Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Back in the olden days, when the means of publication were expensive (papyrus, parchment, printing press, radio tower, broadcast studio), published takes were edited and curated. Now technology makes it possible for everyone who has an opinion to share it on Twitter or Facebook or some other social media. Complaining about this makes you sound like an old man yelling at kids not to play on the park grass. Good luck with that.

I don’t wish to complain. My only desire would be to see the voices who engage in cancel behavior ignored.

To get everyone who ought to ignore them to do so, you have to start by explaining to voices who seem sympathetic to them why they should not be. When smart people defend the morons on some basis like “oh, they’ve suffered under power dynamics, so we must excuse their behavior and accept their nonsense,” this gives them cover.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don’t care about Rowling. She’s just a high profile example.

The point is if it can be attempted to be done to her, it can certainly savage the smaller voices of dissent: http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html

And make no mistake, to argue anything against the political correctness of the day is to be a dissenter.

Yes, pay no attention to the house fire -- a meteorite could land on anyone's house, at any time.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don’t wish to complain. My only desire would be to see the voices who engage in cancel behavior ignored.

I think you're the only one paying attention to them, but it's hard to tell because you refuse to identify whomever you're talking about.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Am I the only one who thought the Harry Potter stories were an epic load of shit? The thing I liked best about taking my family to see those movies is I had a good three hours to sack out in the theater. And the books were even better. Two pages and ZZZZZZZ.

As literature, they were formulaic and mediocre. But yu know, I've enjoyed a lot of formulaic mediocre writing in my day.

As a movie script capable of catching the imagination of the average child, they were not as good as the average anime. But, with a white cast and a very simple and objectionable good versus evil theme, that are very very marketable.

The literary equivalent of a pop song that is a total ear worm.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Okay. The thread goes over a bunch of things Rowling said. It flags where Rowling was or may be wrong. I imagine another thread somewhere would argue with this thread.

Is this a basis to make Rowling a pariah? Is this a basis to boycott her?

Or is the more adult thing to do what this author has done - coolly take issue with numerous of her points? (Assuming he's not playing loose with studies and cherry picking points to attack and ignoring others where Rowling may have a point - a tactic many of these Twitter takedowns seem to employ.)

The crux of this "free speech" debate is right here:

1. Is it acceptable to meet views, facts, data, with countering views, facts, or data? Yes. In fact, it's desired. It's how debate and exchange of ideas enriches our understanding. It's a basic part of education.

2. Is it acceptable to meet views, facts, or data with demands that the speaker be made a pariah? In the case of someone like David Duke, yes. In very rare cases where a speaker has gone way beyond the pale and is clearly acting in bad faith for odious ends, you may demand he be deplatformed. But it's still smarter to simply ignore the person. In the case of someone like Rowling, who has merely stated an impolitic, partially flawed position, no. In that instance, the correct reply is to counter it and explain where and why it is incorrect.

This is not to say that people who wish to flip out and scream at Rowling do not have the right to do so. They do. That is free speech. They can advocate boycotts, and claim such infantile behavior is okay because they've been marginalized and this somehow confers them a unique right to behave like an ass (it doesn't, btw), but they're still asses, and they should be ignored.

In some circles, especially Trans communities that suffer actual real harm from viewpoints like hers, absolutely. In others, no so much.

Again, this is a hill she's chosen to die on. Everyone can decide for themselves on how they're going to react. But she has a massive, massive platform that sucks the air from the room, and now she's thrown that "I'll sue your ass for libel if you cross me" grenade out there to further quell objection or even a discussion about it.

Her book sales are UP right now, because parents are reading the books to their kids as they try to fill the time during lock downs. Aside from isolated threats, which everyone can agree are beyond the pale, she's not suffering at all from the backlash, aside from her ego, which admittedly is pretty damned big.

If someone wants to take the position that they're not going to further support JK Rowling because of this* and tell their friends, family, the studios, publishers, etc why, I don't have a problem with that.



