This is topic A topic which used to be about Family Stone and OSC'S review of it, but is no longer. in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.
I have not seen Family Stone, nor do I wish to, as it looked awful but I need to interject here and say that there is more than one way to raise a child well. I find that parents who give their children a great deal of freedom and trust, but would be very angry at their kids if this were abused, often raise wonderful children. Much depends on the child, as some aspects are biological, but a big part of parenting is trust. A child who is not trusted tends to live up to his or her parents' low expectations, or, if by some miracle, he or she grows up well-adjusted, then he or she is distanced from his or her parents.
I think that the ideal household is one based on trust and mutual conditional respect, i.e. the child is respected when the he or she respects the parents. Also, the parents should care about the child's schoolwork, but always assume that everything is going well unless they hear otherwise (preferably from the child) in which case, something needs to be done.
As for the woman in the store, she should have taken care of her child herself, thus removing the philosophical and etiquette issues you were faced with, which put you (and her, and most especially the child) in such an awkward position.
I suspect that you were reviewing the movie in particular, rather than making blanket judgments about "liberal" vs. "conservative" parenting (I prefer to think of my style as "libertarian" or classical liberal.) Any type of parenting can, and almost certainly will, fail if the parent fails to perform his or her duties for the child.
Sorry if I ranted.
P.S. The Constant Gardener, while being British, rather than truely from Hollywood, does a great job of making liberals look good and saintly, and not just becouse they all become martyrs.
Ditto, Good Night and Good Luck or Ghandi or any or many other films about liberals taking on a corupt establishment.
[ January 11, 2006, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: Pelegius ]
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Man, it's pretty sick how politicized things are these days. My impression is that most real people on either side of the fence make most of their child-rearing decisions without even thinking of politics. A perfect example is the woman OSC encountered in the airport. She could easily have been conservative.
But I guess since "Merry Christmas" has come to mean "I'm a conservative Christian," that's not the way people think of each other in the US right now.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Destineer, things have always been thus, trust me, my main field of interest and limited expertise is the Late Roman Republic, and it was worse then than now. Much worse, as people were killed for their opinions in a theoretical democracy.
Posted by TheSeeingHand (Member # 8349) on :
I think we'd be better of if some Buggers came and doctor deviced us up.
Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
Pelegius,
The movie makes charicatures of both liberals and conservatives. What I heard in Card's review was his distaste for those views espoused without real thoughtfulness and utter disregard for the other aspects of the role that the acter was supposed to portray. For instance, the "conservative" is also supposed to be a diplomat. It's not what she says, so much has how and when she says it that makes her unbelievable. Also, this film does a terrible job of portraying your take on "liberal" parenting. All the kids are lost and unhappy adults in this movie... that's a lousy result no matter what ideology you are trying to follow.
Lastly, I think there's a big difference being teaching your children discipline and how to be good citizens and distrusting/disrespecting/smothering your children. Children need boundaries. It gives them structure and something to strain against as they assert their independence. Without this strain, they won't develop the muscles necessary to understand why they believe and act as they do.
Giving boundaries and discipline doesn't equal creating a robot. Some of the most willful and creative people I know are very self-disciplined and socially adept.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
You know, I don't think that he is advocating NOT giving children freedom and trust. I mean, I had a ridiculous amount of freedom and trust as his kid. I could stay out really late as a teenager (as long as I called and kept my folks informed), I spent a lot of time playing on my own outside as a child (as long as I stayed within the neighborhood), etc, etc. I never felt like I was ruled with an iron fist. The boundaries were very high and strong, but I knew where they were, they made sense, and there was a lot of room inside them.
I'm betting that this woman probably reacted to his instructions to her child the way she did because he has such a commanding, authoritative voice Sometimes he can sound like he's giving orders to an army or binding a demon or getting the attention of a crowd of teenagers, when really, he's just talking to you
[ January 10, 2006, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
[EDIT NOTE: Pelegius has already made the change I requested, so this post is moot.]
And by the way, Pelegius, you may want to change the thread title to something describing the subject matter. As it stands, it implies that Card has not thought about his opinion, which couldn't be further from the case (as good parenting is basically one of the driving passions of his life). It's disrespectful to talk down to him the way your thread title does.
And in general, it is good practice NOT to assume that people who disagree with you must therefore have not put sufficient thought into their opinions. It could just as easily be the case that you disagree with them because you haven't put enough thought into YOURS
[ January 11, 2006, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:For instance, the "conservative" is also supposed to be a diplomat. It's not what she says, so much has how and when she says it that makes her unbelievable.
Well, I dunno. Given the current crop of conservative "diplomats" in office...
Just kidding. I actually agree with his assessment of the movie's stereotypes.
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Puppy, the title was intentional. I have learnt, as have most others, that titles need to be sensational (for example, a post I wrote entitled "et in arcadia ego" was largely ignored here and completely so elsewhere, but, by means of this title, I have gotten you to post twice already, and thus created a degree of debate that would be absent in a soliloquy.) to get anyone to read the post that follows. That said, I do not think that my post after this point was anything less than reasonable in either tone or content.
" Some of the most willful and creative people I know are very self-disciplined and socially adept." Absolutely. But by nature, self-discipline comes from the self, or, to be technical from the "higher-self" as the Freudian tri-part division would have it.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
By being overly sensationalist you also lose people. I didn't click till now because I thought I'd find some irrational flame attack against some sort of imaginary offensive thing OSC said. Goodness me!How wrong I was!
Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
The title is not even that sensationalist. “OSC is F***ing Fascist” would be an overly sensationalist title (in addition to being false), but this is just an attention-grabber. But as sensitivity seems to run very high on this forum (a title like that would not be unusual at Ornery by any means) I guess that yielding to prevailing community standards would be prudent, even though I worry that the level of sensitivity here may eventually make serious discussion impossible and everything will be kept sweetness and light to avoid offense. I started a thread about how, here on Hatrack, serious discussions on truly contentious matters often end up degenerating into flamewars because there are so few of them that people seem to act out of shock.
I never realized that when I posted to a topic, it wasn't because I had decided I wanted to discuss things, but rather because some very clever topic-starter "got me to".
You sneaky topic-starters! You have outwitted me so many times!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Pel, I find it almost tragically laughable that you have an opinion of Hatrack. Posted by Pelegius (Member # 7868) on :
Puppy, you don't have freewill, you have emotions and instincts instead.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
So if you believe that, why are you responding to him? As well speak to an AIM bot.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Couldn't htere be balance and middle ground? Some sort of middle ground between so-called conservative values and so-called liberal values as both are very important for a healthy society. Plus I haven't seen this movie as it looks uninteresting and from OSC's description it sounds like a dramatic version of Dharma and Greg and I hate that stupid show so much.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Sometimes he can sound like he's giving orders to an army or binding a demon or getting the attention of a crowd of teenagers, when really, he's just talking to you ![[Wink]](wink.gif)