Sex and Disney Movies

Are you wondering how to talk to your kids about sex?  One great way to introduce them to the basics is to make sure they watch Disney movies.  From LifeSite news:

Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that the love stories told in classic Disney and other G-rated children’s films – such as the Little Mermaid – are partially to blame for the pervasiveness of what they label “heteronormativity.” “Despite the assumption that children’s media are free of sexual content, our analyses suggest that these media depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape,” wrote researchers Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, in a report published in the latest issue of the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) publication Gender & Society. 

Crazy Swedish feminists demand topless pools

Did I call it or what?

A few days ago, I was arguing that conservatives need to articulate a general defense of codes of modesty, one that is based on an understanding of the sacred, and one not scandalized by the diversity in standards of modest dress found in the world’s cultures.  I said that if we don’t do this, the liberals aren’t going to stop with attacking Muslim sensibilities; they’re going to come after ours.  Pretty soon, I said, some crazy feminists are going to demand that we let women go around topless.

Well, I’ve just seen linked from one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Oz Conservative, this:

Authorities in the city of Malmö in Sweden have decided to let women swim topless at public swimming pools. It was thought discriminatory that men should be allowed to swim bare breasted and not women.  Notice the title quote of the article:  “They’re just breasts.”  Although framed as an issue of equality, the issue is really one of reverence.  Does a woman’s body belong to the first level of being (raw material for her and our benefit) or the third (endowed with intrinsic objective meanings).  (See here for a further explanation of these terms.)  The chaste and pious man sees every woman as a sacred mystery.  As with all sacred things, her body is set apart from the profane world; it may only be approached by a centain man, and even for him only for centain purposes and with a centain reverential attitude.  The goal of these bare-breasted radicals is to tear the female body out of the realm of the sacred and throw it into the profane realm.  This is the act of desecration.

Liberalism is desecration as a way of life.

Is Iran ruled by Neocons?

That’s what Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security adviser, said.

The answer, of course, is “no”–not if political labels are to have any meaning.

Socrates explains why democracy is stupid

In the Gorgias, Socrates is being ridiculed because his philosophical method has no practical use, unlike the skills of the sophists, which allow someone to manipulate the public for his own benefit.  He replies:

Sarkozy vs the burqa: Does he know what he’s talking about?

This just in:

President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Monday that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of subservience that suppresses women’s identities and turns them into “prisoners behind a screen.”

Is this true?  The answer is not obvious either way.

Best of the Web: mid-June

The brilliant Anthony Esolen has a series of posts up attacking the various popular deformations of marriage here, here, here, here, here, and here.

First Things had an excellent Father’s Day post.  (So did I, by the way…)

New Euro-skeptic group in the European Parliament!  This is certainly a positive development.  On the other hand, David Cameron still betrays a desperate need to be respected by the leftist establishment.  He is not to be trusted.

Old Paleos and New:  Charles A. Coulombe discusses what he sees as a difference in outlook between younger and older paleoconservatives.  Coulombe and the “young” paleoconservatives sound a great deal like myself.

In defense of the Iranian regime

Turning aside for the moment from the question of who really won the election (on which you already know my opinion), let us ask ourselves who we should have liked to have won it.  This is by no means the no-brainer that you might think from watching the liberal-secularist news. 

To hell with the Iranian protesters!

Iranian liberals are always whining that there isn’t enough “democracy” in their country.  Then, when they lose an election–by a wide margin–they throw temper tantrums and take to the streets for protest and vandalism.  “The vote must have been rigged,” they say.  “Nobody I know voted for Ahmadinejad.”  I remember when Khatami won in 97, and we all heard that “the people had spoken”, that they had definitively rejected the “theocracy”, embraced “freedom”, blaw blaw blaw.  And when the people voted in Ahmadinejad in 2005 and 2009, did the people definitively embrace “theocracy”?  I never heard this claim made.  It seems that the voice of the people is only the voice of the people when it says what the liberals want it to.

Happy Father’s Day: Long Live Partriarchy!

Today is Father’s Day, an occasion to remind ourselves of our constant duty to honor our fathers.  From Latin, we have a word for the reverence due to fathers–the word “piety”.  Thomas Aquinas regarded piety as part of the virtue of justice, the justice owed to those who gave us life and formed us.  As such, Aquinas states that we owe piety to God, to our country, to our parents, and to our other ancestors.  Indeed, he goes so far as to say that we owe “worship” of a kind to all of these.

Are there any traditionalist movies?

We all know that Hollywood is controlled by communists and sex perverts, so it’s not surprising to find that most movies have an individualist/utilitarian slant.  Think of all the movies you’ve seen where a creative individual, determined to follow his “dream”, has had to confront obstruction from his conservative and dull-witted community.  In how many cases does it turn out that the community is right and the hero must nobly sacrifice his ambitions to fulfill his duties and uphold the traditions of his people?  (I can think of one example where this happened–see below.)  Do you ever see Catholic priests or southern gentlement portrayed positively, or mass-murdering communist psychopaths like Che Guevara protrayed negatively?  I thought not.

On the other hand, movie writers and directors are disadvantaged by their very insulation:  they have no idea what their opponents actually believe.  This means that they will occasionally make a conservative movie completely by mistake, without knowing what they’ve done.  It doesn’t happen often, but it’s happened a few times.