“Reversing the Moral Decay Behind the London Riots”

Jewish date:  10 ’Elul 5771 (Parashath Ki Theṣe’).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Peter Claver (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Dean Corll (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

Recently Harold sent me a link to an article worth mentioning, “Reversing the Moral Decay Behind the London Riots” by Rav Jonathan Sacks, which deals with the decline of morality (as an extension of religion) starting in the 1960s in the United Kingdom and the West in general as a factor leading to the recent London riots.  And I do think that he has a point.  Human societies are governed by rules, and a what we do is influenced by what we see others do.  When people jettison rules which exist for perfectly good reasons (like rules against selfishness), bad consequences are unsurprising.

Clearly things have changed since the 1960s.  Very apparent is that there have been changes in what is considered acceptable in the media.  For a humorous example, if you will recall the 1960s sit-com Gilligan’s Island, it was followed up in 1978 with Rescue from Gilligan’s Island, which brings the castaways back to civilization after 15 years of isolation; of all the characters, it is Ginger, the sex symbol of the series, who criticizes many of the movies of that time for gratuitous sex and foul language.  I am well aware that things have not gotten better in this regard since 1978.  In fact, a lot of stuff I watch these days (over the Internet) is decades old, not merely out of curiosity of things I have only heard about or nostalgia, but also because of content.  If Gilligan’s Island were made today—and there have been repeated threats of a movie version from time to time—it would almost certainly be a very different show; there is a high probability there would be a good deal of that gratuitous sex that Ginger complained about (certainly something beyond the teasing and manipulation that Ginger actually did), quite likely some foul language, probably more infighting and a good deal less of a sense of community, and probably more violence than the Skipper hitting Gilligan with his hat.

On the other hand, I find myself wondering how much of a trend of moral decay there really is.  Human society consists of billions of people, and thus lots of different trends can happen simultaneously in all sorts of directions.  And I do not think things have been going down uniformly.  For example, there has been a lot of emphasis placed on eliminating racism and creating a more just world starting in the 1960s.  I have also heard that Judaism was largely dying out in the United States until 1948, after which there has been an increasing ba‘al teshuvah movement (to put it in Christian terms, Jews “getting religion”).  To Rav Sacks’s credit, he avoids the clichéd falsehood that moral decline is inevitable and even notes that in the 1820s that the United States and Britain became more religious.

Paradoxically, you can even get things going both ways at the same time in the same group of people.  The United States has a large population of religious Christians—many of which politically take positions which are difficult or impossible to reconcile with anything Jesus taught.  (Republicans, take heed.  This means you.  I am no fan of Jesus, but I know full well that “kick the poor when they’re down” is the exact opposite of what he preached.)  Go figure.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

Satan's Island?

Jewish date:  4 Tammuz 5771 (evening) (Parashath Balaq).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Anthony Zaccaria (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (Christianity), X-Day (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I must confess I am a bit stuck right now.  I am working on an essay on The Addams Family and managed to get writer’s block.  And thanks to Stephen, I have been looking up material in the Talmudh Bavli which might refer to Jesus, but I am not ready to publish on it yet.  I am therefore going to comment briefly on a short article Barry sent me word of recently which seems to be of the type of thing that I will never be able to get out of my head unless I write something about it.

The article is “Your Turn: Gilligan”, which deals with Gilligan’s Island, the famous sit-com from the 1960s.  Sherwood Schwartz, who created the show, reportedly claimed afterwards that the seven castaways represented the Seven Deadly Sins of Christianity.  This article claims instead:

But a closer viewing indicates that the island may well have been Hell — and the red-clad Gilligan the devil who kept them on his island.

The greatest part of the metaphor, though, is that if the others ever wanted to get off the island, what they needed to do was kill Gilligan — and that each of us has our own inner Gilligan, that sweet-natured, well-meaning part of us that always sabotages us from getting what we really want.

Maybe if we truly want to succeed in life, we need to kill our own inner Gilligan.

I can see the business of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Each of the castaways has weaknesses in their character which they must strive to overcome (like the rest of the human race).  But Gilligan as Satan is more of a stretch than the basic premise of the show that the castaways can never get off the island.  Satan, in Christianity, is a rebel against God, the very personification of evil.  Being deliberately evil for a being who knows full well that God exists and will ultimately prevail is arguably supremely stupid, but Gilligan is merely stupid.  He is not evil.  The only reason his screw-ups keep the other castaways on the island is that if they ever did get off, the show would end.  Satan is also not known for being “sweet-natured” or “well-meaning”; his main interest is getting humans to sin, which often involves getting them to do what they want, as opposed to what is right.  

Likewise, the castaways’ time on the island can hardly be considered Hell.  They may sometimes miss things available back in Hawaii but not on the island, but they quickly grow into a family.  This is despite them getting angry with each other from time to time, but such is completely normal for families.  In the first movie after the series, Rescue from Gilligan’s Island, the castaways, after being separated following their rescue, are stressed over reintegrating into society and are ultimately glad to see each other at their Christmas reunion; if anything, civilization is Hell for them.  In the second movie, The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island, upon being rescued again, the castaways decide not to leave and set up a resort on the island instead.  In the third movie, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island, the plot centers around saving the island.  None of this is consistent with Hell; it is fully consistent with home.

Conclusion:  Whoever wrote this article was probably being at least as silly as the writers for Gilligan’s Island.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron