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Cruel and Unusual Punishment
- verroq 8y agoJust like in 1984 where if you are vapourised you disappear completely as if you had never existed at all.
- hath995 8y agoWhile I can understand and somewhat agree with his point that the works should be judged on their own merit. However, I find his attitude extremely callous. He even reiterated the point that even if the artist was an axe murderer he wouldn't care he just wants the goods. It boils down to he's saying that the suffering of any of the victims doesn't matter to him. Literally at all... More over there is a pretty deep undercurrent that that has been the attitude for a long time and that the suffering of others has been ignored for equally long. If you want justification for removing the works of the artists then consider it a form of ill-gotten gains. Would that work of art have been made if they're crime had been revealed or convicted?
- kstenerud 8y agoOk, let's go down this road. Suppose a crime is discovered long after the event. Does that mean you take their house? They probably wouldn't have gotten a job good enough to buy one. Their possessions? Gone. How about their family? Probably wouldn't have gotten married. Probably wouldn't have had those children. Erase erase erase! Honestly, the response here is downright frightening, and I fear for our future...
- hath995 8y agoThe difference between all the things that you listed is that works of art are able to give royalties to a person. If you continue to buy or consume their products they still profit. Obviously ex post facto law is bad for society. However, if an artist is receiving royalties for a work they made during which they raped several people, why should they still profit?
- kstenerud 8y agoBecause it's the job of the justice system to mete out punishment, not the modern day equivalent of a lynch mob.
- arduanika 8y ago> Because it's the job of the justice system to mete out punishment, not the modern day equivalent of a lynch mob. This should be so glaringly obvious. A common problem when someone finishes serving their jail time as allotted by said justice system, the (much more low-key) lynch mob doesn't want to hire them just yet. But what doesn't happen is this: the prisoner, by some stroke of luck, gets a job in a say a car factory, and suddenly everyone else in that factory should loose their job, and I'm a bad person for wanting to drive a car that the ex-felon worked on.
- m_mueller 8y agoThe difference is probably that the factory worker is not seen by the car buyer - we wouldn’t want to expose everyone’s mind to the terrible sight of an ex-felon would we? Now all that being said, this is probably just a pendulum swing. It looks like for decades sexual assault was shielded in the media industry - me too is overall still a positive movement IMO, it’s just important to not letting it get too far (and I think those breaking forces are already acting).
- zimpenfish 8y agoOne of the key problems, however, is that the justice system isn't doing that. Hence why you get consumer-level campaigns to apply pressure and punishments in other ways.
- xorfish 8y agoHow can you know that it isn't doing that? I imagine sex crimes to be really hard to proof. Because the difference between a completely legal act and one that is deeply wrong is the state of mind of two people at the time. The justice system shouldn't convict someone if it can't be sure that the accuses really did the crime.
- MisterBastahrd 8y agoIf someone steals $400K from you, and you discover who it was 10 years later, are you not due at least $400K from that person even if it means liquidating their assets? Don't build your future on the ashes of someone else's past.
- arduanika 8y agoLuckily there wasn't any suffering that went into making my iPhone, so I'm all clear to enjoy that, right?
- cocacola1 8y agoIt can't be that difficult for people to admit they consume products that were created under less than ideal conditions.
- classicsnoot 8y agoApply this logic (ill gotten gains is the term you used, but I interpret it as a coded way to say value created by immoral actors) to technology and it suddenly becomes a little more complicated. The scary prospect, from my perspective, is that cultural erasure on moral grounds is not only possible, it could be inevitable and lead to a chain reaction. From the statue removal in the US (easily justifiable considering the circumstances of their placement) to the college course alteration and removal in certain South African universities (justifiable under Socially Just interpretations) to the discrediting and forced reinterpretation of scientific theory (IQ studies, intelligent design inclusion, inherent sex disparity, evolutionary genetics), it would appear there may in fact be a reduced friction gradient that isn't wholly fallacious. If some pernicious pedophile develops a cure for cancer, I'm not going to consider for even a second whether or not I am going to use it.
