Monday 8 February 2021

The Political Economy Of Shock-Jockery.

Silenced: MediaWorks’ decision to take veteran journalist Sean Plunket off the air raises some very disturbing questions about the survival of political diversity in New Zealand.

LAST WEEK, Sean Plunket was awarded the DCM. Mere days after John Banks, standing-in for his fellow right-wing broadcaster, Peter Williams, was driven from Magic Talk Radio’s microphones, Plunket was abruptly advised that his services as the station’s “Magic Afternoons” host were no longer required. Magic Talk’s decision was made amidst the furore created by Banks’ failure to fight on-air racism with sufficient zeal, and the subsequent threats from its major advertisers to withdraw their support. Did the prospect of the right-wing contrarian’s imminent return prompt at least one of those major advertisers to issue Magic Talk’s proprietor, MediaWorks, with an ultimatum? Something along the lines of: “If Plunket stays, we go”?

Plunket’s position at Magic Talk was already somewhat precarious. In December of last year, the Broadcasting Standards Authority found against the veteran broadcaster for what it deemed to be his “offensive and harmful” comments to a spokesperson from Te Whānau ā Apanui – the Maori iwi manning Covid-19 check-points in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Magic Talk was reprimanded and fined $3,000 for Plunket’s breach of broadcasting standards. Already acutely sensitive to accusations of racism, their top shock-jock’s outspokenness was, almost certainly, top-of-mind among the station’s bosses – and advertisers.

MediaWorks’ decision to take Plunket off the air, if it stands, raises some very disturbing questions.

On the face of it, his fate appears to have been determined by the opinions he holds, which, if established, would constitute a clear case of discrimination on the grounds of political belief. If upheld by the Human Rights Commission, such a violation of a New Zealand citizen’s rights and freedoms, as set out in the Bill of Rights Act 1990, could end up costing his employer a great deal more than $3,000.

Presumably, a broadcaster in Plunket’s position, would argue that he was hired because of, not in spite of, his right-wing political beliefs. Having failed to enlarge its listenership by delivering a programme-mix tailored to the prejudices of centrist and left-leaning New Zealanders, MediaWorks (via Magic Talk) would be accused of re-orienting itself towards a much more conservative demographic. In this regard, Plunket’s right-wing contrarian style would have been exactly what they were looking for: a feature, not a bug. To take a person off-air for doing exactly what his employers’ business-plan required of him, seems just a tad unfair.

In its current form, however, it is difficult to imagine the Human Rights Commission wanting anything less than the responsibility for determining whether or not the rights and freedoms of a citizen in Plunket’s situation have been violated. Indeed, it is hard to avoid forming the impression that the NZ Bill of Rights Act 1990 has become a source of considerable embarrassment to the Human Rights Commissioners responsible for its enforcement. In the current “woke” climate, the key sections of the Act are inconveniently uncompromising.

Section 13 of the Bill of Rights Act 1990, for example, guarantees to all New Zealanders freedom of thought: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference.” Even more inconveniently, Section 14 grants them the freedom to express those opinions: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”

In the past, radio stations and television networks have guarded these rights and freedoms jealously. Indeed, there was a very strong tradition in both public and private broadcasting that “news and current-affairs” and “advertising” – like matter and anti-matter – should never be allowed to meet.

This tradition was about more than the broadcasters’ attachment to liberal-democratic principles. Radio and television, no less than newspapers and magazines, pitch their product at different socio-economic segments of the media market. Among the many factors contributing to the profile of these “demographics” is ideological predisposition. Newstalk-ZB, for example, makes its profits out of an older, whiter, less credentialled, and generally more conservative demographic of listeners. Advertisers buy air-time for products and services tailored to fit this demographic profile. They want Mike Hosking’s audience: and, until very recently, that required them to, at the very least, tolerate Mike Hosking’s listeners’ less-than-woke political views.

It is very hard to believe that MediaWorks’ advertisers were unaware that Magic Talk Radio had pivoted right, away from RNZ National’s demographic and towards Newstalk-ZB’s. It is equally hard to credit that Sean Plunket and Peter Williams were not presented to them as powerful magnets for the folk who were missing Newstalk’s arch-conservative host, Leighton Smith. Surely, they would have understood what sort of political discussions their ad-breaks would be interrupting?

What are we looking at, then, when we see corporations threatening to pull their ads from programmes whose listeners come from the very demographics they are targeting? Are we witnessing an intra-corporate triumph of woke PR mavens over hard-working marketing grunts?

