My son is sick, so my wife stayed home tonight while I went to praise team practice at the church. While I was gone she watched Wife Swap. Tonight’s episode swapped a very conservative Christian family with a very liberal Christian family. In my trade mark fashion I will refer to them as “Connie” and “Libby”…you figure out which is which.
Connie is a stay-at-home mom, six kids (if I counted right). Libby works and her husband is a stay-at-home dad, 2 girls. I’m going to watch the episode as soon as I can find it somewhere online, but this is one situation related to me by my wife:
Connie’s children don’t date. Her philosophy is that young teens aren’t ready to make a serious (read: “lifelong”) commitment, so there’s no reason to date. Libby has no such rule.
When Connie sits down with Libby’s girls to discuss dating, she says, “This is what I believe about dating…What do you think?” When given the opportunity to think about it, one of the girls says that it makes a lot of sense. Over at Connie’s house, Libby has told her oldest girls that they have to go speed dating. They refused.
Libby got upset and started telling them that they weren’t thinking for themselves. Their response: “The fact that we agree with our parents doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking for ourselves.” Apparently they had to say this several times, but never got through to her.
What I see here is a tendency that I’ve seen over and over in liberals/progressives: anyone who disagrees with them is closed-minded or not thinking for himself, or simply can’t see through the haze of their own indoctrination. Libby repeatedly accused Connie’s husband of brainwashing his kids, then tried to do so herself (and was rebuffed - by the kids). She tried to force her beliefs on that family, and when they wouldn’t accept them, she cried foul.
But if you really want people to think for themselves, you’re going to have to accept that a great many of them will disagree with you. That’s just the way it goes. Now, I understand that no good progressive believes that a young person can come to a conservative point of view without being “indoctrinated” by her parents or the church or some other foreboding institution, but it happens.
One of the other things I recognize in this episode that I’ve seen quite a bit elsewhere, is that progressives have a sweeping right to accuse conservatives of nearly anything, while being socially immune to such accusations themselves. You can accuse a conservative parent of brainwashing their kids (which is generally known as “teaching” or, you know…”parenting”), but cannot be accused of same, even though it’s painfully obvious. You can accuse conservative Christians of ignoring parts of the Bible or taking them out of context while blatantly doing the same. It’s really tiresome.
So, with all of that said, here’s the hard part for me: I have to somehow learn to love Libby and her husband and all the people like them, because in God’s eyes, I’m no better.
Technorati Tags: conservative, indoctrination, liberal, liberal_christianity, Progressives, wife swap
6 responses so far...
We only watch scripted shows on DVD, you know that.
True. But wife swap is an inherently stupid premise. They don’t try to find people who will coexist peacefully. The whole point of the that show is to stir the pot and see what happens. They screen for people who won’t get along.
What I’m saying is, it is not a good barometer for how liberals and conservatives act. Plus it is an inherently unreal situation anyway. In real life, wives like that wouldn’t swap. The kids have no incentive to listen the swapped wives anyway, as everyone knows the whole thing is an artifice and that the real mothers will soon be returning to their rightful homes.
I do see and understand the point that you are making, though.
I just hate “reality” television. Except for the Gauntlet Real World Road Rules Challenge. That show rocks.
I used to like Road Rules until they went to Australia.
And I wouldn’t think of it as a good barometer, but more like a real-life caricature of things I’ve already noticed. Those same things are out there about conservatives…I’m sure there are some in this episode; I haven’t seen it yet.
Alex did comment that the liberal family had a rhythm and things seemed to work for them. I just think it’s a great example of how the push for “tolerance” doesn’t usually include conservative viewpoints.
[...] I thought a little bit more about the tendency I discussed in my last post, other instances of the progressive double standard came to mind. The most glaring is all the [...]
Dude - Don’t confuse bad parenting with a liberal mindset!
Blogs4God
Tell her she shouldn’t watch that crap. Watched scripted television! Scripted television!