Cancel culture (3 Viewers)

shmmeee · Jul 13, 2020

There’s a basic rule of thumb I’ve started using for a lot of this stuff, and it’s if your theory relies on half of humanity being evil/stupid/misguided, you’re probably wrong and over generalising.

The arrogance to think some of the worlds best minds have failed to spot something you did through a Prager U YouTube vid or a Novara podcast is mind blowing.

mrtrench · Jul 13, 2020

shmmeee said:
You’ve decided if it isn’t successful putting the means of production in worker control immediately it’s not socialism.

I didn't decide that, I read it. OK here's a challenge: google the definition of socialism and then tell me how many pages of google you needed to scroll through before you find one that includes social democracy... not democratic socialism but social democracy. Or one that defines socialism as a system where the means of production can remain in private hands.

Deleted member 5849 · Jul 13, 2020

mrtrench said:
I didn't decide that, I read it. OK here's a challenge: google the definition of socialism and then tell me how many pages of google you needed to scroll through before you find one that includes social democracy... not democratic socialism but social democracy. Or one that defines socialism as a system where the means of production can remain in private hands.

You spend half your time mocking Tony for using Google rather than reading...

mrtrench · Jul 13, 2020

Deleted member 5849 said:
You spend half your time mocking Tony for using Google rather than reading...

How do you suggest that I help them to understand the definition of socialism? I've already provided a quote from the guy who invented it but that's not enough. If you've read so much and define yourself as a socialist then you know... why don't you support me? I understand why socialist politicians might want to keep it nice and vague but so far as I know you're not standing for election.

And I mock Tony because he's cocky as hell and dim. It's the cockiness that grates.

skybluetony176 · Jul 13, 2020

mrtrench said:
I didn't decide that, I read it. OK here's a challenge: google the definition of socialism and then tell me how many pages of google you needed to scroll through before you find one that includes social democracy... not democratic socialism but social democracy. Or one that defines socialism as a system where the means of production can remain in private hands.

I’m not sure what you think that tells you. It could just as easily mean that the promoted pages are dominated by the right wing press and think tanks who don’t want you to put democracy and socialism together in case you work it out. Certainly as much as anything else.

mrtrench · Jul 13, 2020

skybluetony176 said:
I’m not sure what you think that tells you. It could just as easily mean that the promoted pages are dominated by the right wing press and think tanks who don’t want you to put democracy and socialism together in case you work it out. Certainly as much as anything else.

Democratic Socialism is Socialism Tony. They put the words together. Democratic Socialists want Socialism or Communism with elections. Social Democrats want capitalism with a higher than average amount of state-funded services and consequently higher direct tax.

Or, the Right Wing press and think tanks have created millions of websites lying about the definitions and optimised them for google search algorithms. Unlikely.

skybluetony176 · Jul 13, 2020

mrtrench said:
How do you suggest that I help them to understand the definition of socialism? I've already provided a quote from the guy who invented it but that's not enough. If you've read so much and define yourself as a socialist then you know... why don't you support me? I understand why socialist politicians might want to keep it nice and vague but so far as I know you're not standing for election.

And I mock Tony because he's cocky as hell and dim. It's the cockiness that grates.

Who do think “invented” socialism?

mrtrench · Jul 13, 2020

I'll give you that one, Tony. Marx wasn't the first; I'm wrong.

skybluetony176 · Jul 13, 2020

mrtrench said:
Democratic Socialism is Socialism Tony. They put the words together. Democratic Socialists want Socialism or Communism with elections. Social Democrats want capitalism with a higher than average amount of state-funded services and consequently higher direct tax.

Or, the Right Wing press and think tanks have created millions of websites lying about the definitions and optimised them for google search algorithms. Unlikely.

No, I’ve not accusing anyone of lying about socialism. I’ve said some very influential outlets like to promote socialism as a communist dictatorship, end story. There’s clearly more to socialism than that, you even acknowledge that to someone degree yourself. The fact that socialist democracy doesn’t sit on the front page of a capitalist search engine doesn’t mean socialist democracy doesn’t exist or indeed works. If you want to make good use google to judge socialism google the UN’s world happiness league, or any league of inequality, or any league of national health, any league of work life balance. Basically any measurement for quality of life by country. The top ten is dominated by socialist democratic countries.

mrtrench · Jul 13, 2020

It's not socialist democracy, Tony, it's social democracy. We're covering old ground here.

Let's imagine you are right (you aren't) and Social Democracy is a kind of socialism which has private ownership of capital and high taxes.

