Now, imagine how influential you were as a kid, and remember how much those cartoons meant to you and how invested you were within each of them. I do believe there's a disingenuous plot afoot, although I'm sure to some degree it sounds vaguely conspiratorial.

I read with my own eyes a letter from Sundance Film Festival, which was a reply to a letter from a filmmaker asking why he wasn't accepted, and it essentially said in so many words that if you do not have a name actor or you are not an established director then the only way into Sundance (outside of a comedy for their after midnight screenings) is to include an agenda with the film that emboldens modern liberal beliefs such as global warming or, I suppose now, heath care reform. Whatever is the political push button topic of the moment will get you noticed.

That's insidious because they pretend to be a festival discovering and promoting new filmmakers, but the truth is they have an agenda and they want to promote that.

Think for a second about that process. A pro-collective, anti-individual message in all your cartoons, then as your tastes become more sophisticated you start taking an intellectual liking to independent films. Somewhere along the way, the koolaid seems to go down somewhat easily as if it always tasted good and right.

"I just think that "pro-social" message was bogus and ill-conceived."

Because "anti-social" messages would have served the children so much better.

ahem...

DuckTales, anyone?

Dude. The Smurfs. Like, y'know'm'say'n?

Is it weird that I always identified with the "dissenter"? I thought Eric was funny in these clips. My favorite Ninja Turtle was Raphael and I thought Shredder was awesome.

Thanks for trying to save us from the evils of teamwork and cooperation. The game Left 4 Dead is even more sinister than this, because it actually punishes objectivists with death.

BTW, when did you start using Ayn Rand-speak?

@dystopianfuturetoday, you're welcome. But, I actually just copied and pasted the writer's blog. I think I mentioned that up there.

I remember being really exited when I heard that there was going to be a Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I woke up early in the morning to check it out only to find that the characters were not a bunch of bad ass warriors and magic users, but were instead stupid little time traveling kids. Never watched it again.

I think I got most of my collectivist training from Sesame Street.

Robotech was my favorite cartoon, and although I've never analyzed it politically, I did manage to find a video vaguely linking it to the French Revolution. http://www.videosift.com/video/Robotech-Les-Miserables-Mashup

Just remember, don't do drugs kids because drugs are for losers. Together we can build a better society, futurists!

The socio-genetic experiment has worked well-Gone are the days of bashing people over thehead with mallets and blowing them up with TNT-I watched Sesame Street for the musical numbers-The best cartoons were ones with no message whatsoever rather, the renderings and animation always held preeminence over the scripting. Mornings before public school programming were spent with the 3 stooges and Bugs, Woody Woodpecker and re-runs of Twilight zone and Outer Limits at night...

I grew up listening to music more that suckling of of the cathode ray nipple-Lot's of Zappa, obscure garage bands, and selective pop. Television was clear as a fucking bell to me- An insidious programming glow for those whose minds were already forming into a mass of putty easily manipulated and influenced to do the bidding of the advertisers, financiers, and criminal politicians bent on turning everyone into easily managed robots.(I did watch every Charlie's Angels episode each week, and had posters of all of em, on the wall opposite the black light posters!)

Fast-forward to the now and it would seem that the shit worked better than expected. The last couple of generations are as gullible and susceptible as ever to the machine.

Art, music, performance, and the artisan trades are dying-the third-world is polluting the first(by design), and regurgitated, hackneyed scripts have replaced what was once a higher more inspired art.

More power to ya BF, as you do battle in the exclusive arena you have chosen....The passion is what is important.

Same as Dystopian, I loved D&D at the time, but found the cartoon to be weak. I never really got into any Saturday morning stuff. Robotech was like a drug to me.

My favorite fictional shows over time have been:
The 80's Twiligh Zones (first two seasons)
Max Headroom
The Indiana Jones Chronicles - The teen years with the WWI stuff, not the little kid episodes.
(Indiana Jones was actually a real eye opener with an episode that had a character talking about how war equates to profits. Another episode going on about the philosophy of how the average person would never murder anyone, but put them in an army and they'll do it out of a sense of duty)
MST3K
ST: TNG
Red Dwarf
Babylon 5
BSG
24

For the most part I believe those shows where attempts to make good television for the sake of good television. I notice 24 has the occasional right or left wing issue thrown in, but it's rather passive.

@Drax, if someone re-aired Babylon 5 three years ago, it'd be accused of having a horrible left-wing message about Bush the evil warmongering President.

Re-air it today, and conservatives would take it as supporting their view that Obama is entirely held aloft by a fraudulent media arm.

And of course, even when it aired in the 90's, everyone was trying to argue over which middle-eastern country the Narn were supposed to represent, and which western power was supposed to be the Centauri.

