5 ms·

What a ludicrous point of view. The world has a lot of good people in it. There is do defensible reason for celebrating unapologetic bad people. Honest mistake

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

What a ludicrous point of view. The world has a lot of good people in it. There is do defensible reason for celebrating unapologetic bad people. Honest mistakes, sure. Character flaws, ok. Blatant endorsement of spousal abuse on a major news program with no retraction or apology ever? Get real.

ljm 6y ago
I find it more perplexing that we pre-occupy ourselves with splitting the people of the world into those who are good and those who are bad. And then making sure the bad group can't ever make its way back into the good one. Rarely, if ever, is it so clear cut. And if anything, it's quite a juvenile (and pervasively Western) value system. I find it particularly exhausting and the world is as it is because there isn't enough compassion going around to even consider how we might approach our problems with kinder, less vengeful, hearts.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  What a very weird take on my comments. We didn’t make Sean Connery identify as “bad” - he did that, and did so unremorsefully and unapologetically. He didn’t want to come back to the “good” side. I find it most perplexing of all that you would want to do mental gymnastics to defend someone like that or minimize the highlighting of genuine harm that person did by trying to disingenuously act like it’s more nuanced than some moralistic sense of right or wrong. Sometimes it really, really isn’t. Sometimes a person goes on TV sloganeering in favor of spousal abuse, inflaming who knows how many actual abusers out there to believe it’s ok & feel emboldened to keep doing it - real material harm. Sometimes that really, really is only bad, and by never retracting or apologizing, that person doesn’t leave reasonable people any choice but to see that this extreme harmful behavior outweighs pretty much everything else.
  - cheschire 6y ago
    Time and place, my dude. You might as well start picketing outside of the man's wake. It's rude to trample on the emotions of people who are mourning together.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Nah. Airing of grievances is a perfectly legitimate form of grief. When my (very popular, publicly beloved, but privately abusive) dad died, I didn't speak my mind at his funeral because of attitudes like yours. People with an incomplete understanding of his person wanted to censor my experiences in order to relish in the good times. My grief process would require several years of counseling. They were there for a party, and most of them experienced a day or less of grief. The truth is complex. The weirdest reaction to "cancel culture" is people who would censor the truth in favor of fantasy, but complain that their fave artist is the one being censored.
      - ljm 6y ago
        Erasing history in any form isn't great, really. Which is why I was quite specific in the original reply about acknowledging _all_ of it, not just specific bits. I mean, you can still say that someone was an asshole about a few things but you still loved them. Other people can say they didn't love him at all and have nothing positive to say. They're intimate feelings. It's not the same as going to someone who is grieving and celebrating and saying, don't forget that he did X, Y and Z though! Where X, Y and Z are hideous things. It's not a place to start trying to change people's minds about someone. That'll happen all by itself over time, as we can see with people such as Mother Theresa and Jimmy Saville. My parents were similar in having one public appearance, but being abusive to me in private. I cut contact so I don't imagine or expect to be at any family funeral, so I can't say how I'd react. But I know they would be appreciated by others in a way that I could never be.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      Nah, sorry, that is no excuse. He made these decisions. This is the legacy he intended, with his own volition. If you do something like go on national press and unapologetically endorse spousal abuse (which absolutely invites and encourages other abusers and leads to real harm), and you double down on this and never apologize or retract it, then you absolutely deserve for it to be constantly brought up as a defining event in your life. “Let’s honor someone who did something despicable just cuz that’s “respectful” and we like his movies” is totally not OK.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    For all the sins of past societies, they at least had the good grace and civility to regard those who spoke ill of the recently dead (even if deserved) with scorn. There are times where, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "To be kind is more important than to be right." Let's celebrate the good parts and forgive the bad parts of a person's life at it's end, just as we would want others to do for us. Leave chewing over their failings to those pale few who derive nourishment from it.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      Sorry, but this is just not good enough. This is not any excuse to minimize his despicable behavior. He owned and endorsed that behavior - that’s what he wanted to be known by. Your attempt to deflect that and make it is if it’s somehow wrongdoing or impolite for others to point out what he did just doesn’t hold water. More in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24953105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24953105
    - jowsie 6y ago
      I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that once I'm dead, people can say or think whatever they like about me. I won't care, I'll be dead.
