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the Left's War Against Literature

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Chris OConnor

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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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Interesting article, KindaSkolarly. I tend to want to get my information from more mainstream sources so I searched for the keywords "Spellcheck for diversity" and found an article on The Guardian that corroborates what your source is saying.

I'd like to hear what other BookTalk.org members think of this new tool for identifying bias in Hollywood. I've got mixed feelings. On one hand I see the value in diligently working to avoid biases and give an equal chance to minorities and potentially oppressed groups but shouldn't we be more concerned with the quality of what each individual contributes? Do we really want to move toward a society where we have diversity and gender-neutrality enforced through laws, rules or procedures?

Didn't MLK, Jr. say, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." To me this quote/principle can be applied to gender, sexuality, etc... Decent people should care deeply about bias and oppression but not so much as to elevate minorities and potentially oppressed people to roles and responsibilities that exceed what they have earned through merit alone.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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Chris OConnor wrote:I'd like to hear what other BookTalk.org members think of this new tool for identifying bias in Hollywood. I've got mixed feelings. On one hand I see the value in diligently working to avoid biases and give an equal chance to minorities and potentially oppressed groups but shouldn't we be more concerned with the quality of what each individual contributes? Do we really want to move toward a society where we have diversity and gender-neutrality enforced through laws, rules or procedures?
I have mixed feelings too. Yes, we need to be aware of gender bias and entrenched racist attitudes in our society. But to use a computer algorithm to force political correctness in works of fiction is probably misguided at best. For one thing, who gets to decide what is properly diverse? Who gets to be the purity police? Hollywood?

In the end, we live in a world with many diverse attitudes. There is no magic formula that will work with all audiences. Such efforts will turn scripts into bland and homogenous narratives lacking verisimilitude. Also, as the article states, "Forced diversity is not diversity at all."

I'm reminded of Kurt Vonnegut's short story—"Harrison Bergeron"—which takes place in the year 2081 in a dystopian society that mandates equality through the use of physical and mental handicaps. For example, the father in the story is very intelligent, and so he has to wear mental handicap earphones that buzz very obnoxiously in his ears whenever he starts thinking about something too deeply.

The story is rather absurd and comical, but it is also a warning against the potential for Big Government to limit our freedoms in pursuit of a hopeless and unrealistic ideal of equality for all.

However—and this is a big however—the bad guy in Vonnegut's story is an evil, overbearing government. Likewise, the article tries to compare Hollywood's attempts to sanitize movie scripts to Stalin's socialist dictatorship that murdered millions. I'm afraid that's rather a leap.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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Chris O'Connor wrote:Decent people should care deeply about bias and oppression but not so much as to elevate minorities and potentially oppressed people to roles and responsibilities that exceed what they have earned through merit alone.
If minorities, LGTBQ, members of certain ethnicities, etc. are victims of bias and oppression, how are they supposed to earn roles and responsibilities through merit alone? If they are denied the ability to earn through merit, which is then reinforced by continued bias and oppression, then how are they supposed to succeed? Obviously I'm asking in a purely philosophical sense as these questions have zero grounding in the real world let alone America.

As to the bias checking tool described in the Guardian (Chris' link), it appears a single company, Disney is using it as a test. You may have noticed Disney is an extremely profitable brand with a squeaky clean image and a global audience. Perhaps Disney doesn't want to offend anyone or risk shareholder value and takes pains to avoid problems. Other media companies do not have the same image and probably would not be interested in that tool. I don't see it as a big problem. As Geo states of course right wing paranoids imagine this turning into a censorship tool enforced by Gummint, but their hysteria runs wild.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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geo wrote:I have mixed feelings too. Yes, we need to be aware of gender bias and entrenched racist attitudes in our society. But to use a computer algorithm to force political correctness in works of fiction is probably misguided at best. For one thing, who gets to decide what is properly diverse? Who gets to be the purity police? Hollywood?

In the end, we live in a world with many diverse attitudes. There is no magic formula that will work with all audiences. Such efforts will turn scripts into bland and homogenous narratives lacking verisimilitude. Also, as the article states, "Forced diversity is not diversity at all."
The difference between enforcement and intrinsic motivation is much neglected in political discussions. I don't suppose creating a pro-diversity metric is likely to force any censorship, but it is likely to bring the attention of the gatekeepers to any bias in their gatekeeping. I tried to explain this function of Affirmative Action to my students, and they mainly ended up reverting to the concept of quotas that I had explicitly pointed out was NOT the way affirmative action works. The human mind loves to convert almost any narrative into one of conflict.