@blankfist, as far as kid's stuff, most of what I remember was as much individualistic as anything else (e.g. lots of "don't be afraid of bullies", "be yourself", "speak up when you see someone doing something wrong", "if your friends all jumped off a bridge..."). Virtually all of history is taught with the "great man" theory, where single individuals change the worlds by simply standing up for what they believe in (e.g. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and presumably there's someone from the individualistic right who did something individualistic too).

I know it's terrible for you to think it blankfist, but a balance of collectivism and individualism is really necessary for modern life. Yes, you should be able to be who you are, and do what you want, but you shouldn't get everyone killed by waking up a dragon, or poisoning the planet. Expectations of social behavior, including things like respect for property rights, are collectivist ideas.

Personally, I think it's perfectly fair to teach kids that what they think isn't always right, and that sometimes it's wise to listen to other people. I agree, it'd be bad if the lesson was "thou shalt always subvert thine will to that of others", but you have to be able to strike a balance between individualistic conceit and deference to others.

In the example given above, "If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them," it seems to me that this is less about indoctrinating people to always bow to the will of the majority, but that sometimes it's better to compromise with other people for the sake of establishing relationships. Put in selfishist language, that it's sometimes better to pass up some of your immediate desires to make an investment towards earning something much more worthwhile.

Think of it as teaching the value of savings, or the value of human relationships.

Social behavior is fine. It's when it's being taught that being individual is wrong and group think is the only way that I have an issue. There's nothing wrong with people choosing to engage in teamwork. It's when the individual is sacrificed for the "greater good" that I have a problem. Especially when individualism is taught as being such a terrible plague on the group, i.e. D&D example above.

^ I agree with that.

But I think you (and the D&D author) are making a mountain out of a molehill -- in effect, saying it's a dastardly communist plot to indoctrinate kids not to step out of line. Parenting and schooling practices would drive that sort of behavior to a far greater degree.

For that matter, parents are supposed to be paying attention to things like that and making choices about what they let their kids view, right?

And certainly you're boycotting any business that fires people for not towing the corporate line on anything from TPS reports to how they dress, right?

I didn't say it was a dastardly communist plot, did I? Parents can pay attention to their kids all they want, and they should, but I don't need "parent groups" lobbying stations to propagandized cartoons for social engineering.

There are people out there who would like to see the world engineered in a way that makes them comfortable.

I guess I don't understand. Are private citizens not allowed to persuade private companies to do things they want?

If you weren't so anti-statist, I'd swear the phrase you're looking for is "there should be a law", but that can't be right, can it?

If the indoctrination you stumbled across was more to your ideological liking, something like Watchmen perhaps, would you be drawing people's attention to it and deriding it?

Sigh. Really? Just because they can do it doesn't mean I have to like it. I am making a point to be persuasive, not begging Congress to make a law. Missed the point.

The message of Watchmen can hardly be considered "indoctrination". There are no special interest groups trying to social engineer your children through the Watchmen. Missed the point again.

I'm pretty sure I get the point, I'm just trying to reconcile it with your other positions.

Explain to me the difference between Watchmen and this D&D thing. Watchmen is okay because it's not aimed at kids? Because it's intentional indoctrination perpetrated by the author, and not intentional indoctrination perpetrated by the author at the behest of others? Because it's actually well written?

I would agree that the "not aimed at kids" bit would make a difference, but with a bit of research I'm sure I could come up with a better counter example. I'm not so sure that first order indoctrination vs. second order indoctrination makes any kind of ethical difference though, just a difference in the quality of the resulting propaganda.

I guess I'm just trying to ferret out what you think the root ethical problem is.

^NR-At the core of your own "root ethics" is herd mentality having been spoon fed you through media, society affected by the indoctrination and mind control of the same, and your own individualistic ideals filtered through a collective ideal which is in actuality, an illusion created by those well-versed in controlling large numbers of people-My observations being based solely on your contributions to the sift, and your faith in a system of control and brainwash which used to be something fundamentally different in the early days of it's inception-
Group-think as described here by BF in the D&D cartoon example is part of every cartoon show, every public school classroom, every pep-rally or political event disguised as the same. People in the US have been systematically indoctrinated for years on time-honored models of mass mind control used by the best of the worst regimes throughout time immemorial to amass and concentrate wealth and secure empire. History does, is, and will repeat itself because humans are incredibly predictable. The fantasy created by the machine continues to strip away individualism from the masses as the same become increasingly less educated and subdued by creature comforts and endless mundane and unfulfilled toil-Reality checks become more and more difficult as the mind becomes more saturated with the illusion they create.

