Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear' • Hacker News Board

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

#631

Post by throwaway189262 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 8:38 AM UTC

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…

Unprofessional opinion, I think the powers on the right are pushing "cancel culture" to make the crazy stuff they're saying seem okay.

Like, we have a congresswoman blaming California wildfires on Jewish space lasers.

The republicans can deflect from the crazy by claiming "the left" is "cancelling" these people. When in reality any public figure that said crap like that would be shunned. Probably even more in past when American society was outwardly more polite.

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

#632

Post by leereeves » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 8:57 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #616

slibhb wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read McNeil's perspective: https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/nytimes-peru-n-word-p... No one reasonable thinks he made a racist remark.

I think he posted a reasonable and thoughtful response - in it however be pretty much admits he could’ve said some very disparaging things. > I told him what I’d actually said in Peru. He said, “Donald, you sound exactly like my father. He would also say ‘You can’t dress like a thug to a job interview and expect to get the job.’ But from you, it sounds racist.” I said “How is ‘thug’ racist? What about Thug Life Recor…

This is such a perfect example, thank you. The outrage machine, ever in search of new fuel, can never stop finding new things to be outraged about.

Now it's manufactured outrage about the word "thug", a word used quite recently by President Biden, and not that long ago by President Obama.

Suddenly "it’s almost the equivalent of the n-word."

How could a coronavirus reporter possibly keep up with that?

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

#633

Post by pdpi » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #579

guerrilla wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modulo specific technology, that's how life was if you were gay, Jewsish, Black, Asian or communist at certain times. None of that is new and the point stands.

It was wrong then too. And what claim stands, exactly? Are you suggesting that because something bad has happened before, it shouldn't be opposed now?

Because something bad has happened before, we should look at it happening now as part of an ongoing problem, instead of characterising it as new phenomenon.

I get your point, but if you tell me I did a bad thing, I can answer in one of two ways: “you did a bad thing too, so you have no right to criticise me”, or “you did a bad thing too, maybe we should have a frank conversation about why we both fell into the same trap”.

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

#634

Post by leereeves » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

pdpi wrote: post #633

leereeves wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was wrong then too. And what claim stands, exactly? Are you suggesting that because something bad has happened before, it shouldn't be opposed now?

Because something bad has happened before, we should look at it happening now as part of an ongoing problem, instead of characterising it as new phenomenon. I get your point, but if you tell me I did a bad thing, I can answer in one of two ways: “you did a bad thing too, so you have no right to criticise me”, or “you did a bad thing too, maybe we should have a frank conversation about why we both fell into the same t…

I don't think anyone's denying that the desire to cancel those who believe differently is an ongoing problem; in fact, that is implicitly acknowledged when recent actions are described as witch-hunts or McCarthyism. Those allusions to history are powerful precisely because this behavior isn't new.

And I'd love to see a frank conversation about how we can avoid falling into that trap, but such a discussion has to start by acknowledging that it is a trap; that is to say, that cancel culture is wrong.

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

#635

Post by ramblerman » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

waserwill wrote: post #88

I understand the source of people's fears here, though I'm not sure whether they are justified. In attempting to clearly articulate ideas, writers too often fall into cliches--the sort of pitfall that might be widely understood at the expense of predictability. Those, coupled with topics related to current events and sensitive topics, can be a dangerous brew. Yet in a world where media are not centrally controlled (c…

> If there are meaningful truths that must be said, there is a way to say them without being blunt about it.

You are free to read authors that write in a style you like. But we are talking about cancelling, so I don't really understand your point. Authors that don't sugar coat their facts shouldn't be published?

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

#636

Post by dash2 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #388

dash2 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone claimed that what happened to the Dixie Chicks was OK. Also, it sounds as if you think that cancellation is better if it's democratic. If so, you need to address the 150-year old argument made by Mill, that democratic popular opinion can be particularly oppressive and dangerous to minority viewpoints: "Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in…

You should maybe continue reading Mill, because nowhere in his writings, or those of anybody else who used the phrase "tyranny of the majority" prior to the modern age, believed that the solution was disempowerment of the majority and tyranny of the minority. Surely if you think that majoritarian tyranny is bad, you must also believe that minoritarian tyranny is far worse, right? Such as when a select few individuals…

I don't understand how your first paragraph is relevant. Nobody here is claiming that we need to end democracy! Similarly, nobody is arguing for a system where a few control the entire popular media. (And the current media landscape looks nothing like that: there have never been more different news sources available at the click of a button, and anybody who wants can start one up.) Lastly, again your third paragraph is a straw man.

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

#637

Post by throwaway316943 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #40

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…

History is written by the winners, if Cancel Culture "wins" this will just be seen as a positive embyrotic formation of the dominant culture eradicating and stomping out evil in the world via a superior tactical formation (cancellation). If they win this will be seen as a very primitive form of mob-cancellation whereas in the future it will be cancellation via sophisticated "fair" social-credit scores. If the anti-ca…

Both sides could lose and this may only be dimly remembered by a distant culture.

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

#638

Post by throwaway316943 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 10:31 AM UTC

IAmWorried wrote: post #69

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…

I don't think it's limited to just what you say in public. Videos and audio recordings have a way of triggering human emotions that writing simply does not. To tell you the truth, I live in perpetual fear that some acquaintance could secretly record me saying some non-PC thing in private, and post it to Twitter to get me cancelled. I have deleted all social media to try to achieve "out of sight, out of mind" but I st…

If this continues for another 10 years I’m buying a farm far away from anyone with a Twitter account.

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

#639

Post by throwaway316943 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

IAmWorried wrote: post #317

inglor_cz wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep fakes are coming and with it a tsunami of outrageous videos that have no connection to reality. People will learn to distrust video evidence.

I think this could extend to major public figures, but offers no recourse to the average joe who doesn't have 100 hours of talking footage online. Deepfakes require a lot of data to produce. Anyone who doesn't have this much data, you could reliably assume the content is real.

> 100 hours of talking video

You mean like zoom recordings? Yeah nobody has those.

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

#640

Post by throwaway316943 » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

cozuya wrote: post #466

guerrilla wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Inquisition, witch trials, outing people as gay, most of the history of the Jews..

The OP specifically says "social media".

Which is just the common media of our time, I mean come on, media is right there in the title.