Well he should have fecking resigned but if he flat out refuses what are you gonna do.
A lot of the time politicians over here in Ireland just brazen it out and rarely step down but it doesn't mean we forget or that we don't care.
Cancel Culture
- Thread starter Buchan
- Start date
A lot of the time politicians over here in Ireland just brazen it out and rarely step down but it doesn't mean we forget or that we don't care.
You know what I hate most about the world? Bullshit phrases like “cancel culture”.
It literally has nothing to do with 'cancel culture'. It's just online bullying, which is a form of bullying, which has existed since the beginning of time.
You are literally describing something which has never not happened, people have been complaining about the actions of others in positions of power/celebrity for as long as those things have existed. It's not some crazy, new 'trend'.
The main difference is - obviously - when your mum says something mean to Noel Edmonds on Facebook there are no consequences. The reason anyone even thinks of “cancel culture” as a thing is because of the real life consequences of employers and big businesses reacting to a social media pile-on. Sometimes these consequences are fair and justified, sometimes not.
The difference I personally find the most interesting is the way the supposed compassionate progressive left can be so malicious. One tiny misstep and an individual can be bullied to the point of ending up admitted to a mental health institution (as per the OP). And the responses from some of our more progressive caftards have been “feck her, she’s an influencer, she had it coming”. Which is all amazingly at odds with the way this same cohort of people usually tip toe around mental health, with trigger warnings and calls for safe spaces (and, to be clear, I generally don’t have an issue with this compassionate side of the movement)
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That just sounds like bullying and doesn't seem relevant to the topic at all.
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I’ve been behind the black lives matter cause since the beginning but taking down statues and effectively trying to remove history and culture is an absolute disgrace.
The same narrow minded mindset racists use to pigeon hole and segregate people of colour is effectively being used to summarise influential figures of the past to one single flaw of their character.
These were very different times, of course racist behaviour has never been acceptable (by today’s standards) but to a man it was accepted as a normal part of day to day life back then.
It all forms part of the journey from slavery through to today’s standards and the continuous improvement, taking elements of history and removing them serves to improve nothing.
The same narrow minded mindset racists use to pigeon hole and segregate people of colour is effectively being used to summarise influential figures of the past to one single flaw of their character.
These were very different times, of course racist behaviour has never been acceptable (by today’s standards) but to a man it was accepted as a normal part of day to day life back then.
It all forms part of the journey from slavery through to today’s standards and the continuous improvement, taking elements of history and removing them serves to improve nothing.
@V.O. Thank you for elaborating, that was much clearer than your previous post. There are some elements of the left that I do not always agree with. I figured that you were either a.) subtly pushing an anti liberal agenda, or b.) genuinely frustrated with how they've become. Or parts of it anyway. Some of them have become complacent over the last decade I feel.
All I’m trying to say is that if you decide to pile in on someone who has said/done something stupid or offensive just be aware that they may have mental issues to do with self worth or self harm. Be careful not to push someone over the edge.
Yes the internet is a toxic place but do we need more people increasing the toxicity.
Speaking of the n-word there’s a massive shit-storm going on in Ireland right now. The head of the Green Party - who is negotiating to get his party into government - said the n-word in parliament. He was reading a quote from someone who had been racially abused but the newspaper article he was reading actually just said “n*****”.His intention was 100% good. He was speaking up on behalf of people who suffer racism in Ireland. But it looks this could be a potential career ender for him, after it kicked off an almighty row online.I'm being made to sound like Nick Clegg over here! For the record, I'm probably about as left 'leaning' as Scargill.
It is, yeah. There's always going to be a tonne of caveats when you're talking about something as general as 'the left' or 'the right'. Would you disagree with the point I was making in doing so that there's been a big trend towards the kind of identity politics I'm describing in the past few years, though?
That's because the argument for that kind of politics is that it's anti-discrimination. Which it is. Therefore, by criticising it, I must be pro-discrimination. I'm sure if I used a specific example of a type of discrimination, I'd be merrily branded with the corresponding 'ist' or 'phobe', and that's it - opinion disregarded. My view is that it's not the best way to fight discrimination generally, and sure as shit isn't the best way to get any bugger who actually gives a feck about it anywhere near a position where they can make a meaningful difference.
Big fan of Corbyn, yeah. To me it's a case of 'right man, wrong time'. I think he got stuffed largely because he had a piss weak stance on brexit in an election that was always going to be about brexit. I think if brexit doesn't exist and that election is all about policy and message, it's a very different story.
On Sanders, I'm not familiar with the candidate selection process in the US, but my impression from afar is that the American system including the Democratic Party is set up in such a way that any fecker who isn't pro-capitalist, pro-corporate, and willing to play ball with the rogues' gallery from Apple to Zurich isn't going to be allowed to get anywhere the feck near the presidency.