- hath995 8y agoIf some pernicious pedophile develops a cure for cancer, it would be morally wrong not to use it. However, if that particular pedophile should profit from it is an entirely separate question. Patents and copyrights are a government given right and they can be removed. Actions have consequences.
- kstenerud 8y agoSo, someone who commits a crime should not reap the rewards of unrelated activity? Seriously... Am I even talking to a member of the free world?
- dsajames 8y agoHe's not being extremely callous. He's just saying your opinion shouldn't be forced on him. The suffering of others doesn't need to be his problem. We can discourage that with prison and fines. No need to drag the consumer in on a forced march through some rabid vigilante social assassination.
- arduanika 8y agoOceania has always been at war with Eastasia, and Louis C.K. has never been funny.
- glangdale 8y agoJust like that, aside from the 'being actually killed', as opposed to spending a year in the naughty chair and getting to make a comeback. I mean, seriously? No getting to edit NYRB or have HBO specials anymore is not analogous to being thrown in prison, ostracized or (literally) disappeared.
- verroq 8y agoBeing digitally removed from your previous works sounds quite similar to the people disappearing from Stalin’s photos.
- trhway 8y agoon the positive side - despite all the mob power we still got the first openly "devil's triangle" Justice.
- jedmeyers 8y agoIf only we knew what it meant.
- jeffdavis 8y agoNot sure what the "devil's triangle" means. The Kavanaugh case is interesting. It makes clear that some people want a new process for determining guilt, but nobody seems to make clear what that process should be. A process is important because, in the face of uncertainty, we need an a priori agreement on how to settle it. After churning through the process we are supposed to unite around the result of it even of it's not what we hoped, and basically record it as a fact in the public record. Leaving festering challenges to every fact just keeps us divided, eventually to the point everyone is working with their own set of facts. It's also interesting because there is such a process. I don't see any reason the Maryland DA can't refer the matter to a grand jury. The grand jury would either indict or not, and then I believe we could unite around that result.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoUnderlying all of the points in this article is the idea that people are somehow entitled to success. Louis C.K. and Bill Cosby are famous, dammit — how dare people not promote their work or give them money! Meanwhile, zero sympathy for the people who experienced professional repercussions after being harassed or assaulted. Before you're successful, people can harm your career or discriminate against you all they want. It's okay! Would we have a problem with replacing an unknown actor if it were discovered that they were a serial sexual assaulter of minors and minor-adjacents? No? Then why do we care when it happens to Kevin Spacey?
- kstenerud 8y agoBecause Kevin Spacey has proven himself in his craft. If Michelangelo's works were destroyed this week because it was discovered he'd assaulted his daughter, would you mourn the loss? I would. I'd be furious at an incredibly stupid people!
- rtkwe 8y agoYeah but how much of that is because of the place in history his works hold. We're also not actually memory holing these people, their work still exists it's still part of the canon of culture. By and large they're still fantastically wealthy and likely will continue to be. Ultimately what's happening is just a decision that the good parts of a persons outputs don't outweigh the bad parts any more. That the acceptance of shitty behavior and the damage it does to both the people it directly affected and the damage the culture that excuses that behavior does to unrelated people isn't worth it. It's easy to see one side of the scale, everything a Spacey or Cosby has added to culture, but it's impossible to see the other side of the scale, the things we haven't gotten because of people driven away. (And on a simpler level fame doesn't excuse crimes no matter how much we raise people up because of it.)
- dsajames 8y agoYou absolutely are memory holing them. If you decide I'm not not allowed to see older Cosby episodes on your platform, new people can't watch it and it's little by little erased from cultural memory.
- sandyhatches 8y agoThis is why I read harpers.
