Cancel culture craziness

[Treehugger]

Let's rename St. Louis!

Apparently, some group is now protesting the presence of a statue of St. Louis in St. Louis and is even trying to get the city to change its oh so problematic name. The problem? The medieval king the French fur traders named the city after, Louis IX, was islamophobic (and anti-Semitic)! Horrors! Some leader in the Middle Ages didn't like Muslims! Stop the presses! Tear down his statue!

I mean if people really want to get offended by history, there is a whole heck of a lot of statue-destroying and name-changing that still has to happen before this country can ever feel good about itself. Maybe we should have no statues at all and just use geographical coordinates to name cities. At least no one will be offended that way ...

[mahagonny]

Loury and McWhorter discuss taking down statues around eight minutes in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfsH3AaoqYM

'Cancel culture craziness?' I just got home from hanging with my White friend Les. He's upset because his daughter, of whom he is proud for marching with BLM   (I agreed with him, although I didn't bother to mention I'm not going to march for them nor why, but I think being conscious of social justice issues is a good habit in a young person) is on Facebook talking about how words like 'exotic' must never be uttered again by any American. He took her side, and now other family members have unfriended the two of them. He's the kind of guy who is considerate above all. If someone were to say 'the word exotic offends me' he'd decide 'I will delete that word from my memory bank because you asked me to, politely.' You know, his focus is getting along with people, not delving into arguments.
The problem now as I see it is there's no place to sit down and think without being attacked from one side or the other. And I feel bad for Les, because he's just getting jerked around. Trying to be a good father and a good neighbor, and finding out it's a juggling act, while being nothing but nice.

[Anselm]

https://abc7chicago.com/trader-joes-ethnic-food-labels-grocery-store-mings/6323860/

[Hegemony]

Here are the equations that I object to, and that I see a lot:

• Some people want a particular statue taken down, so now every statue will have to come down, and that's crazy!
• Some people want a particular statue taken down, and that's erasing history!

As to the second one, I'd wager that you could have asked the public before all of this, and 99 out of 100 couldn't have identified who a particular statue represented, and 99.9 out of 100, given the name of that person, couldn't have told you who that person was.

I remember a colleague of mine in the '80s, who studies Louis IX and his part in the Crusades, rolling his eyes at the idea of naming a city after him. The glorification of Louis IX had not pulled the wool over the eyes of my colleague. And indeed, if you read about the Crusades at any length, there are few Crusaders worthy of defense, even if you overlook the basic idea behind the enterprise. The particulars of what they did on Crusade are not pleasant reading, even if you tend to say, "Oh well, random brutal violence was the order of the day, who are we to condemn it?"

[financeguy]

If someone wants to have a statue on their private property or land, that's one thing, but am I the only one who doesn't really think the government should be in the business of telling us who to admire? I don't really care if it's a statue of Robert E Lee or a street named for MLK. If you asked my preference, I would say get rid of all, but I recognize this is entirely impractical and not something I'm so invested in to want to change once these items already exist.

That said, if you do want to take a statue down or start renaming things, don't be surprised when someone goes after one of your idols. There is no one with a perfect history immune from a controversy.

[Treehugger]

Here are the equations that I object to, and that I see a lot:

• Some people want a particular statue taken down, so now every statue will have to come down, and that's crazy!

But that's actually what is happening ...


On a slightly different note, here is what I believe is one of the fundamentally illogical parts of the movement to tear down statues and change names:

Most thinking people who are part of the radical left (aka academics) are more or less radical social constructivists. They support tearing down statues, "re-writing" history and arguing over exactly what words ("racism," "privilege," "white," "black," etc,) really mean and about what words are verboten because they invest language and representation with extraordinary, almost mystical power. By controlling our representations, we supposedly shape, even control how people think, feel and behave. (Foucault, among many others has a lot to say about this). So, if we can get out representation straight, we can get our thinking and feeling straight.

