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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34531 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Louis C.K. was trending on Twitter because his Madison Square Garden concert was sold out, which some on the left are interpreting to mean that cancel culture is not real, or that it does not hurt people's careers. (link: https://archive.is/ryKrI )

What does it mean to be sufficiently canceled? I think Louis C.K. qualifies as having been sufficiently cancelled. If you look at his Wikipedia page, his sexual misconduct scandal, in 2017, killed off his TV and movie career. His filmography abruptly ends in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_C.K._filmography

Sure he's still able to sell out, but this reflects individual preferences for his comedy, not the approval of the media establishment, in which he is still damaged goods. Comedians are sorta like contractors in the sense that they have to hustle, not depend on a platform or the backing of a major media establishment. I think this is is what gives comedians an advantage over actors in regard to cancellation, because stand-up comedy can be inexpensively distributed at scale, such as digitally online, without needing the backing of an entire studio or publishing house.

"Many people survived muggings, therefore mugging does not exist, and even if it does, it is not harmful and not something we should oppose or criminalize". Sure, makes sense, totally.

FdB weighs in

The argument is that, because someone has enjoyed personal or professional success after a public shaming, therefore “cancel culture” does not exist. This is all somewhat confused by the vague boundaries of cancel culture - boundaries that are vague, I think, for the benefit of both the cancelers and the anti-cancelers. I think “a culture where social norms are enforced with repeated and vociferous public shaming” is the most useful way to define the term. Regardless, there’s a couple different kinds of weirdness here.

The first is a point that many people have made: the fact that someone has endured or recovered from the repercussions of public shaming does not mean that there are no repercussions or that those repercussions are fair. Additionally, we could add that the survival of any particular public figure after a public shaming does not necessarily mean that there isn’t a prevalent culture of public shaming.

Louis CK lost over 50 million dollars after being cancelled ... We ended up doing the math on it on the old board ... If that isn't cancelled, nothing is.

The thing about the Louis CK incident is that it showed me how much power The NY Times has. Louis CK is a creepy weirdo. We knew that before 2017. Anyone who had ever listened to his comedy knew that he was a creepy weirdo. A third of his jokes were about him being a creepy weirdo. There were rumors floating around on the internet about him being a creepy weirdo in exactly the way described by the NYT article. No one cared. Then one day The NYT publishes a hit-piece about Louis CK being a creepy weirdo, and suddenly every respectable institution decides having a creepy weirdo around is NOT OKAY. The guy who had a stand up bit about wanting to go around in public shooting cum on everyone is kicked out of polite society because The NYT ran an article about him asking for consent to masturbate and then doing it.

The thing about the Louis CK incident is that it showed me how much power The NY Times has.

To some extent. The NYTs has been trying since 2015 to disqualify Trump from public office. Same for The Atlantic, Wapo, etc. to no avail.

The NYTs and the entertainment industry are cut from the same cloth pretty much. Vice, twitter is for smaller targets. The biggest ones , especially in the entertainment industry, get the NYTs treatment. Which means a front page story.

The reason was his whole shtick was "talking about being a creepy weirdo, and not being that bad," and regardless of how terrible you think the NYT is, there's a difference between vague rumors and two comedians going on the record.

I always assumed it was predetermined by multiple parties with leverage that CK was out. And then 'they' just executed 'their' hit as an excuse, taking advantage of convenient times.

That theory is evidenced by the fact that he was striking out a bit on his own prior to this more recent ad friendly comeback. Doing stand-up with even more crass jokes, hanging around outsiders like Shane Gillis and so on. Indicating that he was hanging out with a new crowd doing less cucked comedy(for his standards).

Considering the bottom barrel high school tier clique based social networks that seem to dominate the 'comedy crowd' in the US, and the rumors within that space that CK could be a socially deaf asshole that treated people with less clout than him with indignity, I'd wager CK managed to step on enough toes, or at least the wrong ones, and found himself with too few friends in higher places, and too many people who hated his guts.

I know this might sound a bit like far fetched fan fiction, but I'm always reminded of how Dane Cook managed to be treated like the worst comedian in the history of the universe whilst he was selling out tickets to his shows. Only because the 'comedy crowd' in the cities didn't like him. Presumably just because he coded red and wasn't doing the George Carlin 'nihilism' bit like most everyone else. Meaning that it doesn't necessarily take much to find yourself without any friends in the US comedy scene(gutter).

Dane Cook managed to be treated like the worst comedian in the history of the universe whilst he was selling out tickets to his shows. Only because the 'comedy crowd' in the cities didn't like him. Presumably just because he coded red and wasn't doing the George Carlin 'nihilism' bit like most everyone else

Wasn't he accused of stealing jokes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane_Cook#Accusations_of_plagiarism), which makes one a pariah amongst other comedians even if the general audience never hears about it/doesn't care? Seems like that's worse and more substantial than just "coded red."

People hated him and it had very little to do with stealing jokes. Much more the fact that he was extremely successful along with the reasons I gave prior. I don't think it says that in his Wikipedia article, but it's lacking all relevant context anyway so I don't think you are in a position to make the argument you are making if you are also lacking the relevant context.

To put things in perspective, I don't think you can look over any recent interviews or people talking about Dane Cook of the past without them mentioning how hated he was.

Claims that "cancel culture doesn't exist because this particular, highly , highly talented and famous person escaped our wrath" are, imo, just obfuscation.

Akin to saying "homophobia doesn't exist cause this one rich gay Hollywood Jew in the 60s got away with it"; it changes absolutely nothing about the claim being made about society.

This is a common line of argument with JK Rowling and the bad faith is most evident there: trying and failing is not the same as not trying or being globally ineffective. They absolutely would have cancelled her if they could; she's simply a once-in-a-generation celebrity.