- unsatchmo 8y agoCry me a river. All of the offenses she lists have one thing in common: they are fundamentally someone with power using that power to subjugate ( to varying degrees ) someone who they have power over. Learn to treat others with dignity and respect. That’s what this is about. It’s not hard at all. People are just upset because it was previously acceptable, but these actions were always pretty gross.
- neonate 8y agoThe author is not a he. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Shriver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Shriver
- unsatchmo 8y agoMy apologies, I appreciate the correction.
- jeffdavis 8y agoIs social isolation the right response? Does it produce a good outcome? Does it result in anyone deeply learning the lessons of history behind it all? Or do they just learn to keep their mouth shut? If someone is expressing bad ideas, then you can use their comments a an opportunity to teach a deeper lesson. If they just shut up, the conversation never happens and no learning takes place. I suspect that a lot of well-meaning people do not really understand much about racism. How could they? It's such a dangerous topic that you can't even ask basic questions without putting yourself at risk. Maybe that's fine in the sense that fewer people are offended. But I am not convinced that such a shallow lesson will last more than a couple generations, and the "shut up" lesson creates a lot of collateral damage to the overall culture.
- unsatchmo 8y agoMost of the offenses given (exposing yourself to subordinates for example) are not in the category of things you’re talking about. Well meaning people are racist and say racist things and when they are called out, they apologize and try to make it right. Someone who has a pattern of abusing their superior position to force people to be a part of things against their will is anathema to a free society.
- glangdale 8y agoNaked Gun is funnier thanks to the unnerving experience of seeing OJ in it, but Cosby as "America's Dad" is creepy AF. What's particularly off-base about this analysis is that Cosby was always creepy. She raises this idea like it's an absurdity, but anyone who saw "Spanish Fly" should have understood Cosby was a creep pure and simple. This is kind of typical of the essay - it sprays around highly contentious snap judgements like the NYRB essay by Ghomeshi being "Weak-but-still-interesting", and Farrow's allegations being "dodgy" at a disturbing rate. Buried in there there's a decent point (or two) struggling to get out. But there's a (possibly disingenuous) blurring of people ranging from Barr though Keillor through Louis CK through Cosby (i.e. obnoxious all the way up to criminally convicted) and a blurring of consequences (are we talking about 'ostracism' or 'erasure' or 'market based companies not wanting anything to do with you any more because you suck?). Private companies failing to continue to propagate Cosby's work is in no way analogous to being 'disappeared' by the Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure it's still pretty easy to see most of the works by these people; they aren't getting systematically purged from the libraries.
- kstenerud 8y agoPrivate companies ending Cosby's prior art is giving in to the mob. Had there not been such vitriolic outcry, they'd have happily continued making their profits. No, the erasure is not on them; it's entirely our fault. Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged, and you're happily cheering the flames.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- glangdale 8y agoIt's cute that you think that the purging the "modern equivalent of the library" is "not getting to have reruns on network television". I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the "modern equivalent of the library" is, well, the library. A quick check reveals that it is still possible to find The Cosby Show at most libraries of record.
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- jeffdavis 8y agoIt depends somewhat on the transgression and how it relates to thr works. Cosby's "lovable american Dad" character is incongruous with the crimes he committed and that really does diminish the work. Rosanne's charcter is flawed by design along with the rest of the realistic family. Throwing in racism (or stupidity, if she didn't intend it in a racist way) fits just fine with the character and does not diminish the great series that it was.
- kstenerud 8y agoShouldn't that be a decision to be made by each consumer, rather than a mob of social justice warriors pressuring companies to prevent everyone from accessing it?
- writepub 8y agoI agree with your opinions, and sympathize with the chronic downvoting and excessive moderating meted out here. There's little difference between the left and right these days, they've moved so far extreme that their underlying philosophies have started to align. One such is mob like bullying of corporations, and hysterical outrage. Be it Nike & Kapernick, or __corp_advertizer__ and Ben Shapiro, tribalism and herd behavior have been amplified by the internet. That has unleashed baser instincts of retribution, and when network effects and scale do to retribution what they do to the viral spread and adoption of Uber or Facebook, all hell is unleashed on the afflicted, regardless of the gravity of their crime. The internet was supposed to free our minds, not pile-on the moderately guilty, at scales VCs salivate over.
