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Review of "The Sky Is Falling" by Peter Biskind

8/9/2018

32 Comments

 
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The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism
Peter Biskind | 256 pages | New Press | Sept. 11, 2018 | ISBN 9781620974292​ | $26.99

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​During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, commissioned a study to better target the kinds of voters Trump would need to reach to win the election. According to an interview Kushner later gave to Forbes magazine, he learned that Trump voters were most likely to be fans of AMC’s zombie drama The Walking Dead, a show about rugged individualists struggling to beat back hordes of rampaging zombies that constantly breach their border walls after the total collapse of the federal government. Consequently, the Trump team bought air time during the broadcast. It was neither the first nor the last time that The Walking Dead—a rural-themed show with the formal structure of midcentury cowboys-and-Indians movie—has been viewed as a conservative drama. As I wrote in my Knowing Fear a decade ago, horror is almost by definition structurally conservative since it revolves around breaches of the status quo. 
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​But this incident helped to inspire cultural critic and journalist Peter Biskind to look into the question of whether genre movies and TV shows helped to pave the way for what he calls an era of unprecedented political extremism in the United States by denigrating unifying institutions and celebrating ideologies formerly associated with the fringe of American life. His analysis is simplistic, and I believe he is wrong to imagine that art creates culture. Instead, the balance is more precarious, with art and culture feeding one another. The Walking Dead did not open America to Trump but it did reflect the cultural forces that he exploited.
 
Biskind opens The Sky Is Falling with a superficial, if not entirely incorrect, examination of the politics of the past seventy years—a period that starts long enough in the past that it forms a sort of mythical golden age but one that is close enough that the children of the 1950s are still around to wax nostalgic about their childhoods. Biskind imagines that the 1950s were a tranquil period when extremism had been cast out of American life, and he skips over the turbulent 1960s and 1970s—a time of violence and extremism—to paint a picture of contemporary partisanship as the most painful outbreak of internal hostility since the end of World War II. He remembers that extremists existed even in the 1950s, but he misdiagnoses the reason for their exile from power. It is not that their ideas held no truck; it was that the centrists in both parties had temporarily come together to foster stability against a bigger threat than political differences: The Soviet Union. As that threat receded, internal divisions reemerged. Biskind never quite defines what he means by “extremism,” with his definition floating at times between communism and fascism on one hand and the “extremism” of Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush on the other. Sometimes “extremism” is for him revolutionary, and other times it is any belief that prioritizes individual action over collective government responses.
 
The biggest problem in Biskind’s analysis—and all of those that follow from a nostalgia for the 1950s and 1960s—is that the postwar period of consensus lasted only about twenty years. That’s twenty years out of America’s more than 250. That’s twenty years set against the fifty years since it ended. It is nostalgia for a blip, an anomaly, a brief moment when the devastation of war left America in a position that simply could not be sustained. To imagine it as not just ideal but normal is to mistake one’s childhood for the Golden Age. Biskind is 78. His adolescence and young adult years just happen to coincide with this period of presumed glory.
 
I would also be remiss if I did not mention that Biskind limits his analysis primarily to science fiction, horror, and “adventure” films (meaning action movies, otherwise not paranormal), all of which are targeted to a young male audience. Were he to devote the same effort to female-coded genres such as romance, for example, or even to comedy, I am sure that he would arrive at a different set of conclusions. Part of the apocalyptic tone he decries is simply part and parcel of the genre. It is perhaps telling that the notes to the book scrupulously cite current events to news articles but contain virtually no references to popular or scholarly critical analysis of film or television, or any works of media, film, or cultural theory.
 
Biskind believes, like many cranky old grandfathers, that television shows and movies can be classified into liberal, centrist, and conservative narratives and that they are sending secret political messages to indoctrinate audiences into extremism. For him, science fiction can be broken down into these three themes, of which liberal and conservative are the most prominent. When aliens are benevolent, it’s a liberal movie. When they attack, it’s a conservative one. When the narrative focuses on science, it’s liberal. When it focuses on law enforcement or the military, it’s conservative. I think that Biskind oversimplifies and projects political clichés onto cinematic clichés. In his introduction, he unintentionally reveals the truth—what he sees as politically liberal or conservative is really a question of tolerance. When a movie or TV show sympathizes with characters who aren’t straight white men, he brands it as liberal. When it expresses fear of characters who aren’t straight white men, he claims it for conservatism. The “politics” he sees is really a question of how we perceive the “Other.” In the 1950s and 1960s, the “Other” had a racial and a national dimension, and often a sexual and gendered one, but today we have added political affiliation to the characteristics that count as “Other.” If these themes map to current liberal/conservative divides, it is because of the polarization we now experience in regard to the categories of straight, white, and male taking on added political weight through conservatives claiming them as synecdoche for their worldview. 
 
