“I Know Writers Whose Works Were Suppressed By Their Publishers. And That is Very, Very Dangerous”

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John Banville

Author John Banville, one of the signatories of an open letter last week from artists and academics and others decrying cancel culture, spoke to Brendan O’Connor on Saturday’s Weekend on One on RTÉ Radio One.

Brendan O’Connor: “There’s an important distinction to be made here. This letter is talking about people losing their livelihoods, this is not to suggest that people can’t be taken on, on their views, if their views are offensive or outdated, correct?”

John Banville
: “Yes, of course. Of course they can be taken on. But part of the problem is that so many people in positions of power and publishing houses, in academia are losing their nerve and are getting rid of people on hearsay, on having made mistakes. Goodness sake, we all make mistakes. If we were to be driven out of our jobs because of making mistakes, we’d all be unemployed.”

O’Connor: “But I suppose that the people who are in favour of cancel culture and calling people out would argue this is about people who are powerless, unlike those powerful people in publishing, people who are powerless and that this is the only weapon they have to hit back at people who they would say are powerful and entitled and have platforms to spout these views.”

Banville
: “The way to work for civil rights and for tolerance is to be kind and work…there’s a wonderful essay by John McWhorter, who just happens to be black, in an online magazine called Reason. He’s one of the signatories of this letter. And it’s [inaudible] because he’s saying, you know, this movement, especially among young white liberals in America has all the trappings of a cult, of religion and I think he’s right. And I’ll just quote a little bit from it, very, very short, I think it’s very apt. He says:

‘Martin Luther King was under no impression that all white people were going to fully “love” all black people. He spent his time working for gradual change in the world as we know it via endless exchange and consultation with the powers that be, not agitating for a vague utopian conception of a society devoid of any racist sentiment. In King’s day, radicalism was not centered around this recreationally aggrieved performance art, much less obsessively seeking to excoriate and destroy people suspected of impure thoughts.’

“It’s a wonderful quote and we should all think about that, that kind of sentiment.”

O’Connor
: “Yeah, Margaret Atwood wrote that great essay, ‘Am I Bad Feminist‘. She talks in it about how writers deal in kind of moral ambiguity and everything and they will often have characters who aren’t nice people and who say bad things and everything but what she said in it, is that we’re at, this is a revolution and we are at, I think she called it, the purge and destroy part of the revolution. Words to that effect, that this is just about, that we’re taking people out now.”

Banville: “That probably is the case. But one must raise one’s voice against that kind of mob culture even a mob, you know, that is well meaning, is still a mob and to hound people…and, you know, I’ve been to America, I’ve seen instances of it myself. A friend of mine was an academic, almost lost a job because she suggested to a Chinese student, not a Chinese immigrant, but a Chinese-born student that he needed to work a bit on her (sic) basic English. The Chinese student complained and my friend was almost fired by her university. There are numerous instances of things like that.”

O’Connor
: “Do you know writers who have had their work suppressed?”

Banville: “Yes, yes. I’m not going to name names that would be embarrassing but I do – suppressed by their, suppressed by their publishers. And that is very, very dangerous.”

O’Connor: “Yeah. You would regard yourself as a liberal obviously, you are a liberal and you’ve worked in America and everything and you would be very pro civil rights and everything, I know. What do you think of the character of the Black Lives Matter movement and how it’s playing out at the moment?”

Banville
: “I think it will waken some people, it certainly brings our attention to the problem. But America is absolutely divided now. I mean it’s just divided down the middle. It’s back almost to civil war politics in America. It’s a frightening place to be at the moment. That is not going to be cured by ousting people from their jobs. There’s a wonderful phrase in French which says, you know, the extremes touch. In other words, you know a right and left meet at the back and become just a [inaudible] of each other and I think many ideas, from liberal young people, while they mean well, but they are falling into a religious cultism. And you know that’s all about making yourself feel better.

“Did you see that clip of Barack Obama talking about the woke movement and saying, you know, it’s so easy to point to people and say ‘you’re a sinner’. You know, you’re doing all these things wrong and I’m much better than you and then you go away feeling wonderful about yourself. This doesn’t do any good.”

O’Connor: “You say a lot of people now feel muzzled, that they’re worried about saying the wrong thing?”

Banville: “Certainly in America, that’s the case.”

O’Connor: “John, outside of cancel culture altogether, you have a book out in October?”

Banville
: “I have but I can’t use this occasion to plug a book, this is much too serious

Listen back here

Previously: Hello, Yes, I’d Like To Cancel My Subscription To Harper’s

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207 thoughts on ““I Know Writers Whose Works Were Suppressed By Their Publishers. And That is Very, Very Dangerous”

      1. Commenter #1

        You think MLK was assassinated because of his commitment to incrementalism and civilised debate?

  1. GiggidyGoo

    Ballsy trying to bait Banville. Shameful excuse for a journalist.

    O’Connor: “John, outside of cancel culture altogether, you have a book out in October?”
    Banville: “I have but I can’t use this occasion to plug a book, this is much too serious

    1. Do I need a username?

      Shite interview though. Both Banville and O’Connor were half-hearted with Banville blithely claiming he wasn’t aware of JK Rowling or what she was up to (baffles me why a woman of her stature and wealth would even bother wade into that topic – idleness I think). The interview never really took off, sort of taxied for a while and then stopped. Banville came across as merely having looked at the subject line of the letter and then signed. Perhaps that is enough but this was one low wattage interview.

      On *that* topic, I don’t know enough but I do know it affects a tiny number of people and they are entitled to a little bit of dignity and common decency and not to be seen as the sum of all evil. Look at most trans’ people’s life expectancies and life histories. Grim doesn’t even cover it.

  2. Nigel

    The irony of these wealthy and famous personalities being invited onto national and international platforms to complain about being silenced by a mob that consists of people they would prefer to remain silent never seems to sink in, does it?

    1. Clampers Outside

      The point is that it is not always the wealthy and famous who face this ridiculous cancel culture.
      Banvilke is on because he is a ‘peronality’ or celeb if you will with some experience of the issue, and that experience he seeks of is of people who are neither famous nor wealthy. A point you clearly have just glossed over as if it weren’t there…. >_<

      You'd do well to listen more to John McWorther, and Glenn Loury while you're at it.

      1. sidhe

        I think you’ll find that most people aren’t ‘cancelled’ when they start spouting distasteful or unpopular opinions

        it’s more a case that they are roundly ignored by those who have no interest in engaging with those opinions, or they are challenged on them

        which is what most of us were doing all along

        1. Clampers Outside

          It demonstrably only takes a few, not “most”, to have someone lose a job. That’s the point, not what most reasonable people do, but what the few vindictive types do.

          1. Nigel

            It’s an out of control mob AND a carefully targeted vindictive few, for any Umberto Eco fans keeping score.

          2. Clampers Outside

            There are many different individuals targeted, and a “few” people in each mob relative to “most” of the population.

            Do keep up.

