
Cruel and Unusual Punishment - jeffreyrogers
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/02/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-2/
======
taneq
I think the most unsettling thing about this is not the expunging of someone's
past achievements as punishment for some terrible act, but the fact that the
mere _accusation_ of such can destroy someone.

The higher profile and more in the public eye you are, the higher the chance
that someone will throw some mud at you (even anonymously, in some cases!) and
that it'll stick, and there will be nothing you can do to repair the damage.

~~~
IAmEveryone
Aziz Ansari did get a lot of sympathy, suffered far less than many others, and
had all reputable news publishers take a pass on the accusations that were
floating around.

For Weinstein, as the counterexample, it seems like the public accusation was
necessary to get the regular wheels of justice to turn.

And to add the argument that is almost as tired as yours: “Innocent until
proven guilty” is for punishment by those with the monopoly on violence, i. e.
the state/the courts.

If I can not watch a comedian because I don’t find them funny (which is,
unfortunately, not a crime), surely I can skip their HBO special because I
believe their accusers?

~~~
ardy42
> And to add the argument that is almost as tired as yours: “Innocent until
> proven guilty” is for punishment by those with the monopoly on violence, i.
> e. the state/the courts.

It's a legal requirement for the state/the courts, but it's a just and fair
principle that the rest of us should still strive to embrace.

~~~
leetcrew
we ought to strive for it as an ideal, but admit practical compromises.

to make a contrived example: suppose you have a friend that several other
people accuse of stealing. none of them can _prove_ that he stole from them,
but each of them lost their wallets at separate gatherings where he was
present.

you might not find this sufficient cause to confront him or cut him out of
your life, but you would probably be a little more careful where you leave
your wallet when he's around.

~~~
idle_zealot
> you might not find this sufficient cause to confront him or cut him out of
> your life, but you would probably be a little more careful where you leave
> your wallet when he's around

This strikes me as socially unhealthy behavior. In the case described, one of
two things is true: 1) The accusers are right, and your friend is a theif.
You've implyed that if this were the case, you would confront them and/or cut
ties with them (which is reasonable).

2) Your friend is being falsely accused of a serious crime by several people.
In this case, he needs your support and trust more than ever.

In neither case is continuing to hang around him as normal, with added caution
against his potential theivery, a useful behavior. If he is a theif then you
continue to associate with a theif and to put youself at risk of theivery,
albeit with some reduced risk on account of increased caution. If he is not a
theif, then it's likely that your guarded actions and internal scepticism will
be picked up on, and that your friend will notice that you doubt his
innocence, which may well hurt your friendship.

That all said, I agree that "guilty until proven innocent" doesn't apply in
the scenario that you described. This is because there is "trial". You assume
innocence while trying to uncover the truth. So in your scenario, you would
assume that your friend is innocent and investigate the wallet disappearances,
question the accusers and accused, track down addition witnesses and character
witnesses, before finally passing your personal judgement. From there you can
confront/cut out the theif, or sympathise and emotionally support the falsely
accused.

~~~
leetcrew
I agree that if you can confidently decide whether 1) or 2) is the case, the
actions you laid out are the correct ones.

things are rarely so clear cut in my experience, especially when you only have
the resources of a sole private citizen at your disposal.

my "contrived example" is actually lifted from a similar experience I had in
college. I found it pretty suspicious at the time, because the gatherings
where the other people lost their wallets were quite small. ultimately, I
acknowledged privately that I could not conclude one way or the other, so
publicly I defended my friend. at the same time, I was always a bit more
careful of my stuff when we were hanging out (no idea whether they noticed
this).

my point is that there is a difference between taking punitive action against
a person and taking protective actions towards oneself. my position is that
there is no inherent contradiction in being too uncertain to punish but
certain enough to protect yourself, provided that it does not unduly harm the
other person.

------
kstenerud
An underlying theme I've noticed to this article and the response here is that
of people's attitudes towards ex felons. It's as if you believe that they are
permanently lesser people; that their moral fibre is beyond redemption and
they should never be allowed to enjoy the comforts of life, let alone pursue
life, liberty, and happiness.

You either punish and forgive your citizens, or else you admit that you're
going to oppress them forever.