      - klyrs 6y ago
        Indeed. Be honest with me until I'm on my deathbed -- at that point, please follow Fitzgerald; there's little point in changing a dying person's mind and I'll probably be in plenty of anguish already. But once I'm dead? Whatever, I'm dead. Don't delude yourself for my sake! And, does anybody remember when bin Laden died? Was it inappropriate to speak ill of him on that day? Nope, that was roundly celebrated with back-slapping and champagne on the very day it happened, by democrats and republicans alike
        antepodius 6y ago
        No, there was a sizeable contingent who said that all lives have value and celebrating a man's death was demeaning.
  - ljm 6y ago
    You're welcome to have that feeling. I'm also not downvoting you. As it stands, I'm quite happy being ludicrous and unreasonable if that's what you think it is. I just can't (and won't) see the world the same way as you and likeminded others.
  - unabst 6y ago
    > he did that So it's because of him you have to bad mouth him. It must be hard. Sean denounced domestic abuse afterwards. Does he get points for that? https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12430892.i-dont-believe-that-any-level-of-abuse-of-women-is-ever-justified-under-any-circumstances-connery-speaks-for-the-first-time-after-cancelling-his-high-profile-appearance-at-holyroods-festival-of-politics-by-paul-hutcheon/ https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12430892.i-dont-believe-...
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      Yes, it is hard because even here in supposedly enlightened and fair minded Hacker News, even just making comments about his unequivocal support for slapping women, it is met with ridiculous downvotes, claims that there’s “a time and a place” to criticize abuse (and that this apparently isn’t it) and various other mental gymnastics that either tacitly support misogyny or try to deflect rightful criticism of misogyny into some meta debate about good vs bad, remembering the good in people and other plainly irrelevant platitudes. And that’s just the vitriolic response I’m getting as a commenter on an internet forum. You can start to see the ways in which abuse and rape victims, for example, are dismissed, blamed, insulted and ignored. As for the article you linked, it’s very specious to suggest that is a defense or mitigates Connery’s endorsement on national television of slapping women. It’s obviously a quick PR filler piece to run interference on his choice to decline that Holyrood interview knowing he would be grilled on his abuse comments, purely and obviously self-serving and obviously not any type of sincere apology or retraction of his earlier remarks. It would have been trivially easy for him to make a press release specifically apologizing for and retracting the earlier remarks. Any little Scottish press article where he doesn’t even explicitly apologize and retract is just simply not something relevant to consider at all.
      - ljm 6y ago
        What part of the response is vitriolic? Or unequivocally supporting Connery? I've read every reply completely and all I see is a group of people wrangling what is a difficult topic. I'll note you seem remarkably dismissive of any viewpoint that isn't full agreement, and even the parent's reply isn't good enough to meet your standard. All I can say is that if you wanted to rake someone over the coals rather than have what seems to be a pretty mature discussion, I don't think you'll find what you want from this. Otherwise, there's a lot to unpack in what I think is quite a philosophical conversation.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Most reasonable people understand his overall sentiment and the underlying humorous opinion on the interaction between the sexes, but that requires nuance and context. In the absence of that, perhaps a modern interpretation would be useful, so here is Bill Burr (famous world-class comedian) on a similar subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksKvZoUCPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksKvZoUCPQ
- unabst 6y ago
  > Rarely, if ever, is it so clear cut. And if anything, it's quite a juvenile (and pervasively Western) value system. And the opposite edge of the same sword are stories of Keanu being such an amazing human being etc. All the while no one knows or seems to even care who they truly are. We demonize and idolize for a sense of moral righteousness and to strengthen our world view. It's far from compassion, has little to do with them, and it's juvenile. Bad behavior is not an argument against good behavior. Bad character is not an argument against good character. They're not mutually exclusive, and it's a false dichotomy. Let the police arrest the criminals. But speech should be free. We've all said dumb sh_t. We've all believed dumb sh_t. We've all done dumb sh_t. To paraphrase George Carlin, we're all born guilty.

