Intellectuals weigh in on Cancel Culture

ILoveYourVibes

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

There is no such thing as cancel culture. Its a fantasy.

Sure a website can ban you and if you were stupid enough to put all your eggs in one basket and bite the hand that feeds you then it can affect you.

But saying the n word hasn't harmed trump much has it?

People get cancelled all the time ...then the next month they have a movie coming out.

How many times has Mel Gibson been cancelled?

C'mon, ILYV, this is demonstrably untrue. People are regularly un-endorsed/sacked for things they post online, often when they were teenagers.

I'm glad I grew up in the era of Bebo and MSN.

Using Mel Gibson as a reason is flimsy.

Look at Johnny Depp - quite possibly totally innocent and has been blackballed on an accusation.

Wanderer78

rdwight wrote: »

"I am liberal but to a degree
I want everybody to be free
but if you think I'd let Barry Goldwater
move in next door and marry my daughter
you must think I'm crazy"

Not a big fan of the perpetually adolescent Mr Zimmerman, but he did write some good lyrics.

absolute freedom is not possible in this universe

Wanderer78

Wanderer78 wrote: »

absolute freedom is not possible in this universe

Especially not with human nature.

Silentcorner

I enjoyed this conversation on this very topic...

It's interesting also to observe what is happening in the UK Labour Party, which has just received it's worst defeat in generations....the newly elected leader Keir Starmer has been asked to sign up to unconscious bias training...in other words, reeducation...because of his initial response to the BLM movement...he has accepted, and therefore, in my opinion completely destroyed his ability to lead that party.

That political party is in tatters, there is more likely to be a split than an eventual recovery.

ancapailldorcha

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

Actually he refers to how when he read about cases of torture at belsen and buchenwald it was a turning point in how he understood evil. You are outrageously gaslighting, because he is not trying to survey evil but here you are implying he is a crypto fascist. Anyway communism is a lot more topical today than national socialism, given the interest in democratic socialism in the west and the genocidal horrors going on China.

I haven't accused him of anything. I think you need to take his advice and be more precise with your words. This sort of hysterical overreaction to legitimate criticism isn't healthy.

He goes on and on about gulags but references to the Holocaust, Hitler and the Nazis are very sparse by comparison.

Bonniedog

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

He goes on and on about gulags but references to the Holocaust, Hitler and the Nazis are very sparse by comparison.

Do you not think that the atrocities of socialism and Nazism - some of them carried out when they were allies 1939 - 41 - are equivalent?

Socialists have actually murdered more people than the Nazis, but put that aside.

Morally do you not accept that they were equivalent evils?

randomchild

People who blankly state that their is no cancel culture are always the one first in on the pile on the second someone steps out of line. Its why they are so indignant over JK Rowling, anyone who repeatedly stands up to the bullying needs to be made an example of, lest others follow suit.

Chris_Heilong

I think the people that say it does not exist are the ones who either agree with it or have taken part in.

ancapailldorcha

Bonniedog wrote: »

Do you not think that the atrocities of socialism and Nazism - some of them carried out when they were allies 1939 - 41 - are equivalent?

Socialists have actually murdered more people than the Nazis, but put that aside.

Morally do you not accept that they were equivalent evils?

Socialism and communism are not the same thing. This is well beyond the point I was making so I won't be going any further down this hole.

Tired Gardener

Cancel culture is eating itself.

Alyssa Milano who has been very vocal over the years with cancel culture, has now fallen foul to it... twice.

Tries to deflect from her 'blackface' comedy in the past by saying that the right/Putin are weaponizing cancel culture and they her comedy was a parady so is ok.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1277712909947203586

Calls out NFL as being racist with the use of Native American names and such. People point out how she modelled clothes for Washington Redskins.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1278427600864624640

At this point I think it is clear that we can just ignore it as it will start to eat itself. This puritan streak is ingrained into the American culture, this is nothing new, only now it travels faster due to social media.

Barrack Obama had the best response to it.

https://youtu.be/qaHLd8de6nM

Risingshadoo

Silentcorner wrote: »

"Intellectuals" are speaking up...150 of them are anyway, including Salman Rushdie, JK Rowling....they warn us of the dangers illiberalism that is creeping into our society and culture, the intolerance.

Anyway, it is nice for all these liberals to tell us what many have been pointing out for years, but the fact that they point to the danger of Donald Trump and his threat to democracy as an example (they don't explain exactly how he is a threat to democracy) is in of itself an illiberal statement to make....but it's odd in that Trump's speech on July forth was in complete agreement with them...they probably watched the CNN/Bloomberg/MSNBC/NYT etc version.

When will the penny finally drop with these intellectual liberals that it is they that have created, participated in, profited from, and either encouraged or did nothing to stop this culture gaining a foothold in academia, media and the arts over the last decade at least.

They mention "the right" a couple of times, they neglect to identify or even mention the people pulling down statues, rioting, protesting demanding allegiance to what is a hard left political movement (BLM) at this very moment in time.

Feminism (this wave)/SJW culture is rooted in hard left ideology which US academia is drenched in, what did they think was going to happen?