Eugenics has become more covert and insidious and mind control more palatable as endless diversion, manipulation of facts, and the systematic dumbing-down of an entire nation continues.

Bring back mallets to the head and TNT-back in the old days, cartoons were part of a special trip to the cinema and the only thing they were trying hard to sell was popcorn, candy, and a cool place to chill out in....well, sort of-Looking back on the early days of media manipulation and mind-control, the tactics look remedial compared to today, to the un-schooled eye.

@NetRunner. Does the Watchmen even have a moral to teach? Sure, it's political, but a moral? Who cares either way, I suppose.

The fundamental difference is within the agenda of an interest group aimed at social engineering children vs. an author writing a political narrative. You seem to think somehow I'm trying to censor people or trying to enact a law to combat them, which is simply not the case, and quite frankly a pedestrian effort at a smear. I thought Mark Evanier's blog entry above was interesting and worth continuing the exposition, so I did because the nature of interest groups trying to secretly influence children is insidious and worthy of note, in my opinion.

It's not that it's solely aimed at kids; it's because of the hidden agenda to socially engineer us through repetitive indoctrination. Repetition is how children learn, and it's irresponsible of them to decide what subversive lesson to secretly teach children. If every Saturday morning cartoon taught children to go with the pack, be sheep and not question voices of concert, then think about the indoctrination they then reap upon their minds when they go to public school. We were taught American history as a historical triumph with clinical distance to the shameful parts of it. We were told to stand and cover our hearts for the pledge of allegiance. The presidents of the US were shown to us as nearly godlike champions in which we were to enshrine with our craft paper and glue. I still remember my President Lincoln log cabin I made from paper that had a silhouette of him in the door. We were all forced to make that, by the way. That wasn't something I chose.

That's the issue I take. The one-size-fits-all indoctrination of how to be an uber-citizen by doing what the group tells you is right. This is a horrible message to teach children. This has nothing to do with harmless teamwork and trying to be social and getting along with others. It's about being a cog. That's the issue I take. Clear enough?

@blankfist, I get what you're afraid of. I agree that what you're worried about is a serious issue, and something to be mindful of, but it isn't a new problem. It didn't spring into existence with the advent of Saturday morning cartoons, and it's certainly not the sole province of "collectivists" -- whoever those people are.

So, what should we do about it? Impugn the motives of any self-identified parent group that takes a stance on the content of children's programming? Try to make it seem like it's only the opposite end of the ideological spectrum that engages in it?

That seems cheap, and disingenuous.

Part of why I'm poking at you is because it's just sounding like another outcry against "liberal bias" in media. I know you well enough to say I don't think that's really all this is, but I'm getting that "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" sensation, and wouldn't mind you dispelling it.

Really, I think your overall concern is propaganda.

I've honestly got no clue what we do about propaganda in the long run. Usually the liberal answer is "more education!", but that's exactly your concern -- that libruls are secretly indoctrinating kids so they're immune to right-wing propaganda.

I actually think propaganda is going to wind up being the greatest threat to humanity over the coming century. Our ability to properly filter signal from noise, now that we've suddenly plugged ourselves into this unfiltered global communication network is going to be key to our long term survival. I still want to believe that being plugged in that way is a good thing, but I'm noticing that people are increasingly choosing to live in a reality of their construction, complete with its own history, rather than the reality they actually inhabit.

That said, I welcome any solution you might have to the problem.

@NetRunner. You're always looking for a tidy solution.

The solution is exactly what I'm doing. I'm just talking about it. It's a furthering of exposition. What else could we do? You can't end propaganda, you can only expose it for the dirty, disingenuous thing that it is.

If enough people are incensed about it then maybe major networks won't want their cartoons to be influenced by parent groups anymore. That would be a good thing.

And there is a such thing as pro-modern liberal propaganda, and my story about Sundance above was a sliver of that. You mean to tell me it doesn't exist?

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm more saying that propaganda these days is all in the eye of the beholder.

I say the New Deal was a massive success, and the movement away from it didn't bring us any economic improvement (unless greater income disparity is "improvement").

You'd say that's propaganda.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the truth, and teaching people that as historical reality is the truthful way to do things.

Teaching people about the debate is a fair enough band-aid on the issue, but in this case, and many other debates, the facts are unequivocal. It's almost as unscrupulous as the cries to "teach the debate" on evolution vs. creationism.

The Texas school board is currently trying to get history textbooks to do for the Great Depression and the New Deal what they've done for evolution. I say that's about a thousand times worse than your hint of a whiff of ideology you don't like in a Saturday morning cartoon.

But, apparently the cartoon struck a deeper chord with you because it's got a slight whiff of something you think is evil, when the blatant historical revisionism towards your view doesn't warrant comment.