- kstenerud 8y agoThis is mostly an American phenomenon. Outsiders tend to look on with bemusement, but it's actually a very serious problem due to America's historical ethical leadership (despite the failures), and their current global influence. Like it or not, their example has far reaching effects the world over. I just hope that they can get out of this polar ideological warfare mindset before it goes too far. They may have lost the moral high ground, but they're still far removed from a rogue state. There's a real danger from Russian cyber campaigns to divide and confuse. These are far more dangerous to national security than the IP theft China engages in. Certain nations would love to help America fall from grace.
- kstenerud 8y agoAn underlying theme I've noticed to this article and the response here is that of people's attitudes towards ex felons. It's as if you believe that they are permanently lesser people; that their moral fibre is beyond redemption and they should never be allowed to enjoy the comforts of life, let alone pursue life, liberty, and happiness. You either punish and forgive your citizens, or else you admit that you're going to oppress them forever.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoI think a huge part of why we so strongly censure these people socially is that most of them skipped the justice system entirely. For every Cosby or Weinstein who does face the music, there are a thousand Louis C.K.s, who — even when they admit to masturbating in front of multiple women! — are never charged with anything. I agree that the stigma around committing crimes is too strong and that we need to allow pathways to redemption. But people need to be brought to justice before they can be redeemed, and what we see now is a reaction to that mostly not happening.
- kstenerud 8y agoSo, then, you believe that your justice system fails to punish these people, and therefore you must take it upon yourself to punish them instead? I don't like where this is going
- intertextuality 8y agoIf the justice system were perfect, and people actually received their due punishments, then societal stigma wouldn't need to exist. Judgment from the Court of Public Opinion theoretically shouldn't exist but many people get away with things that they shouldn't. Especially wealthy and famous individuals who can have things swept under the rug. So, yes, people take it on themselves instead to call people names, and yes it gets abused.
- kstenerud 8y ago
- khawkins 8y agoWhile I appreciate that the author rightly calls out the cult-like mob justice of the progressive movement as overly cruel and destructive, the final section reveals an inherently selfish motive for this piece. He appears less concerned with artists being treated fairly or justly and more with whether he can enjoy what they made after the person has been destroyed. IMHO, here's something devilish about seeing societal injustices, pretending it's futile to fight back, but then pleading for society to spare the art from their rampage. If we're going to let this be the new status quo, then protecting the art should be the least of our worries.
- whoopshanon 8y agoAs the author gists at: what if we found out that Michealangelo uninvitedly touched a woman’s bottom. Should we then deplatform him, remove his works, and paint over the Sistine Chapel in an appeasing off white so that no one else were to subject to his transgressions?
- AgentME 8y agoI think the equation changes a lot once they're dead.
- writepub 8y agoWhy? Why not stop at the legally stipulated punishment proportionate to the crime. Why is there a need to deplatform someone to the same degree, regardless of the gravity of their crime?
- MisterBastahrd 8y agoWell, for one, because we can judge them by the era in which they lived and what the societal standards were at the time. There was no point in time in Bill Cosby's career where drugging a woman to rape her was ever okay. There was no point in time in Louis CK's career where masturbating in front of female subordinates was ever okay. Who knows what went on during Michaelangelo's era?
- arduanika 8y agoWe've effectively hatched a Roko's Basilisk.
- janimo 8y agoWhat about replacing the collective work of several misogynistic and racist authors, especially since the work itself lead to heavy discrimination? cough the US Constitution cough :)
- lamarpye 8y agoI thought that was the plan, but it is rarely mentioned in public forums.
