Literature

Wait…So Everyone’s Been Lying To Me All These Years About What Angels Look Like?

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Above you will see three interpretations of what angels—you know, those benign, heavenly creatures we hear on high and observe, “Hark! They sing!,” the celestial guardians like the funny little old man who shows Jimmy Stewart that he’s really led a wonderful life, the kind of immortal being that appeared to Mary to tell her she was going to bear the Son of God, you know, those things?—really look like. The version on the left is from the Mike Flanagan horror series “Midnight Mass.” It’s a scary angel, but not as scary as the ones that show up in Robert and Michelle King’s scary TV series “Evil,” which look like this…

Yikes.

The version of Gabriel in the center is pretty much how I had been taught and told and shown how angels look for most of my life, and I assumed that was how they are represented in the Bible. Now, this is at least partially my own fault for not knowing the Bible better than I do, but when artists, churches, Sunday school teachers, movies, tree ornaments, Christmas cards and children’s books all show angels as friendly-looking Scandinavians with big, white, fluffy wings, I think I can be excused for assuming that there is at least as much authority for those representations as there is for anything else in the Bible—-an assertion to which Carnac the Magnificent (oh, look it up, ye of pop culture deficit!) would say to me, “You are wrong, Ethics Breath!”

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“A Christmas Carol”

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

-A-Christmas-Carol2

I finished a seven hour deposition late yesterday (the lawyer grilling me was a Red Sox fan, so it was okay), and from here until after New Year’s Day, I have nothing on my calendar…no, not even Christmas. I am giving gifts to the two families on my cul de sac, my long-time neighbors the Wests who have been so supportive this year, and the absurdly perfect young couple next door with their three adorable children, who warm my cold heart every time I see them riding bikes together, creating adventures, and generally making me feel like I was a crummy father. Unfortunately, the season is reminding me both of wonderful times long gone and last year’s grim, painful holidays, so everything is causing me crippling cognitive dissonance. I can’t wait for it all to be over on January 2.

Nevertheless, I am going to read “A Christmas Carol” to Spuds out loud, and of course watch at least two of the dramatic versions, the 1984 George C. Scott version, and, of course, “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.” I like all the “Christmas Carols” except the horrible musical starring Albert Finney and Patrick Stewart’s weak entry. No, I don’t count Bill Murray’s “Scooged,” but I do enjoy it if I’m in the right mood. I favor George’s version, first, because he was one of my favorite actors and I miss him, second, because the rest of the cast contains many of my other favorites like Edward Woodward and David Warner, and the creepiest Marley by far. I also admire the adaptation.

The entire text of “A Christmas Carol” is and has been for a long time listed under Inspirations on the Ethics Alarms homepage. I often wonder if anyone uses the Ethics Alarms links, which now reminds me that its time to cull, revise, and update the collection. I use them.

Last year I noted that the last time I directed a professional theatrical production that wasn’t my own, it was a staged reading of “A Christmas Carol.” I miss directing greatly, but if was my last hurrah, I can live with that. “A Christmas Carol” is, after all, the greatest ethics story of them all.

I worry that this Christmas the neighborhood is looking at me as Scrooge: mine is one of the few homes in the neighborhood with no lights, and no decorations, and I have been walking Spuds wearing a black Santa hat that reads “Bah Humbug.” It’s a joke, but maybe people think it’s my real attitude. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Christmas; I always have and always will. This year, I hope for the last time, it doesn’t love me.

God bless us, every one.

Curmie’s Conjectures: Musings on Returning to the Classroom

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

by Curmie

[This is Jack: Yikes! I didn’t realize that EA had been Curmie-less for a full four months! The second Ethics Alarms featured columnist has been both busy and seeking respite from politics, which unfortunately has been disproportionately rampant here during the Presidential campaign drama and related horrors. I’m hoping Curmie can leads us out of the dark into the light. Welcome back, Curmie!]

I’m not sure if this is sufficiently ethics-related for this blog, but since Jack posted it, so be it.

I retired from full-time teaching in August of 2021.  It was August instead of May because I was hoping—to no avail, as it turns out—to do one more iteration of a Study Abroad program in Ireland; the trip had already been postponed from the previous summer.  I did teach one course per semester in the 2021-22 academic year, but then not at all for two years.

