Disturbances to get gain

Now, it was for the sole purpose to get gain, because they received their wages according to their employ, therefore, they did stir up the people to riotings, and all manner of disturbances and wickedness, that they might have more employ, that they might get money according to the suits which were brought before them; therefore they did stir up the people against Alma and Amulek. (Alma 11:20)

This verse talks about the dangers of law-craft becoming a means of stirring people up to disturbances, in order for the lawyers to get gain, but I think it can apply in other ways too. Anyone who stands to profit from an increase in disturbance may become suspect.

For instance, what good is a big army in peacetime? Preparation is important, but how much is too much? Nibley (who worked in Army intelligence) later wrote of his concern when he saw army leaders being sad when WWII was over because they would be out of a job…until they discovered the idea of little brushfires wars around the world.   Likewise, those who sell weapons have an interest in conflict becoming armed and dangerous.

Disturbance is news, so those who report the news have a sort of motivation not only to find the conflict to report it, but also to continue talking about it and hashing it over as much as possible, all while publicly tsk-tsking over what goes on. The 24-hour news cycle was a model created in the 80s that also created a constant demand for material to report. The news cycle means not only reporting events, but also reporting reaction to those events from all kinds of stakeholders in the story and even those who are not involved. Competition between news providers means they must deliver the latest news in the most compelling manner to stay ahead. They get dollars for capturing eyeballs to sell to advertisers.

Social media enables those who gather a large following to make money from online advertising.

Sharing on social media may start with sharing valuable perspective that may otherwise go unheard, but there is a darker side. When emphasis on conflict becomes a primary means of capturing and holding attention--as followers are gripped with curiosity and want to see what happens next—when a social media person’s involvement is devoted mostly to taking sides in controversies—and followers are encouraged to take action to attack and shame those they consider enemies, then social media advocacy is stirring up disturbance.

I think it behooves us to keep these things in mind and be careful not to let ourselves get stirred up to anger. Part of charity is to not be easily provoked. We need people with those qualities even more now.

Daniel Purposed In His Heart

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. (Daniel 1:8)

I think it is notable that Daniel made this determination in himself when he found his beliefs in conflict with the policies of those in charge of him. I think this story is very applicable to us today, surrounded as we are by the world.

The scriptures say that Daniel would not defile himself with the king’s meat. I used to think it was odd that Daniel was picky about what meat he would eat, until I remembered that the Law of Moses is pretty specific about what animals are “clean” and what animals are “unclean”. It is likely that Daniel was being given all kinds of strange creatures to eat.

Daniel provides us a great model to follow whenever people with authority over us ask us to do things against our standards. Daniel didn’t stew about what he was given to eat (pardon the pun); he went to a person who could make a decision and he explained himself. He also proposed an alternative and even an experiment so that results could be judged. (How scientific! A dietary experiment is recorded in the Bible!) Daniel’s strategy shows us that when we object to something, it would be wise of us to suggest an alternative course of action.

I faced this kind of situation in several of my classes as a Literature, Writing, and Film major at ASU. I knew as I registered for my Introduction to Film class that some films would be shown that would strongly conflict with my personal viewing standards, but the class was required for my major. Like Daniel, I purposed in my heart that I would not defile myself. I determined that I would talk to my teacher about it before the semester began and I fasted about what I should say before I went to see her. I told her about my concerns and my personal viewing standards and I offered to view alternative films and do extra work. We were able to arrive at an agreement. I found that because I chose clean films to do my film analysis papers on, I was able to look more carefully at the artistic elements and give more substantial commentary on them.

As another example, in my first poetry class, we were required to make five semester goals. For one of my goals, I determined that I was going to keep my poetry positive. I knew it was far too easy for poetry to become a medium for venting and ranting and mourning and spewing all kinds of cynical thoughts. As the semester progressed, I found that my goal was an extra constraint that required me to develop extra creativity. In particular, I gravitated toward a speculative approach. At the end of two semesters of poetry classes, my teacher told me she always looked forward to my poems and workshops of other people’s poems.

When we decide that we will not defile ourselves and we make an effort to work with authority to find alternatives, we are blessed. It’s not necessarily easy and we may be misunderstood and thought prudish and too sensitive, but we will have learned while staying pure.