ljm 6y ago

I find it more perplexing that we pre-occupy ourselves with splitting the people of the world into those who are good and those who are bad. And then making sure the bad group can't ever make its way back into the good one. Rarely, if ever, is it so clear cut. And if anything, it's quite a juvenile (and pervasively Western) value system. I find it particularly exhausting and the world is as it is because there isn't enough compassion going around to even consider how we might approach our problems with kinder, less vengeful, hearts.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
What a very weird take on my comments. We didn’t make Sean Connery identify as “bad” - he did that, and did so unremorsefully and unapologetically. He didn’t want to come back to the “good” side. I find it most perplexing of all that you would want to do mental gymnastics to defend someone like that or minimize the highlighting of genuine harm that person did by trying to disingenuously act like it’s more nuanced than some moralistic sense of right or wrong. Sometimes it really, really isn’t. Sometimes a person goes on TV sloganeering in favor of spousal abuse, inflaming who knows how many actual abusers out there to believe it’s ok & feel emboldened to keep doing it - real material harm. Sometimes that really, really is only bad, and by never retracting or apologizing, that person doesn’t leave reasonable people any choice but to see that this extreme harmful behavior outweighs pretty much everything else.
- cheschire 6y ago
  Time and place, my dude. You might as well start picketing outside of the man's wake. It's rude to trample on the emotions of people who are mourning together.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Nah. Airing of grievances is a perfectly legitimate form of grief. When my (very popular, publicly beloved, but privately abusive) dad died, I didn't speak my mind at his funeral because of attitudes like yours. People with an incomplete understanding of his person wanted to censor my experiences in order to relish in the good times. My grief process would require several years of counseling. They were there for a party, and most of them experienced a day or less of grief. The truth is complex. The weirdest reaction to "cancel culture" is people who would censor the truth in favor of fantasy, but complain that their fave artist is the one being censored.
    - ljm 6y ago
      Erasing history in any form isn't great, really. Which is why I was quite specific in the original reply about acknowledging _all_ of it, not just specific bits. I mean, you can still say that someone was an asshole about a few things but you still loved them. Other people can say they didn't love him at all and have nothing positive to say. They're intimate feelings. It's not the same as going to someone who is grieving and celebrating and saying, don't forget that he did X, Y and Z though! Where X, Y and Z are hideous things. It's not a place to start trying to change people's minds about someone. That'll happen all by itself over time, as we can see with people such as Mother Theresa and Jimmy Saville. My parents were similar in having one public appearance, but being abusive to me in private. I cut contact so I don't imagine or expect to be at any family funeral, so I can't say how I'd react. But I know they would be appreciated by others in a way that I could never be.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    Nah, sorry, that is no excuse. He made these decisions. This is the legacy he intended, with his own volition. If you do something like go on national press and unapologetically endorse spousal abuse (which absolutely invites and encourages other abusers and leads to real harm), and you double down on this and never apologize or retract it, then you absolutely deserve for it to be constantly brought up as a defining event in your life. “Let’s honor someone who did something despicable just cuz that’s “respectful” and we like his movies” is totally not OK.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  For all the sins of past societies, they at least had the good grace and civility to regard those who spoke ill of the recently dead (even if deserved) with scorn. There are times where, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "To be kind is more important than to be right." Let's celebrate the good parts and forgive the bad parts of a person's life at it's end, just as we would want others to do for us. Leave chewing over their failings to those pale few who derive nourishment from it.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    Sorry, but this is just not good enough. This is not any excuse to minimize his despicable behavior. He owned and endorsed that behavior - that’s what he wanted to be known by. Your attempt to deflect that and make it is if it’s somehow wrongdoing or impolite for others to point out what he did just doesn’t hold water. More in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24953105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24953105
  - jowsie 6y ago
    I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that once I'm dead, people can say or think whatever they like about me. I won't care, I'll be dead.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Indeed. Be honest with me until I'm on my deathbed -- at that point, please follow Fitzgerald; there's little point in changing a dying person's mind and I'll probably be in plenty of anguish already. But once I'm dead? Whatever, I'm dead. Don't delude yourself for my sake! And, does anybody remember when bin Laden died? Was it inappropriate to speak ill of him on that day? Nope, that was roundly celebrated with back-slapping and champagne on the very day it happened, by democrats and republicans alike
      - antepodius 6y ago
        No, there was a sizeable contingent who said that all lives have value and celebrating a man's death was demeaning.