Biskind’s analysis of the deep themes of horror is similarly blinkered. Preferring politics to the underlying social and epistemological facets of the monster—the subject of so much academic work—he says, bluntly, “In the same way that savages are just savages in mainstream shows, so too are monsters just monsters.” The only exception is when they are political. That’s just not right.
 
It so happens that I was once an expert in this field and carefully researched this subject. As I discuss in my book Knowing Fear, there are both culturally liberal and conservative themes in speculative fiction film and literature, but these rarely map neatly onto the faux-liberalism and faux-conservatism passing under the brands of the Democratic and Republican parties, whose inconsistent positions, born of expediency and cash payments, are only approximately aligned to traditional ideological divisions. I should hope that conservatism isn’t so morally bankrupt that, as Biskind asserts, its adherents actively root against doctors because they want to see the military blow up any perceived threat, or that liberalism isn’t so threadbare as to root against police and soldiers as automatic agents of evil. He rails against “leftist” science fiction movies of the past thirty years for convincing audiences that corporations are oppressive and capitalism is evil, as though the early science fiction classic Metropolis didn’t feature workers rising up against evil and corrupt industrialists in 1927.
 
For Biskind, however, the demonization of American economic and political institutions, or the depiction of their incompetence and failure, is a symptom of Modern Times. Biskind forgets that the idea of subversive narratives or stories where American institutions fail are not unique to our era. Alfred Hitchcock used to showcase them every week on his Alfred Hitchcock Presents. What differed in the past is that the CBS network used to make Hitchcock deliver a milquetoast spoken epilogue facetiously claiming that the subversive ending the viewer just saw was undone by a stroke of fate, restoring order. But CBS (and later NBC) didn’t do that because of a commitment to centrism but because of expediency—TV was regulated heavily then, and heavily dependent on sponsors who needed mass audiences not to be offended, so keeping on the government’s and corporations’ good sides meant upholding “decency” and the most inoffensive of common values. Where commercial needs were less important—like in pulp fiction novels and magazines—a very different story emerges. Try reading some midcentury pulp fiction sometime, or even the collection of stories Hitchcock put out that CBS would not allow him to film for TV. Modern narratives aren’t an expression of a new extremism as much as they are the kinds of stories that would always have been told on TV and not just in magazines and paperback novels if the regulatory state hadn’t used its control of the airwaves to minimize them. Claiming particular government policies, born of political expediency and corporate profit-mongering, are an expression of what is essentially the General Will rubs me the wrong way.
 
But there is a core that remains to Biskind’s argument. He is right that entertainment reflects culture and helps to shape audience attitudes. He is also right that modern entertainment seems to give a more prominent place to apocalyptic scenarios, post-apocalyptic survival narratives, and stories that represent a lack of faith in either government or humanity. But I don’t think that it is reducible to a facile formula born of a particular partisan divide that has had its current form only since the late 1990s. America has always had an apocalyptic streak—look at the regular occurrence of end of the world cults—and it has always hosted arguments between those who want to expand the social contract to greater numbers and those who would restrict it to fewer people. The darkness in modern genre fiction reflects, yes, a lack of hope and concern about the future. But it is also the ruthless result of corporate forces that pick particular narratives because they sell well, generate buzz, and produce sufficient spectacle to keep audiences coming back. The end of the world is the natural end point of the blockbuster mentality. The stakes kept going up from that first shark attack in Jaws, and now only the end of existence can satisfy jaded audiences that expect ever greater stakes to titillate them.
 
Beyond the overbearing effort to render all entertainment partisan, Biskind’s writing style tends to undermine his case. Biskind has been writing about pop culture for a long time, so surely he realizes that his own prose is studded with clichés and the tired detritus of last year’s conventional wisdom. Why else use the trite descriptor “interchangeable Chrises” to describe Evans, Pratt, Hemsworth, and Pine, except that it was a cliché in movie reviews a year or two ago? Why else refer to the supernatural as “the supe world” except that some teenager on Snap Chat did? Why use “POTUS” in place of “president” except to sound au courant with Washington-speak? He lards his prose with adjectives to make quite clear to the reader which movies and TV shows he loves, and which he doesn’t. But his desire to show off his superior taste undercuts his analysis by making it seem that works he favors are by definition healthier and more acceptable than those he dislikes for aesthetic reasons.
 
His chapters, roughly thematic but overlapping in content a bit too much, tend to break down into plot summaries strung together by thin, impressionistic arguments based on the author’s tastes. He claims, for example, that science fiction films no longer engage in the awe and wonder of exploration, but he doesn’t back that up. Yes, Alien was a scary film that saw space as horror, but plenty of 1950s films found terrible frights in space, too. To make the argument work, Biskind needed data to quantify whether themes and plots have really changed, and how much. I get the feeling that one could cherry-pick a different set of films and TV shows and produce exactly the opposite conclusions from those Biskind offers. A dull chapter on the Left Behind series seems out of place since Biskind’s book is not about books, and the halfhearted movie versions had almost no traction outside of evangelical circles, which hardly needed the films to become right-leaning.
 