Judging a movie

I happen to be taking a film class this semester. Let me tell you, it is an education, and sometimes not always a good one. I want to pass on some things I’ve learned that I hope will help you increase your ability to judge films with righteous judgment.

One thing I’ve learned is that it is not enough to say, “_____ was a good film”, because the question “Why?” quickly arises. Too often we speak only in generalities. In order to evaluate (meaning to form an idea of the value of) a film, we must judge by certain specific criteria.

One criteria that people often use to judge a film is by whether it is realistic or not. They get really into looking at the props and whether they are accurately depicted for the time period the film is set in. They point out when the hero doesn’t reload his gun when he should. They wonder whether people would really act that way. War movies are especially judged by this criterion. Were the Nazis brutal enough? Was enough blood spattered in a realistic manner? It seems to me that there is some realism that is not worth seeing, because the desensitizing effect on our spirit would outweigh any educational benefit we might receive from seeing what it was really like.

Another criterion that is often used to judge a film is by morality. I very much like this criteria, of course, because my religion is so much a part of my life that I see the world through the lens of morality. The thing that very much disturbs me is that my film book seems to be ambivalent about moral criteria as an important criteria for judgment or for making an effective film. It merely acknowledges that some people think that obscenity, nudity, and violence is bad, whereas others think those elements are praiseworthy. It suggests that a film might be praised morally for its overall view of life as suggested by its form as a whole, even though its individual elements might be considered offensive. If we admit this to be the case, we find ourselves wondering where to draw the line—how much swearing, sexual content, violence, etc. can a movie have before it becomes bad? How much safer to avoid it! And then, of course, we find out that someone has made a film that has none of these things in it, but which deals with a terrible theme in such a way as to make it unfit for consumption.

One thing I always used to wonder about was why filmmakers would get so upset when other companies would edit the obscenity, nudity, sexual content, and violence from their films. It never seemed like that kind of stuff is necessary to the plot. In my film textbook, it says, “If form in cinema is the overall interrelation among various systems of elements, we can assume that every element has one or more functions. That is, every element will be seen as fulfilling roles within the whole system…One useful way to grasp the function of an element is to ask what other elements demand that it be present.” (1) So, somehow, the filmmakers make a story that is so constructed that those elements of obscenity, nudity, sexual content, and violence are in some twisted way important to the effect or progression of the plot.

Let’s take an example. Enchanted . PG, right? The scene that most disturbs me is when Robert walks in on Gizelle when she’s just getting out of the shower. (Guys do not just walk in to the bathroom when they know that a strange woman they took in from off the street is taking a shower!) Pigeons cover her up with a towel just in time, before there is nudity, but still the shock of what almost happened.. Oh, words fail me. And then somehow they end up stumbling around and she falls on top of him on the hallway floor, still in her towel, just as his girlfriend walks in. ARGH! Why did they have to put all of this in there?!

In my frustration with it, I thought about how it affects the events in the story. First, it sows the seeds of distrust in the girlfriend so that she begins to distance herself from Robert. (Robert and Gizelle are going to end up together somehow..) Also, it provides the groundwork for the totally cute musical number later in which Gizelle tells Robert how to patch things up with his girlfriend (and the musical number ironically becomes another bonding experience between Robert and Gizelle). We could take out that shower bit and then we’d have no premise to support some of the other events that happen afterwards.

When this kind of content is necessary to the plot, the plot itself has moral flaws. Could it be improved? I bet it could. The story would have to take a rough massaging, but it could be done.

Lets move on to some of the other criteria used to judge a film. These are criteria that the book says are artistic.

First there is coherence, which is also called unity. I like to think of this as an indication that the film has started in the right place in the story and ended when it should, and that it has a feeling of completeness, that the various elements reinforce each other and accumulate a meaning for the viewer.

Then there is the criterion of intensity of effect. This refers to whether a film is striking or emotionally engaging to the viewer. Many filmmakers are trying to get as strong an emotional response from us as possible, so when we say that we are not affected by a film, we are truly desensitized.

As Latter-day Saints, we spend as much as our lives as possible sensitizing ourselves to moral situations so that we can make good choices. The more sensitive we get, the more we will notice things in the films we watch. We may find that films we liked years ago become painful to watch now. That is okay; it just means we need a higher level of entertainment.

