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>The show is dignified and wholesome. really? I always found it to be quite creepy. The constant obsession with being a "really useful" engine. The shaming of
by ux-app 9y ago
>The show is dignified and wholesome.
really? I always found it to be quite creepy. The constant obsession with being a "really useful" engine. The shaming of engines who don't toe the line. Victimisation of engines who misbehave. The show makes me strangely uncomfortable for some reason.
- pstuart 9y agoAnd what happens to engines that are not "really useful"? I think we all know.
- adolph 9y agoYes, when the small railway was closed down Duke was left behind in a shed where he stayed until urban explorers found him and restored him.
- paulddraper 9y agoIt doesn't make as much sense for our imminent future state, when robots do all our jobs and we sit around all day, but I like the distinctive "really useful engine" complement. Obedience, diligence, and selflessness are admirable qualities. All kids and adults should strive to be really useful, in the best sense of the phrase. There's far too much narcissism in the world.
- ux-app 9y ago>I like "really useful engine" complement That's fine, but in Thomas it's presented as : be really useful or else... I find it mildly sinister, I have a visceral dislike for the show. The moralising does not sit well with me at all.
- Allower 9y agoI have NEVER seen a good explanation of how 'Obedience' is EVER an 'admirable' quality. If you can't think for yourself and make rational decisions, you have much bigger problems than not 'respecting authority'. Any authority that is incapable of demonstrating the rationale behind their directives is a fool and should be treated as such, with the utmost disrespect.
- derefr 9y agoDiligence and selflessness are admirable. Obedience is, at best, sometimes necessary, and at worst a source of atrocities. (You might be thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent_(military)#Common_intent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent_(military)#Common_inten.... The desire to establish—and function under—common intent, whether through consensus or authoritative credence, is an admirable quality in a person. But that is not the same thing as obedience.)
- Godel_unicode 9y agoThat's a very interesting way of slicing things. You think that the importance of the rule of law (obedience) isn't something which should be instilled at a young age? It's totally possible to simultaneously teach that following and questioning the rules is possible/appropriate/good. Consider that the US military simultaneously teaches the importance of following orders and every soldier/sailor/airman/marines obligation to refuse illegal orders.
- watwut 9y agoObedience shall depend on what the law is. Sometimes laws are immoral and then it is ok to break them. Which is not the same as breaking the law for profit. And even there, people who run away from soviet union broke the law. It was ok to do so in my opinion. People who were dissenters, owned printers and spread ... ehm ... evil capitalist propaganda broke the law too. It was heroic from them to do so. Likewise with breaking nazi laws. Likewise with marrying/dating between blacks and whites where it was illegal or helping slaves escape. I am ok with Snowden too.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago> You think that the importance of the rule of law (obedience) isn't something which should be instilled at a young age? If you think that the rule of law is about obedience, I think you are completely missing the point. The whole point of the rule of law is to avoid arbitrariness in how the state treats people. You could maybe say that it is about obedience of sorts on the part of those people who work for the government, to only use their special powers in line with what the law says. But even then you have the option to resign from the job rather than to obey if you object to what the law says. While sometimes following rules while at the same time disagreeing with them is appropriate (and that also should be taught to kids), civil disobedience is also a very important factor in fighting injustice, in particular the kind of injustice that the state produces when it rules by unjust law. Given how much injustice in the world has happened essentially because of obedience to laws, I find it hard to believe anyone would consider obedience a virtue. Laws in general should be followed, but not because it's a virtue to follow laws, but because enlightened self-interest should inform you that a society that has clear rules that everyone is bound by has tons of benefits, because by respecting the rules in favour of others, you gain that others respect the rules in your favour. But whenever that balance is clearly violated, it should be everyone's first priority to disobey.
- mikeash 9y agoDiligence and selflessness, I agree, but obedience is something to be earned by the person giving orders, not a trait to be expected in the receiver.
- yock 9y agoDo you expect parents to earn the obedience of their young children? They are the receiver in this instance.
- musage 9y agoParents don't really have to do anything special to earn the trust of their children most of the time. And the point of raising a child should be to raise a person, not a child. Yes, when a kid runs into the street you just grab it by the arm and then explain why it shouldn't run into the street, but all that is more like the the set of exceptions that confirm the rule.