Fine, I may or may not support such a party depending on details. I voted Blair and he was basically a Social Democrat. But Corbz didn't describe himself as a Social Democrat. He calls himself a Democratic Socialist. Why do you think he makes the distinction?

shmmeee · Jul 13, 2020

mrtrench said:
I didn't decide that, I read it. OK here's a challenge: google the definition of socialism and then tell me how many pages of google you needed to scroll through before you find one that includes social democracy... not democratic socialism but social democracy. Or one that defines socialism as a system where the means of production can remain in private hands.

Literally the first result:

All the ideologies I stated are compatible with that. Jesus all government “regulates the means of production, distribution, and exchange by the community”. That’s what legislation is.

As I say it’s a very broad term you’re trying to shoehorn into a very small box. May I suggest you listen to socialists on what socialism is and not American incels?

Deleted member 5849 · Jul 13, 2020

Given socialists spend an eternity arguing over what socialism is, I doubt a random bloke on a forum gets a eureka moment, unless it's for a polemic.

Deleted member 5849 · Jul 13, 2020

Anyway...

Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism have a meeting for tea at noon. Capitalism and Communism arrive on time, but Socialism is nowhere to be found. Finally he arrives, out of breath and apologetic. "I'm sorry," says Socialism, "I was standing in line for sausage." Capitalism says - "What's a line?" And Communism says - "What's a sausage?"

I'm here all week...

Deleted member 5849 · Jul 13, 2020

So... getting it back on track. I'd have sympathy if it wasn't for the perjorative Leftist halfway through Doesn't seem to be over-abusive to begin with, although maybe slightly tactless in my view as twitter ain't the place for nuance.

skybluetony176 · Jul 13, 2020

Just thinking aloud (dangerous I know, Mr Trench) but have we had a complete juxtaposed of standards? Think about it. 25 years ago Boris would never have survived in politics let alone rise to the top of the cesspool. Thinking David Mellor who took his title a little too literal had an affair, had to resign ending his political career. Edwina Currie who had to resign for opening her mouth without thinking basically ending her political career, she was even telling the truth. Compare to showbiz where the likes of Savile were aloud to get away with horrific crimes, the aforementioned mentioned Edwina Currie even put him in charge of a hospital and didn’t get sacked for it.

We now have a situation where the PM, his cabinet, his ministers and advisers can lie, cheat, fuck up, make racist comments and have no comeback yet a TV star will be cancelled because of something they said decades ago that hasn’t aged well despite doing something Boris and co wouldn’t dream of, in apologise, express regret and understanding that what they did was wrong.

djr8369 · Jul 13, 2020

Deleted member 5849 said:
So... getting it back on track. I'd have sympathy if it wasn't for the perjorative Leftist halfway through Doesn't seem to be over-abusive to begin with, although maybe slightly tactless in my view as twitter ain't the place for nuance.

I was sent this as an example of cancel culture by a friend the other day. Read through it and basically the guy reduced the motivations of trans people to peer pressure. The ONE person mentioned his views on twitter and said he was looking for jobs.

Conveniently the “victim” of the situation has now a job writing for Quillete where presumably he will spend his time whining about cancel culture and leftists.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

shmmeee · Jul 13, 2020

Deleted member 5849 said:
So... getting it back on track. I'd have sympathy if it wasn't for the perjorative Leftist halfway through Doesn't seem to be over-abusive to begin with, although maybe slightly tactless in my view as twitter ain't the place for nuance.

He’s a nice guy, DMed me diet and training advice when I commented on something. Has been captured by the American right though recently. TBF forced out of academia for arguing sex is real and now an editor at Quillette so, kinda see how that happened.

shmmeee · Jul 13, 2020

djr8369 said:
I was sent this as an example of cancel culture by a friend the other day. Read through it and basically the guy reduced the motivations of trans people to peer pressure. The ONE person mentioned his views on twitter and said he was looking for jobs.

Conveniently the “victim” of the situation has now a job writing for Quillete where presumably he will spend his time whining about cancel culture and leftists.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That’s not really accurate, either in his views, what Litmans ROGD hypothesis is, or the extent of the professional backlash against him TBF.

Macca · Jul 14, 2020

As a grumpy old man I find it just another made up phrase to annoy me

clint van damme · Jul 14, 2020

Macca said:
As a grumpy old man I find it just another made up phrase to annoy me

at least I understand this one, i don't know what the majority of them mean, Gaslighting? What the fuck is that?!

Sky Blue Pete · Jul 14, 2020

What’s cancel culture?

wingy · Jul 14, 2020

Sky Blue Pete said:
What’s cancel culture?

