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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'

#161

Post by lostcolony »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #148
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.

> 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, w…

I think the prior post was making the case we -have- progressed?

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

#162

Post by throwawaygh »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #147
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.

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

> No one upthread made this about political sides

AFAICT every example in the article. I always assume that the contents of the article are upthread because I always assume people read the article before commenting :)

Aside from the article, my impression is that "cancel culture" has a more specific meaning than you seem to prescribe. One on hand, we never called it "cancel culture" when a teacher is fired for being gay. And on the other, CPAC's theme this year is "America Uncanceled". My understanding is that, at this point, the term does have political content.

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

#163

Post by whimsicalism »

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 erroneously thought the critic in the article was Japanese, although the "sir" should have been an obvious giveaway.

In the states, just off the top of my head: the McCarthy era, the reaction to the 1968 Olympic raised fist incident

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

#164

Post by read_if_gay_ »

throwawaygh wrote: post #162
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> No one upthread made this about political sides AFAICT every example in the article. I always assume that the contents of the article are upthread because I always assume people read the article before commenting :) Aside from the article, my impression is that "cancel culture" has a more specific meaning than you seem to prescribe. One on hand, we never called it "cancel culture" when a teacher is fired for being…

Naive.

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

#165

Post by bopbeepboop »

throw10123213 wrote: post #77
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…

Communism was also like this. People has the public persona, the party tasks, things they had to do and say. Then they went home and listened to Radio Free Europe and talked with select people what they really had on their mind or used coded language to transmit messages. What I hope this achieves is a parallel society and when it's big enough there will be some public battles.

[dead]

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

#166

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

heterodoxxed wrote: post #149
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is exactly what the article discusses and this is also the reason why it is relevant and why it applies.

The topic becomes too controversial for a vocal minority and an author "voluntarily" self-censored. I chuckled when you said she did it herself. She did, likely after she was told what would happen otherwise.

I chuckled, because I assume you think she is free the way Sartre suggested she is free?

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

#167

Post by c06n »

standardUser wrote: post #45
keiferski wrote: post #9

I find it almost funny how the media/culture/etc. seems determined to build a group of people that will react negatively to so-called "cancel culture." They seem to think that people will gladly follow the ever-growing list of arbitrary rules indefinitely. If I were a betting man, I'd predict a resurgence in punk attitudes in about 2025 or 2030. At some point, the dam will break and people will stop caring. I already…

There is no lack of dissenting opinions to be found outside of the mainstream (the same place where punk once existed exclusively). Cancel culture is primarily a problem with mainstream/pop culture. The "underground" today is more vast and diverse than it has ever been.

What's underground today? Genuinely curious.

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

#168

Post by _-david-_ »

kennywinker wrote: post #143
BitwiseFool wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He called on the use of force against people doing violence, not the peaceful protestors.

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

#169

Post by ghaff »

pseudalopex wrote: post #115
dahfizz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It was supposedly one of the reasons Disney fired Gina Carano. However, she had apparently been annoying the powers that be with her generally Trumpian social media postings for a while.

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

#170

Post by kradeelav »

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.

Just this past weekend a disabled animator was blacklisted from the industry because an ex-friend objected to their NSFW drawings on a twitter handle (completely separate from their professional handle). The number of death threats were also an immense psychological toll, and a bit more than just "being yelled at" (I am open to the fact there is a fuzzy continuum between the two).

Regardless - "some companies won't work with you" is effectively a blacklist for those who don't have traditional backgrounds. Another point is that the online social circles acts as a support network for some disenfranchised folks (queers like myself), and when that gets turned against them, it gets ugly.

I don't think I'm exaggerating that we're in a satanic panic against certain kind of art and works.

(Not providing public links out of real concern for safety, but happy to if individuals DM me here.)

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