- taneq 8y agoI think the most unsettling thing about this is not the expunging of someone's past achievements as punishment for some terrible act, but the fact that the mere accusation of such can destroy someone. The higher profile and more in the public eye you are, the higher the chance that someone will throw some mud at you (even anonymously, in some cases!) and that it'll stick, and there will be nothing you can do to repair the damage.
- watwut 8y agoWho was destroyed by mere accusation? Because really, these are people who were accused repeatedly again and again and their victims ended in oblivion while piling up.
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- maceurt 8y agoWoody Allen, Aziz Ansari to an extent, Brett Kavanaugh, Dr. Luke. Derrick Rose lost over a million dollars in sponsorship dollars, Kobe Bryant lost over a million too. The list goes on and on. All those people lost a large amount of money, and reputation was seriously hurt by one accusation.
- cafard 8y agoWhat money did Brett Kavanaugh lose? For that matter, what did Woody Allen lose? He has still been making movies.
- slothtrop 8y agoNot since the Weinstein scandal, and actors who've recently worked with him had expressed publicly it was "a mistake". Mind you the man is nearly 100.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
- lucb1e 8y agoThat's the first time I get not one but two JavaScript modal pop ups. Looks like I won't be reading this article and potentially upvoting it. This is getting crazy.
- sayno3 8y agoYou may have a bunch of suspicions about Cosby. There were certainly a bunch of people accusing him. First there was one person accusing Kavanaugh, then another, then another. And they all turned out to be fake. I suspect that there were competing powerful interests who managed to "persuade" the accusers in the opposite direction, forcing them to admit their stories. I have a lot of suspicions about the accusers of Cosby after learning that the only actual evidence used to convict him, other than the accusers' stories, was a phone call between Mrs. Cosby and a person she "believed was on her side" which was recorded by the "friend" and used as evidence in court. Now, Mrs. Cosby is still fighting for her husband's release, so that would lead one to believe that she is not protecting him unduly (as far as she knows), that instead she was prompted or led into saying something that would sound bad in court. This would imply that someone took the time to gain her trust. Mrs. Cosby is also claiming that the recording was doctored and is attempting an appeal. Again, these are just suspicions, so we will have to see how it plays out. Louis CK was a prime target for the most vociferous 4chan denizens, where he was known as Louis Cuck-King. 4chan has played a large part as honeypot for radicalizing conservatives (alt-right), whether witting or unwitting. This is a tactic that cements his position as a trusted member of their "opponents", namely SJW types to be succinct. Now, this sort of publicity actually serves a net-positive. If loudly hated by some onerous group, it will serve to increase notoriety amongst more average people. A prominent and hated crowd is still prominent. And an enemy of my enemy is my friend, or new favorite comedian. Now, what is the connection? Why would they both be singled out for crucifixion (albeit different severities) by the SJW crowd if they are hypothetically innocent of the actual accusations? We must temporarily disregard even an admission of guilt, for if someone controls your career, an admission to a useful piece of propaganda may prevent further self-destruction. What is the common thread? What work was Louis CK doing "right before the incident which never received mainstream notoriety" that was harmful to the SJW crowd? What had Cosby said recently in his act that would inflame the SJW crowd? As a personal recipient of SJWism, I can attest that they are very good at contriving accusations that have no basis in reality with enough "evidence" to convince your average idiot, but that is another tale. The strongest weapon that you have against them is to not react at all. I assume the reader would want to check out the sources for my claims. They are easy to research, so I will leave that up to you.
- AstralStorm 8y agoGood old reductio ad Hitlerium: we still show historical movies about Hitler and many countries do not outright ban his literary "work". (Others do.) It is still getting published. And it is a political piece, unlike just a mere association! The problem is probably the lack of option due to centralization of publishing (esp. movie publishing) and enormous political pressure from there. You cannot show Cosby if MPAA or whichever organization does not agree to it, nor you can sell them. The only bet is a media library which may have an exception in copyright, until that fades away in half a century or more.