But have they ever considered this: Why do people even care about these statues in the first place? I submit that it is only because the movement has indeed used representation to create feeling and passions about the statues and actually cause people to feel like they are being repressed by their presence. I don't know what every (or any) Muslim might think, but I do know that Muslims are humans like me and hence tend to simply not care about many things in the world that are not in their own sphere of interest. So, I would wager that 99.99% of Muslims in St. Louis were not going about their day deeply troubled that the city they lived in was named after a thirteenth century medieval king who had "problematic attitudes" about a Muslim. I don't know for sure, I am guessing that they were more concerned about their work, their families, protecting their communities from any threatening Islamophobia. "Are we safe at the mosque?" "Are we being profiled at airport security?" "Will our visas be revoked?" "I can't believe he just assumed I wasn't a citizen!" Again, I am not Muslim, but based on my common experience as a human being, I am guessing that this is the kind of thing they would be naturally concerned about. They didn't really care about the history of the name of their city ... until someone choose to actively politicize it. And they probably still don't really care.

[marshwiggle]

Let's rename St. Louis!

Apparently, some group is now protesting the presence of a statue of St. Louis in St. Louis and is even trying to get the city to change its oh so problematic name. The problem? The medieval king the French fur traders named the city after, Louis IX, was islamophobic (and anti-Semitic)! Horrors! Some leader in the Middle Ages didn't like Muslims! Stop the presses! Tear down his statue!

I mean if people really want to get offended by history, there is a whole heck of a lot of statue-destroying and name-changing that still has to happen before this country can ever feel good about itself. Maybe we should have no statues at all and just use geographical coordinates to name cities. At least no one will be offended that way ...

Anyone know any dirt on Amerigo Vespucci?

[Cheerful]

There is no one with a perfect history immune from a controversy.

Yeah, because:  human.

Imagine if all this time and energy were spent on programs and individual, unpublicized gestures that actually helped people.  Like, go get groceries for a struggling senior of any last name, income, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

[mahagonny]

+ 1

These fixations actually do help people though, just not the people you're thinking of. Any idea what Robin d'Angelo is getting to speak at a corporation or a campus or a webinar? And those coattails are long. Think of all the professors who get to explain it.

Let's rename St. Louis!

Apparently, some group is now protesting the presence of a statue of St. Louis in St. Louis and is even trying to get the city to change its oh so problematic name. The problem? The medieval king the French fur traders named the city after, Louis IX, was islamophobic (and anti-Semitic)! Horrors! Some leader in the Middle Ages didn't like Muslims! Stop the presses! Tear down his statue!

I mean if people really want to get offended by history, there is a whole heck of a lot of statue-destroying and name-changing that still has to happen before this country can ever feel good about itself. Maybe we should have no statues at all and just use geographical coordinates to name cities. At least no one will be offended that way ...

Anyone know any dirt on Amerigo Vespucci?

The cancel culture may eventually cancel itself. Are the feminists paying attention to the statue of Jimi Hendrix in Seattle, WA? A man who was habitually violent with the women in his life (he even had a hit song about it), irrationally jealous in relationships when drinking, while anything but monogamous himself. And you can't find a more beloved person among liberals.
Yes there are statues that irritate me and people that I think are overpraised. I'm just not going to do anything about it. I guess common sense should tell most people that living in society means that there are people who are admired whom you admire much less. Or not at all. And people who didn't get a statue that you think deserve one. Or there are people whose artistic, athletic or other contribution may indeed be great, but they were, let's just say not really nice much of the time, and you wouldn't let them babysit your kids, and that's going to be overlooked.

[downer]

If someone wants to have a statue on their private property or land, that's one thing, but am I the only one who doesn't really think the government should be in the business of telling us who to admire? I don't really care if it's a statue of Robert E Lee or a street named for MLK. If you asked my preference, I would say get rid of all, but I recognize this is entirely impractical and not something I'm so invested in to want to change once these items already exist.

Probably not the only one, but one of the few. That's a pure libertarianism that maybe even Nozick would not have agreed with. There are tributes to fallen soldiers from local towns erected by local government, for example, that most people would support. Of course, I suspect that on the libertarian view, there would not be many public places anyway -- most land would be privatized.


Cancel culture includes many different elements which can be separated out.

Statues are interesting cases. I remember being shocked and disgusted with the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamyan back in 2001. Now I'm not so sure how different that is from the current wave of statue toppling, except that few statues coming down are wonderful works of art or pieces of great religious signifiance. I see people say that it is different when the statues are of slave owners or people who fought to defend slavery, and that those statues are profoundly offensive to African Americans.

