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News & General Discussion => News Stories and Current Events => Topic started by: Cassia on December 24, 2020, 08:54:41 AM

Title: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Cassia on December 24, 2020, 08:54:41 AM
I find the the phenomenon of cancel culture on social media interesting. The push towards egalitarianism is such a worthy cause, however there is collateral damage for sure as people navigate the slippery slopes. Curious to see what you think of this situation where a talented singer/songwriter releases a song and there are attempts at cancelling her because a year ago she covered a song by a black artist and kept the n-word in the lyrics.
She commented.....
also I’m sorry for saying the n word really didn’t want to offend anyone
I wasn’t aware of the fact that it would be so offensive, I just sang the lyrics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVQXiKnx3mE

In her new video at first so many comments were cancels..
-girl we ain’t forget
-wheres the n word in this one😻?
-TAKE THE DAMN MOONLIGHT COVER DOWN
However, many have come to her rescue.

https://youtu.be/mlCunSqf4PQ
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: SGOS on December 24, 2020, 11:10:02 AM
I had to google cancel culture, and I'm not getting what this all about.  These videos didn't help either.   I take it she made a social error by mistake or something that I didn't catch, I listened to half of the first, but I listened to all of the second.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 24, 2020, 11:41:29 AM
Quote from: SGOS on December 24, 2020, 11:10:02 AM
I had to google cancel culture, and I'm not getting what this all about.  These videos didn't help either.   I take it she made a social error by mistake or something that I didn't catch, I listened to half of the first, but I listened to all of the second.

I'm not sure what exactly "cancel culture" entails either. In this case, it seems some people were offended by her use of the n-word, and publicly criticized her for it. She obviously wasn't kicked off YouTube. Am I missing something?
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Cassia on December 24, 2020, 11:48:59 AM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 24, 2020, 11:41:29 AM
I'm not sure what exactly "cancel culture" entails either. In this case, it seems some people were offended by her use of the n-word, and publicly criticized her for it. She obviously wasn't kicked off YouTube. Am I missing something?
Yeah, if you go to the YT app and read the comments, I found them interesting and it raised questions in my mind. Is it ethical for a white person to quote the n-word from a black person's lyrics? Is there artistic license for this? Cancel culture (via social media) has been called out by conservatives as "virtue signaling", as in that liberals are just trying to make themselves seem ultra ethical without actually doing anything. Does this stuff drive a bunch of moderates to the right? I do wonder about that.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 24, 2020, 12:24:16 PM
Part of SJW culture, part of 21st century Marxism.  People shouldn't talk, they should kill each other ;-)
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: SGOS on December 24, 2020, 12:48:23 PM
Quote from: Cassia on December 24, 2020, 11:48:59 AM
Is it ethical for a white person to quote the n-word from a black person's lyrics?
I don't know.  Is it ethical for a black person to use the n-word?  I see it in Hollywood flims all the time.

Quote
Is there artistic license for this?
It would probably depend on some context.

Quote
Cancel culture (via social media) has been called out by conservatives as "virtue signaling",
Other people's virtues seem to be a problem for conservatives.  This why we have Prozac.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Draconic Aiur on December 24, 2020, 03:23:50 PM
 People play the racist card unless it's by the own "race".



Edit:
However when one "race" uses the same word repetitively in the whole culture like in songs it becomes standard in all they do regardless of where the word came from. But if someone from a different race uses it even just quoting, that "race" goes batshit crazy.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: aitm on December 24, 2020, 03:31:39 PM
Cancel culture is a biggie on social media’s....for the rest of the country/world.....it’s a hyped up fad that they know nothing, care nothing about.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Cassia on December 24, 2020, 05:12:38 PM
A long time ago at a dinner party I said something stupid. Something racist. Almost before my words left my mouth I knew I had fucked up and was sorry for being such an ass. I searched their faces to learn the extent of the damage. To my surprise it was OK. They knew me well and knew it was just a beer too much and a very bad day. Some shitty impulsive ideas that I absorbed from racist friends in my youth. I was so relieved. There were no cameras, no phones and no FB to make my crime go viral. No worry of canceling my famous future, LOL.  I never forgot that crappy feeling.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 24, 2020, 05:24:46 PM
You can treat all people like shit, some people like shit, or one person like shit.  Depends on if you are married ;-)

My daughter and I had an intelligent conversation about this today.  Identity politics.  Bigots of a feather flock together.  White haters join up ... Black haters join up and a thousand other dividing lines.  There will always be differences in social status.  There will always be bigotry over a thousand things, most of them stupid.  The reality is we are psychological and social.  This is the cause of everything.

