Blogs to think about

Thank you, Tim's Mom. I'm very humbled.

These are the rules:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

And here are my nominations:

Fire in Mine Ears
Dominion Family
The Beehive
U Krakovianki
Dewey's Treehouse

Anglo-Saxon Aloud

I have always loved the sound of Old English, whether Beowulf or, like here, the Bible. It has a rough but musical quality, and the excerpts you can find at the link are lovely to listen to.

Idealizing democracy

“Thus, it is fair to think that an irksome law, whose real value was not observed by the majority, would neither be passed nor obeyed.” Alexis de Tocqueville on the benefits of government by the people, in Democracy in America.

It is just this naive and idealistic view of government that makes me want to throw this book across the room. Just as it is easy to make socialism look like a good idea if you speak only idealistically, so can democracy be written as the golden dream that will solve all legislative problems. Despite the fact that Tocqueville was merely observing what he saw in America, he only saw the start of a new plan. And as anyone who has ever started a new schedule, diet, to do list, etc., knows, everything goes well in the beginning. Everyone is full of enthusiasm, everyone wants to get it right, and it looks like you’ve found something that will actually work.

Unfortunately, reality kicks in. Republican democracy, just like every other system of government, is by no means perfect, as shown by the present condition of the United States. And why? Because humans are imperfect, and no matter how perfect the system, it is humans who will have to administer it. Monarchy works very well—if you can assure that character and leadership are hereditary. Socialism works very well—if you can assure that poltiicians are honest. Republican democracy works well—if you can assure that your representatives actually represent. Sadly, no matter how many laws and regulations there are, men will always have sinful natures, and power will always corrupt. We should not view our government through rosy glasses, as Tocqueville did, seeing only the hypothetical government and not the real one. Neither should we say that democracy doesn’t work simply because it isn’t perfect. Democracy isn’t perfect, but it is certainly the lesser of many evils.

As Winston Churchill said, “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.”

The Gospel According to Disney

I recently finished a book called The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust by Mark Pinsky, which examines each and every Walt Disney production and its worldview from a Christian perspective. The author is very liberal, and his comments at times were annoying on that count, but overall it was a fascinating read.

In the end, he concludes that the Disney gospel is “Trust in yourself and follow your dreams”, but is surprisingly lenient to the films even after unveiling that incredibly unBiblical worldview. And, even among the universe populated with weak or overbearing fathers (with not a good mother to be seen) and rebellious children, where nature is king, it is perhaps this message that is the most damaging. For when you look at them, every Disney hero or heroine is thinking about his or herself first of all. Perhaps they serve and care for others along the way, but the point of the movies is shown by the happy endings: the hero or heroine they get what they want and live happily ever after. The movies hardly promote Christian ideals. In fact, Disney did an animated version of the Chronicles of Prydain (called "The Black Cauldron"), and while the books were full of themes such as servant-leadership, humility, and being content in all circumstances, the whole point of the Disney adaptation was—take a guess? Trust in yourself and follow your dreams.

A contrast with the Pixar movies came to me when I was thinking about this, and I realized that there the opposite worldview is true. For example, in "Toy Story 2", Woody gives up personal glory to make a child happy. In "Monsters Inc", Sully cares for a child more than himself, even losing his job because of her. In "Cars", perhaps the most obvious example, the whole movie is about how a selfish car learns to care for others more than himself. This more wholesome focus is conspicuously absent from most Disney movies.

Heartwarming

There's nothing that will cheer your day quite like one of your brothers coming upstairs with a fuzzy sock infected with static cling, and saying with a big grin: "Look! It's Albert Einsock!"

Two good movies

Last night we watched The Nativity Story, which I actually liked more than I thought I would. Surprisingly, it didn’t extrapolate much, and what it did add was not jarring. True, it was a bit underacted and underdramatic, but I think it worked well, because, after all, it was not a showy affair. This is the story of a very humble birth, and the quiet tone made it feel real and not contrived. The biblical events were followed, there was nothing objectionable, and it was an interesting movie overall. I especially appreciated the portrayal of Joseph, a quiet good man who gives to others before himself.

The other movie we saw recently was Amazing Grace, which we watched on its last day in theaters. That was definitely worth the ticket price! Unlike most movies I see, there was nothing I would have changed about this one. There was no bad actor, no line that felt out of place, no spots that were too slow, a good use of music, and a good beginning and ending. Since we watch so many British movies, this movie was sort of like a game of “Place That Actor”, where there were only two or three people in the whole movie that we did not recognize from somewhere. In fact, the two actors who played Fanny and Edmund in the old BBC Mansfield Park played a husband and wife in Amazing Grace. It was a wonderful movie, with only a couple bad words to mar it, and an inspiring story.