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Thread: Cancel Culture

  1. #106
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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    The US falling into disarray isn't really good for the world, is it? We get a fever, the world gets the flu? I don't want to see us suffer and fall apart, and I sure don't want to see the fallout affecting the rest of the world.

    I don't want us to screw around with other countries. Our economic influence is inescapable, imo.

    Our fall affects all.
    That would be the conventional Wisdom DT, but I'm not sure it still holds true.

    Like I explained in the collapse thread, the Petrodollar actually holds the rest of the world hostage and siphons of their productivity, to be consumed by the US. If the US were cut loose, potentially a lot of productive capacity would go on to benefit people in other parts of the world, raising their standard of living and the end of the oil age might come about at the same time that the petrodollar collapses.

    The US economy is incredibly hollowed out, it really doesn't amount to much these days, except the production of raw materials (mining, agriculture, oil and gas production), Intellectual Property (Apple suing everyone else for daring to make a square phone, that kind of nonsense), Cultural products, especially Music and Movies, Design, as in fashion, and industries connected to the Military, such as Aerospace (Boeing, Space X) and weapons manufacturing, as well as Big Tech.

    That doesn't look too bad on paper, but take the example of the iphone, a product most people would associate with America, but actually has very little connection to it. It is a Chinese product, made by a Taiwanese company (Foxconn) that is mostly developed and tested in Asia, with the entire manufacturing chain, from semi-conductors to raw materials, such as Lithium, over there as well.

    What Apple actually does is marketing, design, software and some part of the tech development, but the bulk of physically making the product is really done in Asia, by Asian companies, who get a very small share of the profits. Apple allows Foxconn to put an Apple logo on their iphone, they distribute and sell it as an Apple product and they take the almost all of the profits. In this relationship, Apple is basically like a colonial master, taking advantage of people from the other side of the world for shareholder profits. It is not that different from what the VOC (Dutch East India Company) or the British East India Company did in colonial times.

    That is not a sustainable relationship and it amplifies the spending power of people in Western Countries (chiefly the US and the UK), giving them an exaggerated sense of self-worth. Once things return to an equilibrium, we will find a much more balanced relationship between various parts of the world, with more of the profits beings made in the countries that actually do the hard work. We have seen this transformation with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, now it is is also happening in the rest of Asia and some other parts of the world.

    Fact is, once the US returns to its proper place in the world, commensurate with its actual economic and demographic weight (Roughly 5 percent of the world's population), the rest of the world will benefit enormously.

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  3. #107
    Senior Member United States Dreamtimer's Avatar
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    I saw some activism (protest signs and meetings happening) against Foxconn a couple years ago. I'm trying to recall where we were.

    You're most likely right, Chris.

    And gobs of Americans will fight that thinking tooth and nail, imo. So it'll be another rude awakening I imagine.

    But there are certainly many people who see the writing on the wall. I wonder what they plan?

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  5. #108
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    Here's some pretty hardcore cancelling:

    Adam Kinzinger is facing major backlash (for following the law, the Constitution and his oath of office).

    Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God! We were once so proud of your accomplishments! Instead, you go against your Christian principals and join the “devil’s army” (Democrats and the fake news media).
    As the Republican Party censures, condemns and seeks to purge leaders who aren’t in lock step with Donald J. Trump, Adam Kinzinger, the six-term Illinois congressman, stands as enemy No. 1 — unwelcome not just in his party but also in his own family, some of whom recently disowned him.
    The author of the letter was Karen Otto, Mr. Kinzinger’s cousin, who paid $7 to send it by certified mail to Mr. Kinzinger’s father — to make sure the congressman would see it, which he did. She also sent copies to Republicans across Illinois, including other members of the state’s congressional delegation.
    “I wanted Adam to be shunned,” she said in an interview.
    Shunned. Cancelled. Censured.

    The implications of what is happening to Kinzinger, and similarly situated Republicans who have publicly opposed Trump, shouldn’t be minimized or underestimated. A politically based cult that can drive people to cast out their own family members, or one that can prompt ordinary politicians to collectively excommunicate their members presents a clear and present danger to democratic institutions.

