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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'

#151

Post by c06n »

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…

I used to feel to belong to "The Left" (whatever that is) precisely because it did not do these things. Now it does, and sees it even as a moral imperative to do so.

I'm on the autism spectrum, as are many others around here. Social rules are hard in the best of times. Now they are impossible to follow, and breaking them is outright dangerous.

But I can keep to myself, I guess I'll be fine.

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

#152

Post by Covzire »

cbryan wrote: post #136
Covzire wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is complete hogwash. I know and work with plenty of Christian scientists. They do just as well as everyone else in the job market.

Name one prominent scientist who is on record (and has tenure) who holds the position that the origin of the big bang as taught today is un-scientific. Of course there are Christian scientists, but Academia only promotes and gives tenure to atheists for a growing number of fields.

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

#153

Post by lostcolony »

shadowgovt wrote: post #142
RobLach wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or being elected and then turned power broker in a major political party.

It's definitely an interesting time to be alive.

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

#154

Post by refenestrator »

throwawaygh wrote: post #145
refenestrator wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you're going to hold yourself up as the more enlightened group, it creates a bit of an obligation to act that way. In my book at least.

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

#155

Post by dnrvs »

Animats wrote: post #78

We're approaching Orwell's "Newspeak". - Idiot -> retarded -> special needs - Negro -> colored -> Black - Queer -> gay -> LGBTQ - Indian -> Amerind -> native american - Illegal immigrant -> undocumented worker - fat -> plus size - He/she -> they (singular) - bum -> homeless Using the words in the left column can get you and your writing attacked.

I don't think you understand newspeak. The words on the right mean the same as the original meaning of the word on the left. The meanings of words change over time, languages do that.

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

#156

Post by aaomidi »

vimy wrote: post #63
aaomidi wrote: post #30

I am quite interested that people worry cancel culture is preventing intellectual progress more than copyright. Copyright, patents, and other forms of intellectual property have an absolute legal stranglehold on whatever you're trying to do. "Cancel culture", which honestly I've never felt like has limited me, just puts peer pressure on people. Why is the outrage towards IP not as strong as it is towards cancel cultu…

Cancel culture isn’t simply peer pressure. It’s a mob harassing employers and schools to fire or expel wrongthinkers. Cancel culture literally ruins lives.

That's called peer pressure through capital control. It's a feature of Capitalism to ruin people's lives through their jobs because of the opinions they hold. This is happened time and time again in US/World history:

- Civil rights activists being fired from their jobs

- Red scare and people getting fired from their jobs

- etc

If we want this problem to go away we need to stop connecting your ability to live to your ability to hold a job. Everything else is just treating various symptoms of the problem.

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

#157

Post by slg »

lainga wrote: post #144
whimsicalism wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am curious what era of US history do you think was free of this stuff?

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

#158

Post by [deleted] »

stevebmark wrote: post #61

What a clickbait article. There's no mention at all of any specifics of "young authors" censoring their work. Instead it's a vague opinion piece about Ishiguro disliking "cancel culture" in general, because JK Rowling took some heat. It just looks like the same story of "I think cancel culture is the cause of all problems" without any specifics.

[deleted]

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

#159

Post by fallingknife »

DC1350 wrote: post #21

I can see why. Some people think it’s wrong not to include diverse characters, and others think it’s wrong to speak for other races (ex. colour matching voice actors to their characters). If you’re a white person who wants to write a book then I think you just need to accept that a handful of crazy people are going to get angry no matter what you do.

It's especially ironic because the anger over this stuff is mostly performative outrage by white people claiming to be acting on behalf of minorities.

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

#160

Post by aaomidi »

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #104
aaomidi wrote: post #30

I am quite interested that people worry cancel culture is preventing intellectual progress more than copyright. Copyright, patents, and other forms of intellectual property have an absolute legal stranglehold on whatever you're trying to do. "Cancel culture", which honestly I've never felt like has limited me, just puts peer pressure on people. Why is the outrage towards IP not as strong as it is towards cancel cultu…

One is a legal framework with rules that govern how it is applied, even if you don't like that framework you can understand it. Cancel culture on the other hand does not have a specific set of rules. It is constantly changing and unevenly enforced by random people. When things are wildly unpredictable there is fear.

Being a legal framework makes it a lot scarier and a lot more dangerous.

Cancel culture doesn't have the ability to throw you into a cage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lundgren

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