Of course, even if you thought the revisionism was an issue, you'd probably just give some ideological dismissal like "there shouldn't be public school boards", even though some board somewhere is always going to be making choices about textbooks, unless people take the time and effort to homeschool (which isn't a practical solution for most people).

I agree that you'll never fix problems without talking about them, but sometimes it all feels like everyone's just trying to drown each other out with their own "propaganda", and there's no way for people to objectively settle disputes and reach a consensus anymore.

It's too easy to just say "that's not true!" and do a google search for someone backing up your viewpoint, and stop worrying about having to change your views to fit the facts.

^Whatever you say. This was a blog entry by a Saturday Morning Cartoon writer who had first person experience of parent groups augmenting the cartoons to further an agenda. I don't care about all the other irrelevant New Deal or Texas school board straw men you're sprinkling throughout.

The parent groups are propagandizing cartoons. I don't care for that. It's insidious and disingenuous. The end. Roll credits. Fade out.

^I support the cartoon's general conceit that little kids shouldn't fight huge multi-headed dragons by themselves. If I were that kid, and were really determined to kill that dragon by myself. I'd trap and kill a wild boar, cook it up, lace it with large amounts of poison and then deliver it to the front of the dragon's den, while the dragon sleeps. One on one combat, while idealistic, would pretty much be suicide.

^That, too, I agree with. A terrible thing in general for kids to fight multi-headed dragons. Should be left to the adults.

Grownups read way too much into cartoons and put way too much stock in whatever hidden or subliminal message they perceive in them. These things are incredibly subjective, and I'm sure there are people who are lobbying against the evil propaganda put forth in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, only that they see a completely different message. It might even be a directly contradictory one to this writer's. That's not to say there's no value in analyzing stuff like this, but there's a big difference between a discussion on the theoretical influences in a cartoon and the practical, real world effects on people who watch it.

But people tend to forget that kids don't perceive and experience things the same way as adults. Most themes and philosophical standpoints will go right over their heads; but for arguments sake, let's say that the cartoon was trying to teach collectivism to its viewers. It would have to be done much more obviously before a child would pick up on the message, more prevalent for that child to start associate the theme with reality and for a very long time before the behaviour is ingrained in their psyche. Just have a look at some real educational cartoons and how pedagogical they have to be in order to get a message across.

@Kreegath. This was from the mouth of the show's writer. This isn't someone reading too much into a show he randomly watched one Saturday morning.

Kids learn through repetition. He said every show had this message. "Real educational cartoons" don't come on every Saturday and aren't something kids seek out religiously like Saturday morning cartoons.

Yeah, you're right about kids learning through repetition, and if it worked in reality the way the writer says, he could have a really good point. But I think he's the one reading way too much into the cartoon, other cartoons and the supposed themes he perceives in them. It just feels like his personal feelings and opinions shine through this article much clearer than the collectivism he speaks of in 80's cartoons. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why he focused on that decade, as he could probably find even more examples throughout the cartoons of 70's if he looked long and hard enough at them.

Dear Bankfist,

You're high or you're drunk.

Blankie, gangs existed long before Saturday morning cartoons.

You never walked in "the hood" did you.

If you did you would know that it had nothing to do with cartoons.

Would you kindly turn the laser beam of your intellect on more worthy causes?

@rougy. Fighting collectivism is the most worthy of causes!

I don't think this has anything to do with gangs, really. He even comments that he doesn't think this pro-social message could have that strong of an impact. I agree. But, it does help validate the response to do what the group is doing. If they all celebrate a certain holiday, then you celebrate that one too. If they all go to church, then you go to church. If they all think gays shouldn't marry, then you believe they shouldn't marry.

That's not entirely true, though. Children are not simply robots getting programmed to behave and think a certain way by observing others, nor are they spunges who soak up everything they're subjected to. Most kids have an extremely strong will, even at very young ages. And while you can certainly teach them to behave in general terms, they do form opinions of their own. Much like older people, they don't easily change those opinions either. That's probably why we can have such radically different personalities within communities, groups and families, and not all be arbitrarily homogenus because of our surroundings.
And even if it were true, it doesn't mean that a weekly/daily cartoon has the same effect that your community's faith, morals, ethics and prejudices does. You don't live the cartoon, and I dare say that any veiled perception of social commentary made in said cartoon has an insignificant effect on the development of the child's ego.

Again, there's more than likely value in having a philosophical discussion amongst adults on this subject, but making the claim that a cartoon (or set of cartoons) would have any tangible impact on children is stretching it in my opinion. The creator of this article could have made a much better case if he'd built it around propagating stereotypes or gender roles in the cartoon, which isn't as abstract as indoctrinating collectivism, but even then it'd be very far fetched to make the claim that watching the cartoon would have lasting effects.