          3. Nigel

            Poor old Harvey Weinstien. Lost his job because of a relative ‘few’ vindictive individuals in a mob.

          4. Clampers Outside

            You’re despicable in making such comparisons… You are literally making a joke of sex crimes.

          5. Nigel

            You’re making a joke of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia. Or rather you’re belittling and silencing people who speak up about it. Transgressions don’t have to be as bad as Weinstein’s to be serious and affect people, and they have a right to call it out.

          6. Clampers Outside

            I’ve never belittled anyone for speaking about those issues. You though, have often done so. Especially when that being expressed doesn’t suit your narrative, you then throw around accusations of transphobia at trans persons ideas and accuse women calling for maintenance of sex based rights as sexists.

            Thou dost project too much.

          7. Nigel

            That’s what the backlash against so-called cancel culture is. Delegitimising people speaking up to criticise racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

      2. sidhe

        this is in reference to the average Joe Soap airing his opinions, and not those with a platform, like Mr Banville

        sorry if that’s not clear in my comment

      3. Junkface

        Banville makes great points here and clearly wants to be on the right side of History, the side against cancel culture. If people still do not think that it is a seriously dangerous cultural phenomenon by democratic western countries standards, then I don’t think they will ever understand. It’s simply ignorance of history (especially Communist history worldwide) and the things we have learnt of previous mob behaviour, there is a very strong negative psychological effect on people who want to go further with cancel culture. That’s why a lot of great minds are warning people for their own good, collectively. We need to retain our freedom of expression and freedom to debate. It’s part of the foundations of democracy. Do you believe in democracy?

        How long before people cop on? This has slowly crept in and wrecked lives everywhere, especially of the non wealthy, working and middle class. Life is hard enough due to the wealth gap, corruption and waves of jobs lost to automation, without this thrown into the mix.

        News show Rising covered the story well.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN3B_q40RyY

          1. Scundered

            That link is hilarious, they actually called JK Rowling controversial although possibly served with a little sarcasm, let’s just clear that up though, the mob attacking her are controversial certainly, but the writer of Harry Potter? absolutely bonkers statement.

        1. Nigel

          Dehumanising non-powerful people expressing opinions as a ‘mob’ is more dangerous than any cancel culture.

          1. Clampers Outside

            But they are not simply expressing opinions, but are calling employers to have people removed from their jobs. Stop with the pretense that these are innocent actors when they are mobbing individuals for supposed ‘wrong speak’.

          2. Junkface

            It is mob behaviour. Large groups of people bullying an individual until they are fired. Its a virtual / online mob.

            Also using the term mob, is not dehumanising, it relates to groups of angry people.

            Saying something like rats, vermin, or pigs is dehumanising. You have taken offense to something that you have misunderstood. A typical cancel culture move from the wacky wing of the Left.

            Here is an example of a regular woman losing her job because of a mistake at a fancy dress party :

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlhTADPM0dw

            Yeah this is the Utopia the whacky wing of the Left want. Cool

          3. Nigel

            If you say something racist online, it gets back to your boss, and you get fired for it? There is nothing you can do to stop that process occurring in the social media age except through stronger employee protections, and we wouldn’t want those, would we?

          4. Nigel

            Just to he clear, Junkface, are you saying that online reactions leading to negative consequences is an entirely and characteristically left wing phenomenon?

          5. Clampers Outside

            Cancel culture is a creation of the Left, and is now stupidly being used by both sides, albeit from what is evidenced so far, more frequently by the Left.

          6. Nigel

            ‘Now’ being used by both sides. Because it wasn’t cancel culture back when the Dixie Chicks got notcanceled by the right. Oh my God I just remembered the US right wanting to notcancel all of France. Freedom Fries! And when Charlie Booker said something about George W Bush in his column and the US right went completely ballistic and tried to get him fired and arrested for threatening the president? Freedom Culture! More recently wasn’t there a black comedienne at one of those dinners that roasted Trump and the right went feckin ape? How’s her career doing? Donald J Trump himself, avatar of the modern right, most powerful man in the world, boasted about getting a black football player blacklisted for kneeling during the anthem. He also had all references to climate change removed from official US scientific documents! Free speech! Now he’s attacking his own medical expert for disagreeing with him about opening schools! TELL me that silencing, censoring, smearing, shaming, attacking, bullying, intimidating aren’t the culture of the right, TELL ME.

            Your evidence is wrong and you are dumb.

          7. Clampers Outside

            All good points. All shouldn’t have happened. Doesn’t take away from what is happening now, and as I said it is on both sides and currently mostly from the Left.

          8. Sirtuffyknight

            That “comedienne” was given her own Netflix show off the back of slagging Trump, which was terrible and bombed. Bad example.

          9. Nigel

            Oh and then there’s the ultimate Cancellation – SWATting. Gamers started it, and your precious Gamergate weaponised it against women in gaming and critics of Gamergate. Nothing on the left approaches the viciousness of that feral alt-right Nazi-spawning hothouse.

          10. Vanessanelle

            But JunkFa
            And t’was you that reminded me

            Trump and Selina Scott back in the day

            There was no right wing or leftists
            No mob

            Just a cause celeb, fuelled by Money and yep the ego of a Big I Am

            Just ’cause it’s got a rebrand in the age of Millieniallism
            And seems to be the weapon of choice for mass deployment
            Viral warfare like
            Doesn’t mean any one cause, side
            Or Sort
            Started it

            Just saying

            I personally find the collective Mr Banville is a member of, and speaking for above, more than just a bit condescending, and peevish
            In a who do you think you’re talking to … I’m a Booker prizewinner … My books got Optioned … I get paid to speak …so there kinda way
            Again that’s just me

            I really don’t care if JK Rowling’s book sales suffer
            Somehow I doubt it

          11. Nigel

            ‘Both sides now’
            1. If that were true you wouldn’t constantly be branding it as a tactic of the left, or declaring the whole world to be in danger because of what the left is doing.
            2. There is absolutely no comparison between what the left does and the right. The left tries to draw attention to injustice and unfairness and support victims. The right try to deflect and distract from their lies and transgressions and incompetence and corruption, usually by savagely attacking victims or soft targets, a tactic you gleefully engage in with them and for them.
            3. Gamergate was a massive, sustained targeted harassment campaign of hateful misogyny.

          12. Clampers Outside

            Answer 1. – My concern is mostly about freedomvof inquiry in the places it supposed to be most free, places of education, universities. Cancel Cultuee is most definitely 90%+ coming from the Left in those places.

            Answer 2. That’s a simplistic comparison. Again, see Answer. 1.

            Answer 3. That’s only one element of it, not the full picture.

          13. Nigel

            1. You mean the places that have been under sustained attack by the right as hotbeds of liberalism and feminazis and radical anti-racists and LGBTQ-friendly places? Sustained attack entirely because of they are perceived as being liberal institutions, despised by the right, which seeks to supress, defund and destroy them for purely political reasons as part of their never-ending culture war? You look at the right these days and you see the spirit of intellectual inquiry and freedom of speech and association, do you? They’re literally tryng to cancel universities and destroy education.

