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Yeah, I know the guy could be an intentional contrarian just because he thought that was the way to show his intelligence. And I think he is on the spectrum. But I don't think he was kidding or merely being contrarian about this. Probably why I talked about it to him so much. Sure, many things have multiple interpretations, and I often thought that some pretty basic English lit teachers thought there were "rules" to how to interpret literature and that there were "correct" answers to what something like Old Man and the Sea "means". I can understand rejecting that.
But rejecting that even things as blatant as Narnia and Star Trek are not intentionally conveying a message? Mind-blowing. I don't even understand why you'd be all that interested in fiction of any kind at that point.
And yeah, as you point out, this kind of obvious intelligence in one way, but a glaring of lack of intelligence in others is highly problematic in the moral sense.
I was going to suggest that he might be on the spectrum, as it's pretty stereotyped that autistic spectrum disorder can make it hard for some people to pick up subtext, nuance, overtones and other forms of communication that aren't direct. (I was diagnosed recently as an adult but I've never had problems dismantling all the layers of media or reading emotions so it's probably a different part of the spectrum.)
But this is also exactly why so many people on the spectrum identify with science fiction and fantasy, because in many of these franchises the social narrative or analogy isn't exactly subtle.
And it opens up so many questions - like, what DOES communicate social messages and life lessons? What kinds of media DO convey ideas about society? Only documentaries about politics? What about non-fiction movies? What about fiction stories and movies that aren't sci-fi or fantasy? Does he even watch stories about human emotion or abstract works of fiction that are STRICTLY social commentary? I would immediately start asking him so many questions LOL.
Honestly though, I would take this. I would prefer someone who says openly that they're disconnected from social narratives than the people who pretend that they understand ethics and values communicated to them, but are actually just horrible sociopaths trying to act human.
Yeah, I found it weird for sure and I did have so many questions. I don't see him any more. I still think about it even now, even though these conversations were maybe 10 years ago, LOL.
I think part of it was his stubbornness to admit being even a little bit wrong in a prior statement?
I mean, as you point out, OG Star Trek is something that even as a relatively young and sheltered kid who didn't see much TV, I'd watch them at relatives houses in syndication and even I could "get it". It fairly smacks you over the head now that I'm an adult. How some of this got past the censors still looking for any kind of subversive content is beyond me. I'm assuming the network censors just saw aliens and checked out mentally, or maybe were the type that cannot really handle abstractions of any sort....
As to that last paragraph, absolutely right. It's one thing if people struggle with social cues and so on and it's quite another for people just faking human emotions in order to exploit others.