I was hugely influenced by cartoons. Not so much this particular cartoon, but there were many I followed religiously and many I tried to emulate in real life, whether that meant acting out the characters and stories with friends or playing with the action figures.

Also, I think there's a trust built between you and the characters of the show even though they're not real, and as child you can make that distinction, but the importance of their roles in each serial episode are adventurous and exciting and you can't help but look up to them. If He-man told me smoking was bad, I'd believe it was bad, but that doesn't mean when I turned fourteen and started smoking that I was thinking of He-man's words. But, subconsciously I thought smoking was bad, and by smoking I knew I was doing something bad, even though both my parents smoked and that wasn't considered bad.

My point isn't whether or not the messages could have a prolonged effect on the children, but that trying to politically manipulate children using cartoons is disingenuous and irresponsible.

I think it's okay that Popeye eats spinach and tells children it's good for them. I think it's okay that He-man says smoking is harmful to your health. I think it's okay the Thundercats say it's dangerous to run away from home.

I don't think it's responsible to tell children they should go along with whatever the group wants and being an individual is reckless and selfish.

Yeah. Total commie mayhem there.

Damn kids. Working together.

If only they weren't so meddling....

(edit)

But really. Here in Roswell the gang thing is just, like, totally cartoon driven.

Cable. Hug. Free. No, not free.

Uncle Abnur bang pow. Cartoons?

Cartoons?

When auntie has a bullet hole in her head?

@blankfist, I think what me and others are trying to say to you is:

1. There's insufficient evidence to support your assertion that it's politically motivated
   
2. There's insufficient evidence to support your assertion that the message is about submitting to the will of the group.
   
3. There's insufficient evidence to support your assertion that something like this would actually make a difference
   

The way to make those criticisms go a way isn't to stridently reiterate your conclusions, but to present more evidence.

Personally I would agree with your conclusion if I agreed with just two out of three of those assertions, but I don't agree with any of them.

At best, I'd concede that a pervasive and consistent media campaign could make a difference, but that raises the bar on the burden of proof considerably.

@NetRunner. I suppose if you read the blog entry I posted above, you'd see the "sufficient evidence" you require. Here, let me paste it here for you because you obviously cannot be bothered to read anything in context before making wild assertions. Remember, this is from the personal blog of the WRITER of the show.

As you may know, there are those out there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them "parents groups," although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work...and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far from their real goals.

Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.

But I'm not sure the cartoon is saying that anyone should abandon their individuality, that the good of the many always outweigh the good of the few or that being an individual is reckless and selfish. That's just one person's interpretation, namely the writer of the article's. I'm not sure that the cartoon was meant to politically manipulate children, that's also just the interpretation of the writer and inflammatory rethoric. Such wording is more likely to make me think the writer has some axe to grind with the production company than to expose the cartoon as maliciously subversive. To me it reads as if he's simply taken the positive messages the cartoon tried to promote, like the importance of friendship and working together, and just spun it to show it in a negative light. I'm sure there's just as much of a case to be made there about how each of the characters is uniquely individual in the series and how you can be different from everyone and still get along. After all, being an individual doesn't mean one has to forfeit all forms of cooperation with others.

You can spin just about anything negatively, but that doesn't mean that children will pick up on it and lose their sense of self-worth. More likely than not, they'll pick up on the larger, highlighted and predominant themes of the show. Like you said, He-man had to take time out of the cartoon to sit down and really illustrate why smoking was bad, and that didn't make you avoid the cigs.
The guilt you felt from starting to smoke, however, could have come from a hundred different places, and probably did. I don't think the only reason for those feelings was from the ending of a cartoon episode you saw as a child, and I don't think you do either. Smoking has been somewhat of a social taboo for a long time, and even people who do it know that it's bad for them and that they'd be better off quitting. That's something kids are much more likely to pick up on.

I guess I'm not being clear? The guy who is making the claim about the cartoon is actually the writer of the cartoon. He claims (with undeniable first hand knowledge being that he's the writer of the cartoon) that he was forced by special interests groups to write pro-social messages where the group is always right and the complainer was wrong.

Now, whether or not its had any lasting effect on children or whether or not we think pro-social messages are negative or positive is incidental. What's clear, however, is that the writer of the cartoon has said special interest groups forced him to add the pro-social message to the cartoon.

