New at Reason

December 5, 2006

Nick Gillespie and Jesse Walker sit down with South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker for a long chat on libertarianism, censorship, and Tom Cruise.

Comments

ron|12.5.06 @ 11:21AM|#

what the fuck is with all the fucking repeated text in this fucking article

Graphite|12.5.06 @ 11:24AM|#

This is what happened. I was on my honeymoon at Disney World. This is what happened. I was on my honeymoon at Disney World. This is what happened. I was on my honeymoon at Disney World.

RON|12.5.06 @ 11:26AM|#

YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS LARRY

|12.5.06 @ 11:34AM|#

Now I know what happened to the Reason Server Squirrels: they've been promoted to editors.

|12.5.06 @ 11:37AM|#

Well, from the non-repeated text I don't see much that most of us hadn't already guessed at.

James|12.5.06 @ 11:40AM|#

And yet you didn't see that in the repeated text?

Saint Nick G|12.5.06 @ 11:47AM|#

What's the deal with the repetition? We did this interview in Amsterdam, man. Think about it.

|12.5.06 @ 11:47AM|#

that sure is an apt description

|12.5.06 @ 11:50AM|#

"Michael Moore being an extremist is just as bad, you know, as Donald Rumsfeld."

Oh, come on. One is just an obnoxious lefty loudmouth who if he saw himself coming would run the other way. The other is directly responsible for killing thousands of people, wasting millions of our hard earned dollars so he can go off and play war, and getting us caught in foreign policy quicksand which will very likely lead to the beginning of the end to the U.S. as a prosperous and semi-free Republic. Hardly moral equivalents.

Jesse Walker|12.5.06 @ 11:51AM|#

The repeated text should be gone now. If you still see it, refresh the page.

ron|12.5.06 @ 11:52AM|#

if michael moore actually held public office he would probably do as much damage as rumsfield though. i think they were speaking in terms of ideology, not actual results.

|12.5.06 @ 12:16PM|#

moctopouse,

"to the beginning of the end to the U.S."

Um, you're way late on that one.

|12.5.06 @ 12:26PM|#

James,

Touché.

ron,

Yes, but Michael Moore will likely never hold office.

|12.5.06 @ 12:29PM|#

Thank god. He's damaging enough already.

|12.5.06 @ 12:35PM|#

Why is it when I watch South Park, I get all the preachiness, without all the laughs? The work of Parker and Stone always seems like a better idea in print than it turns out on TV. Their success remains a mystery to me.

|12.5.06 @ 12:50PM|#

As much as I love South Park, Trey and Matt are kind of on my shit list right now since they decided to piss on Richard Dawkins and call science a "religion."

|12.5.06 @ 1:01PM|#

Is this availably in MP3 or some such audio file? I know thats pretty high tech ;) but it would be nice. Has 'Old Europe' been introduced to the recording device?

|12.5.06 @ 1:05PM|#

Akira MacKenzie,

I just wish they'd get over mocking "inspirational sports, etc." movies. That joke grows stale after a while.

|12.5.06 @ 1:15PM|#

Ditto, Akira MacKenzie. I wanted them to mock hardcore atheists. Instead, all they did was mock religion and replace the word "god" with science. I kept thinking, "no, that's not the atheist worldview taken to its absurd extreme, WTF?" I thought they were more creative than that, though I certainly laughed.

Dan T.|12.5.06 @ 1:18PM|#

Why is it when I watch South Park, I get all the preachiness, without all the laughs? The work of Parker and Stone always seems like a better idea in print than it turns out on TV. Their success remains a mystery to me.

Agreed.

Another problem with South Park is that by making fun of anybody with any sort of convictions, the show reveals itself to be too cowardly to take a stand of its own. Satire should have a point, and South Park's seems to be "everybody is stupid".

|12.5.06 @ 1:37PM|#

Akira MacKenzie,

It hurts when people crap on your god, doesn't it? I know exactly how you feel.

"Nail my monkey hole!" Priceless. :)

|12.5.06 @ 1:50PM|#

I adored the sea otters who could not grok other creatures who did not eat off of their tummies, and were thus their eternal enemies.

|12.5.06 @ 2:11PM|#

I thought their take on Family Guy was pretty funny, and I think Family Guy is great in it's own right.

Whatever, I thought it was cool when they said something about a lot of Hollywood types being their friends, so they wouldn't name them, but that they could be fucking silly. That's how people should act - avoid embarrassing our belittling your friends to anyone who's not your friends. :)

|12.5.06 @ 2:12PM|#

"It hurts when people crap on your god, doesn't it?"

That's the problem. They just crapped on God and called it science. They took religious conflict, then made the leap that scientific conflict is the same thing (probably because they think it boils down to human conflict).