You think Louis CK is highly highly talented? Go check out his first comeback special after he got cancelled. It fucking sucks. The middle of the set joke sequence starts with a Pascals wager joke about how it would suck to be wrong about god existing, then to "jesus wasnt christian he was jewish how would he feel about the cross?' and then finishing up with 72 virgins. After that it's "I hate being the only person in a small restaurant/store" and then jokes about how words like Retard used to be more socially acceptable. These would all be hack bits in like 2008, but in 2020? You can find most of it on youtube if you want to confirm how bad it is: https://youtube.com/watch?v=q_TZWxihabc

Lots of people clearly like his comedy, see: his show selling out. There's no such thing as a comedian who's universally popular. The only fair way to measure how funny someone is is to look at some combined metric of a) the number of people that like them, and b) the amplitude(passion?) of how much people who like them like them. Being able to sell out a large venue is an objective measure they score decently on both metrics.

He's no doubt the biggest and most successful comedian of the past decade (top 3 at least), I just take issue with the suggestion that only highly highly talented and famous people can evade the wrath of cancellation. In my estimation moderately talented people can fare just fine.

I guess it depends on your definition of highly talented then? I'd call just about anyone who can get thousands of people to show up live just for them highly talented. I'd call someone moderately talented if they peaked when they placed top 3 in their high school talent show.

Ding ding ding.

People with talent have value that, from a purely economic point of view, is going to make it much easier for them to recover their position because, quite simply, a lot of people can make money off of them returning to action.

Another counter-example is Kanye West, who is a world-famous artist with massive following who currently cannot post to any social media site under his own identity. He's STILL got a decent chance of returning to former glory.

Meanwhile, a more average citizen who is inherently more replaceable is going to become potentially radioactive for a long time and this makes their position much more vulnerable.

The whole point of opposing cancel culture, to my view, is to protect persons who don't have the means to survive an attempt at mob justice, since mobs generally don't discriminate based on the wealth or prestige of their target.

People with talent have value that, from a purely economic point of view, is going to make it much easier for them to recover their position because, quite simply, a lot of people can make money off of them returning to action.

CK had also started, a few years before #metoo threatened him, running his own business and cutting out middle-men. He did direct-subscription online comedy shows, he produced his own independent movies (he still got hit by distribution issues on this), but he more-or-less transitioned to owning his own shit. He made himself less-cancelable by prematurely withdrawing himself from the dominion of the gatekeepers.

Interesting given last week's discussion of Brandon Sanderson seemingly transitioning to a self-funding and publishing model.

From a survival of the fittest perspective you convinced me cancel culture is actually good.

Not entirely sure that I'm kidding?

"Fitness" is an amoral sort of criteria. Don't need to bring 'good' or 'bad' into it.

Sure we can have a massive competition between everyone who operates in the social environment as to who is best at avoiding and/or surviving a cancellation attempt. Those who prosper get to pass on their 'genes' (i.e. tactics that work under heavy scrutiny) and everyone else just has to accept the status quo.

But what sort of people, do you think, will end up most successful and demonstrate the best 'fitness' for this environment?

Keep in mind this is basically already how it works in, e.g. the political sphere.

(Sociopaths, it's going to be sociopaths)

I would humbly suggest we don't want to create this sort of environment for ourselves if we can avoid it, there are so many things we could be optimizing for instead.

One thing I noted when I was very young, probably 2nd or 3rd grade, that has stuck with me is the observation that artists don't have to be all that popular to be successful. This seems counterintuitive because they make money by being "popular". My mom was a big Pearl Jam fan, and I noted that their best-selling album still only sold like 9 million copies. That meant something like 3% of people in America bought an album. Not really all that popular! Even fewer people go to concerts. At 21k seats sold, Louis C.K. has pulled in... 0.25% of New York City's populace.

My mom was a big Pearl Jam fan, and I noted that their best-selling album still only sold like 9 million copies. That meant something like 3% of people in America bought an album. Not really all that popular!

Albums have a high barrier; anyone who spends money is one of the more passionate fans (this gets worse the easier it is to acquire things without paying). Now consider how many people listened on the radio (or Youtube nowadays).

Of course! But the point really was that in music you make most of your money from those passionate fans. Like if you have 1 million zealots and no one else has heard of you (like that boogaloo band whos fans dress up) or really knows your music, thats still a banging career.

As a Pearl Jam fan of 31 years, I don't really have anything to add to your post except I'm looking at you the way a post apocalyptic government guard in a quarantine zone might look at someone who seems like a stranger and might at any moment pose a threat.

LMAO, what?

Power laws apply in industries like that.

And 21k seats sold out of how many who wanted seats? That would determine how much money he actually gets for his efforts.

Culture is the key term here. Cancel culture is not defined or refuted by one particular instance, any more than Italian culture can be represented by a meatball.

Anyway, Louis CK is 'MeToo', not 'cancel culture', even if they are overlapping circles.

Celebrities receiving backlash for sexual misconduct is a fringe, non-central part of cancel culture. Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby etc. are kind of part of this culture if you squint? mostly they are sex pests exposed in a period of changing social mores. Aziz Ansari straddles the line.

I'd call these things more typical, in descending order:

  • when a normal person's social media post or video, gets coordinated attention, to pressure real world consequences like being fire (see Bodega bro, or some random kid loses a college scholarship because they sung along to rap)

  • when an internet personality (large or small) is deplatformed, throttled, demonitized for holding or espousing views within the real-word overton window.

  • when a celebrity is pressured to disassociate with an unpopular person(s), ideology, or organization.

  • when a past offense of a celebrity is inorganically dug up and used to pressure a public groveling.

  • when an organization is pressured to cuts ties with or deplatforms an person holding an unpopular ideology (see cancelled speaking engagements).

  • when organizations, events, or physical objects are shut down, destroyed, renamed or removed.