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  7. #109
    Senior Member Aragorn's Avatar
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    While all of the above is unquestionably shocking, I'm afraid I must side up with Catsquotl on account of his intentions for this thread. What he sought to address doesn't have anything to do with what's being discussed here.

    The concept of cancel culture as a whole ─ and Catsquotl has literally described it in his own words already once or twice in this thread ─ refers to people suddenly taking offense in things they have not only tolerated but even endorsed in the past as being part of their cultural heritage. As an example, Catsquotl brought up the commotion regarding Zwarte Piet ─ "Black Pete" in English ─ who is the helper of Sinterklaas.

    Sinterklaas himself is a patron saint not commonly known to US Americans, because Americans have conflated the legend of Sinterklaas ─ i.e. the canonized bishop Nicholas of Myra, who lived in the second half of the 3rd and first half of the 4th century A.D. ─ with the legend of Father Christmas, himself a secularized character in the form of a fisherman from "up north" whose bringing of gifts to the children is based upon a legend from the Asgard mythology. The conflated character is what Americans call Santa Claus. But either way, Sinterklaas has a helper named Zwarte Piet ─ and in the Netherlands, he is said to have many such helpers, who are all named Piet ─ and Piet's face is black because he's the one who climbs through the chimney at night to deliver the toys and candy to the good children, and so he's constantly covered in soot.

    However, the story regarding Piet's black face was later on given a twist, with Piet wearing typically medieval Spanish clothing, and Sinterklaas supposedly residing in Spain all year long until it is time for him to start touring the countries up north and deliver toys and candy. And then the fact that Piet had a black face was explained away because of the invasion of Spain by the Moors from Northern Africa, with some of that North-African DNA having remained among the Spanish population, so that there are still very dark-skinned people in Spain today. Presumably this was all done so as to create a plausible background for why Piet's face is black, or maybe simply so as to explain why Sinterklaas and Piet arrive in the country by way of a ship/boat every year, while saints are supposed to live in (the Christian) Heaven ─ but the issue has in recent times become highly controversial and contentious, with accusations of racism toward those who defended the tradition of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet coming round every year. Nobody had ever taken issue with any of this before, until a couple of years ago.

    Another example ─ one that I personally do have sympathy for ─ is the fact that there is now a loud protest here in Belgium against the many statues of King Leopold II, and the many streets named after him. Leopold II was Belgium's second monarch, and the son of Leopold I. However, he was quite notorious because of his role in Africa ─ specifically, the former colonies Congo and Rwanda, which Leopold II considered his private property. The population of those two countries truly lived under a brutally exploitative colonial regime courtesy of Leopold II, and now that the truth of Leopold II's colonial past is known, many feel that this man does not deserve to have statues of him everywhere, or streets named after him. Personally I'm kind of neutral on account of the street names, but I do agree that he doesn't deserve any statue, and certainly no more than Adolf Hitler would. Or Joseph Stalin.

    Yet another example of cancel culture ─ one that I personally do not agree with ─ is the fact that we are now being pushed toward the use of so-called "inclusive language", which itself is actually an incorrect term, because the language is exclusive, rather than inclusive. Concepts that have been used and that everyone in the field is highly familiar with must now be renamed because the original names of the concepts can apparently conjure up traumatic experiences in people who weren't even around to experience the traumatic events when they occurred in the first place. By this I mean that technical concepts such as "master and slave" or "black and white" may no longer be used now because of connotations with slavery and violations of human rights. I presume that the names for male and female connectors will also soon become subject to change because of the plural-pronoun-speaking crowd, who take offense in the very existence of gender.

    The genuinely valid reasons for the canceling of some of a nation's history and/or culture ─ such as in the case of Leopold II as mentioned above ─ notwithstanding, quite often the concept of cancel culture is perpetrated by the kinds of individuals whom the far-right has been (and still is) referring to as "snowflakes", and it is exactly this kind of neurotic behavior ─ by which I mean the cancel culture ─ that strengthens the adherents of the far-right in their hatred for and bullying of those with a left-wing/progressive disposition.

    I consider myself a moderately progressive person, but this kind of ─ pardon my French ─ sissy attitude is exactly what provides the right-wing with ammunition, and what has turned the traditional political left-right horizon into a neuroticism-to-psychopathy horizon. The left is neurotic ("I've got a problem with this, and as such, it must become everybody's problem or else I won't have peace of mind"), and the right is psychopathic ("emotions are for wussies and wussies are an inferior species that we must eradicate").

