Comment of the Week: Harry Potter vs. Golden Compass
Tuesday December 11, 2007
It's difficult to watch the hysterical reactions of right-wing Christians to The Golden Compass and not think of their past reactions to Harry Potter. Whereas the latter were allegedly designed to introduce unsuspecting kids to witchcraft, the former is supposed to do the same with atheism — and both are treated as threats to the future of Christianity. Why is it, though, that only Christians are so concerned?
Harry Potter got similar criticism from Xians. Does anyone else find this interesting?...
1. Xians complained mainly that Harry Potter was aimed at minors, and promoted witchcraft as a positive thing. Many of them indicated Xians and Xian children, in particular, should not read or promote the books.
2. I never read any science blogs or articles that encouraged scientists to not allow their children to read Harry Potter--as it promotes witchcraft/magic, as opposed to actual physics/science.
IMHO, this speaks volumes about the level of justifiable premise behind the two worldviews. If my view of the universe is so tenuous that a fantasy children's book challenges everything I could possibly teach my child about what I consider "reality"--how solid do I actually consider my own perspective?
Scientists (in particular physicists) don't see concerned that Harry Potter will undermine scientific principles in the minds of children. Why not? Could it be that they understand that when a kid waves a wand and says "luminous"--and the lights don't really come on--the kid will grasp the difference between reality and fantasy? But when your reality is simply another form of fantasy--then you have plenty to beware. When waving that wand has as much affect on reality as praying--perhaps my child might recognize he should discount both as not being very accurate reflections of reality?
What's actually funny is that Xians who complain about Potter wouldn't ever acknowledge this--and sincerely so. What they would say is that dark spirits exist that could infect their kids if they dabble in such things--even in a fantasy context. That's what happens when you get a really successful meme going--it will do whatever is necessary to protect itself--even get you to accept more and more fantasy as reality.
[original post]
Harry Potter is fantasy and fiction. The Golden Compass is fantasy and fiction. Realty has nothing to fear from them, and beliefs that are grounded in reality have little or nothing to be concerned about from any fictional story. Only other sorts of fiction and fantasy should have any reason to be concerned — and even then, only because of the prospect of competition. Christians worried about the impact of fantasy on their beliefs reveal that they aren't nearly so confident and secure in their faith as they otherwise insist.
One thing that also needs to be remembered is the number of anti-books the religious right gets to write denouncing yet another book. Have you ever noticed that these books are written by a small group of the same people. anti-harry potter, anti-golden compass, anti-da vinci codes, anti-etc.
The thing that irritated me the most about the anti-harry potter people was that most of them did not read the actual books or see the movies. They heard form one of the authors of the anti-harry potter books that they were bad. And they believed them on blind faith. scarry.
The only difference between the two franchises that matters to me is that The Golden Compass movie sucked bigtime, whereas the Harry Potter films (especially part 3) are actually pretty good.
I remember heading for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoneix and wondering if the actress who played Umbrage could make me the character as much as I did when my mother read me the book. She and the actress who played Luna both did a great job! I’ve always hated Umbrage on a more personal level than any other fictional villain I’ve seen or read. By the way, Robert Hamer, are you saying the Golden Compass movie is already out? I didn’t realize that!
c.s. lewis once wrote a book. non-christians went on and on about religious propaganda.
philip pullman (who admits being against christianity) writes a book with anti-christian themes and christians don’t like it.
the former are right the latter are wrong. free inquiry right?
“c.s. lewis once wrote a book. non-christians went on and on about religious propaganda.
philip pullman (who admits being against christianity) writes a book with anti-christian themes and christians don’t like it.”
_
I think there’s a big difference here. It’s true that atheists don’t like C.S. Lewis because his apologetics are awful and we have to listen to people who want to quote him at us anyway. That’s about as anti-Lewis as most of us get. I don’t know of any protests or other forms of hysteria centered around Lewis. Certainly nothing like this.
On the other hand, many fundamentalist Christians are losing it over The Gold Compass movie. They are demonizing Pullman, his books, and his movie, yet these are things which barely deserve a blip on their radar. The books aren’t anti-religion or anti-God. They are against religious authoritarianism, something which many liberal Christians are also again. That’s about as bad as the books get. So big deal. They’re far less offensive to Christianity than Lewis is to atheism. Yet the reaction is dramatically worse.
I could go on, but the point is that this hysteria is simply crazy. I don’t think your comparison is very realistic.
And, again, I have yet to see evolutionary biologists coming together to do an organized book burning of “Of People and Pandas” simply because they think it’s wrong. There were, however, organized book burnings of the Harry Potter books by Christians.