*She's been on thin ice for awhile. Retroactively making a character gay and another who could go either way as black or white, plus a bit character no one has ever heard of as Jewish. Embarrassingly bad cultural appropriation in her stuff that's based in North America with little or no research. See also racism in North America. She was way out of her league and got called to the carpet for her. The Johnny Depp problem, which probably isn't a problem for you but is for a lot of other people and had an effect on the box office, which makes it a problem for Warner Brothers. Plus, her post-Potter books and movies and plays haven't been as good as the Potter stuff.

[Replaced_Texan]

I am mildly surprised that more of these incidents haven't happened in open-carry states. AFAIK, the dead dude did not shoot at the killer, but he was visibly armed.

I'm very curious if the Trump secret police are going to come to open carry/stand your ground states.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

In some circles, especially Trans communities that suffer actual real harm from viewpoints like hers, absolutely. In others, no so much.

Again, this is a hill she's chosen to die on. Everyone can decide for themselves on how they're going to react. But she has a massive, massive platform that sucks the air from the room, and now she's thrown that "I'll sue your ass for libel if you cross me" grenade out there to further quell objection or even a discussion about it.

Her book sales are UP right now, because parents are reading the books to their kids as they try to fill the time during lock downs. Aside from isolated threats, which everyone can agree are beyond the pale, she's not suffering at all from the backlash, aside from her ego, which admittedly is pretty damned big.

If someone wants to take the position that they're not going to further support JK Rowling because of this* and tell their friends, family, the studios, publishers, etc why, I don't have a problem with that.



*She's been on thin ice for awhile. Retroactively making a character gay and another who could go either way as black or white, plus a bit character no one has ever heard of as Jewish. Embarrassingly bad cultural appropriation in her stuff that's based in North America with little or no research. See also racism in North America. She was way out of her league and got called to the carpet for her. The Johnny Depp problem, which probably isn't a problem for you but is for a lot of other people and had an effect on the box office, which makes it a problem for Warner Brothers. Plus, her post-Potter books and movies and plays haven't been as good as the Potter stuff.

what is the Johnny Depp problem?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

what is the Johnny Depp problem?

The Johnny Depp / Amber Heard court case is wrapping up right literally today.

The gist is his ex-wife, Amber Heard, accused him, through some pretty graphic photographs of her injuries, of being an abusive spouse. Roughly around that time, he had been revealed to be the main antagonist in the latest series of films. His role in the first one was just a cameo.

In December of 2017--right at the height of Me Too--Rowling said there was no way in hell he'd be recast in the second film, citing the couple's joint statement of wanting to move past it all. Heard said that Rowling was selectively reading the statement. They'd already been filming for awhile, so while possible, it probably would have been pretty damned expensive to recast. Still, it wasn't exactly a moment where Rowling was reading the room.

Since then Depp has been pushing back on the abuse allegations, though not very well, by suing his ex for defamation for an op-ed she wrote and the Sun in the UK for libel (see above link for how that's going).

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Yes, pay no attention to the house fire -- a meteorite could land on anyone's house, at any time.

Why not pay attention to both?

You accuse me of flagging the left wing cancel people and ignoring the right. It appears you're doing exactly the same thing in reverse. You assert despite Graham's essay (and he's a fuckload smarter and levelheaded than you or I will ever be) and numerous similar ones that cancel culture doesn't exist.

It's flagrant bullshit. It exists on the left and right. I agree with you that Rowling is engaged in it. I agree with RT that Depp is engaged in it. Fuck them both for engaging in it.

I also noted that the right wing historically engaged in it thru Focus on the Family, Brent Bozell, and all the evangelical-led boycotts of media outlets and personalities. And Trump is the very worst of cancelers - the perpetual victim on one hand, with an army of low rent Roy Cohns ready to sue anyone who exposes him.

Do you think that all of the people who have written all of the essays on cancel culture are simply making it up? From Haidt to Graham to Sullivan to Taibbi? Qulliette has practically created an entire platform devoted to it. It's all just made up of whole cloth? When even MSNBC describes it as a thing, acknowledging widespread recognition of its existence, its pervasiveness, it's still somehow just a myth?