~~~
jakelazaroff
I think a huge part of why we so strongly censure these people socially is
that most of them skipped the justice system entirely. For every Cosby or
Weinstein who does face the music, there are a thousand Louis C.K.s, who —
even when they _admit_ to masturbating in front of multiple women! — are never
charged with anything.

I agree that the stigma around committing crimes is too strong and that we
need to allow pathways to redemption. But people need to be brought to justice
before they can be redeemed, and what we see now is a reaction to that mostly
not happening.

~~~
mcny
I'm sorry but I think it is horrible to put Louis CK in the same sentence with
Bill Cosby. Maybe I don't fully understand the situation, but there have been
no reports as far as I know that Louis CK drugged anyone or physically forced
himself on anyone.

The case against Louis CK is purely that of abuse of power which is seen as a
"white" crime as opposed to physically restraining someone. The distinction is
important because "white" crimes are generally seen as better crimes and
indeed when I started writing this comment I too felt it was ridiculous to
hold Louis CK to the same standard as Bill Cosby.

I'll end like a broken record though. We in the software industry like to do
"blameless postmortems" add they like to say in devops culture. However, as
soon as we walk away from our jobs, we become the same primate as everyone
else. Maybe we shouldn't blame the abuser. Maybe we should not blame
individual district attorneys or prosecutors for failing to prosecute cases or
for acting tough on cases that simply had no common sense not. Maybe we should
not blame individual police officers for waking into someone's apartment and
shooting to kill claiming they thought they were in their apartment and the
person was an intruder.

Maybe we ought to treat the root cause of the problem — huge inequalities of
power. But how?

~~~
killjoywashere
Making Election Day a federal holiday, or at least moving Veteran's Day to be
concurrent, would be a good move.

Removing the Electoral College would be a good move.

Increasing and broadening the base of the estate tax would be a good move.

Increasing the highest bracket of the income tax would be a good move.

This isn't intended to be political, those are very specific policy actions
clearly designed to reduce the inequalities of power by a) giving citizens
more power, and b) taking power from the rich, and particularly from the rich
who believe there is profit in supressing the people.

~~~
malvosenior
How does removing the Electoral College help with inequity of power? Wouldn't
it just concentrate decision making into the very powerful, densely populated
areas. That's specifically what it's meant to combat.

~~~
killjoywashere
> Wouldn't it just concentrate decision making into the very powerful, densely
> populated areas

The value of a vote in Idaho would be equal to the value of a vote in Miami.
Yes, that's what I mean. The system has clearly been corrupted in the other
direction, where oligarchs have purchased, for very small sums, leverage over
politicians from these population-small electoral areas. Maybe we could at
least make them pay real money.

~~~
malvosenior
These are politically diverse areas that need equal representation. No one had
a problem with the electoral college until their candidate lost in 2016, but
that election proved that the electoral college is still relevant and useful.
New York and California should not dominate US politics.

~~~
killjoywashere
Barbara Boxer was formally taking action agains the electoral college at least
as far back as 2004.

------
glangdale
Naked Gun is funnier thanks to the unnerving experience of seeing OJ in it,
but Cosby as "America's Dad" is creepy AF.

What's particularly off-base about this analysis is that Cosby _was_ always
creepy. She raises this idea like it's an absurdity, but anyone who saw
"Spanish Fly" should have understood Cosby was a creep pure and simple. This
is kind of typical of the essay - it sprays around highly contentious snap
judgements like the NYRB essay by Ghomeshi being "Weak-but-still-interesting",
and Farrow's allegations being "dodgy" at a disturbing rate.

Buried in there there's a decent point (or two) struggling to get out. But
there's a (possibly disingenuous) blurring of people ranging from Barr though
Keillor through Louis CK through Cosby (i.e. obnoxious all the way up to
criminally convicted) and a blurring of consequences (are we talking about
'ostracism' or 'erasure' or 'market based companies not wanting anything to do
with you any more because you suck?).

Private companies failing to continue to propagate Cosby's work is in no way
analogous to being 'disappeared' by the Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure it's
still pretty easy to see most of the works by these people; they aren't
getting systematically purged from the libraries.

~~~
kstenerud
Private companies ending Cosby's prior art is giving in to the mob. Had there
not been such vitriolic outcry, they'd have happily continued making their
profits.

No, the erasure is not on them; it's entirely our fault.

Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged, and you're happily
cheering the flames.

