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

On Being Blacklisted

aaronkunin.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 201 posts

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#61

Post by beaconstudios »

eli wrote: post #42
rsj_hn wrote: post #14

"“we believe the essay does not align with Chicago Review’s editorial and political agenda.”" It's interesting that some academic literary magazines are now being forced to admit they have political agendas, which is a step in the right direction. People like Kunin are the conscience of our generation, daring to stand up to the mobs and tell the truth - a political act that conflicts with the Chicago Review's agenda.…

How could one possibly publish poetry in a non political way?

Depends on what you mean by politics. Poems that don't engage in the specific electoral politics of the day? Yes. Politics in the sense that all interactions that involve more than one person are political (ie the nothing burger that is "everything is political")? Probably not, no.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#62

Post by thaumasiotes »

threevox wrote: post #57
eli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could one possibly publish poetry in a non political way?

If your poetry is political, you're doing it wrong

> If your poetry is political, you're doing it wrong

Seriously?

All you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's a scandal

how the people have to pay and pay

Fight the fare increase, vote for George O'Brien

and get Charlie off the M.T.A.!

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#63

Post by dnissley »

walrus01 wrote: post #54
josephg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He expects that by calling the publishers of some journal "craven" and "scared", that he's going to elicit a reversal of their decision Thats not my read of the situation. I agree that if his goal was to convince the authors, it would make sense for him to be more accomodating. And it wouldn't make sense to call them out in public. But thats not his goal here. To my eyes, this piece takes a shot at the culture whic…

What I find amusing is that the same center-right and right-wing mouthpieces that complain the loudest about 'cancel culture' have themselves been deeply involved in attempting to 'cancel' things for the past 40 years, anything they dislike or find distasteful, a random assortment of which includes. rap music and any music with "vulgar" lyrics (PARENTAL WARNING labels on CDs) harry potter (satanic magic messages offe…

I generally agree with you here, but all opponents of cancel culture are not on the right. E.g. me. I can count on one hand the number of republicans I've voted for -- none of which were at the federal level.

It's wrong when people on the right do it, as well as now when those on the left do it.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#64

Post by monoideism »

yew wrote: post #15
hirundo wrote: post #12

Is there anyone that wants to defend this blacklisting of the author by the Chicago Review for writing this article [0]? That is, not to reconfirm that they do indeed have the right to do so, but to argue that they are right to do so? Maybe some of us can avoid this fate if we understand the grounds for it, since they decline to make it explicit. What did he say that was not just wrong, but so wrong that he should no…

Yes? I've just read the article. It's a collection of crypto-fascist dog whistles about race; it barely merits being called an opinion. (It is an example of why the academic personnel pool needs the thorough cleaning it's currently getting.) Anyone who declined to associate with the author would be right to do so. There aren't many people who don't understand what this kind of article is really about. The Chicago Rev…

Wow. I’m actually at a loss for words. I think we’re in deep, deep shit as a society if this is what a significant percentage of the younger generations believe (and from what I’ve seen, it is). Not from the point of view of “you’re bad, I’m good”, but that no country can survive this kind of radically different outlook on life from subsequent generations. It even surpasses the 60s.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#65

Post by konjin »

leephillips wrote: post #11

I'd never heard of this guy, but this is some good writing. The editors who blacklisted him display such abject cowardice when they say they are cancelling him because of the “reception” of his previous article in a different journal. Not because of what the article says, but because of its “reception.” This is the moral and intellectual equal of the 14 year old girl who won’t sit with Suzy in the cafeteria because s…

If you ever had to deal with the literati you'd know that they never got past the level of 14 year olds.

I'm convinced that they are lgbt friendly because it lets them have twice the drama since they aren't limited to sleeping with only half their acquaintances.

Edit: in case you're too stupid to realize: I'm not attacking lgbt's I'm attacking the vapid vampires that are sucking the life out of the movement.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#67

Post by cm2187 »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #45

Let’s please collectively agree to abolish cancel culture. Opposing ideas cause growth. Singular ideologies do not lead to growth or change.

Cancel culture is only the symptom of those institutions being taken over by ideological extremists. The solution is competition. Universities are destroying their brand with those positions. I am probably not the only engineer unimpressed by slogans like “decolonise maths”, and I would think twice before hiring graduates that excelled in that environment. Likewise, companies that push those ideologies should be boycotted. I don’t want to buy razor blades from a manufacturer who calls me a rapist. I just switched.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#68

Post by cpitman »

sickofparadox wrote: post #51
cpitman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like calling it a collection of dog whistles is directly addressed by this paragraph: "The trouble is that Nazis are human beings, and they have many benign thoughts along with their antisemitism. So I might avoid repeating some ordinary, unthreatening statement uttered by someone with a Nazi reputation, lest you think that I sound like a Nazi. Soon only actual Nazis and a few weirdos who don’t care what oth…

Dog Whistle (Politics): The use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition. [Wikipedia] To what group is this directed? What about this speaks to the "Crypto-fascists" the above commenter mentions? Is it simply the word Nazi? I have read through this a few times and I'm having a difficult time finding the angle in which this could be a…

Calling it dog-whistles instead of calling out specific issues with the argument implies that the problem isn't what he is saying, but that he is saying things that sound like things said by other people.

IE, calling it crypto-fascist dog whistles is saying "I think he is a fascist because he says things I think fascists say, but isn't actually coming out and saying fascist things". Which, in the end, means that no one can say things that fascists might also say, without sounding like a fascist.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#69

Post by adolph »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #58
threevox wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your poetry is political, you're doing it wrong

Lots of the best (by a number of standards) poetry ever written is deeply political.

red-rag and pink-flag

blackshirt and brown

strut-mince and stink-rag

have all come to town

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#70

Post by 1shooner »

walrus01 wrote: post #32

Nobody owes you a free publishing platform. He expects that by calling the publishers of some journal "craven" and "scared", that he's going to elicit a reversal of their decision, and positive response from them, something to the effect of "oh, how dare we deny your article, woe unto us, we were so dreadfully wrong"... Really? The biggest takeaway that I got from his December essay, and this one? A sense of self rig…

This is not how I read this. He is reacting to the phenomenon (he is calling 'blacklisting') of an editorial staff contradicting their own decisions under threat of power by unknown third parties motivated by ideological disagreement. If he had been offered a 'free publishing platform', there would be nothing for him to discuss.
Post reply on HN