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Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

bbc.com

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Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#111

Post by dnrvs »

> "I think there are very valid parts of this argument about appropriation of voice," he added, saying he believes "we do have the obligation to teach ourselves and to do research and to treat people with respect if we're going to have them feature in our work".

> He said there must be "decency towards people outside of one's own immediate experience".

This is the key point. If you are not doing your research, misrepresenting people or not showing the respect people deserve you should to be called out. From my point of view it looks like the people complaining about self-censorship are just being told to show common decency and they don't like that

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#112

Post by Tarq0n »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #14

I genuinely wonder what cancel culture is going to look like in the next 5-10 years and beyond. Just about everyone I speak to about the subject agrees that cancel culture is bad but very few people seem willing to confront it. I sense that people hope the rest of society will come to its senses and we all stop being so judgemental. But as much as I loathe cancel culture and it's chilling effects on the free exchange…

Wasn't McCarthy-ism basically proto-cancel culture?

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#113

Post by dogman144 »

If you talk to someone who works/worked in publishing or the creative arts scenes (MFA programs, etc.), you'll see that KI is likely specifically addressing that crowd - his industry.

I think a lot of the general populace is aware of the dynamics that he's talking about, but in publishing it's another world/level.

Interesting example that's the norm in the space: the story "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" by Isabel Fall. Bear with me as I likely butcher the pronouns/terms etc, but my intent is earnest and well meaning here...

Isabel is a trans woman author. She/they weren't out when that story was published in a scifi mag. The story makes some pretty obvious references to sexual/gender identity, and the writing has very specific commentary and sometimes mockery.

Isabel, not known to be trans at the time, faced a torrent of online abuse for ~appropriating/joking about/exploring concepts about gender identity. The motivation was pretty clear: Isabel wasn't trans (as far as the public knew).

The story had passed some "sensitivity readings" too (yes, sensitivity readers are another interesting area to explore), but the online reception was still awful. There's also a difference between criticism vs. outright internet abuse. Isabel's experiences were pretty firmly in the latter.

The author took down the story, I believe came out or the news outed her/they, and the details go on (finger pointing, revisions of criticism about the story given light of the author's gender, etc.).

The point of all this is that's an insane dynamic to create in, and that's the tip of the iceberg really with what Publishing is going through. Young Adult fiction is apparently one of the ground zeros for this dynamic.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#114

Post by RobLach »

bitcharmer wrote: post #5

It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.

Hardly so.

There's ample evidence that the current is the greatest opportunity for dissenting thought and opinion to have massive reach without much consequence or effort.

The idea that we're in a dark age of thought is purely rhetorical and only serves to frame a narrative that further amplifies ideas that would never had a chance to propagate before the information era.

Furthermore, we are living in a time of such absurdity that there are politicians giving internationally televised press conferences about how their speech is being suppressed and they have no power.

The only self-restriction is by people that don't have the conviction to stand by their ideas, or actually have not thought through their perspective to adequate level of introspection and evidence that can survive free and open discourse. Instead it's much easier to exclaim victimhood and censorship and not bother examining ideas beyond a gut feeling.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#115

Post by pseudalopex »

dahfizz wrote: post #84
standardUser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

It depends entirely on what you mean by "unpopular opinions". You would face backlash in the 80's if you advocated overthrowing the government. Today, you can lose your job for not having your gender pronouns in your bio. I don't think its fair to equate both of those things as "unpopular opinions".

Who was fired for not having pronouns in their bio?

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#116

Post by shadowgovt »

aparsons wrote: post #57
standardUser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

> some companies won't work with you It's a pretty big deal when that company is your employer. We need better protections around speech in this country. Firing someone for something they said cannot be a one-sided decision. At the minimum, the worker deserves the chance to go to court/arbitration

This is one of the categories of protections unions historically offered.

Probably also worth noting that one does have the right to go to court if one believes one was wrongfully terminated. When Google fired James Damore, he sued. But the National Labor Relations Board ruled the firing was justified because he had made not-legally-protected statements that risked creating a hostile work environment.

https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#117

Post by bachmeier »

Surprising how much press "cancel culture" gets these days as if it's a new thing or as if it's a new thing being pushed on society by the left. We've always had cancel culture. Some might remember the Dixie Chicks. How about the Rachael Ray ad that Dunkin Donuts pulled merely because it looked like an Arab scarf? Jerry Falwell came to prominence entirely based on his pushing of cancel culture. When I lived in North Carolina, one of the things that was repeated all the time was that a newspaper editor would lose his job for publishing a story with a positive spin on free trade. You can go back further to McCarthyism, Turing being prosecuted for being gay, and on and on.

Cancel culture remains a thing. Apparently now that folks aren't just being cancelled for supporting gay marriage, the free exchange of ideas is suddenly important. The outright hypocrisy of so many on this issue is the biggest story.

Edit: Forgot to mention this extreme example of cancel culture:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/professor-who-wore-hijab-...

A professor was cancelled because she wore a hijab. There was no outrage at all from the usual suspects.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#118

Post by africanboy »

standardUser wrote: post #27
bitcharmer wrote: post #5

It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

the post specifically talks about young people self-censoring themselves.

I can't recall another era were young authors were afraid of being marginalized by other young people for being young and having radical (and sometimes plain stupid) ideas.

I remember old, conservative people doing it to youngsters, but not to themselves, despite being the ones with bad - sometimes very bad - thoughts.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#119

Post by Covzire »

throwawaygh wrote: post #65
standardUser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

Exactly. I grew up in the Midwest and outside of the city. When I visit home, I pretend to believe in God, lie-by-omission about my bisexuality, stay silent about politics, pretend to say grace at dinner, and go to Church on Sunday mornings. If I didn't, then in many ways I'd not longer be welcome in that social group. Finding a iving-wage job in the local community would certainly be impossible. There are only a few…

The opposite has been true for many decades now. There are many Christians who are extremely capable scientists, ready to perform experiments, document cause and effect and all manners of empirical scientific study but can't find work (or tenure) because they're not willing to bet all their beliefs on the theory that everything came from literally nothing, which is by itself non-scientific anyway.

Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'

#120

Post by dogman144 »

waserwill wrote: post #88

I understand the source of people's fears here, though I'm not sure whether they are justified. In attempting to clearly articulate ideas, writers too often fall into cliches--the sort of pitfall that might be widely understood at the expense of predictability. Those, coupled with topics related to current events and sensitive topics, can be a dangerous brew. Yet in a world where media are not centrally controlled (c…

They are pretty justified, publishing is going through a heavy, but very internal, reckoning. That's likely what Ishiguro is speaking too, although it's missed given how the concerns are mainstream concerns now.
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