~~~
intertextuality
> Our modern equivalents of the library are being purged

No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't have
any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such 'moral'
obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging books.

An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting, and
deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is 'our
libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue.

~~~
ardy42
> No, they aren't. Not in any way, shape, or form. Private companies don't
> have any obligation to continue showing anything. They don't have any such
> 'moral' obligations at all. They aren't going into libraries and purging
> books.

What if the libraries are privatized?

> An actual purge would be something like systemically recalling, redacting,
> and deleting any remaining records of art that involve Cosby. Saying this is
> 'our libraries being purged' is completely alarmist and untrue.

No. An actual purge would consist of removing the work from circulation and
locking the remaining copies in a restricted section in the library (a
giftschrank). What you describe sounds like it's inspired by the _fictional_
total censorship regime shown in _1984_ [1] than by nonfictional examples.

[1] Which was probably lie even in the context of that fictional world; I
wouldn't be surprised if the Inner Party actually had accurate archives kept
in a giftschrank.

~~~
vertex-four
> What if the libraries are privatized?

Then there’s a serious issue with your society that needs to be resolved
independent of anything else - libraries are a public good, not for the
benefit of any individual entity.

------
anonymous_i
She said:

    
    
      The question is whether we condition our consumption of what artists produce on their moral purity.
    

Here she answers it

    
    
      I want the stuff, and in truth I wouldn’t be all that bothered if the director were an axe murderer.
    

For me things are not black and white like that. Art is a form of expression
-that's my opinion. My assumption is that, artist's create art from out of
their own convictions. With that mindset , if I find out that artist is a
heinous person it automatically makes me think same about his art- may be
that's a wrong way to think about it.

If Sorkin wrote a play and a would be serial killer was cast as the
protagonist , I will have a hard time liking the play when the actualities
play out. This is probably wrong and contradicts what i wrote before because i
am attributing the integrity of the play with one single actors behavior.

Its not easy. Does some one have a better way to deal with this.

~~~
thanatropism
> Its not easy. Does some one have a better way to deal with this.

A boycott. Don't buy the stuff.

Seriously, the core of the problem is not moral judgement (although that may
be worthy discussing at a second, non-fire emergency, time.

The problem is automatic moral contagion. A publisher may make the approximate
market or moral guess that it should suspend its relationship with an author.
But a literary agent doing the same at lightning speed is deferring moral
judgement to the amorphous crowd, the "They". And the "They" is structurally
incapable of thought, let alone moral thought. The consequence is bookstores
getting caught in the wave and erasing traces of the author's existence.

I never thought Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, which seemed so overwrought and
sanctimonious ten years ago, had this much wisdom about human nature. Search
wikiquote for some choice rambling about "second handers".

It's really badly written too, so it's a shame human behavior is making it
more prescient and deeper than, say, 1984.

~~~
mcguire
See also Rand and William Hickman.

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman)

~~~
thanatropism
Rand's heros are bullshit, yes. In reality nothing happens from isolated
individualistic initiative, everything takes place in the space between
people. Howard Roark is a fictional version of Martin Shkreli.

That said, her acute pessimism about mob human behavior appears to be dead-on.

------
DanHulton
I find the line “You’re exactly the sort of person this happens to" very
telling.

When people are destroyed with "but an accusation", it's _very_ rare for the
accusation to have been the whole of it. Roseanne, Louis C.K., Weinstein, Bill
Cosby - it wasn't the accusation that destroyed these people, they had been
undermining themselves for decades by hurting others. The accusation that took
root only knocked out the lynchpin to the facade.

As to whether the author is actually a terrible person who has been hurting
people for decades or not, I don't know, but that specific line definitely
describes these people. They are exactly the sort of person whose lives get
destroyed over an accusation - because they've built up enough previously-
obfuscated proof to go with it.