            2. It has the simplicity of being true. You like to side with the bullies and pick on the soft targets, don’t you? Case in point:

            3. Apart from the sustained targeted harassment campaign of hateful misogyny, how was Gamergate for you, Zoe Quinn?

      4. Nigel

        If they’re not famous or wealthy enough to get invited to sign letters or go on talk shows then, uh, who are the mob? Just the not famous or wealthy that the famous and wealthy approve of?

        1. Clampers Outside

          Word salad.

          Do try again, and explain what you are trying to say. Sparse it if you have to, good lad.

          1. Nigel

            The rich and powerful are trying to gatekeep which poor and non-powerful people can speak up about what.

    2. jamesjoist

      The philosopher Karl Popper once asked
      ‘should we tolerate intolerance ‘ ? The
      yes or no answers are still being debated .

  3. Commenter #1

    Also, what is “suppressed by their publishers” supposed to imply? Do we all have a right to be published by whatever press we want, and do all publishers have a responsibility to publish whatever is sent to them?

    1. Nigel

      The anecdotal evidence provided by Banville of works supressed because of ‘mistakes’ needs to be supplemented by accounts of works rejected, supressed, ignored, acceptd then rejected, for reasons good and bad and incomprehensible from across the whole spectrum of publishing before it can truly be declared dangerous, and to whom.

      1. Commenter #1

        I’ll have you know that the only reason I haven’t had a collection published by Faber & Faber is because of the cancel culture mob coming for me and stifling my speech, and not anything to do with the fact that I couldn’t rhyme “moon” with “june” if my life depended on it.

      1. Nigel

        I like Banville well enough, but anyone complaining about cancel cuture as some sort of real danger in this day and age is falling headlong for right-wing propaganda.

        1. Commenter #1

          I would genuinely appreciate if Banville, and other “cancel culture” critics of his ilk, would name some examples. This free-floating denunciation of “cancel culture” is meaningless if we do not consider the rights-and-wrongs of individual cases.

          Should Norman Finkelstein have been denied tenure? Should Steven Salaita? Should Roderic O’Gorman be fired/forced to resign from his ministry?

        2. nobleloughs

          Absolute complete and utter drivel. Anyone defending it is bound to be consumed by it as it eats itself.

          Cancel culture is mob “justice” dispensed by laughably entitled Neo-right lefties. Reprehensible bullies who are grossly mistaken if they think their behaviour will not be held to account in the end.

          1. Nigel

            This nonsense. Disinformation, heightened emotion and eliminationist rhetoric. Classic right wing propaganda.

        3. Termagant

          You do this kind of thing a lot Nigel, where you flatly say the thing the person you’re arguing against cares about just doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. It’s very dishonest, I don’t think anyone appreciates it.

          1. Nigel

            In this case I think the danger is wildly over-inflated, and nothing compared to the dangers of right wing extremism, which is something I don’t appreciate.

          2. Clampers Outside

            You’re conflating two issues as if both cannot be tackled.

            Funny thing is you won’t tackle far-right extremism by shutting down open inquiry and heterodox opinions.

          3. Clampers Outside

            You’re a master of such a tactic, practice it regularly and have been called out for loads of times.

          4. Termagant

            Come now Nigel you of all people can’t assume authority on honest debate

            I’ll be more straightforward:
            You’re forcing a dichotomy between destroying peoples’ lives for saying things you don’t like and destroying peoples’ lives because they like communism and/or are less white than a sheet of paper. The world is mostly full of people who occupy a sane center area that doesn’t advocate for either. You’re proposing that if you don’t believe in the former you must then believe in the latter and it’s not true, and I hope you know it’s not true, that you’re just being an ass instead of being genuinely unhinged.

          5. Nigel

            I’m rejecting a dichotomy. No center that is truly sane can draw equivalnce between people calling out racists and sexists and the targeted, well-funded onslaught of lies and disinformation from the right that targets everything up to and including the very survival of the planet in the name of political and economic power, let alone say with a straight face that the former is the more dangerous. The fact that the nature of online debate and interaction generates disproportionate responses and bad outcomes is common to both sides, is in fact common to every facet of modern life where it intersects with the internet. No sane onlooker would dispute that or refuse to take it into consideration.

            I believe the right is far more effective at and willing to harness that disproportion to its advantage, and does so with no regard whatsoever for truth, fariness and justice. (Note that I do NOT say there is no left equivalent to such behaviour – but what there is is NOT cancel culture.) THAT is a more complete picture than your ‘sane centre.’ It’s not so much that they’re sane, it’s that they know which side it’s safer to attack and antagonise, and which side to avoid and ignore and pretend it doesn’t exist as much as possible

          6. Termagant

            Can you really not see that it’s hardly a rejection of dichotomy to say “no one can possibly not hate the people I hate”.

          7. Nigel

            Clampers – you won’t tackle far right extremism by shutting down people talking out about sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. In fact, shutting it down is what far right extresmists want. How useful you are.

          8. Clampers Outside

            I never condoned shutting down conversations on those matters. I’ve seen you try to on here with for example Self ID, where you try to shut down conversations about it, and also you’ve tried shutting down conversations about poor patient care of those exhibiting gender dysphoria by screaming transphobe at anyone who has raised what are now proven concerns.

          9. Nigel

            Termagent – I rejected the dichotomy you proposed not dichotomy itself. Isn’t everyone I’m disagreeing with here saying the same thing about themselves? I take issue with the substance of their disagreement, not the fact that they disagree. I wouldn’t have much of a point if I didn’t actually believe that I was more correct than them. That would be trolling, and we can leave that to the Salmon.

  4. Kingfisher

    People having work suppressed by publishers are no more likely to be “privileged” than any other working people losing their work because of an employer being whispered to.

  5. Mig Eater

    I know loads of writer who were not suppressed by their publishers. Sadly. The ones working for INM and publishing their guff in the Sunday Independent – Harris, O’Connor, O’Hanlon….

  6. Daisy Chainsaw

    If cancel culture worked, Mel Gibson and Mike Tyson would no longer have careers. Harvey Weinstein will get another Oscar and people will bow and scrape to Prince Andrew for the rest of his long, self indulgent life.

    1. Termagant

      Mel Gibson barely has a career beyond indie films and personal projects. He didn’t have a single acting role between 2005 and 2010.
      Mike Tyson doesn’t really count since his crowd is the martial arts crowd, the same kind of people who cheer on McGregor.
      Regardless: that they don’t always succeed in irrevocably destroying peoples lives doesn’t mean that the attempt isn’t damaging.

      1. Commenter #1

        So what you’re saying is that besides the careers they still have, they don’t have careers?

        1. Termagant

          A job is a job, is that it? It doesn’t matter if you get demoted from executive to the mail room, you’re still working so you’ve nothing to complain about.