And none of these things really has much to do with the eternal endurance of the cancellation, some expectation of being infinitely a persona non-grata across all demographics, or even the success of the campaign. Louis was thoroughly 'punished' by the culture and industry, and a years-later comeback is a non-sequitur objection anyway.

Aziz Ansari

A bit off topic perhaps, but let me just say that Aziz's me-tooing was the most ridiculous of all. He clearly stated what he wanted to do and stopped when he felt she was uncomfortable. He proactively questioned her about her comfort. He then sent her away when she said she wasn't comfortable.

What I really learned from that debacle is that Aziz is a gentleman.

I honestly thing the Ansari Incident was a turning point for Me Too—as in, that’s when it jumped the shark. For the briefest of recaps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Ansari#Allegation_of_sexual_misconduct

I am woke. I am rather sensitive to lack of consent. But…girl, “Grace”, if you think that a date like that is the “worst night of my life”, then oh sweet summer child. That is nothing. He was a tad too forceful about wanting sex, and he chose a wine you don’t prefer. If you think that’s awful, if you think that’s misconduct by a man, oh my, we have such sights to show you.

Such vapid, trivializing stories like that made Me Too look like a tempest in a teapot, or a flake in a snow globe. That is the most comically candy-ass incident, that is nothing, nothing compared to what lurks out there in the dark, and what preys on truly disadvantaged women.

if you think that’s misconduct by a man

In online movie discussion circles, I've learned that the current "woke" ethic is that the old notion that a woman's resolve can be broken down by persistence is 'rape culture.' This is why the iconic scene of one of the most beloved romantic comedies of my youth, Say Anything, has been re-evaluated as stalker apologia. Not only does Lloyd not take "no" for an answer initially, but he has the temerity to attempt a grand romantic gesture rather than accepting her half-hearted refusals. This makes him "creepy."

I think the problem here is defining "cancellation" as a general, visible loss of social stature, obvious to anyone. What people mostly, in my experience, fear as cancellation is less that but a loss of specific social circles or life situation - typically having a circle of friends suddenly cold-shoulder you or losing a job, but might also be the breakup of a relationship or marriage, your kids starting to hate you etc.

ie. a prototypical non-political comparison might be that you're a Jehovah's Witness who suddenly starts asking questions like "Hey, maybe Russell's interpretion of the Bible isn't correct? Maybe this stuff is kind of heretical?" and, if you ask long enough, suddenly your fellow Witnesses will decide that you're too dangerous to keep in contact with any more and will shut you out of their circles, not only from the services but also generally from social occasions. For some acquaintance outside of the church this might not seem like that dire - who's going to miss weird Jehovah's Witness crap anyway - but for someone whose circle and social life has included fellow Witnesses for a long time this might cause considerable distress.

If you're a social person, an able worker etc. you'll find new social circles or a job after cancellation in no-time, but it's still not going to be pleasant and it's still going to leave a scar, and if this sort of a prospect already makes you kind of anxious before cancellation, your situation is not going to be improved if everything happens online now and some sort of an online mob might target you for reasons barely beyond your ken (again, the potential for distress is not from the mob of strangers itself, but from the idea that these strangers might actually cause your friends to desert you), or for comments you've made in the past, or so on.

(I'm not talking specifically about Louis CK here, I haven't followed this particular case that closely to really comment on it)

Louis CK was the biggest stand-up comedian before Chapelle came back. MSG was Louis CK's playground, with him doing sets there whenever he wished. He talks about how nervous he was about his MSG set, the amount of work that went into it and how different it felt.

For one, nothing Louis CK did was criminal. From the sounds of it, he never pulled his dick out unless the other person provided consent for it, and he was never in an explicit boss-employee relationship with women he approached. Yes, it was creepy, inept, unethical & sad. But it's amateur hour as far as showbiz goes. After Aziz, Louis CK was cancelled for the least egregious of the #metoo accusations.

Louis CK's entire persona was of a sad lonely dad in a tragic-comedy. If anything, this plays straight into it. If they/them Ezra Miller still gets to play a role model character after doing some actually criminal stuff, then CK's humble image would be expected to be resilient to accusations of being the person his comedy has portrayed him as for 30 years.

In the least woke profession, the greatest practitioner & the least egregious sexual creep, who never put himself on a pedestal can come back after a few years and have moderate success as along as he lives a now sin-free life and keeps performing at his GOAT best.

If that's the claim, then it sounds like the exception that proves the rule.

90s rappers killed people and were embraced by the institution. Now people are losing jobs over suspicions of being republican.

P.S : Just to be clear, no justifying his behavior. It was obviously degenerate. Don't idolize entertainers. IMO, his temporary banishment from institutions & public apology was appropriate punishment. It is probably fair for women actors to not want to work with him again too. It's their choice. But the global scale of bullying & still-continuing blackout are honestly a bit much.

From the sounds of it, he never pulled his dick out unless the other person provided consent for it

Really? Is that true? I didn't follow the story closely at all, so I'm only inferring details. But if he didn't do anything without them saying they were okay with it, then why was he cancelled at all?

Because no one actually believes in a consent-only sexual ethic. That's mostly a lie in order to gather political support for various deviancies. The constant haranguing over what exactly is actually actually ackshually consent is indicative of the keyhole by which every other aspect of their preferred sexual ethic is smuggled in.

The easiest way to internalize this, to know it in your bones, is to go to the professional ethicists who write serious scholarly works on the topic, like Westen/Wortheimer. If you are looking for it while you read them, you can see it plain as day, and then it becomes nearly impossible to not see it anymore.

As others have said, he was absolutely manipulating consent. It's nothing men and women haven't done since they learned to court, but American morals have settled on the stance that manipulated consent doesn't count.