~~~
maceurt
Okay, then explain Tobuscus. Look him up. He lost arguably over a million
dollars in deals with companies and with his publisher not to mention he
stopped putting out videos because of the whole ordeal. The only bad history
he had before was that had a drug addiction and he was "manipulative". However
all his past girlfriends backed him up, and their was conclusive evidence that
the accusation was false. Still, his life was pretty much wrecked.

~~~
allenbrunson
suppose for a moment that this Tobuscus guy was indeed unfairly maligned — i
don’t know, but hey, could be. that in no way contradicts the parent
commenter’s point, which is this: all the hand-wringing over the celebrities
whose careers were destroyed over “just an accusation” is wrong, because it
was never just that one accusation.

rosanne barr is a good example. the author of the article goes into minute
detail over the tweet that ended her show, yet somehow doesn’t have a word to
say about the decades of her bad behavior that preceeded it.

~~~
maceurt
No. Tobuscus was a basic celebrity (youtube channel with over a million
subscribers, one of the biggest in his prime), and was a reputable person with
no real bad history. He was ruined by one accusation.

Furthermore, most people are not perfect. You can find a bad history for
anyone i.e. James Gunn. That does not make an accusation destroying someone's
career okay.

> Suppose for a moment that this Tobuscus guy was indeed unfairly maligned — i
> don’t know, but hey, could be.

That is why false rape accusations are so bad. You have to preface this by
saying you don't know if he is a rapist or not, when there is physical
evidence that proves he didn't, but the accusation is more important than the
evidence.

------
jeffdavis
It depends somewhat on the transgression and how it relates to thr works.

Cosby's "lovable american Dad" character is incongruous with the crimes he
committed and that really does diminish the work.

Rosanne's charcter is flawed by design along with the rest of the realistic
family. Throwing in racism (or stupidity, if she didn't intend it in a racist
way) fits just fine with the character and does not diminish the great series
that it was.

~~~
kstenerud
Shouldn't that be a decision to be made by each consumer, rather than a mob of
social justice warriors pressuring companies to prevent everyone from
accessing it?

~~~
writepub
I agree with your opinions, and sympathize with the chronic downvoting and
excessive moderating meted out here.

There's little difference between the left and right these days, they've moved
so far extreme that their underlying philosophies have started to align.

One such is mob like bullying of corporations, and hysterical outrage. Be it
Nike & Kapernick, or __corp_advertizer__ and Ben Shapiro, tribalism and herd
behavior have been amplified by the internet. That has unleashed baser
instincts of retribution, and when network effects and scale do to retribution
what they do to the viral spread and adoption of Uber or Facebook, all hell is
unleashed on the afflicted, regardless of the gravity of their crime.