Since, IMHO, Stone and Parker completely dropped the ball, I'll refer everyone to the Star Trek episode ("A Taste Of Armegeddon" Season 1, Episode 23) where there are two countries fighting a simulated computer war, and both sides are so rational and advanced that they don't actually have bombs explode. They merely simulate a bomb explosion, then randomly select the casualties who report to a casualty chamber to die. That was a better treatment of how cold, harsh science could deal with such a conflict.

|12.5.06 @ 2:21PM|#

I read the atheism episodes like this: the New Atheism movement, especially in the form espoused by Dawkins and Harris (who doesn't make an appearance in the episode) has a tone of religious dogmatism to it, and that while the religions they oppose are bad, resorting to the same "we're right, you're wrong" form of argumentation so loved by religious fundamentalists will lead only a different form of fundamentalism. While I certainly agree with most of what Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and others leading this movement have to say about religion, I also find that Dawkins' take-no-prisoners approach to debate is likely to transform this from an important discussion to another episode in the "culture wars", which I dread.

I agree with Dawkins that religious belief in and of itself should not be entitled to any special protections against criticism, but the tone of the criticism is important to keep the debate in the realm of light, rather than heat. When New Atheists openly condescend to and are rude to believers, they don't represent their position well. That, I believe, was the criticism in South Park (which might be a bit ironic, because South Park is pretty rude to people and positions with which they take issue, but I guess that's the perk of being satirists as opposed to someone who wants to be considered a serious intellectual). Of course, being a cartoon, they had to take it to an illogical extreme, just to try to funny the situation up a bit.

I liked that the otter threatened to crush Cartman's skull like "an oyster on my tummy." That was pretty much the highlight of the episode for me.

|12.5.06 @ 2:43PM|#

*,

I don't think you would have the discussion without a measure of rudeness.

Anyway, these sorts of issues have been perenial problems for minorities (in the broad sense of the term) - from rallying against the activities of the Crown to abolitionism to Womens' Suffrage movement to the Civil Rights movement. What's the best strategy to get our point across? Should we offend people? The best strategy is probably a mixture of things, including rudeness.

|12.5.06 @ 3:38PM|#

That's the problem. They just crapped on God and called it science.

I disagree. I think they were crapping on atheists who are just as pompous and sanctimonious as [insert hated religious group's leaders here].

I like to think that they were crapping on people who use "science" for exactly the same reason that religious people use their mystical beliefs: for comfort and control. That kind of asshattery is NOT limited to religionists. To illustrate: Evolutionary theory and string theory are NOT science. They are conjecture. They're not "religion" because they lack the mystical element, but if you can't test it, then it isn't science. Period. Otherwise, it's the same old guesswork (and accompanying political jockeying) without the oogy-boogy.

And that's what gnaws at my nerves about some atheists: they hold up "HIV research" and string theory and basically say, "Bow down to almighty SCIENCE!"

Pox on that! Show me something you can test and I'll give you the respect that you crave.

|12.5.06 @ 3:43PM|#

Evolutionary theory is testable in multiple ways.

Twenty-Nine (Plus) Evidences For Macroevolution:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

thoreau,

I'll hand this fellow over to you.

|12.5.06 @ 3:49PM|#

I don't think you would have the discussion without a measure of rudeness.

So fittingly followed by

And that's what gnaws at my nerves about some atheists: they hold up "HIV research" and string theory and basically say, "Bow down to almighty SCIENCE!"

which seems to demand a rude response.

|12.5.06 @ 3:51PM|#

highnumber,

I wonder what the he/she means by "HIV research?"

|12.5.06 @ 3:54PM|#

"I think they were crapping on atheists who are just as pompous and sanctimonious as [insert hated religious group's leaders here]."

I agree that they wanted to mock atheists (who deserve a healthy dose), but they didn't bother to do anything but mock religion and call it science. "Bow down to mighty science" is a phrase that doesn't exist in science--it exists in politics to refer to science. By contrast, "Bow down to Jesus" is a phrase within, and a part of (if not the whole thing) religion. South Park glossed over any differences there might be so that they could say that science people worship science, and it just isn't true. Like you fully admitted, science has to be tested. How can you bow down and worship something while at the same time testing it? It doesn't add up, and that's where the episode fails.

I suspect that Parker and Stone are atheists, and they didn't have the perspective to really rip into themselves, so they projected aspects of science into religion. Of course, that theory isn't testable....

|12.5.06 @ 4:05PM|#

I think by "HIV research" it meant something that helps people that aren't like it...or maybe it believes in the homeopathic treatments. I don't know. The important thing is that you can't trust HIV tests, I guess.

|12.5.06 @ 4:32PM|#

highnumber,

Could be. Hard to tell (as you imply).

Lamar,

They'd have been better going after those who worship "reason" and "rationality." But that would have been lost on 90% of the audience. ;)

fyodor|12.5.06 @ 5:03PM|#

Dan T,

I like how you say you agree with Shecky and then take practically the opposite position. I.e., Shecky says the show is too preachy, you say it stakes out no clear positions of its own. While I love the show myself, at least Shecky's position is based on reality, unlike yours, as many episodes make very clear points about political or social issues, such as one criticizing hate crime laws on the grounds that crime should be determined by what harm was done to another individual, not who did it to whom.

biologist|12.5.06 @ 6:19PM|#

Jimmy Gatt | December 5, 2006, 3:38pm | #

"...I like to think that they were crapping on people who use "science" for exactly the same reason that religious people use their mystical beliefs: for comfort and control. That kind of asshattery is NOT limited to religionists. To illustrate: Evolutionary theory and string theory are NOT science. They are conjecture. They're not "religion" because they lack the mystical element, but if you can't test it, then it isn't science. Period. Otherwise, it's the same old guesswork (and accompanying political jockeying) without the oogy-boogy."

