Well in my case it’s because I’m teaching The Handmaid’s Tale to my UVI lit specialists so I would very much hope you wouldn’t be on the side of the government of the Republic of Gilead, what with its traditional views on gender sexuality and abortion, for example.
3 Likes
I couldn’t watch that series, it annoyed me so much and I know its only fiction. Watched “Downsizing” yesterday and although a bit of a comedy and fiction, gave food for thought about the side effects of not seeing past the original idea and those in another class of society.
I haven’t read the book, but I think it unlikely I would be on the side of a liberal humanist/atheist’s caricature of any belief.
That’s the thing with straw men: you think you’ve achieved something when you knock them down instead of engaging with the argument!
This really. Everyone creates their bogeymen in the image they imagine of those they hate. We’ve seen it in this thread.
1 Like
Talking of Christmas 
(well, we were higher up the thread)
When we first started discovering France…
We would smile on seeing a somewhat deflated “Père Noël” hanging on a rooftop, or maybe draped around a drainpipe… in mid-summer… and it seemed completely natural… and we would play “spot the Santa” with our daughter as we drove along… 
When we became Resident, we did the British thing… and neighbours were horrified to discover I took down our decorations by twelfth night…
Here, the village keeps the decs everywhere until after the Old Folk’s Christmas Party, end Jan or early Feb… and everywhere looks so cheery… it’s great.
Although I do cheat sometimes, taking down some of our indoor ones … it all depends if they’re looking a little sad or still in fine fettle…
2 Likes
Talking of that, my preference would be that the tree etc goes up on Christmas eve, although it might stay up a bit longer than 12th night, but usually until the second weekend after Christmas.
I religiously take mine down by Jan 6th, one year I did it and my daughter was born next day, her dad would have left them up no doubt until I got home.
I’m teaching the book, it’s a set text, we look at structure as much as content, in any case we approach it critically - the narrative is essentially that of a partially reliable (because partially informed) first person narrator. It is, however, fascinating seeing what was written in the early to mid-1980s in the light of current events, Atwood was after all writing speculative fiction.
I tell my pupils to avoid watching the series because so much is missed out, passages and characters are cut, two or more made into one etc.
I have examined candidates who clearly haven’t read the book but just watched the series which they have misunderstood because they weren’t given any context and unfortunately I have had to give them poor marks for the Bac because their teacher didn’t put in the grunt work.
You should, you might find it very interesting. It certainly isn’t simply or even principally “a liberal humanist/atheist’s caricature of any belief”, by any means.
Edited because of course I spotted a typo post hoc.
1 Like
Read it years and years ago. Margaret Atwood is a fabulous writer and prophet. For me she - just as Rachel Carson - shows us so clearly what we are destroying and how close we are to the brink.
3 Likes
I read a copy of Silent Spring as a smallish child over half a century ago, it has stuck with me since. It came out a couple of years before I was born.
1 Like
I have read some of her books, though a few years ago (and I couldn’t name any of them). I remember her writing was excellent, and I’d make no criticism of her or her beliefs.
The point I was making is very like yours earlier: that people who don’t have experience of (the Christian) faith usually make very poor critics of it. Though I think her book was less concerned with criticism of Christianity (even American Christianity) and more to do with what totalitarianism might look like in the US.
For me, that book marked the start of the modern ecology movement because the latter’s C19th forerunners were mainly about preserving so-called ‘wilderness’ rather than trying to reverse the less visible consequences of modernity
1 Like
Yes quite - it’s showing the sharp end of instrumentalising the trappings of religion for political ends, certainly. It isn’t in any way a criticism of honest faith.
1 Like
This is the latest scary stuff…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/01/red-caesar-authoritarianism-republicans-extreme-right
For some reason the link above is empty - try
2 Likes
Thanks, should have checked it.
Canada should be building a wall
1 Like
Interesting and alarming indeed.
It shows what happens when your politics gets into your Christianity: it poisons it.
Whereas if you let your faith into your politics, as no doubt they would say is happening here (it isn’t*), it purifies it.
*I’ve some Christian friends who are anti-vax, pro-Trump, libertarian, anti-big-government, anti-abortion, … etc. One of the indicators (IMO) that one’s politics has contaminated one’s faith is saying, “I could never vote for a particular party or politician because of its/his/her stance on this or that,” because that creates a hierarchy of wrongs which I don’t see in the Bible.
3 Likes
An interesting bit of editorial on Al Jazeera related to this topic.
2 Likes
Very interesting.
Obviously the French State feels under attack to a degree (and with some justification: I think some Islamists feel and exhibit a real antipathy towards its values, and the increasing fragmentation and inequality* in French society is a problem for France), but the policy towards Islamic dress is feeding the problem rather than starving it.
*I read an interesting book on the topic, L’archipel Français by Jérôme Fourquet. It challenged my French (it was then I discovered Google Lens!) but it was worth the effort.
3 Likes