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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'

#491

Post by DenisM »

dahfizz wrote: post #46
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…

> 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. I found this[1] article very interesting. Basically, only 2% of American adults generate over 80% of all tweets. "Cancel Culture" really is run by a few extremists who have a loud…

The French revolution was effected by a relatively small mob of Parisians, not at all representative of the rural France that was the majority. Still, minority or not, the heads rolled.

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

#492

Post by dashundchen »

jpxw wrote: post #56
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.

Try 20 years ago.

Try reading about the ridiculous fallout conservatives triggered in 2004, following a one second exposure of a female nipple on TV.

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

#493

Post by christophilus »

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’ve always been relatively libertarian, and the libertarians I know have consistently opposed cancel culture before it was a meme. There are plenty of folks who are consistent on this one, and I hope that we’re finally at a turning point (though I doubt it).

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

#494

Post by krapp »

dragonwriter wrote: post #441
t-writescode wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone being cancelled who shouldn't have been: Monica Lewinsky.

> Someone being cancelled who shouldn't have been: Monica Lewinsky When was Monica Lewinsky “cancelled”? The closest to that would be the negative treatment she got from Clinton’s reflexive defenders in the late 90s during the scandal, but that's substantially before the supposed sudden, recent emergence of “cancel culture”, and her current profile rather undercuts the catastrophic descriptions of “cancellation”.

People currently describe cancel culture as an all-powerful, all-encompassing, all-devouring tyranny that can topple governments and ruin lives at will. An evil on par with that of Nazi Germany (at least according to white Conservatives who will unironically declare themselves victims of a modern Holocaust by cancel culture) which threatens the very foundation of human civilization and liberty itself.

Almost every realistic description of cancel culture and its actual effects will undermine the narrative, because the need to spread fear and hatred of the left by overstating it and its scope has caused the dialogue around it to spiral out beyond hyperbole into batshit insanity.

But yes, Monica Lewinsky would definitely be considered "cancelled" by today's standards. Any form of public backlash is considered cancel culture, now.

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

#495

Post by klyrs »

undefined1 wrote: post #438
klyrs wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Only, he quit the circuit explicitly because he didn't like the critical response, so your hypothetical invincible ur-comedian doesn't match with reality. So Dave Chappelle is also blaming the audience because they don't think his jokes are funny. So what? No, entertainer, make funny jokes or get off the damned stage. The moment where you start trying to correct the audience and explain that your jokes are actually funny, you objectively aren't funny any more. Why not find a new audience, and make jokes about cancel culture? Sounds like there's a market for it.

Side note: was Seinfeld ever funny or were we just laughing at him the whole time?

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

#496

Post by 3np »

renewiltord wrote: post #50
runawaybottle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture scared the ever living shit out of everyone, even everyday people. Whether you like it or not, it got every male in the workplace to not even breathe in the direction of women you work with. The movement permeated through normal life fast . It was extremely efficient in bringing forth the necessary changes. I have no problem with using the chainsaw as needed, but we need to careful about when we use it…

I don't think the "fear of women" thing is real. At least it isn't real in SF where I've worked for the last eight years.

Honestly, I have it, realized over the years I’ve had it since a teenager and I don’t like it.

Subconsciously I keep females at a bit more distance than men. I’m less likely to have personal conversations with them. I watch myself at social situations mostly interacting with other males and less with females. At a bar I’m more likely to end up chatting to guys than girls. I think there’s some subconscious fear of rejection mixed with an assumption that they’re not interested in talking to me, etc.

And please don’t assume “oh he falls in the asshole crowd” as I see sibling comments already are.

This is Northern Europe though.

I’m pretty convinced it exists around you as well, it’s not necessarily visible even to those subject to it.

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

#497

Post by mc32 »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #485
mc32 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be so, but you don’t want to end up being an unwitting victim. One of the first instances early on on Twitter was that young marketing woman going to South Africa making a sarcastic anti-racism tweet before boarding only to learn after landing a brouhaha was brewing leading to her firing because the mob wanted to see it as racist.

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” I'm having a hard time seeing this as 'anti-racism', even if the 'punchline' hinges on the uncomfortable truth that black africans are disproportionately the victims of HIV, it is very much punching down. Is it in very bad taste? absolutely yes. Is it something that needed to be #1 trending on twitter? no. Is it something that should noticeably alter…

We are in agreement. As I mention elsewhere. It’s in poor taste. It relied on if not racist at least negative stereotypes to expose the bad stereotype and the assumed privilege that a type of person gets AIDS. Her company panicked.

If she been accused of murder they would have offered more sympathy. They’d have probably helped with a lawyer, etc. but here? Oh no, the mob singled you out. You’re on your own, bye now!

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

#498

Post by int_19h »

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…

Moral panics can and do get a lot worse. For example:

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

In retrospect, this all seems rather insane. But back then, how many people actually risked being painted as apologists of Satanic pedophiles pointing the obvious out?

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

#499

Post by int_19h »

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…

It's all well and good to point out the hypocrisy on this coming from the right; but that doesn't invalidate the issue. And you're right - it's pretty old, both on the right and the left. Here's a bona fide socialist ranting about leftist groupthink ... in 1943:

"But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness."

(https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...)

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

#500

Post by dragonwriter »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #485
mc32 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be so, but you don’t want to end up being an unwitting victim. One of the first instances early on on Twitter was that young marketing woman going to South Africa making a sarcastic anti-racism tweet before boarding only to learn after landing a brouhaha was brewing leading to her firing because the mob wanted to see it as racist.

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” I'm having a hard time seeing this as 'anti-racism', even if the 'punchline' hinges on the uncomfortable truth that black africans are disproportionately the victims of HIV, it is very much punching down. Is it in very bad taste? absolutely yes. Is it something that needed to be #1 trending on twitter? no. Is it something that should noticeably alter…

> The scariest part is that there is no redemption. A picture or recording of you doing something reprehensible when you were 17 will be used against you years later

“Redemption” is not the same thing as “freedom from accountability due to having escaped accountability for a sufficiently long time”.

There is certainly an argument that for at least some forms of accounts one ought to have the latter as well as the former (hence statutes of limitations), but they are distinct and radically different concepts.

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