Awesome Video -- Part 2: The Rest

Another filmstrip to insult the intelligence of a normal 8-year-old. Let's go back through time, and see what it was composed of.


00:00-00:26 We have already discussed the title, in Part 1.

00:27-01:02 "Let's go back in time." And, through the magic of pointlesss and inartistic video, we do. (The reverse aging scene presumably stops at mid-childhood because that's when "we" are thought to have begun being victimized by "our" parents' religious propagandizing, but any really rational person would certainly object to the implicit obcurantism of the "star-gate" effects,* which precede -- one assumes,through a momentary suspension of chronological reversal -- the newborn's cry -- itself inserted, one assumes, through the director's momentary forgetfulness concerning our "backward" destination. Or could early childhood, infancy and peri- and prenatal stages have been skipped deliberately?)

01:03 The SRR lecture begins.

-01:22 "Do you remember when you were a child, when your parents introduced you a certain belief system?"

Is it really quite fair of the SRR to accompany this question with a display of Macaulay Culkin's "horrified" expression from "Home Alone"?

Anyway, the SRR here poses a yes-or-no question to which a particular subject might respond "No" for a variety of reasons. The best would be that "belief systems" and "cultures" are co-creators one of another, and introduction to the prevailing culture begins with the first human touch (or perhaps before). For the same reason, a "No" based on one's parents' avoidance of any explicit religious instruction would be too superficial an answer.

(Those who are trying to guess our lecturer's first language will have picked up on the "introduced you." Most likely, it's a language that has a dative case still in regular use.)

-02:09 SRR makes a rather disorganized and repetitious declaration of its "tabula rasa" theory of infant- and child-psychology, only with a freshly-zeroed memory chip substituting for the classical blank slate.

We learn that "How children are programmed, what is filtered and what is not, depends on what their parents think is best for them. In the initial stage, the child's morals, ethics, values and everything else are mostly of their parents." Hmmm. What about the little boy who knew the proper words very well but always said "My kingdom come, my will be done" when the Lord's Prayer was recited? If his parents at some subliminal level encouraged him to think it, they certainly didn't encourage (in fact, if they'd been listening closely enough to notice, would sternly have forbidden) his saying it. Whence came that "filtering"?

Not that the tabula rasa is really an important SRR tenet. SRR's real purpose in painting a touching picture of the "innocence" of the child=freshly zeroed memory chip is to heighten the shock effect of the video's centerpiece: the Gothic tale of so-wicked-they-ought-to-be-step- parents Drew and Amy.

02:19-06:06 Not only avowed racists but advocates of racial hatred and racial violence, these Neo-Nazis are counted on to evoke in today's audience as much horror as a pair of godless Communists would have in the 50s or 60s. And they spread their poisonous filth to their innocent children!

OK, so it's all a production of Tyra Banks, the female Jerry Springer. OK, so Drew is obviously having great fun shocking the audience, and Tyra obviously thinks she's making great TV. OK, so we hear from the child-victims for a total of 28 seconds, and we're not surprised to hear them mimic their parents' shrilly expressed attitudes. And OK, so by far the most telling remark, where parent-to-child transmission issues are concerned, comes from Tyra when she warns Drew "Children rebel. They go against their parents" -- a warning we don't think Drew should need, 'cause he really doesn't sound like a second-generation Nazi. Dramatic TV is good TV, and good TV is good video.

The Norwegian flags are a puzzling touch, I must say, but the segment's point is perfectly obvious: when (to Macaulay Culkin's horror) your parents introduced you a certain belief system, they were doing to you what wicked Drew and Amy are doing to innnocent Arik, Bronlin and yes, even to baby Valkyrie!

06:07-07:04 An odd little video pastiche I had labeled "monkey see, monkey do" before I reached the final slogan "Children see. Children do." Of course, this is another obvious old saw (of the type our New Militant Atheists seem to delight in trotting out as if they were new inventions), but it is odd that the illustrations chosen are all negative. In any event, all are sentimental and overblown and several are downright unconvincing. For instance, I don't believe that most little girls can throw up just because momma is doing so. And I am quite certain that when a little boy sees father beating mother, any resulting violent impulse on the boy's part is much more likely to be directed against father than against mother. Bafflingly, the little show ends with a shot depicting a happy family contentedly picnicking in a parking garage.