Overall, Biskind is too rigorous in his effort to politicize films and TV shows, particularly since he chooses not to use any sort of quantitative data to justify his subjective readings, which tend to revolve around only a handful of properties: Lost, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and inexplicably True Blood foremost among them. It’s true that movies and TV series reflect the culture in which they are created. But they are also art, which means that they have more than one potential reading and a certain degree of ambiguity that allows for their narratives to be applied and reapplied in new and different ways. At one point, Biskind seems amazed that The Hunger Games could be read as both right- and left-leaning. Biskind expresses his own discomfort at the fact that Black Panther (2018) “seems initially to come from the left” because of its diversity but its lead characters is “more like Donald Trump” because of his African version of American exceptionalism. The latter half of that sentence was a popular alt-right meme earlier this year, and Biskind simply can’t hold it in his head that art can contain different meanings and possible interpretations.

Despite this, The Sky Is Falling has some provocative ideas and offers an interesting, if flawed, argument for popular entertainment as reflection and driver of political discourse. If you can set aside the stylistic tics and the more strident efforts to slot every media product as part of the current liberal/conservative divide, there are elements of the book worth reading and arguments worth hearing. Ultimately, Biskind raises a difficult question: To what extent do the stories that we tell ourselves drive us to live up to the values those stories depict? And does that mean that the people who tell those stories have a moral obligation to consider the consequences of the themes they explore?

When Rod Serling wrote a drama about a bomb on board an airplane, he was horrified to discover that someone watching the show on TV used it as a template for calling in a bomb threat, one of the first such threats against an airplane. He was so shaken that he vowed never to write another drama outlining an original crime that some future criminal might imitate. It is worth considering whether Hollywood should consider the degree to which the stories they present might drive audiences in unwelcome directions, and what they should do about it.

32 Comments
Pops
8/9/2018 11:08:50 am

Very interesting post. It’s true that art and entertainment have many interpretations that don’t hold true for everyone. Biskind’s book has some flaws but I also agree that the core principle of his work has something to say. Biskind is over 70 years old so I bet he holds nostalgia that his time was the best or reasonable so it would be a good thing to keep that in mind while reading his book. I believe the biggest flaw is that Biskind ignores the complexity of art, culture, media, entertainment, and politics so he can weave a simplistic narrative. Other than that, his book does have some thought provoking analysis.

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Machala
8/9/2018 12:48:22 pm

I'm slightly younger than Biskind, but age must have fogged his memory of the 50's, because it certainly doesn't jibe with my recollections.
He seems to dis-remember McCarthyism, the FBI communist witch hunts, the horrors of the Korean "Conflict", the rise of the John Birch Society, or the racial and sexual repressions of that era.
The 1950's were NOT all Ozzie & Harriet and Father Knows Best. We weren't living in a Disney Land manufactured Fantasy Land.
The Beat Generation of Ginsberg & Kerouac were clashing head on with the buttoned down minds of Madison Ave. and the men in the Grey Flannel suits. The biting social/political satire of Mort Sahl was shocking those used to the corny comedy of Henny Youngman.
Art and entertainment is often reflective of the era. Black & White, Good & Evil, Comedy & Tragedy, Liberal & Conservative are all part of the whole - as is Love & Hate. Like Heads & Tails, it's all part of the same coin. Great Literature and Art - including music, theatre, cinema, etc. - is perpetually bending and testing the social boundaries and searching to change the norm when it is progressive and often reflective of current social mores and subservient to social, political, and financial considerations and concerns when it is conservative.
Mr.Biskin's forgets that it is not that times have changed, just our recollections.

Reply
Machala
8/9/2018 12:52:41 pm

Speaking of Conservatives....

" A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now. "

-------------------Mort Sahl

Aaa
8/9/2018 11:31:47 am

Speaking of unprecedented political extremism I wonder if this blog will also mention what happened to Tommy Robinson and Alex Jones. Those of us who lived in former Soviet Union find such cases all too familiar. What next for Alex Jones if he still does not shut up? Mental hospital and heavy drug dosages?

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
8/9/2018 06:37:45 pm



[I wonder if this blog will also mention what happened to Tommy Robinson and Alex Jones. Those of us who lived in former Soviet Union find such cases all too familiar. ]]

It isn't really Mr. Colavito's thing. He's addressed some of Mr. Jones's bunk a time or two.

But since you posed the issues publicly I may as well address them.

I know little of Tommy Robinson.

