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Bill Nye, Harry Potter, and Why Millennials Can’t Think
Millennials can’t think. They get their science from Bill Nye. Their only form of literary reference is the Harry Potter franchise. Read another book, please! Bill Nye was fun in the 90’s to get the basics about science – law of gravity, simple machines, energy transfer. I think the place that Bill Nye holds in the culture today is due to the nostalgia of millennials.
I’ve seen a number of the episodes of Nye’s original series, Bill Nye the Science Guy. I remember watching the show in grade-school and junior high. His shows and topics covered in each episode were quite superficial; they served as an entertaining introduction to whatever new topic we were beginning to learn about. There was no depth there. He was an entertaining figure when I was in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade; now he’s just a dolt. Fellow millennials (and you gen-xers) please stop holding up this bad actor as a “scientist.”
I’ve read the Harry Potter franchise many times. I’ve seen the movies multiple times. I was six years old when the first book came out. It was one of the first longer books that I read, not the first but one of the first. I read each book when it came out. When the later books came out, I remember going to the midnight releases and rushing home to read it until I was too tired to read another word. A good series. I enjoyed it and I still enjoy it.
With all that being said, fellow millennials please read another book! Harry Potter is good. It’s not great. The first longer books that I read were Roald Dahl books. I also loved C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and there is actually some depth with that series. Mark Twain is fantastic. The Little House on the Prairie series is delightful.
Why should you read another book? So that you can make a literary reference. You can understand a reference in the newspaper. So that you’ll know what a Bacchanal is and where it comes from. You’ll know what big brother is. Some are more equal than others. (I hope you all caught that last one.)
The worst part of this lack of thought is that there are countless “journalists” that always and only ever make a reference to the principal villain in Harry Potter, Voldemort, when talking about the “evil” Donald Trump. There are many, many tweets and articles that do this (I have no desire to find them again, because whenever I see one I am usually half-tempted to throw my computer out the window). If you think Trump is so bad, then why not compare him to Mustapha Mond? Or maybe call him Ralph?
This ignorance to other literary references and to trusting Bill Nye as a “scientist” is due to blind nostalgia. Harry Potter and Bill Nye remind us of our adolescence. They remind us of a time with no responsibility. It’s fine to have memories. It’s problematic to use those memories as a crutch and a reason to never expand your mind.
Millennials, Screwtape would be proud of your ignorance.
Published in General
Well it is because you see that Vader redeems himself in the end by turning against the Emperor thus saving Luke, while Trump cannot be redeemed as he is a fascist. As for Millennials think of them more akin to Luke Skywalker early in his training with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Recall the scene in the Millennium Falcon where in learning to use the Force Luke is initially humbled by early inadequate efforts but eventually is able to deflect bolts from the drone with ease.
Yeah, there is a big drop off from “tist” to “guy”.
I think if they were trying to be funny and clever, they’d be working at coming up with references that weren’t Voldemort. Although I might guess that part of that is also being able to identify themselves with Harry Potter, which ranges from wrong to hilariously wrong depending on the person making the reference.
Beaker was the coolest.
The problem with millennials is that they grew up watching frauds like Bill Nye instead of the real thing: Mr. Wizard!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfTaH13zAUA
Bill Nye is no Sir Isaac Newton.
Vadar would own Voldemort.
It’s worse than that. I could let that go if he were a real scientist. I think his only related credential is a B.S. engineering degree from Cornell.
Yes. And I think he worked at Boeing as an engineer before he left to become a comedian and then a TV personality.
I hesitate to bring this up because I can’t remember the lecturer but…In the 80’s my husband and I went to a lecture at Penn. The title was something like Perspectives on Science. The main premise was: if one can’t arrive at definitive information as the result of research, one can give an interpretation that promotes the common good. My husband kept elbowing me saying, “Let’s get out of here.” He was involved in serious research and he was appalled and stressed that this was a really dangerous idea, would corrupt science, was based on hubris. Climate science could be a case in point.
Oh dear.