- treerock 8y ago> I’m one column away from the round of mob opprobrium that sinks my career for good. Yet Rod Liddle and Jeremy Clarkson continue to have a successful career, Trump makes it all the way to the white house, and netflix is filled with highly successful 'controversial' comedians.
- peter_retief 8y agoIt is all a fake, virtue signaling mess. I think of James Watson who had many honorary titles for his scientific work revoked for a supposedly "racist" observation. Other scientists who have produced complete garbage but make the right political noises get accolades and honorary doctorates.
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- anonymous_i 8y agoShe said: The question is whether we condition our consumption of what artists produce on their moral purity. Here she answers it I want the stuff, and in truth I wouldn’t be all that bothered if the director were an axe murderer. For me things are not black and white like that. Art is a form of expression -that's my opinion. My assumption is that, artist's create art from out of their own convictions. With that mindset , if I find out that artist is a heinous person it automatically makes me think same about his art- may be that's a wrong way to think about it. If Sorkin wrote a play and a would be serial killer was cast as the protagonist , I will have a hard time liking the play when the actualities play out. This is probably wrong and contradicts what i wrote before because i am attributing the integrity of the play with one single actors behavior. Its not easy. Does some one have a better way to deal with this.
- thanatropism 8y ago> Its not easy. Does some one have a better way to deal with this. A boycott. Don't buy the stuff. Seriously, the core of the problem is not moral judgement (although that may be worthy discussing at a second, non-fire emergency, time. The problem is automatic moral contagion. A publisher may make the approximate market or moral guess that it should suspend its relationship with an author. But a literary agent doing the same at lightning speed is deferring moral judgement to the amorphous crowd, the "They". And the "They" is structurally incapable of thought, let alone moral thought. The consequence is bookstores getting caught in the wave and erasing traces of the author's existence. I never thought Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, which seemed so overwrought and sanctimonious ten years ago, had this much wisdom about human nature. Search wikiquote for some choice rambling about "second handers". It's really badly written too, so it's a shame human behavior is making it more prescient and deeper than, say, 1984.
- mcguire 8y agoSee also Rand and William Hickman. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman
- 8y ago
- pluma 8y ago> I’m one column away from the round of mob opprobrium that sinks my career for good. If that column involves you admitting to having sexually abused people, or making blatantly racist or bigoted statements, sure. But I fail to see how this is supposed to be a bad thing. If such an event is so close to your normal behavior that you worry it might happen just about any day now, maybe you are the problem.
- vermooten 8y agoShe needs to realise that times have changed.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y agoThat painfully resembles the approach they used in the Soviet Union: "Yes, Ivan Ivanovich is a great poet, but is he a true communist?" And if the answer is no, then no, his book will never be printed. It also helps that the definition of being "a true communist" is sufficiently vague to turn pretty much any situation in either direction.
- emiliobumachar 8y agoGreat piece. To me, the strongest argument is that too often pieces of art are made by dozens to hundreds of artists, and we'll punish along the hundreds of innocents to get to the presumed guilty.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>pieces of art are made by dozens to hundreds of artists, and we'll punish along the hundreds of innocents to get to the presumed guilty. Punishing people for association is a common means of striking fear into the people who don't care one way or another about your movement (most of the population doesn't care strongly about most issues) and getting them to at least half hardheartedly act as a force multiplier for your vocal minority. I'm sure you can imagine why a business owner in 1870 Alabama might not want to get caught selling to black people or a white tradesman may not want to take on a job for said business or a publisher in 1922 might not want to publish a book by someone who's known to be a communist. Same principal. I'm sure we'll look back on it the same way we look back on the red scare. Regardless of whether the goal is a good one or not these sort of witch hunts where a majority of the population is kind of uneasy about how extreme they are almost never look like good ideas in hindsight.
- emiliobumachar 8y agoInsightful. An artist will be less likely to look away from abuse that doesn't affect them, if it might cause their work to be erased.