What's there to speculate? Is the guy lying on his blog? Who knows? He doesn't appear to be. If you look at his blog, it seems like an ordinary blog by an ex-cartoon writer with no hidden agenda. It's just a place to file his musings. In this one particular blog he had a confession to make about being bullied by special interest groups to write a pro-social message into each of their episodic cartoons. Did I also mention he was the writer of the cartoon with first hand knowledge of whether or not there was in fact an interest group influencing the writing of the cartoon? No? Well, he was the writer of the cartoon.

>> ^blankfist:
The guy who is making the claim about the cartoon is actually the writer of the cartoon. He claims (with undeniable first hand knowledge being that he's the writer of the cartoon) that he was forced by special interests groups to write pro-social messages where the group is always right and the complainer was wrong.

Right, your evidence is one person's say so.

If he had said something like "special interest groups told me that they want to curtail individual thought", then we'd at least be able to say he was a witness of some unknown credibility. But he didn't say that, he just made an accusation.

Now, if the article you were linking was written by someone who was part of the supposed special interest group(s), and had a stack of internal memos about a secret plot to destroy independent thought, then you might have a pretty good case.

It's not that I think the guy isn't who he says he is, and it's not even that I necessarily think he's being intentionally dishonest, it's that he's speculating, and speculation isn't the same as proof.

The videos might be evidence of the existence of some scenes that might be interpreted as being "pro-social" in the cartoon this guy wrote for, but that's evidence that he did in fact put those messages in the cartoon, but not evidence that parental groups put him under some sort of duress to do it, and certainly not evidence that the parental groups wanted to indoctrinate children to never use their own judgment.

For that matter, the whole moral of this guy's story is that he too made the decision to bow to powers greater than him, rather than stand up for what he thought was right. If we needled him about why he didn't quit in protest, he probably would've talked about the damage to his career and livelihood, and that ultimately he didn't care that much about the effect his actions were having on kids relative to his own self-interest.

He's whining about it now, and trying to blame other people for what he himself did, and say "I couldn't stand up to the group, I mean they might have asked me politely to leave!" But that just seems like he's still trying to process the guilt, and wishes he could blame some scapegoat rather than face the (alleged) consequences of his actions.

@NetRunner. We don't know if he's right or wrong or lying or telling the truth, because to make that assumption is simply speculation. Never was my point to speculate, it was only to present as I read it the facts. I'm not giving evidence that pro-social messages are good or bad in nature, because you cannot prove that by evidence, NR. Those remain political ideas not provable fact.

The facts, however, are as I simply stated multiple times over: this is the writer of the cartoon and he claims he was forced by special interest groups to inject pro-social messages into D&D. That's all I'm asserting. You are trying to build a straw man from that because you disagree that pro-social messages are bad so you're grasping for any available tactic you can invent to win some sort of pro-Democratic battle.

That shit may work on the Daily Kos, but it won't fly here, pal.

@blankfist, earlier in this thread, you said:

The parent groups are propagandizing cartoons. I don't care for that. It's insidious and disingenuous. The end. Roll credits. Fade out.

You're now saying:

We don't know if he's right or wrong or lying or telling the truth, because to make that assumption is simply speculation. Never was my point to speculate, it was only to present as I read it the facts. I'm not giving evidence that pro-social messages are good or bad in nature, because you cannot prove that by evidence, NR. Those remain political ideas not provable fact.

The facts, however, are as I simply stated multiple times over: this is the writer of the cartoon and he claims he was forced by special interest groups to inject pro-social messages into D&D. That's all I'm asserting.

I'm glad you now feel like you should get some distance from your earlier comment.

Progress!

You are trying to build a straw man from that because you disagree that pro-social messages are bad so you're grasping for any available tactic you can invent to win some sort of pro-Democratic battle.

A little bit of review, a "straw man argument" is when you tear apart an argument your opponent didn't make, and imply this refutes the argument they actually made.

When your opponent changes his position because you tore apart the foundation for it, it's called winning the argument, even if they deny that they ever held their original position.

This is actually a situation where I'm ideologically on the same side as you. I am not taking up the "we should program our children to always bend to the will of the group" side of this argument -- far from it. I'm just saying that the accusation is too grandiose for the evidence presented.

I'm glad you see it my way now.

Now, about the Texas school board...

@NetRunner. I see what you did there, you big silly sophist. I was talking about the Sift Talk post itself not being speculation, but yes my personal opinion is that I believe pro-social messages are bad, and I believe this writer is telling the truth because I don't think you've offered any proof to the contrary. I'm personally not trying to convince you that he's genuine and not lying to prove a point, because that is speculation and I can't prove that.

Debating a mob of collectivists in a single post makes it difficult to keep the arguments straight. But, then again, collectivists aren't known for their temperance.

