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Post by Least censored on the planet! on Jan 21, 2021 18:55:28 GMT -5
I'm quite sad that Baron apparently left the forum, I hope it's not a definitive thing and he will come back later.
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Post by Emblematic Wolfblade on Jan 21, 2021 18:57:40 GMT -5
I'm quite sad that Baron apparently left the forum, I hope it's not a definitive thing and he will come back later. He hasn't deleted his account last I checked. Give them some time to cool off I suppose. |
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Post by bobtheinquisitor on Jan 21, 2021 18:59:16 GMT -5
I'm quite sad that Baron apparently left the forum, I hope it's not a definitive thing and he will come back later. Yeah, he was a more productive member of the forum than I am. I’ll log out and go back to lurking only if it will make the forum more to his liking. |
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Jan 21, 2021 19:03:24 GMT -5
Systemic change is a significant shift that you achieve with little steps. Removing toxic actors that are the face of the institution is such a small step in my eyes. It's a change, and a good one, but by definition not a systemic one, as far as I can tell. The difference between systemic change and removal of bad actors change is not a difference of degree, it's a difference of nature. I'm not sure if I entirely agree on the degree-nature angle, I'm working more from the understanding that if you can't take the little steps, the easy steps, what hope is there of taking the systemic step? Also, would taking the systemic step logically not be followed up by the little step regardless. Would these say, actors, not disappear off the stage either way? Either they go or the industry that employs them does. Where do we draw the line on what kind of despicable behavior is acceptable by the smaller cogs that should not 'fall prey' to 'cancel culture'? Well, I presented my line a bit above. I think not only having being put through a fair trial and found guilty of an actual horrible crime, but also having voluntarily avoided your punishment deprives you of any of the forgiveness that actually serving your time would give you, so no forgiveness. Baron isn't there, so I cannot speak for him, but I think he would agree that “cancelling” people for something they did, as opposed to just an opinion they hold, if that something is actually criminal, AND established beyond doubt, is fair. It's when it comes to cancelling people for opinions or tweets that things get a bit iffier. I agree completely, crossing the legal line is comparatively very easy. But the real difficult debate is to be had on the iffy part. Opinions/tweets that are clearly racist? Pretty easy. Tweets that support a conspiracy theory about the US election being stolen? Is that easy? Should that fall under iffy? Where do we draw that line? Here is where I feel Baron is throwing it too much unto 'political differences' instead of 'inherently problematic'. Differences is fine, its what constitutes problematic that needs to be debated. |
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Jan 21, 2021 19:05:25 GMT -5
I'm quite sad that Baron apparently left the forum, I hope it's not a definitive thing and he will come back later. Me too, he didn't delete his account so far. Although if he actually leaves, I have to say that this was not the topic that I expected it to happen on, gun control debates would have been my sure bet, that's a really touchy topic for those in the US and here. |
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Post by tannhauser42 on Jan 21, 2021 19:17:43 GMT -5
I'm quite sad that Baron apparently left the forum, I hope it's not a definitive thing and he will come back later. Me too, he didn't delete his account so far. Although if he actually leaves, I have to say that this was not the topic that I expected it to happen on, gun control debates would have been my sure bet, that's a really touchy topic for those in the US and here. It's possible that the Hollywood blacklist, or the McCarthy era in general, had a direct impact on his family, making this a personal issue. |
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Post by A Town Called Malus on Jan 21, 2021 21:13:37 GMT -5
So, because I'm not always objective when it comes to how others interpret my tone, if I came off as hostile I apologize because that was not my intent. My intent was that I wanted actual proof because like I said I couldn't find any. Have you considered the possibility that the proof you seek has since been deleted and is thus no longer accessable? In my experience, very rarely does stuff get so thoroughly wiped from the internet. Googling the Harry Potter claim, and all I'm turning up is that apparently a Norwegian director called Nina Grunfeld floated the conspiracy that JK Rowling is just the pseudonym of a collection of ghost writers, similar to Carolyn Keene of Nancy Drew fame. She made this claim in 2005, which is way before any of Rowling's transphobia came to light. So that one is debunked as being anything of any import. Now, on to The Mandalorian. Googling it reveals quite a few mentions of people attempting to cancel Gina Carano on twitter, but none about people attempting to cancel the show. Rather, many articles are running with a headline along the lines of "People are trying to cancel The Mandalorian's Gina Carano". So my guess is that Baron saw something along that line and either misremembered, or was misled by someone else. Oh, there's also a lot of stuff about fans cancelling Disney+ after the finale, but that is just stopping their subscription as people do after they've finished a series if said series is the only reason they paid for a service. |
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Post by Hordini on Jan 21, 2021 22:28:50 GMT -5
Sorry guys, I'm not trying to make posts and then bow out of the conversation, because there are some interesting topics being discussed here. But I don't always have time to check every day and this thread can increase by several pages per day. It can be a challenge to keep up and I don't want to be too much like "Oh yeah, about that thing we were talking about seven pages ago..."
Anyway, just wanted to say I'm not trying to stir the pot and leave, but I'll still try to participate when I can.
