Friday, 4 April 2008

Bears & the New Puritans

The Washington Post has an article that essentially equates circus animals with child abuse and includes this neo-puritan, arse-backwards quote from a pediatrician who has lost sight of where science ends and moralising begins:
"To see a bear ride a bicycle, it is ridicule. You're really just laughing at that bear," said Mel Levine, a renowned pediatrician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has written numerous books about child behavior and the way children learn. "So the question is: What's the message you're giving to kids when you take them to the circus and they laugh at animals? I think to laugh at animals is to devalue them."
The only answer to this is to quote Macaulay:
The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dr. Mel Levine has just been sued this week for sexually molesting seven young boys. See article in the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/05/medic_accused_of_abuse_ends_practice/

Anonymous said...

"Article not found" according to the webpage, but if it winds up true, let me be the first to shout from hill to dale: EPIC FAIL!

Thud said...

more olympic torch security? maywww