The most common manipulation is moving the relationship faster than the other party is comfortable with, but not that fast that they think they have a valid reason to oppose any single step: dinner date - offer to walk her home - kiss - invite yourself in for a coffee - ask for another kiss - ask for a tour - kiss her again in the bedroom - make out in the bedroom - move to the bed - undress - go down - have penetrative sex.

That's what "yes means yes" is about: you have zero obligations to take your relationship to the next step. Placing someone into a situation where they might have other reasons to do sex-adjacent activity X other than "I want to do X" is a move that will get you cancelled if it backfires.

And backfire on Louis it did.

My understanding is:

  1. On around 5 known occasions between 2000-2010, he approached women in private

  2. He asked them if he could pull his dick out and masturbate in front of them. In at least 3 cases, this is after he had invited them back to his hotel room.

  3. Some of them were people he had indirect professional relationships with. Afaik, it was never an explicit power dynamic. (they were trying to hire him, he worked with her boyfriend, they were rising comedians in the same industry)

  4. The women gave him some verbal form of consent. (ofc, I dunno if it was an enthusiastic "yes" or a "do whatever you want, you creep"). Louid CK claims he got consent in every situations. Some women say that they didn't say no, not that they said yes.

  5. On one occasion he talked about something sexual with another woman on the phone who was the girlfriend of a coworker who was trying to book him for a show. In this case, she did not give explicit consent to talking about sexual stuff on phone with him. He also started masturbating but afaik, the exchange was purely over phone.

I mean, it is bad. But is it that bad ?

Louis CK should've probably taken his own advice.

“At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true,” C.K. wrote. “But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.”

&

If you ever ask somebody, “May I jerk off in front of you,” and they say yes, just say, “Are you sure?” That’s the first part. And then if they say yes, just don’t fuckin’ do it

The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.

This point highlights a cultural undercurrent I've noticed since the morality of power dynamics has taken center stage in the woke transformation of culture. It's the idea that its not OK for a man with social status to actually gain any benefit from that status, at least outside of vary narrow constraints. Wealth, leadership, talent, etc are all traits that are attractive to women. But there's a growing thought that a man with those traits should not use them for e.g. sexual advantage. The intent seems to be to put constraints on the scale of sexual success of men, in a way that is never analogously applied to women.

I'm reminded of a post on one of the relationship advice subreddits where a woman told of how her fiance found out that she was very sexually promiscuous in college. Aside from just having a large number of partners, she also fucked 4 guys at once, and her fiance was questioning the future of the relationship. The response was near universal support of the woman's behavior and that it was unconscionable that any man should have a problem with one's past sexual history, regardless of how extreme. But on the flip side, a guy with some trait that makes him hyper attractive is supposed to restrain himself for the sake of other women or society or whatever. Case-in-point, all the consternation over Leonardo DiCaprio's relationship history. Another example being all the hate Nick Cannon gets for having so many kids.

I certainly understand historical taboos against sexual promiscuity as it puts serious strain on social stability. But when only one side of this dynamic is being upheld (male sexual restraint) while the other side is being completely freed from all such constraints, it points towards a deeper motivation. Namely, that the trend is towards an anti-masculine, pro-feminine moral standard. To be charitable, perhaps this pro-feminine bias isn't the intent but rather the side effect. A moral standard that is biased towards empowering the weaker party in an exchange will systematically be biased towards women in any male-female interaction. The problem is that the standard ends up removing agency from women in the process. For example, you can't say that DiCaprio or Cannon is doing something immoral unless you also say their partners have reduced agency.

The intent seems to be to put constraints on the scale of sexual success of men, in a way that is never analogously applied to women.

I suppose the constraint was applied by biology: women have less reason to go for maximal competition because they have a limited number of potential total offspring. Men do not.

Namely, that the trend is towards an anti-masculine, pro-feminine moral standard.

Interestingly, this mimics another comment I just saw: the upper classes of Western countries have pivoted to be against labor and for capital.

Because men sociobiologically code as expendable labor (supply-side gender), and women as valuable capital (demand-side gender), and these conditions continue, we should expect this to persist until one of those change.

Why's it so bad now? You could say it's just a reaction to the sexual revolution, but I believe it's because the niche and social role of labor has shrunk massively since industrialization to the point some countries now consider themselves "post-industrial"; those countries also consider themselves "post-national" (immigrant and border stances- men logically care about this more than women because they're the labor gender and thus cheap replacements here threaten their position in a way they don't for women, and you can see this gender divide reflected in polling) and "post-men" (rampant inequality favoring women in what should ostensibly be equal partnerships- family courts, sex-based spoils systems, etc.).

In that light, maybe it's not that weird that current counter-culture is currently dominated by women becoming men? If "woman good", what better "fuck you exclusively-female authority figures" than "now I'm a man"?

It's also worth noting that between 1940 and 1970, the script was temporarily flipped due to the German (later American) sponsored total destruction of European industry. Which is... interesting that that's exactly what America has been doing to Europe and China now.

I was recently at drinks with colleagues after a work event, when one of the senior directors suggested we all go to a strip club. Actually, two sr. drs were really leading the rally, I was very worried about the stability of my position, and actually wanted to work in one of those Directors' divisions.

Nobody was forced to go, but when I declined, it was public, I was alone, it was to clear disappointment / loss of esteem of people I really depended on being liked by for the sake of my career. It made me upset and uncomfortable that I was even put in that position in a supposedly professional scenario. And hell, I even chewed on just saying yes, and justifying it for 'career reasons'.

I'm mid thirties and a male. I would not have had the moral fortitude to say no in my early 20s.

I am no shrinking progressive, but Me Too was right to figure out that a binary statement of consent are not enough to classify sexual misconduct by. People defending that line looked like foolish idealistic hippy liberals.

Hot take: you should've went to the strip club and your superiors were correct in losing esteem for you and being disappointing.

