Episode 93: God’s Bass Boat

4 comments on Episode 93: God’s Bass Boat

  1. Palle Raabjerg says:

    As a point of clarification: Read It and Weep is both a podcast and a website all at the same time. I know, amazing, isn’t it? 😉

  2. Mike.K. says:

    I’ve said this before, but it relates to the prison system. The book “The Price of Right” has a section on psychological framing, and the Nurturing Parent vs. Strict Father frames. One of the core differences is in discipline. (To be clear, these are two opposing models. Most people lean one way as a default, but they are *not* exclusive.)

    For the Nurturing Parent, children are cultivated, and good behavior is cultivated. People tend to be good, and so children are raised encouraging goodness. This leans towards carrot vs. stick, with punishment reserved for significant transgressions.

    For the Strict Father, children are raised, and bad behavior is punished. People tend to be selfish and bad, so children are raised by punishing bad behavior. This leans towards stick vs. carrot, with rewards for exemplary behavior.

    The Strict Father lends itself to externalizing evil. One must be constantly vigilant against evil, lest evil encroach into the family and society and corrupt it.

    What is most relevant here is that punishment is moral. Since punishment keeps evil in check in society and drives it out of children, withholding punishment encourages evil. Sparing the rod not only spoils the child, but that itself becomes an accessory to evil.

    This is why conservatives always see liberals as “weak on defense”, because we need a big military to kill the bad people and exterminate evil from the world. Liberals would rather “coddle evil-doers”, because the only choices are punish or allow.

    Domestically, this is how the prison system works, at least for conservatives. Bad people must be punished. Punishment means prison. If they keep breaking the law, they are obviously incurably bad and must be put away forever. The law itself must never be questioned, because the law brings peace and security. Liberals, who want to not-punish criminals, want to let criminals run free, snorting meth off your wife’s tits, eating your children, and voting for Democrat who will give them free cell phones.

    Two things are readily apparent. The first is how nicely this aligns with religious fundamentalism and evangelical Christianity. This is only worsened by the horsepucky about all civil laws being based on God’s Biblical laws.

    The second is how amazingly well this has worked for the racist underpinnings of conservatism. The “bad” people tend to be the poor people, and the poor people tend to be the racial minorities. If you’re a racist, then you see a prison full of blacks, Latinos, and the occasional “white trash”, and you see the Law doing its job, justifying your view.

  3. Jack says:

    I believe your response to the equal sign facebook symbol isn’t well thought out. It plays a far more important role psychologically now that you see it everywhere in huge numbers. Everywhere that people post on any subject you see that sign causing people to ask, what does that mean? I am finding it quite unique and interesting use of social media.

  4. Dr Drew says:

    Have you already used this epic Dawkins clip on your show? http://www.youtube.com/#/watch?v=IIKfZHPqXYc

    (“Science works, bitches”)

    You’ll have to excuse me not knowing – I started from scratch and am only on episode 61 so far…

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