Speaker 1: Hello, friends and fellow skeptics. Welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Nonprofits. Today's episode, we're going to talk about a
Speaker 1: popular cartoon and how it portrays parenthood. And Cyndy Plus
Speaker 1: is going to start us off. So Sundy, what have
Speaker 1: you got for us? Hi?
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, today we're going to start our show with
Speaker 2: what I only can call a masterpiece. We often talked
Speaker 2: here about Christian outcry at changing in society, but this
Speaker 2: article from Jeremy Pryor, an utra conservative writer, brought to
Speaker 2: our attention by Amman Metta, it brings us to the
Speaker 2: living hell conservative people seem to be living in. Jeremy
Speaker 2: Prior complains about a bit of it carton Bluie, claiming
Speaker 2: that its depiction of father figure is a symptom of
Speaker 2: how the West has removed from fatherhood everything mainly about it.
Speaker 2: These articles are from Blaze Media by Jerry pryor Or
Speaker 2: October six, twenty twenty four, and the friendly atheist Bioman
Speaker 2: Medaw on October eighth of the same year.
Speaker 1: Let's go Yeah, it seems it seems a little weird
Speaker 1: that they that they would pick a child's cartoon to
Speaker 1: go after. And yeah, there's a lot of things I
Speaker 1: find weird about this, But they always do seem to
Speaker 1: find things wrong with children shows, don't they. I remember
Speaker 1: controversies over Barney and about the Teletubbies too, as I
Speaker 1: recall Big one of over the Teletubbies. As I recall,
Speaker 1: so they see Citia shaking her head. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to you first because I see you shaking
Speaker 1: your head, and I know you had some thoughts about
Speaker 1: One of the things that Prior talked about was appealing
Speaker 1: to tradition, and I was hoping you can elaborate and
Speaker 1: some of the thoughts you had about that.
Speaker 3: Well, Kelly, one glaring issue is the fallacy of appealing
Speaker 3: to tradition. Prior's core argument rests on the belief that
Speaker 3: traditional roles supposedly ordained by biblical text should be preserved
Speaker 3: without question. He states, masculinity and femininity are not social
Speaker 3: constructs but primarily biological concept but our family concepts designed
Speaker 3: to create a certain dynamic, and that embracing these portrayals
Speaker 3: will shape our intuition around the essence of these roles.
Speaker 3: This is really a classic example of the naturalistic fallacy.
Speaker 3: Just because something has been historically or biblically upheld does
Speaker 3: not make it inherently right or beneficial for modern society.
Speaker 3: Prior also assumes without evidence that traditional gender roles are
Speaker 3: inherently superior, ignoring the fact that rigid gender roles have
Speaker 3: often led to horrimble dynamic harmful dynamics within family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Now, John, I know that the story
Speaker 1: reminded you of something. Would you please let the viewers
Speaker 1: know what it was that it reminded you of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it reminds me of some of the things, like
Speaker 4: desperate actions that someone trying to hang on to the
Speaker 4: last vestiges of their privilege and personal mythology that's been
Speaker 4: challenged by an evolving civilization. They just are lashing out
Speaker 4: at the rest of the advancing civilization, and since change
Speaker 4: is scary, they'd rather stick with what they know, And
Speaker 4: they also want to keep their privileged position in that
Speaker 4: old society. As other people gain the same sort of
Speaker 4: equality within the society and their citizenship. It really makes
Speaker 4: them feel like they're being left behind, mainly because they are.
Speaker 4: And conservatism does not want to conserve anything. It wants
Speaker 4: to regress back to an imagined idyllic past, retreating into
Speaker 4: roles and patterns of behavior that try to mimic their
Speaker 4: concept of a non existent romanticized world where men were
Speaker 4: quote unquote men and women were compliant drones. So that's
Speaker 4: kind of where I'm going with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that prior talked about the objective ideal
Speaker 1: of what fatherhood and motherhood are and I and as
Speaker 1: I was reading that, I was like, well, who's objective?