Point of information. A straw man argument is, as implied by its title, attacking a substituted position in place of the opponent's original position. That's what your silly New Deal and Texas school board analogy was - a straw man. In fact, that's mainly how you personally like to debate: by building straw men to set afire. I feel it's important to point out this character flaw when debating others, because I truly feel you can be above that.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

But, no, you're right, I should launch a massive investigation to prove a Saturday morning cartoon writer isn't being a manipulative liar on a non-political blog he uses to write his personal musings. Yes, that will certainly require some hard-nosed sleuthing to ensure no stone goes unturned while I... um... google it? Here, does this sound like a man with a political agenda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Evanier

It's funny, you can literally recite the definition of a straw man attack, but then misuse it in the next sentence.

What I said was:

The Texas school board is currently trying to get history textbooks to do for the Great Depression and the New Deal what they've done for evolution. I say that's about a thousand times worse than your hint of a whiff of ideology you don't like in a Saturday morning cartoon.

But, apparently the cartoon struck a deeper chord with you because it's got a slight whiff of something you think is evil, when the blatant historical revisionism towards your view doesn't warrant comment.

I'm making my own argument there -- mostly I'm accusing you of having a double standard. Something that seems like a pro-liberal manipulation, you scream. Something that's blatant conservative manipulation, well, you probably hadn't even heard about it. I was inviting you to condemn what they're doing, and apparently you couldn't muster even a "I don't like what they're doing, either".

But in the spirit of fairness, I'll confess the above was an ad hominem argument, if a fairly gentle one that you could have easily deflated by conceding my point.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

I admit I can be quite the conceited jerk at times, especially when I'm gloating a little bit, but blankfist, sweetie, asking for evidence isn't a dirty partisan trick.

In part, you're making my argument for me here by minimizing what it was you presented. My point is that you're trumpeting it like it's a big revelation of a sinister plot -- you even suggested that the only reason "teamwork" might sound good is because of indoctrination by cartoons -- when it sure sounded to me like Evanier's main point was "I just think that 'pro-social' message was bogus and ill-conceived", not "your children are being secretly brainwashed by mysterious parties to further their secret agenda".

You yourself said in your first comment that it sounded "a bit conspiratorial", and then recounted your belief that it's not just children's cartoons, but independent films.

I think my skepticism is perfectly healthy.

@NetRunner. I'm not sure what you base your arguments on, but I've already admitted I think these pro-social messages are insidious. Teamwork is fine, if that's all the cartoons were showing, but to me this sounds more like social engineering than anything else, but I never said I had evidence for it. I just juxtaposed his comments with a personal anecdote about Sundance I thought was similar in its devious nature to shape the opinions of large groups through entertainment. I think to an average person they'd seem comparative, so I'm not sure what you're going on and on about if not to just stretch out an already belabored discussion about nothing at this point.

I bet you wish you played that evidence card before you made this comment, huh? You're adorable.

Actually, in that case you asked for my opinion on a proposal. You lied about what it was, and even edited out the parts that were actually evil, and then tried to act as if my response was an endorsement of evil.

What that implies is that you're so ideologically bent that you'll use any dirty trick to try to smear people you disagree with -- even one that considers you a friend. It does not imply that I'm crazy for saying your accusations aren't supported by what you've presented.

The original post sounds to me like an indictment of well-meaning idiots, not an attempt to expose an insidious plot by "collectivists" to brainwash children.

I'd even go so far as to say that your implication is a big straw man argument against left-wing people of all stripes. We're not looking to quash independent thought at all, and your belief that we are is based more on your own prejudice than anything real.

^You're a silly, silly man. You're just mad because I have evidence you believe in Nazism on a "visceral level". Hitler sold change and hope to the masses, so I can see why.

And oh come on, I selected 17 of the 25 points of the Nazi party, and the only thing I changed was US for Germany and Congress for the Reich. I didn't take the most offensive sections out. You're taking offense because you don't like to have your cognitive dissonance draped in front of you like that.

aaaaaaaaaaaand, GODWIN'd! that's a wrap, folks.

also, is there video footage of you two fucking or is it just text? i'm a very visual person...

Don't get it twisted, berti. I'm the top.

I guess since you've thoroughly lost this argument, you want to dig up an older one where you think you won?

Here's what you're characterizing as "evidence you believe in Nazism on a 'visceral level'":

7. We support the abolition of incomes unearned by work.

I don't know what this means. I suspect they're not talking about welfare, but things like interest, generic capital gains, rent collection, etc.

I find this idea appealing on a visceral level, but I don't ultimately believe this is the way to address the issue of the idle and clearly undeservedly rich (like Paris Hilton).

8. In view of the enormous sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand therefore the confiscation of all war profits.