One can be descriptive, but not proscriptive.  Sociologists are supposed to be descriptive, not social advocates.  But that isn't how sociology departments started on college campuses in the late 19th century.  It was part of the early Progressive movement, that peaked around 1920 with women's vote and Prohibition.  Everything in the last 100 years happened because of the unforeseen consequences from then.  Some good some bad.

So some Black people can be more White than some White people, and vice versa.  This basically proves the complete BS that activist politics is.  Whoever you are related to, work with, are friends with, encounter with ... be kind to them.  Otherwise, labels aside, you are part of the problem, not a part of the solution.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 08:06:11 AM
"The New York Times helps a vindictive teen named Jimmy Galligan get a girl named Mimi Groves CANCELED and kicked out of college for an Instagram video she made when she was 15." ... on the other hand, it is OK to burn, loot and murder today's people, nobody will miss the "total depravity".
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 08:40:43 AM
I don't know if this qualifies as "cancel culture" but I thought it was interesting.

A Cheerleader’s Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/supreme-court-schools-free-speech.html)

WASHINGTON â€" It was a Saturday in the spring of 2017, and a ninth-grade student in Pennsylvania was having a bad day. She had just learned that she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and would remain on junior varsity.

The student expressed her frustration on social media, sending a message on Snapchat to about 250 friends. The message included an image of the student and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with text expressing a similar sentiment. Using a curse word four times, the student expressed her dissatisfaction with “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.”

Though Snapchat messages are ephemeral by design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a coach. The school suspended the student from cheerleading for a year, saying the punishment was needed to “avoid chaos” and maintain a “teamlike environment.”

The student sued the school district, winning a sweeping victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia. The court said the First Amendment did not allow public schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds.

Next month, at its first private conference after the holiday break, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear the case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., No. 20-255. The Third Circuit’s ruling is in tension with decisions from several other courts, and such splits often invite Supreme Court review.

In urging the justices to hear the case, the school district said administrators around the nation needed a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court on their power to discipline students for what they say away from school. “The question presented recurs constantly and has become even more urgent as Covid-19 has forced schools to operate online,” a brief for the school district said. “Only this court can resolve this threshold First Amendment question bedeviling the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools.”

Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale and the author of “The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court and the Battle for the American Mind,” agreed with the school district, to a point.

“It is difficult to exaggerate the stakes of this constitutional question,” he said. But he added that schools had no business telling students what they could say when they were not in school.

“In the modern era, a tremendous percentage of minors’ speech occurs off campus but online,” he said. “Judicial decisions that permit schools to regulate off-campus speech that criticizes public schools are antithetical to the First Amendment. Such decisions empower schools to reach into any student’s home and declare critical statements verboten, something that should deeply alarm all Americans.” ...
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Cassia on December 29, 2020, 08:50:17 AM
Quote from: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 08:06:11 AM
"The New York Times helps a vindictive teen named Jimmy Galligan get a girl named Mimi Groves CANCELED and kicked out of college for an Instagram video she made when she was 15." ... on the other hand, it is OK to burn, loot and murder today's people, nobody will miss the "total depravity".

I have been thinking about cases like this. If I examine my own family a few members of the previous generation were outwardly racist against all nonwhites. Slurs were an everyday thing. Blaming immigrants, Blacks, and Hispanics for their lack of success. Others, usually female aunts would give them some grief about their shitty attitudes. My generation is inwardly racist. The price to pay for slurs becoming high. The youngest generation of the family is virtually race-blind. I think this may be partly because they didn't have to hear and learn slurs all day. This is progress.