I have to make a comment about an aspect of intensity of effect. Latter-day Saint artists, in trying to create stories or films or paintings or whatever with emotional intensity have to constantly make choices about far they will go to achieve an effect. How far will you go to convey the idea of love? Filmmakers think that means steaming up the screen with sexual content, but if we put morality as our top priority, we know sexual content is off-limits. The intensity of effect must be achieved some other way—through the accumulation of many small and simple things.

Another criterion for evaluating film is that of complexity. A complex film is one that is interesting on different levels. It could be that the characters are complex mixtures of good and evil. It could be that the plot has unexpected twists and turns. It could be that the topics that are examined are difficult and puzzling. It could be that there are different storylines going on at once. It could be that focus is on a larger number of characters rather than on just a small number.

Here too in the issue of complexity there is potential for abuse. For instance, I really, really don’t like it when the hero or heroine becomes such a complex mix of good an evil that it seems impossible that they could ever pull off the heroic action. I am constantly annoyed by whiny heroes and whiny heroines who are fighting their heroic “call” up to the moment that they start doing their hero thing. In my mind, heroism requires strength of character that has to be built up over a period of time through smaller feats of heroism. I'd like to see those preparatory feats. I subscribe to the idea of the “prepared hero”. I also don’t like the idea of characters that do both very terrible and very good things. A bitter tree can not give good fruit and a good tree can not give bitter fruit.

When films examine topics that are difficult and puzzling, it seems like it is almost on a collision course with moral criteria, because difficult topics (like marital relations, aging, death, illness, gender issues, and so on) require sensitive treatment and a velvet touch, yet filmmakers are still going for that intensity of effect, trying to knock our socks off.

Another criterion is that of originality. There seems to be some kind of idea out there that it is original if films depict good things to be bad. I’ve already run up against the idea of making the villain the hero. Ones in which marriage is portrayed as inhibiting and divisive and religion is portrayed as evil and yada yada yada…. this is seen as original? The problem with doing this is that soon the good value of the thing demonized is forgotten and with proliferation of this point of view, the other point of view disappears and then bad marriages are viewed as the only ones worth portraying, oppressive and bigoted religion is the only religion that appears, snotty rude children are the only ones shown on film, and so on.

I think true originality lies in discovering something good that no one quite noticed before, saying the truth in a fresh way. And being original in a moral way is actually spiritually demanding and requires inspiration and the help of God for it to be genuine and not sentimental. This is why I feel that morality is an integral part of art and the creative process.

This has been a bit of a rant, but I really had to get it off my chest. Thanks for listening.

Citations
(1) Film Art: An Introduction, David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson, p65

Who’s Side Are You On? (Loyalty Check!)

I must warn you ahead of time that this post may turn out to be a rant. Ready… get set…

Two days ago my husband showed me a clip of a TV show that had been posted on hulu.com.

In this episode, this guy chronicles his efforts as a fledging villain trying to take over the world, with songs thrown in at various intervals. There was, I think two instances of profanity and two instances of taking the Lord’s name in vain. Otherwise, it was technically well done and emotionally cute. We see this guy taking letters from people who insult his ability to be evil and he refutes them.. in a timid, humorous way that implies, “Come on, I’m still learning the ropes here; give a guy a break!” We find out his nemesis is a certain Captain Hammer. And along the way he sings a song about the girl he has a crush on at the laundromat, and his yearning succeeds in building more sympathy for his plight. (Viewer gut reaction: Poor, unnoticed, lovelorn villain!) Then he gets a letter from a super villain who is considering his application to join his.. I don’t know.. villain posse? There is much excitement. He decides he has to pull off a heist of some sort to help his application stand out.

So he plans to rob an armored car with an elaborate apparatus that allows him to take control of the vehicle and drive it by remote control. Right as he is beginning to steal it, his love interest comes up and wants him to sign a petition to help her in her efforts with a volunteer nonprofit of some sort. (Viewer gut reaction: Put down the remote, you idiot!) His attention is torn, and rather than listen to her fully, he tries to do both car controlling and listening at the same time. And of course fails at both. Then Captain Hammer shows up—a really huge buff guy with mounds of confidence—and smashes the controlling device on the armored car. (Viewer gut reaction: How annoying! This hero is butting in right when and where he is not wanted!!) This causes the car’s steering to go haywire so that it heads straight for the girl. Captain Hammer saves the girl and villain looks on in chagrin and poignant envy as Captain Hammer and girl sing to each other with that “I’m yours” look in their eyes. (Viewer gut reaction: How annoying! Hero is stealing the girl from the villain!)