It's interesting to me that Disney is in the thick of this. Disney made a big transition. They started out reinforcing ethnic stereotypes from "Song of the South" to "The Jungle Book" and gender stereotypes with "Snow White", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella". But eventually they realized that diversity is the source of deeper storytelling, and gave us "Moana", "Beauty and the Beast", "Pocahontas", "Mulan", "Lion King" and "Frozen" (to name a few). Obviously changing audience sensibilities had a lot to do with that. But nobody forced Disney to look for more diverse story lines. Maybe they got religion, or maybe they woke up to the richness, but either way they got better. I suspect that the two reinforce each other.

And they certainly did not end up with bland and homogeneous scripts, whatever your opinion of Frozen might be.
Chris wrote:Decent people should care deeply about bias and oppression but not so much as to elevate minorities and potentially oppressed people to roles and responsibilities that exceed what they have earned through merit alone.
Well, but again, who decides what is merit? Asian-Americans have ferociously pursued what our society said merit was, only to find that no, merit means other stuff, too, and achievement on tests will not automatically translate into success. I think merit has its own obvious appeal, and in the end will mostly get rewarded. But we should never turn an obsession with measurable merit into an excuse to hire "people we are comfortable with," and most especially when that obsession is really just an excuse that we abandon when it doesn't give us permission to hire "people we are comfortable with."

I prefer a couple of other guidelines, which should at least be mixed in if not actively given priority. One is to note that networking with social contacts is an enormous advantage for job candidates (or artistic entrepreneurs) from groups with historical privilege. So much of life depends on hearing about and being recommended for particular opportunities. So much of life depends on getting that little boost to get over a barrier. So why not give a little extra recognition to those who are doing well without the benefit of such advantages, as shown by overcoming prejudice?

The second is that diversity really is a rich source of access to the human soul. This goes way beyond "other perspectives should also get a hearing." Those who have been oppressed, and especially those who have made a way in life despite being oppressed, have done something that should resonate with every person's experience. Because we all face obstacles, suffering, sorrow and eventually death. Recognizing the various ways people overcome hardship (or succumb to it, as in "Parasite" or "Beloved") reaches down deeper than the usual Boy Meet Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl Back sort of "conflict". That's what I think Disney discovered, but tougher scripts like "Moonlight", "The Hurt Locker" and "The Crying Game" take it to a much higher (or deeper) level.
geo wrote:I'm reminded of Kurt Vonnegut's short story—"Harrison Bergeron"—which takes place in the year 2081 in a dystopian society that mandates equality through the use of physical and mental handicaps. For example, the father in the story is very intelligent, and so he has to wear mental handicap earphones that buzz very obnoxiously in his ears whenever he starts thinking about something too deeply.

The story is rather absurd and comical, but it is also a warning against the potential for Big Government to limit our freedoms in pursuit of a hopeless and unrealistic ideal of equality for all.

However—and this is a big however—the bad guy in Vonnegut's story is an evil, overbearing government. Likewise, the article tries to compare Hollywood's attempts to sanitize movie scripts to Stalin's socialist dictatorship that murdered millions. I'm afraid that's rather a leap.
You think? I am a longtime admirer of the Vonnegut story, and, as one would expect with Vonnegut, it is not flat polemic against enforced equality but woven around real richness created by intersecting, conflicting values. You can read it as a story about repression of anything that takes on tough issues, like prejudice or like dumbing down in all its forms. The masses resent excellence even while being fascinated by it and dreaming about it, and being sucked in by the illusion of excellence as in the Kardashians. Government control? Not even close to a danger on the subject, and small potatoes next to the blind resentment of anything that doesn't make the viewer feel personally affirmed.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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Harry Marks wrote:. . .You think? I am a longtime admirer of the Vonnegut story, and, as one would expect with Vonnegut, it is not flat polemic against enforced equality but woven around real richness created by intersecting, conflicting values. You can read it as a story about repression of anything that takes on tough issues, like prejudice or like dumbing down in all its forms. The masses resent excellence even while being fascinated by it and dreaming about it, and being sucked in by the illusion of excellence as in the Kardashians. Government control? Not even close to a danger on the subject, and small potatoes next to the blind resentment of anything that doesn't make the viewer feel personally affirmed.
I'm rethinking my take on the story. The masses in the story do resent excellence and—out of stupidity and laziness—have pushed to make things "equal." One can imagine the steps taken on the way to this dystopian America, like the slow boiling of a frog. The government is still evil, of course, but it more or less represents the will of the people.

One point in favor if this interpretation is that the two main characters spend all their time in front of the television set, and they are barely aware of what is happening. The wife cries at the end, knowing only on a subconscious level that she has just witnessed the death of her son. TV is the "tool of the government," as Zappa once put it.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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In his final days, Kurt Vonnegut was a follower of Alex Jones. He sent Jones a sketch:

Image

Vonnegut had seen seven shades of bullshit come out of our govt over the years, and he knew the truth when he heard it in Jones.

