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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'

#141

Post by refenestrator »

whimsicalism wrote: post #135
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is this had been around for a while, and what people are calling "cancel culture" is the same old-same old, but with (hopefully) less prison/death. There's nothing new about receiving negative feedback for having and expressing unpopular opinions. That's really common in pretty much every single social group I've been in, including on HN.

People are upset now that the current is shifting and you get shunned for being racist, rather than being shunned for not speaking properly or whatever the heck. The underlying mechanism has not really changed.

It's specifically about speaking properly.

Nobody gives a shit when Uber classifies their drivers as independent contractors to stiff them on benefits, but everybody cares about the propriety of master/slave replication terminology. We're dealing with police violence by capitalizing Black in our style guides. Etc etc etc.

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

#142

Post by shadowgovt »

RobLach wrote: post #114
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…

And perhaps, in this era of such free and open access to information, individuals are being held to a higher standard of not speaking from a position of authority without the knowledge that can be gleaned from that free and open access and not doubling-down on their ignorance when it is brought to light for them?

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

#143

Post by kennywinker »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #54
_-david-_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Plenty of national newspapers are willing to give people front-page editorials to say things that are not mainstream. Do you have some examples?

I have a counter example, just look at the debacle when the New York Times published an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton and the editorial page editor had to resign because of the outrage about its content: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/07/nyt-opinion-bennet-...

He called for using military force against civil rights activists. Is this the kind of great intellectual leap forward the grandparent post was talking about? Because if you want to talk about cancelling things, using the military to crush and jail activism is cancelling things pretty hard.

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

#144

Post by lainga »

whimsicalism wrote: post #128
c06n wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And fired from your job. And yelled at on the street. And prevented from working in your field ever again. And death threats. So, blacklisting: check. Excommunication: check. I'd rather not wait till it goes down further.

Half a century ago, in Japan, someone wrote a fictional story critical of the Emperor, and someone broke into the publishers house and murdered their housekeeper and severely injured their wife. [0] In response to the murder, the writer was pretty much universally condemned and the a bill was introduced in the legislature to ban writings of that sort. The fact that so many have convinced themselves that somehow we're…

Well, peoples' expectations have changed in America since we declared independence from Japan.

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

#145

Post by throwawaygh »

refenestrator wrote: post #133
throwawaygh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those things happen to homosexuals and non-Christians in huge geographic swathes of the country, and with MUCH greater frequency. When CPAC starts eg hosting FFRF or ADL speakers I'll take the cancel culture bugbear seriously.

And that's really bad! Don't emulate it! "We're gonna hurt some people ourselves to get even" is the devil speaking.

> Don't emulate it!

Where in this thread do I justify or emulate? Please quote something from any of my posts that would give you the impression that I approve of "cancel culture".

However, if people are genuinely concerned about chilling speech, then why are they spending so much effort to call out SJW in a tiny handful of big cities instead of raising hell about the overt and often legal discrimination that happens in tens of thousands of rural communities?

It's hard for me to take the concern about cancel culture seriously when the concern is exclusively focused on one side of the political/cultural divide even though the phenomenon happens far more on the other side of that divide. I have zero confidence that such concerns are genuine.

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

#146

Post by ghaff »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #99
c06n wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And fired from your job. And yelled at on the street. And prevented from working in your field ever again. And death threats. So, blacklisting: check. Excommunication: check. I'd rather not wait till it goes down further.

I think the point is this had been around for a while, and what people are calling "cancel culture" is the same old-same old, but with (hopefully) less prison/death. There's nothing new about receiving negative feedback for having and expressing unpopular opinions. That's really common in pretty much every single social group I've been in, including on HN.

There's also a difference between saying something stupid and having some people telling you to knock it off. And posting it or having it posted to Twitter with a possible consequence like a bunch of people emailing your employer demanding you be fired. Which they probably will because it's easier that way if you really did say something you shouldn't have.

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

#147

Post by read_if_gay_ »

throwawaygh wrote: post #91
c06n wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And fired from your job. And yelled at on the street. And prevented from working in your field ever again. And death threats. So, blacklisting: check. Excommunication: check. I'd rather not wait till it goes down further.

All of those things happen to homosexuals and non-Christians in huge geographic swathes of the country, and with MUCH greater frequency. When CPAC starts eg hosting FFRF or ADL speakers I'll take the cancel culture bugbear seriously.

That is cancel culture too. No one upthread made this about political sides. Why are you?

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

#148

Post by throwaway894345 »

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.

> 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.

Granted, but what's the logic here? We ought to content ourselves with regression so long as no one is being imprisoned or killed? We want to progress, not regress. We don't want a conformist society, we want a tolerant society[^1]. We want free speech[^2], not compelled/coerced speech. We want ideas to compete freely so the best rise to the top; we don't want a prescribed set of beliefs to be forced on everyone.

[^1]: (yes, I know all about the Paradox of Tolerance and how some use it to give themselves moral license to persecute anyone they deep intolerant).

[^2]: No, I'm not talking about the strict 1st Amendment legal definition, but the broader principle.

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

#149

Post by heterodoxxed »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #123
heterodoxxed wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which authors have experienced this?

Isabel Fall seems to be an interesting example: https://reason.com/2020/01/17/canceled-transgender-story/

I'm not clear why this applies, she wasn't dropped by her publisher or blacklisted. She chose to cancel the story herself.

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

#150

Post by [deleted] »

Covzire wrote: post #119
throwawaygh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]
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