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  #11  
Unread 06-11-2020, 03:30 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Presumably the mechanism would be folks saying, "well, I don't want to subscribe to a service that contains films with blackface," and at that point I just find it hard to care. It's not the decision I would make, but people choose what to give money to for all kinds of reasons that mystify me to a far greater degree. And since that's a decision you're making for yourself, and not imposing on others, Nemo's worry about "authoritarianism" (which I presume you share) doesn't come into play.

But really, my best guess is Carroll's: Netflix wants to do something, but something that involves no real sacrifice on their part. They took a gamble that this would do the trick. My guess is that leaving those shows up would harm their bottom line hardly at all. They were just relatively arbitrary sacrifices to the felt need to do something.
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  #12  
Unread 06-11-2020, 03:35 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Anyway, I made a promise when I started this thread that I would just let other people talk. Or not. Ha.
My basic premise is that I don't think the three examples I give above at all deserve the association they now inevitably have. And it's annoying. Because I think they're all great. And whether it's giant corporations or little poetry magazines, this seems to be a thing. So that's about it. An artistic gripe of mine. I realise I'm often a voice crying in the wilderness here when I get on this particular hobby horse (forgive the weird image of that mixed metaphor).

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 06-11-2020 at 05:13 PM.
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  #13  
Unread 06-11-2020, 06:08 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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This is tangential, but if someone is worried about authoritarian tendencies on the left (and it's a legitimate worry, even if the vast majority of conservative complaints about it are reactionary), this is the kind of thing I'd be most worried about.
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  #14  
Unread 06-11-2020, 07:17 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Yep, that sort of nonsense too. Omar obviously wasn't black enough. The majority of consevative complaints are reactionary, yes. The trouble is that the majority of liberal complaints are non-existent. Or the people doing the complaining immediately get labelled conservative.
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  #15  
Unread 06-11-2020, 07:19 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Well, I just complained, and no one is going to mistake me for a conservative.

(This is glib, but the underlying point is correct. I exist on the left. There are folks who complain about and fight against this stuff, while still advancing unmistakeably left aims. The left isn't a borg.)
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  #16  
Unread 06-11-2020, 07:33 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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I said liberal. There's a strain of wokeness that's much more influential than the left that would not trumpet this story. I consider myself on the left too. If I had to pick a lane.

What's a borg?

Edit: oh right. Star Trek.

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 06-11-2020 at 07:36 PM.
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  #17  
Unread 06-11-2020, 07:50 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Well, "liberal" means too many things, but I know three main uses of "liberal".

Use 1 refers to people influenced by stuff like JS Mill's On Liberty. Such folks tend to be left-libertarians. I am friends with many such people and they are absolutely upset with authoritarian tendencies on the left (it's part of what distinguishes them from other segments of the left).

Use 2 refers to centrists, roughly speaking—in this sense, it's generally used pejoratively by people on the actual left to refer to people who see themselves as left only because the overton window has shifted so far to the right. (fwiw, Mark—and I say this with no intended insult—you are a "liberal" in this sense, as best as I can tell.) And "liberals" in this sense also don't like this trend.

Then there's use 3, which may be particular to the USA, where a "liberal" is anyone to left of the now outright fascist Republican party, all of whom—even those who would be center-right in Europe (e.g., Biden)—are communist scum.

Yes, there are cadres of wokeness that endorse a kind of no-platforming for the stuff they don't like. (The general issue of when no-platforming is and is not warranted is a serious one.) But that defines neither "the left" nor (in any of its senses) "liberals".
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  #18  
Unread 06-11-2020, 08:00 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Quote:
Use 2 refers to centrists, roughly speaking—in this sense, it's generally used pejoratively by people on the actual left to refer to people who see themselves as left only because the overton window has shifted so far to the right. (fwiw, Mark—and I say this with no intended insult—you are a "liberal" in this sense, as best as I can tell.) And "liberals" in this sense also don't like this trend.
None taken, Aaron. This is fascinating to me, because I genuinely never know what I am and now I find I'm very specifically a 'type 2' liberal. What have I said that has given me away?

So what are very woke people if you say they're not left? Is that just because the sensible left wants to disown them? I'm sure they'd say they're on the left. Can you self identify as being on the left? What are you? Who decides? Which is best? Can you be none of these but mix it up, like a jazz rock fusion band? I thought I was more a type 1! Can I be a centrist and have wanted Jeremy Corbyn for PM? How do I swap? Oh I didn't know it was all such an exact science.

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 06-11-2020 at 08:22 PM. Reason: Removed sarcastic joke about Twitter. I'm sure Twitter is wonderful
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  #19  
Unread 06-11-2020, 08:20 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Well, what I mean by that is that you're the type of person that a certain type of lefty would derisively refer to as a "liberal". I don't know that pointing to anything specifically would be enlightening—it's every political argument we've ever gotten into here. It's really not super informative as to your specific beliefs, it's just clear to me, from interacting with both you and them, that they'd call you a "liberal" and then spit on the ground to indicate distaste.

What are very woke people, in the sense meant here? I think they don't fall into any single category (though few if any are going to be type 1 liberals, and all are going to be type 3 liberals by default). Some are going to fall in the category of the communist/tankie/other varieties of far left category—the very type who use "liberal" in its second sense.

But many are going to be type 2 liberals: they're basically content with the current social order, though they'd like to see it diversified a bit. Many of my left friends complain about a woke faux-left whose ideal society is just as unequal as our current society, but the composition of all strata matches the general population. So, since 13% of Americans are black, if we just get 13% of CEOs to be black, racism is solved! As my left friends satirize it, the rallying cry of this group is "diversify our boardrooms!"

FWIW the categories aren't mutually exclusive: I've seen people who are clearly type 1 liberals castigated as "liberals" in the type 2 sense. It's all quite unprincipled, and why I tend to avoid using the word "liberal" in any context where precision matters.
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  #20  
Unread 06-11-2020, 09:51 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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I think there's something very unhealthy about the obsession with labelling everybody. I think people define themselves by their labels far too much. I contend that I'm nothing. Though I accept this may be because I'm a straight (ish) white man. I feel like I operate on pure instinct and change my mind about things constantly, which seems the only reasonable response to the world. I think the world has probably always been both wonderful and completely fucked and that nobody really has a clue how to fix it. I think there has never been a golden age and never will be, but the attempt to achieve one and the illusion you might succeed gives life meaning and is noble. I think the super rich should be taxed massively, because excessive inequality is obscene. But also for their own good because I doubt excessive wealth makes you happy. I think you can be poor and happy as long as you have enough to eat and freedom to think. I think religion is ultimately harmful but the search for something beyond the material is the most important human project. I believe happiness and the divine is within. I think moment to moment kindness is cumulatively the best that anyone can really do. I think violence is the most abhorrent thing, but can make for beautiful art. I think that in 100 years all reasonable people will look at the meat industry and our treatment of other animals with a similar shame and disgust that we look at human genocide. I think most people are alienated from what they really think because of society's invisible structures and great superego of public opinion and that this is probably necessary for daily functioning. I think a lot of people don't even know what they really think, including me.

I think you need to vote for Joe Biden unless you want Trump.

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 06-12-2020 at 09:37 AM.
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