Same logic applies if they asked to go duck hunting or kayaking.

No one should be that pressured to go to shitty corporate social events that they have no interest in. I don't mean to say shame on any boss who wants to do something fun with their subordinates, but the expectation that you go, even if it's something you dislike? Or doing something you might have moral reservations against, as with strip clubs or hunting? And all this to the point of potentially facing genuine consequences to your future prospects if you have the balls to refuse?

As someone who hates alcohol and everything surrounding it, I'm glad this culture is dying, because these things sound like my personal idea of hell. For god's sake, just let me do my job instead of going to a bar during my own free time, please. These events aren't about everyone having a good time, they're about the boss having a good time, and everyone else is partaking in a brown-nosing competition if they don't coincidentally happen to enjoy whatever activity is settled upon.

"Should", what he "should" have done depends rather heavily on desired outcomes.

Personally I think he did good by showing some spine, toadying is bad for the soul.

Of course. And I'm not making a point about the objective morality of strip clubs or whether the folks I was among did anything wrong.

My story is simply an example of where 'they said yes, what's the problem' is far to binary to be a discussion ending heuristic.

Pressure to be liked / career advancement / social belonging (and yes drinks) , etc can all mitigate a yes enough that the person doing the asking should not have brought it up and did something wrong for some spectrum of degree.

If Louis says 'can I show you my penis'...

  • on a date after the girl invited him up vs

  • in a dressing room while on the road with an upcoming comedianne who wasn't expecting any sexual advances

  • vs to a young saleswomen on a call who just confessed that she needs his business to hit her quota.

These are three different scenarios where acting on a no is certainly worse than on a yes... But a yes doesn't blanket make them all the same and make it ok for Louis to ask in the first place.

And I'm not making a point about the objective morality of strip clubs or whether the folks I was among did anything wrong.

But surely that has to be part of the point, or else we are veering dangerously close to /r/antiwork "my boss is abusing me by threatening to fire me if I don't show up for work" territory.

I don't think so? For instance, if your boss asks you if he can give you $1000, it's still problematic. Getting financial support from a supervisor may be bad for you emotionally for various reasons, even though it's very hard to see it as morally bad. So I think there's a strong point that the argument holds regardless of the moral quality of the act in itself.

This piece says he asked Goodman and Wolov, who then "laughed it off"; the later summary doesn't really describe what that meant. In the unnamed Chris Rock Show actress's case, she "went along with his request" but was later disgusted. In Corry's case, she declined and he stopped. Schachner's phone call is described as "definitely wasn’t encouraging it". If accurately described, where Corry's case seems like evidence he'd take explicit nos as cause to stop, at least the Schachner call does not sound like provided consent.

There are some issues separate to consent related to masturbating at the office during work hours, and where there may have been disparities of power (although I dunno that Chris Rock's writing staff had that much power over actors and actresses). Separately and most seriously, CK's then-manager Dave Becky threatened Goodman and Wolov's then-manager about potential ramifications for disclosure.

From what I recall from the stories it was an almost childish form of 'seeking permission'. Basically he seemed to spring it fast and then, if no one immediately and vociferously objected, he...um, quickly followed through.

The image that comes to mind is an overeager kid going "umcanIkissyou" and then "but you didn't say no!".

My opinion is that it's the sort of defense ("but he asked!") that only seems acceptable when all norms except consent have been so eroded (by the sexual revolution and the same tribe now pushing #MeToo) that only the barest, hyper-literal contractionism counts.

At this point liberal feminism has so thoroughly corrupted shaped mores that it's fighting its own twisted children.

At this point liberal feminism has so thoroughly corrupted shaped mores that it's fighting its own twisted children.

Hmm, I guess I'd feel better about that if they ever took responsibility for what they've done, and actually blamed feminism, past or present, for any bad thing that happens, as opposed to just saying "it's patriarchy". Like Scott so eloquently put in his least favorite post for people to link to:

If patriarchy means everything in the world, then yes, it is the fault of patriarchy. But it’s the kind of patriarchy that feminism as a movement is working day in and day out to reinforce.

At this point liberal feminism has so thoroughly corrupted shaped mores that it's fighting its own twisted children.

You could almost say that they have chosen the form of their destructor.

Or that they called up that which they could not put down.

Louis would definitely cross the streams

except consent

That doesn't matter either; the meta-rule is just "woman good, man bad".

An inherently sexist movement was always going to end badly, just as the racist ones do; this is why the only stable equilibrium (and what feminism originally started with) over time has been "people who can do the work good, people who can't do the work bad".

After all, the latter category already has levers they can pull to get their way; no need to give them any more than that.

Really? Is that true? I didn't follow the story closely at all, so I'm only inferring details. But if he didn't do anything without them saying they were okay with it, then why was he cancelled at all?

CK's crime was taking old feminism at face value: treating women as equals who are capable of consenting to sexual interactions (which is how it ought to be, IMO).

What he didn't understand, as a good liberal, is that he was guilty of original sin before doing anything, and that new feminism's model posits that women are always weak victims who are trivially easy to manipulate and should therefore, paradoxically, hold more positions of governmental and corporate power.

new feminism's model posits that women are always weak victims who are trivially easy to manipulate and should therefore, paradoxically, hold more positions of governmental and corporate power

This is way too "boo outgroup"--you can certainly argue that this is what the model accomplishes, but simply saying so is inflammatory without evidence. Don't do this please.

From here (that article argues that it is still a problem, even if he asked):

CK opens his official statement by saying he was able to tell himself "it was OK to show women [his] dick" because he always asked them first. To people still wrestling with how consent works, simply asking might seem like all that's needed.

Because they weren't actually okay with it.