          1. Commenter #1

            Just so I’m clear; you’re comparing Mel Gibson making movies that he wants to make, along with action blockbusters and comedies co-starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, to being demoted to the mail room?

            ETA: Also, for my part; I don’t think that Mel Gibson should have a career any longer. He should disappear and enjoy his money.

          2. Termagant

            Compared to where he was before he said things people didn’t like? Yes, absolutely.

          3. Commenter #1

            Then we disagree. Can I ask if you think he deserved whatever “fall” he has experienced?

          4. Termagant

            How is that unclear? No, I don’t. Apocalypto deserved the 2007 Oscar for best picture.

          5. Nigel

            A better question would be whether you disapprove of professional consequences due to his recorded outbursts? Do you think it would be unfair and unjust if he had a hard time getting work because of them? Does it count as cancel culture if people don’t want to work with an anti-semitic abuser?

          6. Termagant

            You’re assuming that people didn’t want to work with Mel directly because of what he did, and not because of the potential blowback in industry. Jim Caviezel is neither antisemitic nor sexist, but after working with Mel on Passion he found it very difficult to find work. Not to mention that you’ve got people who are on one hand highly critical of Mel having no qualms working with Roman Polanski. Nor to mention the industry-wide tolerance of Weinstein’s activities. To propose that Mel’s career suffered because people singularly disapproved of his actions rather than as a reaction to the campaign against him strains credibility.

          7. Nigel

            The degree to which Gibson suffered professionally due to his behaviour is difficult to guage, except to say that he is still finding work. (And Jim Cazaviel got a long-ruunning hit TV show post-Temptation, didn’t he?) That’s not what I was asking. I was asking if he did, would it be unfair?

            As to Polanski and Weinstien – I’d say the numbers of women and black and Asian performers and professionals who suffered just for being women and black and Asian far outweigh the number of men who ever got canceled in Hollywood for being child rapists, abusers or anti-semites. But it’s ony when people started talking openly about that that the backlash against cacel culture became a thing, hey?

          8. Termagant

            Mel finds work now, but for 5 years he didn’t find a single role. And the work he finds now is hardly quality. Caviezel was a rising star and leading man when he did Passion of the Christ. It was followed by 7 years in the wilderness before he landed Person of Interest.

            I don’t know what point you’re trying to make about Polanski and Weinstein. You argued that Mel’s career suffered because people didn’t want to work with him because he said mean words, rather than the repercussions of being seen to work with him. I argued that the same people had no issues working alongside literal rapists. If you’re trying to make a parallel between cancel culture and the movements to take down figures like Polanski and Weinstein, drawing an equivalence between saying bad words about the jews and literally raping women and children – then you’re a disgusting human being.

          9. Commenter #1

            So to sum up: you don’t think Mel Gibson should have suffered the career consequences that he has for “saying bad words about the jews.”

          10. Termagant

            Listen Commenter if you’re not actually going to say anything would you just say nothing

          11. Commenter #1

            Don’t you dare stifle my free speech.

            I just think it’s clarifying to know precisely where individuals stand on the particulars of the most high-profile “cancel culture” cases. For my part, like I said, I think Gibson should disappear and enjoy his money; Polanski should be in prison, and should never work again.

          12. Termagant

            All right, but this is the very last time I’ll clarify my position for you, it’s very tiresome.

            No, I don’t think Mel Gibson’s career should have been actively dismantled the way it was in response to things he said.

          13. Nigel

            You say I argued things which I didn’t. I’ve no idea about the ins and outs of their careers. I just asked if you thought it would be wrong for him to suffer professionally for his outbursts. Since you’ve reduced anti-semitism and domestic abuse to ‘some mean words’ I guess not.

            If you think a culture that forgives child rape and sexual abuse of young women isn’t going to find room for anti-semitic domestic abusers then I don’t know what to tell you.

            There isn’t an equivalence between MeToo and callout or cancel culture – they are the same thing. Some of the things being spoken about are oviously far, far more serious than others, but they are all quite serious and they all have the potential to ruin lives. Not the lives of the people criticised, but the lives affected by those people.

            People act as if there’s no concequences from having people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever, in positions of authorty or power. What about the fears and livelihoods and silence of the people who have to deal with those who hold such attitudes and who have some sort of power or authority over them, whether it’s being served in a shop, examined by a Doctor, arrested by a cop or lectured from a column in the newspaper? They’re the ‘mob’ you want to silence.

          14. Termagant

            There’s a very substantial fundamental difference between taking down people for the ideas they hold and taking down people for overt acts of violence or harassment against other people. There’s a clear line, you can’t seem to see it and that’s very worrying.

            If you’re Joe Nobody and you feel that someone in a position of power over you has discriminated against you because of your beliefs there’s a range of recourse available to you and rightly so. I don’t want to silence Joe, I just don’t want him to participate in en masse organised attempts to extrajudicially punish people for their perceived sins.

          15. Nigel

            You think that people that hold certain ideas can’t behave in ways that victimise others because of those ideas? You think Weinstein doesn’t have ideas about women and power and sex? What recourse did his victims have that wasn’t corrupted and institutionally designed to protect him? How can you demand that less powerful people, whether for acts equally heinous or not, must confine themselves to some proper recourse when it, too, may be corrupted and institutionally designed to protect the holders of certain ideas?

            Surely you don’t have to strain hard to find examples of injustices redressed only because someone without power succesfully called public attention to their plight and people en masse demanded it. Liveline was around long before the internet. Of course it’s a terrible, inexact, unequal way to redress injustice, but if all the other channels are institutionally corrupted and loaded against the victim, then they can hardly be denied, can they? If powerful billionaires can pay millions to organise targeted online disinformation campaigns to acheive political outcomes that benefit them with impunity, can’t Joe Bloggs complain online when a shop assistant was racist towards him?

            This backlash against cancel culture is purely of benefit to the billionaire, not Joe Bloggs.

      2. ReproBertie

        “his crowd is the martial arts crowd”
        Go blow it out yer fundament termagent. You haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.

        1. Termagant

          You’re welcome to prove me wrong. Fans of boxing, fans of MMA, prove to me that they don’t fall into the kind of niche that doesn’t really care what Twitter’s talking about.

          1. ReproBertie

            “Fans of boxing, fans of MMA” is completely different to “the martial arts crowd”.

            The martial arts crowd is full of people in karate, kung fu, jiujitsu, aikido, judo, taekwondo, tai chi and boxing clubs up and down the country teaching kids and adults how to kick, punch, throw and fall, trying to instil respect and discipline as well as self awareness and self protection skills. They are very far removed from the whooping knuckle draggers who lionise the likes of McGregor now that he has shown his true colours. There was a time when he may have been an example of hard work and discipline paying off but now he’s a cautionary tale.

            Which of “the martial arts crowd” was it that landed Tyson his roles in the Hangover films, btw?