Regarding Alex Jones, however, I'll point out that you make a false analogy. No one as of yet has stopped Mr. Jones's speech, but rather private sector platforms have decided he violated their rules, and banned him. It's no different from being banned from here or a random message board, just bigger scale.

Conservatives are usually big on the sanctity of the private sector, but if you wish to revise that position it may be a good idea but we should begin with passing out anti-Capitalist pamphlets at shopping malls, or passing out union literature in Wal-Mart parking lots. Prohibiting that stuff has been going on far longer and has longer consequences.

The real question though is why these private sector platforms let him violate their rules for so long.

One obvious hypothesis I'd like to suggest is that the Right Fringe is profitable in a way the Left Fringe (small though it is) is not, and these platforms wanted the revenue.

Once the platforms saw that they might make less money by allowing him to continue, they changed their minds. These are the basics of Capitalism. If you wish to start questioning those basics, then perhaps that is a discussion we should have.

There of course are lawsuits in play against Mr. Jones, but that merely means that speech, even free speech, can have consequences when used irresponsibly. This is far from the least meritorious lawsuit in the works at present -- keep in mind that the place the Vegas shooting happened is currently suing the victims. And other corporations are suing political activists in a revival of the "SLAPP" lawsuit technique.

Free speech doesn't mean that speech doesn't have consequences. If you use your voice to place an illegal bet, conspire to commit a robbery, or other criminal activity, you can be prosecuted for it. If you use your voice to libel someone, you can be sued for that libel.

[What next for Alex Jones if he still does not shut up? Mental hospital and heavy drug dosages? ]

Regarding institutionalizing Mr. Jones, if that happens it won't be because of his ideology but, rather, because some of the things he says would cause random people on the streets to be locked up as a public menace.

Ever read Susan Herbst's "Politics at the Margins?" Two of her case studies of politics outside the traditional US party structure are modern Libertarians and Socialists in the 1930s. She finds them similar.

Professor Herbst fails to notice a glaring difference, however: The police were hunting the Socialists, whereas the Libertarians, though contrarians to a degree, weren't hunted by the police. They were legal and accepted.

A vast difference. And it's a testimony to the current dominance of the Right that Mr. Jones has been able to get away with this stuff for so long. And, given this dominance, it's unlikely he'll be treated like random folks saying the same things are treated.

In other words I suspect that if Mr. Jones is ever locked up as you describe it won't be because of his show but for something else we're not aware of. If I were to go onto the streets, however, and say the same things from a Left perspective? I suspect I wouldn't be posting anymore.

For some of you, that would be a welcome outcome.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Reply
Americanegro
8/9/2018 08:46:27 pm

"Professor Herbst fails to notice a glaring difference, however: The police were hunting the Socialists, whereas the Libertarians, though contrarians to a degree, weren't hunted by the police. They were legal and accepted."

a. Socialism has never been illegal in the U.S.
b. Were Socialists hiding?
c. Who were these police who were "hunting the Socialists"? Was there some problem locating Walter Lippman?

It sounds like you're making stuff up like an idiot.

Aaa
8/10/2018 03:25:58 am

_It isn't really Mr. Colavito's thing. He's addressed some of Mr. Jones's bunk a time or two.__

But perhaps it should be also his thing to defend follow information disseminators. As famous saying goes:

“I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It”.

Times may change and maybe some day somebody will get ideas to shut this blog down and there will be no help then.

An Anonymous Nerd
8/11/2018 11:57:15 pm

[_It isn't really Mr. Colavito's thing. He's addressed some of Mr. Jones's bunk a time or two.__

But perhaps it should be also his thing to defend follow information disseminators. As famous saying goes:

“I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It”.

Times may change and maybe some day somebody will get ideas to shut this blog down and there will be no help then. ]

As I explained above, your thoughts bear no actual relationship to what happened. See above for the details. To that I will add that there's little in common between Mr. Colavito and Mr. Jones beyond both using words and your attempting to draw a comparison is, at best, odd.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Mrs Grimble
8/12/2018 12:58:46 pm

"I know little of Tommy Robinson".
If you want to know more about him, you can make a start with this analysis of the reasons for his recent conviction and imprisonment, by a British barrister: http://barristerblogger.com/2018/07/04/tommy-robinsons-appeal-will-his-world-class-legal-team-get-him-out-of-prison/
The fact is that he's not a journalist, did not have his free speech curtailed, is a racist, has convictions for violence, was thrown out of the USA for entering on somebody else's passport, committed mortgage fraud. He's forever asking his followers for money, even though he owns four properties and a sunbed business.
And, although his wealthy US supporters have promised to pay all his latest legal bills, he was still asking fans money for money to pay legal costs after his latest release! In short, he's a grifter and a scammer who is taking the American right-wing for a ride.

