Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 694 posts

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

#511

Post by notsureaboutpg »

vmladenov wrote: post #448
echelon wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Twitter, I never saw headlines like "X actor under fire for previously dating Y actor". Clicking on such trends, you find the Twitterverse raging and debating totally invented controversies. People are becoming offended by everything now. They're being suggested reasons to be offended, and many seem to adopt that stance. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is being stoked by robots. Perhaps corporate or s…

The media landscape is more diverse now. In the past, television stations would regularly censor material in order to avoid getting “cancelled” by the Christian right.[1] Cancel culture is just a new word for an age-old illiberal phenomenon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_co...

Idk most of that is reasonable though. Censoring sexually explicit things (for example) is common around the world and all of human society generally agrees that sexually explicit things have a time and place and that time and place isn't publicly available media that children can access.

But getting fired because 20 years ago you didn't approve of gay marriage is silly and that's the cancel culture right now.

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

#512

Post by dragonwriter »

mc32 wrote: post #508
dragonwriter wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In firing her the company is complicit in casting her as racist No, in firing her the company is complicit in furthering the idea that the duty of a PR representative to their employer is to have and exercise good judgement when it regards public relations for the firm.

That’s an ex-post excuse. They got blowback from her attempt at exposing people’s preconceptions. They didn’t like it. They caved in to the mob. PR isn’t perfect. They make mistakes judging public reaction to comms for their clients. Unless it’s super bad, they don’t lose their jobs in public. There was no opportunity fir her to explain her side. Nope. Hot potato. Companies burry all kinds of misdeeds for their staff…

> They got blowback from her attempt at exposing people’s preconceptions. They didn’t like it.

Yes, “actions that produced blowback that the company doesn't like” are the definition of a PR failure. When PR is your whole job, that's a big deal.

> Companies burry all kinds of misdeeds for their staff

You can't bury it when it is public and tied to both the employee and the company from the outset.

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

#513

Post by [deleted] »

ausbah wrote: post #377
hertzrat wrote: post #353

> The 66-year-old said he was worried that less established authors were self-censoring by avoiding writing from certain viewpoints or including characters outside their immediate experiences. Speaking as an occasional author, this is a true statement...

honestly, if you aren't able to write an accurate perspective on something - I would rather see someone not try and write on something they don't know then make a half-assed attempt from info off the top of their head. at best they just write something inaccurate, at worse the perpetuate harmful preconceptions not saying don't write about things only you have experience with, just do some research before

[deleted]

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

#514

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #510
rayiner wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you’re saying is that the New York Times is now the progressive version of Liberty University then I accept that concession. Regarding your edit: > Edit: Forgot to mention this extreme example of cancel culture: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/professor-who-wore-hijab- ... The professor was fired from a Christian school for making an assertion (that Muslims and Christians “worship the same god”) that, acco…

> So if your point is that cancel culture is the expression of a new progressive theology, Wheaton’s college is an extremely narrow evangelical Protestant theology, that as well as dismissing Hawkins for her statements and firing a professor a few years before for becoming Catholic as it violated the schools duty to employ faculty embodying it's Protestant ideals, also led it to sue against the ACA’s preventive servi…

I’m not saying Wheaton’s cancellation is progressive. I’m pointing out that OP is essentially admitting that left-wing cancel culture is a progressive analogue to Wheaton’s “extremely narrow evangelical Protestant theology.”

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

#515

Post by standardUser »

c06n wrote: post #367
standardUser wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the realm of music, I think the mainstream has stayed roughly the same size but the rest of music has exploded in size and variety via Spotify/Bandcamp/Soundcloud/YouTube. Instead of zines there's a million or so blogs and forums and newsletters. Podcasts are an entirely new realm and only a tiny sliver of it cracks the mainstream. The number of outlets for "TV shows" has exploded, so there's plenty that comes and…

Good point, but I am not sure how much weight it carries. Safety in numbers? You are fine as long as you don't offend anybody? Have we accepted censorship just like that? What is next, coded language to escape the thugs?

But hasn't it always been like that? Radical social/political views and any fringe stuff around sex and drugs has never had mainstream support or backing from big companies, basically by definition. And a lot of times it is straight up illegal. It has only ever survived by staying under the radar. And when it pops above the radar we get purity movements like the War on Drugs and the Parents Music Resource Center.

I think a lot of conservatives are mad about "cancel culture" because now they're being targeted by purity movements instead of the punks and freaks and hippies and queers. I say tough shit. Overall, the realm of acceptable discourse has expanded considerably and is arguably larger today than ever before. If they think their particular viewpoints are being unfairly suppressed, then do what everyone else did and go underground and do the work of bringing your views to the mainstream.

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

#516

Post by slothtrop »

tstrimple wrote: post #226
slothtrop wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

From your article: > Shor is still consulting in Democratic politics, but he is no longer working for a firm that restricts his freedom to publicly opine. This is why claims of "cancel culture" aren't taken seriously. If he was "cancelled", but is still gainfully employed in the field of his choice and expertise what does "cancelled" really mean?

Not being fucking fired, for one. Seems like a pretty bad faith sentiment. Not everyone fares as well finding work after cancel-culture has its way.

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

#517

Post by president »

echelon wrote: post #413
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…

Before Twitter, I never saw headlines like "X actor under fire for previously dating Y actor". Clicking on such trends, you find the Twitterverse raging and debating totally invented controversies. People are becoming offended by everything now. They're being suggested reasons to be offended, and many seem to adopt that stance. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is being stoked by robots. Perhaps corporate or s…

> I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this is being stoked by robots. Perhaps corporate or state actors.

I have always believed that a platform should verify identities and have a zero-tolerance for bots if we (as a society) are to trust any information coming from that platform. This is not to say that platforms that don't do these things should not exist but that we should not take them as seriously as we do today. Unfortunately, this completely goes against the business model of many of these social media companies.

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

#518

Post by standardUser »

mc32 wrote: post #415
standardUser wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the realm of music, I think the mainstream has stayed roughly the same size but the rest of music has exploded in size and variety via Spotify/Bandcamp/Soundcloud/YouTube. Instead of zines there's a million or so blogs and forums and newsletters. Podcasts are an entirely new realm and only a tiny sliver of it cracks the mainstream. The number of outlets for "TV shows" has exploded, so there's plenty that comes and…

If they rely on YT, IG, etc for monetization or promotion, they risk having monetization revoked or being entirely deplatformed.

That has always been the case, and it used to be far worse when the entire media landscape was controlled by a couple dozen conglomerates. Being underground/subversive means you don't make a lot of money. If you want to make money do what everyone else does... sell out.

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

#519

Post by mxcrossb »

rayiner wrote: post #479
mxcrossb wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The fact that you go to the word “hypocritical” makes me think we’re already in agreement on the basic point. I’m not trying to make a value judgement here.

Go look at these arguments about confederate statues. Liberals condemn the moral faults of the person. Conservatives excuse it as values of the time; moreover they appeal to the virtue the society has chosen for the statue to represent. There’s nothing more post modern than that.

From your post, it seems your view is that conservatives adopted these tools because they are the tools of an oppressed minority, which conservatives now perceive themselves to be. I think that very well might be the right explanation. But I also wonder if this shift is more of a demographics thing. Post modernism can’t be the young, hip mindset for the rest of human history. I wonder if young people today are carving out some new view of the world, which is far more interesting to me than arguments over celebrity Twitter accounts.

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

#520

Post by stjohnswarts »

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…

Of course we've always had it but the current generation of political far left have turned it into an art form on twitter and other platforms.
Post reply on HN