Stephen Roney's Blog, page 174

For Advent

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Karma Comes to Call

 

Fuseli

I recently speculated on why Hollywood, the media, and big tech seem bound on committing suicide. All are doing things counter to their financial interests or indeed to preserving their credibility. I thought it might be a delusion caused by postmodernism’s claim that we can make our own reality. Or it might be a hysterical reaction to seeing their power and influence slipping away.

Here is another possibility.

It might be the voice of conscience catching up to them. The powers that currently be are terminally morally compromised. One word: abortion. In the cause of sexual pleasure, they have endorsed an ongoing mass murder. 

The Erinyes must be satisfied.

The activity of repressed conscience is often observed in serial killers. They start taking bigger and bigger risks. They return to the scene of the crime. They start sending clues to the police. They want to be caught. One famously left the message at a murder scene, “For God’s sake, stop me before I kill again.” Ted Bundy started his killing spree in the Pacific Northwest, but ended it in Florida—one of the few states at the time that had the death penalty. When finally arrested, his comment was, “What took you so long.”

And, when murderers are caught, their first night in a cell, reputedly, they usually sleep like a baby. 

The current elites are crying out to be replaced. The nobles in pre-revolutionary France did something similar, insisting on deferring to the Third Estate.

In this we also see the hand of God—or, if you are a pagan Greek, the gods, punishing hubris. In the Old Testament, the principle is laid down that a depraved culture, specifically one which murders its own children, must be and will be overthrown, including divine intervention if necessary. This is what happened to the Canaanites, to Sodom, to Gomorrah. The Egyptians were scourged for killing the firstborn of the Hebrews. This is also what happened to the Carthaginians at the hands of the Romans. Such a depraved culture must be defeated, even if this requires salting the earth.

Disturbingly, we are in such a culture, almost world-wide. Being visited by fires, floods, and plagues may be part of the story. As the Chinese would say, the mandate of heaven has passed.

Let’s hope we can turn things around before they get to the salting the earth stage.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

For Advent

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

For Advent

 

With a country feel ...

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Adds a Certain Sense of Anticipation

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Advent Music

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Advent Music

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Advent Music

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

A Very Public Suicide

 

Like the media and big tech, Hollywood seems intent on committing suicide. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is reputedly opening to disastrously small audiences; soon after Seth Rogan’s TV series Santa Inc. crashed and burned. Following the Star Wars franchise.

Any reasonable person should have seen this coming. Yet Hollywood is shovelling hundreds of millions of dollars into these projects.

West Side Story apparently features a fair bit of dialogue in Spanish; yet Spielberg refused to allow subtitles. As a result, he intentionally restricted his audience to those who are bilingual in English and Spanish.

He also insisted on casting, as Latinos only actors who were actually Latino. This reduced his talent pool, the film’s star power, and it is a measure rarely taken for other ethnic groups. Brad Pitt, Leonardo Di Caprio, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, for example, have all played Irish leads. The point of being an actor is that you act; you pretend to be somebody else. Of course, a Swede would have trouble being convincing as a Zulu, or an African as Anne Boleyn (ahem), but Latinos are a racially mixed group who do not look different, on average, from Southern Europeans generally.

As for Santa Inc., who could have thought that an animation criticizing the world’s most popular holiday would pull in enthusiastic family audiences at Christmastime? Do adults want to watch a Christmas animation without their kids? Who exactly is the intended audience? Did anyone think of the intended audience?

Similarly, space opera, the Star Wars genre, is most appealing to younger males. As is the concept of Ghostbusters. A great idea, then, to suffuse it with female leads and feminist messages?

The traditional news media are similarly self-immolating by violating all the standards of journalism in order to push a political agenda. And the high-tech oligarchs, Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Google, seem to be forcing customers to competing platforms with censorship of political opinions they disagree with.

What can explain this? Why are hitherto competent and successful businessmen throwing money away like this?

One possible theory is that they are terminally deluded by the postmodern fantasy that one can create one’s own reality. A lot of businessmen buy into the Power of Positive Thinking idea; this is just a few steps further.

Another possibility is that they see their power to influence, such as it is, slipping away, and they are reacting hysterically. Those who covet money are also liable to be people who covet power.

But the clearest element of it all is what looks like deliberate contempt for the possible audience; a contempt for the general public. A contempt so powerful that it cannot be restrained even by obvious self-interest.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

For Gaudate Sunday

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.