Guest post by Thomas Fuller
Well, with the calming passage of 24 hours, let’s take another look at the 10:10 video showing the splatterfest of gore as skeptics play the more volatile roles from the worst portions of the movie ‘Scanners.’
It’s still disgusting.
I spent four years in the Navy and have seen a lot. The film did not upset me physically or emotionally. My reaction was mental (Cue Michael Tobis: “See? Fuller’s going mental…”)
What disgusts me first is its target. The video is meant for the young. Young people get blown up by a calm and engaged teacher in the first scene, and music and sports and film figures appealing to the young are both victims and perpetrators throughout.
Our reaction is irrelevant. They are not talking to us. They are talking to our children.
What are they saying? That it’s okay to ostracize, bully and dismiss those who don’t agree that climate change is uber alles (Oops! Godwin alert, Godwin alert) and that skeptics or the children of skeptics are fair game for… whatever.
As there is no real attempt at humour in the video, there’s no point in pretending it’s a parody. It’s instructional. It’s not even aimed at helping children work towards reducing emissions. It’s about helping children take aim at those who do not.
This is worse than Orwellian, although Eric Blair would certainly understand the meaning behind this message. And I don’t want to (and internet traditions would forbid me in any case) link this to the propaganda tactics of World War II. So somewhere in between those two, there is a special place in hell reserved for those whose intent it is to legitimize the cruelty of children towards each other based on what has evidently become a religious belief. And I hope that none of the film’s makers reaches that special place ahead of their allotted timespan–but I hope they get there.
Joe Romm and Bill McKibben have already announced they are ‘Shocked! Shocked!’ that gambling is going on in their casino and that their perpetual campaign of invective and calumny has produced people who actually believe them and hate skeptics. So I guess it’s no harm, no foul. Just as it was not their fault when a disturbed environmentalist took hostages at the Discover Channel headquarters, just as when the WWF made an ad showing planes flying into New York skyscrapers, just as when a Greenpeace blogger told skeptics the world over that ‘we know where you live.’ And as Anthony Watts knows full well, they also know where you work. But none of this is the fault of those who whip up the frenzy and the furor of those stupid enough to believe their hyperbole, enough to do something vicious, cruel, stupid or illegal.
So I guess I can’t blame hysterics like Romm and McKibben, who spend their days babbling about hell and high water and related mystical miseries, for any of the troubles we’ve seen. Except for the kids who will be downloading that video tonight. Both William Golding (Lord of the Flies) and J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) knew full well that children need no help in being cruel. But this gives them license and legitimacy. And for that, Joe and Bill, I do hold you responsible. You sent the message first–it took years for 10:10 to make it explicit.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Thomas Fuller href=”http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
This video is not appropriate for children. Anyone who would willfully expose a child to this material is a monster.
For adults, on the other hand, this is an interesting piece of work. Clearly it has elicited strong reaction which, after all, was it’s intention.
With respect to intentions, creativity is interesting. Art is, among other things, the expression of the universal via the particular. Work that does not express an aspect of the universal is not art. The universal (or eternal or Gebsers origin, pick a name) is not wholly contained within our psychological sense of the conscious mind. Much of it resides in the (heuristic) unconscious – think of Jung’s collective unconscious for example. Intentions are conscious, and yet creativity includes unconscious elements, it’s not for nothing that Homer and Milton invoke the Muses. So it is important to realise that a creative output exists independant of its creators intentions. It is an object in and of itself.
So what do we have here “in and of itself”. Clearly this is satire. But who is being satirized? Based on the comments from skeptics and warmists alike that are plain for everyone to see, it is immediately recognizable that the satire is directed at the authoritarian greens themselves.
If we deconstruct this further we see that what is revealed are some of the nastier (from a western perspective, but it must be noted universal), features of a tribal consciousness (this for sure is a heuristic definition – deficient magical conscious structure is better). Anyway, what are these features?
Demonization of the Other
Annihilation of the Individual
Shamanism (i.e. appeal to authority – deficient indicated by use of sorcery)
Whether wholly intentional or not, this video has revealed the dominant consciousness structure of the authoritarian greens. Furthermore, this (ancient) structure is latent in everyone. Thankfully many of us have evolved far enough beyond this that this latency does not manifest itself.
This video does reveal the universal, and ugly as it may be, it is art.
BTW – I really do wonder if the director/writer has put one over on the 10:10 folks, and in their enthusiasm to be close to this celebrity / shaman (combined with the other blind spots indicated above) , they just couldn’t see it.
Mike Haseler says:
October 2, 2010 at 9:23 am
BrianMcL says: “What? Behind the rabbit?”
This will be the Holy Grail rabbit who lived in the cave of Caernbannog?
“Have ye seen the teeth?”