          2. Termagant

            What do you think the phrase “martial art” means?
            Additional: what do you think the trailing MA of MMA stands for?

          3. ReproBertie

            I know what it means. Do you know what the word “generalisation” means?

            Do you think everyone who watches MMA or boxing thinks the same way and believes the same thing? Do you think everyone involved in martial arts supports McGregor or condones his actions?

            As I said, you haven’t a clue what your talking about.

          4. Termagant

            It’s not a generalisation. Boxing is a martial art, MMA is definitively martial arts. What would you have me call them instead?

          5. ReproBertie

            The generalisation was in “the martial arts crowd, the same kind of people who cheer on McGregor” and you know this.

            “The martial arts crowd” is a lot bigger and broader than McGregor’s fan base.

          6. Termagant

            So how can I specify that I’m just referring to what you’d seemingly consider the lower-brow martial arts

          7. ReproBertie

            I don’t consider boxing or MMA as lower brow martial arts.

            If you can’t come up with a way to describe what you are talking about without dragging a huge bunch of unrelated people into it then maybe you should reconsider what you are trying to say instead of generalising and showing that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

            Your attempted point doesn’t even make sense since it was Hollywood that gave Tyson a new career with the Hangover franchise. Or do you think the people who made the Hangover films successful were “the martial arts crowd”?

          8. Termagant

            Bertie I’m begging you please just tell me how you’d like me to refer to the people I’m referring to
            Mike was briefly in a Hangover movie 11 years ago, I don’t know why you keep bringing it up

          9. ReproBertie

            I can’t tell you because I don’t know who you are trying to refer to.

            I keep mentioning the Hangover (he was in the first and second BTW) because after his retirement Tyson didn’t have anything going on that would bring him to the general public’s attention until the Hangover film. Daisy said that if cancel culture existed then Tyson would no longer have a career. You said he didn’t count because his crowd was “the martial arts crowd” but if not for the Hangover films what would he have now? Prior to that it was failed comebacks, an attempt at a K1 career scuppered by his criminal convictions, the odd story about drugs possession, DUI charges and bankruptcy.

          10. Termagant

            I don’t really think a cameo in a summer comedy translates to a thriving acting career. If not for it he’d still be one of the most famous boxers in history. Do you think his upcoming comeback is because he made a short appearance in the Hangover in 2009?

            Regardless, if you can’t provide me with an acceptable alternative I’ll have to keep calling fans of McGregor, Fury, Tyson the martial arts crowd. I could call them the boxing crowd but McGregor doesn’t box to my knowledge.

          11. ReproBertie

            So because you can’t come up with a better term for a group of people you are trying to describe you are going to continue to use one which has been shown to be incorrect and thus reaffirm that you haven’t a clue what you are talking about and are proud of your limitations?

            You could try saying what you mean, i.e. people who don’t care about what Tyson and McGregor do outside the ring.

            McGregor started out as an amateur boxer and had a highly publicised show bout with Floyd Mayweather.

            I think Tyson’s teaming up with Spike Lee and then embarking on a tour with the one man show they came up with was sparked by his cameo in the Hangover films. This led to increasing his public profile further, through chat show appearances and other movie roles, to the point where people are even aware that a comeback is being considered.

        2. Termagant

          As an example:
          Tyson Fury can say “‘There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home. One of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other is paedophilia. Who would have thought in the 50s and 60s that those first two would be legalised? When I say paedophiles could be made legal, it sounds crazy. But if I had said to you about the first two being made legal in the 50s, I would have been looked upon as a crazy man.” and it doesn’t prevent him being one of the biggest names currently on the scene.

          1. Commenter #1

            So what? Should he be “one of the biggest names currently on the scene,” do you think?

          2. Termagant

            If he’s a good boxer, yeah. ESPN apparently rank him as the best currently active heavyweight in the world so I think that wraps that up.

    2. Junkface

      If cancel culture was not real then you would not have scores of Professors in the US and some in the UK losing their jobs, just for standing up to it. Look it up

      1. Captain Pants

        They’ll look it up, and then disavow the source that reports it as ‘right wing’. Youd think the fact the Noam Chomsky signed the Harper’s letter would tell them something. But no, what we’re seeing now is read-only leftism – information only goes in one direction. Chomsky’s probably just another ‘boomer’ to these people.

          1. Captain Pants

            yup – there’s a reason that this stuff comes from America – its borrows heavily from evangelical Christianity. Its one of the reasons I hope Irish people wont fall for it – our half arsed Irish Catholic derived passivity might be something of a prophylactic.

          2. Nigel

            Look out a cult! they say, pointing at people criticisng other people for being racist and stuff and disagreeing with Chomsky. Meanwhile:

            ‘He calls Trump the Great White Hope because, he says, “Number one, he is white. Number two, he is of God.” Peterson does not mean this metaphorically. Trump is the chosen one, his words gospel.’

            https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel

            ‘Sane centre’ me eye.

          1. Commenter #1

            We had a meeting and decided. He can get things wrong sometimes, but on the whole he is Good.

      2. Daisy Chainsaw

        Scores you say? Any link to data showing these scores of professors losing their jobs due to cancel culture? I mean if over 40 professors lost their jobs due to cancel culture, we’d know about it, wouldn’t we? Who are all these professors?

        1. Commenter #1

          I would also like to know the answer to this question. Interested to see if Steven Salaita or Norman Finkelstein are among them.

          1. Commenter #1

            I count, maximum, 6 people in that list who could conceivably be called professors, and not all of whom lost their jobs. That’s before drilling down into the circumstances of each individual case.

            Where’s the other 34+?

          2. Ghost of Yep

            I never claimed 40. I have never claimed it only professors. I’m simply providing examples of what you willingly ignore.

          3. Clampers Outside

            There’s a list being compiled by academics on the issue of persons “cancelled” out of their job, so I’ll let you know when they publish it.

          4. Clampers Outside

            In the meantime, here’s Chomsky on the reaction to the letter and the many Left leaning academics that have emailed him after he signed.

            It is evidence that cancel culture isn’t just about the numbers of persons who lose their jobs but also about those who feel silenced as a result of those losing their jobs…. Its not just “scores” but a multiple of scores.

            https://twitter.com/UD880/status/1282311000285315075?s=19

          5. Commenter #1

            So in response to a request for evidence of scores of professors losing their jobs because of cancel culture, you post an unrelated list of individuals who may or may not have lost their jobs because of cancel culture? Cool!

          6. Ghost of Yep

            “Scores means multiples of 20.” Your Western ideal of mathematics and it’s function just proves you are still struggling to shake your unconscious bias towards White imperialism. Try better to be better.

        2. Clampers Outside

          It’s not just about those who lose their job, it’s also about the silencing effect on many others when just one colleague loses their job.

          1. Nigel

            For the longest time people have been able to act with impunity and keep their jobs, and their victims had to suffer in silence or leave. Imagine, if they’d had proper protections and systems in place, all along, it might not have come to this.