I think its the epitome of culture war.

acceptable for old men to jerk off

CK is today an old man (56). But the jerk off revelations are from 2002-2005 when he was mid thirties.

Firstly, it wasn't in public, it was in a private hotel room; I'm not sure if you realised that as it might explain your reaction here. Secondly, the culture war angle here is nothing to do with sexual degeneracy; it was team sexual degeneracy that cancelled him, after all. Assuming you are OK with consenting adults doing whatever nasty sex stuff they like in private (which the executors of the #MeToo movement are), the question is whether #MeToo is a form of aggressive abuse, and in at least this case, it clearly is.

I think the bigger issue for CK's behavior is less than 'employees and coworkers' bit (afaict, most are pretty marginally within that category, either only sharing a stage for one show/pilot, or in the early Chris Rock Show example being on different sides of a set, and in one case a contracting agent/boss?!), and more the iffy-at-best consent which seems to have taken anything less than an immediate and explicit no as a yes, and that his manager threatened Goodman and Wolov's manager of potential 'business consequences' for reporting the bad behavior.

That said, there's a pretty big difference between "this isn't happening" and "this is happening, and that's good". I think there's a fair discussion about the propriety of romantic or sexual overtures within or around the workplace (albeit one with non-trivial tradeoffs people seem pretty prone to ignoring, and... somewhat complicated by the speedy rehabilitation of Jeffery Toobin), and a separate conversation about where this tool is acceptable or unacceptable to use, and they're both very hard to have if people aren't sure if a thing is happening.

It is a culture war issue because of the selectiveness in cancellation.

  • There are rappers who have murdered people & are heroes of the music industry

  • Chris Brown pummeled Rihanna to within an inch of her life

  • Ezra Miller seems to be collecting a bingo card of cancellable stuff, but being they/them protects him

  • Drake has been openly being creepy towards 14yr olds while topping charts

culture where it’s socially acceptable

Do you want to pretend as if the entertainment industry suddenly grew a spine ? It has been ground zero for every kind of socially unacceptable thing for decades now.

old men

If the claims are to believed this was in his 30s. He was sexually approaching his coworkers when he was out of his marriage. The question is, how cancellable would this have been if he was an attractive man instead ?

Enough to get him fired from the job. Enough for women to think he's a creep. Enough to ruin his PR.

All 3 happened at a much bigger scale for Louis CK. So, the accusation of 'he was not cancelled enough' is clearly false.

You don't have to defend his actions to also think that punishments need to be fair.

To be clear, I always expected rappers to get a free pass on bad behavior, and they/thems to get a free pass on creepiness towards children. Louis CK is neither.

The question here is technical rather than moral. I have very little sympathy for Louis CK too, but there clearly was an attempt at canceling him, with usual techniques employed by the usual social justice coalition that successfully prosecutes the culture war most of the time by the same means. Why hasn't it worked well enough to remove him from entertainment? And indeed, if they had a more legitimate and broadly appealing case against him, that only makes this question more salient.

Of course, him not really being an outgroup is part of the answer. The story of a purity-spiraling circular firing squad is a bit of a misunderstanding; you get expelled and purged for true ideological conflicts with the Party Line, but not necessarily for behaviors that may seem to contradict it. A sinner, even unrepentant, is not yet a heretic.

Why hasn't it worked well enough to remove him from entertainment?

Because he is funny and can sell directly to people (who are defectors).

But there are no Netflix specials, movies, tv shows, guest appearances at SNL or cameos in sitcoms, no collaborations with other artists. And he has to date outside of the US (a French woman). The only reason he is not removed completely is because there are only a few extreme sanctions (not being able to rent a venue) against him left.

What makes you think that trad is at all something to be striven for here?

Cancel culture regards the intent and attempt to end one’s career, reputation, and livelihood. Just like we did to the Nazis. It’s very real and very alive. That some Nazis escaped to South America does not change the Allies’ intent and attempt to hold them accountable.

What is risible is for ordinary people to try to give other ordinary people the Nazi treatment. Before social media, CK may have run into some small-time, inside baseball sanctions. Maybe FX and HBO get wind of allegations and fail to renew his hit series. And if the CK infractions are truly egregious and criminal, then maybe there is mainstream media coverage. But I believe the whispers here both started and were amplified by social media before mainstream media ran with it.

I think you have things backwards. What the allies did to the nazis wasn't 'cancel culture'. It was just warfare. The enemy was the nazis and they hunted the enemy down and murdered them. That war was a total war. Not just in the economic sense but in every sense possible. That's why the allies executed Julius Streicher despite him not having fired a weapon or commanded any troops. Same goes for the monuments and art the allies intentionally destroyed due to the connections to nazi ideology.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment. It was always ordinary people who did these things. From the soldier and his rifle to the largest institutions in the world. It's all individual people.

If you don't live in an actual nation with a national ideology then I don't see why you would expect the society you live in to not devolve into a state of warfare.

What the allies did to the nazis wasn't 'cancel culture'. It was just warfare. The enemy was the nazis and they hunted the enemy down and murdered them.

I'm talking about the de-nazification policies after the war. Not so much the end of war massacres and war crimes tribunals. Nazis got canceled.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment. It was always ordinary people who did these things. From the soldier and his rifle to the largest institutions in the world. It's all individual people.

I'm talking about social media accounts versus powerful organizations like US government. Twitter accounts that contact Justine Saccho's employer. That's cancel culture rather than realpolitik amongst Great Powers. Which yes, are all composed of individual people.

I'm talking about the de-nazification policies after the war. Not so much the end of war massacres and war crimes tribunals. Nazis got canceled.

That's not a relevant distinction. It would still fall under the definition I am giving of it just being warfare. The term 'cancel culture' is obfuscatory and redundant. It's just cultural warfare.

I'm talking about social media accounts versus powerful organizations like US government.