Speaker 1: You know, objective view is he talking about? And it
Speaker 1: and it because even obviously it's it's not an objective
Speaker 1: view unless we all agree on it, and even if
Speaker 1: we all agreed on it, we would have to all
Speaker 1: agree on it, So it would be a subjective view
Speaker 1: to begin with, because just by all getting together and
Speaker 1: agreeing on it. So but the objective and subjectives seem
Speaker 1: to be really important in Christianity, and and here they're
Speaker 1: bringing it out even more and I don't know that
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, I don't know that they realize that
Speaker 1: there really is no objective fatherhood or motherhood. I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea of that to me was really crazy. I know, Cindy,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of things in this article that
Speaker 1: made that you made you want to talk about, But
Speaker 1: what would you say were some of the most important
Speaker 1: things that that you got out of the article?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, first of all, I want to ask him
Speaker 2: what part of our biology says that men are supposed
Speaker 2: to be wearing blue and women pink? Because I don't
Speaker 2: see the link between the two. But yeah, anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's at least half a dozen things I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about after reading this article, the toll, lack of
Speaker 2: solution afford to his perceived problem, his views on gender,
Speaker 2: how he believes Abram is the meta Father as he
Speaker 2: called him, showing a very very selective view of the Bible,
Speaker 2: or how he based his entire opinion on the show
Speaker 2: and his will to write an entire article about it
Speaker 2: on a three minute clips But instead, I wanted to
Speaker 2: address the fear that transpires from this article, and Jonathan
Speaker 2: alluded to it a little bit earlier, And I feel
Speaker 2: that at its heart, conservatism is fear of being wrong,
Speaker 2: fear of being new, less in our society, and fear
Speaker 2: of being irrelevant. And since we are a social creature,
Speaker 2: we need to we need to feel like we are
Speaker 2: part of the group. So as atheists dealing with people
Speaker 2: who hang strong to their beliefs, we know this feeling
Speaker 2: too well, because we hear about it every week and
Speaker 2: we also experience it in other topics in our lives
Speaker 2: because we are always wrong about something and being wrong
Speaker 2: hurts in a way. And when people are afraid of
Speaker 2: being wrong and they're invested so much in their view,
Speaker 2: they can react strongly to opposing ideas. And there's the
Speaker 2: reason why this happens, in my opinion, this proportionately in
Speaker 2: the US compared to Europe, for example, because in the
Speaker 2: US people link their own sense of identity to their beliefs,
Speaker 2: and we call that identity politics in the US. So
Speaker 2: when your sense of self is so strongly linked to
Speaker 2: your beliefs and you attack to your belief or conversation
Speaker 2: to your beliefs, feels like an attack on your person,
Speaker 2: on physical attack, And just like a physical attack would
Speaker 2: trigger defense mechanism like yeah, you know, trying to either
Speaker 2: avoid or trying to defend yourself contradicting ideas will make
Speaker 2: those people often dig deeper in their position, and that's
Speaker 2: what feeds into the conservative movement. So as people who
Speaker 2: try to be rational thinkers, I think we need to
Speaker 2: do a better job at explaining people you are not
Speaker 2: your beliefs. You can change your beliefs and it won't
Speaker 2: change you as a person, and that's something we need
Speaker 2: to express a little bit more in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really insightful. Hannestly, that was great. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I that got me that really
Speaker 1: stood out in the article was Prior mentioned that how
Speaker 1: important symbols were in molding kids' minds, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: isn't that what the church? I mean, the church is
Speaker 1: guiltier than any cartoon or as guilty, and they've been
Speaker 1: doing it for centuries. You know. It's almost like the
Speaker 1: cartoons actually got the idea from the church. So I
Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting that he would bring it
Speaker 1: up and be complaining of, oh my godness, these cartoons
Speaker 1: are using symbols to mold kids minds, you know, And
Speaker 1: I don't even think for a minute that he even
Speaker 1: thought about that's exactly what the church was doing, right.
