What Twitter pile on are you watching right now (3 Viewers)

The BBC said:
Ms Ager hit her head on a hamster cage after being thrown across a room. The musician also grabbed her leg and hit her on the head ... Prosecutor Naeem Valli said the attack had left Ms Ager with bruises to her knees, elbow, ankle and "a reddening around her neck".
A hamster cage? Grabbed her leg? A reddening around her neck? Is this a Monty Python sketch?
 
This article explains very well, in my most humble opinion, what’s really at stake in discussions around that Harpers letter.

summary - the “free speech crisis” is a politically motivated mythical narrative just like the “polItical correctness gone mad” one.

The myth of the free speech crisis
 
I don't think that's the key grievance (of the Guardian article) at all - the key grievance is about the weaponisation of the concept of "free speech" - but even if it was, the effects of the "mean things" vary wildly depending on what is being said to whom and by whom so I don't think it's helpful to draw simple equivalences.

For example, a bunch of high-profile public intellectuals publishing a letter in one of the world's most prominent magazines complaining about being "silenced"? Puhleeeeze .....

Not sure I spelled that right ...
 
I think it's way simpler than all that:

1) If you in precarious employment it is really easy to get cancelled by saying the wrong thing on the internet.

2) If you are not in precarious employment it's really hard to get cancelled on the internet. The worst that will happen is you won't get invited to a few parties or to give talks to feed for your massive ego.

It's almost as if the issue isn't cancellations rather the have and have nots.


My take on the letter, glad you all asked, is that it can be read two ways: it's either a bunch of people who are doing fine throwing a tantrum because people disagree with them and having a whinge from a place of privilege, or it's people who can afford to take the hit sticking their neck out for all the people who cannot. Possibly it's both. The wording of the letter is so vague you can pretty much read what you like into it. Like an Obama speech wha.
 
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I would resist the suggestion that it's simple (I think it's really complicated) but would totally agree with this:

It's almost as if the issue isn't cancellations rather the have and have nots.

This is what I was getting at by saying that the effects of this stuff vary hugely depending on what is being said to whom and by whom. There are power relations at work here that often get ignored (either deliberately or naively).
 
It's horribly interesting-but there is something fundamentally worrying happening in terms of how people think they are being righteous and heroic by shutting down debate, it serves absolutely no-one.

I also have to be completely honest-through teaching students over the last thirteen years, I have noticed a real shift in critical thinking, and it's not good. There are of course the gems of students-those that give me hope, but there is a trend towards choosing a simplistic take on nuanced issues, and it is either an inability or unwillingness to apply scrutiny and rigour to issues that are incredibly important. I can't tell yet whether it is that we are living in such an acute age of narcissism and there is a consequent eroding of the sense of associative obligations, or whether something has been slipped into the tap water that is making people a bit doolally. Maybe it's both of these things. Maybe this is all a dream. Anyway, I am enjoying this debate immensely on Thumped, I can't take it to Twitter, I think I would expire in a second.
 
I would resist the suggestion that it's simple (I think it's really complicated) but would totally agree with this:



This is what I was getting at by saying that the effects of this stuff vary hugely depending on what is being said to whom and by whom. There are power relations at work here that often get ignored (either deliberately or naively).
Ah yeah, it's complicated but sure I see lots of people saying anyone who signed that letter is a transphobe because JK Rowling signed it and sure, if you squint you can decide the vaguer allusions are definitely, 100% "dog-whistles" referring to trans issues... if you want them to be. Personally, I was too busy counting the people who signed it who are also on the Jeffery Epstein flight logs and coming to the conclusion that that's what it's all about.

I mean, Bari Weiss signed the letter and she has spent half her career getting people fired for speaking out against Israel.
 
Ah yeah, it's complicated but sure I see lots of people saying anyone who signed that letter is a transphobe because JK Rowling signed it and sure, if you squint you can decide the vaguer allusions are definitely, 100% "dog-whistles" referring to trans issues... if you want them to be. Personally, I was too busy counting the people who signed it who are also on the Jeffery Epstein flight logs and coming to the conclusion that that's what it's all about.

I mean, Bari Weiss signed the letter and she has spent half her career getting people fired for speaking out against Israel.
How many?
 
seems not everyone might have known the full list of signatories of that letter?

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Singal is considered a trans-phobic TERF by a relatively large selection of online people. I don't think he is myself but i'm not trans so, yeah, that'd be me cancelled if it were possible to do that. I mean, the letter is "a well meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming," so it's not that surprising that all sorts of people signed it. Simply this week's storm in a teacup?
 
Ha, not that many, most of them aren't famous enough

Mostly just Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Pinker.

Is this about Epstein having a habit of surrounding himself with intellectual types? I seem to recall reading that somewhere. I suppose I could Google it but .. you know ... someone else do the work for me.
 
It's horribly interesting-but there is something fundamentally worrying happening in terms of how people think they are being righteous and heroic by shutting down debate, it serves absolutely no-one.

I also have to be completely honest-through teaching students over the last thirteen years, I have noticed a real shift in critical thinking, and it's not good. There are of course the gems of students-those that give me hope, but there is a trend towards choosing a simplistic take on nuanced issues, and it is either an inability or unwillingness to apply scrutiny and rigour to issues that are incredibly important. I can't tell yet whether it is that we are living in such an acute age of narcissism and there is a consequent eroding of the sense of associative obligations, or whether something has been slipped into the tap water that is making people a bit doolally. Maybe it's both of these things. Maybe this is all a dream. Anyway, I am enjoying this debate immensely on Thumped, I can't take it to Twitter, I think I would expire in a second.

I wonder is a lot of it down to an overload of information? That there's so much more to parse that people are just picking the bits that suit them? Or has it been eroded by social media? Students are used to arguing with avatars rather than real people. And also are getting locked into echo chambers.

I've just read what I've written and there's an awful lot of cringey buzz words there
 
I was thinking about this in relation to how my parents copy of a Gary Glitter album still exists and he is definitely cancelled.

Yeah, I saw some headline yesterday along the lines of "JK Rowling and the Devestating Effect of Cancel Culture." I'll be honest, I didn't read it but I did note that my kids have been reading the Ichabod over the last while and want to get some Harry Potter books which are still widely available. I'm just wondering, has something else happened beyond people saying she's a bit of an arsehole for her views on trans people? Have I missed something here?
 
Yeah, I saw some headline yesterday along the lines of "JK Rowling and the Devestating Effect of Cancel Culture." I'll be honest, I didn't read it but I did note that my kids have been reading the Ichabod over the last while and want to get some Harry Potter books which are still widely available. I'm just wondering, has something else happened beyond people saying she's a bit of an arsehole for her views on trans people? Have I missed something here?
I actually don't think so.
 

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