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

Donald Trump, US academia. How's this relevant to life in Ireland?

Silentcorner

Risingshadoo wrote: »

Donald Trump, US academia. How's this relevant to life in Ireland?

Because we have long since abandoned our insular economy and culture...

Dyr

Funny to see this lot suddenly start signing letters once they realise their Frankensteins monster might turn on them

jam_mac_jam

Risingshadoo wrote: »

Donald Trump, US academia. How's this relevant to life in Ireland?

Because it happens in the UK too and is not long before we see it here.

Bonniedog

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Socialism and communism are not the same thing.

So all those states that called themselves socialist were not actually socialist?

Socialism means the public ownership of the means of production. They ticked all the boxes.


I asked you if you thought socialism/communism were equivalent in moral terms with Nazism given their totalitarianism and past atrocities.

It is not well beyond what you were referring to at all.

randomchild

Tired Gardener wrote: »

Cancel culture is eating itself.

Alyssa Milano who has been very vocal over the years with cancel culture, has now fallen foul to it... twice.

Tries to deflect from her 'blackface' comedy in the past by saying that the right/Putin are weaponizing cancel culture and they her comedy was a parady so is ok.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1277712909947203586

Calls out NFL as being racist with the use of Native American names and such. People point out how she modelled clothes for Washington Redskins.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1278427600864624640

At this point I think it is clear that we can just ignore it as it will start to eat itself. This puritan streak is ingrained into the American culture, this is nothing new, only now it travels faster due to social media.

Barrack Obama had the best response to it.

https://youtu.be/qaHLd8de6nM

Its a purity spiral, there's great bbc podcast describing the effect in an online knitting instagram group of all things.

conorhal

Risingshadoo wrote: »

Donald Trump, US academia. How's this relevant to life in Ireland?

Because the left here are obsessed with it and determined to import it.


Reading TheJournal.ie over your morning cup of coffee you could easily be forgiven for thinking you were reading an American news site, so obsessed are they with every trivial (and I mean trivial) utterance of the Orange Man.


You also have to wonder why the hell Ireland is the fourth country in the world to have an official 'black history month'?


We inevitably seem to import every bad idea both UK and US have ever had, and most irritating of all, we do so years after them and with the benefit of full hindsight and knowledge of what bad decisions they made.

CrankyHaus

Bambi wrote: »

Funny to see this lot suddenly start signing letters once they realise their Frankensteins monster might turn on them

To be fair to Stepehn King he published a story decades ago where a college professor uses the word "spooks" to describe spies and loses his job when he is misrepresented as a racist using the word to describe black people.

I'd give Atwood the benefit of the doubt too.
Poor Noam Chomsky's probably a bit past it this stage but I'd respect him even if I don't agree with him.

Salman Rushdie would jump into anything if it got his name out there. Also this is pure gas:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2068681/Salman-Rushdies-Facebook-notes-Devorah-Rose-leak-days-denied-romantically-involved.html

"The Satanic Verses author messaged Devorah Rose: 'You look so gorgeous and hottt! see you v soon' over the social networking site."

The letter seems well written and balanced.

Larbre34

randomchild wrote: »

People who blankly state that their is no cancel culture are always the one first in on the pile on the second someone steps out of line. Its why they are so indignant over JK Rowling, anyone who repeatedly stands up to the bullying needs to be made an example of, lest others follow suit.

There's a bit more to it with Rowling. Her audience of 25 years have been the young, the bookish, the outsiders to some extent and she has championed that persona in the heroes of her books. The most vocal against her now see her views as a betrayal of that which she helped to glorify, difference and diversity. She gave them hope and something to feel part of and now she's tearing it down.

An extreme interpretation maybe, but thats how it comes across on twitter. I agree with her by the way and I agree largely with this open letter.

is_that_so

Larbre34 wrote: »

There's a bit more to it with Rowling. Her audience of 25 years have been the young, the bookish, the outsiders to some extent and she has championed that persona in the heroes of her books. The most vocal against her now see her views as a betrayal of that which she helped to glorify, difference and diversity. She gave them hope and something to feel part of and now she's tearing it down.

An extreme interpretation maybe, but thats how it comes across on twitter. I agree with her by the way and I agree largely with this open letter.

It's more a case of being unable to separate the author from the person or reality from fiction. Many an excellent writer has been "determined" to be a less than stellar human being.

Tired Gardener

CrankyHaus wrote: »

.
Poor Noam Chomsky's probably a bit past it this stage but I'd respect him even if I don't agree with him.

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech."
Noam Chomsky.

Not really fair to say he is past it, he is affirming his well reasoned opinion that free speech should also extend to views you don't like.

jam_mac_jam

Larbre34 wrote: »

There's a bit more to it with Rowling. Her audience of 25 years have been the young, the bookish, the outsiders to some extent and she has championed that persona in the heroes of her books. The most vocal against her now see her views as a betrayal of that which she helped to glorify, difference and diversity. She gave them hope and something to feel part of and now she's tearing it down.

An extreme interpretation maybe, but thats how it comes across on twitter. I agree with her by the way and I agree largely with this open letter.

