Comments
shellac OP wrote
Yeah it was really bad. They didn’t challenge Taibbi on anything.
So do they agree with him that firing the NYT editor isn’t good? I mean I don’t think they actually think that, when Taibbi mentioned Bennet they avoided the subject.
I think they respect Taibbi a lot, which they should—he’s normally pretty good, and they didn’t want to challenge him and have a friendly interview.
hogposting wrote
they didn’t want to challenge him and have a friendly interview
What are the situations where you really need to challenge someone, and what are the situations where someone can say something you don't 100% agree with and you just let it go? I don't recall Taibbi saying anything so out of line that it demanded opposition, and it's fine to have some discussions where different viewpoints are raised but you don't reach a consensus at that time.
shellac OP wrote (edited )
Well the context of course is that Taibbi had just published that article decrying so called cancel culture, which caused a shitstorm as Taibbi is generally well respected on the left.
His article is filled with examples of things that are not actual threats to free speech. For example, Taibbi is upset that Lee Fang got called out on twitter because he went around asking “what about black on black crime”, that nonsense right wing refrain to BLM. Fang never lost his job and was right to get called out. Taibbi was just mad that people were mean to his friend on twitter.
I think everyone can agree that losing your “at will” employment over your speech is not a good precedent. But Taibbi is extending that to defending NYT Oped Editor Bennet losing his job. Please, that guy was doing an objectively shit job.
Maybe that example you mention in your other comment is an actual legit example of cancel culture gone amok, but even so the issue is greatly exaggerated IMO. I would have liked to see Will and Amber challenge him more on the examples from Taibbi’s article.
hogposting wrote (edited )
For example, Taibbi is upset that Lee Fang got called out on twitter because he went around asking “what about black on black crime”
Well no, it looks like he didn't. Here's the interview Fang got in trouble over, linked to in that article. It looks like he wasn't asking people about black-on-black crime; a black person mentioned that as part of a two-minute comment about his thoughts on the protests. And Fang posted the whole two-minute comment, not just an edited "black-on-black crime" soundbite. The man who made that comment apparently didn't think Fang was baiting him or suggesting a certain answer, either: “I couldn’t believe they were coming for the man’s job over something I said... It was not Lee’s opinion. It was my opinion.”
It seems unlikely that Fang was proactively raising the topic of black-on-black crime, and it seems unlikely he was acting in bad faith in some other way. Putting someone's career on the line over that is pretty thin.
But Taibbi is extending that to defending NYT Oped Editor Bennet losing his job.
His take on Bennet is shit, but that's one anecdote provided to support some larger points. If the discussion gets too far into the specific facts of each underlying anecdote, all you do is end up exhuming a bunch of semi-obscure stories and you never get to the more substantive, more interesting points. Say I said "never take a running back in the first round of the NFL draft" and provided 10 players as examples. If a number of my underlying anecdotes (say 8 or 9 of those players) do a decent job of supporting my point, but you take issue with my factual description of 1 or 2 of them, we're never going to get to whether it's a good idea to take a running back in the first round if we spend all day arguing about whether my assessment of player number 10 is a good one.
I don't mind focusing on that larger point as long as it's (a) not based on complete bullshit and (b) raised in good faith.
shellac OP wrote
I have to say, I find it odd that Will and Amber agree with Matt Taibbi here. Taibbi’s examples of cancel culture were pretty weak in his substack post, and the hosts themselves are fine when right wing grifters like Milo, Molyneux, or Baked Alaska get deplatformed.
MediumDickEnergy wrote (edited )
At some point we're going to have to admit they are all bougie and when you're bougie you're sorta by definition red pilled in one way or another. They do this weird class reductionism shit, have shit for brains when it comes to race analysis and started confusing everything for #CancelCulture, etc.
All these lily white pseudo leftists spun out when the BLM protests started. Why do you think they got so enraged by White Fragility, which is a mostly harmless book. Kinda fitting.
hogposting wrote
Towards the end of the episode they were discussing a writer who got fired for a comment on cultural appropriation along the lines of:
As writers, aren't we supposed to be imagining what it's like to be someone else and then writing that story? Shouldn't we be seeing which writer can appropriate culture the best? We could even give out an award for it!
That strikes me as a pretty narrow, good-faith comment on the subject. Maybe you disagree with it, but there's a world of difference between that and some blatantly bigoted right-wing troll, so it makes sense to treat the situations differently.
And while they didn't detail what exactly the difference between the two situations is, I think it's reasonably clear: it's a mix of how egregious the original comment was and whether that comment was made in good faith. Seems like the intuition was OK even if they didn't articulate it all that well.