An Anonymous Nerd
8/12/2018 02:13:07 pm

[ In short, he's a grifter and a scammer who is taking the American right-wing for a ride. ]

Thank you for the summary. Maybe I'll read the specifics someday.

Maybe.

Perhaps after I get around to finishing my reading of Lovecraft. Probably before I try and cast some spells from the Necronomicon.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Americanegro
8/9/2018 01:38:43 pm

Like Biskind and "extremism" you're mixing two different meanings of "conservative". Might as well add a third: the universe itself is conservative because of conservation of energy.

Ideas don't "hold truck".

"the devastation of war" When was that?

"Biskind believes, like many cranky old grandfathers, that television shows and movies can be classified into liberal, centrist, and conservative narratives"

"Jason believes, like many cranky old grandfathers, that television shows and movies can be classified into liberal, centrist, and conservative narratives"

"if the regulatory state hadn’t used its control of the airwaves" to suppress the Edith Bunker rape scene, Maude's abortion, Mr. Carlson from WKRP in Cincinnati trying to child molest Gary Coleman on Different Strokes, the Jan Michael Vincent movie Tribes.

"But I don’t think that it is reducible to a facile formula born of a particular partisan divide that has had its current form only since the late 1990s." If I don't remember it it didn't happen says what?

"Beyond the overbearing effort to render all entertainment partisan" Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

"Why use “POTUS” in place of “president” except to sound au courant with Washington-speak?" Because it's been in common use at least since The West Wing, therefore NOT au courant? Also it rhymes with SCOTUS.

In Jason's words "That’s just not right."

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/9/2018 01:57:32 pm

WWII devastated the global economy and left America in a position of power.

Fiction CAN be liberal or conservative, but it isn't REQUIRED to be, nor can all narratives easily fit into one box.

By the 1970s, government and corporate regulation was already in decline. We are speaking here of the 1950s when government efforts to sanitize media were at their height.

There have always been partisan divides. The current extreme polarization has been traced, according to many political observers, to the late 1990s and early 2000s when tribal loyalty to party became a defining trait of identity. "Red states" and "blue states" weren't a thing before then.

POTUS has been used in government circles (and hence the West Wing--a show ABOUT government), but as a style issue, it is both stilted and stupid. The AP Style Book cautions against its use.

Reply
Machala
8/9/2018 02:54:29 pm

" We are speaking here of the 1950s when government efforts to sanitize media were at their height. "


I don't believe, even for a minute that the government was trying to "sanitize" the media in the 1950's to the degree that you imagine. Hayes Code and Legion of Decency ratings aside - at THAT was for motion pictures, primarily - television and radio were very much market regulated products, self-censored and governed by the sponsors and the advertising agencies. Newspapers were still independent and ubiquitous. Competition and circulation governed the content and the political affiliation of the publisher often determined the editorial opinions printed. For example, back then, you knew that the morning newspaper, The Hartford Courant, editorially, tilted Republican, while the afternoon Hartford Times had a more Democrat slant. But both gave you excellent news reporting.
National and International news in those days was done through news wire services from AP, Rueters, and UPI. There was a lot less censorship of the news than you'd imagine. Much - like publishing Eisenhower's affair or later, Kennedy's dalliances, just weren't done. It was by gentleman's agreement rather than censorship, that certain "things" just weren't written about.

Conservative and Liberal were not common words in the average reader's lexicon. Democrat or Republican were the defining words.The very first time I heard the term "right wing" was in reference to the John Birch Society - as the right wing "of the Republican Party". Of course, we can thank Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor and dark eminence behind the McCarthy communist witch hunts, for popularizing terms like Leftists and Pinkos, and Commie Sympathizers. I always like the mantra from those days; " I'd rather be dead, than Red. "

Americanegro
8/9/2018 03:24:26 pm

I hope that during my lifetime we can retire the term "witch hunt" as applied to McCarthy. If the Russians had a spy in the Manhattan Project (Fuchs, not Oppenheimer) is it really a stretch to think they had a few in the other parts of gummint?

Roosevelt had a Soviet spy living in the White House and Whittaker Chambers and the Venona Papers have shown McCarthy was right. That said I couldn't care less about writers, actors and artists being Communist Party members.

A.Rose
8/9/2018 11:59:34 pm

"...There have always been partisan divides. ..."

What's now considered "Conservative", a perspective built around elevating and defending a nuclear family and the influence of a familial legacy in a society, was the de-facto state of humanity up until late in the 20th Century in "The Western World" cultures.

Defending your genetic progeny, utilizing your societal power and resources to favor your offspring was the natural state of being. Progressivism -- using your resources to benefit the concept of a state over genetic progeny and even to benefit that entity's interest in another state and its citizens and their offspring over your own -- is wholly artificial in relation to the species Homo Sapiens.

