Addendum: I realize it looks like I wrote the n-word there. I didn't mean to include 'n,' was just meant to just be a blank space for anyword people want to use. I originally had put 'nazi' there but didn't backspace the whole thing.
If it doesn't progress the conversation, what's the point then?
"You're a n_____." Okay, that doesn't fix or do anything. Show how they're wrong, debate them, rebuke them – use logic and knowledge to prove it. Calling someone a word just doesn't do anything for anyone.
Pretty reductive view of NC, imo. Takes a lot of presumptions to get to where you do.
I find it problematic how comfortable people are making the leaps and presumptions to form the views they do.
"The ideas that get people "canceled" in cancel culture are not just random mean ideas, they're uniformly ideas that are determined to be sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. People don't get "canceled" for being rude, that's not what cancel culture is about."
This is arguable and wildly subjective. So long as you get that – then fair enough.
"2. As someone who is a straight white cisgender man, Cave has never been the target of sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. derision, even if he has suffered other hardships."
You literally have no way in knowing anything Cave has experienced that he hasn't explicitly said. You don't see how problematic it is to just make this presumption? Like you're confident in your ability to reduce someone's life experiences because of their skin color and sexuality? I think this is wild.
You can't get come to the conclusions you do without saying, "well he has white skin, he's a heterosexual, he's a man – therefore I can make ____ presumptions about his life." Personally that's a shitty lens in which to view and connect the world.
People just want to go against ThE NaZiS TaKiNg OvEr and ignore that there's authoritarianism at the extremes of both ends of the spectrum. It's just silly and obvious.
"Jesus christ dude, even the US has restrictions on speech." Yeah, I didn't state otherwise.
I'm not advocating for being able to say literally anything in any situation. I'm arguing for the most liberal definition possible when it comes to free speech, and I think we get it closer than most, especially Europeans.
"Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness—and it turns out race isn’t, either."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/
"Organized" is a really ambiguous term because I can tell you the [majority of the] people called Nazis in the U.S. are hardly "organized."
Beyond some academic definition – they're people who believe in something in justification of doing evil acts. If Nazi's didn't perform evil acts, but simply believed in silence – who would care, really? In their actions they're no different than anyone else who does. You can sit and talk about definitions all you like but at the end of the day they're humans committing evil acts. They feel justified through an evil ideology, murderers feel justified by their rage, ego or power, so and so forth. People commit acts of evil when they can form some kind of justification internally about it.
"We" does not apply to me. I'm an American and one of the things we've gotten right is free speech. In Europe can get arrested for calling someone a dirty name on Twitter – sounds like elementary school to me.
"germany is arguably the strongest liberal democracy in the world right now..." huh? According to whom?
I did a couple of times and it seems like there's a presumption that because Nick Cave has never experienced feeling like a "lesser being" because of his sexuality, skin color, and gender – that his attitude towards this is all just from that of privilege. Feels pretty reductive.
Nazism is just the collective form of those things. You can call it an ideology – but it all comes from the human heart at the end of the day. People who buy into the ideology of Nazism have a heart problem just like the folks who commit murder or rape. Within all of us is the struggle for good and bad.
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” – Carl Jung
To have free speech – which is the bedrock of a free society, you have to give the space for it – but the absolutely wonderful and beautiful thing is, you also have the space to refute it. By definition, it's more authoritarian to restrict speech than to allow it.
We should all be thankful we don't currently live in a society where we have to make that decision – be a nazi and survive, or fight and probably die. There have been humans since the dawn of time who have been put into this situation.
The real problem, I think, with your argument is this: It's easy to say, "we shouldn't give a space to Nazism." But then you have to define nazism, but then you have to decide who gets to define nazism, and what if their definition includes you, wrongly? Then the question is – what else should not be given a space and who gets to decide? There is no human or collective capable of making these decisions and that's why there such great emphasis throughout western civilization on the concept of free speech.
We don't know if we would've been nazi's – that's the point, *you don't know.* Statistically speaking, you would have, as would I have been.
If you'd like to explain *how* this is a bad argument, please do so – otherwise what's the point in reply?
Are you suggesting that "straight, white, cisgender" men can't be treated unfairly, belittled, or disrespected? Do you genuinely believe that there's some kind of universal rules that white heterosexual men don't deal with tragedy, being treated poorly, or poor existences?
Are you also suggesting with, "...but by the nature of the world we live in minorities and women need to constantly find ways to articulate and assert themselves against arguments that we are lesser beings" that all women and minorities would agree with you here? It just doesn't seem like it's going to help your point assuming this group mentality and then speaking for that group. I can tell you with certainty my wife, a woman, wouldn't agree with your sentiment. I won't presume to speak for my friends of color but from conversations I've had with them, I'd probably deduce they wouldn't necessarily agree.
You're welcome to your personal individual opinions and experiences, as we all are, but it's pretty presumptuous to act like everyone who is a woman or person of color feels like they're daily "grappling with feeling like lesser beings."
I think people think to themselves: "If I were in Germany, I would've stood up to those evil Nazis!" But statistically speaking, when the gun is to you, your wife or husband, and children's heads – that savior complex leaves very quickly.
I'm not going to pretend that if I were there that I would've been some hero – I sure hope I would be, but statistically speaking, most people would end up going along with it.