African Americans in order to blunt the impact, have incorporated a modified version of the n-word into common usage. This is genius. However now we have a clueless young girl who may have been oblivious to this entire tragedy. What happened to her is probably not fair. Is it some sort of justification for the racism that continues? No way.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 09:07:06 AM
To stop racism, kill all the Whites ;-)

Cyber-bullying isn't new.  What is new is political parties and governments using cyber-bullying as a weapon against the People.  Don't worry about college educated people, they aren't human.  Tastes like chicken ;-))
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 09:21:37 AM
Do Americans have a right to be racist? Do Americans have a right to say hateful things about individuals or groups of people? Should what people say on their own time allow employers and schools to fire them? There doesn't appear to be a consensus. The temptation is to censor or punish people who say disagreeable or hurtful things but, as someone who admittedly has a history of saying disagreeable things, I prefer to allow people as much latitude as possible. The singer in question should use whatever language she wants, particularly since music is an artistic expression, and listeners should be able to criticize her for it. I would take issue if YouTube kicked her off the platform.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Mike Cl on December 29, 2020, 09:33:44 AM
What I find interesting is that many people say they have the freedom/right to say whatever they want.  What they don't want to hear or understand is that I have a right to respond.  And they have to take responsibility for what they say and they don't want to hear about any consequences they receive for saying what they say.

This is much like theists that tell us that abortion (for example) is an infringement upon their freedom of religion.  What they don't want to understand is that stance is actually an infringement of my rights, not theirs.  If they don't want an abortion (or whatever they are complaining about) then don't get one.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Cassia on December 29, 2020, 09:38:25 AM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 09:21:37 AM
Do Americans have a right to be racist? Do Americans have a right to say hateful things about individuals or groups of people? Should what people say on their own time allow employers and schools to fire them? There doesn't appear to be a consensus. The temptation is to censor people who say disagreeable or hurtful things but, as someone who admittedly has a history of saying disagreeable things, I prefer to allow people as much latitude as possible. The singer in question should use whatever language she wants, particularly since music is an artistic expression, and listeners should be able to criticize her for it. I would take issue if YouTube kicked her off the platform.

I would like for it to be put to a vote at least. We need to set some legal precedents. Is it OK to publish material that denies the wholesale, racially motivated slaughter of millions committed by the Nazis. Should it be legal to publicly deny the genocide and persecution of Native Americans?  Should we allow the publication of instructions to build WMDs? Personally I think that if intent to harm is proven, then a penalty is in order.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Blackleaf on December 29, 2020, 09:54:41 AM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 08:40:43 AM
[Spoiler=Snip]I don't know if this qualifies as "cancel culture" but I thought it was interesting.

A Cheerleader’s Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/supreme-court-schools-free-speech.html)

WASHINGTON â€" It was a Saturday in the spring of 2017, and a ninth-grade student in Pennsylvania was having a bad day. She had just learned that she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and would remain on junior varsity.

The student expressed her frustration on social media, sending a message on Snapchat to about 250 friends. The message included an image of the student and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with text expressing a similar sentiment. Using a curse word four times, the student expressed her dissatisfaction with “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.”

Though Snapchat messages are ephemeral by design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a coach. The school suspended the student from cheerleading for a year, saying the punishment was needed to “avoid chaos” and maintain a “teamlike environment.”

The student sued the school district, winning a sweeping victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia. The court said the First Amendment did not allow public schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds.

Next month, at its first private conference after the holiday break, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear the case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., No. 20-255. The Third Circuit’s ruling is in tension with decisions from several other courts, and such splits often invite Supreme Court review.

In urging the justices to hear the case, the school district said administrators around the nation needed a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court on their power to discipline students for what they say away from school. “The question presented recurs constantly and has become even more urgent as Covid-19 has forced schools to operate online,” a brief for the school district said. “Only this court can resolve this threshold First Amendment question bedeviling the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools.”

Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale and the author of “The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court and the Battle for the American Mind,” agreed with the school district, to a point.

“It is difficult to exaggerate the stakes of this constitutional question,” he said. But he added that schools had no business telling students what they could say when they were not in school.