I assumed that I’d never be in a classroom again except for an occasional guest appearance to be, apparently, the local authority on absurdism.  But then a colleague got a one-semester sabbatical to work on her book.  It would be extremely unlikely to find someone who had both the ability to teach all the courses in question and the willingness to move to small-town East Texas for a one-semester gig at crappy pay.  The powers-that-be then decided to try to staff those courses locally.  I suspect I was the only available qualified person in a 75-mile radius, so I was asked if I’d teach Theatre History I and II this semester.  I agreed.

There were a lot of changes for me, completely apart from the two-year hiatus.  I’d taught both courses numerous times, but never in the same semester, and always on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule; this time it was Tuesday/Thursday.  Back in the days when I was the only person teaching these courses I could insist that one of the research papers be on a certain type of topic; that’s no longer a requirement.  And I ditched the expensive anthology I’d used for years, switching to things that were available online.  This also allowed me to choose the plays I wanted to teach instead of necessarily the ones in the anthology: critics may agree that the The Cherry Orchard is Anton Chekhov’s best play, for example, but there is absolutely no question that The Seagull is far more important to theatre history, so I used that.

Anyway… what caught my attention?

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“Wicked”: A Review (Part 2: Politics and Propaganda)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” became a critical and financial success by merging the Frank L. Baum children’s series with contemporary issues and values, notably discrimination, prejudice, the abuse of power, and corruption. The still-running Broadway musical “Wicked” softened the preaching and propaganda a bit, but it has come back with full force in the movie adaptation now playing at inflated prices in theater near you. (I purchased a box of Junior Mints and regular size coke. They cost 15 bucks.)

In the novel and the musical, the witch-to-be is born green, leading to a life of being the victim of hate and discrimination. The movie cast not just a black woman in the role, but one with pronounced African features (in contrast to, say, Halle Berry) making it nearly impossible not to experience the plot as a thinly veiled Critical Race Theory brief. Though there are black actors and actresses in Oz here and there, only the white characters are seen to be repulsed or frightened by Elphaba (Maguire gave her a name), because the director correctly calculated that in his film, the character is as much black as green. We see her rejected and cast aside (to be raised by a bear) by her father the moment he sees her skin shade, so it is clear where this is going: Elphaba is going to be forced to fight against the cruel culture that rejected her. Thus we know that she is a personification of the Black Lives Matter riots within the first ten minutes of the movie.

Just as early in the movie we know we are in the grip of sensitive wokism obsessions when we we find ourselves in Munchkinland and the Munchkins pretty much look like anyone you know. The movie “Wicked” is obsessed with, the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz,” had the Munchkins played by the Singer Midgets, a little people performing group. In the Baum book that started it all, they are described as being about the same size as Dorothy, who is about 10, but one way or the other, we know the Munchkins are small. Ah, but Disney’s endlessly delayed “Snow White” movie got into trouble after the most famous acting dwarf, Peter Dinklage, declared that the whole idea of portraying the Little People of the familiar fairy tale was offensive, so Disney eliminated the dwarfs entirely. That was also attacked by Little People activists—erasing them, you know. Similarly, Peter Jackson got in trouble for using computer magic to make a full size actor look like he was a a yard or so tall in the “Lord of the Rings series.” So “Wicked” director Jon M. Chu punted and just made the Muchkins normal size and boring. And that wasn’t all: to make sure Dinklage didn’t find some reason to take shots at his movie, the Little Actor was hired to provide the voice of a talking goat.

This is DEI at its silliest. The film gets credit for hiring an “under-represented minority” who was personally responsible for the film not hiring many more members of the same minority. Furthermore, while I like Dinklage (who became famous in “Game of Thrones”) as much as anybody, the only reason he’s a star is because he’s so short. Sure, he plays lawyers, doctors, gangsters, but no matter what he plays, he plays it as a dwarf. That’s the only thing that distinguishes him from hundreds of other equally able actors. It makes no sense at all to hire Peter Dinklage as a voice actor. His unique feature can add nothing to such a gig. The film took away another talented vocal actor’s job so it could be “inclusive” and hire a dwarf for his voice alone.