The answer is, almost certainly, “Yes”. Overwhelmingly, the graduates pouring out of this country’s “communications studies” courses and into corporate PR are young women who, for years, have been schooled in the uncompromising dogma of social radicalism – especially feminism and anti-racism. When they learn (via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) the awful truth about the latest shock-jock’s racist outrage, their first instinct is the get their employers’ brand as far away from the perpetrators’ “toxicity” as possible. Failure to “get ahead of the problem”, their bosses are cautioned, will lead directly to consumer boycotts. The “Roastbusters” precedent will be cited. To date, their bosses have demonstrated little need for further persuasion.

This is politics – albeit of a particularly bizarre kind. Attempting to homogenise ideologically an irreducibly diverse market makes as little sense for capitalists as it does for political parties. Imagine what would happen to the National Party if it produced a policy programme that matched Labour’s in every respect. How would conservative voters respond? Either, they would pressure National MPs to force the abandonment of their party’s new centre-left orientation, or, if that proved impossible, they would begin casting about for a new party to champion their values and beliefs.

At some point in the near future, it will occur to senior corporate executives that what’s sauce for the woke goose might also be sauce for the aggressively right-wing gander. Take too many conservative voices off the air and eventually their fans will band together and announce a boycott of their own. At that point, corporate CEOs are going to have to do what politicians have always done: learn to count: “What is the volume of sales that we are likely to lose if the woke boycott us? Is it larger or smaller than the volume we will lose if conservative Kiwis stop buying our products?”

Similarly, how long will it be before one or more local (or overseas) capitalists grasp the possibilities of establishing a Fox News-type media entity right here in New Zealand, and using it to seize more-or-less the entire conservative demographic? How biddable will corporate leaders be if the size of its right-wing audience turns out to represent a clear plurality of the New Zealand population? Whose threats of boycott will count for more then: the Woke’s or the Right’s?

If the New Zealand news media persists in the folly of “cancelling” all those listeners, viewers and readers who fail to pass ideological muster, then we will see the emergence of our own version of Fox News – with all that entails for the health of our country and its democratic institutions. Who would lead it? Do we have a Hannity, or a Tucker Carlson, waiting out there in the wings? Where to start looking for a talented right-wing contrarian, boasting years of professional broadcasting experience, who is currently between jobs?

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website of Monday, 8 February 2021.

36 comments:

David Stone said...

Please correct me if I am wrong; but from what I have read so far the original sin of Banks , which Plunket's sin is to question the evil of, was to allow the opinion to be aired that the pre european Maori were a stone-age technology society. As they did not have any metallurgy as in bronze or iron and steel to my knowledge though they did amazing carvings with stone implements ; andBanks described their fishing nets as equal in quality of cordage to anything available in Europe at the time and far greater in extent, the comment seems very hard to refute. What defines Stone age technology? Am I missing something here?
There are other aspects of pre European custom that are unattractive too , just as there are in the history of all human societies. But this doesn't seem to be a matter of expressing an unpopular opinion but an unpopular fact.
It might be offensive to mention such a fact , but is that to be our rule now. I don't see how anything in society can be improved without recourse to facts and truth. There can never be justice without truth.
D J S

greywarbler said...

And what if the autocratic Woke and the automatic Right fill the media and air/ear-space with their arguments; constant, permanent, disputations? Where then for the small voice attempting reason trying to leaven the pragmatic with empathy, and with the covering spirit of altruism, after abandoning idealism as leading to madness? Then Bertrand Russell's thought comes:

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell

Those attempting wisdom will be unheard.

Nick J said...

Freedom of expression enables all views no matter how obnoxious to see the light of day and suffer scrutiny. Cancel cultures attempt to drive dissenting voice underground merely allows them to fester. Woke attempts to do this: I contend that it does so to avoid serious examination of its' more excessive contentions.

David George said...

Greywarbler: "wiser people so full of doubts"

They are wise because of their doubts, not in spite of them I suspect, Grey.

What to do in a world of lies and deception? Some ideas:

Develop your ability for critical thinking, try and make a genuine and compelling case for something that is the opposite of your beliefs and their comforting certainty.

There's two sides to every story; if your news/information/opinion source is consistently affirming then both it and you are wrong, unsubscribe and ignore.

It is the responsibility of all of us to speak the truth no matter the consequences.

We are entering a very dark place I'm afraid.