For anyone interested, the ‘cave of Caernbannog’ is a disused copper mine on the southern shores of Loch Tay in Perthshire about half way between Kenmore and Kilin at coordinates: 56°30’49.82″N, 4° 7’38.34″W. The real name of the ‘cave’ is Tomnadashan mine.
I visited this mine when I was about 8 and that’s when my interest in geology started.
@anna v:
October 2, 2010 at 9:02 am
===============
Regarding causes of death and indicators of personal health, you may like the following excerpts from a recent essay by anarcho-physicist Denis Rancourt (slam atoms AND the State), even though some of them may sound a bit over the top.
From “Some Big Lies of Science”
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html
[…]
Life expectancy has increased in First World countries thanks to a historical absence of civil and territorial wars, better and more accessible food, less work and non-work accidents, and better overall living and working conditions.
*The single strongest indicator of personal health within and between countries is economy status, irrespective of access to medical technology and pharmaceuticals.*
It’s worse than that because medicine actually has a negative impact on health. Medical errors (not counting misattributed deaths from correctly administered “treatments”) are the *third leading cause of death* in the US, after heart disease and cancer, and there is a large gap between this conservative underestimate in the number of medical error deaths and the fourth leading cause of death [2]. Since medicine can do little for heart disease and cancer and since medicine has only a small statistical positive impact in the area of trauma interventions, we conclude that public health would increase if all MDs simply disappeared. And think of all the time loss and stress that sick people would save…
One of the most dangerous places in society is the hospital. Medical errors include misdiagnoses, bad prescriptions, prescriptions of medications that should not be combined, unnecessary surgery, unnecessary or badly administered treatments including chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and corrective surgeries.
[…]
The lie extends to the myth that MDs anywhere near understand the human body. And this well guarded lie encourages us to put our faith in doctors, thereby opening the door to a well orchestrated profit bonanza for big pharma.
The first thing that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) volunteers need to do in order to contribute significantly in disaster zones is to “forget their medical training” and get to work on the priority tasks at hand: water, food, shelter, and disease propagation prevention; not vaccinating, or operating, or prescribing medication… Public health comes from safety, stability, social justice, and economic buying power, not MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) units and prescription drugs.
[…]
Wow, the defense of this skit is that Americans don’t have a sense of humor? This is reminiscent of the part in the movie of “White men can’t jump.” Where one fellow (Snipes) is telling another (Harrelson) that white people can’t appreciate Jimi Hendrix. I thought it satirical and humorous, but it turns out, being American, I didn’t have the capacity to understand the humor as well as the lack of ability to appreciate certain style of music.
For those making these lunatic sweeping statements, you’re just exchanging one form of bigotry for another.(We actually read and watch British movies and books, not to the exclusion of Python and the lot.) No problem, we Americans are used to it. We’re just not used to the acceptance of child indoctrination and exploitation like Europeans apparently are. Historically, Europeans have shown to be much more tolerant of that particular form propaganda towards societal manipulation. And while most of the people opining here are much chagrin bring it up, I’m not. The parallels to the Hitler Jugend Bund der deutschen Arbeiterjugend is obvious. The parallels to Nazi propaganda is unmistakable. Again, apparently its a European thing. Here is something uniquely American, “Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue.”—-B Goldwater. I guess our cousins across the pond haven’t got the memo, yet. Anyone offended by this statement? I can make it all go away by saying the word……….”joke!”
(On an aside, ironically, Goldwater was taken aback at some of the applications of his truism.)
Pamela Gray
I am living in Germany were the law allows you to return goods to the provider if not satisfied, I bought a Sony TV 2 weeks ago, this afternoon it went back, I told my reason, I was not amused by the 1010 video and would in future not be interested in Sony’s products, got a full cash refund.
Sigh, mods, my post went to never land, or punted to you guys for moderation.
Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Ausschwitz. This where people were turned into numbers.
“Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some 4 million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by ARROGANCE. It was done by DOGMA. It was done by ignorance. When people believe they have ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. Every judgement in science stands at the edge of error, and is personal.”
I used to travel to London everyday. The train I used was blown up.
That was called terrorism. This is called ………..?
There is no cause that justifies this.
Our choice, indeed.
Think.
“John Blake says:
October 2, 2010 at 9:41 am”
What instrument was the sextant based on? What language was “scince” written in before Latin and then English? Who destroyed the “sum total” of human “learning” in Egypt?
I am not biased either way, but I know my history!
I thought this was kind of silly, then I watched the video:
VERY disturbing…
And thanks to Anthony Watts for getting rids of his electric vampires, having an electric car and all else he has done.
————
Robert of Ottawa,
I think you identified something important. It is interesting to consider the “No Pressure” video as being a 10:10 morality play directed at their supporters.
On a humorous note: I can see some of the supporters of 10:10 wondering if the skeptical blogs have a witness protection program, should they try to come over to escape the implication of their own environmental group’s video.
