Aug12

on maple street.

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one of my personal idols

brilliant writer and social activist, rod serling

wrote this story in 1960, as a prescient warning

—

“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy; and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone. – Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone episode: The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street-1960

84 responses »

  2. I am sure there must be hundreds and more warnings about this that never rose to the top.
    Most of us or many of us or some of us think we are reasonable rational thinkers. Until we are challenged about what we think.

    If asked what we really think …… do we honestly say?

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  5. Serling was brilliant. Much like many of the original Star Trek shows, the Twilight Zone presented many things that still apply today. There are many lessons to be learned from episodes.

    Many find it boring, but it is very well written and acted – Patterns (the movie version with Van Heflin and Ed Begley Sr.). Serling spent hours just making sure the dialog was perfect for a business atmosphere.

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  9. Rod Serling is one of my idols; in fact I have ‘The Twilight Zone Companion’ in front of me right now, published in 1989; in spite of the many requests to borrow this book, I have never let it out of my hands; I still treasure it 🙂 and I’ve watched every episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ —

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  16. Beth, I saw the title of the post and I swear this was the first thing that popped into my mind. Maybe it had something to do with Syfy Channel playing in the background, who runs Twilight Zone episodes regularly. This episode may be my favorite, in part because it was the very first one I remember seeing as a kid. Serling was ahead of his time, and unfortunately those observations are relevant even today.

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  24. Pingback: on maple street. — I didn’t have my glasses on…. | Rethinking Life

  25. I’m just hanging here thinking “WTF?” in pretty much every single direction of my life. My refuge at the moment is drawing “Rainbow Girls in Wheatland Wyoming, 1957” which is weird enough right there. I no longer expect to have any idea what’s going on…

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  27. I haven’t really seen this show except for one episode that frightened me to the very core. As much as I’d like to become more familiar with it, I don’t know if my nerves can take it. Y’all are some tough folks, those who know it in depth.

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