“In the modern era, a tremendous percentage of minors’ speech occurs off campus but online,” he said. “Judicial decisions that permit schools to regulate off-campus speech that criticizes public schools are antithetical to the First Amendment. Such decisions empower schools to reach into any student’s home and declare critical statements verboten, something that should deeply alarm all Americans.” ...[/spoiler]

I don't think this counts as cancel culture, but it is an interesting case. Public schools are (poorly) funded by the government, which does, I believe, make this an actual issue of free speech. Usually when people talk about "my free speech," they're not actually talking about free speech. Platforms like YouTube have no obligation to respect all opinions equally. They can ban someone for any reason they want. They're a private business. Here, I think the school was within their rights. The student's comments were hateful and unproductive. Like, she made no suggestions to improve, but was just lashing out. But at the same time, I think you have to show a little mercy with kids. You can't expect them to have as good judgement as adults. They're wired differently. Suspending a student for an entire year seems excessive
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 10:10:20 AM
Quote from: Cassia on December 29, 2020, 09:38:25 AM
I would like for it to be put to a vote at least. We need to set some legal precedents. Is it OK to publish material that denies the wholesale, racially motivated slaughter of millions committed by the Nazis. Should it be legal to publicly deny the genocide and persecution of Native Americans?  Should we allow the publication of instructions to build WMDs? Personally I think that if intent to harm is proven, then a penalty is in order.

Last week I read Giving the Devil His Due by Michael Shermer and he has publically debated holocaust deniers. He sides with free speech and I tend to agree with him.

It is my contention that we must protect speech no matter how hateful it may seem. The solution to hate speech is more speech. The counter to bad ideas is good ideas. The rebuttal to pseudoscience is better science. The answer to fake news is real news. The best way to refute alternative facts is with actual facts. - Shermer, Michael. Giving the Devil his Due (p. 37). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

https://youtu.be/houCSgBZoMg
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 10:10:50 AM
Quote from: Mike Cl on December 29, 2020, 09:33:44 AM
What I find interesting is that many people say they have the freedom/right to say whatever they want.  What they don't want to hear or understand is that I have a right to respond.  And they have to take responsibility for what they say and they don't want to hear about any consequences they receive for saying what they say.

This is much like theists that tell us that abortion (for example) is an infringement upon their freedom of religion.  What they don't want to understand is that stance is actually an infringement of my rights, not theirs.  If they don't want an abortion (or whatever they are complaining about) then don't get one.

In Commie-fornia you have a right to say what you weed ;-)  Of course you folk would burn down every religious institution and every non-Democrat political building.  That is your "freedom of speech".  I will never be against hate speech, because without hate, I would have little to say ;-))
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 10:11:47 AM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 09:21:37 AM
Do Americans have a right to be racist? Do Americans have a right to say hateful things about individuals or groups of people? Should what people say on their own time allow employers and schools to fire them? There doesn't appear to be a consensus. The temptation is to censor or punish people who say disagreeable or hurtful things but, as someone who admittedly has a history of saying disagreeable things, I prefer to allow people as much latitude as possible. The singer in question should use whatever language she wants, particularly since music is an artistic expression, and listeners should be able to criticize her for it. I would take issue if YouTube kicked her off the platform.

Black Americans have a right to be a drug using/selling hoodlum ;-)  Why are you against White crime?  Black crime = reparations, White crime = racism.  I would love to see all the Black loving Whites get what is coming to them (reincarnated as a Watts drug dealer).
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 10:12:24 AM
Quote from: Cassia on December 29, 2020, 09:38:25 AM
I would like for it to be put to a vote at least. We need to set some legal precedents. Is it OK to publish material that denies the wholesale, racially motivated slaughter of millions committed by the Nazis. Should it be legal to publicly deny the genocide and persecution of Native Americans?  Should we allow the publication of instructions to build WMDs? Personally I think that if intent to harm is proven, then a penalty is in order.

Pure Bolshevism.  You were born 100 years too late, Comrade!
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 10:13:34 AM
Quote from: Blackleaf on December 29, 2020, 09:54:41 AM
I don't think this counts as cancel culture, but it is an interesting case. Public schools are (poorly) funded by the government, which does, I believe, make this an actual issue of free speech. Usually when people talk about "my free speech," they're not actually talking about free speech. Platforms like YouTube have no obligation to respect all opinions equally. They can ban someone for any reason they want. They're a private business. Here, I think the school was within their rights. The student's comments were hateful and unproductive. Like, she made no suggestions to improve, but was just lashing out. But at the same time, I think you have to show a little mercy with kids. You can't expect them to have as good judgement as adults. They're wired differently. Suspending a student for an entire year seems excessive

Schools have rights, as "in loco parentis" but since y'all want to cancel parents, I see this as moot.  What you want is bloody dictatorship, with lots of drugs (like the SS, who were motivated by cocaine pills).

