http://www.townhall.com/opinion/books_entertainment/be_columns/ErikLokkesmoe/2006/02/07/185351.html
Please read this short article and give me any comments you have. Thanks for pointing me to it Benjie!
Does "Be all you can be" tell me to explore and embrace all parts of me? What about the part of me that can be a total jerk?
About Me
- Ryan
- My wife Mandy and I have a band called willowfair, check us out at www.sonicbids.com/willowfair
Willowfair
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8 comments:
I thought number five was particularly insightful.
Mistake #5: We champion prescriptive art. In other words, conservatives prefer art that shows the world as it should be, not as it really is. Curing rather than diagnosing. Descriptive art, on the other hand, tells the truth about the human condition, while offering the audience glimpses into a “world that should have been otherwise.”
A common misconception among conservatives is that portrayal = endorsement, and therefore, conservative art tends to downplay fallenness, resulting in less powerful portrayals of redemption.
Which is why I am looked at by many conservatives as a freak because I love a film that captures our fallenness in a deep and powerful (possibly even disturbing) way. Some of the films that i feel are the best ever made, most conservative Christians feel deep down that these films should not even be watched, let alone loved.
I hate to be the one to tell you, Ryan, but that's not why people think you're a freak.
Have you read any Flannery O'Connor? In case you haven't, or if anyone else is interested, she's a Catholic writer who wrote in the Southern Gothic tradition, and her stories are known for being incredibly dark, but always including a moment when grace is possible. Sometimes it's not accepted, but it's available nevertheless, and it's made all the more powerful by the fallen context in which it's presented. I recommend the short story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."
I'll have to check it out... do you have it to lend to me or shall i seek it elsewhere? I'm in the middle of Goblet of Fire, Mandy really loved it by the way. I also liked Capote's book In Cold Blood which I just read.
so, why DO they think I'm a freak?
I have all of her fiction, but I lent them to my brother, who is not reading them, but has not returned them either.
Sometimes I say sarcastic things, and when you ask follow-up questions, it just deflates them. I don't think you're a freak Ryan. I know you are. (That was an example; don't ask a follow-up.)
Enjoy GoF. The tone of the series changes drastically in Order of the Phoenix. I'm not sure if it's for the best or not. The writing greatly improves, but the books are less adventure oriented. I'm interested to see how they translate that to film.
Are these things incidental to conservatism or part of being conservative?
I guess I'm really asking if conservatism is necessarily opposed to good art.
Maybe it would help if you gave us a definition to the term "Conservative" b/c it means different things to different people at different times and at different places, with different strokes, different folks.
I'm not sure I know what it means. The article says that conservatives make certain mistakes regarding art. Can these conservatives (whoever they may be) stop making these mistakes without changing the fundamental beliefs that make them conservatives (whatever that means)?
I'm interested in how people who describe themselves as conservatives would define it and what they thought about the article.
Not that I don't love our chats.
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