The shit that happening in America right now is a good place to start. That if you're black, you're going to be x times more like to be targeted by police, and in America, gunned the feck down like a rabid dog. The fact that if you stick the name 'Alan Jones' on a job application, it's 5 times more likely to get looked at than if it's 'Kelechi Adebayo' or 'Mohammed Iqbal'. Basically anything that has a meaningful impact on somebody's life.
As opposed to getting League of Gentlemen taken off Netflix because Papa Lazarou's facepaint is the wrong colour.
I reckon a good illustration of the wrong focus is the story about Hulk Hogan a few years ago. It was largely "Look! Hulk Hogan is a racist piece of shit because he said the n word!". No he isn't. Hulk Hogan is a racist piece of shit because in that same report he was on record as telling his son "I hope when we die, we don't come back as a couple of blacks". Hulk Hogan is a racist piece of shit because he didn't want his daughter to have anything to do with the black fella she was dating, simply because he was black. Now he's been able to rehabilitate his image to a degree because all anybody remembers is "he said the n word that one time".
My personal opinion is that any politician who would do something that stupid probably shouldn’t get the keys to the nation (and I voted for him in the last election) but it’s another interesting example of the underlying intent and context getting lost when the public get an opportunity for perfomative outrage on social media.
Do we have to self-bleep if we are singing along to Ice Cube now?
So this is a good example because I hadn't heard of this Eamon Ryan thing until just today and so I put him name into twitter to get a general sense of this supposed outrage and I'm not sure if it is an aggregate an outrage
Mostly its people saying yes we understand the context with regards to him quoting an article of a black kid's experience in Ireland but the article itself had the n word censored and its probably not a good idea to say that word aloud even in the context of it not being used directly as a slur.
Some have said racist of course, but a lot are just defending him against a supposed witchhunt that I think doesn't exist to the extent they're saying it does and that whole conversation itself which can be nuanced etc is being reinforced as a row
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Hmm it seems as though the removal of some of these TV shows is a ploy to paint people as ‘offended snowflakes’ and distract from what’s going on at the moment because I can’t think of a single black person including myself who had heard of Fawlty Towers before this, talk less of campaigning for its removal.
I would say the onus is on the rest of us not to give into the hysteria so that we don't have to hear these stupid accusations and apologies all the time.
If I'm not mistaken, some years ago at a show, Kendrick Lamar brought a young white girl on the scene to recite the lyrics of one of his tracks and she said the n-word, so she was booed by the crowd.
That bit in Shaun of the Dead where Nick Frost goes 'wassup n-words' as they all pile in the Jag makes me crack up every time.
Maps under fire now on social media:
Because it shrinks Africa and South America as a byproduct of what it is actually intended to do.
Because it shrinks Africa and South America as a byproduct of what it is actually intended to do.
I thought you were better than that, talking in generalities is really low effort.
The sooner you guys realise you are taking about niches and fringe elements, the sooner you can stop pushing the old leftist agenda spiel, the sooner you can stop being so tedious.... A general statement that may or may not apply to you specifically, you decide.
Is it that surprising that some of us would prefer not to be reminded about it in our day to day lives? You may disagree (for whatever reason) but it can't be that surprising surely?
It seems to have followed the fairly classic twitter bun-fight archetype. Outrage, followed by outrage about the outrage, followed by everyone calming down a bit and getting some perspective. The problem with this sort of thing is that the timeline to sanity is quite variable and there can be irreversible consequences for the patsy at the bottom of the pile-on at any time.
Plus this blot on their copy-book is permanent. The whole outrage cycle can be refreshed and fired up again in another 5, 10, 20 years time if someone wants to create a bit of drama when Ryan next becomes high profile.
I think what we need for employers to show through this is a bit of common sense in the face of the extremely online types because the "mob" is only as powerful as what the outcome of this is.
And you may have individual posters and even groups of posters going for them but in terms of mainstream activist movements these aren't things they would choose to go after. People commenting to Eamon Ryan even en masse saying "yeah its probably not great to do that" isn't "this man shouldn't be in politics" and if we don't create narratives of the fact that general tenor of people's reactions on twitter as an aggregate can be exaggerated then companies will continue to panic.
People on the left understand nuance. People on twitter do too. And there's of course the "silent majority" stuff too.
There are plenty of cases for example where there are prominent leftists who are derided as examples of mob performative wokeness/cancel culture themselves have asked for a sense of perspective and today I was reminded of that with Ash Sarkar on radio 4 who spoke about how leftists who really haven't said anything about Fawlty Towers now being dragged into a cultural war because studio execs panicking over unnecessary things
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jx3z
from about 2:53:00 onwards
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of people making a big deal of the Eamonn Ryan thing at all.
He comes across as sincere in everything he says (overly so if you ask me) and he's got no previous at all.
I really can't see this type of thing 'ending his career', although it may not help his case in the Green party leadership battle and could be seized upon, more so by his opponents than the public.
It could now help FF and FG in the dealings with regards forming the next government. I would not be surprised if they use it against him.
I thought this tweet summarised the frustration well.