MissPiggyOnRollerSkates wrote
I saw another person point out that Joseph Boyden, the novelist they were writing about, actually has a more complicated relationship to representing other cultures. He claimed to be First Nations person, wrote novels about First Nations people, won awards for First Nations writers, and spoke out publicly on issues relating to how it is to be First Nations in Canada, but . . . he isn't actually a member of any tribe. It's possible that he has some First Nations ancestry, in the same way my granny claims that we have Miami heritage back in the mists of time, but tribal membership isn't based on blood quantum and that ancestry, whether it exists or not, doesn't give anyone insight into what it's actually like to live as a minority in Canada or the US. Joseph Boyden wasn't cancelled for writing fiction. In fact, several First Nations leaders said that they were aware that his claim was a sham, but as long as he was just writing fiction, they didn't give a shit. They started caring a whole lot though when he started speaking more publicly and politically and was contradicting what actual First Nations people were saying. He wasn't canceled for writing novels, he was canceled for naming himself the spokesman for a group he doesn't actually belong to.
Sorry, this is getting really long, but it's something I really care about. I love reading fiction, and I agree that it is a good exercise to attempt to imagine someone different from yourself; it helps you see other people as full people, not just NPCs that you encounter in the show that you're starring in every day of your life. HOWEVER, Joseph Boyden was wrong to pretend to be a minority in an attempt to stand out from the crowd of other novelists, and was especially wrong to try to speak for (and contradict!) people that have actually lived the experiences he has only imagined.
To get back to the Chapo episode, I'm not saying that they were deliberately disingenuous in telling Boyden's story that way--I didn't have that information on the tip of my tongue either, until someone else reminded me of it. You can't just remember the details to everything all the time. What I am accusing them of is speaking too glibly about situations that they maybe should have spent a minute researching before taking a stance on.
And now I'll climb back off my soapbox.
TerkRockerfeller wrote
Okay, am I dumb or is this in direct contradiction to all their previous takes about these issues? They're acting like the fucking Pod Save Jons re: "issues that are only popular on Twitter and nowhere else" as if that's not the literal definition of their show
train wrote
Serious question. Would Will and Amber see the black panther party as shallow identity politics? What about Fred Hampton and the rainbow coalition?
Building solidarity means understanding the various constructs used to place us as individuals at different levels in our hierarchical society. That includes issues related to identity. Coming to the understanding that all struggles under capitalism, including your own, are related is radicalizing.
I'm not sure how you can conflate that with the corporate whitewashed identity politics that appear as part of our media and corporate HRs. Obviously corporations, liberals, and conservatives are acting in bad faith when invoking identity politics. The goal of their politics is to preserve the hierachy. That's not at all the same as what the left wants.
Also how the hell do you dismiss abolition by saying it's means nothing other than elimitating the police. Obviously left thought leaders have carefully considered what alternatives should and could be. Have they heard of Angela Davis or do they not actually pay attention to left leaders? I swear that was like listening to liberals telling Bernie Bros to stop being so critical or they will scare off centrists. What podcast is this, Pod Save? Fuck
BlackFlagged wrote
Serious question. Would Will and Amber see the black panther party as shallow identity politics? What about Fred Hampton and the rainbow coalition?
Yes. The more shit I see Amber, especially, say, the more I'm convinced they're a closet white supremacist.
MediumDickEnergy wrote
They lost the plot. It's like their brains got stuck in "everything's a grift" gear and now they are like paranoidly busting out the white board and red yarn for any strong position taken on anything.
celebratedrecluse wrote
I think they would probably lean on the fact that they were "marxist" or "proletarian" and totally erase their black identities as organizations/people.
which is a hilariously foolish, fash-sympathetic framing. but i would 100% expect them to do this, CMV chapos
Goonpilled wrote
That fash-sympathetic championing of the black panther party in the wrong way.
celebratedrecluse wrote
TFW tokenization don't exist
Goonpilled wrote
For white people to talk about them in the context of black identity seems a lot more like tokenization, or at least liberal lipservice, than leftists talking about them in the context of being the only anti-capitalist movement to see any success in America in living memory.
celebratedrecluse wrote
false dichotomy, you can discuss them in both framings simultaneously, my point was plainly that they would refuse to do so because of their point of view.
thisisbasil wrote
Well, she did live with Nick Mullen for a while. Hard to wash that off.
zellfire wrote
I haven't actually listened to this episode yet but already hate it so much
Vape_Noir wrote
Wow this sucks.
celebratedrecluse wrote
it is evident now more than ever, even more than when they got owned after bernie lost and virgil went MIA, that they are really not the podcast hosts for this moment. they got too rich and are now too cowardly to "burn bridges" with other "important figures on the left" lmao
Goonpilled wrote
Meh, This cancel culture shit, which is to say, twitter shit, brings out the worst in them. They had Angela Nagle on.who I had not heard, at that point, or since, say a single thing the pepes would disagree with (I didn't listen to the episode, and it's 50/50 at best that I will listen to this one). If they are bad, actually, it will come out in the wash.
celebratedrecluse wrote
so let's talk about why this brings out the worst in the whites?
celebratedrecluse wrote
or perhaps, it's too soon. maybe next year, we will talk about race, it'll be a better time right?
Goonpilled wrote (edited )
Are you living in 2020? Even if you were living in 2016, or 2014, you'd know it doesn't take a year for these things to come out... 2 weeks tops would be an incredibly long run of hiding it, especially for people who do nothing but talk politics. But beyond pretending they're going to be exposed as secret reactionaries this time, unlike every other time, let's talk about where the left and black activists should be finding common ground, which is in the dismantling of white supremacy.