Shut up.
Go away.

clint van damme · Jul 14, 2020

wingy said:
Shut up.
Go away.

all front from treason Gav, tories are thick as thieves with Putin and his cronies.

djr8369 · Jul 14, 2020

shmmeee said:
That’s not really accurate, either in his views, what Litmans ROGD hypothesis is, or the extent of the professional backlash against him TBF.

Just my views based on the thread. You seem to know a lot more about it so I will take your word for it. Is it a good example of cancel culture or were his views objectionable and distorted by his political leanings? At the very least, stating that one theory explains the motivations of thousands of individuals seems odd behaviour for a postdoc.

Sky Blue Pete · Jul 14, 2020

wingy said:
Shut up.
Go away.

Is that an answer ?? I’m so confused

Mucca Mad Boys · Jul 14, 2020

On Orwell, I thought I'd leave this here for consumption. The sentiments of The Road to Wigan Pier still resonate today. A great writer who everyone, regardless of political orientation, should read.

Why Socialists Are Despised, As Explained By George Orwell

Social justice warriors can, and should, learn from George Orwell's critique of socialists.

www.forbes.com

David O'Day · Jul 14, 2020

Deleted member 5849 said:
So... getting it back on track. I'd have sympathy if it wasn't for the perjorative Leftist halfway through Doesn't seem to be over-abusive to begin with, although maybe slightly tactless in my view as twitter ain't the place for nuance.

My main worry is why would anyone want to employ an academic that cites papers that even the authors have disavowed.

Given the subject matter it seems to be he has a fix viewpoint and was looking for evidence to back him up. Text book confirmation bias. Not what you want in a biologist.

Deleted member 4439 · Jul 14, 2020

mrtrench said:
The antisemitism quip was a joke. Do you honestly believe that I habitually try to slip silencing slurs into conversations rather than addressing the issue head on? There are many more who avoid original thought and the effort of honestly making an argument. Instead they simply diminish what others write with the trendy words of the day - such as 'lazy' and 'trope'. That's not an argument - it's a get out because you cannot or will not address the points made. It's so easy to rely on trite put downs and platitudes. It's not so easy to think critically and then organise your thoughts into an argument. Posting links to what other people have written is just as lazy - it's another avoidance tactic.

I can imagine that at the time, socialism did seem like a good idea. However it has so spectacularly failed every time that it has been tried that to continue to chase the seemingly unimplementable Utopia must come with lashings of selective vision - whether that be conscious or not. And it seems that the only way that some can reconcile the disconnection is to either claim that:

- That wasn't real socialism.
- Some successful capitalist countries with high taxation are socialist counter-examples.

For the first, Western socialists all applauded those socialist states at the time; they just swivel on a sixpence after they fail.

And for the second, socialism actually means something:

'What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labour. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labour time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labour cost. The same amount of labour which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.'

Which is often converted to the 'people' owning the means of production. The 'people' do not own the means of production in any Scandinavian country.

As always, trying to treat an argument seriously is futile.

Been a long time since I read the Communist Manifesto, and I'm not about to dig it out, but I think you are taking a para from near the end of the book when Marx was describing (you might say romanticising over) a communist state. This is quite different from the 'necessary' transition stage from capitalism to socialism. It is under socialism that the state owns the means of production. Not sure there is any 'true' model out there for that but I'd say pre perestroika Russia and Cuba probably came closet. China can be included, despite its free-market reforms.

A number of philosophers and political thinkers subscribe to the idea of dialectic materialism, though seemed to me that Marx was better at describing the transition of Capitalism to Socialism than how dialectic materialism gets us to Communism. Not sure any nation-state has ever practised Marxist communism, though much of Isreal was built upon the kibbutz system that, up to the 21st century was run along communist lines (that and chicken, a never-ending diet of chicken..)

djr8369 · Jul 15, 2020

David O'Day said:
My main worry is why would anyone want to employ an academic that cites papers that even the authors have disavowed.

Given the subject matter it seems to be he has a fix viewpoint and was looking for evidence to back him up. Text book confirmation bias. Not what you want in a biologist.

Interesting. I wasn’t aware they had disavowed. Agree with your point though, like I said, odd behaviour for an academic. His twitter timeline is littered with similar stuff.

mrtrench · Jul 15, 2020

dubed said:
Been a long time since I read the Communist Manifesto, and I'm not about to dig it out, but I think you are taking a para from near the end of the book when Marx was describing (you might say romanticising over) a communist state. This is quite different from the 'necessary' transition stage from capitalism to socialism. It is under socialism that the state owns the means of production. Not sure there is any 'true' model out there for that but I'd say pre perestroika Russia and Cuba probably came closet. China can be included, despite its free-market reforms.