          2. Nigel

            Protections for employees? In the right-wing USA of at-will employment? The left want to call out racists, sexists, homophobes in positions of power or authority. The right wants to be able to fire anyone they want for any reason they want at any time they want.

  7. Captain Pants

    Defenders of so-called ‘cancel culture’ usually do so by either flat out denying it exists, or admitting it exists, but is overblown. They seem to think that because the secret police are not actually hauling people away in the dead of night, that there’s nothing to worry about.

    In fact the victims of cancel culture are often relatively economically powerless people – its untenured professors, the young, and people in insecure, difficult to value professions such as the arts that are most often ‘cancelled’. And it is the comfortable who most benefit from appalling behaviour on the left – this is why lareg corporations are happy to stick a black square on their website and force people to attend fatuous diversity trainings.They know that a workforce terrified of spurious accusations of racism/sexism are unlikely to come together and ask for better pay and conditions.

    To paraphrase Chomsky – we do actually still live in a liberal democracy with free speech, but most of us work in dictatorships. And sure, you arent going to get hauled off to the Gulag, but losing your job (and future jobs) is very serious for those it happens to (and theres many of them), not to mention the extreme psychological trauma that results from being rejected by your friends. If these things were happening to actual nazis, racists or sexists, this wouldn’t bother me that much – but we’ve seen since about 2013, that many on the left have lost any ability to see the difference between hatred and simple disagreement.

    1. Nigel

      So you should not be allowed to criticise people for being racist or sexist because then ìt’s your fault if they get fired. Who’s being told to suppress their speech in this equation? Ah yes. ‘The mob.’

      1. Junkface

        Yes, the intellectual community of writers, psychologists, journalists (with guts), filmmakers and artists are all wrong Nigel. They didn’t even consider your clever perspective.

        “Oh Mr Rushdie! Have you considered what Nigel thinks about freedom of expression? Apparently it’s overrated compared to the woke Utopia.”

        1. Nigel

          That’s an appeal to authority, there, Junkface. Also, assumes the intellectual community of writers, psychologists, journalists (with guts), filmmakers and artists are all in agreement.

          1. Junkface

            They are in agreement in opposition to cancel culture. That was the point of the letter.

          2. Clampers Outside

            Nigel has a habit of making up his own motivations for other people’s actions. He demonstrates this in his response.

          3. Nigel

            No, the point of the letter was to provide cover for JK Rowling right to continue being, depressingly, increasingly transphobic without being called out on it. (Y’know ‘call out culture’ really is a better name for it. To cancel someone is a personal thing, writing off someone you admired because you dislike their views, as is your right.) The letter iself was just a collection of vague platitudes.

          4. Clampers Outside

            All those trans people who support JK Rowling must be suffering from internalised transphobia Nigel. You should tell them, and Educate them about biology, not the scientific way of looking at biology, but one of those ‘other ways of knowing’ ideological views of biology.
            That’ll learn ’em.

          5. Junkface

            No. You may need to read the letter again Nigel. Their concerns were laid out quite clearly in English.

            Maybe you’ve been reading so much woke nonsense and terminology that normal English is looking somewhat confusing to you. We should ask Google for an
            ‘English – Woke’ translator for the Google play app store.

          6. Clampers Outside

            NewDiscourses.com has that translator you are looking for.

            It takes actual “scholarship” from top Critical Theory papers and Profs in the field and gives the references and definitions used by them.
            A parody of the definitions isn’t necessary, the real deal stuff is batpoop crazy!
            Good for a laugh, and good for understanding what these postmodernist poop peddlars really mean.

  8. Captain Pants

    Criticism is not the same thing as getting people fired. Its the getting fired that makes it ‘cancel culture’. The left should by all means criticise racists and sexists in no uncertain terms. It is calling for people to be fired, doxed and socially rejected that people are complaining about, particularly when its based on partial readings or wilful misunderstandings of their work.

    And it is by no means only ‘the right’ that worry about this – there are lots of liberal left wing people worried about it too – particular because its excesses provide endless fodder for right wing media. Fox news doesn’t even have to make these things up any more – the left actually uploads the videos of themselves behaving like entitled children to social media for them – all they have to do is post the link. Denying it exists isnt going to fix the problem. Its the lefts achilles heel, as we’ve seen in recent elections in the UK. Besides most left wing people arent even on board with it – but they often stay quiet and let organisations be taken over by it.

    1. Commenter #1

      What should left-wing people do in response to racist/homophobic/sexist speech or actions?

      1. Captain Pants

        Criticise it , argue with it. model better behaviour than it: You know, like the left did from the 1960’s onwards when we were fighting real racism, sexism and homophobia, that was actually entrenched in all the institutions of society, and we won, and won and won again.

        1. Commenter #1

          It blows my mind that the radical action of 60s and later activists has been reduced to “criticising and arguing and modelling better behaviour.” People demonstrated, committed civil disobedience, went to prison, and died in some cases in order to get whatever improvements that came along. If the people who were in power in the 1950s were still in power, would those shifts have happened? No way.

        2. Nigel

          We won? We defeated racism, sexism and homophobia? The existence of MeToo and BLM would suggest otherwise. And I don’t think Poland, Russia, Turkey or even the USA , to say nothing of the Middle East, are currently getting friendler to LGTBQ people.

          1. Captain Pants

            No of course we didnt defeat them, but in Western countries like Ireland we made the largest amount of progress on those issues that any societies have ever made, and were continuing to make progress day by day before this stuff came along. Ireland did this in double quick time too – i remember being worried that the gay marriage and abortion campaigns would be derailed by US Culture War silliness. But to our immense credit we didnt do that and we won.

            And of course Im speaking mostly of Western Countries. Very little progress has been made in the places you mention (but of course proponents of cancel culture would often call you a racist for saying so).

          2. Commenter #1

            lolol “double quick time.” the 8th amendment only sat in the constitution for 30+ years. lightning speed!

          3. Clampers Outside

            Bullpoo!

            Unless you think Chomsky and all the others of the Left that signed the Harpers letter are now Right wingers…. Then again, you fight for Self ID, and think women have a penis, so it wouldn’t be surprising or much of a stretch to believe you’d think that… In fairness.

          4. Nigel

            Yes, it is certainly sad to see all those supposedly eminent supposedly left-wing figures buying into a right-wing bad-faith culture war framing. Guess you’re in good company, so.

          5. Clampers Outside

            No Nigel, it wouldn’t be a heterodox meeting of people if all the people in company agreed with each other in an orthodoxical framing of viewpoints. That’s the point… maybe get yourself a dictionary, yeah.

          6. Nigel

            I mean, we’re having a disagreement, but you said you prefer people who agree with you – are you sure you’re the right person to champion intellectual inquiry?