And do try to cut each other some slack, we're all in this together.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2021 22:46:40 GMT -5
Perhaps some clarification is required. Cancel Culture, as a concept, pulls two of my personal Triggers. (They'd have to also harm a small child or a puppy to make it a hat trick) One, the idea that people can't separate the artist and the art. American culture would be left impoverished if we 'cancelled' all the artists and writers who are, to be blunt, utter filth as human beings. Seriously, one of the best sculptors I know stole from his own synagogue, and others are wife beaters, drug addicts, and suicides. One of the basic truths I've come to understand is that the better an artist is, the worse they tend to be as a person, and some of them have really, really weird ideas. If we try and block out all the 'bad' people that make art, we lose. Two, if it's not right for someone to do it to you, it's certainly not right for you to do it to someone else. Artists and writers suffered for years in this country because of blacklists and McCarthyism when they were liberals who's ideas rode too close to Marx. My own grandfather on the native side was found shot in the head in a ditch. And you want to bring this back? Hell, to be fair, what Cancel Culture is is actually worse, because it doesn't require the courage to actually put the gun to someone's head and pull the trigger to destroy them and their family. You can sit there, anonymously, and pass judgement on them for the causes they support, and then, when you read about how they lost their job and killed their spouse, you can pretend that you had nothing to do with it and that they deserved it for having a different political opinion that yours. Somebody mentioned one's 'moral compass' but Cancel Culture has no more moral compass than any other lynch mob. And to be blunt, we've already seen it unleashed on people who've in no way deserved to lose their livelihoods by any stretch of the imagination. A link, since I know someone will demand one. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/ |
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Post by hatoflords on Jan 21, 2021 22:47:36 GMT -5
So... If we don't deal with violent extremism we'll get worse movies?
I'm failing to see the connection between a seditious senator who openly advocated we ignore the results of a presidential election and riled up a mob to assault the capital (which he probably didn't intend but I really don't care about what his opportunism intended) losing a book deal and all books suddenly being worse for it. Especially since I doubt another banal memoir would have much to contribute to the zeitgeist anyway.
Most societies draw lines between acceptable and unacceptable conduct and then ban the unacceptable conduct. The argument we're seeing now is the direct result of a significant losing of patience which certain reckless behavior and the desire that it be penalized. The idea that people now want another round of the Red Scare seems like a really dishonest slippy slope argument.
You're conflating people demanding accountability for extremist rhetoric that directly resulted in an assault on the national capital in a pathetic coup attempt with the paranoid ravings of 1950s America thinking that Communism grows by cultural osmosis. You're equating actual crimes and a demand that there be consequences with past instances of thought crimes that were arbitrary and not based on anything anyone actually did.
Which is conveniently my exact criticism of the 'cancel culture' phrase. It's sole purpose in current political discourse is to create a false equivalence and normalize extremism by drawing tenuous connections to empty philosophical mumbojumbo.
James Gunn got his job back because literally everyone thought firing the guy for off color humor from 20 years ago was stupid, an overreaction, and dumb. Hardly anyone was praising his firing. We had a whole thread about it on DakkaDakka that was almost universally 'lolwut' followed by tedious arguments acting like James Gunn was a peer of Alex Jones, spreading Sandyhook was a false flag conspiracies and actively damaging lives. In fact, people attacked his firing as bullshit and pointed out it was nothing more than a right wing spawned hatchet job to 'own the libs' because conservatives are increasingly driven by ideological extremism masquerading as rationality.
Now here you've got a point. For people who don't follow this, there were indeed people making this claim. I saw the posts on Reddit on my way to peruse the commentaries of the political boards. It was quite the topic for awhile 6-8 months ago? It was pretty dumb.
JK Rowling's controversy is the conflict between classical feminism and more modern LGBTQ ideology made manifest and I think people were very eager to jump on her as saying a lot of things she really didn't say while ignoring the underlying issues facing 3rd wave feminism in the present day. But then people are idiots, she's still rich as fuck with hordes of fans, and the backlash was mostly restricted to online circles, so has she really been canceled? I don't think she has been.
I think you're preaching to the choir and I'm still confused how any of this relates to what has people actually riled up and outraged. We've already got McCarthy (the GOP minority leader to avoid confusion) trying to claim he didn't vote to overturn the election, which he quite literally did not even a month ago. We have the right wing news circus whining about how Biden attacked Republicans and conservatives when he said we need to stamp out white supremacy, because for some baffling reason 'white supremacy isn't real and you just hate white people' is the cross conservatives increasingly seem to want to nail themselves too.
And it very well might be the cross they end up on, but I call bullshit on how that's anyone else's fault. It's just another round of the party of personal responsibility scream "look what you made me do" as if they have no will and no ability to think for themselves and everything is just the libs fault. Bullshit.
At what point does the other side actually own up to anything or produce coherent thought? Because I'm tired of babying the stupid. If people want to stick on that ship to the end of the Earth and whine about how unfair it is that they're being treated like they're on a boat with a bunch of violent racists and fascists, well maybe they should have gotten off the boat with all the violent racists and fascists on it. It's not my problem at this point and I'm not about to sacrifice democracy on the altar of 'but that's not fair!'
