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

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

#561

Post by nine_k »

jtbayly wrote: post #552
nine_k wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Christians are varied. For Catholics, for instance, God of Muslims and Christians is the same, and the Pope has explicitly stated so. Some Evangelical Christians, being Protestants, have a ton of disagreement with Catholics, and disagree at this point, too. Muslims universally agree, AFAICT, because Muhammad himself stated this explicitly (and Christ figures prominently as a prophet in Quran). See…

The Christian faith is based on the fundamental fact that Jesus is God in human flesh. I worship Jesus. Muslims do not. No Muslim will claim to worship the same God as I do.

I will not even try to discuss the intricacies of Trinity; the Nicene Council tried hard to come to an agreement regarding it, and in 1054, details of it were the cause of the Great Schism.

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

#562

Post by jtbayly »

bosswipe wrote: post #557
jtbayly wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Christian faith is based on the fundamental fact that Jesus is God in human flesh. I worship Jesus. Muslims do not. No Muslim will claim to worship the same God as I do.

Jesus is "the son" and Muhammad is "the prophet" of the same God.

If you’re trying to tell me what I believe, you’re wrong. By the way, I’m a pastor.

If you’re trying to tell me what Muslims believe, you’re also wrong.

Saying that Jesus is the Son of God is very different from saying that He is a prophet of God. That difference is precisely why Muslims cannot agree that Jesus is the Son of God and why I cannot agree that Muhammad is a prophet of God.

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

#563

Post by dragontamer »

Anyone who thinks 'cancel culture's is only one side of the political spectrum has conveniently forgotten what it is like to kneel during a football game during the playing of the national anthem.

Or what it's like to sit in the front of a bus when you are in the minority. Etc etc.

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

#564

Post by jtbayly »

rayiner wrote: post #553
jtbayly wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A professor at a Christian college claimed to be in religious solidarity with Muslims. That’s pretty much like saying that you’re attempting to further Facebook’s goals as a Google employee. Of course you get fired.

She was fired for saying that Muslims and Christians worship the same god, which is literally heresy according to many Christians: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/20/460480698/do-christians-and-m... . Jews and Muslims reject the trinity, which is an essential part of the confession of faith in most branches of Christianity. So it’s quite loaded to say that the Jewish and Muslim god is “the same” as the Christian god.

Right. That’s my point. It’s simply not an example of cancel culture.

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

#565

Post by taurath »

leereeves wrote: post #555
taurath wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of the NYT cancelling someone for nonbigoted views?

As it happens, there's an example being discussed here on HN right now: the NYT pushed out Donald McNeil Jr. for saying "You should never call someone a [N-word]". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26306020

From the daily beast -

> McNeil repeatedly made racist and sexist remarks throughout the trip including, according to two complaints, using the “n-word.”

I don’t understand how this is related to cancel culture, given it’s been corporate policy to not make racist and sexist remarks for decades? And just, regular human decency? What are the arguments for keeping this person employed by a major news organization?

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

#566

Post by Bakary »

IAmWorried wrote: post #372
fl0wenol wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just don't be an ass to people who you have locker room talk with and they won't have shit to say later. Sure, there's always those lizard-brained people who will smile then stab you in the back, but they could also just as easily poison your dog or cut your brake lines vs. ruin your life on social media. These are the choices we make. Or we can live as a hermits Ted Kaczynski-style.

Well, poisoning my dog or vandalizing my car is illegal. Whipping up a twitter mob is legal and highly encouraged by an enormous number of people. I try not to be an ass to anyone, but jealousy and envy exists. It's now impossible for me to relax around some acquaintances who are unemployed while I pull in a big tech salary. All in all, I really made my mind up on this issue back during the BLM protests. This cancel…

The real scary truth is that people probably don't care as much about you as you might think they do. The way you frame the problem, assigning envy of your success to acquaintances by default, worrying about negative attention, reiterating how hard you've worked, leads me to believe that self-importance might be the underlying issue that saps your enjoyment of life. I say this not as a personal attack, but as a cautionary observation.

I know it's hard to deal with a fear just with rational discourse. But if you have a good salary and work in tech, you are probably getting more out of the dystopia than the dystopia is getting out of you. So just learn to enjoy life without worrying about hypothetical events that remain statistically unlikely even by the most conservative estimation in a world of billions. Anything else is self-indulgent.

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

#568

Post by [deleted] »

redteddy23 wrote: post #124

Putting aside the fact the worst examples of "Cancel Culture" are an amplified, tiny number of edge cases, given fuel by those who wish to attack fairly reasonable requests to marginalise hate speech. Ishiguro makes a good point a skilled writer can write from the perspective of someone very different from them. Not that many people are actually arguing against that. What was of concern is the perspectives of margina…

[deleted]

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

#569

Post by skissane »

jtbayly wrote: post #562
bosswipe wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus is "the son" and Muhammad is "the prophet" of the same God.

If you’re trying to tell me what I believe, you’re wrong. By the way, I’m a pastor. If you’re trying to tell me what Muslims believe, you’re also wrong. Saying that Jesus is the Son of God is very different from saying that He is a prophet of God. That difference is precisely why Muslims cannot agree that Jesus is the Son of God and why I cannot agree that Muhammad is a prophet of God.

> If you’re trying to tell me what I believe, you’re wrong. By the way, I’m a pastor.

I don't dispute that's what you believe, but it isn't the position of all Christians.

The Catholic Church is quite explicit about its belief that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. It has expressed that belief in the decree Nostra aetate of the Second Vatican Council, and numerous other Vatican documents since. And the Catholic Church is not alone among Christians in this belief.

I think there is a real disagreement among Christians as to whether the God of Islam is a (somewhat distorted) account of the God of Christianity (the official Catholic position, but certainly some Protestants agree with it too), or whether it is a completely different entity (the position of yourself among others).

I think from the Muslim point of view – the Islamic designation of Christians as "People of the Book" only makes sense if Muslims believe that Christians worship the same God as they do, even if wrongly and confusedly.

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

#570

Post by rayiner »

taurath wrote: post #565
leereeves wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it happens, there's an example being discussed here on HN right now: the NYT pushed out Donald McNeil Jr. for saying "You should never call someone a [N-word]". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26306020

From the daily beast - > McNeil repeatedly made racist and sexist remarks throughout the trip including, according to two complaints, using the “n-word.” I don’t understand how this is related to cancel culture, given it’s been corporate policy to not make racist and sexist remarks for decades? And just, regular human decency? What are the arguments for keeping this person employed by a major news organization?

That’s not what he did, any more than the dictionary is “racist” for printing a slur in order to refer to it. See: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/new-york-times-don-m...
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