    2. Nigel

      If someone is racist and sexist online and it gets back to their employer, how is it anyone’s fault but the person who was racist and sexist? Online stuff gets back to families and employers all the time. Some of it is well-meaning (possibly misguided, possibly not, depending,) a lot of it malicious, a lot of it unture. It’s a sorry fact of life in the modern age. The right aren’t worried about this at all. The right love it. Attract the attention of the wrong sorts of people on the right for the wrong reasons (some examples of reasons being – youre a woman, gay, trans, black, or a gay black trans woman) and you’ll find out what an online mob really is.

      1. Clampers Outside

        Being gay is a Left thing is it? You sound like those idiots on the Tortoise Shack Echo Chamber podcast that had a homophobic go at Varadkar because he was the wrong kind of gay… Right wing, and gay.

        Jesus, listeb to yourself Nigel.

          1. Clampers Outside

            Well yes Nigel, It would appear that’s how you see things when one reads your prior comment. It’d be good if you didn’t, just pointing that out.

    1. Clampers Outside

      Good piece Captain, thanks for sharing.

      “… to suggest that ordinary people cannot participate in censorship or inculcation of an illiberal environment is to be blind to the ways that such attitudes can operate at multiple levels in society.”… Well said.

      “One might expect the liberal-left to be among the strongest defenders of free speech at work, and of the right of workers to say what they wish, but too many have enthusiastically called upon employers to fire workers for alleged reactionary speech outside of the workplace, in effect cheering on at-will termination of employment”… yeah, one might have expected, but one is not seeing it :/

      Lots of good examples from all sides.
      Again, good share Captain!

      1. Nigel

        ‘the strongest defenders of free speech at work, and of the right of workers to say what they wish,’

        It’s not sexual/racist/homophobic harassment it’s free speech at work which you have to support!

  9. Captain Pants

    ‘double quick time’ – we went from being arguably the most socially conservative country in Europe to one of its most liberal in the years from roughly 1990 till now. That’s pretty damn amazing – its a win for the left that should be celebrated, is all I’m saying.

    1. Nigel

      We’re socially quite liberal. Economically it feels like we’re in a neoliberal deathgrip.

      1. Captain Pants

        Agreed. And theres good evidence that spurious accusations of racism and sexism are part of keeping people in line for that neoliberalism.

        1. Nigel

          In Ireland? What spurious accusations of racism and sexism? I doubt very much such things have anything to do with it. We’re economically conservative, and that’s incredibly entrenched and diffult to budge. Feminism has been a powerful force for change in this country, as recently as the Repeal campaign. Anti-racism is focused on ending Direct Provision and elevating immigrant voices. Nothing spurious about either of those.

  10. Clampers Outside

    Reposting this…. because it says a lot… re scale of the issue in just the field of academia. The most important field where open inquiry and heterodox views should be expressed and debated not cancelled out of any discussion by weak minded authoritarianism which is what cancel culture is.

    In the meantime, here’s Chomsky on the reaction to the letter and the many Left leaning academics that have emailed him after he signed.

    It is evidence that cancel culture isn’t just about the numbers of persons who lose their jobs but also about those who feel silenced as a result of those losing their jobs…. Its not just “scores” but a multiple of scores.

    https://twitter.com/UD880/status/1282311000285315075?s=19

    1. Nigel

      To put it another way: there are views that cannot be challenged, opposed or rejected because to challenge or oppose those ideas is authoritarianism. It’s a kind of affirmative action for ideas that are so stupid, bad and wrong they could only flourish in Trump’s America or Brexit Britain, therefore the ideas themselves can only be intellectually defended by screaming FREE SPEECH over and over again, shutting down any intellectual inquiry or argument.

      And bear in mind – a direct result of these ideas being supported and defended by the likes of Clamps are the multiple unnecessary covid deaths brought about by the rise of a political philosophy with no merit whatsoever.

      1. Clampers Outside

        The first bit is laughable, stupid and anti-intellectual claptrap. This has been going since before Trump, so that point is also bullpoo. Plus there is no screaming, it’s a letter.

        The second bit… Good grief man! :0) Are you seriously suggesting that open inquiry, heterodox opinion and discussion, that free speech, the very bed rock of democracy is a political philosophy without merit….

        You are so far down the Critical Theory / Marxist rabbit hole you are now railing against the pillar of an open democracy.
        Either that or you’re just making another word salad… at this point it’s hard to tell when you’re talking through your sphincter LOL!

        1. Nigel

          This has been going on since long before Trump. The Indefensible ideas are being defended not on their merits but in the name of free speech. Look how you literally conflate the ‘heterodox ideas’ with free speech as if they’re interchangeable.

          The challenge to the pillars of democracy do not come from people calling out racists but from the ragng anti-intellectualism of the US right. They do not believe in evolution, vaccines or climate change. They white-wash history and think wearing masks during a pandemic is an infringement of their freedoms.

          All of these things have been challenged, disproved and dismissed, but persist because of culture war tactics, often funded by billionaires, that equate their challenging, disproval and dismissal as attacks on free speech. People like you and a lot of the media and the signees of that letter would rather demonise the calling out of racists than confront the hugely destructive authoritarian right and their dangerous and deadly superstitions.

          1. Clampers Outside

            First para… Heterodox ideas and free speech do very very much go hand in hand

            Second para…. 2.1: The “US right” is not a monolith grouping of same thinking people as you have painted them, and many of them do believe in the things you say they do not. Don’t be, I say again, such a cockwomble. And speaking of anti-intellectual approaches, you are an advocate for such pseudo-science as gender ideology and its resulting Self ID and the insistence that women have a penis. Pot, meet kettle Nigel… you’re talking about yourself there. 

            2nd para.. 2.2 White washing history is wrong and again not all on the “US Right” do so. Nor I’m sure do all in the “US Left” believe in the revisionist history of the Left conducted under the ‘1619 Project’ which has actually infiltrated schools.

            3rd para…. This one is some doozey :)

            Before I do, allow me to rant on Critical Theory for a bit… 

            The culture war persists because the basis of the Lefts’ approach is in Critical Theory which seeks to tear down Western Civilisation. 

            That’s not an opinion, its in the objectives of the “theory*”. 

            It seeks confrontation and division and it will only be content with a Utopia. This too is in the objectives of the “theory”. Its intellectual (if it can even be called that) approach is in seeking perfection, not betterment, but perfection. To achieve the unobtainable and to do so through a continuous criticism of everything regardless of real world imperfections of what it is to be human without any desire to understand humanity. This too is self evident in the “theory”. 

            Its an idiots guide to critique.

            Anyway… I’m going on a bit… My point is that the culture war has on the Left a basis with a desire for confrontation of all that is not perfect, and as a result will always be at war. 

            This though, I’m sure, is way past your willingness to deconstruct such a theory, as you clearly accept its proselytisations like a zealot walking aimlessly into authoritarianism…. :/

            Back to para 3…

            All of those things have been debated and continue to be debated. And even though, for example, I do not care for the religious Rights views of evolution, I would never cancel them but instead have them debated and shown for the foolishness that they are. This has been done successfully with most people Left and Right. But it is no persons right to stop those religious persons from holding those views if they wish. This is where you and I clearly do not agree, as you would have this view silenced and the persons holding them cancelled. I would have them air their views and debated out of the room. 