Maybe we could work out a witness protection program. It would be the humanitarian thing to do. End of humorous note.
John
We have the documentary evidence to prove that National Socialists slaughtered some 25 million people because they didn’t fit in with their vision of Utopia.
We also have the documentary evidence to prove that Communists slaughtered some 120 million people who failed to fit into their Utopia.
This ah…”humor” is about slaughtering people who don’t fit into the producer’s vision of Utopia.
At best, this video is stupidly insensitive. At worst, it is a warning similar to that contained Mien Kampf.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
PS I would suggest reading “The Black Book of Communism” translated from the French and published by the Harvard University Press.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_27?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+black+book+of+communism&sprefix=the+black+book+of+communism
I find these to be the most objectionable aspects:
a) Involving children at all in this fight is unfair. They should be taught, loved and nourished, NOT manipulated. Is it OK to blow up children while teaching them history, science etc.?
b) To have the teacher playing the role of a murderous antagonist against her own students is quite over-the-top. A child’s teacher should be trustworthy and primarily concerned about the child’s well-being. In the USA, we tend to put abusive teachers behind bars….I don’t know about Britain however.
c) 10:10 Org’s attempts to mix humor with this rather nasty message is reprehensible. Good troops from US, Canada, UK and other countries are getting blown up by roadside bombs overseas….how would THEY feel to see this?
Of course, 10:10 and its founders could give a flip about them.
I’m very glad that this junk is getting the “thumbs down” reviews that it deserves. Mind you, I love a good, violent flick on occasion, and also enjoy the Brit black-humor very well. However, this violates too many societal and moral codes for me to approve.
Just watch for more….these CAGW folks are obviously just warming up (ooops, sorry about the pun!)
Mike – firstly apologies for misspelling your surname above.
Secondly, Richard Curtis has been a very naughty boy.
You guys might find this amusing. Let’s make them defend their nonsense or shut up.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978566613
I’m open to others extending the pot. No cash need change hands, just offer to cover an additional part of the bet if we lose (which we won’t!).
Jimmy Haigh 9:49am
So was the rabbit in there when you went, Jimmy?
In reading through the comments on the various threads regarding this video the title of an old Steely Dan tune keeps popping into my head. Perhaps some of you are old enough to remember “Pretzel Logic”. The problem with all the various attempts to portray this as some peculiarly British Pythonesque-BlackAdder humor that the rest of us are too unsophisticated to appreciate, other than the fact that there are probably more MP fans in the US than in Britain, is that even as that it is only remotely humorous if the butt of the joke is people who created it. People who, as I commented in a previous thread, have never previously evidenced any talent for or inclination toward self deprecatory humor or self satire. Quite the opposite, in fact. If the intent was meant to lampoon the skeptical community, it would be analogous to a joke of the form “A man walked into a bar…and shot the bartender in the head!” LOL! Quite a number of comments have suggested that Curtis had pulled a subversive fast one on his warmist comrades, but that argument falters on the rocks of 10:10’s nonapology apology statement, where the only thing they can admit to being sorry for is that some of us are too dimwitted to get their joke. So, even if Curtis hornswoggled them into missing the fact that they were actually the butt of their own joke, that means that they all bought into the notion that blowing up children who refused to raise their hand on command from their eco-fascist teacher was really funny.
Personally, having been a “BlackAdder” fan, I find it a little hard to imagine that Curtis actually had anything at all to do with writing the script for this mess. If he really did produce it there is indeed one very valuable message for children in this sorry affair and that is “Just say no to drugs”.
————
Luboš Motl,
I agree that this 10:10 “No Pressure” video targets children.
10:10 made the video for its vaunted 10:10 events leading up and including Oct 10 2010 day.
You can see from the 10:10 website that many children are involved in those events.
I am researching any 10:10 events in my local communities to check the intention of using the video on children. I will voice my concerns to the organizers through local media if I see the need to.
NOTE: in my effort to email the financial sponsors of the 10:10 video, I have included a statement to the effect that “I am deeply concerned that it may be 10:10’s intention to show the video to children in the audiences of the events related to Oct 10 2010.”
John
Jeremy of W.A.
Here is one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film
Do you people who are still defending this movie realize how you look? Despite that the majority of people who see it are offended you want to still push that the video is okay and we should find it funny like you do. You also imply that there is something wrong with our viewpoint because we don’t find it funny.
Can you just admit to yourselves that most people are offended and stop pushing to try to change people’s mind?? But I suppose to do that would be to admit you are wrong and people who believe in global warming don’t want to do that.
Or, maybe subconsciously you are coercing, like the video does, and you have no intention of stopping.