Infowars.com

And the Disney Company. Where to begin with that? I guess its greatest achievement must be the way that it has infantilized so many adults. Disney is a foul organization, yet it gets people to use phrases like "squeaky clean" to describe it. Disney, like the NY Times, Washington Post and the Guardian, is a propaganda arm of the oligarchical establishment.

Disney is especially bad because of the way it targets children. They've been running sexualization programs for decades. They take a girl, build her up into a star with a huge fan base, and then they sexually degrade the girl. The fans that identify with her put themselves through the same degradation.

Miley Cyrus comes to mind. She was Disney's "Hannah Montana." Parents viewed the show as innocuous and let their girls watch it. Then, when the parents were no longer looking, Cyrus morphed. From this...

Image

...to this...

Image

Her fans went along with her. Just look around a city sidewalk today to see the result.

Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse Club back in the 1990s. Sounds innocent enough. But both Spears and Aguilera underwent the degrading sexualization as they grew older. Then in 2003 they took part in a Satanic ritual on television. Her Old Satanic Majesty, Madonna, handed her crown over to Spears at an MTV awards ceremony. Video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3pJMk-9Bw

Image

So Disney promotes the degrading sexualization of children, Satanism, and now suicide. They're heavily into the "climate crisis" bullshit, where carbon is bad for the planet, and we're carbon-based life forms, therefore we must be eliminated.

This is the kind of stuff that Alex Jones was talking about back when Kurt Vonnegut was a fan. You folks have some catching up to do.
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KindaSkolarly wrote:In his final days, Kurt Vonnegut was a follower of Alex Jones. He sent Jones a sketch:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is bullshit. (Fake news!!) Kurt Vonnegut was definitely NOT a follower of Alex Jones. You'll have to come up with something to back up your claim.

The sketch you provided was taken from the author's web site when he died.

"The author’s Web site, updated after his death, displayed a simple black-and-white image of a bird cage — a symbolic element in his writing — empty with an open door. “Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007,” the page read.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vonn ... 1620070412

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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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KindaSkolarly wrote: So Disney promotes the degrading sexualization of children, Satanism, and now suicide. They're heavily into the "climate crisis" bullshit, where carbon is bad for the planet, and we're carbon-based life forms, therefore we must be eliminated.
Not sure what Disney has to do with literature. If you want to see literature about the sexualization of children, read "Lolita." And then there is Thomas Hardy's depiction of suicide in reaction to overpopulation, in "Jude the Obscure." The stuff carbon-based life forms get to thinking about, well, it's enough to make you worry they will ruin the planet.

I find all the reveling in sexuality onstage to be deplorable, myself. (Makes me nervous to be agreeing with you about something, but there we are.) It's an indicator of the addictive process at work in violation of norms. After a while, people yawn at the sort of naughtiness that made my grandparents consider Show Biz to be instrinsically sinful. So then performers ratchet up what they scandalize people with, what with wardrobe malfunctions and crotch-grabbing. Before you know it presidential candidates are getting yawns for bragging about grabbing other people's crotch. Suggests we need censorship to keep the thrill in sexuality. I mean seriously, if Disney is in on it, how much longer can it titillate?
KindaSkolarly wrote:This is the kind of stuff that Alex Jones was talking about back when Kurt Vonnegut was a fan. You folks have some catching up to do.
Well, Vonnegut may have been a demigod, but he made mistakes too, just like any other demigod.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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#MeToo campaign shows its ultra-right colors: Hachette Book Group suppresses Woody Allen’s memoir
"...Who will these middle class fanatics seek to silence next? Allen has been a significant cultural figure in the US for more than a half-century. Now, Farrow, an unprincipled scoundrel and former adviser to warmonger Hillary Clinton, has been given veto power over who may and may not have a book published in the US. Hachette officials’ capitulation is disgusting, but entirely predictable....."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/0 ... h-m09.html

As for Vonnegut...

Back around 2006 Alex Jones sent out some material about the 9/11 attacks to various writers. Vonnegut was among them. He responded by sending Jones a note, and a card (the one pictured above, with his signature doodled signature on it). He tried to get Vonnegut to come on the radio show for an interview but he was too frail. He died the next year.

Our govt told us that the laws of physics were suspended on 9/11. Then later the govt issued a demonstrable lie about what happened on that day (The Kean Commission report). Anybody who doesn't face the fact that our govt was involved in the false flag attack is a craven coward. History will not forgive us for letting our leaders get away with the obvious lie of 9/11. People around Vonnegut said he was giving 9/11 a second look. Too bad he didn't make it onto the Alex Jones show to share his thoughts.
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Re: the Left's War Against Literature

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The extremes of right and left meet on this one: 9/11 an inside job. Who says never the twain shall meet? To the point of what Kurt Vonnegut may have thought about it all: should we care?
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