Only one of these perspectives can be labeled extreme when considering its variation from the species norm. It is unnatural to be "Progressive", even if social stories are told to persuade followers to retreat from personal interest and the thriving of their genetic offspring for the benefit of someone else's.

Shane Sullivan
8/10/2018 01:57:18 am

A. Rose, you might want to look up John Stuart Mill. And Jeremy Bentham. And Francis Hutcheson. And Hierocles. And Mozi.

Americanegroo
8/9/2018 02:52:21 pm

Truck.

"WWII devastated the global economy and left America in a position of power."

Also left Russia in a position of power. Yes, I remember the South American, African, and Indian economies going into their respective tailspins. WWII fucked up Europe, that's about it.

"By the 1970s, government and corporate regulation was already in decline. We are speaking here of the 1950s when government efforts to sanitize media were at their height."

Sounds like you haven't watched Our Miss Brooks. It was about a teacher constantly trying to get laid.

"There have always been partisan divides. The current extreme polarization has been traced, according to many political observers, to the late 1990s and early 2000s when tribal loyalty to party became a defining trait of identity. "Red states" and "blue states" weren't a thing before then."

Wow. Just wow. Where to begin?

POTUS has been used in government circles (and hence the West Wing--a show ABOUT government), but as a style issue, it is both stilted and stupid. The AP Style Book cautions against its use.

"'POTUS' began as an abbreviation used by telegraphic code operators in the 1890s. It stands for "President of the United States."

The earliest recorded use any variant of -OTUS is from 1879, when SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) appeared in a book titled The Phillips Telegraphic Code for the Rapid Transmission by Telegraph. This work, by Walter P. Phillips, was one of a large number of code books which allowed people to send inexpensive or secret messages via telegraph. Telegraphs were priced based on length, so one wanted to use as few words as possible. SCOTUS appeared between the abbreviations for scoundrel (scndrl) and scribble (scribl).

The next -OTUS word to enter our vocabulary was POTUS, short for "President of the United States," which was used as early as 1895. POTUS also began as an abbreviation used by telegraphic code operators. It wasn't the first shortening used by the telegraphic community for this title: Frank Miller’s 1882 Telegraphic Code to Insure Privacy and Security in the Transmission of Telegrams offered the curious suggestion of telegraphing the word mortmain, rather than "President of the U.S." As one of the meanings of mortmain is "the influence of the past regarded as controlling or restricting the present," it seems possible that the code book's compiler had a sense of the poetic."

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/9/2018 03:01:51 pm

What exactly are you arguing here? We aren't talking about the Soviet Union's media but America's, so it isn't relevant. The Third World wasn't economically important then, either.

America isn't a totalitarian country and never has been. In the 1950s, government regulated media more heavily than they do today. They also launched campaigns to "clean up" the media. Remember the anti-comic book hearings of the 1950s? It's not controversial to note that themes that were presented as subtext in the 1950s gradually became text in subsequent decades. Nor is it shocking to find that the 1950s weren't as anodyne as people imagine.

The POTUS abbreviation is old, but it hasn't been the recommended style for literature, pretty much ever. Until recently, it wasn't how anyone outside of the Beltway talked in real life, and it still isn't good literary style. Why do you want to die on the hill of defending a clunky style choice?

Reply
Americanegrotusi
8/9/2018 03:14:30 pm

"What exactly are you arguing here? We aren't talking about the Soviet Union's media but America's, so it isn't relevant. The Third World wasn't economically important then, either."

Oh, I'm sorry! Perhaps you could clarify where we got our rubber and tell us about Roosevelt's dealings with the Saudis. And when did I mention the Soviet Union's media? Never. If the Third World wasn't economically important there'd be no point in having colonies. Jeepers!

"America isn't a totalitarian country and never has been. In the 1950s, government regulated media more heavily than they do today."

Prove it.

"They also launched campaigns to "clean up" the media. Remember the anti-comic book hearings of the 1950s? It's not controversial to note that themes that were presented as subtext in the 1950s gradually became text in subsequent decades. Nor is it shocking to find that the 1950s weren't as anodyne as people imagine."

No, I don't remember them and neither do you.

"The POTUS abbreviation is old, but it hasn't been the recommended style for literature, pretty much ever. Until recently, it wasn't how anyone outside of the Beltway talked in real life, and it still isn't good literary style. Why do you want to die on the hill of defending a clunky style choice?"

Not trying to die, simply providing context. Untwisteth thy panties.

Machala
8/9/2018 05:48:19 pm

"In the 1950s, government regulated media more heavily than they do today. They also launched campaigns to "clean up" the media. Remember the anti-comic book hearings of the 1950s?"