Holocaust deniers are real.  But the Commie-caust deniers are far more common.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 10:35:12 AM
Quote from: Mike Cl on December 29, 2020, 09:33:44 AM
What I find interesting is that many people say they have the freedom/right to say whatever they want.  What they don't want to hear or understand is that I have a right to respond.  And they have to take responsibility for what they say and they don't want to hear about any consequences they receive for saying what they say.

When I was 19 I worked the night shift at a convenience store for minimum wage in the worst part of Asheville. This was 1985 and Asheville had a small-town atmosphere in many ways. I had a gay pride t-shirt that I wore occasionally but not at work. Wearing a t-shirt that says "No one knows I'm gay" is nothing today but at the time and place it was provocative. My manager called me into the office and said there was a complaint because they had "a known homosexual" working for them. She said she wasn't going to fire me but "in the future you need to be more careful." So the consequence of my free speech was having my meager employment threatened.

When people say "people don't want to accept consequences for what they say" they need to consider who is delivering those consequences and why.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Cassia on December 29, 2020, 11:37:26 AM
Quote from: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 10:12:24 AM
Pure Bolshevism.  You were born 100 years too late, Comrade!
You missed the whole "put it to a vote part". But then again now we see how conservative boot-lickers don't really care for the vote when they are the losers, LOL.
I think Holocaust deniers are unworthy of any honest academic "debate". I prefer that these issue of potential "hate crimes" are dealt with by ballots instead of a handful of judges. I have no fear that a majority of Americans would ever support, raise a bill or vote to ban pro-LGBTQ public expression. However, I do believe certain events were so terrible that they have the capability of causing physical/mental damage if they are publicly denied. We should have a say in how public deniers are dealt with. There are already laws against causing panic, liable and bearing false witness, so no you can not legally just say or print whatever you want .
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Gawdzilla Sama on December 29, 2020, 11:45:15 AM
Shit will eventually calm down, or maybe nukes will be deployed. Either way is fine by me.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Blackleaf on December 29, 2020, 01:24:43 PM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 10:35:12 AM
When I was 19 I worked the night shift at a convenience store for minimum wage in the worst part of Asheville. This was 1985 and Asheville had a small-town atmosphere in many ways. I had a gay pride t-shirt that I wore occasionally but not at work. Wearing a t-shirt that says "No one knows I'm gay" is nothing today but at the time and place it was provocative. My manager called me into the office and said there was a complaint because they had "a known homosexual" working for them. She said she wasn't going to fire me but "in the future you need to be more careful." So the consequence of my free speech was having my meager employment threatened.

When people say "people don't want to accept consequences for what they say" they need to consider who is delivering those consequences and why.

Yeah, this is not about free speech. That's just discrimination. Being gay is not a political statement.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 01:31:01 PM
Quote from: Blackleaf on December 29, 2020, 01:24:43 PM
Yeah, this is not about free speech. That's just discrimination. Being gay is not a political statement.

Being gay isn't a political statement, but using it as a political meme is.  Being Black or White isn't a political statement, but using them as a political meme is.  There is no escape from the insanity of politics.  Both R and L lead to extinction.

Free speech?  The Virginian at the saloon talking to Trampas ... "Smile when you say that!"
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 11:22:51 PM
Quote from: Blackleaf on December 29, 2020, 01:24:43 PM
Yeah, this is not about free speech. That's just discrimination. Being gay is not a political statement.

Although I'm glad wearing a gay pride shirt isn't considered a political statement in 2020 in America, wearing a t-shirt stating you were gay in 1985 in the South was definitely a political statement and that is what got me into trouble. At the time, that shirt pissed a lot of people off.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 11:42:58 PM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 11:22:51 PM
Although I'm glad wearing a gay pride shirt isn't considered a political statement in 2020 in America, wearing a t-shirt stating you were gay in 1985 in the South was definitely a political statement and that is what got me into trouble. At the time, that shirt pissed a lot of people off.

And did you love every minute of attracting hostile attention?  Today the woke want to murder the MAGA hat people?  So moral!

