[Jennifer Reeser]

If you're reading redacted Shakespeare, then you're not reading Shakespeare. You get to bear all the air of pretentiousness and posturing, with little-to-none of the aroma of real power or prestige.

Thanks, Jesse.

Jennifer

[David Anthony]

To be fair, Jenn, I don't think he was cancelling anything. He just chose to read the sonnets he liked best, which is exactly what I'd do.
(Winter's Tale is one of my favourite plays, even though it has a few absurdities.)
I came across a comment recently, from a celebrity whose name I forget, saying we need to re-evaluate Shakespeare's work. Interesting discussion point, I thought, clicking on the link: maybe it's time for excluding some of the lesser works from the canon.
Disappointingly, she was just spouting woke nonsense about sexism in Shakespeare.

[Jennifer Reeser]

David, how lovely you are joining the conversation -- you always have the best effect on me, dear friend.

I am listening, and taking your counsel to heart. It may very well be as you say.

The world has gone mad.


Jennifer

[Julie Steiner]

Bless you for chiming in, David! I think we agree that there is a lot of woke nonsense in the world, but that Patrick Stewart's omission of certain sonnets is not exactly a prime example of it.

Originally Posted by Jesse Anger

Picard has the right to perform the poems he wants, but don't get it twisted, it's a virtue signal: a dog whistle with a ton of nuance underneath which he left unaddressed.

Really? Do you honestly hear any dog whistles in this video of Patrick Stewart apologizing for having skipped sonnets 133-136?

(The dog in the video doesn't seem to have heard any.)

Also, note that when Patrick Stewart mentions Sonnet 127 in the video above, he seems to be under the impression that he actually had recorded it as part of this series.

It's possible that his wife Sunny, who accidentally flips her phone's camera orientation sideways in several of these videos, just forgot to hit record on Sonnet 127, and didn't have the nerve to tell him.

Or maybe she's a devious, dastardly operative for the woke agenda and censored certain sonnets herself, without his knowledge.

Or maybe he just accidentally turned two pages after reading 126.

If Patrick Stewart had omitted 127 for reasons of wokeness, as accused, it would have been in character for him to have said so when he recorded 128--and it also seems likely that he would have remembered that he had skipped 127 a week later, when he mentioned it in the video for 137. (Especially since 127 was one of the sonnets he had performed elsewhere for a paycheck--here's the video of that--several years before.)

I concede that it does seem a bit suspicious that both 127 and other sonnets containing mentions of attitudes toward blackness and ill-colouredness were omitted. However, Stewart did perform 130--charming video here--in which hair is black and breasts are dun, and he gleefully pronounced this sonnet "Extraordinary!"

In the Will Sonnets that Stewart apologized for having skipped, does anyone see anything that would be specifically offensive to a woke person? I just see some complicated naughty puns and vagina references and the tedious riding of naughty puns on the word Will into the ground.

But maybe I just don't really get them, either.

At least I'm in good company!

[Jennifer Reeser]

The greatest genius of language ever born to the West -- and the woman who had him down on his knees wasn't white.

That is true, forever and ever, what dreams may come, amen. And while I would not dare dream of suggesting that Sir Patrick's motives are less than noble, you can bet your "Black Lives Matter" commemorative coffee cup from Cafe Woke, that every real racist from here to Botswana will be on board with this. Then who's next in the purge? Othello?

There are reasons we do not negotiate with that terrorist, Ignorance.

[Ann Drysdale]

I'm trying to follow these arguments, Jennifer. Who, in this context, is siding with your "terrorist"?
.

[Jennifer Reeser]

It is good to see you, Ann. I appreciate your interest in the matter.

I am not by any means being personal or petty, but simply making a larger, more general and "Big Picture" observation. I think that Ignorance has no better friend than Censorship of genius, even when censors may in fact have all the good intentions in the world.

[Roger Slater]

This wasn't even a commercial venture on Stewart's part. What I see is one of the great Shakespearean actors of our day giving a gift of his talents to the world by reciting some Shakespeare for us to watch as we grow stir crazy because of the pandemic. Let's start there, and thank him. The world was in crisis, people trapped in their homes, and what does Stewart do? Rather than just quietly waiting it out in the extreme comfort of his attended mansion (I presume, since his net worth online is listed at $70 million), he decides to help by offering the world, for free, the bounty of his great talent. To chastise him because he didn't read all the sonnets is rather like complaining, when your lover gives you a dozen roses, that no other types of flower were included. (I notice that Stewart also failed to read 'Venus and Adonis', but it never occurred to me that he was thereby objecting to that particular romance.)

I would perhaps be more convinced of Stewart's alleged infraction if one could point to any other evidence in his 80 years on earth that he has any of the attitudes now being discerned by some people. But if this is the best anyone has to besmirch 80 years of good behavior, I'm not impressed.

[Jennifer Reeser]

Speaking of besmirching -- so we are doffing all recognition of credibility, mounting the high horses, and pulling out the Shakespearean credentials, are we now, Counselor, along with the contributions to humanity and the Arts in that realm and on that front? Oh, goody. Here are mine:

https://www.amazon.com/Sonnets-Dark-...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Feel free to present yours at any time. I'll wait...

[Julie Steiner]

It's unfortunate that the person now claiming to be defending the world from the evils of Censorship and Ignorance ignores everything I post. Jennifer had earlier posted a link to an article to which I had already linked, and apparently she also missed when I provided several links to her own Dark Lady sonnets. I'm pretty sure she's blocked me.

Oh, well.

Maybe someone else will appreciate these reminders from yourlogicalfallacy.com:

strawman

Misrepresenting someone's argument to make it easier to attack.

By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's argument, it's much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate.

Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenceless by cutting military spending.

slippery slope

Saying that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen.

The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, this fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear. In effect the argument at hand is unfairly tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture.

Example: Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we'll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys.

I'm probably most guilty of strawmanning*, which I've done at least twice here in the past week, and probably at least once in this very thread. I get so worked up making my point that I treat the Eratospherean I'm arguing with as if they are the embodiment of everyone who has ever stated even a vaguely similar position, when actually their position came nowhere near the ridiculous extremes of the argument I'm attacking.

I appreciate being called on these fallacies when I commit them. I hope others do, too. We all need each other's help staying intellectually honest.

[Note to self: Stop referring to "conservatives" as if they are one monolithic being. Name the names of specific people outside the conversation who are making the claims I want to debate. Never conflate those with the actual statements of people participating in the discussion at hand. When you fail to do this, apologize and try to do better.]

[Edited to add:]

Okay, while I'm at it, I might as well throw this one in, too, although I don't commit it much--if anything, I'm tedious about trying to back up my claims with evidence:

burden of proof

Saying that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.

The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not render that claim valid, nor give it any credence whatsoever. However it is important to note that we can never be certain of anything, and so we must assign value to any claim based on the available evidence, and to dismiss something on the basis that it hasn't been proven beyond all doubt is also fallacious reasoning.

Example: Bertrand declares that a teapot is, at this very moment, in orbit around the Sun between the Earth and Mars, and that because no one can prove him wrong, his claim is therefore a valid one.