The anti-comic book crusade was spearheaded by Fredric Wertham and actually began in the 40's after WWII. Wertham was a psychiatrist who was either hated or respected, depending upon which side of the comic book faction you were on.His book "Seduction of the Innocent" was named Book of the Year in 1954 by the National Education Association.

The hearings you are referring to were the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which held hearings on the dangers of comics on April 21 and 22, and June 4, 1954.

In order to staunch the economic blood loss from the negative publicity, the comic book publishers formed the CMAA (Comics Magazine Association of America ) and launched the Comics Code of Authority ( a sort of Catholic Legion of Decency for Comics ) It was a way to self-censor and regulate comic books in an attempt to clean up their image and win back the public. IT WAS NOT GOVERNMENT REGULATED !

Jason Colavito link
8/9/2018 08:10:18 pm

I know it wasn't government-regulated. The whole point is that government used the threat of regulation, public bullying, etc. to accomplish regulation, but such efforts broke down in later decades when official regulatory powers declined in the wake of free speech court cases and publishers became less willing to play along with government requests.

This does not apply to broadcast TV where FCC regulations limited content at certain times, and the threat of pulling broadcast licenses kept TV networks from going too far beyond community standards. This broke down with the 1980s rollback of regulations and competition from unregulated private cable channels.

An Anonymous Nerd
8/9/2018 07:51:53 pm

Based upon this review, I guess the best word to describe the argument of this book is "exaggerated."

-An Anonymous Nerd

Reply
GodricGlas
8/9/2018 10:46:33 pm

Once when I was in a used CD rom store, many, many years ago, I found the complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus collection (A&E) sitting on the shelf and I picked it up for a sweet deal.

I loved the show since I was a little kid. I would sneak out of my room, late at night, to watch it on PBS. My folks caught me, but when my uncle baby-sat, he would make sure I was awake, even if I had fallen asleep by that time, so that I would have the opportunity to watch.

I continued to watch as much as an American could for years. Standard MP stuff like The Parrot Skit, Fish Slapping Dance, The Lumberjack Thing; it all became part and parcel of my gang’s humor, along with Cthulhu (still loving that Apple OS offers the right name as soon as I type, “Ct...).

The thing is? That when I saw that boxed set, it suddenly sunk in: “Look at all those discs”, I thought (14 if I recall correctly), I didn’t see all that by a long shot.

And so I set out to discover what made it so Goddamned funny in the first place. Yeah, we all know the tiny fraction of the skits that we American geeks hold to be true, but have you ever dug in to the rest? I sure did; pretty sure I’ve run thru it all X4.

If you don’t know this already (apologies all around if you do), like, 15% if that stuff is actually funny, the other 85% is entirely about British current events; sort of like an early British The Onion.

So, anyway, my take-away is not that the author of the book-in-question has “exaggerated”. I think he is a misguided old man that is stroking his nostalgia and has an appreciation for words.

This is truly the most current theme in the genre of writing that concerns this thread: Old establishment #ers trying to make that last buck. It’s driving AATIP, Skin-jacket Ranch TTS AAS (tits and ass) and all the rest. It’s like retirement party-time for The Aviary.

But we know that.

We’re not going to help put your grandkids through college, assholes. Get over it.

😊

Reply
G
8/9/2018 11:02:04 pm

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ut82TDjciSg

Reply
"rational skeptics"
8/10/2018 01:22:50 am

Jesus christ, what's with all these "skeptic" forums and comment sections being taken over by batshit crazy right-wingers and religious nuts? Are Alex Jones and Jordan Peterson now considered "rational skeptics"?

Reply
G
8/10/2018 01:33:48 am

This is way more than a “skeptic-forum”.

We shave a Jason.

That’s way more powerful than even a Vincent Black Shadow.

And your point was???

?

Reply
G.Glas
8/10/2018 01:40:03 am

No! Wait!

I meant, “We ‘Have’ a Jason”.

Not, “Shave Jason”.

Just stop right there, AN.

It was a typo.

Just rellkaxx those fingers, now, Big Guy...

Okay then.

Americanegro
8/10/2018 02:50:25 am

Have you considered using one pseudonym consistently?

GodricGlas
8/10/2018 09:47:24 pm

That’s probably a good idea.

*sigh*

Alright then.

And I’m also glad to know that you are you.

Let’s smash some trolls then.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw1wkUemy3o

The most stupid thing ever invented
8/10/2018 05:58:14 am

A historical humanoid Christ by second century Christians

But - more stupid than that - adopting that rubbish as the basis of Western Society

Caiaphas, Quirinius, Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate - historical figures all hijacked to form the fantasy biography of Jesus Christ. One Big Lie.,

Reply
Indeed
8/10/2018 06:05:05 am

That story of Jesus Christ crucified "by Pilate"
Second century fiction.
It never happened.

