This is another post in the continuing, if very occasional, series spotlighting blogs in the hope of giving them higher visibility.
I'm rather fond of this blog. The reading style and length are ideal for the blog format. Often after reading a post you have something to discuss or reflect on, which I find to be a rather reliable bellwether for whether others will enjoy the blog as well. This post is on the apparent desire to whitewash fairy tales so as not to offend while at the same time material produced for older individuals grows increasingly more depraved.
My daughter Tasha has followed after her older two siblings in liking the children’s show “Super Why!” an animated series intended to help develop preschool reading skills. Micah liked it the best of all three, I think, and he’s a voracious reader, but Tasha also likes it quite a bit too.
Although I generally like the show, one of the things that struck me today was the kind of “diversity” that is portrayed. Obviously, a cartoon is just a cartoon, so one really shouldn’t make too much of it, but we have not simply gender and racial diversity, which is to be expected, but a pig-boy (one of the pigs from “the three little pigs”). I found this interesting and peculiar at the same time. I think it does fit much within our culture, now that we have PETA and animal “ethicists” making more noise than ever before. We also have developed what I’d call “pet subculture,” where people spend tens of thousands on a “pet,” even making sure to purchase gourmet food for a pet that would be just as happy gnawing on a day-old bone to extract some marrow.
I was struck by this cartoon in part because I recently had to take Tasha to the dr for an ear infection and I read to her the story of the three little pigs in the doctor’s office. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the version they had included that the wolf ate the first two! I cannot remember the last time I had seen a children’s book that did not overly sanitize the story!
Guess what? Tasha had no problems. She didn’t need the psyche ward. She didn’t go into convulsions and she hasn’t tried to kill all things in her path. She seems just as healthy now as then.
All of this is to say we have an unhealthy approach to death and dying within the cosmos and one can see it play itself out in how we deal with animals and children’s stories. Death within the plant and animal kingdom is not the problem (see Gen 1 and 2 and Psalm 104). Really, raising Ol’ Betsy for milk and then ground beef is not our enemy. Yet, that’s what a certain segment of our culture has made the enemy. In order to “correct” that, we remove any and all violence from fairy tales (which are clearly fairy tales), especially animal kingdom violence. We create some sort of precious moments version and then many of us try to live that by spending tons of money on our pets and fighting for “animal rights.”
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I was struck by this cartoon in part because I recently had to take Tasha to the dr for an ear infection and I read to her the story of the three little pigs in the doctor’s office. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the version they had included that the wolf ate the first two! I cannot remember the last time I had seen a children’s book that did not overly sanitize the story!
Guess what? Tasha had no problems. She didn’t need the psyche ward. She didn’t go into convulsions and she hasn’t tried to kill all things in her path. She seems just as healthy now as then.
All of this is to say we have an unhealthy approach to death and dying within the cosmos and one can see it play itself out in how we deal with animals and children’s stories. Death within the plant and animal kingdom is not the problem (see Gen 1 and 2 and Psalm 104). Really, raising Ol’ Betsy for milk and then ground beef is not our enemy. Yet, that’s what a certain segment of our culture has made the enemy. In order to “correct” that, we remove any and all violence from fairy tales (which are clearly fairy tales), especially animal kingdom violence. We create some sort of precious moments version and then many of us try to live that by spending tons of money on our pets and fighting for “animal rights.”
At the same time that that exists within our culture, we produce an increasing amount of video games that show violence against humans and, what’s more, pornography grows and thrives even in the midst of a recession.
Let me say it again: raising Ol’ Betsy for milk and then ground beef is not our enemy.
The enemy is ourselves primarily, though we do prefer to follow the father of lies rather than God the Father, so it’s true we’re not alone in this mess. When we make Betsy the Holstein the problem, and correct it as we have begun to do in some segments (changing fairy tales and stories, making pink stuffed bears, etc.), we actually start to create other problems: we may not realize that the problem with the world, including how we handle food and the environment lies with behaviors other than eating meat or the cycle of life in the animal kingdom; we may begin to allocate resources better spent on benefiting the plight of the unborn or dying or significantly ill or the impoverished to fighting terminal cancer in Spot the dog; we may actually distance ourselves from nature by taking a pet and making him/her live in a largely plastic and idealized urban/suburban environment (and yes, I’m assuming it is a good to be connected to nature); or we may come to think that adult animals have the same (or preferential!) ethical standing as a human baby (unborn or even born).
In other words, I think our contemporary means of handling animal stories can be a symptom of misunderstanding the fall and also lead to an increased misunderstanding. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t intend to make too much of this, but I do think there are people within our society who tend in that direction and I do think that “pet subculture” (which I’d differentiate from people who just happen to have pets) plays a part.
I think it would be far better if children simply learned that wolves eat pigs and that pigs are not part of our “diversity.” I even think it’d be better if all children worked a garden, fished, and/or hunted as they grew up. But, then again, I’m from the frontier. Being politically correct by preferring to give my dog gourmet food rather than give to my poor neighbor and thinking wolves wouldn’t really eat Fido hasn’t yet come to dominate. It’s on it’s way here even in Fargo, though. There’s a bakery for pets. Yes, you heard that right. Even in Fargo. Here, though, it is definitely a sub culture. Most of us haven’t yet made the act of raising Ol’ Betsy for milk and then beef into the enemy.
Let me say it again: raising Ol’ Betsy for milk and then ground beef is not our enemy.
The enemy is ourselves primarily, though we do prefer to follow the father of lies rather than God the Father, so it’s true we’re not alone in this mess. When we make Betsy the Holstein the problem, and correct it as we have begun to do in some segments (changing fairy tales and stories, making pink stuffed bears, etc.), we actually start to create other problems: we may not realize that the problem with the world, including how we handle food and the environment lies with behaviors other than eating meat or the cycle of life in the animal kingdom; we may begin to allocate resources better spent on benefiting the plight of the unborn or dying or significantly ill or the impoverished to fighting terminal cancer in Spot the dog; we may actually distance ourselves from nature by taking a pet and making him/her live in a largely plastic and idealized urban/suburban environment (and yes, I’m assuming it is a good to be connected to nature); or we may come to think that adult animals have the same (or preferential!) ethical standing as a human baby (unborn or even born).
In other words, I think our contemporary means of handling animal stories can be a symptom of misunderstanding the fall and also lead to an increased misunderstanding. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t intend to make too much of this, but I do think there are people within our society who tend in that direction and I do think that “pet subculture” (which I’d differentiate from people who just happen to have pets) plays a part.
I think it would be far better if children simply learned that wolves eat pigs and that pigs are not part of our “diversity.” I even think it’d be better if all children worked a garden, fished, and/or hunted as they grew up. But, then again, I’m from the frontier. Being politically correct by preferring to give my dog gourmet food rather than give to my poor neighbor and thinking wolves wouldn’t really eat Fido hasn’t yet come to dominate. It’s on it’s way here even in Fargo, though. There’s a bakery for pets. Yes, you heard that right. Even in Fargo. Here, though, it is definitely a sub culture. Most of us haven’t yet made the act of raising Ol’ Betsy for milk and then beef into the enemy.
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