As far as I can see, at the moment, the two most pressing issues, and the ones where mass action can have the most effect, are in law enforcement and in ending voter disenfranchisement.
In law enforcement both in the neutering of policing in it's current form, by whatever method, and (ideally) a complete end to the goal of criminal prosecution being punishment and retribution (at least when directed at those not currently above the law, I think on some level the kind of people who routinely avoid justice (i.e. the ruling class, and those who are privileged politically i.e. whites threatening or committing racial violence, implicitly or explicitly) need to be seen to suffer consequences in order for there to be any faith in whatever form of government enacts its ability and willingness to deliver justice.)
In voter disenfranchisement, the whole process of operating polls is currently so nakedly corrupt there's a million things that could be done on every level. Obviously it doesn't end with voting, electoralism is no panacea, even if the process were representative but it also seems like it's real integral to the maintenance of white supremacy that black people and the urban poor be denied the vote whenever and wherever possible.
Of course their are other issues, a lot of them economic to do with ability to get credit, and the cost of living when you are poor, the toll it takes on mental health, the drain on your time to do things that are convenient to the rich, but I'm too ignorant of the minutia of finance to talk about the first one in any constructive way, and the shape of the latter two are very local which makes it hard to describe what specifically should be done from a universal perspective.
celebratedrecluse wrote
Are you living in 2020? Even if you were living in 2016, or 2014, you'd know it doesn't take a year for these things to come out... 2 weeks tops would be an incredibly long run of hiding it, especially for people who do nothing but talk politics. But beyond pretending they're going to be exposed as secret reactionaries this time, unlike every other time, let's talk about where the left and black activists should be finding common ground, which is in the dismantling of white supremacy.
This isn't about exposing Will & Amber as "secret reactionaries". That isn't a thing, unless we are talking about a small number of actual fascists. This isn't what I'm personally saying about the chapos, I do not think they are consciously engaging in a project of fascist entryism (although others here disagree clearly, and I can understand your confusion of my point of view with theirs).
White supremacy is subtle, even subconscious, and has to be unpacked in peoples' psychologies. It is immanent clearly in what they were talking about in this ep. Moreover, all the chapos openly deride any effort to unpack of self-critique their perspective (not only about race, but really anything, i can't think of a single time they admitted wrong or grew from mistakes?), making money in the process. There is a market for insulating white people from any critique, including insulating white leftists, and this market process results in profit as well as the reproduction of oppressive perspectives and thus actions. Thus this is a discussion of material conditions, not merely "superstructure", because there is an economic undergirding to this just like with any issue relating to white supremacy.
brass tacks: The chapos are talking about cancel culture bullshit like boomers, and you are simply deflecting from their absurd and frankly revolting perspective with unrelated statements against broad impersonal systems and conditions rather than having a conversation about the role of race in culture, let alone about why these cultural commentators are pivoting towards reactionary ideology in their cultural commentary podcast. The discussion was very precisely about why these specific white people act in this specific way, and yet you have insulted my ability to know what year it is (lol) and pretended we were never discussing that...which we were, or at least the rest of us were.
I can only interpret this as a form of fear, a coping mechanism for a difficult subject, but perhaps you have miscommunicated.
Goonpilled wrote (edited )
Perhaps I have miscommunicated, or we are talking past each other, because I haven't listened to the episode yet.
Separating my "insulting your ability to know what year it is" from people trying to pin the podcast as having some kind of deleterious effect on the left by a paragraph and a half makes me think it's not just me.
If history is any guide, they won't apologise for this podcast, they won't throw their guest to the wolves, if he's bad overall they'll silently distance themselves. These are the tactics they use because in American political culture, and American comedy culture, if you apologise that cripples you, if you ignore it you can keep going. It seems like an effective tactic, though obviously amoral.
Are desires for them to self critique (publicly) all that different from demands for apology in terms of outcome? Two ways to reach the same conclusion. Having some kind of public meltdown about subtle internal racism people claim to see in you isn't something anyone respects, it makes you Macklemore. You can't have some kind of come to jesus discursive revelation where you declare yourself cured of racism and it sticks with anyone. If you somehow overcome subconscious white supremacy, to whatever extent, it will show in your actions. Declaring a revelation and instant transformation won't satisfy the people who want to find fault, and no one else will respect it either. Which is why time is a necessary factor.
Success in changing the superstructure though difficult (to understate things) when achieved has outcomes that can be seen instantly, in the form of changing of laws or funding. Expecting individuals to come through some alchemical process of moral purification, though it seems easier on the surface, results are impossible to ascertain, so it all becomes magical declarations that satisfy no one.
celebratedrecluse wrote
friendship with chapo cancelled, trashfuture is now my best friend
celebratedrecluse wrote
thanks for posting & pinning
Democritus wrote
God, this ep sucked ass. Been more enjoying Matt (Christman)'s ramblings and insights and Felix melting his brain watching primetime TV. This ep was every stereotype the old sub had of Chapo. And they were right.
tonesblookin wrote
This was the most uncomfortable I've ever been while listening. Lot of bad takes here.