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
8/12/2018 02:48:55 pm

According to National Geographic

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/12/jesus-tomb-archaeology/

the consensus among scholars is that an historical Jesus did indeed exist. Obviously the religious part requires faith. More importantly for our purposes, the historical details can be debated.

But the mere existence? Here is a telling quote form that article.

[“I don’t know any mainstream scholar who doubts the historicity of Jesus,” said Eric Meyers, an archaeologist and emeritus professor in Judaic studies at Duke University. “The details have been debated for centuries, but no one who is serious doubts that he’s a historical figure.”]

Here's Dr. Meyers's official Duke University writeup:

https://scholars.duke.edu/person/emc

-An Anonymous Nerd


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        • Volume 6 Archive
        • Volume 7 Archive
        • Volume 8 Archive
        • Volume 9 Archive
        • Volume 10 Archive
      • Volumes 11-20 Archive >
        • Volume 11 Archive
        • Volume 12 Archive
        • Volume 13 Archive
        • Volume 14 Archive
        • Volume 15 Archive
        • Volume 16 Archive
        • Volume 17 Archive
        • Volume 18 Archive
        • Volume 19 Archive
        • Volume 20 Archive
      • Volumes 21-30 Archive >
        • Volume 21 Archive
        • Volume 22 Archive
    • Television Reviews >
      • Ancient Aliens Reviews
      • In Search of Aliens Reviews
      • America Unearthed
      • Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar
      • Search for the Lost Giants
      • Forbidden History Reviews
      • Expedition Unknown Reviews
      • Legends of the Lost
      • Unexplained + Unexplored
      • Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
    • Book Reviews
    • Galleries >
      • Bad Archaeology
      • Ancient Civilizations >
        • Ancient Egypt
        • Ancient Greece
        • Ancient Near East
        • Ancient Americas
      • Supernatural History
      • Book Image Galleries
    • Videos
    • Collection: Ancient Alien Fraud >
      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
      • Secret History of Ancient Astronauts
      • Of Atlantis and Aliens
      • Aliens and Ancient Texts
      • Profiles in Ancient Astronautics >
        • Erich von Däniken
        • Robert Temple
        • Giorgio Tsoukalos
        • David Childress
      • Blunders in the Sky
      • The Case of the False Quotes
      • Alternative Authors' Quote Fraud
      • David Childress & the Aliens
      • Faking Ancient Art in Uzbekistan
      • Intimations of Persecution
      • Zecharia Sitchin's World
      • Jesus' Alien Ancestors?
      • Extraterrestrial Evolution?
    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
      • America Before Review
      • Native American Discovery of Europe
      • Interview: Scott Sigler
      • Golden Fleeced
      • Oh the Horror
      • Discovery of America
      • Supernatural Television
      • Review of Civilization One
      • Who Lost the Middle Ages
      • Charioteer of the Gods
    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
      • The China Syndrome
      • Atlantis, Mu, and the Maya
      • Easter Island Exposed
      • Who Built the Sphinx?
      • Who Built the Great Pyramid?
      • Archaeological Cover Up?
    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
      • Pauwels, Bergier, and Lovecraft
      • Lovecraft in Bergier
      • Lovecraft and Scientology
    • Collection: UFOs >
      • Alien Abduction at the Outer Limits
      • Aliens and Anal Probes
      • Ultra-Terrestrials and UFOs
      • Rebels, Queers, and Aliens
    • Scholomance: The Devil's School
    • Prehistory of Chupacabra
    • The Templars, the Holy Grail, & Henry Sinclair
    • Magicians of the Gods Review
    • The Curse of the Pharaohs
    • The Antediluvian Pyramid Myth
    • Whitewashing American Prehistory
    • James Dean's Cursed Porsche
  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
      • Ancient Texts >
        • Mesopotamian Texts >
          • Atrahasis Epic
          • Epic of Gilgamesh
          • Kutha Creation Legend
          • Babylonian Creation Myth
          • Descent of Ishtar
          • Berossus
          • Comparison of Antediluvian Histories
        • Egyptian Texts >
          • The Shipwrecked Sailor
          • Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
          • The Papyrus of Ani
          • Classical Accounts of the Pyramids
          • Inventory Stela
          • Manetho
          • Eratosthenes' King List
          • The Story of Setna
          • Leon of Pella
          • Diodorus on Egyptian History
          • On Isis and Osiris
          • Famine Stela
          • Old Egyptian Chronicle
          • The Book of Sothis
          • Horapollo
          • Al-Maqrizi's King List
        • Teshub and the Dragon
        • Hermetica >
          • The Three Hermeses
          • Kore Kosmou
          • Corpus Hermeticum
          • The Asclepius
          • The Emerald Tablet
          • Hermetic Fragments
          • Prologue to the Kyranides
          • The Secret of Creation
          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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