“At the beginning of time, according to the great Western tradition, the Word of God transformed chaos into Being through the act of speech. It is axiomatic, within that tradition, that man and woman alike are made in the image of that God. We also transform chaos into Being, through speech. We transform the manifold possibilities of the future into the actualities of past and present.

To tell the truth is to bring the most habitable reality into Being. Truth builds edifices that can stand a thousand years. Truth feeds and clothes the poor, and makes nations wealthy and safe. Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, so that he can become a partner rather than an enemy. Truth makes the past truly past, and makes the best use of the future's possibilities. Truth is the ultimate, inexhaustible natural resource. It's the light in the darkness.

See the truth. Tell the truth.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Mark Simpson said...

We are continuing down the slippery slope beginning with the excoriation by advertisers and woke folk of John Tamihere questioning a Roastbuster "victim's" lack of responsibility. Banks deciding to let his listener air his thoughts and now Plunket's DCM are further examples of muzzling freedom of speech because it is offensive to the current cultural cohort of self-righteous arbiters of journalistic standards.
Concomitantly, we have a new History Curriculum perpetuating white guilt and brown victimhood. Meanwhile our appalling Maths and Literacy statistics seem to be subservient to woke culture agenda.

John Hurley said...

Here's the culprit
https://twitter.com/JasonCParis/status/1357416689390870529

What we need is a Youtube Channel - then they would try to close that down (of course). But by being woke they are ignoring a heap of concerns. On all the channels they randomly insert Maori phrases. I saw a Maori nurse say "I'm not interested in elderly" (meaning non- Maori) that sort of thing is common now. We need someone like Peter Whittle. Sean would be good at that.


greywarbler said...

David Stone - context is everything.   If your Stone connections have had their feelings hurt at the comment, no offence was intended I am sure! This is what has gone down folks:

https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/27-01-2021/calls-to-can-john-banks-over-stone-age-culture-comments-about-maori-on-magictalk/
Jan.27/2021
The comments were made on Tuesday’s show, [that would be Jan.23] and were captured by a TikTok user, who posted a video of them being made. A caller, identified as Richard, said that Māori were “victims of their own genetic background. They’re genetically predisposed to crime, alcohol, and underperformance educationally.”
With Banks declining to interject, Richard continued, saying he was not interested in learning about, or having his children learn about “their stone age culture.” 

When Banks next spoke, he said “your children need to get used to their stone age culture, because if their stone age culture doesn’t change, these people will come through your bathroom window.”  The comments have been widely condemned on social media. 

The wording reflected similar comments made by Banks in 2011 on TV show The Nation, while he was running for parliament for the Act party.
[As follows]:   “If we continue the bankrupt response of just paying young Polynesian, young Māori men in South Auckland, the dole to sit in front of TV, smoke marijuana, watch pornography and plan more drug offending and more burglaries, then we’re going to have them coming through our window regardless if we live in Epsom or anywhere else in the greater Auckland,” he said at the time.


(I have put the words of derision reported to have been said by John Banks and his caller in bold, so they can be easily read by anyone who wants to be informed.   And I have followed up with the further vilification encouraging racist, contemptuous responses that Banks is reported to have made when standing for the Act Party in 2011.   Perhaps some Act Party members will understand now matters that hitherto have seemed obscure to them.)

John Hurley said...

Open immigration and asym­metrical multiculturalism support global capital’s bottom line as well. Dissolving borders allows greater access to low-wage unskilled labor. It also helps businesses that rely on high-skill workers avoid supporting the schools that educate them, the families that rear them, and the communities in which they grow up. Anti-majoritarian politics, mean­­while, undermines the ability of any demos to form and wield democratic power against business. Thanks to these shared interests between intellectuals and investors, left-modernism has combined with capitalism’s “four freedoms”—the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor across borders—to become the ruling ideology throughout the West. https://www.firstthings.com/.../2019/11/the-future-is-mixed

Our Ethical Advertising Policy
https://news.vodafone.co.nz/news/community/ethicaladvertisingpolicy

The Barron said...

I guess Sean Plunket may find the value of being a member of a Union or the folly of not.
The first point is we are unaware of the contract that these broadcasters have signed. Generally there would be clauses about bringing the employer into disrupt. Breaching the Broadcasting Standards could be defined as such. This would be the same in other expressions of political thought, there would be clauses that limit the expression in other media forms. The Human Rights Act and NZ Bill of Rights may be curtailed by the fact the employer does not have to give a vehicle to his political thoughts or views if they run contrary to policy or community standards as defined by his contract.
If he belonged to a Union, the contract could be advised on before his employment contract and have to be within the boundaries of the Union. Unfortunately, as many on the right may find, the individual employment contracts they advocated for the vulnerable leaves them without a lot of moral authority when they are threatened.