Speaker 1: So I know that conservatives like Jeremy Prior to author
Speaker 1: this article are not always doing what they are saying
Speaker 1: that they're doing what they as opposed to what they're
Speaker 1: actually doing. Do you have any thoughts on that, John.
Speaker 4: You know what really bothers me about that is that
Speaker 4: hypocrisy knows no bounds when it comes to a cultural shift.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the rhetorical techniques that a lot
Speaker 4: of these people use is blaming their opponents with things
Speaker 4: that they're doing or being hip critical. But it's not
Speaker 4: just hypocritical. It's a technique used to distract from their
Speaker 4: own misdeeds. So even though they are the ones who
Speaker 4: are indulging in massive indoctrination of children, they're always a
Speaker 4: claiming that the other side is doing it. So and
Speaker 4: not to say that we're both doing it, but to
Speaker 4: say that only the other side is doing it, and
Speaker 4: that means that's a dirty trick in dark psychology to
Speaker 4: try and shift the attention of the focus from your
Speaker 4: particular point of view, which could be nasty, to the
Speaker 4: other person's point of view, which if it wasn't nasty,
Speaker 4: you're going to make it nasty. You know, you're going
Speaker 4: to say it's what you're doing, which is the nasty stuff.
Speaker 4: So it's like, come on, people, stop trying to deceive people,
Speaker 4: and just if you have an ideology or if you
Speaker 4: have a way of thinking about something, just be honest
Speaker 4: about it. And then if you're honest with yourself about it,
Speaker 4: be honest with everybody. If you can't defend it, maybe
Speaker 4: you ought to consider changing it. But you know that's
Speaker 4: not what they do. They're going to defend it at
Speaker 4: all costs, and that means being hypocritical, that means lying
Speaker 4: a lot, you know, that sort of thing, just to
Speaker 4: maintain your position, which you have too much emotionally invested
Speaker 4: in it to give it up right at the moment
Speaker 4: until you're forced to for some other reason. So that's
Speaker 4: one of the things that just really irks me about
Speaker 4: some of these people, you know, their need to preserve
Speaker 4: their heritage that never really existed in the first place,
Speaker 4: because it's all an invention of their their own ideas
Speaker 4: of what history was and what actually happened. All of
Speaker 4: us are guilty of a little bit of bias, especially historically,
Speaker 4: but a lot of us have the facts wrong. But
Speaker 4: most of us, especially atheists and humanists, when words told
Speaker 4: our facts are on we say, oh really, oh okay,
Speaker 4: let me let me read that first, because I'm obviously
Speaker 4: wrong about many things about this. If I'm starting to
Speaker 4: if I have, you know, different facts that don't exist,
Speaker 4: you know, let me go find the other parts of
Speaker 4: that that I'm not looking at, and well, you know,
Speaker 4: so we always admit, okay, I didn't know that and
Speaker 4: go on from there. Whereas people who are entrenched in
Speaker 4: their positions, they're not willing to look at any other
Speaker 4: data because they and they will demonize anybody who does
Speaker 4: look at any other data because they have too much invested,
Speaker 4: you know, their identity, but not just their identity, their
Speaker 4: social standing and a bunch of other stuff are also
Speaker 4: attached to it, and that makes it dangerous for them
Speaker 4: to try and change.
Speaker 1: That's why it's often hard to talk to tis, at
Speaker 1: least in my experience, when you attack the religion, they
Speaker 1: take it personal as if you're attacking them because they
Speaker 1: think that they are their religion for you. It's kind
Speaker 1: of difficult sometimes to talk to them. Cynthia, there was
Speaker 1: something I probably should have brought up first at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of this segment, and it was about the
Speaker 1: name of the cartoon character to begin with, Gluie. It
Speaker 1: didn't come from the creators trying to be gender neutral,
Speaker 1: did it now?