I grew up walking past statues of military leaders I grew to see as war criminals. They caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands in pointless massacre. I'd have been happy to see the statues come down. But I didn't really care about the statues -- I cared about the crimes. I never met anyone who cared much about the statues, one way or the other.

Now people are toppling statues in acts of righteousness and it seems fair enough. But the skeptic in me says that much of it is meaningless posturing and doesn't indicate much of a shift in values. Woke people are looking for something to focus on in these difficult times. Ask them if they are willing to give up their current or future personal wealth and property to compensate others for crimes of the past and see what they say then.

[apl68]

Let's rename St. Louis!

Apparently, some group is now protesting the presence of a statue of St. Louis in St. Louis and is even trying to get the city to change its oh so problematic name. The problem? The medieval king the French fur traders named the city after, Louis IX, was islamophobic (and anti-Semitic)! Horrors! Some leader in the Middle Ages didn't like Muslims! Stop the presses! Tear down his statue!

I mean if people really want to get offended by history, there is a whole heck of a lot of statue-destroying and name-changing that still has to happen before this country can ever feel good about itself. Maybe we should have no statues at all and just use geographical coordinates to name cities. At least no one will be offended that way ...

Anyone know any dirt on Amerigo Vespucci?

Well, he's been widely regarded for centuries as a fraud who claimed discoveries and voyages that he never made.  There were questions about his claims almost from the start.  How he managed to get two continents named after him has always been one of history's great head-scratchers. 

[secundem_artem]

+ 1

These fixations actually do help people though, just not the people you're thinking of. Any idea what Robin d'Angelo is getting to speak at a corporation or a campus or a webinar? And those coattails are long. Think of all the professors who get to explain it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html

and Matt Taibbi's disagrees:  https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-white-fragility

John McWhorter was interviewed on NPR this morning and was highly critical of White Fragility as well.

White Fragility is #3 on the NY Times best seller list this week.  Seems there's good money in making white people uncomfortable.

[Wahoo Redux]

Our current culture grew into consciousness in the wake of the mighty '60s and '70s rebellions----civil rights, feminism, and the (attempted) dismantling of the old patriarchal, Caucasian, military-industrial world order.

Some of us cannot let go of the idea that public protest, denigration of elder beliefs, and civil disobedience are the only ways to accomplish social justice---"subvert the dominant paradigm" and "the highest form of patriotism is descent" and the like.

Others of us cannot get over the deep resentment they feel toward anyone who sows discord, challenges the dominant paradigm, and rejects the notion that patriotism is accepting the dominant paradigm.

And we've just gone crazy when wearing a mask during a pandemic is correlated with government over-reach.  Reader comments on our morning news about mandatory masks included comparisons to Nazi brutality. 

[Parasaurolophus]

Symbols matter, that's why we ought to choose them carefully based on what we want them to convey. This is especially true when those symbols are erected, used, or reinforced by the government (with public funds and for the public benefit).

Naming things after people is also, in many ways, a symbolic gesture. It parasitizes public associations, attitudes, and reputation. That reputation can be lost and replaced over time, however. Consider Yale University. It's named after a slave trader. He was a bad man, and does not deserve to be remembered in the public imagination. However, there's a good case to be made that virtually nobody remembers him, and nobody associates the name 'Yale' with him anymore--we all associate it with the university. And if that's the case, then our association has shifted from the person to the university, such that we are not, in fact, glorifying the person's legacy in our daily use. And that's a perfectly legitimate basis for deciding not to rename the university. The public's dominant association with a name is potent stuff.

You could rather easily construct a similar case for St. Louis. But that line of argument won't save things named after Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, George Custer, David Duke, Strom Thurmond, etc.

[marshwiggle]

Some of us cannot let go of the idea that public protest, denigration of elder beliefs, and civil disobedience are the only ways to accomplish social justice---"subvert the dominant paradigm" and "the highest form of patriotism is descent" and the like.

Freudian slip?

Others of us cannot get over the deep resentment they feel toward anyone who sows discord, challenges the dominant paradigm, and rejects the notion that patriotism is accepting the dominant paradigm.

You mean people who believe the millenia of development and refinement of governments and systems of law which have led to elimination of slavery, equal rights for women, labour laws, etc. suggest that working within the system can actually bring about important and profound social justice?