David Stone said...

Thanks for the heads up Grey. Seems the insults were about the present rather than the past, and not so much about the state of tech 200 years ago.
D J S

Nick J said...

I have never been a fan of John Banks however I can understand why he thinks as he does. I recently read a book on the Bassett Rd murders in the 60s and his father was described as a member of the then Auckland underworld. I did a littje more digging, John in his childhood and youth saw things that pertain to what he says. Its personal observation and evidence seen up close, as opposed to theory or prejudice that drive his world view.
Bloody hell, defending John Banks, never thought I would do that. Wash my mouth out.

Rex Harrison said...

People's right to free expression does not create an obligation on me to listen to them; nor does it create an obligation on me, or anyone else, to provide a platform for them.

David George said...

The apparent unholy alliance between the authoritarian left and big business (the Woke and Wall Street?) is not too difficult to understand.
Both are totalitarian in their instincts and bound, not by love and compassion, but by a will to power over a weak, materialist, hedonistic spiritual void. Both seek a compliant and divided populous via the destruction and diminution of it's traditional bonds and values; the family, the church, the community and an attack on it's very foundations - it's culture, it's history and it's heroes. How to resist?

Rod Dreher has a new book out Live not by Lies (it's subtitled "A Manual for Christian Dissidents" but the message is not solely for Christians) that chronicles this new "soft totalitarianism" and what we can learn from the efforts of courageous individuals in their struggle against the totalitarianism of 20th century Eastern Europe and Nazi Germany. One such story is that of Vaclav Havel's who's efforts helped lead to the fall of the Czechoslovak police state and his installation as head of the new democratic Czech government. Havel knew what he was up against but also that the people were not entirely powerless. An inspiring story.

Here's one, a shortish clip, for Greywarbler, who I suspect is, like many of us, someone that has some difficulty reconciling their Christianity and what has become of the movement for social justice. Includes the reading of a poem by Marx that leaves no doubt as to his motivations.
"I'm a Christian and a Marxist" https://youtu.be/fvmn1wLglak

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Honestly, all these conservatives bitching – someone makes a commercial decision because someone has said something that makes them "commercially toxic" or brings the organisation into disrepute. That's capitalism people. You live by the contracts you sign, and if you break those contracts it's your own damn fault.

John Hurley said...

Banks wasn't equipped to handle sensitive topics. What does he know of cultural relativism or genetics. All these things require nuanced understanding. But what is important (what started it all) was Stephan Molyneau. Molyneau it was argued was wrong about population differences in IQ and yet this is one of the "most agreed upon sets of data in social psychology". I wrote to HRC who said race isn't real and there is no difference in the IQ of an Ashkenazi Jew and Australian Aboriginal. So that discussion is not to be had.

What Marcuse preached (Jess Berentson-Shaw) was that people are trapped in a false consciousness to break it we must repress all thought from the right (no Sean Plunket & wall to wall Marcus Lush, John Campbell). [That's where I'm at on Marcuse]. If we can't bring in evolution and human nature then we cannot critique multi/bi culturalism.

The easiest way to shut someone down is call them racist (as Simon Cohen tried to here). I got banned from interest.co.nz (I think) for saying something like "Chinese come here and they buy a house and then invest in a business such as buy a small bus and become a tourist operator. They bring a wife and 4 parents who are on Super after 10 years (or were). I also said "people judge who is a New Zealander and what conditions (price) satisfies that (marriage/ skill). As far as I know that was about it. It's the governments fault. But you know when there hasn't been rain for quite a while you shouldn't light fires.

greywarbler said...

Truth offered as the shining light for all to go forward with. In truth, there are always different versions of the truth, only critical thinking will find the most likely, and then it can be destructive to tell it.

Kiwidave quotes Peterson. Persuasive speakers who draw crowds have been known to change history for better or worse! The Bible says this: (New King James Version 1Corinthians 13:1)
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
But that is only one version of these translated words from the Big Book. So which version is the most truthful version? Can there be more than one clear truth? Which seems the best in this link - https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/13-1.htm

Looking at Jordan Peterson's ringing sentence: It is the responsibility of all of us to speak the truth no matter the consequences.' We have developed intricate and devious brains; I consider it is the responsibility for us to find out what the truth is and then act on it if at all possible using our reason, as soon as reasonably possible.