The internet was supposed to free our minds, not pile-on the moderately
guilty, at scales VCs salivate over.

~~~
kstenerud
This is mostly an American phenomenon. Outsiders tend to look on with
bemusement, but it's actually a very serious problem due to America's
historical ethical leadership (despite the failures), and their current global
influence. Like it or not, their example has far reaching effects the world
over.

I just hope that they can get out of this polar ideological warfare mindset
before it goes too far. They may have lost the moral high ground, but they're
still far removed from a rogue state. There's a real danger from Russian cyber
campaigns to divide and confuse. These are far more dangerous to national
security than the IP theft China engages in. Certain nations would love to
help America fall from grace.

------
voidhorse
Sure, I get it, but when you tap into your empathetic side this article smacks
of insensitity and whining. Assuming, as Lionel asks us to, that some of these
things _are_ true—should we really be complaining about the inaccessibility of
these works or should we perhaps think about what the victims might have
experienced, and that in many cases the abuse they suffered was in part
_enabled_ by the power the popularity of the so-called artist’s (many of the
examples in this article art not in fact what I’d call art but rather
_entertainment_ ) works bestowed upon the artists—a lot of these people got
away with stuff precisely because the wide scale distribution of their works
elevated them to a position of social immunity. That’s finally changing, and
that’s a good thing.

Just as it’s the consumers choice to refrain from consuming its the
distributors choice to refrain from distributing—publishers aren’t some
beacons of moral and political neutrality—they’ll do whatever benefits the
bottom line. To hold them to this weird demand that they be neutral and toss
public opinion aside is predicated on a much different reality than the one we
occupy. Changing the nature of distribution is a separate economic and
political issue.

On the whole, this is a pretty infuriating article. So-called artists should
not have some sort of special moral immunity—that’s _precisely_ the problem
that’s finally being solved with some of these banishments—and yes it is a
problem initimately tied to the popularity and avilabilty of their works, as
this is what gave them a veneer of invincibility in the past. It’s not some
simple situation in which these people would have been served justice
regardless—the dispatch of justice in these cases is often _hindered_ by the
artist’s success and notoriety.

Common approaches to morality weigh the bad more highly against the good. And
yes the ideas and actions behind the art matter. The extreme logical extension
of this argument is that you should be able to enjoy nazi artwork in a sort of
epicurean way without having to admit of any of the implications enjoying such
work might suggest and basically putting history, reality, and thought aside
while you indulge in whatever it is about the work that appeals to you—it’s a
very shallow, one dimensional, solipsistic and childish approach to
comprehending and consuming art.

------
coldtea
> _But that isn’t the fear in its entirety. Suppose a perceived violation of
> progressive orthodoxy translates into the kind of institutional cowardice on
> display in the forced resignation of Ian Buruma from The New York Review of
> Books. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones in the United Kingdom, my
> literary agent, my publishers in translation, and ­HarperCollins worldwide
> would decide they could no longer afford association with a pariah. My
> current manuscript wouldn’t see print, nor would any future projects I’m
> foolish enough to bother to bash out. Journalistic opportunities would dry
> up. Yet what I most dread about this bleak scenario is my thirteen published
> titles suddenly becoming unavailable—both online (gosh, would piracy sites
> be morally fastidious, too?) and in shops._

McCarthyism never died, it just went moved leftwards.

Similarly to how the kind of puritanism and moral hysteria that got the Hayes
code and "warning stickers" on CDs, thrives on under a progressive guise
today.

------
emiliobumachar
Great piece. To me, the strongest argument is that too often pieces of art are
made by dozens to hundreds of artists, and we'll punish along the hundreds of
innocents to get to the presumed guilty.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>pieces of art are made by dozens to hundreds of artists, and we'll punish
along the hundreds of innocents to get to the presumed guilty.

Punishing people for association is a common means of striking fear into the
people who don't care one way or another about your movement (most of the
population doesn't care strongly about most issues) and getting them to at
least half hardheartedly act as a force multiplier for your vocal minority.

I'm sure you can imagine why a business owner in 1870 Alabama might not want
to get caught selling to black people or a white tradesman may not want to
take on a job for said business or a publisher in 1922 might not want to
publish a book by someone who's known to be a communist.

Same principal.

I'm sure we'll look back on it the same way we look back on the red scare.
Regardless of whether the goal is a good one or not these sort of witch hunts
where a majority of the population is kind of uneasy about how extreme they
are almost never look like good ideas in hindsight.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Insightful. An artist will be less likely to look away from abuse that doesn't
affect them, if it might cause their work to be erased.

------
khawkins
While I appreciate that the author rightly calls out the cult-like mob justice
of the progressive movement as overly cruel and destructive, the final section
reveals an inherently selfish motive for this piece. He appears less concerned
with artists being treated fairly or justly and more with whether he can enjoy
what they made after the person has been destroyed.

IMHO, here's something devilish about seeing societal injustices, pretending
it's futile to fight back, but then pleading for society to spare the art from
their rampage. If we're going to let this be the new status quo, then
protecting the art should be the least of our worries.

~~~
whoopshanon
As the author gists at: what if we found out that Michealangelo uninvitedly
touched a woman’s bottom. Should we then deplatform him, remove his works, and
paint over the Sistine Chapel in an appeasing off white so that no one else
were to subject to his transgressions?

~~~
AgentME
I think the equation changes a lot once they're dead.