Victor Davis Hanson elaborates this point:
Lying in America has become not lying when “good” liars advance alternative narratives for noble purposes — part of our long slide into situational ethics and moral relativism.
NRO August 30, 1016 Why Hillary Is Never Held Accountable for Her Lies
Ah, yes. I’m glad (and fortunate) to be older and therefore can remember Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) who was pure science and very entertaining.
Please don’t conflate the Harry Potter series with Bill Nye and crazy Al Gore.
The Harry Potter series at it’s root teaches about the differences between good and evil, a concept thoroughly lacking in today’s schooling.
You’ve missed my point.
I said that I think the Harry Potter series is good and that I’ve enjoyed it. Many “journalists,” especially millenial ones appear to have only ever read the Harry Potter series and when they feel the need to make a literary reference they can only make a Harry Potter one. That is a lack of interest in knowledge. That is a lack of creativity. That is juvenile thought. That feeds into the idea that many millenials have that everything that came before 1995 is bad/evil/wrong.
Sure, but I believe the point the OP was making is that it’s a bad thing when that’s the only literary reference you can make, and it’s even worse when you think that you’re being original and/or clever by doing so.
Edit: Beaten to the punch.
Is Howard Zinn’s A People’s History… the primary history text at school or just reference material? Just wondering these days.
Eric Foner’s “Give Me Liberty” is the main introductory US history college text. He’s just as much of a communist as Zinn.
I wish my kids made references to books. It’s usually references to Internet memes (Justice for Harambe!) or, like @midge mentioned, really bad movies (“Keep your stupid comments in your pocket!”).
I agree with Johnnie that they should be able to cite other literary references, but I remember when these books came out, and they got kids reading again, so it’s a very good thing.
Well…
One time, I completely missed a reference to Tanya Harding. Then I proceeded to miss the follow up of being Patrick from Sponge Bob (he lives under a rock).
Judging from Trivial Pursuit, the ability to make pop-culture references shouldn’t be completely overlooked.
Most Internet meme references go over my head. Case in point: Justice for Harambe? Who is Harambe?
I’m not too broken up about it, though…
Martyred gorilla.
Finally! I was trudging through all this “Science Guy” fraudster stuff, wondering if I was going to be the first one to bring up one of my childhood heros. It was Mr. Wizard, not this pompous half-wit, who played a major role in drawing me to a life-long interest in, and study of, natural science.
Now ask me what I really think…
Re video clip: I’d love to hear Algore refute this! And Dr Feynman’s reply (were he still with us) to Gore’s claim of consensus science as his proof. Contrary to popular belief, public floggings of scientists’ reputations doesn’t quite fit the scientific method approach…
Re video clip (sorry, it didn’t copy for this comment – see comment # 16): I’d love to hear Algore refute this! And Dr Feynman’s reply (were he still with us) to Gore’s claim of consensus science as his proof. Contrary to popular belief, public floggings of scientists’ reputations doesn’t quite fit the scientific method approach…
Harry Potter is a qualified good thing. The stories are a good read and I enjoyed reading them with my sons. There is a clear message of siding with good and opposing evil while celebrating friendship, loyalty, courage, forbearance and other worthy virtues.
However it is also a muddle. JK Rowling used medieval symbols throughout her works (stag, unicorn, etc.) but she mixed them up with memes and types taken from Grimm and Pagan mythologies. Some of these symbols or icons she used in a context where they are suitable as references to their antecedants, but in many cases they are miscast or opposite-cast, so that the works as a whole amount to a mixup that gives impressions that a young reader will have to unlearn in order to become truly literate.
Then there is the whole business about Dumbledore and Harry taking turns playing the “Christ figure.”
And her post-hoc addition of the “Dumbledore is gay” confusion.
What a mess.
I think Rowling lost her way a little bit in the later books.
Rowling has kind of gone off the rails, and has unfortunately joined the ranks of celebrity-as-liberal activist. My daughter was well past the Harry Potter phase by the time she decided Dumbledore was gay (oh please, spare us). And now it seems there’s to be a sequel to Frozen where the heroine has a lesbian lover. For children.
What a shame.