Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Why should we not erect statues of living people?

      Well, in recent years, toppling of statues have been very much at rage -after all, why not judge historical people based on contemporary standards? It makes perfect sense, so off with those long-dead evil white men!

Also, why not erect statues of living people just to show how virtuous we are? For example, Greta Thunberg?

Let's forget about Greta herself - it is not about her per se. But can anyone spot what the problem is with this?

Well, I will help. First, it is very strange that living people get statues. That is just... wrong.

Second, and this is more important: how do you know she will not say or do something tomorrow, next year, two decades from now for which you will want to cancel her immediately? Then what? Are you going to remove her statue immediately? Are statues now just temporary political statements? In this case paper mache would be a better medium.

Hm? Nobody thought about this? Are everyone so involved with identity politics that they can only think of the present? Some sort of goldfish-mentality this is as Yoda would say)

(Bonus questions... Shall we periodically topple statues of everyone because they failed -or will fail- to live up to our future's standards?)


Monday, March 29, 2021

Cancel culture eating itself (The curious case of Hemal Jhaveri)

 There are plenty of reasons to criticize about the "mainstream media" as it is today; it is pandering to the lowest common denominator, it is permeated by ideology, it has becoame an outrage machine, and it essentially killed journalism...

Well, and it is also very happy to silence any voices that go against the cultural zeitgeist -which is mostly a very much leftist, and very much based on identity-politics. BBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, The Guardian, Huffpost... etc. are not interested in journalism any more - these media outlets are only interested in finding facts (or distorting them) that fit their agenda. Which is a problem. A serious one. 

Cancel culture is a part of this -although it is not an exclusive weapon of the Left, it has to be said. But it is a bit bigger problem there, I would argue. Getting banned from Hollywood, like Gina Carano was, or from the "mainstream" if you "misspeak" carries a bit more weight than getting kicked out from a right-wing media outlet.

Anyhow, normally, when something horrendous happens that resembles a terrorist attack, certain people will jump the gun, and usually rush to conclude that it must have been Muslims before the facts are clear. These people are rightly condemned by certain other people (usually from the Left), that they use a tragedy to further their own agenda, and usually this agenda is quite racist.

It is interesting to see, however, that when a mass-shooting happens, these Left-leaning people suddenly forget these -very much laudable- principles, and jump the gun to blame white men before the facts are clear, and the victims are still warm. And there were a lot of them -an issue on which the above mentioned news outlets kept very silent about, and about which right-wing media outlets had a field day of gotcha's. Both are toxic both are unhelpful. (Although you can't blame Fox News for cheering, to be honest. Finally they can point fingers at the evil liberals victimizing them...)

This time a woman actually lost her job because of her racist tweet. What is more, she keeps playing the victim, going on the usual narrative built on privilege and permanent victimhood. (A "mistake", obviously. Ask Gina about mistakes; her tweet was not even that controversial, although, like any tweet making comparisons with anything and Nazi Germany, it was really stupid.) It is worth reading her ramblings trying to justify herself.

What is a hopeful sign, however, is that perhaps the grasp of identity politics on our everyday life is loosening. I don't think she would have been fired even two years ago due to her being a not-white not-male person and this causing considerable anxiety in the senior management. Maybe common sense will slowly sweep back into the public discourse.


What is wrong with Rings of Power and the criticism of the critics

So Rings of Power season two is coming out, and the flame-wars flared up again on social media. So let's take a look at why people hated...