- mikeash 9y agoA lot of parental obedience is earned just by virtue of being the parent. Beyond that, expecting your child to obey just because they're supposed to be obedient is not a particularly productive attitude.
- IgorPartola 9y agoYes. My kids may love me and trust me more than other people do, but getting them to do a thing takes work. You can also do it through coercion, threats, or violence, but that... tends to fuck kids up.
- linkregister 9y agoYes! Children, developmentally challenged ones excluded, inherently trust parents who have given them adequate nurturing. Emotional outbursts, challenges to authority, and disrespectful behavior will happen as they become able to move around. The parent should be patient with, but not reward, uncontrollable emotional outbursts. Challenges to authority or dangerous activities (e.g., running into traffic) should be met with firm, kind correction (move the child away from danger, say "no" to hitting and hold the hands, etc.). To influence children to perform an action, leverage and bargaining is effective. It is through this slow, persistent grinding of wills that teach children how to behave. Meanwhile, allowing as much autonomy from the child as is possible / practical allows the child to blossom, while reading and sharing in activities inspires the child and builds trust and affection. I firmly believe that obedience is earned in some way or another: through fear of retribution, or through the trust and desire to please / aversion to disappoint. It is apparent later in life which children were raised in the latter manner: they, in general, have good relationships with their parents; authoritarian parents have a harder time developing relationships and getting much-needed support from their adult children. I didn't mention neglectful parenting, which will often produce worse outcomes than authoritarian parenting: crime, emotional instability, etc.
- scandox 9y ago> Obedience, diligence, and selflessness are admirable qualities But to what? These qualities mean nothing in themselves. They are traits, not virtues. A virtue is surely a trait aligned to some kind of positive value. You can obediently, diligently and selflessly slaughter people all day.
- lazyman75 9y ago"Imminent"? Mixing optimism with delusions is bad, m'kay?
- ashark 9y agoHa, I was just reading a couple of Thomas books to my son the other day and thought, “man, the class politics of Sodor are... really weird.”
- paulddraper 9y agoA little odd, yes. It is set in an earlier time. Nobility, top hats, steam engines.
- pselbert 9y agoThe complement of being " really useful" never bothered me. My kids are a bit too old for Thomas now, but we still say people are "causing confusion and delay" when they derail the rest of the family.
- krapp 9y agoMachines are defined by their utility, and their value comes from their ability to do work, but children shouldn't be taught that the same applies to them.
- ballenf 9y agoI’m not sure that my kids see themselves as the trains. The trains don’t have parents, eat food, etc.
- krapp 9y agoWhat would they be meant to identify with, then?
- ballenf 9y agoI don't know, but I'm pretty sure they don't feel like they have to identify with a particular character. When they watch a train crash episode, for example, they don't run into walls afterward, they pick up their trains and crash them together.
- krapp 9y agoChildren's shows generally teach lessons, which is why I assumed that children are meant to identify with the trains.
- Symbiote 9y agoI identified the trains with the real trains that went past the house. It's not too unusual to hear a young boy talking about Thomas while waiting for or in a train. It's often been the only real conversation I can understand elsewhere in Europe. ("Which one is this?" "It's red mummy, this is James!")
- Aloha 9y agoAs an engineer, being "really useful" is a goal that fits within my worldview as good and noble.
- vkou 9y agoSome people's definition of "really useful" explicitly excludes everyone who can read or write, wears glasses, etc. Documentaries about those people consistently contain shots of roomfuls of human skulls.
- ori_b 9y agoSome people's definition of "good person" involves the color of their skin. Do you think we should stop aiming to be good people?
- ux-app 9y agosure, that's a great characteristic for things. Not so sure about implying that people should be assessed the same way.
- Godel_unicode 9y agoYou don't think people should strive to be useful? What virtue/goal would you replace usefulness with?
- ux-app 9y agoI find the whole Thomas package distasteful. The subtext always seems to be that Thomas would be fine if he just did what he was told to do by his betters. In that context, Thomas' servile desire to be useful carries sinister undertones.
- bildung 9y agoThat's a difference! Striving to be useful is not the same as being categorized by the ruler as being useful or not.
- 9y ago