So am I. I still don't understand why you would say that it's risible for 'ordinary people' to engage in warfare when all warfare is enacted by ordinary people.

That's not a relevant distinction. It would still fall under the definition I am giving of it just being warfare. The term 'cancel culture' is obfuscatory and redundant. It's just cultural warfare.

I guess we'll have to leave this one here. Agree to disagree.

I still don't understand why you would say that it's risible for 'ordinary people' to engage in warfare when all warfare is enacted by ordinary people.

The most charitable I can be here is that this seems facile. Yes, I agree, all organizations are composed of individuals. But those responsible for the greatest losses of human life and dignity in warfare were very much not "ordinary people". Mostly, I mean ordinary people who are not instrumental to a large and powerful organization. I don't imagine this conversation bearing much more fruit, either. Cheers.

Relying on vague terms is obfuscatory to recognizing anything real. Calling something 'cancel culture' diminishes the impulses being acted upon. These are people looking to destroy the enemy. Trying to disassociate that process from normal people by acting as if these impulses are different than when acted upon by people in historically significant contexts only obfuscates the universality of the process and the depth of the cultural divide.

Relying on vague terms is obfuscatory to recognizing anything real.

To me, cultural warfare is vague, and cancel culture is much more concrete. They are not identical. I could be convinced that cancel culture is a specific form of cultural warfare. Thus, it has meaning and is useful.

The issue I would have with that is that it decouples the act from context.

When the term 'cancel culture' is allowed to sit as an individual entity it serves to diminish the nature of the act and its gravity. Which serves those who engage in it when they want to excuse it.

As an example, from a material perspective Louis CK getting 'cancelled' is stupid. Caring about it is stupid. The guy isn't going to starve on the street. He's made multiple lifetimes worth of money. And he has fans who actively seek out and pay to hear what he has to say. Same goes for nigh every single high profile example of 'cancel culture'. Often times the people getting 'cancelled' even have huge social media platforms to advertise their 'cancellation' to others. By becoming upset at someone like this being 'cancelled' you are being, at best, hyperbolic. It's completely nonsensical from a material perspective to care about 'cancel culture' in all but the vast minority of cases.

Yet these 'cancellings' still animate people. The reason for that, from my perspective, is obvious. It's a weapon of war being used against 'your side' and being angry that your side was attacked is a natural response. In that context it makes sense to me to get a little perturbed when some conservative talking head can't repeat their talking points to 100 students in some college and has to cry about it to their million followers on twitter.

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What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country. Ordinary people refusing to do so in Russia and Germany are a big part of the reason WWII came about.

It's all individual people.

It's not. Groups matter. Russia, Germany, The American North and South in the Civil War and after, all were shaped far more by social dynamics than by atomic individual choice.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country.

And what happens when a part of ordinary people refuses to live in peace with another part? Should the others submit to keep this Moldbuggean sort of peace?

Then it is war to the knife, and woe to those who cry out "Can't we all just get along?"

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country. Ordinary people refusing to do so in Russia and Germany are a big part of the reason WWII came about.

That's not an answer to the relevant follow up question pertaining to the lack of reasons people had to find ways to live in 'peace'. I mean, I can certainly understand why an impoverished Russian farmer didn't quite fancy the 'peace' of a perpetual state of starvation, which would lead to conditions which would ultimately bring about the Soviet Union. And I can also understand why a German might not like to live under Weimar conditions. I would, in fact, sympathize more with them than the person who considers those situations tolerable.

It's not. Groups matter. Russia, Germany, The American North and South in the Civil War and after, all were shaped far more by social dynamics than by atomic individual choice.

This statement is completely irrelevant to what you are replying to.

As mentioned by 2rafa, Louis would have if anything done worse under the old version of social punishments in more conservative societies. He would likely have been at a minimum ostracized, fired or run out of town(depending on his social position of course) and quite possibly been visited by a group of large lads (often the brothers and fathers of the girls involved) who would have had a somewhat violent word with the guy jerking off in front of the womenfolk.

Social media has expanded the reach, and social changes have made some changes as to what is actually tabooed (and why) but the underlying practices are thousands of years old and are intrinsic to social bonds and enforcing behavioral norms. We're not getting rid of them any time soon, and that's assuming we even should be trying to get rid of them.

As mentioned by 2rafa, Louis would have if anything done worse under the old version of social punishments in more conservative societies.

Either I'm missing something, or this critique does not seem thought-through. Prior to the sexual revolution, all sorts of sexual improprieties occurred in a whole variety of contexts. The world was not, in fact, one big Baptist church picnic. I think you're mistaking both how (uniformly(?)) repressive the old world was, and how permissive the new world is. There were places where the response you describe would happen; those places involve tight-knit communities. I see no reason to think the theatres of a major urban center would display such dynamics, given the theater's long-standing link to sexual license, often decried by those same conservatives in the olden days. Female entertainers would most likely not have male relatives on-hand to provide retribution, since if they were still enjoying such protection they wouldn't be working as female entertainers.

Social media has expanded the reach, and social changes have made some changes as to what is actually tabooed (and why) but the underlying practices are thousands of years old and are intrinsic to social bonds and enforcing behavioral norms.

I think this is wrong as well. You're correct that, faced with a moral vacuum, people are reinventing restrictive sexual ethics. Unfortunately, it's not the same sexual ethics, either in abstract principles or in the concrete methods of enforcement. These ethics aren't actually grounded on community, they aren't coherent, and their enforcement is both more capricious and less constrained than the old ways. The new method isn't long-term stable; the contradictions just thrash each other and everyone nearby endlessly.

I think this is wrong as well. You're correct that, faced with a moral vacuum, people are reinventing restrictive sexual ethics. Unfortunately, it's not the same sexual ethics, either in abstract principles or in the concrete methods of enforcement. These ethics aren't actually grounded on community, they aren't coherent, and their enforcement is both more capricious and less constrained than the old ways. The new method isn't long-term stable; the contradictions just thrash each other and everyone nearby endlessly.