    The bottom line is that there are two sides to cancel culture. One side is legitimate and deserves attention. The other side is fake, neurosis-driven and authoritarian. But as with most things, the very concept of cancel culture has become a hype, and whether legitimate or illegitimate, it stems from the so-called political left, and as such it is food on the tables of the far-right movements of the world. As if the far-right wasn't rabid and vicious enough yet.

    The real problem lies with humanity itself. Cancel culture is only a manifestation of the problem, not the problem itself. The problem is everybody's "me, me, me" attitude ─ staring at their own navels and occasionally at the splinter in someone else's eye while missing the beam in their own.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  9. #110
    Senior Member Aianawa's Avatar
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    Ho ho ho , i agree with you both Aragorn, yes Catz i see your intent and maybe it is wider than you thought ?.

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  11. #111
    Senior Member United States Dreamtimer's Avatar
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    Al Franken was the example which applies best to this thread.

    Kinzinger is different, being a current action rather than a past 'sin'.

    I guess I was stuck on the idea that it's been going on so long and still is, whether it's past or current actions causing the cancellation.

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  13. #112
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    why-dungeons--dragons-removal-of-evil-races-is-a-golden-storytelling-opportunity/

    Here's another nice example.
    I have played DnD for years and over those years I've had may a great adventure. Until this discussion propped up and the makers of the official game has gone through a few hoops to make the source material less shall we say offensive?
    The rules allowed for any and all kinds of adventure settings. The good vs evil has never interfered with an orc paladin searching to cleanse his soul.
    Neither has anyone in the games I played on-line or at the table felt that the way orcs were treated was too similar to the black community and therefore so racist orcs should be altered in game to reduce this stereotype.

    For people doing research orc are not likened to the black community but depictions of everything that was horrible about war.

    Starting from edition 5e. the source books already were written in such a way that every sexual identity had a place etc etc..
    Now the races are altered in such a way that any hint of them being evil of whatever is stripped even further were previous text already said that races were mosly this this or often that. never allways.

    Another fine example of a company succumbing to the possibility of being exclisive or not inclusive enough so we change the game at it's core.
    And we do need to remember DND is nothing but a set of rules to aid an imaginairy co-created storyline.

    Take Drizzt Do'Urden a half elf drow who is a main character in some DND campaign settings for around 30 years.
    Drizzt has since become a popular heroic character of the Forgotten Realms setting, and has been featured as the main character of a long series of books, starting chronologically with The Dark Elf Trilogy. As an atypical drow (dark elf), Drizzt has forsaken both the evil ways of his people and their home in the Underdark, in the drow city of Menzoberranzan
    Have a great day today

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  15. #113
    Senior Member United States Dreamtimer's Avatar
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    I've never run into any racial issues playing DnD. Talk about a buzzkill. The world I played in was based on Shogun. I wonder how many folks would find things 'racist' as they trawl through materials while they look for such stuff?

    I'll have to ask my friends if they've run into this. I know a few DMs.

    I don't ever recall orcs being representative of black people in any board or role playing game I've encountered. Orcs are all over the place. I couldn't begin to enumerate the different games I've played which have contained orcs.


    There's a lot of confirmation bias going on with the cancel culture mentality. People have predetermined it's happening and are sifting through things 'finding' evidence.

    This is a larger problem as most folks here know.

    I wonder how you get a campaign going to move beyond confirmation bias into reason.

    The Age of Reason has been maligned by religious folks and shackled by atheists, imo.

    We need Reason. Big Time.

    (Can we cancel confirmation bias?)

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  17. #114
    Senior Member United States Dreamtimer's Avatar
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    This is from Vox.