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This has been a blatantly obvious right wing tactic for some time, so I'm surprised people keep falling for it.
Yeah its the line of "quite a lot of people like her make a career out of creating a fuss about nothing" after she didn't go along with what he thought she would say
the whole exchange is interesting here
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Its intellectual laziness to simply characterise dissenting voices on the left side of these debates as cancel culture types with plenty of evidence to show that there is a breadth of opinion about what should and should not be done about people and things that are perceived to be problematic
I think it was just the final straw for many. There's plenty of issues surrounding the whole corporate/brand side of CrossFit that affiliate owners and those that treat it as a sport have a problem with and would like to see it take a different path.
The irony is, many of these issues stem from the fact Glassman cares much more about people than he does about making CrossFit a serious sport.
Ok, cool. I actually did some digging after posting that and - while his tweet wasn’t terrible - the leaked stuff from meetings makes him seem like a prick.
who do you think is doing these pile ons? you realise it's still people's mums with lots of time on their hands right, for example
these weren't coming from the progressives, this was coming from almost everybody, it's got nothing to do with cancel culture or anything of the sort, because it's an imagined phenomenon for middle aged white bloggers who have been largely shunned for being dickheads want to blame their failings on people who call them dickheads in the comments section
Yes they were. In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I won’t name names but the posts are there for you to read.
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Holy shit. This is kind of shocking. I laughed my arse off at Fawlty Towers. I really hope I was watching the edited version
EDIT: Actually, I couldn’t have been. It was edited in 2013. Feck me. That’s dreadful. We’ve come a long way.
they also came from the majority of reactionaries, it's all there for you to read
Well, yeah. I didn’t say they came exclusively from progressives, did I?
it's heavily implied
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One of the big things on this thread is TV shows being pulled because of supposed campaigns (literally I didnt see anything about Fawlty Towers) about their offensive material. How it takes away stuff that might be otherwise valuable from the public etc.
On March 31, the Internet Archive launched an Emergency Library to facilitate remote teaching and resarch during Covid. It ended today because publishers and authors filed a lawsuit. In terms of the volume of damage done as measured by lack of access to cultural and intellectual products, this is far far greater than a single episode or even a single series. Especially since they were free and accessible to all unlike an HBO stream.
But we are conditioned to think within a capitalist property owning system. It is natural and correct for the system to protect intellectual property at the cost of public knowledge, public health, scientific advance, children's education, whatever. Profit is an acceptable reason to diminsh our intellectual horizons and "sphere of public debate", racism isn't.
Anyway, in the spirit of this thread, a cancellation that I as a leftist would approve of, would be some of the very annoying authors and publishers who supported this.
On March 31, the Internet Archive launched an Emergency Library to facilitate remote teaching and resarch during Covid. It ended today because publishers and authors filed a lawsuit. In terms of the volume of damage done as measured by lack of access to cultural and intellectual products, this is far far greater than a single episode or even a single series. Especially since they were free and accessible to all unlike an HBO stream.
But we are conditioned to think within a capitalist property owning system. It is natural and correct for the system to protect intellectual property at the cost of public knowledge, public health, scientific advance, children's education, whatever. Profit is an acceptable reason to diminsh our intellectual horizons and "sphere of public debate", racism isn't.
Anyway, in the spirit of this thread, a cancellation that I as a leftist would approve of, would be some of the very annoying authors and publishers who supported this.
I can't even remember the N word being used in that episode, am I just blocking out?Tweet
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Holy shit. This is kind of shocking. I laughed my arse off at Fawlty Towers. I really hope I was watching the edited version
EDIT: Actually, I couldn’t have been. It was edited in 2013. Feck me. That’s dreadful. We’ve come a long way.
If you are, then I am too! Apparently he used it about the West Indies cricket team. And described the Indian players as “wogs” in the same episode. Astonishing that this seemed to fly below the radar at the time. As I said, we’ve come a long way.
Wasn't it Major? He was talking about Asians (maybe Indians) and then something about black people and used that word to describe them.
I've seen a clip (today) of the offending scene. It's pretty rough.Tweet
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Holy shit. This is kind of shocking. I laughed my arse off at Fawlty Towers. I really hope I was watching the edited version
EDIT: Actually, I couldn’t have been. It was edited in 2013. Feck me. That’s dreadful. We’ve come a long way.
It's most certainly not a case of "PC gone mad" and the argument that we are laughing at "The Major" (and not with him) really does not hold if you listen to the studio audience.
You’re not comparing like with like. What you describe is taking away unrestricted access to what some people believe is their intellectual property. The content will remain in existence. Which is not the same thing as permanently deleting/cancelling something that is deemed offensive.
It’s a bit of a moot point in this thread anyway. I don’t think there’s been many objection to stuff like Fawlty Towers etc. That’s been more of a theme in the “blackface” thread. This thread has been predominantly about individuals saying something wrong/stupid and being punished excessively as a result of the exquisite sensitivity of the twitter mob. See NY mag tweet above for excellent example.