Cancellations

[padraig (u.s.)]

assuming The Mob can be controlled is dangerous

it's hugely dangerous. look no further than the last 80 years or Republican Rome. or the French Revolution. or classical Athens.

to hold a left politics you have to believe in people's fundamental capacity for empathy (mutual aid) and common sense (self-determination), given a chance

which, despite being as deeply and thoroughly cynical as they come, I do - I believe in the capacity of individuals

mob justice is different - it's riding a tiger. it may well accomplish your aims but once unleashed you don't know where or how far it will go, who it will target. it can be manipulated, usually with ease, by someone (or some force) that knows how.

public shaming, cancellation, etc arose b/c the official mechanisms for dealing with these things were either non-existent or deeply inadequate

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

has it accomplished good things? absolutely. that doesn't mean we should celebrate the way it's accomplished them.

we should instead be thinking about ways real social equity can be increased so mob justice eventually becomes obsolete

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

as far as Faulkner - one of my favorite modern (i.e. post-Modernism) writers. Absalom Absalom is an easier entry point than The Sound and the Fury.

and I agree 100% with this, but I'd go further than a bit ridiculous - I'd say it's actively harmful, and exactly the point where trying to increase social equity tips into counterproductive thought policing

I think it's a bit ridiculous going back and erasing artefacts of the past unless they're extremely racist to the point it corrodes any other value.

Chinua Achebe explicitly didn't tell people to stop reading (i.e., cancel) The Heart of Darkness, or Conrad. he didn't even say stop calling it great literature - what he said was, if you're going to teach it, teach the racism too. include the Other in discourse as a full human being.

history should never be censored, no matter ugly it was

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

personal consumption of art is different, that's an individual decision - I don't watch Woody Allen films, for example

but cancellation should only be a last resort when something is virulently racist etc

statues are different - they are literally just symbols, they have no ambiguity or deeper meaning. and they usually have to do with the politics of the time when they were erected, rather than the men they're supposedly honoring.

 

[version]

Yeah, I'm pretty firmly in the contextualise and educate camp. I'm not a fan of banning books etc. I think it's better to confront and wrestle with things.

Agreed re: statues. The history arguments are bogus, particularly as they often come from people who've no interest in history until it becomes a convenient rebuttal to taking the things down.

 

[catalog]

Surely modern cancellation of people is also about the diversion of attention as much as anything else? like, I joke about it, but it's literally about signalling to the consumer audience that they spend their attention elsewhere, most likely on the person calling for the cancellation?

It's cos of the crowded marketplace we find ourselves in, with so many opinions. This is why it has become an issue in thd net era, cos there's too much to take in.

My view anyway, has probably been said upthread, cos it seems so obvious

 

[chava]

I am grateful not to live in the Anglo-Saxon world and witness this mess. I try just to be an onlooker in the anglo-saxon media instead.

Geez

 

[chava]

Has Houellebecq been cancelled yet?

 

[catalog]

All cancellations are temporary and contingent, and say more about those calling for the cancellation than they do about the proposed cancellee

 

[sufi]

I am grateful not to live in the Anglo-Saxon world and witness this mess. I try just to be an onlooker in the anglo-saxon media instead.

Geez

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[padraig (u.s.)]

All cancellations are temporary and contingent, and say more about those calling for the cancellation than they do about the proposed cancellee

not true at all. this is like saying everyone publicly opposing racism is just disingenuously virtue signalling.

undoubtedly there is some self-promotion and virtue signalling in the mix. people are imperfect. depending perfection is an unreasonable standard.

but cancellation came into being because no legitimate channels to accomplish its goals existed. that's mostly still true.

i.e. cops don't need to cancel black people on Twitter. they can just kill or imprison them with - until recently - virtually no impunity.

cancel culture is dangerous for all the reasons I outlined above but it comes from real feelings and real forms of oppression

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I am grateful not to live in the Anglo-Saxon world and witness this mess

lmao aren't you a Jordon Peterson etc boi? albeit converted from post-structuralism etc, iirc

 

[chava]

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Hmm. Is this hashtag adressing the supposed autism - trans correlation? I don't know if there's something there, but it seems to be a hypothesis with some traction.

 

[chava]

lmao aren't you a Jordon Peterson etc boi? albeit converted from post-structuralism etc, iirc

Black Lives Matter has now completely imploded in Denmark because of this carbon copying of American culture. It is laughable and makes everything about real problem of racism and exclusioin much, much worse.

Here's an interesting theory about racism JP among others proposes : https://www.psypost.org/2019/09/stu...iseases-and-racism-in-the-united-states-54413

 

[catalog]

not true at all. this is like saying everyone publicly opposing racism is just disingenuously virtue signalling.

undoubtedly there is some self-promotion and virtue signalling in the mix. people are imperfect. depending perfection is an unreasonable standard.

but cancellation came into being because no legitimate channels to accomplish its goals existed. that's mostly still true.

i.e. cops don't need to cancel black people on Twitter. they can just kill or imprison them with - until recently - virtually no impunity.

cancel culture is dangerous for all the reasons I outlined above but it comes from real feelings and real forms of oppression

I'm talking about people publicly shaming writers, artists etc, denouncing them. Im not taking about cops cancelling black people. I'm not really sure what you mean by that tbh.

Undoubtedly, somewhere in the mix, there is some genuine feeling being expressed, what you call real feelings and real forms of oppression. But as a phenomenon it has definitely been harnessed, I think, by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The fact that we are discussing it at all in this context proves that point, that there is now some suspicion accorded to it.

It feels to me like it's a part of life for almost anyone with some kind of exposure, the risk that they'll get cancelled at some point. But it'd OK, cos its temporary, contingent on the current situation. You can bounce back from cancellation, and those vociferously calling for cancellation can also get cancelles themselves.

 

[chava]

Cancel all your subscriptions services, I'd say. Netflix, HBO, Spotify all of them. This illustrates exactly what's wrong with the model like everyone predicted.

Buy vinyl/VHS.

 

[entertainment]

The Black Lives Matter Denmark thing is a good example of why unchallenged quixotic leadership is self-destructive for the cause. Because few left-wing people dared criticize the leadership, now the conservatives look like the reasonable ones for pointing out the nonsense. They can effectively take deligitimizing shots at the entire movement, because everyone went along with the show.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I'm not really sure what you mean by that tbh

those with power - in a given context - don't need to cancel, they can simply exercise power. cancellation is a tool of those without power.

consider #metoo, which came about because women felt largely powerless to hold men accountable for sexual misconduct etc

I'm not unaware of the problems you raise. I stated them above, before you did.

there will be denouncements made for bad or self-serving reasons. there is a danger of digital mobs being mislead by demagoguery or sinister forces.

but you have a completely unreasonable standard - that for any cancellation to be valid, all cancellation must always be completely above suspicion.

nothing in human experience is like that. life is always messy and imperfect.

the idea that all cancellation is "temporary and contingent" implies ipso facto that none of it is driven by valid feelings in response to a valid problem

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I don't know how much clearer I can be than this

has it accomplished good things? absolutely. that doesn't mean we should celebrate the way it's accomplished them.

we should instead be thinking about ways real social equity can be increased so mob justice eventually becomes obsolete

 

[Corpsey]

I'm not anti-cancellation, per se, but when it comes to cultural figures/artefacts, cancellation often seems to lack nuance – which makes sense, because it comes from a very emotional place (and often understandably, I should add).

Some people/things deserve to be 'cancelled', I presume. There's no nuance there, or not enough to warrant survival/veneration.