You mean keep doing the thing that doesn't actually work, but to other targets and hope that works?
The "Cancellation" of J.K. Rowling
- Thread starter Dwarvenhobble
- Start date
You're talking about "The Left" and give wealthy talk-show hosts as examples?
I keep being told as a leftist that I should be getting my marching orders from people like that, but... I don't know, man. I never get the newsletter, can't find the sign up for the mailing list, no paycheck from George Soros. I'm starting to think the people telling me that might be making stuff up.
Ah, so you have a line for acceptable ostracism.Could you understand that other people have a different line for ostracism? Like, for example, Rowling as ostracising a whole group of people she doesn’t want to be part of a group. .. oh wait did Rowling get ‘cancelled’ cuase she tried to cancel others. Well, what a world
Anyway, please show me where the reaction to Spacey and Gunn were equivalent. Because it wasn’t even close. Also, Gunn was Alt-Rightsrs trying to silence Gunn for his view. So yes, I’m very against that. But, unless your willing to shut off Freedom of Speech, what are we going to do. They get Free Speech just as much as anyone else.
Are you willingly being obtuse? Because you're using the same words in very different contexts.
Fine. Let me put this as simply as possible.
If someone wants to criticize Rowling (or anyone else) for what they've said, written, or whatever, I don't have a problem.
If someone says that they won't consume media by Rowling (or anyone else) because of what they've said, written, or whatever, I don't have a problem.
If someone says that Rowling (or anyone else) shouldn't be allowed to read, write, or do whatever, THEN I have a problem. That's the problem I have with cancel culture. Rowling hasn't been cancelled, but despite what the title of this thread might indicate, Rowling isn't part of the issue. Rowling hasn't been cancelled. Not yet at least. Others have. I don't need to have been personally affected by an issue to care about an issue (and even then, per fan writing, I'm not as far removed from puritanism as I might like).
For God's sake, there's plenty of authors I don't like, or whose works I find disagreeable. I would never insist that those works be removed from access, or those people removed from speaking because of my personal offence. Maybe in exceptionally rare circumstances (e.g. explicit calls to violence), but cancel culture doesn't go after the obvious targets, it goes after the innocuous targets. For God's sake, one of the people who signed the letter is at risk of losing his job at Vox because someone else at Vox said it made him feel uncomfortable. FFS sake, feeling uncomfortable is part of life, and certainly at work. But I'd never demand anyone lose their job for it.
I never said it was equivalent, nor did I say that anyone else claimed it was equivalent. I was using them as examples, because they're two of the most well known ones. And yes, it was alt-righters who dragged up the tweets, but it was Disney who fired him, despite the length of time that had passed, and the fact that Gunn apologized for them. It's part of the reason why I scarcely use social media, because I don't want to post anything that has any chance of an employer dredging up years later. I mean, okay, liking posts that criticize Trump is pretty low hanging fruit, but even that carries an element of risk because standards change. Hopefully they dont change in that direction, but who can tell?
Do you know that Disney re-hired James Gunn after something like a year? It doesn't take away from your point since it should never have happened, I was just wondering.
Look I want to cancel people too... for their actions, not their words.
Also, Colbert used to be a lot left and isn't Ellen LGBTQ+.
What I don't get is why we as a society choose to pick targets like Bari Wiess, JK Rowling, X comedian, actor whatever.
But war criminals like Blair, Clinton, and even GW Bush aren't canceled for their actions.
If we were sane as a society these sociopaths wouldn't get anywhere near power, but here we are.
Being LGBT is no guarantee of being "on the left", nor does it guarantee having a sensible opinion on everything.
Heck, Dave Rubin is openly gay-married and he literally went on someone's podcast to be like "oh my god if trump doesn't win, then the entire country will be burned to the ground and it will mean the end of capitalism and freedom!!!!".
So yeah, Ellen might be LGBT, she might even be nominally on the left (especially for social stuff), but she's also part of a very wealthy class of people, and thus, the class solidarity between her and Bush obscured her to the fact that, yeah, he's a war criminal.
Oh, and the same "left" that's "cancelled" JK Rowling by saying how much she disappoints us ALSO voiced their anger at Ellen for rehabilitating a war criminal. A lot of us are similarly furious that the Democratic party is ALSO rehabilitating Bush and trying to make him seem like he isn't the war criminal he is.
Because most of society only cares about perception and optics. It's like...Most of the established politicians rail against trump, but really, if he listened to the scientists more about the pandemic and didn't do mean tweets, they'd be on board with him. Some have even said as much.
Caring about social causes is easy for a lot of people to the point where they don't even put any thought into it, and makes them look like they're doing good work, when really, they pick up a cause for a week, then move on to another one. This is NOT aided by the media that picks up and drops things rapidly. There are people out there who cared about the BLM protests, but now that the media has mostly stopped covering them, they've moved on and are SHOCKED to hear that the protests are still ongoing.
So yeah. Society is insane, especially the US's society. You have some people who actually give a damn, but they're obscured by loads of people who only half-care because it "looks good", and then nothing gets done and they're so willing to forgive the crimes of the last guy just because the current guy is worse.
Like...FFS, there's a pandemic that's totally out of control in the US and the political party that's nominally on the left can't even agree that "everyone should get health care free at the point of service like the rest of the industrialized world has figured out ages ago"! -_-
The news coverage stopped because the rioting stopped. And most stopped talking about it cause they have enough self awareness to know they can't make the connection that protest=riots and treat them as the same thing to dismiss the movement.
Upsets me mostly because it is proof that standard protest work like ass because people want to ignore inconviences in the world. But a bunch of broken windows? That puts eyes on them and things get talked and done relatively expeditiously.
Something in relation, but this person is trying to fix their mistake, and not act like a total shit-head.
Yup, this is how you address a goof like that.