Speaker 3: And actually himn't. Meta pointed out in his article that
Speaker 3: blue isn't blue because the creators are trying to push
Speaker 3: back against like a gender stereotype. Blue is a blue healer,
Speaker 3: which is a type of Australian herd dog. So this
Speaker 3: completely deflates Prior's argument, showing that much of his critique
Speaker 3: is based on over analysis and misplaced assumptions. Listen, I
Speaker 3: think it's like very interesting how you would hear from
Speaker 3: the right. There are certain roles that you know, genders
Speaker 3: are supposed to play just because tradition dictates right. Girls
Speaker 3: are supposed to be represented as pink as like he
Speaker 3: talks about in the article. Boys are supposed to be
Speaker 3: represented in blue. And there's other things like you know,
Speaker 3: the pushback against Blue's dad bandit that you know, he's
Speaker 3: not supposed to show as much affection to his pupps
Speaker 3: as he does and if you do that then you're
Speaker 3: not a real man or or whatever that means. I
Speaker 3: don't I don't understand any of that.
Speaker 1: That one kind of urbs me a lot because I
Speaker 1: was a stay at home husband, so that just blew
Speaker 1: me away. But I'm sorry to jump in, you know,
Speaker 1: and and.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, Kelly, as an anecdote, like
Speaker 3: even though my my mom worked in nine to five,
Speaker 3: my dad had his own business. So he had his
Speaker 3: own like school bus company, so and he used to
Speaker 3: drive for Catholic area schools. So if I was at school,
Speaker 3: and let's say, for instance, I got sick, or if
Speaker 3: I had to come home or what have you, guess
Speaker 3: who I was staying with. My mother did not leave work.
Speaker 3: I stayed with my dad, you know. And and I
Speaker 3: mean like and and I and I could even think
Speaker 3: of like a lot of different instances growing up where
Speaker 3: you know, I did a lot of things with my dad,
Speaker 3: like going out to movies, going to the play part,
Speaker 3: going to different parts, you know, just different things I
Speaker 3: did with my dad. And my dad didn't have a
Speaker 3: problem like hugging me and kissing me and told me
Speaker 3: he loved me, I mean, and to be honest, like
Speaker 3: when he thought I didn't need it as much when
Speaker 3: I became a teenager, I had to check him real
Speaker 3: quick and say, listen, I need that from you, sir, Okay,
Speaker 3: I need all that. Don't. You can't feed me all
Speaker 3: I love and you're trying to take away. I'm I'm
Speaker 3: gonna box you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: And I think that that's even something that I try.
Speaker 3: I'm serious, Johnny, that's serious. And I think that that's
Speaker 3: even something that I try to like instill in my child,
Speaker 3: like that, whether it's your father or whether it's me
Speaker 3: or or family members, it doesn't matter what you know,
Speaker 3: gender you are, what you identify, ask you know. We're
Speaker 3: about love. We're family, and we want to love you.
Speaker 3: We want to hold you when to keep you safe.
Speaker 3: And how that is supposed to be displayed to you
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be like this aloof thing, like some
Speaker 3: type of character from a nineteen fifties car nineteen fifty sitcom.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous to me. So I think, like you all
Speaker 3: said it early, that in essence, priors conservativism is just
Speaker 3: an unwillingness to adapt to modern understandings of fatherhood and
Speaker 3: an over reliance on rigid patriarchal interpretations of the Bible.
Speaker 3: I mean, and and I and from my standpoint, the
Speaker 3: Bible is not a good book to use two rear children,
Speaker 3: like God is a terrible character to pattern your parental
Speaker 3: ideology after. I mean, there's a there's a shirt that
Speaker 3: a friend of mine created from another friend that was
Speaker 3: on a podcast that said Jesus was thrown in the
Speaker 3: bus so that God could get clout, okay, And and
Speaker 3: I could just and I just remember like all my
Speaker 3: Bible lessons back in the day about Jesus in the
Speaker 3: Garden of Geestsenomy, the night that he was crucified, crying
Speaker 3: and sweating blood because he knew of the pending torture
Speaker 3: that he was going to go through to save the world,
Speaker 3: which never really saved the world. That's another show. But
Speaker 3: but you know, if you could just think about like
Speaker 3: a so called loving father is going to send you
Speaker 3: to get whipped what how many times with the cant
Speaker 3: of nine tails, like thirty lashes with the cat of
Speaker 3: nine tails. I mean like yeah, they're like right, like
Speaker 3: like the Cata nine tails is like these like these
Speaker 3: whips that have like little metal rocks that have hooks
Speaker 3: in them that like stick you in your your flesh,
Speaker 3: I mean pricking piercing with a sword now into a
Speaker 3: cross like that's horrible. But I'm a loving chidn't know,
Speaker 3: so I need prior to go ahead. Again, as as
Speaker 3: as we say in my in my culture, have several seats.