- ljm 6y ago
  You're welcome to have that feeling. I'm also not downvoting you. As it stands, I'm quite happy being ludicrous and unreasonable if that's what you think it is. I just can't (and won't) see the world the same way as you and likeminded others.
- unabst 6y ago
  > he did that So it's because of him you have to bad mouth him. It must be hard. Sean denounced domestic abuse afterwards. Does he get points for that? https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12430892.i-dont-believe-that-any-level-of-abuse-of-women-is-ever-justified-under-any-circumstances-connery-speaks-for-the-first-time-after-cancelling-his-high-profile-appearance-at-holyroods-festival-of-politics-by-paul-hutcheon/ https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12430892.i-dont-believe-...
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    Yes, it is hard because even here in supposedly enlightened and fair minded Hacker News, even just making comments about his unequivocal support for slapping women, it is met with ridiculous downvotes, claims that there’s “a time and a place” to criticize abuse (and that this apparently isn’t it) and various other mental gymnastics that either tacitly support misogyny or try to deflect rightful criticism of misogyny into some meta debate about good vs bad, remembering the good in people and other plainly irrelevant platitudes. And that’s just the vitriolic response I’m getting as a commenter on an internet forum. You can start to see the ways in which abuse and rape victims, for example, are dismissed, blamed, insulted and ignored. As for the article you linked, it’s very specious to suggest that is a defense or mitigates Connery’s endorsement on national television of slapping women. It’s obviously a quick PR filler piece to run interference on his choice to decline that Holyrood interview knowing he would be grilled on his abuse comments, purely and obviously self-serving and obviously not any type of sincere apology or retraction of his earlier remarks. It would have been trivially easy for him to make a press release specifically apologizing for and retracting the earlier remarks. Any little Scottish press article where he doesn’t even explicitly apologize and retract is just simply not something relevant to consider at all.
    - ljm 6y ago
      What part of the response is vitriolic? Or unequivocally supporting Connery? I've read every reply completely and all I see is a group of people wrangling what is a difficult topic. I'll note you seem remarkably dismissive of any viewpoint that isn't full agreement, and even the parent's reply isn't good enough to meet your standard. All I can say is that if you wanted to rake someone over the coals rather than have what seems to be a pretty mature discussion, I don't think you'll find what you want from this. Otherwise, there's a lot to unpack in what I think is quite a philosophical conversation.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Most reasonable people understand his overall sentiment and the underlying humorous opinion on the interaction between the sexes, but that requires nuance and context. In the absence of that, perhaps a modern interpretation would be useful, so here is Bill Burr (famous world-class comedian) on a similar subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksKvZoUCPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksKvZoUCPQ
unabst 6y ago
> Rarely, if ever, is it so clear cut. And if anything, it's quite a juvenile (and pervasively Western) value system. And the opposite edge of the same sword are stories of Keanu being such an amazing human being etc. All the while no one knows or seems to even care who they truly are. We demonize and idolize for a sense of moral righteousness and to strengthen our world view. It's far from compassion, has little to do with them, and it's juvenile. Bad behavior is not an argument against good behavior. Bad character is not an argument against good character. They're not mutually exclusive, and it's a false dichotomy. Let the police arrest the criminals. But speech should be free. We've all said dumb sh_t. We've all believed dumb sh_t. We've all done dumb sh_t. To paraphrase George Carlin, we're all born guilty.