideas without fear of reprisal.
We respect those who hold different beliefs than our own by treating them courteously and allowing their views a place in the public discourse. We may strongly disagree with their ideas and vigorously contend against them in the public square, but we still show respect for the persons in spite of the differences.
Note that respect is accorded to the person, here. Whether his behavior should be tolerated is an entirely different issue. This is the second sense of tolerance, the liberty to act, called tolerance of behavior. Our laws demonstrate that a man may believe what he likes--and he usually has the liberty to express those beliefs--but he may not behave as he likes. Some behavior is immoral or a threat to the common good. Rather than being tolerated, it is restricted by law. In Lincoln's words: There is no right to do wrong.
Tolerance of persons must also be distinguished from tolerance of ideas. Tolerance of persons requires that each person's views get a courteous hearing, not that all views have equal worth, merit, or truth. The view that no person's ideas are any better or truer than another's is irrational and absurd. To argue that some views are false, immoral, or just plain silly does not violate any meaningful standard of tolerance.
These three categories are frequently conflated by muddled thinkers. If one rejects another's ideas or behavior, he's automatically accused of rejecting the person and being disrespectful. To say I'm intolerant of the person because I disagree with his ideas is confused. On this view of tolerance, no idea or behavior can be opposed, regardless of how graciously, without inviting the charge of incivility.
Historically, our culture has emphasized tolerance of all persons, but never tolerance of all behavior. This is a critical distinction because, in the current rhetoric of relativism, the concept of tolerance is most frequently advocated for behavior: premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, use of pornography, etc. People ought to be able to behave the way they want within broad moral limits, the argument goes.
Ironically, though, there is little tolerance for the expression of contrary ideas on issues of morality and religion. If one advocates a differing view, he is soundly censured. The tolerance issue has thus gone topsy-turvy: tolerate most behavior, but don't tolerate opposing beliefs about those behaviors. Contrary moral opinions are labeled as "imposing your view on others."
Instead of hearing, "I respect your view," those who differ in politically incorrect ways are told they are bigoted, narrow-minded, and intolerant.
A case in point was an attack made in my community paper on Christians who were uncomfortable with the social pressure to approve of homosexuality. I wrote the following letter to the editor to show how the modern notion of tolerance had been twisted into a vice instead of a virtue:
Dear Editor:
I am consistently amazed to see how intolerant South Bay residents are to moral views other than their own. Last week's letters about homosexuality were cases in point. One writer even suggested that your publication censor alternate opinions!
This narrow-mindedness and self-righteous attitude about sexual ethics is hypocritical. They challenge what they view as hate (it used to be called morality) with caustic and vitriolic attacks. They condemn censure by asking for censorship (there's a difference). They accuse others of intolerance and bigotry, then berate those same people for taking a view contrary to their own.
Why is someone attacked so forcibly simply for affirming moral guidelines about sex that have held us in good stead for thousands of years?
Not only that, the objections are self-defeating. The writers imply that everyone should be allowed to do and believe what they want and that no one should be permitted to force their viewpoint on others. But that is their viewpoint, which they immediately attempt to force on your readers in an abusive way. Those with opposing beliefs were referred to in print as bigots, lacking courage, disrespectful, ignorant, abominable, fearful, indecent, on par with the KKK, and--can you believe it--intolerant.
Why don't we abandon all of this nonsense about tolerance and open-mindedness? It's misleading because each side has a point of view it thinks is correct. The real issue is about what kind of morality our society should encourage and whether that morality is based on facts and sound reasoning or empty rhetoric.
Intellectual Cowardice
Most of what passes for tolerance today is not tolerance at all, but rather intellectual cowardice. Those who hide behind the myth of neutrality are often afraid of intelligent engagement. Unwilling to be challenged by alternate points of view, they don't engage contrary opinions or even consider them. It's easier to hurl an insult--"you intolerant bigot"--than to confront the idea and either refute it or be changed by it. "Tolerance" has become intolerance.
The classical rule of tolerance is this: Tolerate persons in all circumstances, by according them respect and courtesy even when their ideas are false or silly. Tolerate (i.e., allow) behavior that is moral and consistent with the common good. Finally, tolerate (i.e., embrace and believe) ideas that are sound. This is still a good guideline.
Author: Gregory Koukl
I went to a "second run" theater recently (they show films that have been out for a little while, at a discount price)
and they had the preview of "Brokeback". Wasn't impressed;
at first it just looked like an old "Marlboro Country" ad
(cowboys, mountains, horses)...just didn't hold my interest.
The movie I was seeing that night, ironically enough, also
featured gays but it was quite entertaining: Mel Brooks'
musical version of his "The Producers". He lampooned everything from gays to conniving Broadway producers
("Did you bring the checkie?", Max coos to an elderly
woman financier) to actors ("Actors aren't animals?
You ever eat with one?") Was he pushing gay-ness down
our throats? (eww...) Don't think so. He entertained me
with a damn funny movie.
Someday the word "gay" may go back to its original meaning.
"We'll have a gay old time"--from Flinstones theme
"...with gay happy meetings..."--"It's the Most Wonderful
Time of the Year"
"...where the people are so gay; Twistin' the night away"
--Sam Cooke
"Our Hearts Were Young And Gay"--movie/play title
This essential element of tolerance--disagreement--has been completely lost in the modern distortion of the concept. Nowadays, if you think someone is wrong, you're called intolerant.
This presents us with a very curious problem. Judging someone wrong makes one intolerant, yet one must first think another is wrong in order to be tolerant. It's a "Catch-22." According to this approach, true tolerance is impossible.
You shouldn't allow people to describe you negatively with the word "homophobe". Do you fear homosexuals? I will not see this movie either, I may be called homophobe, but I simply hate the activity they engage in. I don't want to hear about it, watch it or read about it. It is going to come to the point that the majority is going to push back, and these people will wish they were back in the "closet".
It's not gay love. It's gay sex.
I can't see these idiot celebs doing anything without remembering how stupid they are. It leaves me unable to separate their roles from their politics.
>>Do you respect diverse points of view, or do you condemn others for convictions that differ from yours
There's the vital sentence. Their views, they feel, are the only right ones and they don't _really_ respect/"tolerate" our views
in the same fashion
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