I once had a lady tell me that I was a bad person for selling Joes - because it promoted war. I asked her how the Ninja's promote war within G.I. Joe?... She had no answer. She then turned her attention to Superman, stating he gives kids a false sense of flight......
I asked the kid looking at the Star Wars stuff if he liked Superman - he said yes. I asked him if he thought he could fly because of Superman. The kid gave me a look like I was the crazy one and said "NO".
I looked back at the lady, and she left in a huff.
Seriously... there's a lot of idiotic people out there that believe their point of view if the only one and the correct one. All this lady did, was convince her son that he'll have to go play G.I. Joe and other "violent" type things at his friends house now.
And the unfortunate,
safe, assumption we can make is that these are knee-jerk reactions that people just parrot because they've never really though about this stuff before on their own. Putting forth an opinion
they've heard before from someone else is the easiest way to say something without actually thinking about it. Someone else says its bad, therefore it must be bad. Right? Right??? Its a bit scary when it comes to establishing values in someone, especially a young someone. Just saying "something" doesn't give it value, or truth even....and it can steer thinking the wrong ways.
But I digress.
I've been castigated by strangers and other around me for my likes, interests and toy collecting hobby. The big issue people seem to have veers from what the items are ( their themes--violence, war, etc) to my "maturity-level" in choosing to collect them to the costs of collecting.
My stock answer now is to ask them if it would be more mature and social to spend my disposable income on cocaine, tobacco, booze, prostitutes or gambling.
I suspect it doesn't really get them to thinking about it much, but it does tend to shut them up.