As I started watching this show, I was a little disturbed at how the story line and presentation and point of view was implicitly asking me to look at villainy as a funny thing, and how it was asking me to be amused as someone’s efforts to become a super villain. But hey, who hasn’t joked about taking over the world at some point? It’s a favorite geek fantasy. I made an effort to suspend my discomfort and get into it a little more.

Seeing the song about the love interest made me more sympathetic. Who hasn’t had a major crush on someone who doesn’t really notice them?

I was a little bothered by the efforts to pull a heist. But again, I tried to suspend my discomfort in order to get into it. I was irritated that the guy didn’t just drop his remote control in the middle of his plan and give the girl his full attention when she was talking to him.

Then when the super hero showed up, foiled the heist, saved the girl, and I found I was expected to be angry at that hero, I finally woke up to what was happening. This show expects me to be on the villain’s side and be mad at a super hero for stopping a heist and saving someone’s life and getting the girl! NO!! This is WRONG!! What I am I DOING??!! I was thoroughly depressed and irritated at the show and myself for being taken in.

Why was my reaction so strong? Because I suddenly saw the super hero as a type and shadow of Christ, who would suddenly appear right when least expected to stop the evil and save the innocent and punish the guilty. My point of view had been messed up in this show by degrees as I gradually consented to suspend my moral abhorrence for what was wrong in order to be entertained by what I was watching. What if I saw so many shows with a similar twisted point of view to the extent that I sympathized more with people who did wrong things and no longer sympathized with people who did good things and instead detested them? What if when Christ comes I find myself on the wrong side?

The issue of point of view is an interesting one. Filmmakers and authors and photographers know it is possible to totally change the feeling of a work simply by changing the point of view.

But they don’t do this just for the sake of art. They also do it to sell their work, and in order to distinguish themselves they are always looking for novelty, a new approach. But what kind of art is this that by giving the bad guy more character development and screen time makes the bad guy into the object of our sympathy and the good guy into the object of our contempt? Are we supposed to believe the subsequent implication that good and bad depends only upon our point of view?

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

The Book of Mormon gives us a nice example of a people who had this brand of moral relativism.

And thus the Lamanites began to increase in riches, and began to trade one with another and wax great, and began to be a cunning and a wise people, as to the wisdom of the world, yea, a very cunning people, delighting in all manner of wickedness and plunder, except it were among their own brethren. (Mosiah 24:7, emphasis added)

“Do whatever you want, just don’t do it to me, my family, and friends.” That was their attitude. They were into making money. Who doesn't enjoy making money? They wanted to be great. Who doesn't want to become great? They had a good secular education, cunning in the wisdom of the world. Who doesn't want to be educated and smart? They were very much like us.. except they also delighted in all kinds of wickedness. Unless it affected the fam and the buddies. (That villain in the show was the same way. He had hopes. He had dreams. He was trying to get ahead and become great. He loved somebody. But... he was doing all the wrong things.)

So watch how the Lamanite attitude plays out.

35 Therefore they did not fear Ammon, for they supposed that one of their men could slay him according to their pleasure, for they knew not that the Lord had promised Mosiah that he would deliver his sons out of their hands; neither did they know anything concerning the Lord; therefore they delighted in the destruction of their brethren; and for this cause they stood to scatter the flocks of the king.
36 But Ammon stood forth and began to cast stones at them with his sling; yea, with mighty power he did sling stones amongst them; and thus he slew a certain number of them insomuch that they began to be astonished at his power; nevertheless they were angry because of the slain of their brethren, and they were determined that he should fall; therefore, seeing that they could not hit him with their stones, they came forth with clubs to slay him. (Alma 17:35-36)

These verses show something contradictory. How can the Lamanites delight in the destruction of their brethren and then be angry because of the slain of their brethren? Point of view. They liked killing other people, but they got terribly angry if others did the same thing to them, and they never stopped to consider the idea that what might be wrong for someone else to do to them might be wrong for them to do to someone else too. So of course they don’t think that Ammon is right to keep them from stealing the king’s flocks. They don’t see anything wrong with stealing when they are the ones doing it.