If people don't realize that within the heart of each and every single human heart is the capacity to be a Nazi, and at the same time, the capacity to be a hero and stand up to Nazi's – the better chance we'll just keep repeating our failures. Also, the understanding that being the hero often times results in facing death.
'Nazism' has been recycled throughout history.
That's like saying, "I think we debunked racism with the civil war..." or if I wanted to take it further, do you think humanity is ever going to solve the "problem" of murder, thievery, or rape?
History suggests they will always exist. Doesn't mean we don't consistently teach and warn against them.
you also still didnt answer my question. do you think ideas deserve to be engaged with in perpetuity, even if they've been thoroughly discredited and debunked in the past?
Depends on the context. I think each generation may have to handle similar discussions as their previous ones.
Reading history shows humanity repeats its mistakes over and over. Only way to prolong or prevent it is to constantly be reminding people of it.
I was responding generally to people making similar statements. If you'd like for me to specifically respond to a point of yours, I'm more than happy to.
> does nick cage think that nazism is a "difficult idea" that needs to be engaged with to be debunked?
You don't think Naziism should be debunked? If humans were so intrinsically overwhelming good our history wouldn't be fraught with rape, war, thievery, and murder. Even now – today, look at how people are living in North Korea and China. It's not like the evil humanity is capable of is simply going to go away by refusing to talk about troubling or evil things. It *must* be debunked and engaged with. It's pure naivete to suggest otherwise, imo.
As an addendum: you can't be an honest and genuine human and not occasionally risk being offensive. To think a genuine and honest thought is to risk it.
There's this weird morality around this concept of A. never offending anyone over anything and B. it's okay for people to simply be "offended," even if they have no articulate, reasonable, or logical [or even explainable] reason to be. It's this weird thing where people think their initial feelings or reactions to something are some ultimate guide on how they should view the world.
It's crazy how not-thought-out some of the takes here are regarding the concept of free speech.
I see people saying, "Nick Cave didn't define what he means by cancel culture..." but it's not that hard to connect the dots and form a general idea on what it is based on his quotes here.
I'd wager Nick Cave's school of thought regarding "cancel culture" basically means the concept of, as he put it, "...a force that finds its meaning in the cancellation of the difficult ideas." Obviously he would disagree with some uses of the term, and agree with others, just like everyone would.
It looks like NC's biggest problem is the lack of engagement with ideas you might find appalling, wrong, nasty, rude, etc. Let me tell you: there is no easy, clear way to truly know what fits these parameters without discussing them. I'm guessing NC *might* say: you're not legitimizing someone's opinion by debating or debunking it – how else would others know if it's right or wrong? The process of understanding what is right or wrong of any thing is exactly that, *a process.* Cancel culture attempts to side-step the process and replace it with often times A. a mob mentality, and B. a lack of genuine, good-faith discussion.
Pretty heavy Handsome Family vibes on this one. I like 'em but the type of singing could get difficult to listen to over a full album – it's like that type of singing where the tone or pitch barely changes, it's just so monotone and washed out in a way. They certainly have the aesthetic down, though.
Interesting take. I'd take "Care," "Blanco," and "Strange Negotiations" over CYB or Phoenix.
Phoenix just felt like, I don't know – not Pedro the Lion. I realize Dave has been through a lot since Achilles Heel, but Achilles Heel was the last real PTL album to me. Phoenix just sounds like a Dave Bazan rock album, not a PTL album.
I used to listen to NPR on my lunch breaks in my car [for the alone time out of the office]. Got to a point where I didn't want to turn it on because every single story was about race.
It's not just race though, America is also obsessed with gender identity, sexual identity, etc.
> But you put 100 pounds of bronzer, get your lips done, throw on a few black hairstyles and poof; you're a minority.
Has she ever claimed to be a minority?
I make the presumption that the journalist is taking part in racial tribalism because it appears she's viewing everything through the lens of race.
Not every piece of art by a person of color is making a statement about race. I think the presumption of this is racist in and of itself.
Cardi B. can put whomever she likes in her videos, whenever, and shouldn't feel the need to have to put a disclaimer: "I included one person who some may consider white because she was kind to my children and I like her for that..." It's absurd she even has to explain herself because some journalist has an opinion.
This is what happens when racial tribalism becomes the cornerstone for your identity – you start reading *everything* through the lens of race, when not everything is meant for that lens.
All I can say is that I hope they release another LP at this point.
Everything they've released so far has some magic in it and I think there's something about the chemistry of this trio that just really captures something special.
I know with these "super groups" you don't often get a lot out of them; fading and fizzling away – but there's staying power with this one.
Vaccines expected by October, nationally put out by December – we're back to normal by mid-Spring 2021. It's happening. We'll look back on this time and laugh.
Not sure I can buy Stereogum has some kind of "Home for Musical Snobbery." I think there's people like to think of themselves as that, but it's also filled with people tripping over themselves to praise the T. ZZzzzZwift album.
If Pitchfork had comments in the early in the early and mid-2000's, it would've fit the bill more than Stereogum.
Islamic is towards believes, but not towards non-believers – at least historically and at least according to the Quran. And from my readings, I don't think Buddhism has the complexity or detail to get that type of philosophy, right? By nature isn't it pretty obtuse? Maybe I'm thinking Taoism.
The concept that all human life is A. equal, and B. valuable is relatively exclusive to the past 2,000 years. This hasn't really has been an over-arching piece of value system all of history.
Historically speaking, it's not just something humans are born simply *knowing.*
Comments