~~~
writepub
Why? Why not stop at the legally stipulated punishment proportionate to the
crime. Why is there a need to deplatform someone to the same degree,
regardless of the gravity of their crime?

~~~
AgentME
Networks don't necessarily stop reruns just to participate in the punishment
of someone. They do it because the audience's perception of someone is
changed. Bill Cosby's work and Roseanne weren't directly changed for example,
but in their new contexts, many people are uncomfortable now. The networks
want to run what people like. If they think people would generally like a
different show now over those old reruns, then they're just keeping up with
the market. They don't need a court's approval for that.

------
sandyhatches
This is why I read harpers.

------
AlexTWithBeard
That painfully resembles the approach they used in the Soviet Union: "Yes,
Ivan Ivanovich is a great poet, but is he a true communist?" And if the answer
is no, then no, his book will never be printed.

It also helps that the definition of being "a true communist" is sufficiently
vague to turn pretty much any situation in either direction.

------
treerock
> I’m one column away from the round of mob opprobrium that sinks my career
> for good.

Yet Rod Liddle and Jeremy Clarkson continue to have a successful career, Trump
makes it all the way to the white house, and netflix is filled with highly
successful 'controversial' comedians.

------
squozzer
I would argue that _economics_ drives at least some of this because Hollywood
and media in general have no shortage of talent waiting in the wings.

So new mechanisms for generating attrition will always find more fans (the
underdogs) than opponents (the top dogs.)

In those milieu, everyone - even filthy rich producers, is expendable. Though
expendable connotes a sense of usefulness, so maybe disposable works better.

------
jancsika
> For reasons that escape me, artists’ misbehavior now contaminates the fruits
> of their labors, like the sins of the father being visited upon the sons. So
> it’s not enough to punish transgressors merely by cutting off the source of
> their livelihoods, turning them into social outcasts, and truncating their
> professional futures. You have to destroy their pasts. Having discovered the
> worst about your fallen idols, you’re duty-­bound to demolish the best about
> them as well.

I'm not biting.

If we're talking about artists' misbehavior, let's take a well-known example.
Plenty of comedians continue to talk about the importance of Bill Cosby _as a
comedian_ , and to rate his influence up there with Richard Pryor, George
Carlin, etc. These comedians profess this publicly, and I can probably find
various examples from people like Seinfeld, Norm MacDonald, and many others.
AFAICT it's crystal clear to their audience what they mean when they assess
his comedy albums. In no way has his comedy gone down the "memory hole."

If you don't believe me, go on Amazon and search for "Bill Cosby albums" and
look at the ratings. Here's the first line from the first review I found:

"No matter how you feel about Bill Cosby, given recent events, and where you
might fall in your beliefs, it is sometimes necessary to separate the artist
from the art."

Rando review person on Amazon gets it. Does that mean I should count Rando as
a voice speaking out against the dangers of "progressive orthodoxy?"

I'd much rather count Rando as a voice repeating the thing I already knew
before I started reading this article.

Seems to me the author is guilty of the same fallacy as the creationist who,
when presented with new sets of fossils, only sees an exponentially increasing
set of missing links. (Is there a name for this fallacy?)

------
lucb1e
That's the first time I get not one but two JavaScript modal pop ups. Looks
like I won't be reading this article and potentially upvoting it. This is
getting crazy.

------
disqard
[https://outline.com/av7RF8](https://outline.com/av7RF8)

------
arduanika
We've effectively hatched a Roko's Basilisk.

------
janimo
What about replacing the collective work of several misogynistic and racist
authors, especially since the work itself lead to heavy discrimination?

 _cough_ the US Constitution _cough_ :)

~~~
lamarpye
I thought that was the plan, but it is rarely mentioned in public forums.

------
AstralStorm
Good old reductio ad Hitlerium: we still show historical movies about Hitler
and many countries do not outright ban his literary "work". (Others do.) It is
still getting published. And it is a political piece, unlike just a mere
association!

The problem is probably the lack of option due to centralization of publishing
(esp. movie publishing) and enormous political pressure from there.

You cannot show Cosby if MPAA or whichever organization does not agree to it,
nor you can sell them. The only bet is a media library which may have an
exception in copyright, until that fades away in half a century or more.

------
vermooten
She needs to realise that times have changed.

------
jakelazaroff
Underlying all of the points in this article is the idea that people are
somehow entitled to success. Louis C.K. and Bill Cosby are _famous_ , dammit —
how _dare_ people not promote their work or give them money!

Meanwhile, zero sympathy for the people who experienced professional
repercussions after being harassed or assaulted. Before you're successful,
people can harm your career or discriminate against you all they want. It's
okay!