Well most of them are adults now so they need to grow up. You are not going to agree with every writer of every book you read.

You would think she was talking about sending people to camps the reaction she got.

CrankyHaus

Tired Gardener wrote: »

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech."
Noam Chomsky.

Not really fair to say he is past it, he is affirming his well reasoned opinion that free speech should also extend to views you don't like.

I base my observation on what I've seen of him in recent years. In fact as long ago as his appearance on RTE in 2012/13 it looked like age was affecting him. He was on the (cringy AF) MIT Gangnam Style remix around the same time FFS.

I love that quote and I agree entirely with it.

I disagree with his Anarchist positions.

jam_mac_jam

CrankyHaus wrote: »

I base my observation on what I've seen of him in recent years. In fact as long ago as his appearance on RTE in 2012/13 it looked like age was affecting him. He was on the (cringy AF) MIT Gangnam Style remix around the same time FFS.

I love that quote and I agree entirely with it.

I disagree with his Anarchist positions.

That's a great quote. He is completely right.

CtevenSrowder

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

There is no such thing as cancel culture. Its a fantasy.

Sure a website can ban you and if you were stupid enough to put all your eggs in one basket and bite the hand that feeds you then it can affect you.

But saying the n word hasn't harmed trump much has it?

People get cancelled all the time ...then the next month they have a movie coming out.

How many times has Mel Gibson been cancelled?

Tell that to Colin Kaepernick who de-facto lost his football career for, oh my god!, kneeling during the anthem. A big test for the American right to practice what they were preaching re cancel culture, and they failed miserably.

Junkyard Tom

Blaming Marx for the gulags is like blaming Adam Smith for Slavery, or Jesus Christ for the Spanish Inquisition. This is my biggest issue with Peterson and his weirdly defensive fanboys, they're trying to discredit ideas, that is literal thought control. Peterson intellectually emasculates his fans with his political stuff. He tells them to do better in their lives in one breath but then says 'don't challenge the system' in he next.

As for cancel culture, do people realise that one of Marx's principle criticisms of capitalism was that it creates an enormous imbalance of power between employee and employer? So a company can fire someone for saying something stupid on Twitter or Facebook but somehow that's the fault of 'the left'?

seenitall

CrankyHaus wrote: »

To be fair to Stepehn King he published a story decades ago where a college professor uses the word "spooks" to describe spies and loses his job when he is misrepresented as a racist using the word to describe black people.

Philip Roth. With all due respect to Stephen King, that kind of work is way beyond his literary output (trying to be diplomatic and non-snobby here, probably not succeeding).

Junkyard Tom

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Blaming Marx for the gulags is like blaming Adam Smith for Slavery, or Jesus Christ for the Spanish Inquisition. This is my biggest issue with Peterson and his weirdly defensive fanboys, they're trying to discredit ideas, that is literal thought control. Peterson intellectually emasculates his fans with his political stuff. He tells them to do better in their lives in one breath but then says 'don't challenge the system' in he next.

As for cancel culture, do people realise that one of Marx's principle criticisms of capitalism was that it creates an enormous imbalance of power between employee and employer? So a company can fire someone for saying something stupid on Twitter or Facebook but somehow that's the fault of 'the left'?

TBF though, modern left/right politics has extremely little to do with how Marx or others of his time considered politics to be about. People take his ideas and adapt them for their own circumstances. Even when we look at the modern far right, many of them would have been the first targets of fascism, or similar ideological thoughts. It was simply a different time, with different morals and perspectives as to what reality was... modern people have been altered by technology, convenience, etc. something that Marx never even knew to be possible.

rossie1977

Hannibal36 wrote: »

Not a Trump lover in the least, but when people start saying he is a threat to democracy you know they aren't being honest with you,and are up to something underhand on some level.

As if Hillary or Biden is going to be a whole lot different Obama killed more people than Trump did and their economy has been booming up until Covid hit,i just don't get how anybody buys these silly accusations against Trump.

He isn't Mother Teresa but he isn't Hitler either,hes just a greedy capitalist businessman with a massive ego,born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Obama did not. In fact Trump invoked a EO so he longer had to outline civilians killed https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-executive-order-stop-reporting-civilian-drone-strike-deaths-2019-3?r=US&IR=T

Trump is worst president in US history. While he isn't Hitler his time as President has make it easier for someone far smarter than Trump himself to actually take down the institutions of power from within like Putin, Orban, Erdoğan have done in their countries.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

He has over 13,000 citations in academic papers. He has a H index of 54. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wL1F22UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

You cant fake that. You can't to that without being in a top percentile of academics.

Steven Pinker is brilliant, but fundamentally he isnt as multidisciplinary, like Peterson. Not lesser or anything but different.

Citations mean what exactly. I have a friend who has lots of citations in academic papers but I wouldn't call her an intellectual.

Is Peterson the beef only guy?

Chris_Heilong

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Twitter or Facebook but somehow that's the fault of 'the left'?

It is usually someone on the far left calling for them to be cancelled, very intolerant bunch, It is incorrect to call them the left, that is why I call them far left so normal lefties get a pass.