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Note To Candidate Trump: Civility Isn’t Bullshit

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Today’s “Trump is a terrible person and you have to vote against him even though there is literally no rational reason to vote for Kamala Harris” article is “At a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity.” Of course he did. Public discourse and civility, all a part of the crucial ethics value of respect, have plummeted precipitously as Ethics Alarms predicted here and chronicled since, most recently yesterday. Trump has unquestionably been a catalyst for the coarsening of American speech and culture, but as this tag will show you, so many prominent individuals and institutions followed his lead and escalated the rot that blaming Trump alone would be, well, the kind of thing the Trump Deranged do every day.

Naturally, as Vulgarian-in-Chief, Trump couldn’t let himself be reduced to relative civility by Congresswomen saying things like “Let’s impeach the motherfucker!,” iconic actor Robert De Niro getting cheers at events by screaming “Fuck Trump!,” or a coded phrase meaning “Fuck Joe Biden!” being plastered on T-shirts, banners and mugs. Sooooo, as the Times gleefully informs us…

Mr. Trump opened his speech at the airport in Latrobe, Pa., with 12 minutes of reminiscing about the golfer Arnold Palmer, who grew up in the Western Pennsylvania town and for whom the airport was named. His monologue culminated in lewd remarks about the size of Mr. Palmer’s penis. Moments later, Mr. Trump gave the crowd an opportunity to call out a profanity. He went on to use that four-letter word to describe Ms. Harris. “Such a horrible four years,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the Biden-Harris administration, as he surveyed the crowd of hundreds of people in front of him. “We had a horrible — think of the — everything they touch turns to —.” Many in his audience — which was mostly made up of adults but included some children, infants and teenagers — eagerly filled in the blank, shouting, “Shit!” Minutes later, Mr. Trump urged his supporters to vote, telling them that they had to send a crude message to Ms. Harris: “We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president.”

Oh, nice. That’s the way to make America great again.

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Oh, Great. It’s Bad Enough That Harvard Is Woke and Incompetent, But Its “Ten Minute Rule” Proves That The University Is Now Stupid As Well

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I at least expected my thoroughly disgrace alma mater to always maintain some vestige of intelligence, as misapplied as it frequently has been lately.

Guess not.

Before student group-sponsored speakers at the college are allowed to begin, the following official statement from the administration must now be read to the audience:

“A quick note before we begin—Harvard University is committed to maintaining a climate in which reason and speech provide the correct response to a disagreeable idea. Speech is privileged in the University community. There are obligations of civility and respect for others that underlie rational discourse. If any disruption occurs that prohibits speech the disrupters will be allowed for up to 10 minutes. A warning will be issued to all disturbers at the 5-minute mark explaining that the protesters are disrupting the event and ask them to stop. Any further disruption that prevents the audience from adequately hearing or seeing the speakers will lead to the removal of the disrupters from the venue.”

Brilliant.

How smart do you have to be to figure out what’s wrong with this? Let’s see:

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Artificial Intelligence Raises a Lot of Ethics Issues, But This Isn’t One of Them…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

From An Experiment in Lust, Regret and Kissing (gift link!) in the Times by novelist Curtis Sittenfeld :

My editor fed ChatGPT the same prompts I was writing from and asked it to write a story of the same length “in the style of Curtis Sittenfeld.” (I’m one of the many fiction writers whose novels were used, without my permission and without my being compensated, to train ChatGPT. Groups of fiction writers, including people I’m friends with, have sued OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, for copyright infringement. The New York Times has sued Microsoft and OpenAI over the use of copyrighted work.)

The essay describes a contest between the bot and the human novelist, who also employed suggestions from readers. I do not see how an AI “writer” being programmed with another author’s work is any more of a copyright violation than a human writer reading a book or story for inspiration. Herman Melville wrote “Moby-Dick” after immersing himself in the works of William Shakespeare. Nor is imitating another author’s style unethical. All art involves borrowing, adopting, adapting and following the cues and lessons of those who came before. In “Follies,” Stephen Sondheim deliberately wrote songs that evoked the styles of specific earlier songwriters. He couldn’t have done this as effectively as he did without “programming” himself with their works. Continue reading →