    But despite the urgency of these speeches, actually ending someone’s career through the power of public backlash is easier said than done. Few entertainers or other public figures have truly been canceled — that is, they haven’t had their careers totally shut down by negative criticism on the internet.
    For example, during 2020 alone, a number of people and institutions have faced public backlash for platforming anti-progressive values. Prominent journalists like New York Times food critic Alison Roman, former Times opinion writer Bari Weiss, and the Times opinion section itself all came under fire for racism and other issues. Food media empire Bon Appetit faces ongoing backlash over accusations the company fosters systemic racism; and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling faced intense criticism from her own fans after she began to voice transphobic beliefs.
    But few of those people have since faced serious repercussions. Times opinion editor James Bennet resigned after publishing one of the most inflammatory opinion pieces in the paper’s recent history, after which Weiss left the paper of her own volition — but both he and Weiss were immediately embraced by prominent Republicans and moderates who saw them as cancel culture victims. Bon Appetit’s editor-in-chief resigned after he was caught posing in brownface, but the company has forged past the blowback with a new executive editor (who is both a woman of color and a former employee of Vox Media).
    Alison Roman was placed on a temporary hiatus from the Times following a controversial social media argument she had with Chrissy Teigen, but her popularity continues unabated and her latest cookbook is currently a No. 1 Amazon bestseller. And following her most recent transphobic screed in June, sales of Rowling’s books actually increased tremendously in her home country of Great Britain.
    (Home country? Isn't that England?)

    After multiple women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him in 2017, Louis C.K.’s career hiatus lasted only around 10 months before he returned to stand-up comedy and performed dozens of sold-out, controversial shows.
    After high-profile documentaries exploring allegations of decades of sexual assault against each of them were released earlier this year, both R. Kelly and the late Michael Jackson saw increases in streams of their music, rather than decreases.
    Cancel culture is starting to look like it's actually lucrative for some folks.

    These questions have received more and more mainstream consideration over the past few years, as the idea of cancel culture itself has evolved from its humorous origins into a broader and more serious conversation about how to hold public figures accountable for bad behavior. And the conversation isn’t just about when and how public figures should lose their status and their livelihoods. It’s also about establishing new ethical and social norms and figuring out how to collectively respond when those norms are violated.
    Possibly the first reference to canceling someone comes with the 1991 film New Jack City, in which Wesley Snipes plays a gangster named Nino Brown. In one scene, after his girlfriend breaks down because of all the violence he’s causing, he dumps her by saying, “Cancel that b!#ch. I’ll buy another one.”

    Jump to 2010, when Lil Wayne referenced the film in a line from his song “I’m Single”: “Yeah, I’m single...had to cancel that b!#ch like Nino.”
    But canceling seems to have gotten its first big boost into the zeitgeist from an episode of VH1’s reality show Love and Hip-Hop: New York that aired in December 2014, in which cast member Cisco Rosado tells his love interest Diamond Strawberry during a fight, “you’re canceled.”

    [TWITTER]https://twitter.com/renzoracks_/status/547206874148663296[/TWITTER]
    From there, the idea of canceling began to disseminate from Black Twitter throughout 2015,

    [TWITTER]https://twitter.com/jessstar4/status/656892621047074816[/TWITTER]
    As it caught on, however, the term began to evolve into a way of responding not just to friends or acquaintances, but also to celebrities or entities whose behavior offended you.
    The examples which follow involve Ed Sheeran, Amy Schumer, Travis Scott and Kanye West. And more.

    The terms 'call-out culture' and 'outrage culture' appear and a bit of history about using the boycott in the American South.

    Dr. Anne Charity Hudley, who studies black vernacular and the use of language in cultural conversations like this one, described canceling as “a survival skill as old as the Southern black use of the boycott.”
    All of this dramatic rhetoric from both sides of the debate shows how incendiary cancel culture has become.

    Aaron Rose, a corporate diversity and inclusion consultant, used to identify with progressives who participate in call-out and cancel culture. But now, he says, he’s focused on objectives like “conflict transformation,” motivated by the question of “how do we truly communicate [and] treat each other like humans?”

    “Mainstream internet activism is a lot of calling out and blaming and shaming,” he told Vox in an email. “We have to get honest with ourselves about whether calling out and canceling gives us more than a short-term release of cathartic anger.”
    He says he now wants to “create more stories of transformation rather than stories of punishment and excommunication.”
    To Rose, and for many opponents of cancel culture, the bottom line in the debate is a need to believe that other people can change, and treat them with according optimism. The difference between cancel culture and a more reconciliatory, transformational approach to a disagreement is “the difference between expecting amends and never letting a wound close,” he said. “Between expressing your rage and identifying with it forever.”
    “I get that, but that’s a really middle-class, white privilege way of coming at this,” [Doctor] Hudley countered when I summarized Rose’s viewpoint for her. “From my point of view, for black culture and cultures of people who are lower income and disenfranchised, this is the first time you do have a voice in those types of conversations.”