In some places I wouldn't be caught dead in a Dem or Rep t-shirt.  And I am not sure those should be protected forms of speech.  What about a "I am a Chinese agent" or "I am a traitor" t-shirts?  Just how open minded are y'all?  I see no evidence that people today are beyond mere tribal warfare.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 11:55:40 PM
Quote from: Baruch on December 29, 2020, 11:42:58 PM
And did you love every minute of attracting hostile attention?  Today the woke want to murder the MAGA hat people?  So moral!

Actually, I was extremely anxious and I chalk wearing that shirt up to my sexually frustrated, 19-year-old brain.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Blackleaf on December 30, 2020, 03:17:26 AM
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 29, 2020, 11:22:51 PM
Although I'm glad wearing a gay pride shirt isn't considered a political statement in 2020 in America, wearing a t-shirt stating you were gay in 1985 in the South was definitely a political statement and that is what got me into trouble. At the time, that shirt pissed a lot of people off.

Come down here to Texas, and it will still offend people. That doesn't make it any more political. It just means that the easily offended hypocrites can't mind their own business and let other people live their lives.
Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: drunkenshoe on December 30, 2020, 07:08:51 AM
Quote from: Cassia on December 24, 2020, 08:54:41 AM
The push towards egalitarianism is such a worthy cause, however there is collateral damage for sure as people navigate the slippery slopes.

Agreed. I think it's like a phase of a phase?

There is a movement to call out slurs, form of abhorrent human behaviours attached to them which are mostly performed purposefully, and naturally this created its own counter culture in time. Because the problem with racial and gender slurs, swear and cuss words is that they are the most organic part of the languages -which itself is the most organic part of each culture- so they don't get 'coined' but born in real life and develop through people in every day scenes. The 30 years old social media history doesn't change this dynamic.   

They are ancient. Forget how old they are, first of all in every culture, even before modern state cretaed the national languages, there were accepted high forms of every native language. Although it looks -or promoted as- a richer/better vocabulary and high grammar combination -academic texts aside- it is actually just a language sterilised from this verbal culture. (That's why 'fuck you' is Shakespearaen in nature at times, lol.)

There is something to remember here with esp. western culture, about the roots of the accepted norms of language, that its 'ideals' comes from courts, circle of aristocracy and pile of a literature written to dictate to their daily conducts. Esp. after the spread of literacy, they are the best sellers of early modern Europe. Contrary to the common belief, people of the past were consciously occupied with the 'quality' of the language they speak daily, esp. the accent they use, so naturally what the language and the accents other groups of people used. Because it meant rank, class. Apparently, people even have chosen schools according to this earlier in history than we thought previously, considering what kind of an accent, vocabulary their children would have in attending which school.

So the language spoken among the learned class had already been sterilised long time ago for different reasons. Highly likely, people refused to use certain kind of words or reacted to their usage not because they were understood as 'slurs' at the time but because it was low class or out of the class. It doesn't have to be elite, doesn't matter which class you belong... monkey see, monkey do.

Slaves, nonwhite groups, workers, farmers...any group at the bottom of the food chain or one down from the other also had a lot of derog words we wold define as slurs today for each other, and for upper classes. Looking back, we find theirs natural when it targets the way up, I personally definitely do, but I also understand that if they had the time, education...means to create their own written culture in that position, we would have a whole other pile of different slurs today. (But then they couldn't have any of that and that's the whole point why I find theirs natural and right.) 

In the end, creating and using this mostly verbal vocabulary is done to provide an outlet. It's natural to our species. By outlet, I don't mean something deserved, good or bad, or needed to survive. It's natural because for us, humans, seeing someone as the inferior other is the most immediate, almost reflexive, safest way to define ourselves. In history, you'll find the comedy was born out of imitating uneducated, low class people's accents and way of speech in dialogue form. Every kind of disability for example has been a common title for comedy. That's the logic of laughing at something. You or your loved ones are not like 'that' and that is why you can alienate, find it funny and laugh about it. (Not discussing ethics.)

Well, I think while today the understanding about slurs is very different, the result is the same because the dynamic is the same. You know the present general attitude of the right and religous groups today which share many common traits with royalty, aristocracy, slave owners of the past. They see themselves as sovereignity, that's the point of everything with them. They find the cirticism and movement against these slurs they use for 'lower groups' as unreal, arrogant, artificial, PC, sissy, self-centered, pink ass...etc while in the past, it was their arrogant, pink ass who sterilised the languages, to create the 'high' and 'good' society and define it as so. LOL it is ironic and funny. In the end, AGAIN, it is about power. 