A Symptom of Creeping Totalitarianism: The Left’s Embrace of Newspeak

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

In the appendix to his novel “1984,” George Orwell explained the principles of “Newspeak,” the mandated lexicon of Big Brother’s dystopian society. The idea behind Newspeak was to prevent free thought and speech by limiting the public’s vocabulary to the point that “wrongthink” was impossible. Maybe nobody reads “1984” any more, and maybe the public is just as ignorant, apathetic and gullible as our political elite count on its members being. It still amazes me that the proliferation of “Newspeak” in the media and political discourse doesn’t create appropriate awareness that the U.S. is being pushed into a totalitarian regime. There is active censorship of certain words and ideas because our Dark Lords think they will upset us (or risk undermining partisan cant). Abortion? What’s that? There is only “reproductive health.” Sex-change operations and hormone treatment for minors? What are you talking about? We have “gender-affirming care.” There’s no illegal immigration, just “newcomers,” and you always want to welcome newcomers!

And so on.

Some words are so upsetting that the news media literally won’t publish them even if a story can’t be understood as a result. Yesterday Boston Red Sox star Jarren Duran, having a rough game, was taunted by a fan and caught on a live mic retorting, “Shut up, you fucking fag!” The Boston papers, however, couldn’t let their readers know what the outfielder said, because it might upset them. So the statement was published as “Shut up you (expletive) (expletive.)”

This is the Orwellian culture progressives are slowly but surely constructing for us, if we let them.

There is no apparent stopping place on the slippery slope. The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, one of our most left-addled communities, has an exhibit on the rock band Nirvana that informs visitors that the band’s leader, Kurt Cobain, “un-alived himself at 27.”

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Curmie’s Conjectures: “Curse You, Red Baron!”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

by Curmie

[This is Jack: Almost as if in response to my secret wish, Curmie has submitted a column designed to turn our attention away from politics, division, culture wars and the rest, instead focusing his analysis on pizza ads. Makes me hungry for more…but not more Red Baron pizza. I’ve been eating a lot of frozen pizza since Grace died, and have placed Red Baron on my blacklist. Yechh. DiGiorno, Frescetta and Trader Joe’s offerings are far superior. ]

I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m a little starved for something, anything, other than politics.  The thought that anyone would vote for either of the likely contenders for the presidency (as opposed to against the alternative) is chilling.  So I’ve been casting about, looking for something else to write about.  This may not be much, but at least it’s something.  And I did sort of open the door for this kind of post last Christmas season with an analysis of ads for Monopoly.

Red Baron (the pizza company, not Snoopy’s antagonist, but why pass up an opportunity like this?) has released a trio of new commercials, all connected to the joys of sharing.  They’re not going to convince my wife and me to buy their product—we’ve tried it and found the gustatory difference between it and cardboard to be insignificant (your mileage may vary), but that doesn’t mean their commercials are similarly boring.

Indeed, “Baddie Librarians,” in which two stereotypically bespectacled (complete with glasses chains) older women naughtily share a pizza intended for a single person, is trite but at least reasonably cute.  “Hipsters” is even more fun, as sharing a delicious pizza leads to sharing of a different sort: one character “shares” that he’s tired of being hip, another (her name is Willow, of course) admits that she doesn’t even know what her neck tattoo means, the pizza is described as “way better than kale” (I’ll grant that much), and kombucha is called “garbage water.”  It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but at least it brings a smile.

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Ethics Dunce: Geoffrey Hinton, “The Godfather of Artificial Intelligence”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

You should know the name Geoffrey Hinton by now. To the extent that any one scientist is credited with the emergence of artificial intelligence, he’s it. He was among the winners of the prestigious Turing Prize for his break-through in artificial neural networks, and his discoveries were crucial in the development of advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) software today like Chat GPT and Google’s Bard. He spent 50 years developing the technology, the last 10 pf which working on AI at Google before he quit in 2023. His reason: he was alarmed at the lack of sufficient safety measures to ensure that AI technology doesn’t do more harm than good.

And yet, as revealed in a recent interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Hinton still believes that his work to bring AI to artificial life was time well-spent, that his baby was worth nurturing because of its potential benefits to humanity, and that—-get this—all we have to do is, for the first time in the history of mankind, predict the dangers, risks and looming unintended consequences of an emerging new technology, get everything right the first time, not make any mistakes, not be blindly reckless in applying it, and avoid the kind of genie-out-of-the-bottle catastrophes that world has experienced (and is experiencing!) over and over again.

That’s all!

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