Also to note that my post was not to say that it should be illegal to have a public protest. It was only to illustrate the level of fear and threat Xianity sees from a mere fantasy novel. That fear of undermining only comes from some deep realization that what I’m holding to is very tenuous. If I’m solid in my beliefs, Harry Potter doesn’t threaten me to the point I feel I have to go and burn it in the streets to show how frightened I am of it.
Well, the truth is that Pullman kills God (who’s very old and very sick, btw) and destroys the Church as an authoritarian principle threatening the very existence of life and the universe. On top of it, Pullman’s all for experience over innocence, he is for sinking our teeth into the fruit of knowledge, for our expulsion from Eden, for our growing up. I’m not surprised Xians are scared to death by books of the kind, for that precisely is the value of the “Golden Compass”: exposing religious bigots for what they are. Weaklings.
i am pretty solid in my beliefs and i have no fear of harry potter or gold compass, both which i have read. i prolly might go out and watch the film since the animation looks absolutely fantastic. however, the only reason i brought it up is that i find most the time it seems so much more acceptable to criticize religious works/beliefs rather then “atheist” i use the word atheist loosely since every time i converse with an atheist they hold a different view than the last.
I have an aquaintance whose beliefs are so centered on the bible rather than what we see in the world that I have to question: What does he worship? God? Or a book?
back in the day when I laboriously listened to how all powerful my Christian god was I never allowed my self to question this idea, that god was all powerful. So I am always wondering why god is so weak when it comes to literature? Why does god need to be defended so nastily?
>however, the only reason i brought it up is that i find most the time it seems so much more acceptable to criticize religious works/beliefs rather then “atheist”…
The problem is the mode of protest. Atheists may critique religious work or promotion–but they don’t burn it or try to stop people from having it. That’s the difference. Xians will pool their numbers to try and get theatres to ban movies for example. My question is: How come _I_ can’t go see it if _I_ want to see it? When a Xian mother puts pressure on a school library to ban a book because she doesn’t want her daughter to read it–that’s too far. She can’t ban that book for every kid and every parent related to the school.
Atheists, as far as I’ve ever seen, simply dialogue about the problems with Xian literature, film, or ideology. They don’t try to keep anyone from reading Xian books (by destroying them), or seeing Xian films (by pressuring TV networks or local theatres), or engaging in Xian ideology (by threatening Xians).
But there are Xians who do, and have, engaged in all of this–in fact it’s common.
There’s a big difference between me saying “X is a load of crap,” and me saying “X is bad, evil and dangerous–and we can’t allow it in our community”–when we’re only addressing ideas. One community group doesn’t have the right to stop the others from having access to things that disagree with their particular ideology.
Xians don’t have to read Harry Potter–but they have no right to stop schools from carrying the books so that children whose parent’s ARE OK with them reading it can read it.
That’s the difference.
Nobody says it’s wrong for Xians to critique atheism–in fact, that’s far more common than atheist critiques of Xianity–by FAR. But Xians don’t know where to draw the line between their personal believes and the rights of others–in many cases.
This is the core of the problem. It’s apples to oranges, not apples to apples, when you compare Xians complaining about atheism/secularism vs. atheists/secularists complaining about religion.
Good example, tracieh, with Harry Potter in schools. I was amazed when I’ve found out that Huck Finn (!) is banned in schools in eleven states. Xians are afraid even of Mark Twain – the symbol of American free spirit. It takes a lot of morbidity to be afraid of freedom.
neFearHere
I was given the book Huck Finn as a present by a relative when I was about 10 years old. I remember recognizing the racist lines in the story for what it was even though no one had ever explained racism to me at that age. Maybe that kids should should be given more credit for having the capacity to think at a tender young age.
I’ve read both the CS Lewis series, and the Dark Materials trilogy, and recall only some fine fantasy writing, basic “good” versus “evil”. Overt Christian messages in the first weren’t obvious to me, and I still don’t recall when “God” was killed in the second. Bad guys suffer, good guys triumphed.
tracieh, I always love reading your comments, so it’s great to see you given a whole post! You are so dead-on with this post and your follow up comments. It’s funny (well, sad but funny)that the people most worried about children being brainwashed are the ones who actively brainwash their own children.
I saw the Golden Compass movie. I found the story thin compared to the book, but the visuals are a treat, very impressive. It is far from perfect, but I don’t understand why some have attacked it so furiosly.
I never thought the Narnia books were about Christ any more than they were about Dionysus, or Orsiris, or Mithra, or any other savior god.
I was also under the impression that it was the liberal PC crowd who wanted to pull Huck Finn out of school libraries for the use of the word “n*gger”.