Anyway, how do you do it? How do you create a culture inwhich these slurs have no meaning at all? I am not saying how do you stop this or wipe this words out because you can't. You can't stop people from using these words or even creating new ones.

Not just because the natural rule of the attraction of prohibition, or human aptitude or willingness, but because when you define them as a high price costing no-no, you maintain their existence. Hell, you fortify it.

Having said that, I agree with Cassia on how it is important for the kids not to grow up hearing role models using them. But I think what she said about a kid not knowing about the back and front of a slur is more important. She said 15 years old for a specific example, but I think that goes for older people too because they are cut out form the reality of this situation, I mean they can't make it real in their heads, it is just bad, you just don't say it. Imagine the gap between a 75 year old and 35 year old person about racial slurs. Imagine a 35 year old today, greeting the young son of his friend like "Johnny, you son of a bitch, how're ya kid?" like your grand father could do in 60s. 

In my opinion, the best way to go about this -and I'm guessing this will happen naturally in the future- is rendering these words passive. Not trying to wipe it out, not trying to make it positive, not making a huge deal in social dialy life. If someone in public service uses it, if a politician tries to use it... 'publicly' is the key word here, anyone in a official station uses it...you get the gist...Off with his head. Fire him, grill him, shame him; cancel the hell out of his ass.

But jumping on kids, singers, comedians, artists, actors...anyone in social media as if the building is on fire; giving exaggerated reactions, ruining people's lives, reputations, canceling everything, millions of posts in an hour... only help these fucking words stay active and powerful. Because they are about having power over a group to begin with. All it does is teaching the kids to get angry and emotional about it, keeping it alive. Because that's actually including them in those words, making it real. Saying: 'see that's you'.

You can't wipe this shit out by creating sensation and crisis in the name of awareness. It's already obvious which people use it when and where. A young woman, a kid really, reproducing some lyrics is not using the n word.  People who really use these words use them because they want to use. They use it willingly and purposefully with an agenda, they perfectly know what the fuck it is.

You want to create an awareness? Don't avoid the n word like the plague or a weapon in the school. When they reach 11-12 year old, before all the hormones kick in, write it on the board in capitals and explain, tell them that 'This word has nothing to do with you. This is a meaningless word that was made up to create and maintain an abhorrent system in the past, it didn't have to do anything with black people then. And it doesn't have to do anything with any of you regardless of your race now, today. It doesn't have any meaning in our world that's why we don't use it.' Cut the fucking cord, make it so irrelevant, turn it into a public embarassment. But not something 'baaad'. This is important because people like doing/saying bad things. They are not afraid of it. They even see it as courage, something individual, cool, reactive; a sign of being out of the herd in this context.

You know what's the worst case that's gonna happen? They will use it in teenagers years, just because they were told not to along with some swear words -we all did because adults did it- get it out their system. And as adults, they will be immune to any kind of political or pop cultural emotional abuse related to this culture designed to push them to be a victim or a perpetrator with their usage.

Nobody thinks or accepts that they're racist or sexist, doesn't matter what they really are or whatever the circumstances. You can't shame or educate people by telling them what they say is 'bad', 'harmful', or 'that's a shame'.

But you know what people everywhere around the world, in every culture are so naturally scared of? Being irrelevant, and feeling public embarassment as a result. In any context. For an adult, it is the worst thing that can happen. Not being included in anything. You can't be successful, you can't get laid, you can't have friends, people won't listen to you let alone take seriously, you don't count; you can't do anything.

That's how you fight with this culture. You make it so completely irrelavent, it becomes one of the most embarassing things.

But right now, as far as I understand, even though -supposedly- most people are so loudly against these words, they are there, alive and kicking, hanging in the air on everybody's head in a powerful way while they are absolutely meaningless in this day and age.

Title: Re: Cancel Culture: a case study
Post by: Baruch on December 30, 2020, 12:25:51 PM
Young people are young.  Old people are old.  Human nature is a disaster.  How is that for a summary?  Sorry, your Lord and Savior will never come back.