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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'

#471

Post by undefined1 »

bachmeier wrote: post #117

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…

many of us were against it when the puritanical right was censoring people/art/media, and we're still against it now that it's a puritanical left censoring people/art/media.

why is that so hard to understand and to be consistent about this? people need to stop getting distracted by naked partisanship and focus on the issue. a principled stance is key!

now we're seeing big tech getting roped in and the tools of censorship are expanding. you may be fine with that now, but the tools will change hands. imagine them in the hands of your enemy.

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

#473

Post by jimbokun »

hannasanarion wrote: post #433
jimbokun wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

It’s generally a very small, unrepresentative number of people on Twitter responsible for canceling someone.

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

#474

Post by dragonwriter »

Solvitieg wrote: post #435
bachmeier wrote: post #117

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/

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

The right (religious and otherwise) hasn't reduced it's policing of ideological orthodoxy at all.

Now, if you threw “exclusively” into that sentence, there might be something like a point.

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

#475

Post by abecedarius »

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…

I think you're right about the pendulum swinging, but on the other hand the Victorian era lasted a lifetime. Moral fashions are hard to predict.

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

#476

Post by jimbokun »

dandersh wrote: post #417
cwkoss wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the voices of a small number of relatively anonymous people Has someone been cancelled as a purely grassroots effort before? It seems like the seeds of a cancelling may begin this way, but quasi-journalists, pundits and other online personalities are the engine that does the crucial amplification to reach broader public discourse. I think their is an interesting sort of 'laundering' of attribution where social medi…

The Dixie Chicks. Country stations stopped playing their songs because listeners would call in to complain, threaten boycotts, etc. While I'm struggling to remember exact successes, I know the Parents Television Council would use petitions to cancel programming that they deemed inappropriate.

I think the Parents Television Council was largely unsuccessful.

They hated the Simpsons, which is now the longest running show in US history, I believe.

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

#477

Post by slibhb »

bachmeier wrote: post #117

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…

If X and Y are wrong, and someone condemns only X, only Y, or X and Y, you should just agree with them.

If someone condemns X and doesn't mention Y, or the reverse, it is unreasonable to react how you've reacted here.

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

#478

Post by jimbokun »

cozuya wrote: post #409
jimbokun wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept is not new, see McCarthyism. What's new is social media's ability to amplify the voices of a small number of relatively anonymous people to "cancel" someone. McCarthyism required a Senator to have a serious impact. Now people are cancelled, without there being a clear link back to who, exactly, did the cancelling.

What are some examples of people being cancelled by a small amount of anonymous people? I can't think of any. Lets looks at Gina Carano for example. She was "cancelled" (fired from her job) as the direct result of her social media posting things a large number of people found offensive and inappropriate, not a small amount. 10 anonymous people didn't cause it, hundreds of thousands of people thought it was wrong.

Where did you get hundreds of thousands?

Even if that’s accurate, doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of the broader public.

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

#479

Post by rayiner »

mxcrossb wrote: post #469
Solvitieg wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

I also find this topic far more interesting than the fairly cliche discussion over “cancel culture”. It seems like conservatives have caught up to post modernism, whereas liberals are now passionate about objective truth and morality being black and white. I really wonder how tenable these positions are going forward.

No conservatives are still conservatives. They don’t need to embrace post-modernism to oppose what they perceive as a heretical religion.

Insofar as right-wing people now invoke the liberal notions of free expression it’s only because that was a middle ground that allowed coexistence and liberals are now sitting aside while progressives try to blow up that compromise. (And also because a bunch of center right people think it’s a good thing—it’s not like the right is uniformly absolutist evangelical types).

Put differently, Christian evangelical are angry that liberals broke all these taboos in the name of free expression, and now progressives are trying to treat Christian evangelical beliefs as the basis for cancellation. There is nothing hypocritical or contradictory about this.

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

#480

Post by Daishiman »

slibhb wrote: post #477
bachmeier wrote: post #117

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…

If X and Y are wrong, and someone condemns only X, only Y, or X and Y, you should just agree with them. If someone condemns X and doesn't mention Y, or the reverse, it is unreasonable to react how you've reacted here.

Not really. The intention of OP is to demonstrate that the people often mentioning cancel culture are not doing it out of advocacy for free speech norms but rather because it suits their particular style of bigotry at this very moment.
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