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The problem with most of Lynn's defenders is not just that they read the strip at the most superficial level and fail to miss the patterns that so alarm and annoy us. As an example, they don't see that the "I quit motherhood" mini-arc is not what they think it is at all because they'd rather believe that April always tries to blow off eating with her family than admit that John and Elly have a consistent habit of messing with April's head in order to remind her that they are the boss of her. What the problem is that most of them seem to be over-sold on the useless and amoral moral aphorism "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."
This need to not hear painful truths is based primarily on the self-serving and destructive delusion that if someone says something that isn't what the listener wants to hear, he or she is somehow destroying society. The need to not have to question what the person being complained about is doing to inspire the complaints seems to me to stem from a fear of not following the herd packaged as defending a helpless victim from a "persecution" that might be well earned. The same people who don't realize that doing something just because everyone else does it isn't really moral don't realize that someone nasty might be exploiting their generosity to keep from having to answer questions that might make her defenders realize that they've embraced something not really embraceable.
This makes them all into the Marge Simpson of the early nineteen nineties. The Marge of today realizes that Bart is a jerk but the one of old had it in her head that he was just misunderstood. As I recall, she told Luann Van Houten that Bart has what she called a spark inside of him; it wasn't a bad thing but it made him do bad things. It seems to be thus with the more ardent of Lynn's worshipers. While they're willing to admit that the strip has moments wherein the characters behave questionably and the artwork is possibly sub-par, Lynn is doing her best and cannot thus be criticized.
This need to not hear painful truths is based primarily on the self-serving and destructive delusion that if someone says something that isn't what the listener wants to hear, he or she is somehow destroying society. The need to not have to question what the person being complained about is doing to inspire the complaints seems to me to stem from a fear of not following the herd packaged as defending a helpless victim from a "persecution" that might be well earned. The same people who don't realize that doing something just because everyone else does it isn't really moral don't realize that someone nasty might be exploiting their generosity to keep from having to answer questions that might make her defenders realize that they've embraced something not really embraceable.
This makes them all into the Marge Simpson of the early nineteen nineties. The Marge of today realizes that Bart is a jerk but the one of old had it in her head that he was just misunderstood. As I recall, she told Luann Van Houten that Bart has what she called a spark inside of him; it wasn't a bad thing but it made him do bad things. It seems to be thus with the more ardent of Lynn's worshipers. While they're willing to admit that the strip has moments wherein the characters behave questionably and the artwork is possibly sub-par, Lynn is doing her best and cannot thus be criticized.