7:05-7:15 We are warned against "those who have taken authority as the truth," on the authority of one Gerald Massey, an Edwardian crank who fancied himself an Egyptologist and published some claptrap about Egyptian religion that no recognized professional Egyptologist has ever confirmed or accepted. Mmmm ... indeed, beware of THOSE!

07:16 The lecture proper resumes. "Today we as adults have many beliefs. They are mostly based on what we think is right based on our parents or someone else." (Again, the friendly "we" that really means "you benighted ones.") Only in hushed tones of awe may we observe that our noble lecturer has numbered the "beliefs" that "we as adults have today," and has ascertained that a majority of them "are based on what we think is right based on our parents or someone else." This exhaustive enumeration, of course, included the belief of Ms. Indra Chappati of North Surapat that her husband is having an affair, the belief of Andre Michaud of Bordeaux that the linings of his brakes are shot, and my own belief that Abraham Lincoln went skinny-dipping with the principal members of his Cabinet. Exactly how much "our parents or someone else" might have had to do with our holding these beliefs is not completely clear to Ms. Chappati, Messr. Michaud or myself, but the SRR knows!

"Some of us grew out of this unquestioned trust in authority. Many more have not." (With the second sentence, a young Muslim male looms into view, and remains during the pregnant pause that follows.) Again, the confident enumerations. And how did the harboring of beliefs either similar to, or in some part "based on [the beliefs of?] our parents or others" suddenly become equivalent to "unquestioned trust in authority"? Questioning a proposition initially entertained on authority is not necessarily equivalent to rejecting the proposition. So how does SRR know that there is anyone who may rightly be charged with entirely "unquestioned trust in authority," much less that this group includes a majority of mankind? Some of us grew out of sweeping generalizations and/or the facile assumption of our own superiority. Others have not.

Next we learn that "humane education, ethical science projects and healthy reasoning exercises" (whatever any of these may be) are never promoted by those who have been influenced by "faith-based religious beliefs." Ahh! Wicked Episcopalian that I am, I promote only inhumane education, unethical science projects and unheatlhy exercises, reasoning and otherwise. But curses! Will all my schemes to advance human misery yet be foiled by this heroic SRR?

"Imagine your parents had a different belief system than what they do now." Well. considering that they're dead, that isn't hard to do.

"Assuming you have not made or convinced to convert to another religious belief system already, what religion or belief system do you think you would defended the death today?"

Whew! I'm sorry, but this fellow really needs to go back to English-as-a-Second-Language school. Nevertheless, this incoherent question has a coherent and obvious answer: Solomon Islands Cargo Cult, of course. (OK, when I signed on I didn't realize that "defended the death" would be required, but what the heck … )

"It's quite obvious and in most cases the belief system of a parent came from their parents who got their beliefs from their parents who [repetitions omitted] going backwards in time to the originator who introduced the belief system in the first place based on several extraordinary claims written in a book or a scripture compiled by those who claim it to be the truth and nothing but the truth, claim that it is all perfect, all-powerful, all holy, without any errors or contradictions whatsoever."

Yes, folks, it's all one sentence. And I'm just the guy to take it on, too. The first thing after the rhetorical flourish ("quite obvious") is number confusion: the system of a parent came from their parents. "Obviously," in other words, "in most cases" the ancestors of people living today had entirely homozygous belief systems. That's an assertion that required a K-2 of genealogy, plus a Himalaya or two of extra-genealogical (and even extra-historical) belief-winkling. But the SRR has already completed this vast work! Astoundingly, these creedally pure pedigrees ascend all the way to the originator of the creed in question. Now, if we consider what was formerly believed about, say, the Conversion of the Northern Barbarians, we might see a problem with this. If the inhabitants of England were pagans prior to the advent of Augustine of Canterbury, and if Augustine and his companions were monks and had no children, then on our lecturer's theory the existence of English Christians would seem hard to explain. Indeed, given only the datum that prior to the end of the sixth century all the English were pagans, it would seem to be impossible for any English Christian to claim his creed as an ancestral inheritance descending from, or from the time of, "the originator," whether that person is taken to be Jesus of Nazareth, one or another of his apostles, or all of the apostles collectively. Well, so much for what's "obvious" about "most cases" of belief.

