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Into the Spider-Verse was my favorite movie of 2018. I only found out this year that one of the film's directors was someone whose values are antithetical to everything I believe and as harmful to me as ideas can be. I knew he wasn't returning to direct the sequel, so I thought that meant I could go see it without feeling shame, but I just found out (again, surprisingly late) that he's an Executive Producer on it. This likely means he gets a share of the box office gross, though I don't know how big that share would be.
This presents an e̶t̶h̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ psychological dilemma that feels as though it's ethical for me. This is one of the few movies where seeing it in the theater is very important to me, and I do feel that I'd be missing out by seeing it on my tiny laptop screen several months after release. However, I would feel emasculated if I gave this person any more money than I already have. Is there a way I can have my cake and eat it too here?
I know it's unlikely that anyone here has a better idea "than stop giving a crap about what filmmakers believe," but I'm asking anyway, just in case. There's nobody else on the internet where I'd expect people to be sympathetic to my problem in a way that's more than superficial. Left-wing spaces (as I've experienced them) would say "you should only care about political violence and life ruination if you're the kind of person we'd be using it against," and right-wing spaces (as I've experienced them) would say "these tactics are actually good and we should use them against left-wingers when we're in power" after making fun of me for liking children's movies. I do not mean to imply all left-dominated or right-dominated spaces are like the ones I describe, but that's my expectation of them based on experience, and it's always demoralizing to get those kinds of reactions, so I don't want to go seek them out.
My answer is not to stop giving a crap about what filmmakers believe, though you may think that it's functionally equivalent to that. My answer is that we should be investing in the idea that people are complex, and that we can compartmentalize the things they do in life. I think that proliferating this idea, the idea of compartmentalization, is the most powerful way that we can take down the woke left, antifa, and everyone else who spreads the horrible, harmful, illiberal idea that you can only get along with people who agree with you on everything, and that not agreeing means that they are a terrible person. I understand and sympathize with your viewpoint, and I certainly have felt it strongly at times in the past. But I personally have learned that the notion that we can compartmentalize, and get along with each other, is one of the most important values to me, and is what is missing the most in our modern woke society which generally wants to act on the idea that we should condemn all but the most right-thinking people.
It's a self-defeating idea, just like the higher-order idea that propaganda of generic humanism that doesn't rely on superior power is feasible. Why would anyone welcome the spread of this mental infection that directly reduces their fitness?
The left is rational in treating all of economy and culture as a field of political warfare. It's not literally true in all cases, but it helps bring the future in accord with their wishes. @Conservautism shows this Ramsay guy retweeting some clown who calls Andy Ngo a «stochastic terrorist». Does Ramsay accept that libellous label at face value? Who knows; but also who cares: the intent is to suppress the proliferation of Ngo's non-fictional content. Content like this, which undermines Ramsay's own political beliefs and poisons his projects and narratives where fragile, intelligent and egalitarian black boys are suddenly endowed with superpowers to make the world a better place, punching up, saving it from machinations of pale bullies and capitalist oppressors who irresponsibly endanger millions with breakthrough technology. I am not shoehorning anything: this is 100% how the fanatic Ramsay intends his art to work. This is the very heart and soul he pours into it.
In the same vein as demonizing Ngos who immunize people against the political message of your art is rational, boycotting the apparently non-political and subjectively interesting art of Brandon Sanderson (or what have you) to deny a revenue stream which could allow him to support politics (and a family) that you despise is rational too – if you are a mature human being, that is, a predatory Machiavellian ape obsessed with tribal power. All this «entertainment content», attractive moving images and interesting stories and all else, is a pretext to redistribute power, both directly via economy and indirectly via culture; it has no value and no point beyond those ends, and only an excessively neotenic person would take seriously the proposal to «compartmentalize» the hand that dangles a hypnotic medallion in front of his face from the hand that holds a gun to his wife's stomach.
I want to emphasize that Wokes are hyperconscious of small slights and weak links because they are reasonably conscious of longterm outcomes – and their cosmic responsibility before their values and comrades to secure victory. Thus, in a very consequential way, they are as morally (I refer to morale, but morality too) superior to Conservatives – particularly the Spiderman-watching sort – just as early Christians were to effete late pagans with their pointless, wasteful grilling of bulls on lawns of their villas. Here's a case in point. We've discussed Hogwarts:Legacy lately; this guy ended up being mocked by Russian libertarians so I became aware of his existence:
Consider the level of ideological fanaticism (some would uncharitably say «signaling» but I take it at face value) of this guy. Obviously a right-winger with the same attitude would be perceived as a complete freak and a danger to polite society, mocked even here – usually it'd be either a staunch Christian Fundamentalist or some 14/88 Black Sun posting White Nationalist type. Yet I say he's right (leaving aside the absurdity of his beliefs and Rowling's innocence); this asymmetry speaks to cowardice and moral defects of right-wingers rather than some woke insanity. Like Hanania, I lean towards saying that conservatives deserve that's happening to them. If you don't care about politics, politics still cares about you.
I imagine, and to some extent know, that the overwhelming majority of hundreds of thousands of Russians mobilized for war were also proud of just living their lives, taking care of their families like responsible adults. But that's the infantile choice in the world of predatory apes who have weaponized literally everything.
I've watched Spiderverse 1 via Popcorn Time. It was an okay thing to consoom, but the disgusting American racial religion and a host of underclass-glorifying memes were of course already palpable there. Thanks to these updates on Ramsay, I will not be watching the sequel. Entertainment has been artificially made a big part of our lives; the illusion of passing on some positive good is just that, an illusion. Letting a snarl of American brainworms into my head is too high a cost for two hours of watching a well-rendered childish story. If I stooped so low as to actually pay money to spreaders of those worms, I'd have lost all respect for myself. It's indignity enough that I already buy – and have bought in the past – many things that indirectly contribute to the American liberal project.
I'll be listening to some Saltykov-Shchedrin today.
Wait, really? I thought Into the Spider-Verse was, if anything, surprisingly conservative and not reflective of Ramsey's beliefs, but I am pretty obviously not as right-wing as you, so my standards for what's "too left-wing" are gonna be different.
https://www.themotte.org/post/349/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/64050?context=8#context
I just explained it in a different reply, so I'll link to that here.
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