WTF says:
October 2, 2010 at 8:10 am
Another telling point about this “film” is the number of people they represent as not going along with the consensus. To them in their self imposed bubble they think that those who do not agree with them are a very small minority. The fact that they thought they had to make this “film” I think proves otherwise.
Nice point WTF.
Notice that those in authority seem to be fulfilling their 10% by taking out about 10% of their subordinates. I suppose that’s about par for the sort of authoritarain leadership among the libs — carbon footprints are for the little people.
CRS, Dr.P.H. October 2, 2010 at 10:14 am
“In the USA, we tend to put abusive teachers behind bars….I don’t know about Britain however. ”
No, they do not tolerate abusive teachers in the UK. I’m not so sure they even tolerate teachers. At least, teachers who think for themselves. Nor, for that matter, tolerate, what with all their zero-tolerance “targets” and campaigns.
By the way, I’m from the U.S. , but I read a lot of British and EU blogs. And the one thing that stands out is that they (their governments) are in some kind of overkill mode when it comes to “protecting kids” and, more to the point, persecuting adults for what seems to be the “crime” of BEING adults. Because those silly adults, you see, are not Nanny or one of her advocacy groups!
So this video IS British “humor”. Modern British “humor”, not the kind we all know and grew up seeing in Python, Benny Hill, and the like.
I believe the ancient Greeks had a good epitaph for the CAGW movement.
‘Those whom the Gods choose to destroy they first make mad’
This should mark the passing of the movement from state approved orthodoxy to outcast fringe cult, I can think of no other outcome as more and more people watch the video created by 10.10. Supported by the UK government via taxpayers money, is this the message the UK government wishes to send to the people of the UK who funded this obscenity? Conform or die! Training children to hate those different from the orthodoxy and sending the direct message to them that violent murder is socially acceptable and that dissidents fully deserve to die a violent death for their supposed anti social crimes.
To all British people who work hard to pay the taxes that finance these psychopaths in their warped pseudo national socialist eco jihad this must seem a terrible insult and that it was it is. The one nation that stood alone and then with its commonwealth against the dark ages of supremacist anti science only to find itself infected with the same disease not two thirds of a century later, perhaps the Gods have forsaken and and cursed us to suffer too.
jeremy of W.A. says:
October 2, 2010 at 3:39 am (Edit)
Further to my comments on Satire, Monty Python etc. I forgot to include self-deprecation.
Self deprecation is the art of putting oneself down for the amusement of others. Self satirisation is pretty much the same thing.
This clip is a self satarising piece that uses a ‘cartoon’ image of homicidal greenies blowing up dissidents – in order to attract attention, perhaps even attract a laugh, but overall to put the message across about energy saving.
There’s way to many serious people around these days.
###################
Jeremy, you clearly do not get the basics of rhetoric and genre. Had you been a student of mine when I used to teach this stuff at University, I doubt you would have earned a passing grade. Self- deprecation is not exclusively the putting down of oneself for the amusement of others. Others, are amused by self deprecation, and the point of the amusement is to change the “author/audience” power relationship. When, a powerful person, say Ronald Reagan, uses self deprecation, the imbalance in power is leveled. he is “just like us.” That’s what happens when it works. The great man, levels himself to the common man and speaks on a common footing. This device works when an audience is suspicious of power and authority. Hence Reagan was a great communicator, because he was able to win the regard of people who are generally suspicious of the powerful. The other form of self deprecation is best exemplified by the “sad sack.” This is a figure in literature who wins our approval by being hyperbolically less than us. Think Rodney Dangerfield. We laugh at him and feel better about ourselves. In this regard the audience is elevated. With Reagan, the great man brings himself down to the common level. With Dangerfield, he brings himself below the common level and so the audience is elevated. They are two different distinct modes of self deprecation.
So first off, you dont understand the mechanics of self deprecation. Next, comes the purpose of the leveling. When Reagan brings himself down to the “common” level, he brings himself to a rhetorical stance where he can ask people to “work together” on a common goal. We do not do things for him, we do things with him. we are all in this together. The self deprecator who brings himself BELOW the common level, has other purposes that are purely emotional. “feel sorry for me”, “accept me” “feel better about yourself, because I got it worse” ,”at least we can laugh together”
Entirely different uses of the trope of self deprecation. The effectiveness of the device depends upon the author/audience relationship and the purpose of the speaker.
In this piece, if you cast the greenies as the ones being “deprecated” then that fails as well. You might choose to laugh at them. Other’s chose to be reviled. Right there that bifurcation of response tells you the device does not work. A trope is supposed to work to “channel” or focus the audience response, not bifurcate it. And finally, the responses it generates are not the responses they intended. They did not intend to make you laugh at them and DO NOTHING about climate change. They did not intend for others to be disgusted by them and steeled further in their refusal to do anything about climate change.
A self deprecation that fails as a self deprecation, is not a self deprecation.