"The originator who introduced the belief system in the first place based on several extraordinary claims written in a book or a scripture ..." But in the cases of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism, there was no "book or scripture" 'till after the originator was gone from the earth, so the originator could hardly have done anything "based on" any kind of claim written therein.

"A scripture compiled by those who claim it to be the truth and nothing but the truth, claim that it is all perfect, all-powerful, all holy, without any errors or contradictions whatsoever." Well, if we're talking about the Christian Bible (and something tells me our lecturer is) the compilers would undoubtedly have claimed it to be the truth. All the rest of our lecturer's formulation here is strictly the product of certain British and American factions of the 19th and 20th centuries and so can hardly be attributed to the 4th century "compilers." As for the "all-powerful," it isn't claimed by anyone so far as I know, and scarcely even makes sense.

"So how do we know the originator, the god, the holy prophet, the holy book, the creation story, talking animals, talking babies, wizard, witches, demons, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, people coming back from the dead, people claim to be god, and all sorts of magical stories claimed by a belief system are in fact true?"

So do you think it's possible to pose a question in such fashion as to give away the fact that you will tolerate only one answer? (The rhetorical question may be a useful device, but (a.) you cannot use it to carry your main point, and (b.) you really need to keep the question brief and well-focused.)

"If it is true, how do we know the claimed facts surrounding it are real?"

Huh?

"Is something true because [long-winded catalogue that can be simplified to: its truth is affirmed by authority]?"

Elementary answer to elementary question: Not necessarily, though under certain circumstances what is logically classified as the testimony of authority may be the best or the only possible evidence regarding the truth or non-truth of a particular proposition, and in others the testimony of authority may be accepted as some evidence regarding the truth or non-truth of a proposition.

"And is it because all of these people, extremely nice and intelligent people, so they would never lie to me or to themselves, or become an unassuming wictim of a deluded system?"

Is what because all of which people, etc.? The undeniable tone of irony and personal disappointment, even resentment, with which our lecturer pronounces the words "they would never lie to me" may account for the incoherence here. Clearly, he feels some extremely nice and intelligent person or other did lie to him. One senses his complaint is very sincere, and one feels only sympathy.

Nevertheless, "an unassuming wictim of a deluded system" is too inviting a target of ridicule to be resisted. I think I'll start signing myself "An Unassuming Wictim (of a Deluded System)."

Having posed a series of silly questions none of which anybody would answer "Yes," our Wictimizer instructs:

"If your answer to any of these questions is a yes, then you should understand why people believe what they believe, why you believe what you believe, and why people don't believe your beliefs and why you don't believe their beliefs."

But he politely inquires, "Make sense?" To which we politely answer, "Not a bit."

Lest the Wictim-man feel we have been curt with him, we note first that we include ourselfes in the category "people," so that when he has explained why people believe what they believe, it will not be necessary to tell us why we believe what we believe -- thanking him very much. Next, suspecting that the set of propositions we do not believe may be practically, if not technically, infinite, we politely beg to be excused from hearing him explain why we don't believe each and every one of them. (Trusting him to do the transfinite arithmetic required if we tried to schedule explanations of why everyone else doesn't believe everything they don't believe.) Finally, summoning our politest smile and softest tone, we gently suggest that, when we seek to understand why people believe what they believe we might prefer to ask someone else. We do not vex him by asking why he believes he knows why people believe what they believe, still less by hinting at our belief that he knows nothing of the kind.

And so, at last reaching minute 10:15, we complete our analysis of this cardboard confection of a propaganda piece, wondering how it could have become necessary to embark upon such a colossal waste of time and energy. Please excuse me if I skip Videos 2, 3 and 4.

P.S.: My guess is he's an Austrian.

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* The reference is to the famous, and at the time ground-breaking, effects sequence in Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, not the more recent science fiction piece.