- nabla9 8y agoValue in popular art, entertainment, politics and brands is very much in the persons and star value. Popular art pieces don't stand on their own very well. Moral panics are relatively common in each era. Artist and actors are easily replaceable and they work with their character so they feel the heat. Using very popular stars as example takes air out of the argument, because who cares. I think Louis CK is probably the best comic in the generation, but I don't feel sorry for him. He is millionaire. He didn't just masturbate in the front of women, he threatened their careers if they expose him. What I worry is when normal people who don't want to be in limelight have their life's destroyed by publicity.
- squozzer 8y agoI would argue that economics drives at least some of this because Hollywood and media in general have no shortage of talent waiting in the wings. So new mechanisms for generating attrition will always find more fans (the underdogs) than opponents (the top dogs.) In those milieu, everyone - even filthy rich producers, is expendable. Though expendable connotes a sense of usefulness, so maybe disposable works better.
- voidhorse 8y agoSure, I get it, but when you tap into your empathetic side this article smacks of insensitity and whining. Assuming, as Lionel asks us to, that some of these things are true—should we really be complaining about the inaccessibility of these works or should we perhaps think about what the victims might have experienced, and that in many cases the abuse they suffered was in part enabled by the power the popularity of the so-called artist’s (many of the examples in this article art not in fact what I’d call art but rather entertainment) works bestowed upon the artists—a lot of these people got away with stuff precisely because the wide scale distribution of their works elevated them to a position of social immunity. That’s finally changing, and that’s a good thing. Just as it’s the consumers choice to refrain from consuming its the distributors choice to refrain from distributing—publishers aren’t some beacons of moral and political neutrality—they’ll do whatever benefits the bottom line. To hold them to this weird demand that they be neutral and toss public opinion aside is predicated on a much different reality than the one we occupy. Changing the nature of distribution is a separate economic and political issue. On the whole, this is a pretty infuriating article. So-called artists should not have some sort of special moral immunity—that’s precisely the problem that’s finally being solved with some of these banishments—and yes it is a problem initimately tied to the popularity and avilabilty of their works, as this is what gave them a veneer of invincibility in the past. It’s not some simple situation in which these people would have been served justice regardless—the dispatch of justice in these cases is often hindered by the artist’s success and notoriety. Common approaches to morality weigh the bad more highly against the good. And yes the ideas and actions behind the art matter. The extreme logical extension of this argument is that you should be able to enjoy nazi artwork in a sort of epicurean way without having to admit of any of the implications enjoying such work might suggest and basically putting history, reality, and thought aside while you indulge in whatever it is about the work that appeals to you—it’s a very shallow, one dimensional, solipsistic and childish approach to comprehending and consuming art.
- jancsika 8y ago> For reasons that escape me, artists’ misbehavior now contaminates the fruits of their labors, like the sins of the father being visited upon the sons. So it’s not enough to punish transgressors merely by cutting off the source of their livelihoods, turning them into social outcasts, and truncating their professional futures. You have to destroy their pasts. Having discovered the worst about your fallen idols, you’re duty-bound to demolish the best about them as well. I'm not biting. If we're talking about artists' misbehavior, let's take a well-known example. Plenty of comedians continue to talk about the importance of Bill Cosby as a comedian, and to rate his influence up there with Richard Pryor, George Carlin, etc. These comedians profess this publicly, and I can probably find various examples from people like Seinfeld, Norm MacDonald, and many others. AFAICT it's crystal clear to their audience what they mean when they assess his comedy albums. In no way has his comedy gone down the "memory hole." If you don't believe me, go on Amazon and search for "Bill Cosby albums" and look at the ratings. Here's the first line from the first review I found: "No matter how you feel about Bill Cosby, given recent events, and where you might fall in your beliefs, it is sometimes necessary to separate the artist from the art." Rando review person on Amazon gets it. Does that mean I should count Rando as a voice speaking out against the dangers of "progressive orthodoxy?" I'd much rather count Rando as a voice repeating the thing I already knew before I started reading this article. Seems to me the author is guilty of the same fallacy as the creationist who, when presented with new sets of fossils, only sees an exponentially increasing set of missing links. (Is there a name for this fallacy?)