I offer you a list of professors who've been threatened with firing or fired as a result of cancel culture lunacy and you ignore it and hang your entire argument on Rappoport, the exception to the rule. Then when cornered you pull out this argument:

You can't tell me who the cancel advocates are, so there is no cancel culture.

That's pathetic. They're legion. They're all over social media, and within regular media. They're all over academia. Almost any time anyone says anything that can be perceived to offend some progressive-approved gender or race study theory, the cancelers come out in droves, like someone has poked a hive.

Your final argument is, Well, we have to take each case individually, and in some of them, the offense (or other job performance issues, as in Rappoport's case) may merit cancellation. Nonsense. You don't need to assess moral panics, or movements - and cancel culture is both - by needling through each of thousands of cases of something. The polka-dotted elephant is right in front of you, everybody sees it, and you sound foolish to deny it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I think you're the only one paying attention to them, but it's hard to tell because you refuse to identify whomever you're talking about.

Oh really? I just googled "cancel culture" and got 6,240,000 results. If I limit that google search to News, I get 5,730,000.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

A side point to all this discussion of free speech that I think is fascinating is how discussions of progressive scholarship are used to telecast class.

If one can talk about things like intersectionality and critical race theory and seem open to the concepts, he telecasts that he went to the sort of school where these things are taught. He also telecasts he works in a job where he makes enough money to be able to mentally engage these concepts.

It's a way to signal one is well read and a bit affluent. I've scored points by having read White Fragility last year. Little would anyone know I did it in reply to a thread here.

There's definitely a herd mentality at work here, and an abuse of language. You hear these new words adopted and used in pieces, or in conversations, and it reminds me a good bit of the corporate lingo people use to look smart, to create barriers to entry that make it seem like they're engaged in some complex thinking that's actually quite pedestrian.

I wonder how many people nodding along with DiAngelo and telling others to read that book are doing so because they're thinking to themselves, This is what people who are well thought of, who are considered enlightened and successful, think. Trump people would never treat these concepts seriously or run in circles where they're considered. Definitely a lot of peer pressure at work.

I think anthropology departments need to develop a curriculum in Herd Mentalities and Social Climbing. Then someone could write a book, Upper Middle Class White Insecurity.

ETA: Another corollary point regarding this free speech debate is that cancel culture might only exist to protect bogus theories. That it may have stemmed from a need to protect that which crumbles in the face of skepticism. Trump lies all the time, so he needs to employ cancel tactics constantly. I think a lot of the "academics" behind some of the far out gender studies realize their work is more narrative than hard science, and don't want it subjected to the buzzsaw of the scientific method.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I am mildly surprised that more of these incidents haven't happened in open-carry states. AFAIK, the dead dude did not shoot at the killer, but he was visibly armed.

I'm very curious if the Trump secret police are going to come to open carry/stand your ground states.

No, because (1) They don't need to supress the votes in those states and (2) that wouldn't end well.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Oh really? I just googled "cancel culture" and got 6,240,000 results. If I limit that google search to News, I get 5,730,000.

Remember when you denied that anyone ever called Hillary Clinton “shrill”? And then Adder did a Google search using the search terms “Hillary” and “shrill” and found about eleventy million articles discussing how and why people called Hillary Clinton shrill (including articles discussing the nickname “Shrillary”)? And then you responded that Adder’s search did not disprove you because you can search any two words on the internet and get millions of hits? I remember that.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Remember when you denied that anyone ever called Hillary Clinton “shrill”? And then Adder did a Google search using the search terms “Hillary” and “shrill” and found about eleventy million articles discussing how and why people called Hillary Clinton shrill (including articles discussing the nickname “Shrillary”)? And then you responded that Adder’s search did not disprove you because you can search any two words on the internet and get millions of hits? I remember that.

"Cancel culture," not "cancel" and "culture."

"Shrill Hillary" returns 2,130 hits. "Hillary is shrill" 2,970. "Hillary" and "shrill" 560,000 hits.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

"Cancel culture," not "cancel" and "culture."

"Shrill Hillary" returns 2,130 hits. "Hillary is shrill" 2,970. "Hillary" and "shrill" 560,000 hits.

You are, intentionally or unintentionally, dodging my point.