            No one, not even people like me, are demonising the cancel culture mob. The request is simply to stop acting like a mob.

          2. Nigel

            ‘Heterodox ideas and free speech do very very much go hand in hand’

            You were using them interchangeably as if they’re the same thing, which is a rhetorical trick, and a cheap on at that, but the weird thing is I don’t think you were aware you were doing it.

            ‘The “US right” is not a monolith’

            Maybe not, but I have described the ongoing right wing project with regard to universities, and therefore political dissent, accurately.

            I am an advocate for the reality of gender dysphoria and its medical treatment, as practiced by actual doctors, not raving transphobes on twitter.

            ‘White washing history is wrong and again not all on the “US Right” do so.’

            And yet, the current arguments about confederate statues have been a longstanding issue of right wing efforts to mytholigise the Confederacy and remind black people who’s boss.

            ‘Nor I’m sure do all in the “US Left” believe in the revisionist history of the Left conducted under the ‘1619 Project’ which has actually infiltrated schools.’

            Makes sense that you’d buy into right-wing attacks on this project.

            ‘The culture war persists because the basis of the Lefts’ approach is in Critical Theory which seeks to tear down Western Civilisation.’

            Huh, and there you were getting all snippy about monoliths. And geez, you’d think the aim of literally tearing down western civilisation would be some sort of red flag. So you HAVE studied this Critical Theory, have you? Done a course in it? Got a degree? Or is this truly an idiot’s guide?

            The left did not start the culture war. The right did, because in the US the right’s culture was so rubbish, and they were jealous, and they wanted culture of their own, but they’re so intrinsically agressive, they just went on the attack. We got right wing howling about television, film, books, news, colleges, all being unfair to conservatives. We got the War On Science and the War On Christmas. If you think The War On Christmas isn’t a hyped-up right-wing propagandafest, and has anything whatsoever to do with the left, then you’re hopeless. BUT if the left really are trying to bring about the fall of western civilisation, why then, there’s no reason you can’t treat them as politically illegitimate and potential terrorists whose votes and voices don’t count. Congratulations, you’ve signed on for the War On Liberals.

            But not having the argument against evolution taught in schools and colleges is infringing their rights! Don’t you get it? That’s the sort of heterodox views that they don’t want people to argue or debate about – they want them enshrined, promoted, elevated! But rejecting the idea that anti-evolutionary theory should be taught in schools and colleges is cancel culture? Mob behaviour?

          3. Clampers Outside

            I didn’t use the words interchangeably. 

            The universities are overwhelmingly one sided with many 100% Leftist. A fact easily googled. Your conspiracy is bullpoo. 

            You are not an advocate for proper care of gender dysphoria persons as evidenced in your attacks on those who raised the proven issues with current care. 

            The statues don’t white wash history. They shouldn’t be up, but they don’t white wash the fact they were racist. 

            The ‘1619 Project’ has been rubbished by ma y black academics and historians as well as white persons of both the Left and Right. 

            I have studied Critical Theory on completing my Sociology degree, yes.

            That ‘war’ paragraph… I’ll call it that :) 

            Ever heard of the phrase ‘Liberal not Lefty’… The meaning being what was once viewed as Liberal and Left combined is no longer a thing. The ‘war on liberals’ would be better described as a ‘war on Leftists (or far-left idealogues)’ 

            I didn’t say that I believed anti-evolutionary theory should be taught in schools. I’d reject that myself, through debate. 

            Thanks, this has been fun :) 

          4. Nigel

            I’m sorry, I can’t get over the fact that some absolute genius-level troll convinced you there’s a course being taught in US universities whose purpose is to bring down Western Civilisation.

      2. Clampers Outside

        Also, you missed the part where Chomsky said they are “left” leaning academics who are being silenced.

        You really need to get your head out of that echo chamber as it blinds you to what is written and you are seeing only what you want to see… you’re some cockwomble, for sure.

        1. Nigel

          I did miss that part because I was too deafened by the left-leaning right-leaning anyway-leaning academics being silenced by the anti-intellectual right-wing assault on universities through harassment, endless criticism, whining about their free speech and threats of defunding, which the president of the US has openly stated is motivated by the destire to silence opposing political views.

          I also noticed the funding of universities and research by the super-rich and corrupt, one notable example being Epstein, and the implications such a figure has on intellectual inquiry and the influence of hyper-rich crackpots who are racist, sexist, homophobic and rapists. But a close examination of the supposedly left leaning academics associated with such figures is probably call-out culture too. Chomsky would disapprove

          1. Clampers Outside

            You’d probably do well in one of the Critical Theory ‘studies’ programmes with an ability to write such… LOL!

          2. Nigel

            You wouldn’t do well in any studies programme if this is the extent of your ability to engage in debate.

          1. Clampers Outside

            What’s so ‘oh dear’ about expelling someone from your home when that person abuses your friend… Read his full thread Nigel, and stop being an idiot thinking you’ve a ‘gotcha’ moment ffs.

            Thanks though for the LOLs at such an attempt :)

          2. Nigel

            Oh, sure, it’s almost as if it’s ok to eject people when they’re being abusive and wrong, but only if you’re anti-woke.

    2. Nigel

      When you’re talking about cancl culture being weak-minded authoritarianism, do you mean this?
      https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1282910977776848896
      Do you lament the silencing of the multiple scores of other racist tech CEOs who feel they now can’t go on public racist rants at nearby families? What would Chomsky do? Would he scold the family for not debtating his heterodox views with him in the interests of open inquiry? Are they participating in censorship and the inculcation of an illiberal environment?

      1. Clampers Outside

        You’re talking about a person who made a racist rant. I’m talking about open inquiry.

        Of course a racist should be taken up on saying racist crap, what is your point of stating the obvious? That’s not even cancel culture ffs.

        By the way… Do tell of these ‘multiple scores’ of CEOs going on racist rants like that.

        On your silly questions, no and no. Don’t argue in such a disingenuous and ridiculous manner, it makes you look like a knob end.

        1. Nigel

          Amazing how the definition of cancel culture is at once incredibly broad enough to destroy the very pillars of democracy, but also hyper-narrow enough to exclude someone getting fired for being racist, even though that seems like the very essence of so-called cancel culture.

          1. Clampers Outside

            Ah hear, will ya get off the feckin’ bus if you cannot make a simple differentiation like that, ffs

          2. Nigel

            It’s as if your whole anti-cancel-culture culture war schtick only works if you exclude particular instances of it, eg those where racists and sexists lose their jobs for being racist or sexist, while still insisting that it’s an all-encompassing threat to a free society.

          3. class wario

            the supposed broadness of it is incredibly intentional fwiw. works well for the purposes of getting certain things under the door in the great culture war

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