And those robbers weren’t the only ones that had this point of view. King Lamoni had it too, though he was on a different side from the plunderers of his flocks.

Now this was the tradition of Lamoni, which he had received from his father, that there was a Great Spirit. Notwithstanding they believed in a Great Spirit, they supposed that whatsoever they did was right; nevertheless, Lamoni began to fear exceedingly, with fear lest he had done wrong in slaying his servants; (Alma 18:5)

Right and wrong suddenly has become not just a point of view, but the reality presided over by the higher moral authority.

I have to give Ammon a lot of credit for seeing beyond the point of view of being a servant and the loyalties implied by that role. He was firmly committed to doing the right thing by following the Lord, whether it was what the king or the servants or anyone else wanted.

I say unto you, what is it, that thy marvelings are so great? Behold, I am a man, and am thy servant; therefore, whatsoever thou desirest which is right, that will I do. (Alma 18:17, emphasis added)

Ammon, though he would seem to be soundly on the king’s side because of his protection of the king’s flocks, expressed that he reserved the right to refuse to do something that he did not think was right. We can certainly imagine that if the king ordered his shepherds to go plunder other flocks and ordered Ammon to use his great power to help, Ammon would certainly have taken a stand against it and we would have had a different story in the Book of Mormon, but one no less miraculous and instrumental in mass conversions.

Well, this post is winding down and I can feel digression fomenting, so I guess I will end by saying that I have learned from my experience that I must guard my loyalties just like anything else. I want to be on the Lord’s side. I want to be fully in harmony with His commandments. I want to see things as the Lord sees. No more am I going to allow myself to suspend my scruples in order to “get into” something. Good things don’t make you check your moral beliefs at the door, they reinforce them and improve them.

How do we strengthen our families?

This weekend I found a copy of the biography of Ezra Taft Benson and as I read through it I was very much impressed by how aware he was of the current threats to the country and to the church. He was preaching strongly for patriotism and freedom as communism was becoming a greater threat. He was preaching the principles of chastity and fidelity as the “sexual revolution” was coming on.

What are the prophets telling us today? They are telling us to strengthen our families.

What is keeping us from strengthening our families? I don’t know about you, but for me, the thing that makes this counsel difficult is that it is very general and vague. How do I strengthen my family? Okay, yes, family scripture study, family prayer, and family home evening, but what else?

I suspect that the vagueness of this counsel is actually a blessing and a vote of confidence, because it assumes in its very generality that we are smart enough to figure things out for ourselves. It is an invitation to study the situation out for ourselves and discover and experiment upon various gospel principles to find out how they can apply to a family organization. We have “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, we have the scriptures, and perhaps if we read them with reference to strengthening our families, we can figure some things out.

So here’s a little contribution to that end:

And in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites. (Alma 48:9)

Do we know where our family’s weakest point is? What causes the most quarreling and contention? It seems that that would be the problem that needs the most attention, the most man-power.

I remember when I was growing up our family had a lot of trouble with fighting and arguing. It would escalate into blows and then of course we would run to mom for justice. Mom put a lot of effort into settling our conflicts. She had us act out how we should apologize to each other and she preached to us about communicating hurt and not retaliating. I can’t even count the number of times that we had family home evening lessons and activities on the principle of “teamwork”. It took us years and years for her message to sink in. We still forget it on occasion. But we are much better off than we would be if she hadn’t put so much effort and time into this weak point.

Let’s see what else Captain Moroni did.

Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land. (Alma 48:8)

He did a lot of stuff here.

• He strengthened the Nephite armies.
• He made places of resort. (For the armies or for the civilians? Probably both.)
• He put up banks to enclose his armies.
• He put up walls of stone to encircle the cities
• He put up walls around all the land.

How does this apply to strengthening our families? Well, it seems that if armies protect cities, parents protect families. Just like armies have to be strong, parents also have to be strong. How can parents strengthen themselves? (Please discuss in the comment section!)

I notice that Moroni prepared places of resort. I think of these as places of temporary escape when things get to be a little too much. Going the temple is a great way to escape for a while. I remember that my parents also went on dates every Friday night while I was growing up. Sometimes they went to the temple for their date, other times they went out to eat. I think these resorts help regroup strength and help us see things more clearly, because the pressure is off for a while. Are there any other resorts that parents have? (Please discuss!)

