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

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431–440 of 694 posts

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

#431

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…

those people have zero cultural or institutional power.

They do in those communities.

And Donald Trump and Fox News have a heck of a lot of cultural and institutional power.

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I wonder what the OP means by "globalists" and "internationalists". Are there any other words that he or she could use in place of those? Hmm.

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

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that blacklists are a new phenomenon? "cancel culture" has always existed. The only thing that is changing is that who is "cancelled" is no longer chosen by TV producers and news editors (ie, white men), but democratically by self-directed popular discourse. In 2003 the Dixie Chicks said at a show in london, "We don't want this war, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas". I…

So...sounds like you are railing against Cancel Culture and thinks it's bad?

No, because the number of people who participate in an action influence its justness.

When 1 person decides to make a new law, that's autocracy, and it's a bad thing. When a supermajority of voters decide to make a new law, that's democracy, and it's a good thing.

When a couple dozen editors, CEOs, and DJs decided to end the Dixie Chicks' careers by banning them from access to all channels of outreach to the public, that was a bad thing and also censorship.

When tens of millions of people decided they don't want to go to Louis CK's shows anymore and he's finding it hard to find an audience as a result, there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of people independently deciding that they don't like you is not censorship.

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

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's been cancelled? She has a million Twitter followers https://twitter.com/MonicaLewinsky and 150k on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MonicaLewinsky/ I've found articles about her speaking on college campuses with her anti-bullying campaign. I've not found anything about her being cut off from platforms yet. Can you post a link?

In her videos, etc, she talks about how she couldn't get a job because she's Monica Lewinsky, the lady that the president had an affair with in the 90s. It's been nearly 30 years.

Connection with the Clinton Impeachment doesn't seem like a cancel culture thing. That's just normal infamy, and while it sucks it's not relevant.

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

#435

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…

I think what's interesting is the moral policing is no longer coming from the religious right.

I recommend "The Realignment" podcast which often discusses why this shift has occurred: https://the-realignment.simplecast.com/

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand I worry about this power being abused, but it's hard for me to side with the people being cancelled because they're so repugnant. It is hard to stand up for the rights of the bigots, the white supremacists, the science deniers, the propagandists, and the misogynists. People who spent decades denying other people access and are now finding the shoe on the other foot. Can we find some good examples of peopl…

We can. My go-to example is Emmanuel Cafferty ( https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin... ) - a Twitter power-user took a video of him using the OK sign, then declared him to be a white supremacist and summoned up a Twitter mob to get him fired for it.

That's a good example of atrociously poor HR by PG&E. Especially since they're apparently not willing to reconsider. It should be noted that he's has not been banned from speaking anywhere.

I was curious about this so I tried to follow up on the story to see what happened after the fact, but the reporting is pretty much entirely about the firing. I'm curious if he's been blacklisted from his industry or not? If so, that would be a perfect case of cancel culture going too far.

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

#437

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…

The Dixie Chicks are a great example. They vanished from the mainstream basically overnight. People still hate them to this day and probably don't even really remember what they said.

And the attempt to cancel France. Going so far to rename french fries "freedom fries".

All because France thought going to war with Iraq in 2003 was a bad idea.

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

#438
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that is an excessive description anymore. Jerry Seinfeld, a mainstream comedian, stopped playing at college campuses years ago already because he was getting picked apart and no longer welcome. at precisely the place that is supposed to be the most transgressive and open to ideas! a place to expand minds, remember? now it fully embraces orthodoxy and censorship. or take the case of Bret Weinstein. a libe…

> Jerry Seinfeld, a mainstream comedian, stopped playing at college campuses years ago already because he was getting picked apart and no longer welcome. at precisely the place that is supposed to be the most transgressive and open to ideas! a place to expand minds, remember? now it fully embraces orthodoxy and censorship. Was Jerry Seinfeld banned from any campuses? Or did he elect to stop performing at campuses? Fr…

comedians know how to take heat better than almost anyone. they stand on stage, alone. Seinfeld has done this literally thousands of times. think he's afraid of critical response? not remotely.

and it's not just Seinfeld, many comedians have said the same thing. as Dave Chappelle recently pointed out, the audience is the problem:

https://youtu.be/2MZZ__5F_-A?t=54

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

#439
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Distributed networks and the like.

The first draft of an actual underground which can't just be shutdown by attacking a server is https://getaether.net/ having build up on the lessons of freenet and bittorrent.

It isn't the be all and end all, but it's a huge step forward.

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