To wit;
You really want to nail yourself to the cross that violent racists, domestic terrorists, and all the people who amplify them and give them credence are something the rest of us should tolerate?
I refuse to tolerate the overthrow of democracy and the naked opportunistic stirring of violence for profit. The Red Scare was a bunch rich white political elites abusing public panic and fear to suppress civil rights, political discourse, and social movements perceived as a threat to their power. It's amazing how what conservatives are trying to do right now is basically the exact same thing but everyone else is the bad guy for demanding an end to it. This comparison is bullshit and it shouldn't work on anyone who can make moral judgements beyond the superficial.
You're literally demanding the rest of us be saints and ignore the devils in the corner of the room pissing in the communion water because asking them to cease or leave would be unfair.
There's merit in talking about how far is too far and how much is too much and the question of how a civic society can maintain its security and its liberty but I'm not really interested in giving credence to a farcical argument that runs on (the old favorite) whataboutisms that aren't even relevant to what people are angry about; a political party and its media apparatus nakedly playing with metaphorical nuclear materials. If anything I have more pity for the rioters, who were too stupid to be a real threat and have been left out to dry by the profit seeking shitheels who riled them up which really makes the whole profit part of this discussion line kind of ironic.
It is what it is. It probably doesn't help that, by simple nature of why we're here, most of us probably by default tend toward the argumentative part of argumentative discourse.
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Post by hatoflords on Jan 21, 2021 22:54:49 GMT -5
And to be blunt, we've already seen it unleashed on people who've in no way deserved to lose their livelihoods by any stretch of the imagination. Stupid people might be stupid is (because it's a theme let me run with it) a stupid argument.
Yeah, people are going to lash out at shit that doesn't make sense. They'll do that anyway and I'll call them stupid for it and disagree with them. The fact they're going to do that and we'll have to have those stupid banal arguments, it's not an excuse to be so afraid of drawing a line in the sand that we indulge extremism from the other side. It's almost like the answer is fairly self-evident; extremism bad.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2021 23:08:01 GMT -5
Yeah, people are going to lash out at shit that doesn't make sense. They'll do that anyway and I'll call them stupid for it and disagree with them. The fact they're going to do that and we'll have to have those stupid banal arguments, it's not an excuse to be so afraid of drawing a line in the sand that we indulge extremism from the other side.
Because every innocent victim along the way is gonna give you more extremists, not fewer. |
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Post by semipotentwalrus on Jan 21, 2021 23:08:27 GMT -5
Disclaimer: "cancel culture" as a name is inherently political. Calling it that is taking a political side. It's a buzzword created by the US right-wing to rally around. "Cancel culture" only differs from "boycott" in that it explicitly refers to the US left-wing doing it. It's a label created to attack political opponents. I'll still be using it as a short-hand for what we're discussing, but bear the above in mind.
The way I see it, the debate about cancel culture in the US can be likened to the debate around immigration in Sweden in that both have legitimate underlying issues that require discussion; discussions that cannot be had because the right-wing nut jobs take the concept and run with it in absurdum (ironically exactly what they accuse the US and Swedish left, respectively, of doing with racism). It is very difficult to have reasonable public discourse on the subject when the entire Trump wing is yelling about cancel culture.
I think Baron's worries are fundamentally sound and argued in good faith. I'd argue that framing the issue as "cancel culture" biases the debate from the start and should be done in a careful manner, but the debate is still of value.
The thing is, though, the only way to stop people from being allowed to boycotting things is state intervention. US conservatives have backed themselves into a corner. It's in a sense the Republican equivalent of the paradox of tolerance. Assuming for the sake of the argument that we agree that people should not be fired due to "cancel culture", we either accept that this requires state intervention through protective legislation or we accept that such firings will happen as market forces push companies to react to (what they judge is) public opinion.
In other words, either state intervention (i.e. tacitly admitting US conservative dogma is wrong) or sticking to their guns and destroying themselves through market forces. It's a no-win fight.
Labour unions would help prevent "cancel culture". Labour protection laws would help prevent "cancel culture". Anti-face-eating-leopard-fences won't.
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Post by hatoflords on Jan 21, 2021 23:11:20 GMT -5
In other news, today we had a completely normal press conference. It's almost surreal after the last four years to see a mundane and boring press event, complete with avoiding the questions you'd rather not answer, not calling reporters the enemy of the people, and an unending string of blatant lies.
And I am completely unsurprised that Bernie Sanders in his mittens has taken the internet by storm... That's just so... Internet.
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Post by hatoflords on Jan 21, 2021 23:13:12 GMT -5
Yeah, people are going to lash out at shit that doesn't make sense. They'll do that anyway and I'll call them stupid for it and disagree with them. The fact they're going to do that and we'll have to have those stupid banal arguments, it's not an excuse to be so afraid of drawing a line in the sand that we indulge extremism from the other side.
Because every innocent victim along the way is gonna give you more extremists, not fewer. So we should never prosecute a murderer ever again?
I don't think there's an easier or more clear way to point out how silly this entire train of 'we can't do this bad stuff will happen' thought is. Bad stuff will always happen. The answer to the question of evil isn't "do nothing because doing anything will be evil too."
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