Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear' • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by eternalban » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

slothtrop wrote: post #185

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…

Tell that to David Shor, among others - https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-cu...

2017; https://citizentruth.org/nyu-professor-interview-propaganda-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Crispin_Miller

2020: "As of September 2020, Miller is under a behavioral review by New York University ...".

An 'educational moment' for NYU students and faculty ..

>> 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.

.. and possibly your GP.

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

#232

Post by throwawaygh » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

c06n wrote: post #151

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…

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.

I also find this trend on the left morally unfortunate, historically out-of-character, and strategically flawed.

My point here is not to defend cancel culture, but rather to point out that something like it has always existed and still exists on the right. IMO the only solution is everyone realizing this fact and explicitly agreeing to some form of detente.

I'm not holding my breath, but step zero is both sides realizing that the their side also does the thing they're complaining about.

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

#233

Post by fallingknife » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #206

fallingknife wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is complaining about going after actual racists. The problem is that things which aren't racist are now defined as racist and vice versa. e.g. saying that universities shouldn't admit students by race and only use grades and test scores is now "racist"

I don't think that's racist, although, personally, I do think that people holding those takes often have a myopic view of the world. You're saying that you think that your job would be in danger if you said publicly that you thought that universities should be race-blind?

Me personally no, but I'm not so sure that I would risk saying it. On the other hand, I know I would be in no danger whatsoever stating that I favored racial admissions policies. I am sure that I would be in danger if I criticized my employer's hiring policies on that point. You set a high bar, though. The idea of getting called racist for advocating directly against racism should be no more than a bad joke.

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

#234

Post by farias0 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

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?

And who is the judge of what is and isn't true? You seem to imply social network consensus is a safe ruler for what kind of speech should be allowed but to me it sounds absurd.

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

#235

Post by robotresearcher » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

wrycoder wrote: post #219

robotresearcher wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News. They regularly have people on expressing minority views that directly contest facts accepted by the majority of the US and the world.

There is a movement, extending even to Congress, to take Fox News off the air, or to have ISPs block it.

There are lots of batshit ideas that get that far. Let's pay attention to help make sure they don't get into law.

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

#236

Post by manux » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

imwillofficial wrote: post #31

manux wrote: post #4

Self-censoring is part of the frontal cortex's normal function. I only hear this word 'self-censorship' brought up as a boogeyman. If people have an axe to grind against some part of mainstream culture, why not just say it out loud instead of priming their readers with FUD? (fear, uncertainty, doubt).

I am going to charitably interpret your comment as ignorance of the topic as opposed to malicious muddying of the already confusing waters. Self censorship is indeed driven by the judgement portion of the brain, however, what is being mourned here is the constantly shifting and uncertain ground on which our current society puts its taboos. What was once a socially acceptable position to have in polite society, is no…

> it's mutating at a breakneck pace

I agree that it's changing faster than a century ago, but I don't think "breakneck pace" is a fair qualifier. Lots of people comfortably adapt to new norms and change how they behave without significant effort.

> the two minutes hate outrage machine.

This phenomenon existed long before the internet. Heck, I'd bet long before writing was invented. Gossip in large social groups doesn't seem like something particularly new.

I still think this has nothing to do with "self-censoring out of fear" being a Bad new thing. You _should_ self-censor if you think you're being offensive. If the author of the article really wanted to harp on the fact that predicting what is offensive is hard, then perhaps that should be the focus of the article. I don't think pushing the "fear" narrative is useful nor healthy.

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

#237

Post by tstrimple » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

toomim wrote: post #227

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.

Blacklisting and excommunication are exactly what is happening today, but the difference is that it's much worse in a global world. In 200 BC, if you were excommunicated from a tribe, it would be horrible, but you could walk 20 miles and join another tribe that hasn't heard or bought into the ostracization. In 2021 AD, if you are excommunicated from an industry on the internet, there's nowhere else you can physically…

> In 2021 AD, if you are excommunicated from an industry on the internet, there's nowhere else you can physically go. The entire intellectual globe is connected online. Excommunication is now worse than it used to be -- it's global.

When has this ever happened? There's lots of claims that people have been cancelled and can never work in their field again, but actual examples never seem to materialize.

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

#238

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #176

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…

>So all that being said, I genuinely wonder if cancel culture is here to stay, because the next ideology to come along will also realize how powerful of a tool it is. Here to stay for sure. There's an active group of people behind it. They are the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left and they still exist today. The problem is that in 1989 when socialism died. They started their rebranding effort. They became Politi…

> The problem is that in 1989 when socialism died.

Socialism didn't die in 1989. What is that even supposed to mean?

> They started their rebranding effort. They became Politically Correct

“Politically Correct” was never part of a rebranding effort on the left, it was originally a pejorative used between different groups in the left, and adopted heavily as a pejorative by the right against the left in about the early 1980s, serving the same purpose as “cancel culture” does today (like, literally, anything the right says about “cancel culture” today can pretty much have that term swapped out for “political correctness” and be a quote from the right in the 1980s-1990s.)

> "democratic socialists",

“Democratic Socialist” isn't part of a post-1989 rebranding. The DSA itself was founded in 1982, and the “democratic socialist” label is older (one of the DSAs predecessor organizations was the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.)

> culutural marxists,

“Cultural Marxism” isn't a post-1989 left-wing rebranding, it's a right-wing conspiracy theory. No one on the left identifies or brands themselves or any movement they are part of as “cultural marxism”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_...

> globalists

Again, not a left-wing rebranding; pretty much no one identifies/brands with globalism, and globalism is a term used both on the left- and far-right to refer to and critique an aspect of neoliberal capitalism (a center-right ideology).

> internationalists

Again, not a post-1989 left rebranding. Leftist “internationalism” historically has referred to association with one of the Communist Internationals (though it pretty much fell out of useful use with the overlapping, competing, Stalinist Third and Trotskyite Fourth Internationals before WWII, and the subsequent schism within the Fourth International. More recently, the left has been more prone to use “internationalism” as part of a term of critique with regard to liberal (centrist to center-right) internationalism, though even that negative use has largely been replaced with criticism of neoliberal “globalism”.

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

#239

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #204

ghaff wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Supposed by whom? Tucker Carlson?

[deleted]

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

#240

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

Covzire wrote: post #152

cbryan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it kind of arrogant to think that one knows the mechanisms of God so surely as to settle the question on the origins of the universe?

The bible, esp. genesis, is taken metaphorically, or else a lot of problematic interpretations will arise.

Also, even scholars of the Abrahamic faiths do not readily disclose their intimate religious faith, lest their work be discredited — such as a professor who studies Christianity, but holds Islamic faith.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQhMllQ-ODw&feature=emb_logo