Would we have a problem with replacing an unknown actor if it were discovered
that they were a serial sexual assaulter of minors and minor-adjacents? No?
Then why do we care when it happens to Kevin Spacey?

~~~
arduanika
No, that's not the point. This is not about any famous person being entitled
to anything. Her point is that "the arts consumer" is entitled to make their
own decision about what to read and watch and think. We are hampered in this
by posturing platforms and by the mob's simplistic "by association" mental
model of evil.

I can hold entertainers to any standard I like, or none at all. I can judge
them for the subset of crimes that are topical to judge them for, or some
other arbitrary subset of my choosing. Or, I can take the words "gratia artis"
literally.

~~~
jakelazaroff
I understand her point, it's just not consistent. Where is my option to
support people who would have had a career had it not been killed by some
powerful abuser?

The choice isn't "art or no art". That choice is made for us when someone
decides to wield their power over someone else. Our only choice is _which_ art
we ignore: that of famous abusers or that of their victims. The "arts
consumer" loses out either way.

~~~
arduanika
> Where is my option...?

There is an established path for group action here:

1\. Vote

2\. Pass a law that says powerful abusers are bad

3\. When someone's convicted of wielding power in a mean way, the justice
system will punish them by due process

4\. People learn what will get punished

5\. The artists you wish you could see will be less scared away

6\. You get the art you want!

Notice how throughout this entire process, you don't get to tell me, of the
art that exists today, what I'm allowed to read or watch or listen to.

On the other hand, cheating that hangman and bullying the platforms feels a
little bit like, how to say, wielding your power over someone else.

~~~
jakelazaroff
This would be a much more convincing argument if 3-6 weren't extremely rare
despite 1 and 2 already existing.

It's not really "cheating the hangman". He's not doing his job, so we have to
deal with it on our own.

Which sucks, because I agree: your proposal is way better.

~~~
arduanika
> He's not doing his job, so we have to deal with it on our own.

Ah yes, this is how everyone starts to think after a long glut of too many
superhero movies.

Criminal law has/will come down hard upon Cosby and Weinstein and such. Other
alleged offenders will settle claims and lose out on future employment. Step 5
is looking way brighter in this generation than in the last. But step 3, not
vigilantism, is really the best system we have for deciding between innocence
and guilt.

------
twic
> the British barely right-­of-­center magazine (that’s left-­of-­center, in
> the United States) The Spectator

Um. No. The Spectator is solidly right-wing - it's on the right wing of the
Conservative party, in fact. A piece in the Spectator's mirror-image, the
left-wing New Statesman:

[https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2017/04/how-
alex...](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2017/04/how-alexander-
chancellor-s-magazine-became-home-british-alt-right)

They have a long-standing columnist who is cheerleading for Greek fascists:

[https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/spectator-editor-defends-
colu...](https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/spectator-editor-defends-column-
supporting-greek-far-right-party-golden-dawn/)

------
trhway
on the positive side - despite all the mob power we still got the first openly
"devil's triangle" Justice.

~~~
jeffdavis
Not sure what the "devil's triangle" means.

The Kavanaugh case is interesting. It makes clear that some people want a new
process for determining guilt, but nobody seems to make clear what that
process should be.

A process is important because, in the face of uncertainty, we need an a
priori agreement on how to settle it. After churning through the process we
are supposed to unite around the result of it even of it's not what we hoped,
and basically record it as a fact in the public record.

Leaving festering challenges to every fact just keeps us divided, eventually
to the point everyone is working with their own set of facts.

It's also interesting because there _is_ such a process. I don't see any
reason the Maryland DA can't refer the matter to a grand jury. The grand jury
would either indict or not, and then I believe we could unite around that
result.

~~~
empath75
It wasn’t a criminal trial, it was a job interview.

~~~
squozzer
It was a trial in the court of public opinion, from which there is no appeal.
(thx to Machiavelli for that nugget of wisdom.)

------
verroq
Just like in 1984 where if you are vapourised you disappear completely as if
you had never existed at all.

~~~
hath995
While I can understand and somewhat agree with his point that the works should
be judged on their own merit. However, I find his attitude extremely callous.
He even reiterated the point that even if the artist was an axe murderer he
wouldn't care he just wants the goods.

It boils down to he's saying that the suffering of any of the victims doesn't
matter to him. Literally at all... More over there is a pretty deep
undercurrent that that has been the attitude for a long time and that the
suffering of others has been ignored for equally long.

If you want justification for removing the works of the artists then consider
it a form of ill-gotten gains. Would that work of art have been made if
they're crime had been revealed or convicted?