Speaker 4: If you need it, I'm willing to give you a
Speaker 4: hug any time.
Speaker 3: I appreciate I need that. I need that. John and
Speaker 3: I will come all the way down to where you
Speaker 3: are just to get a hooked thank.
Speaker 1: You, Sidyah. I know mister Pryor expressed a lot of
Speaker 1: very conservative ideals in this. Do you think it's fair
Speaker 1: to judge the children's cartoon by those standards?
Speaker 3: No? No, I mean because it's like, listen, children's cartoons
Speaker 3: are going to be whatever that creator is going to
Speaker 3: do in order to appeal to a certain demographic of kids, right.
Speaker 3: You know, Bluie is basically a harmless cartoon out of Australia,
Speaker 3: which you know, I know that every time that it
Speaker 3: comes on, I hear my kid going mom, dad, like
Speaker 3: you know, bingo, Like he is into that thing, right,
Speaker 3: And I remember like watching like kids cartoons and kids
Speaker 3: shows like mister Rogers, and I even remember watching Barney
Speaker 3: back in the day and all this other stuff, and
Speaker 3: like I still sing that I Love You songs from
Speaker 3: time to time. I mean, like I think that his
Speaker 3: idea of okay, well, like because I have it in
Speaker 3: my head that you know, families are supposed to look
Speaker 3: like this and father's supposed to treat their kids like this,
Speaker 3: and it's based on this arbitrary standard that was set
Speaker 3: a long time ago. That it's not rooted in anything scientific,
Speaker 3: is just based on whatever type of patriarchal value that
Speaker 3: you have at that particular time is ridiculous, and I
Speaker 3: really need for him to allow creators to create the
Speaker 3: shows that they want to create, which actually Blui's dad
Speaker 3: is showing healthy, healthy affection towards his pups, just like
Speaker 3: parents should show healthy affection towards their children.
Speaker 1: All Right, Cindy, you brought us into this segment. You
Speaker 1: want to take us out, and I want to give
Speaker 1: you the last word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to answer your last question with a
Speaker 2: slightly different take. I think it's fair to judge cartoons
Speaker 2: in general. They are heavily judged, and that's fine, that's
Speaker 2: that's that's entirely normal. But I think it's fair to compare, uh,
Speaker 2: this antiquated view against nothing. I don't think there's anything
Speaker 2: today that needs to be judged in regards to this
Speaker 2: this view. You know, Uh, I just realized that I've
Speaker 2: felt for a very long time that the the the
Speaker 2: idea of heaven was extremely childish to me. That's something
Speaker 2: something that I've said quite often, and it's because it's
Speaker 2: extremely simple, you know, everyone's happy, everyone's alive. And and
Speaker 2: you know it's it's it's extremely basic.
Speaker 3: And Cindy askat curse, she'll tell you all about heaven
Speaker 3: in her yeah.
Speaker 1: Wins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and this, what's the point gender roles
Speaker 2: coming from the Bible. It's it's the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: It's extremely basic. It's men do this, women do that
Speaker 2: because it's easy to explain, easy to understand, easy to remember,
Speaker 2: easy to enforce. And it's just as relevant today as
Speaker 2: the principle of heaven is. It's nonsense.
Speaker 1: All right, great, and I hey, you know what, there's
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Speaker 1: it down.