Another one I find appealing on a visceral level. I think this is easier said than done though. On the one hand, I think it's a bit unavoidable that someone will make a profit off wars, even if it's just the funeral service, and we shouldn't necessarily begrudge every ounce of it. I also think a lot of the profit being made now is because we keep giving our military a huge amount of leeway to buy unproven, expensive toys that have questionable battlefield value (e.g. the F-22). The old-fashioned meaning of this is that someone is intentionally starting or prolonging a war just to make a profit. I think this is frankly what the "neoconservatives" are really about. They don't really give a shit who we fight, they just want us eternally at war so their defense contractor friends will stay constantly flush with cash, which they can freely donate to their reelection campaigns.

However, if we could clearly identify illicit profit, I'd have no qualms with confiscating it, and donating it to humanitarian relief organizations working the battlezone.

That seems to me like evidence of your inability to present facts objectively.

In this case you're just flat out lying, not just putting your own misleading spin on it.

I didn't know there was anything to be won in this post. Seems like you feel compelled to continue writing some such nonsense. I'll just leave you to your shenanigans, peaches.

The argument between you seems to be about a couple of different issues, which may have contributed to the increasingly harsh tone of your dismissing of each other.

It seems to me like Netrunner wants to highlight that the guy writing the article obviously has an agenda for writing what he did, namely his own. Simply accepting his side of the story, especially when he's making such a strong statement without anything to strengthen his claim except for an extremely hard-line approach as to the labeling of the actual events taking place in the cartoon, is disingenuous when presenting an unsubstantiated, biased opinion as anything but.

However, Blankfist wants to underline that pro-social messages intentionally inserted into cartoons is by its nature insidious. Presenting teamwork and camaradery in a light as to stifle a child's developing of a healthy ego, especially if it's deliberately engineered, is wrong and its practice as well as practitioners should be exposed and shunned.

On the one hand, we're discussing whether or not the pro-social message here is good or bad, and on the other hand we're discussing whether this is a pro-social message at all or just the bias or figment of imagination on the part of the writer.

Okay what does Spongebob teach me? LSD usage?

@Kreegath, I wouldn't say that was my argument. My argument was that the original author wasn't making a particularly bold claim -- he was just raising the concern that a ham-handed pro-social message like "the group is always right" is a dangerous one.

I agree with that.

As I kept revisiting the original post, I realized that I'd come away with the wrong impression the first time I read it. I realized that the author didn't say there was an evil conspiracy afoot, blankfist said that, and acted as though the author agreed with his assertion.

So yeah, the argument topic shifted around a bit at first, but in the end my main point was that blankfist's conspiracy theory is bunk, and what the author said isn't even evidence to support such a claim.

That's when he started calling me a Nazi, said he was "on top", then acted as if he didn't care about winning the argument.

The way I see it, disagreements between people are great opportunities to learn something. The theory goes something like this:

• Everyone believes their viewpoint is based on facts and reason
  
• Facts and reason are deterministic -- i.e. everyone should come to the same conclusions if they use the same facts and proper reasoning
  
• Therefore, if someone disagrees with you, one of you must be using faulty facts, or faulty reason, and debate can uncover which part is the problem.
  

That's why I'm content to argue like a junkyard dog with people who seem to be operate on generally accurate fact, and generally sound reason (like blankfist), because I think there's a possibility one of us might learn something from the other.

It's why I generally don't engage people who live in a virtual reality of their own self-supporting facts (e.g. Obama is a radical socialist, tax cuts universally and permanently increase tax revenue, intelligent design is a valid scientific viewpoint, etc.). There just isn't much opportunity for either of us to learn from one another because they've got a whole universe filled with their own faith-based, incorrect facts supporting them.

There's always a competitive spirit to debates though. You want the other guy to be the one who reassesses his position, not be the one who has to face facts and reconsider your own. However, in my own collectivist opinion, this means arguing is a win-win situation; someone's going to be rid of a flawed or incorrect theory, and someone's going to have their own tested and validated. Even if you don't get that breakthrough, at a minimum it can help both have some healthy skepticism about their own beliefs, and come away with new considerations to reflect on.

Out of this one, I come away wondering what kinds of influences might be in modern day cartoons, and at whose behest, and what can reasonably be done about it. I hope blankfist comes away realizing that the problem is more general than he thinks -- it's not purely collectivist parent groups, it's going to be Christian parent groups, it's going to be anti-government parent groups, it's going to be corporate interests of the network, and it might just be stupid people passing on their own stupidity. It's also not really anything you can do much about, except that you need make sure to be a good parent, and be mindful of messages subtle and gross that other people are sending to your children.