~~~
kstenerud
Ok, let's go down this road. Suppose a crime is discovered long after the
event. Does that mean you take their house? They probably wouldn't have gotten
a job good enough to buy one. Their possessions? Gone. How about their family?
Probably wouldn't have gotten married. Probably wouldn't have had those
children. Erase erase erase!

Honestly, the response here is downright frightening, and I fear for our
future...

~~~
hath995
The difference between all the things that you listed is that works of art are
able to give royalties to a person. If you continue to buy or consume their
products they still profit.

Obviously ex post facto law is bad for society. However, if an artist is
receiving royalties for a work they made during which they raped several
people, why should they still profit?

~~~
kstenerud
Because it's the job of the justice system to mete out punishment, not the
modern day equivalent of a lynch mob.

~~~
arduanika
> Because it's the job of the justice system to mete out punishment, not the
> modern day equivalent of a lynch mob.

This should be so glaringly obvious.

A common problem when someone finishes serving their jail time as allotted by
said justice system, the (much more low-key) lynch mob doesn't want to hire
them just yet.

But what doesn't happen is this: the prisoner, by some stroke of luck, gets a
job in a say a car factory, and suddenly everyone else in that factory should
loose their job, and I'm a bad person for wanting to drive a car that the ex-
felon worked on.

~~~
m_mueller
The difference is probably that the factory worker is not _seen_ by the car
buyer - we wouldn’t want to expose everyone’s mind to the terrible sight of an
ex-felon would we?

Now all that being said, this is probably just a pendulum swing. It looks like
for decades sexual assault was shielded in the media industry - me too is
overall still a positive movement IMO, it’s just important to not letting it
get too far (and I think those breaking forces are already acting).

------
peter_retief
It is all a fake, virtue signaling mess. I think of James Watson who had many
honorary titles for his scientific work revoked for a supposedly "racist"
observation. Other scientists who have produced complete garbage but make the
right political noises get accolades and honorary doctorates.

------
pluma
> I’m one column away from the round of mob opprobrium that sinks my career
> for good.

If that column involves you admitting to having sexually abused people, or
making blatantly racist or bigoted statements, sure. But I fail to see how
this is supposed to be a bad thing.

If such an event is so close to your normal behavior that you worry it might
happen just about any day now, maybe you are the problem.

------
unsatchmo
Cry me a river. All of the offenses she lists have one thing in common: they
are fundamentally someone with power using that power to subjugate ( to
varying degrees ) someone who they have power over. Learn to treat others with
dignity and respect. That’s what this is about. It’s not hard at all. People
are just upset because it was previously acceptable, but these actions were
always pretty gross.

~~~
arduanika
Shriver's thesis is not that Spacey et al. are victims. She lays it out in the
section that starts, "Which brings us to the party that really pays for the
new puritanism:...".

Did the fans of House of Cards use their power to subjugate?

Did Louis C.K.'s co-stars use their power to subjugate?

Did Ian Buruma's editor?

Once you cast off whatever simplistic lens you might have, e.g. "it's all
about power", it turns out the world is pretty interesting and complicated.
Embrace the complexity.

~~~
unsatchmo
I’ve seen this “separate the artist from the art” line of reasoning. I
personally feel icky knowing that my money is going towards someone who has a
pattern of bad action. Art is about culture and culture is about shared
stories. The fact is that call-outs work because they change the story. This
is what silent spring and the jungle did during the muck-raking era and it had
the objectively positive effect of punishing companies for externalising costs
at the expense of public health. Me too is just muck-raking for our modern
era, focusing on interpersonal externalities.

~~~
arduanika
Yup, it's your prerogative to feel icky. Personally, I'd feel icky
artificially withholding money from these people's colleagues because they
were unlucky enough to work on a movie set with someone who subsequently came
under suspicion.

If the platforms didn't infantilize us, we'd be allowed to make up our own
minds as to what's icky, because it turns out that not everyone has the same
feelings.

Also: did anything in my comment follow the “separate the artist from the art”
line of reasoning that you speak of? I'm pretty sure my comment wasn't about
the naughty artists. I'm pretty sure it was about the actual victims.