    Looks like we have a ways to go.

    (I didn't realize the origins of 'cancel' in pop culture.)

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  19. #115
    Senior Member Aragorn's Avatar
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    Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling faced intense criticism from her own fans after she began to voice transphobic beliefs.
    I'd like to put this into the proper perspective, because by wording it as quoted here-above, the author is already assuming a non-neutral and thus thought-policing vantage.

    J.K. Rowling has not "voiced any transphobic beliefs". She has merely stated that in her opinion, a woman is "a person who menstruates" ─ or something to that effect. As such, she meant to imply that changing one's gender appearance does not actually change one's gender, because one's gender is indeed an undeniably and genetically determined biological matter.

    A sex change operation does not suddenly change one's chromosome pairs, nor does it allow a male-to-female transgender to start menstruating and become pregnant, or for a female-to-male transgender to sire offspring with a biologically female partner. Furthermore, for all its complexity and physical suffering that a sex change operation brings forth ─ we are after all talking about very incisive surgery here ─ it is still only half of the story with regard to the transperson being able to maintain their gender appearance, because the other half of the story is that they will for the rest of their life become dependent on hormone supplements in order to suppress the body's natural tendency to want to restore its native hormone levels.

    This is not a belief; these are scientific facts. And just because J.K. Rowling expressed these facts does not make her transphobic. She did not express any hatred for or dislike of transgenders ─ or at least, not that I know of. But here we have that neuroticism again. The pro-trans community is so neurotic that it immediately seeks to squash and vilify anyone who does not agree with their escapist opinion that the concept of gender is what one chooses to be, rather than what nature has predetermined when the fetus was created inside the womb.

    Look, I've already said that I'm a moderately progressive person, and I still stand by that. And as you know, apart from being the administrator at this forum here, I am also a moderator ─ and an actively posting member, with at the time of my writing this post 230 official solutions in my name ─ at the Manjaro forum. Manjaro is a primarily European distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system.

    Now, over at the Manjaro forum as it currently exists ─ we had to start all over again from scratch in 2020 due to a complete crash of the forum engine, and many of the old members have in the meantime left Manjaro for another distribution ─ there is at least one male-to-female transgender member that I know of; there were a couple more at the previous iteration of the forum. Moreover, this transgender member is a Dutch-speaking Belgian, even. And I have personally already helped this person out with technical advice on more than one occasion, because (1) helping people out is what the forum exists for, (2) I respect each and every human being for who and what they are, whether I agree with them or not, and (3) a person in need of help is a person in need of help, period. But that does not mean that I could appreciate that this person was behaving flirtatiously toward me the last time I tried helping them ─ I simply ignored it and just carried on with my technical instructions, and with my help, that person succeeded in the reinstallation of their computer's operating system.

    So, does my ignoring of their flirtations or my above elaboration on what biologically constitutes the concept of gender transphobic? What about respect for my sexual preferences? Does the fact that I am a 100% heterosexual male, and that I'm only attracted to naturally born women ─ you know, with double-X chromosome pairs ─ make me transphobic? Because if it does, then that should by definition also imply that every transperson and every homosexual in the world would be heterophobic. Fair is fair, and the door swings both ways. If I myself, or for that matter, J.K. Rowling are to be accused of transphobia and/or homophobia, then every person with a different sexual orientation and/or another gender identity than the one they were born with should be accused of heterophobia.

    And you know what? Those who so easily throw allegations of homophobia and/or transphobia around are in fact themselves heterophobic. And this in turn is all part of the cancel culture that this thread is meant to address. Suddenly biological facts are no longer factual, and reality becomes something that you make up as you go. Well, if that's your thing, then that's your thing, but don't project that onto the rest of humanity, and don't expect reality to step aside just so you can live in your escapist world.

