4 ms·
if you're going to talk about history, it really helps to ground your narrative in real people, events, or statements. This all comes off as a history of vibes,
by jhp123 2y ago
if you're going to talk about history, it really helps to ground your narrative in real people, events, or statements. This all comes off as a history of vibes, and I don't remember the same vibes at all (maybe because I wasn't on twitter).
When pg does make contact with reality, it mostly doesn't even support his narrative. He mentions the George Floyd protests and the MeToo movement/Weinstein - by any measure real social justice issues where the perpetrators deserved condemnation!
He also mentions the Bud Light boycotts as a case of going "too woke", but Bud Light's actions were not an "aggressive performative focus on social justice." Bud Light simply paid a trans person to promote their product, without any political messaging whatsoever. It was the boycott by anti-trans bigots that politicized that incident.
- vessenes 2y agoAlso not on twitter, other than to camp my name. I disagree with your reading of the essay - he says that both of those were sort of "peaks" for their respective movements, and I would say that feels accurate to me. I'm in a mixed-race family, and George Floyd was the first and so-far only period where our family needed additional support, talk, help, considering how to respond. I agree that Anheuser-Busch seemed to have been stunlocked by Dylan Mulvaney v. Kid Rock on the internet.
- jhp123 2y agoI didn't mean to imply that pg was saying that these incidents were unjustified or performative. I just think it's telling that the actual real-world events he discusses are not examples of the supposed overwhelming trend he's trying to diagnose. I think if he tried to actually discuss the main events of cancel culture, it would give the game away, because it would be a lot of penny-ante whining about minor setbacks in people's professional lives. Like, who is the most prominent example of an unjustly cancelled person? Larry Summers, who had to leave his job at Harvard almost 20 years ago, and later served a prominent role in the Obama administration? I'm inclined to take Summers' side in the controversy, but if that is a historically significant injustice in your worldview then you might be suffering an advanced case of brainrot.
- vessenes 2y agoI'm in general agreement with you. And <<-- I think he's right to complain about US Universities on this. There was a period quite recently where literal invitations to self-criticism were required at some of the US' top schools. I cannot believe this increased the diversity of opinion and thought at those schools. To me, Summers is a stand-in for a lot of academics in the essay, and most interesting because he was a powerful person who was not as powerful as the social movement of the time. Anyway, as you say, Mr. Summers will be fine.
- nomdep 2y ago[flagged]
- AlexandrB 2y ago> He also mentions the Bud Light boycotts as a case of going "too woke", but Bud Light's actions were not an "aggressive performative focus on social justice." Bud Light simply paid a trans person to promote their product, without any political messaging whatsoever. It was the boycott by anti-trans bigots that politicized that incident. This is a double standard. For example, Contrapoints was cancelled for using Buck Angel to do a 10 second voice over in one video[1]. A far less politically charged association with someone than what Bud Light did. In this regard, I think the left has been the ones who primarily set the rules of engagement for the last few years. Can't complain when those same rules are used against you. [1] https://medium.com/@rachel.orourke_88152/the-10-second-voiceover-clip-that-ruined-a-month-of-my-life-d7b30052bbd3 https://medium.com/@rachel.orourke_88152/the-10-second-voice...
- djur 2y agoContrapoints, her defenders, and her critics (mostly) were all on the left. I don't know the person you linked to, but she seems to be defending Contrapoints from a left theoretical perspective. It's deeply disingenuous to argue that bigoted right-wing campaigns are justified by some subset of people on the left being cruel to other people on the left.
- tome 2y ago> Bud Light simply paid a trans person to promote their product, without any political messaging whatsoever Isn't it one of the tenets of wokeness that "nothing is apolitical"?
- djur 2y agoThere are no "tenets of wokeness", because "wokeness" isn't an ideology, a movement, an organization, etc. but rather a pejorative.
- zunkd 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]