Potter Ping!!
I have to admit, I totally lost interest in this article about half the way through so I don't know if there are spoilers or not, but the author says he hasn't even read the books so I doubt it. Click at your own risk.
Posted on 07/18/2005 9:57:30 PM PDT by Eurotwit
He didn't wear pants either, so he was clearly some kind of swinger.
Most of the Medieval works show us as all too human. The idea of the Superman is far more Pagan stemming from ancient myths and legends. Arthur, Cuchulain, and Beowulf fall on the pagan side, while the Decameron and Canturbury Tales are more classically Medieval.
Cheers,
CSG
Potter Ping!!
I have to admit, I totally lost interest in this article about half the way through so I don't know if there are spoilers or not, but the author says he hasn't even read the books so I doubt it. Click at your own risk.
TS
I am a big fan of Spengler. Oft times wrong but never fails to make you think. Thanks for posting this. You might want to ping Spengler himself, he sometimes responds on these threads.
How reassuring it is that the ecclesiastical authorities of Auckland have taken the initiative to correct the pope on this matter.Let me get this straight: news reports (we know what they're worth) of a private letter (if it's private, what the hell is it doing in news repoers?) written by a guy who later became Pope (but wasn't at the time) expressing some unspecified dislike ("disparaging" for what?) of Rowling's books, ought to be theologically binding on Catholics everywhere, because this anonymoid doesn't like the books either. Left hanging is what Ratzinger didn't like about the books: the cutesy names?
Actually less to the Pope's supposed objection that that.
When Cardinal he recieved a letter from a Gabrille Kuby saying she had written a book exposing Pottery.
She got back a fairly generic letter saying how good is was that people are made aware of the "subtle seductions" that are out there and it might be nice if she sent a copy os her book to Msgr. Peter Fleetwood, then an official at the Pontifical Council for Culture. Catholic News Service
With the release of Half Blood Prince she announced to the media that HP was evil and the Pope agreed with her.
Subsequent to that, on Thursday Vatican Radio interviewed Msgr. Fleetwood, who may be the only person at the Vatican who has actually read either Kuby's book, or the Potter ones.
He said the Potter Books were OK, and was fairly scathing of Kuby
She sent me the book, and I found it a very unsatisfactory bookIn view of the timing of the interview, it is difficult to see this as other than a slapdown by the Vatican (not just the ecclesiastical authorities of Auckland ) of Kuby's claims.
This Draco character in the HP books is a stand in for reptilians. The author has been stealing from David Icke. This New Age nonsense is bad for children and leads to harmful fantasies. If adults want to dabble in magic, astrology and sorcery that's different. But this Harry Potter book will just confuse children who don't get enough solid religion as it is. Instead they'll get a Harry Potter style religion
People want to transcend the mundane and here is where the Harry Potter New Age cult comes in while prayer is kept out of our schools
Oh, I so agree. I recently tried to read LOTR after failing as a pre-teen. I laboriously waded through a third of Fellowship, and quit.
I thought it was excessively wordy and rather boring myself.
What accounts for the success of the Harry Potter series, as well as the "Star Wars" films whence they derive? The answer, I think, is their appeal to complacency and narcissism. "Use the Force," Obi-Wan tells the young Luke Skywalker, while the master wizard Dumbledore instructs Harry to draw from his inner well of familial emotions. No one likes to imagine that he is Frodo Baggins, an ordinary fellow who has quite a rough time of it in Tolkien's story. But everyone likes to imagine that he possesses inborn powers that make him a master of magic as well as a hero at games. Harry Potter merely needs to tap his inner feelings to conjure up the needful spell.
Rewrite:
What accounts for the success of the Speed Racer series, as well as the "hot rod" films whence they derive? The answer, I think, is their appeal to complacency and narcissism. "Racer X/Spridle/Chim Chim/the Mach 5's rotary saws and pneumatic jacks will save you, regardless of what brain dead stunt you pulled, Speed, and regardless of how many times Trixie gets kidnapped and needs to be rescued". No one likes to imagine that he is Frodo Baggins, an ordinary fellow who has quite a rough time of it in Tolkien's story. But everyone likes to imagine that he is a naturally gifted racer who has a long lost older brother race car driver who wears a mask who is also an agent of the government and will be there to rescue you when you foolishly try to jump the Mach 5 over a canyon in a rainstorm. Speed merely needs to tap his inner feelings to drive the Mach 5 into the winner's circle, even though Racer X would have won if he didn't have to continually stop mid-race to pull Speed's ass out of the wringer -- clearly this is a thinly-veiled attack on the Western concept of meritocracy. Speed, by simple virtue of having the coolest car, the hottest girlfriend, and a seemingly limitless supply of free technical resources, is "destined" to win, whereas the working man, no matter how talented or dedicated, cannot possibly prevail against the "aristocracy". The Racer family is, after all, "better" than the proletariate by virtue of simply being the Racer family. Rex, in self-imposed exile from this aristocracy after a symbolic act of disloyalty to the "crown" (Pops racer, with the name Rex Racer being an obvious ironic social commentary), is doomed to forever fall short, regardless of personal integrity and heroism, since he is no longer of the correct social status, while Pops Racer, playing the role of King Lear, lavishes all his riches and affections on the least deserving of his children, having written Rex out of the peerage for his "disloyalty". It is Milton's Paradise Lost writ small. We can see, therefore, that Speed Racer is nothing more than an ill-concealed celebration of a feudal class-structure, designed to corrode the very metal of the modern Western libereralism championed by the likes of Locke and Mill.
What's the alternative: examing in detail the claims made by a fathead who hasn't read the books?
I am sure you did not intend it to be, but that statement is pretty insulting to a lot of FReeping parents.
Like many other parents, I read the HP books before my kids do so I know what we will be discussing--and we do discuss the books. We also read the Bible together, followed by more discussions. We also go to church together, followed by more discussions.
FWIW, I read all of my kids' books before they do--all of them. Textbooks, library books, magazines, you name it.
And some of us still "fwow up" when faced with Milne. Literature will always be subjective.
That's how I read it. One could almost hear the disdainful sniffs each time the author deigned to mention HP or Rowling.
The denouement is the letdown you get after sex. Schadenfeude is your partner making fun of it.
And here I had been thinknig she was stealing from Matthew 10:16 "Therefore be wise as serpents" in attributing the virtues of wisdom and caution to Slytherin House (emblematic animal: the serpent)
That's who I assumed had written this piece.
I wouldn't know...
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