What they are targeting may well be different, but the underlying practices of sub judicial social sanctions are pretty much identical. With the scope extended via easier communications and social media.

"Female entertainers would most likely not have male relatives on-hand to provide retribution, since if they were still enjoying such protection they wouldn't be working as female entertainers."

Yes but being an entertainer is high status now at least at the level they were interacting with C.K. (The Chris Rock Show and so on) so projected back they would be fairly low status in a fairly high status field themselves otherwise we are not controlling for social status in the comparison. This would of course be more constrained but perhaps they would be secretaries at a newspaper with C.K. the editor at another more influential paper or similar. And the fact it wasn't universal is moot because it isn't universal now either. There are surely many people who have masturbated in front of others in some mildly related work setting that we never hear about.

Whether the rules now are more capricious or coherent or whether their enforcement is stable doesn't mean it isn't the same phenomenon. Indeed the old version wasn't long term stable either as evidenced by it being overturned in many places.

You can certainly make an argument that the new version is worse or less understandable or more confusing I think, but so would the older version as you travel between locations and communities (as you yourself point out), the near instant communication we have now, means all those different versions are clashing all the time (online at least). My local hardware store still isn't going to fire someone using the rules of a progressive big city but according to his own local community.

I would certainly agree that a more stable version is definitely easier to navigate for everyone, but that would require (given the above) a very widespread one sided victory (including internal tribal variances) which I just don't see happening anytime soon.

guy jerking off in front of the womenfolk.

What is the difference between him jerking off in front of the womenfolk and the womenfolk giving him a handjob?

From all reasonable accounts, it seems to me that C.K had 'consent'. Unlike 2rafa, I think that is the crux of the matter as far as value judgments are concerned (I'm not very "trad"). With consent, the ladies had a weird sexual encounter, without consent they were victims of a sex crime. I understand that whether there was mutual consent or not is fuzzy and that's what makes this a scissor issue, but given the track record and incentives of other #MeToo victims, I would probably side with C.K's retelling of the story here.

Bill burr - No means no is a relevant video for this conversation. All I want to ask the ladies who supposedly regretted C.K. having done what he did is, why didn't you yell "NO!"? Doing that changes nothing, fair enough, but the fact you didn't do it is not normal human behavior towards a threat. If some lunatic is about to swing an axe at me, I will yell "stop don't kill me!", he might kill me anyways because he's a lunatic axe murderer, but me giving in without a semblance of a fight would be suspicious.

All I want to ask the ladies who supposedly regretted C.K. having done what he did is, why didn't you yell "NO!"?

Perhaps uncharitably, in that instant they decided that there might be some advantage to them if they did not say "No!," and in retrospect realized that said advantage never materialized or wasn't worth the price they had paid for it. Seems to me like this is what is called "learning from experience," and calls for self-reflection rather than outward accusation.

but given the track record and incentives of other #MeToo victims, I would probably side with C.K's retelling of the story here.

You might but then his (as you say) borderline pervy behavior would not have been accepted whether it was morally correct or not. Value judgments are subjective so as the people observing the behavior change, so to do the judgements and outcomes. In Woodstock he might have been ok, in a small rural town he might have been run out of town, in Northern Ireland back in the day he might have been kneecapped.

All of them are sub-judicial sanctions dished out by whatever community is involved. What Louis thinks is pretty much irrelevant in every case though, he isn't the one that is making the value judgement.

I think you are speaking past my point.

I am saying is, Were the women totally against what happened or not, in short, the angle I am pushing is that what if they were okay, or more than okay with him jerking off? But, claimed otherwise later for reasons.

What if it was a mutually agreed upon sexual activity?

I am saying is, Were the women totally against what happened or not, in short, the angle I am pushing is that what if they were okay, or more than okay with him jerking off? But, claimed otherwise later for reasons.

What if it was a mutually agreed upon sexual activity?

My point is that this doesn't matter. Cads who seduced women into sex didn't get let off because they said yes. If you breach behavioral norms, you're in trouble regardless. In this case jerking off in front of people in a work environment EVEN if those people said yes is seen as bad. If he had picked up women in a bar and had consent then he would have been in a safer position.

If my BDSM proclivities get released there is a good chance I get fired or ostracized despite the fact I am meticulous about consent. Consent isn't the driving factor here.

Cads who seduced women into sex didn't get let off because they said yes. If you breach behavioral norms, you're in trouble regardless.

Maybe prior to the sexual revolution, when women expected to have their sexual opportunities managed by family gatekeeping and prudish societal mores. When the oppressive nature of that paradigm was rejected and women claimed to want first-hand control over their own sex lives, it became their responsibility. If they feel that they are inadequately equipped to exercise this responsiblity, it's up to them to call for a return to the old model, but they won't, so they must prefer greater vulnerability. Why is any of this the cad's fault now? They are keeping it simple, at least.

Why is any of this the cad's fault now? They are keeping it simple, at least.

Again its not about fault, it's about perception. Doesn't matter how hypocritical you think it is. You can have an oppressive paradigm and women's control, it can be entirely incoherent (not saying it is, but it can be). It doesn't have to make any sense whatsoever. I am not saying that is good, I am saying that is the situation.

I keep on forgetting that consensual sexual acts between adults from the same workplace or career is Taboo in America, and in certain cases, the workplace is not a physical place but anywhere where you are with your coworkers, including a hotel room.

I'm being partially sarcastic.

Its not just the work part, the just jerking off part codes flasher in a park, not high status guy trying to fuck.

If he had asked them out to dinner, then taken them back to his hotel for sex, he looks more normal and less creepy.

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