I had no idea about any of this stuff, Faust. I lead a very sheltered life as a sort of survival mechanism. I have enough to worry about without policing the lives of rich white people I don’t know and will never meet.
Exactly, and it is tied into media obsession with celebrity that these cases are kept in public attention. What I am describing here isn't reflective of anyone here or individuals, it's a process that only becomes the problem on aggregate. In fact the self sustaining nature of it would not be possible on an individual level, it requires multiple people to run away with it.
It is this mechanism that only manifests on an aggregate level that I have an issue with.
Let’s start with Pyle. Let me be /very/ clear. I am saying Pyle’s position is personally morally objectionable to me, and having any association with him would make me hate myself. But his position is one that is not /innately, specifically/ evil. It can be used for evil, but there are morally neutral formulations of it, some which have no easy answers at all.
A Pyle like figure popping up in my stuff would entail abandoning any interest in media related to them. That’s it. That’s the whole extent. Sure, I’d explain why if asked, but given a relatively quiet and non-stupid reaction to the backlash from that figure (as seems to have happened here) there’s no point in bringing up “oh you know that guy did X” or whatever the fuck every time I see his name. It goes as far as “oh, I don’t care about this anymore.”
Sure that's fair, there is a difference though in vilifying a person for their beliefs or calling for a boycott of him, and choosing not to consume his media because it wouldn't interest you in the context of who it is coming from. The Former feeds the mechanism I described, the latter does not.
A Neeson like figure is different. I feel there is no defense possible for his actions, so I’m glad he agrees with me. He should be used to communicate how to handle “becoming a non shitty person” and shown an appropriate level of contempt (which basically amounts to “never let him live it down”, in the sense of not letting a friend live down a particularly stupid stunt — don’t let it be forgotten, but do forgive). This is my opinion, but I do think this is the ideal “public” response as well. You need to reinforce that not being a shitneck in the first place is the ideal to reach, and losing your shitneck nature later on down the line is an admirable event, but ultimately lands you, at best, runner up. I wouldn’t even cut a Neeson like figure out of my media diet: they did the right thing eventually, and not as part of a halting, hemming-and-hawing obvious PR blunderbuss approach, just being honest with themselves and everyone else. That’s worth quite a bit to me.
Yes exactly, he wasn't looking to defend the actions, nor looking for commendation on that, he was explicitly using it as a personal example of a personal failing in a story of why revenge solves nothing. In the context of the time though, Northern Ireland catholic kids in the 1980's were denied many rights and all came from impoverished backgrounds, in short they were thick as pigshit.
The fact that the perpetrator was black was what the media zoomed in on because "Neeson Racist" gets clicks. Again it ignores that he acknowledged this, but also the fact that back then racist prejudices against black people in Ireland were widespread, Ireland to it's shame was backwards for a very long time.
This comes from two places, ignorance and spread of racial xenophobic stereotypes, and that the average Irish person would not have met or interacted with any black people. In 1997 the total black population of the country was literally around 1000, in the eighties it was less than a quarter of that. That disgusting racist boogie man stereotyping didn't start to unwind until the late nineties. "It was a different time" is the argument that gets thrown out a defense of that, but it is not defensible, it was around the same period that allowed pedophilia to run rampant in the organisation of the church that most of the country was devoted to. The point is the country has moved on from that very dark point in its history.
And a Linehan figure is the one I would go far, far out of my way to make miserable. Anyone making excuses for that kind of behavior deserves similar treatment. Some things are unacceptable.
Agreed, he deserves to be challenged on his beliefs, as to abusing him online, he revels in it and is getting attention for it specifically because of the the self sustaining mechanism of people doing that on aggregate. As long as people keep feeding into his demands for attention, even if it is to get calls that we boycott him etc, it gives platform to his shitty beliefs. A pressure can be put on the media not to fund his shows which is what it looks like people were trying to do. Instead it backfired spectacularly where he was suddenly seen as a spokesperson for a debate against transpeople and was brought in to a televised debate when in truth no one should be listening to his dumb opinions. Suddenly a comedy writer with shitty beliefs is now a nasty political commentator with a platform.
It is this mechanism that is partially responsible for empowering the worst aspects of what we are seeing currently with Trump / Neo Nazi's etc. Because the Media gives time to the things that get attention, it ends up fueling this. Where Dickheads like Lenihan can use it to there advantage and gentler people like Pyle are crushed.