A number of philosophers and political thinkers subscribe to the idea of dialectic materialism, though seemed to me that Marx was better at describing the transition of Capitalism to Socialism than how dialectic materialism gets us to Communism. Not sure any nation-state has ever practised Marxist communism, though much of Isreal was built upon the kibbutz system that, up to the 21st century was run along communist lines (that and chicken, a never-ending diet of chicken..)

At last! Someone who does know the definitions.

I agree with everything you write apart from thinking this quote is about the post-transition. The first sentence explicitly states he is talking about the phase before communism where 'the people' (whatever that means) own production rather than the state.

skybluetony176 · Jul 16, 2020

More cancel culture from the government

Russia report: New intelligence committee chair loses Tory whip

Tory MP Julian Lewis beats Chris Grayling to win the position, but loses his place in the parliamentary party.

www.bbc.co.uk

djr8369 · Jul 16, 2020

skybluetony176 said:
More cancel culture from the government

Russia report: New intelligence committee chair loses Tory whip

Tory MP Julian Lewis beats Chris Grayling to win the position, but loses his place in the parliamentary party.

www.bbc.co.uk

I’m sure all the people seething about cancel culture lately will be furious...

duffer · Jul 16, 2020

clint van damme said:
Indeed. I've always thought that antisemitism on the left and right was different in that the left was mainly driven by the Israeli/Palestinian situation and the right was more the global conspiracy stuff, (though not exclusive to right).
However, it seems both ends of the spectrum are buying into the current conspiracy theories going around regarding 5G, Covid, masks, vaccines etc and all of them are laced with an unhealthy does of antisemitism and the usual tropes.

I’m not entirely sure about that. Antisemitism really isn’t a left-wing thing in my experience. I’d argue that this is the side that stands fully against all racism, overt, covert, and institutional.

Labour not doing enough to kick out the odd nutter is certainly a point of concern, but let’s not kid ourselves that the main stream media isn’t far more interested in highlighting those stories than it is in exposing the storied history of Tory islamophobia (for example).

As for the anti-vaxxers, that’s limited to the criminally short of brain. I’m not sure that they’re necessarily unique to one side or the other, but I fancy a Venn diagram would show a big overlap with the kind of people who support Trump and think that the state is repressing their rights. I tend to see that as an extreme right-wing point-of-view personally.

This, and the 5G conspiracies tend to make me think that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter need to up their game considerably - the right to free speech doesn’t give one the right to shout “Fire” in a crowded theatre.

djr8369 · Jul 16, 2020

duffer said:
I’m not entirely sure about that. Antisemitism really isn’t a left-wing thing in my experience. I’d argue that this is the side that stands fully against all racism, overt, covert, and institutional.

Labour not doing enough to kick out the odd nutter is certainly a point of concern, but let’s not kid ourselves that the main stream media isn’t far more interested in highlighting those stories than it is in exposing the storied history of Tory islamophobia (for example).

As for the anti-vaxxers, that’s limited to the criminally short of brain. I’m not sure that they’re necessarily unique to one side or the other, but I fancy a Venn diagram would show a big overlap with the kind of people who support Trump and think that the state is repressing their rights. I tend to see that as an extreme right-wing point-of-view personally.

This, and the 5G conspiracies tend to make me think that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter need to up their game considerably - the right to free speech doesn’t give one the right to shout “Fire” in a crowded theatre.

Antisemitism on the left often seems to come from not too bright people desperately trying to bash capitalism and so they end up latching on to anti semantic conspiracy theories related to the economy and money.

I think this is an unintentional side effect generally, rather than antisemitism for antisemitisms sake.

duffer · Jul 16, 2020

djr8369 said:
Antisemitism on the left often seems to come from not too bright people desperately trying to bash capitalism and so they end up latching on to anti semantic conspiracy theories related to the economy and money.

I think this is an unintentional side effect generally, rather than antisemitism for antisemitisms sake.

Yep, that’s a fair point. I think the other thing that’s happening is the state of Israel is keen to suppress criticism of its actions towards Palestinians.

That sometimes means framing reasonable debate as anti-Semitic, when it quite clearly isn’t.

I think it’s the left that fall foul of this more than the right, because the left seem more likely to see and protest the Palestinian situation as unfair and unlawful.

To be absolutely clear, I’ve got no time for anti-semitism, and I can’t understand how anyone could claim to be anti-racist and simultaneously hate Jews. However, I’ve got no time for how the state of Israel conducts itself with regard to the Palestinians or its near neighbours, and think it should be called out. I think it’s possible to hold both opinions.

Cancel culture (3 Viewers)

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