Thanks for clearly demonstrating you don't know a fucking thing about evolution. is that rude? I don't care, try to read something about evolution from evolutionary biologists instead of creationists so you can know what evolutionary theory actually claims.

|12.5.06 @ 10:19PM|#

I'm pretty sure the point of the episode was the people will ALWAYS find something to fight about. In the alternate future, where there are no wars of religion nor wars of atheism because Dawkins was actually civil to others in the past, there are still good old-fashioned geopolitical wars ("France and China just invaded Hawaii")

That said, it didn't need to be a two-parter. They took ~30 minutes of material and instead of editing it down to 22 minutes, blew it up to 44. That was a pretty slow pair of episodes, laugh-wise.

|12.6.06 @ 1:01AM|#

"to the beginning of the end to the U.S."

'Um, you're way late on that one.'

Um, you missed my point. I wasn't suggesting the criticisms of Rumsfeld or the negative direction the U.S. has been going for a long time were original insights; only that the antics of some boorish loudmouth are hardly comparable to the destructiveness of the secretary of defense.

|12.6.06 @ 1:51AM|#

i think parker and stone are actually agnostic.

|12.6.06 @ 2:25AM|#

I don't think you would have the discussion without a measure of rudeness.

Anyway, these sorts of issues have been perenial problems for minorities (in the broad sense of the term) - from rallying against the activities of the Crown to abolitionism to Womens' Suffrage movement to the Civil Rights movement. What's the best strategy to get our point across? Should we offend people? The best strategy is probably a mixture of things, including rudeness.

You may be right. It's actually a legitimately hard question to answer, because you end up arguing mostly in counterfactuals, e.g. "The Civil Rights movement in America would not have made the progress that it did as quickly without the influence of Malcolm X in the discussion. Without X, the white power structure would have had less motivation to embrace MLK for his moderate and comparatively palatable positions." Then someone else answers back, "No, the Civil Rights movement in America would have progressed faster in America if it were not for a Malcom X acting as a bogeyman justifying the worst fears of the white power structure at the time were they to grant more political power to blacks. It is remarkable that moderate black leaders were able to accomplish what they did with his negative presence casting a shadow over the debate."

Forgive the analogy if it is inapt. The point is this: maybe Dawkins approach to the debate will push things forward faster than they otherwise would go. OTOH, maybe he will become the kind of polarizing figure who hinders the ability of more moderate holders of similar views to have calm discussions with believers ("You think we don't know what you're really up to!? We know you believe taking our children to Church on Sundays is child abuse, sicko!!). It's really hard to say. I'll hope that it is the former, because there is no chance that Dawkins or Harris are going to start pulling punches. If the end result of their approach is less influence of religion in politics, then the world will owe them a debt of gratitude. My worry is that the opposite may happen--that the religious right, which constantly feels it is being attacked (even when it has a majority in both houses of Congress and a proudly "Born Again" President in the White House), will see this new threat to their faith as something to unite around and push through even more ill-conceived, religiously-driven legislation. The gridlocked Congress makes things a bit more difficult for them, thank God (Science!), but not impossible, especially with Hillary-style Dems eager to score points with soccer moms.

|12.6.06 @ 12:51PM|#

de stijl | December 5, 2006, 1:50pm | #
I adored the sea otters who could not grok other creatures who did not eat off of their tummies, and were thus their eternal enemies.

====

It wasn't just that the non-otters didn't eat off of their tummies. It was that they had to cut down trees to make eating surfaces, when they had perfectly good tummies! I have adopted the otter insult "table eaters" as an epithet meaning "wasteful barbarians who are destructive of nature."

As nice as the otters were, I had been hoping for the return of Lemmiwinks (or his descendant), leading the gerbil people of the far future. Oh well, maybe next episode.

Finally, I heard a panel discussion with Dawkins last week, and had to check the South Park episode to be sure: the SP "Dawkins" had a much less pronounced british accent than the real thing. If you were listening for it, it was discernible, but on the first pass I didn't hear it at all, and was therefore surprised to hear how the real Dawkins' actually spoke. Say what you want about Parker and Stone's talent or integrity, but when SP says "celebrity voices impersonated ... poorly," that is truth in labeling that you can take to the bank! ;-)

|12.11.06 @ 4:54AM|#

As much as I love South Park, Trey and Matt are kind of on my shit list right now since they decided to piss on Richard Dawkins and call science a "religion."

Yeah, they are geniuses until they take a crap on your pet cause.