- twic 8y ago> the British barely right-of-center magazine (that’s left-of-center, in the United States) The Spectator Um. No. The Spectator is solidly right-wing - it's on the right wing of the Conservative party, in fact. A piece in the Spectator's mirror-image, the left-wing New Statesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2017/04/how-alexander-chancellor-s-magazine-became-home-british-alt-right https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2017/04/how-alex... They have a long-standing columnist who is cheerleading for Greek fascists: https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/spectator-editor-defends-column-supporting-greek-far-right-party-golden-dawn/ https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/spectator-editor-defends-colu...
- coldtea 8y ago>But that isn’t the fear in its entirety. Suppose a perceived violation of progressive orthodoxy translates into the kind of institutional cowardice on display in the forced resignation of Ian Buruma from The New York Review of Books. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones in the United Kingdom, my literary agent, my publishers in translation, and HarperCollins worldwide would decide they could no longer afford association with a pariah. My current manuscript wouldn’t see print, nor would any future projects I’m foolish enough to bother to bash out. Journalistic opportunities would dry up. Yet what I most dread about this bleak scenario is my thirteen published titles suddenly becoming unavailable—both online (gosh, would piracy sites be morally fastidious, too?) and in shops. McCarthyism never died, it just went moved leftwards. Similarly to how the kind of puritanism and moral hysteria that got the Hayes code and "warning stickers" on CDs, thrives on under a progressive guise today.
- DanHulton 8y agoI find the line “You’re exactly the sort of person this happens to" very telling. When people are destroyed with "but an accusation", it's very rare for the accusation to have been the whole of it. Roseanne, Louis C.K., Weinstein, Bill Cosby - it wasn't the accusation that destroyed these people, they had been undermining themselves for decades by hurting others. The accusation that took root only knocked out the lynchpin to the facade. As to whether the author is actually a terrible person who has been hurting people for decades or not, I don't know, but that specific line definitely describes these people. They are exactly the sort of person whose lives get destroyed over an accusation - because they've built up enough previously-obfuscated proof to go with it.
- maceurt 8y agoOkay, then explain Tobuscus. Look him up. He lost arguably over a million dollars in deals with companies and with his publisher not to mention he stopped putting out videos because of the whole ordeal. The only bad history he had before was that had a drug addiction and he was "manipulative". However all his past girlfriends backed him up, and their was conclusive evidence that the accusation was false. Still, his life was pretty much wrecked.
- allenbrunson 8y agosuppose for a moment that this Tobuscus guy was indeed unfairly maligned — i don’t know, but hey, could be. that in no way contradicts the parent commenter’s point, which is this: all the hand-wringing over the celebrities whose careers were destroyed over “just an accusation” is wrong, because it was never just that one accusation. rosanne barr is a good example. the author of the article goes into minute detail over the tweet that ended her show, yet somehow doesn’t have a word to say about the decades of her bad behavior that preceeded it.
- maceurt 8y agoNo. Tobuscus was a basic celebrity (youtube channel with over a million subscribers, one of the biggest in his prime), and was a reputable person with no real bad history. He was ruined by one accusation. Furthermore, most people are not perfect. You can find a bad history for anyone i.e. James Gunn. That does not make an accusation destroying someone's career okay. > Suppose for a moment that this Tobuscus guy was indeed unfairly maligned — i don’t know, but hey, could be. That is why false rape accusations are so bad. You have to preface this by saying you don't know if he is a rapist or not, when there is physical evidence that proves he didn't, but the accusation is more important than the evidence.
- disqard 8y agohttps://outline.com/av7RF8 https://outline.com/av7RF8