This week, my intention was to contribute another article on right wing hate radio (in honor of my friend, Spocko), but an eye infection has been distracting me. Instead, I am posting this YouTube video:
Norman McLaren is one of the more inventive but lesser-known pioneers of animation and stop-motion photography in cinema history. Born in Scotland in 1914, he studied set design at the Glasgow School of Art and eventually moved to Canada where he started the animation studio at the National Film Board. This short film, Neighbors, won an Oscar for Best Documentary (short subject) in 1953.
Excellent. I remember when I first saw that animation technique. I remember thinking what fun it was to watch.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I first heard the phrase, "Love your Neighbor." I liked my neighbors, they were just like me. Sometimes I ate dinner with them, we had Mrs. Grass' chicken noodle soup with the magic golden egg "That you can drop in!"
I remember thinking, "Loving your neighbor shouldn't be that hard." Then they described how it was everyone we were supposed to love. I thought that was crazy. "What about the people who want to kill us?" Were we supposed to love them?
As a child that was a hard one to grasp. I thought that was stupid so I followed my childlike view. If they hate you, hate them right back. And, as a child, I developed a whole system of hate levels.
It wasn't until Star Fleet Academy where I started seeing the radical nature of what Jesus was talking about. And using logic I could see even a bigger answer in the question, "Who is our neighbor?"
I saw how we benefit from seeing us all connected. But being half human I also saw all the ways that people wanted to redefine the words "Love your Neighbor" so that it could include killing others, or at least hating them.
I was always amazed that people could call themselves Christians yet wanted to kill people, especially people who hadn't done anything to them. That they were convinced to kill people who MIGHT kill them in the future was astonishing to me. "PreCrime!"
When we found out that those people really weren't going to kill us in the future I remember thinking, "People who call themselves Christians started this? Boy, they REALLY didn't get the message."
Sometimes it's hard to be a "Love your Neighbor" kind of person. I understand that.
What if you felt it was your job, to figure out a new way to hate your neighbor? What if your job depended on drumming up fear of and disgust for your neighbor?
That would seem to be kind of unchristian. But of course you wouldn't tell yourself that. You would tell yourself that Jesus really was cool with that, that Jesus was an angry guy who would flip out at the slightest provocation, "Jesus flipped over TABLES in the temple! He TOTALLY would be down with killing people!"
You would tell yourself that you have a better understanding of who your neighbor was than Jesus. Jesus never had to fear airplanes crashing into his buildings. He never had to fear a smoking cloud in the shape of a mushroom. (He probably didn't even know what a mushroom cloud was!)
What if you felt it was your job to STOP people who wanted to Love your neighbors more? What if you felt that you needed to actively work against anything that involved forgiveness, turning the other cheek and loving your neighbor? I guess that would be fine just as long as you didn't call yourself Christian. What if you sat in a pew every Sunday for 20 years and heard messages like "Love your neighbor" and then 5 days a week for 3 hours a day you preached, not, "Love your Neighbor", but kill and torture your neighbor?
It would be nice if they just stopped calling themselves Christians, that would be more honest, but on the other hand it does allow us to use the words spoken by their namesake to challenge them.
How do they get around defying the words said by their namesake? Easy. They have a system for getting around accusations of failure to follow the guidelines of that Jesus person. "I'm not perfect. Forgive me. Love me. I'm your neighbor. I'm just like you! If you were a good Christian you would love me. Now please purchase Campbell's Chunky™ Chicken Noodle soup. Mmmm, Mmmm. Good. Now about waterboarding..."
I'm Vulcan so I can see the flaws in their "logic" (such as it is) and the inconsistent reading of their own text. I don't have to follow the guidelines of their namesake even though I can see the logic in his words. It's too bad humans who claim to follow him can't.
Live Long and Prosper,
Your Neighbor,
Spocko
Welcome, Spocko, my friend. I feel I may have let you down some months ago when we last talked about hate radio. I was bereft of ideas at the time (actually occupied with other thoughts) and felt guilty for offering what I thought was an inadequate response.
ReplyDeleteThis time, I am trying to put thought into the subject and understand it from another perspective: The relationship between shaming and humiliating child-rearing practices and its impact in political history. Tyrants and dictators, for example, with abusive and oftentimes violent family histories, who turned into the monsters of history ... and their appeal to followers who were themselves victims of childhood abuse and humiliation and grew into angry, hate-driven adults.
I think it is important to understand this relationship if we are to understand this phenomenon ... and its most horrible implications. My source for this is Alice Miller, the eminent psychologist and philosopher. More later. Meanwhile ...
Live long and prosper.
8pus
8pus. Interesting. I'm very interested in the topic. But I've had a bad cold for 2 weeks and been depressed for 8 years during Bush, so I understand how it's hard to get around to writing everything.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm posting my comment above on my blog with a link back here.
Wow, another Norman McLaren fan. Norman McLaren's films where he drew things on the actual film (such as "Begone Dull Care" and "Boogie Doodle") are the closest representations in visual media I've ever come across to what I experience with my auditory-visual synaesthesia. Ever wanted to know what it's like to see sounds as colours and shapes? Watch those two animations. (Amazingly, in "Begone Dull Care" he even has the colours "right" quite a lot of the time...)
ReplyDeleteInterrobang, I was hard pressed to choose between Neighbors and this one but decided on the former because 8pus sometimes gets too carried away being ... well ... an octopus.
ReplyDeleteSpocko
ReplyDeleteYou may have pointy ears, but I agree. A well known professor and author about Christian history and theology once discussed with me her thoughts about Buddhistic influence on Jesus' teaching of universal compassion and, although it's not impossible and it is compelling, there being teachers of such things in the area at the time, it can't be substantiated.
To me, that's what he was about and that's what is hardest to understand and accept and that's illustrated by the fact that history has rationalized it into "Kill a [your enemy here] for Christ."
Tom Jefferson wrote about the utter destruction of Jesus' mission by Christianity's centuries of pagan detritus and priestly ambition. He thought it beyond recovery. I'm not so sure.
Capt. Fogg:
ReplyDeleteOne of my very favorite books was from a Jewish poet and translator who practices Vipassana meditation.
He translated the Tao, the book of Genesis, psalms and the Gospel according to Jesus. What is interesting is that he also pulled out the passages that Jefferson did. Those passages were considered authentic from groups like the Jesus Seminar too. They included things like The Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the woman at the well, the adulterous woman and a few others.
The author is Stephen Mitchell and the book is called The Gospel According to Jesus A New Translation and Guide to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Unbelievers
This book, more than any other, helps cut through a lot of the detritus built up around the "sayings of our Lord". What appealed to Jefferson (and what he created in his Jefferson Bible) has a lot of same passages. Jefferson saw the consistent message from Jesus in the authentic passages. Mitchell used both texual info but also spiritual insight based on his years of meditation.
I like his Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish experiences which helped him see more clearly what aspects of Jesus' teachings were common and some that were especially profound with Jesus (forgiveness).
Phooey! The video link is gone - "no longer available" - I have been informed my myspace.
ReplyDeleteMy punishment for being a lame Zoner of late.
Squid, must be a glitch somewhere ... the link still works here.
ReplyDelete