Attacking the Messenger Means You Lose

I've watched on social media as people attack people like the young activists for gun control from Parkland. I am not talking about the countless lies and Photoshop jobs that were created. I am talking about the blatant personal attacks on these folks.

I am not going to lie and say something like, "I don't care where you are on the gun control debate." I do care. But that is  not what this blog is about. It is, putting it simply, that personal attacks speaks volumes about the potency of their message and the horrible propaganda that has been created by the anti-gun control industry. It also tells us that those who post these attacks have been either taken in by the propaganda or truly have already lost the battle.

 According to several sites, Addison Whithecomb* said the debater's maxim of if you attack the messenger and not the message, you've already lost the debate. In other words, if you have nothing to counter the message of these activists and attack them instead, you've got nothin'.

Whether you like David Hogg or Emma Gonzalez or any of the other activist is irrelevant. Either you counter their arguments about loving guns more than loving the lives of children or you don't. Attacking them, or for that matter how awful all kids have become, or whining about being tired about hearing about them simply means you've lost the argument, and you do indeed care more about your guns than school kids' lives, or it means you have fallen for one of the oldest propaganda tools in the book. When you are losing, make them the enemy. It's called "the other" or ad hominem argument. 

 You cannot argue that you stand for the Constitution and the bill of rights and then demand these young people quit talking and demanding their rights of equal protection. There was great outrage when retired Supreme Court Justice and conservative, John PaulStevens, suggested the second amendment be repealed. If it angered you, then turning around and announcing that since these young people are suggesting raising the age limit we should repeal the twenty-sixth amendment is the height of hypocrisy.

Attacking folks only creates greater division. Your platitudes about loving your neighbors are hollow. If you are attacking the messenger...you are a divisive part of the problem. You can announce how bad kids are these day and how little they care, but I think there was about a million or so of them who marched for their rights one Saturday in March and who would beg to differ with you. Just because a few did something stupid like eat a tide pod, it doesn't mean they all did. There are a few adults that have done some pretty dumb things too. If all you have is a personal attack on a person because of his or her age, generation, or if they are Republican, Democrat, or any other trait that has nothing to do with the message, then you've got nothin'. 

In other words, if that's all you have about the message of any activist, then perhaps you just need to go yell at kids,"GET OFF MY LAWN!" 

*Other than the quote and appearing in debate text, there is apparently no information on Addison Whithecomb. I, personally, wonder if he actually existed. Even  Wikipedia entry has nothing on the man.

Ready Player One: A Pop Culture Tribute

I have not read the novel, Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. It is on my shelf to read, just haven't got around to it yet. So, I have no idea how the movie and book compare. The Stephen Spielberg film is an action movie that is clearly his tribute to pop culture, especially to the movies and video games of the late 70's and 80's. I am sure that the nerd websites will be spending hours upon hours finding every tribute and reference in the movie from Saturday Night Fever to Back to the Future to The Shining to Godzilla and King Kong. The references and details were astonishing and at times a bit over-whelming. 

The premise of Ready Player One is pretty straight forward. We are taken to the dystopic world of 2045. The protagonist of the story is Parzival/Wade (Tye Sheridan) a player in the world of Oasis. Oasis is a virtual reality world created by Halliday (Mark Rylance) and his partner, Morrow (Simon Pegg). The real world has become such an over-crowded place that people live in the virtual world called Oasis. Halliday has died. Before his death, he hid three keys in the Oasis. The first player to get all three keys will own Oasis, becoming wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Enter the bad guy, Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn). Sorrento is the CEO of the 2nd most successful game company, and he will do anything to find the three keys and take Oasis for his company. This includes killing in the real world. Parzival along with his gang and his virtual love, Art3mis/Samantha (Olivia Cooke) search for the keys to stop the evil Sorrento and his minions from taking Oasis. 

It's not just that Ready Player One is Spielberg's love letter to his past and all things in nerdom, it is also that it is a fun movie. I must admit the beginning of the movie which start largely in the virtual and computer animated world of Oasis, made me wonder what I had let myself in for. I was worried that we were going to spend most of our time in Oasis. Fortunately, we do get to also spend time in the dystopic world of Columbus, Ohio. Wade lives there and it is also where we get to eventually meet the members of his virtual world and the real-world people whose avatars we see in Oasis. Wade become Parzival which is if you know your legends a bastardization of the purist of knights from King Arthur, Percival. It is Percival who captures the Holy Grail that restores Arthur's soul. Wade/Parzival in his own way is on a quest for his holy grail that will keep the soul of Oasis for the players. 

Ready Player One is an exciting movie and is in the classic sense your standard hero movie. It has little in the way of surprise or twist as far as the plot goes. The only real unanswered question is one that come up at the end of the movie, which I am not going to discuss here. It is the story of a hero on a quest, his love, who in this case is as capable as he is, and his friends and fellow questers. They must over-come the evil bad guy who would steal all that is good. I liked the movie. Yes, it is simple and nothing really new. But it gives us a chance to see so much of the things we have come to care about in pop culture. In short, Ready Player One is a fun movie. I will buy the DVD.