IT TAKES A FAMILY - AND MAYBE RELIGION TOO

Can Harry Potter Rescue U.S. Children's Media? (Andrew Ferguson, Bloomberg, 6/24/2003)

The Potter books and their British author, J.K. Rowling, have charmed everyone, apparently, by reviving the most ancient medium, words- on-paper, with the most basic technique: excellent stories, told with intelligence and taste.

So why, with all its enviable success, hasn't the Potter series been more influential among those who produce entertainment for young people? Why is children's media -- from the cartoon violence of the X-Men to the mindless potty-mouthing of Eminem -- still a swamp of silliness and worse? Why aren't there more Harry Potters?...

A new book from Johns Hopkins University Press, Kid Stuff: Marketing Sex and Violence to America's Children, compiles essays by writers, liberal and conservative, who dare to ask [if parents are to blame]...

"Are parents reluctant to exercise their responsibilities as adults?" the editors write. "Many seem to be fearful of being considered prudes by their peers."

The result of this massive abdication of authority, writes the researcher Kay Hymowitz, is a "race to the bottom" by entertainment producers whose product never passes through the censor of a parent's higher expectations and values. In the marketplace of kids' media nowadays, only kids are setting the standards....

[P]arents have to assert their own authority and impose their own standards on the market. Maybe then, miraculously, there will be more Harry Potters - and, delightfully, fewer Eminems.

Hannah Arendt said that civilization is invaded by barbarians every generation -- they're called "children." It is the responsibility of parents to pass on to their children certain moral norms and tastes -- known as "culture" -- that have been proven over time to be good for humans. If we fail in this duty, then civilization may be displaced by barbarism.

The crowning accomplishment of liberalism and cultural Marxism in recent decades has not been in politics, but in the discrediting of efforts to conserve traditional culture. They have used moral suasion and legal coercion (see the Elks post) to persuade us that it is wicked to preserve and transmit culture by moral suasion.

Andrew Ferguson is pointing here to a loss of confidence so great that we do not teach our convictions even to our own children. Though I have no data, I would speculate that this loss of confidence coincides with an absence of religious faith. Without faith, how many generations can civilization survive?

Posted by Paul Jaminet at June 26, 2003 12:03 PM