Moroni put up walls on multiple fronts. He walled his armies, he walled the cities, he put a wall around the whole land. This was to protect them so that the enemy couldn’t come and destroy whenever it wanted to.

One way that we can put up walls in our families is by protecting them from the influence of evil in the media. When I was growing up, my parents realized that they had to protect us, because we would parrot our favorite lines from commercials endlessly at the dinner table. They knew that if commercials were getting stuck in our minds with all that repetition, then bad messages were getting stuck there too, even if it wasn't coming out at the dinner table. I remember they got "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", but when we started karate-chopping each other in imitation of the martial arts we saw glorified in that movie, Mom and Dad took it away. So they provided us with movies, but only ones that they wouldn’t mind being repeated over and over. They were pretty selective. We hardly ever saw any PG-13 movies.

I admit that we kids were pretty interested in what was on cable TV. We were curious. What is this MTV that friends are talking about? What's on Nickelodeon? What is this Judge Judy? What do soap operas show? In order to fortify our home against what we might watch when they weren’t home, my parents got a lock that was supposed to prevent us from watching cable unless they unlocked it. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what was good for us, and we figured out how to break the lock. Eventually my parents got wise to this and cancelled cable TV completely. I remember I was relieved somehow when they did this. Maybe it was because I was glad the temptation was taken away.

Another way that my parents fortified us was by not allowing us to have TVs in our bedroom. I remember when my brother Cameron bought a small TV with his own money. Mom made him take it back. I think she was limiting the number of entrances for media in our home and making sure there weren’t any “secret passages” into people’s rooms for it to enter. She wanted everything public and above-board and no sneaking around.

Since then, things have changed a lot. Now there are mp3 players that play video and there are computers and websites that broadcast TV and cell phones and so on. It is a challenge but no less of a responsibility for parents to decide what devices they will and will not allow in their homes and how to control the use of those devices When we establish rules on multiple fronts we reduce the likelihood that the enemy will be able to get through.

Another kind of wall that I think parents could build for their children is by teaching them how to choose clean media and how to be cautious. This in effect builds the wall inside them. When I was learning to be cautious I learned the following:

The first objective is to be clean, and the second objective is to be entertained. Keeping these priorities in order makes things easier. Purity first, entertainment second.

To find safe books, go where the safe books are. Books in the kids section and young adult section are (or should be) a little more safe than the adult section. This nothing to be ashamed of. I have learned that when I am looking for entertainment, just about everything labeled “adult” is something I don't want.

Older stuff is often safer than newer stuff. Authors, film studios, musicians, and video game creators have been “pushing the envelope” since the beginning, so go back to when standards were higher. (However, you have to be careful because at one time PG movies were equivalent to our PG-13) Go back 50 to 100 years if you have to.

Avoid the appearance of evil. If you see something in a movie trailer that looks like it might be something terribly unsavory, it probably will be. Don’t risk it. Don’t see the movie. It is better to be clean than to satisfy your curiosity and see or hear something you shouldn’t. I’ve never been disappointed by movies I didn’t see.

Ask someone you trust who has similar standards to yours. Look out for the red flag of “It wasn’t that bad; there was just this one part.” Look for reviews and websites that tell if there is profanity, violence, sexual content, and drug or alcohol use depicted.

Analyze the message and the mood of music. Is it uplifting? Or does it degrade and depress? Does it lead to do good? Or does it minimize the seriousness of sin and make evil appear good? We have enough icky stuff forced on us from the outside. Why would we want to choose more icky stuff for our lives?

Most importantly, teach your children how to respond to their peers and keep their standards. Every one of them will need to get used to being left out of a conversation while a movie is discussed that they haven’t seen. (I noticed that this was happening to me when I was in 4th grade and my classmates were talking about "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". I made the conscious decision to not allow myself to feel left out and forlorn. Instead, I allowed it to be a sort of substitute entertainment.) Every one of them will have to learn how to explain their standards to others and suggest alternatives when they are invited to participate in entertainment that isn’t appropriate. I had to learn to do this and I think the earlier any of us learn it, the better off we will be.

How are you teaching your children to use the computer? How are you fortifying them against the dangers on the internet? Please discuss!