    Once again, I consider myself a moderately progressive person, and I respect everyone for who and what they are, and I will also treat them with respect inasmuch as they themselves are also willing to respect their fellow human beings. But it is this kind of neurotic thought policing that makes me just as disgusted with the political left as with the political right. And I know all about neuroticism; I'm autistic, so I was born a neurotic. But I also know the difference between my neurotic impulses and the fabric of reality, and I do not bother other people with my own neuroses, let alone that I'd be demanding of other people that they would placate me in my neuroticism.

    One person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins. And sadly enough, the political left and the political right are both guilty of ignoring that premise.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  21. #116
    Senior Member Norway Elen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    I

    One person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins. And sadly enough, the political left and the political right are both guilty of ignoring that premise.
    I agree with you...and now Mercury is stationary, hey!
    Whatever is true. Whatever is noble. Whatever is right. Whatever is lovely. Whatever is admirable. Anything of excellence and worthy of praise. Dwell on these things. Jesus Christ (I agree)

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  23. #117
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    That's why I don't like the SJW's, they can be just as nutty and extreme too. I don't like extremes.

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  25. #118
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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    That's why I don't like the SJW's, they can be just as nutty and extreme too. I don't like extremes.
    Extremism leads to a loss of perspective. It's like trying to look at the world through a microscope; the closer up you get to the details, the less you become aware of the bigger picture.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Senior Member United States Dreamtimer's Avatar
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    I think I'm lucky in that I really don't know any SJWs. The folks I know work hard at their jobs and try to make change through their actions rather than whining and judging.

    I don't personally find JK to be offensive in her statements. It's a subject which needs discussion, not cancelling.

    I think you're right, Aragorn. It's probably the same dynamic as with folks who rail against homosexuality and then it comes out that they themselves are secretly homosexual or have such encounters.

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    Senior Member Aragorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    It's probably the same dynamic as with folks who rail against homosexuality and then it comes out that they themselves are secretly homosexual or have such encounters.
    No, that's completely beside the point I was making. In fact ─ and I read something to that effect in somebody's signature on Usenet a while ago ─ it's more like the typical conservative homosexuals will live in the closet and do everything to hide their homosexuality, while the typical liberal homosexual will not only come out and flaunt their homosexuality, but will also attempt to have things officially regulated so that homosexuality becomes accepted as the norm and heterosexuality as some kind of perversion.

    I'm exaggerating, but in this day and age of extremism and polarization, that's what it boils down to these days, and especially so in America, due to (1) the glorification of masculinity (as in every other fascist and crypto-fascist society), (2) the generally conservative nature of US American society and its religiously inspired resentment of anything that doesn't live up to those American (and secretly Catholic) ideals ─ which in turn is why LGBT people still don't enjoy the same rights in America as in other western countries, and why there still is such a thing as systemic racism ─ and (3), the fact that US Americans are so pampered into their consumerist and anti-intellectual culture that a large contingent of the US population is totally oblivious of (3a) established scientific facts and (3b) who they are as individuals.

    I've said it before, but the two most lucrative occupations in America are psychiatrists and lawyers, which to me is a very ostensible indicator of how the average US American is simply emotionally immature and ignorant. They consider scientifically established facts (such as the autism-and-vaccines debate) as "merely an opinion", they need psychiatrists to tell them what they are feeling, and they need lawyers to settle disputes ─ and for that matter, with a huge financial gain if possible.

    And all of that stems from the insular cultural narcissism, alias American Exceptionalism ─ the belief that Americans are superior to every other people on this planet, in spite of ample and repetitive evidence of the contrary. And America's insular culture, oblivious of anything from beyond America's borders, the constant indoctrination with American Exceptionalism propaganda in both the education system and in the media, and the consumerism and competition-driven society model as represented by the emphasis on sports and capitalism/corporatism are only making things worse in that regard. It's a self-reinforcing mental development trap.

    If America wants to cancel anything ─ and America is where the whole cancel culture thing began ─ then let them begin with that ridiculously outdated and hopelessly inconsistent imperial measurements system, followed by exposure to what is happening outside of the US borders ─ and by this, I don't mean "Canada and Mexico". That would be a good beginning, albeit only a beginning.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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