Peterson's declaration has particular importance in the present vibrant discussion about 'free speech'. There is an attempt to establish stable ground on which to build precepts, with firm rights and laws that we can refer to. But think on it, laws are guidelines of how to behave that have consequences for not obeying them. They can be changed, they can be wrong but then not changed, they can intend to be right but be poorly administered, or be carried out in a biased manner that turns an intended beneficial law, into a poisoned chalice for many. We must allow for some flexibility yet not enable fictitious thoughts to be poured into our minds and be absorbed by society.

One example about truth, and the with-holding of it that I came across. In a book about children in WW2 taken from their parents in the Holocaust, and distributed to various places. One choice was to pass on those with the right Aryan look to approved-German parents. TLater the mothers and fathers who had survived, longed to know if their children were still alive, talk to them. The researcher for the book was given details of one daughter and asked to look for the name and details as she progressed. She did, found the daughter, but decided not to tell this to the mother. The reason was that the daughter had been told from her earliest years that her mother had abandoned her, and was a careless, dissolute woman. The child had been taught to despise this mother of the past. There could be no happy meeting as imagined by the mother whose hope for that had given her existence to old age a purpose. The decision was made to withhold the truth and leave her mother with hope, rather than bitter sadness at the end of her life.

Jordan Peterson has much perception and compassion, but he needs to limit himself in his ringing statements that he offers as absolutes. Like so many of us today, he goes over the top in his beliefs. Respect and compassion for others, being slow to harsh judgment, and forgiveness to ourselves for failure, would promote a far better world, and if he just stuck to those two precepts he would give people a small handbag of beliefs able to be used all around the world.

greywarbler said...

GS 10.36 Israel F stated his truth, sullied his employer, broke his contract and got away with it. That's capitalism too, it's all a game to the players but a serious contest; the exception proves the rule?

John Hurley said...

Sean Plunket was sacked from BSA for
On Wednesday Plunket tweeted: "Anyone else feeling for Harvey Weinstein?" - which seemed to imply that he felt for the Hollywood producer currently involved in a scandal involving many women coming out claiming he's sexually harassed them.

I can see where he is coming from, it was a witch hunt and Weinstein was at the mercy of the mob.
Twitter
No claiming. He was found guilty. He did sexually harass them.
If you are going to make racist and misogynistic comments, then you have to realise that there should be consequences for these.


So Sean's tweet was a denial of Weinstein's guilt when it was about process. Wheels within wheels, you/I can feel sympathy for people whose drives get the better of them e.g the doctor who murdered the blonde teenager he was obsessed with or a pedophile who has urges most of us don't?

Brendan McNeill said...

It would be a delicious moment to witness Chief HRC Paul Hunt, an outspoken advocate for 'hate speech' legislation, being forced to advocate for Sean Plunket in defence of his right to hold and express opinions freely and of his choosing. Please Lord....

greywarbler said...

David Stone
You refer to the differing states of tech between the stone age and now. I have been thinking about the differences in culture between then and now. Then they learned skills and practices with the materials at hand and lived and worked as a community. Now we have advanced tech that is continually adapted for devising more tech, that ruins the lands and people wherever the materials are gathered for such tech, and that expands but distorts human lives where that tech is used. (Have recently watched a short film on the freeing of Bougainville from an embedded civil war, and seen where the giant copper mine had eaten up the land and plants. Also noted the most inspiring and bold actions of NZ and our Army that matches things the great Chinese general Sun Tzu - c.500BC wrote about.)

Different from the stone age culture is our individualistic, consumer culture where we are constantly enticed to buy things that are not just replacing worn-out articles. We use artificial tokens of exchange rather than barter of things made or food. We are just as mean and thoughtless, good and kind as stone age people were likely to have been to carry on their existence. We have had a century of education and learned that we don't need religious values, our educated minds can make up our own. So we have used money as a measure of good, we go our individual ways, and even the plight of needy children doesn't draw us to being a supportive community. The newspapers are full of the latest viciousness of big countries which are enhanced by tech. The tech available to the people, social media, can be like seeing the dirty bandages from a hospital full of people with gangrenous limbs. The good is not sufficient to overcome the bad, and society won't make the effort to support systems that would give everyone a more positive and ethical views leading to contented co-existence.

Frankly when one looks at the 21st century and what has been done, and not done in the first two decades, I think the stone age people would have been happier and more fully human than now in our restless age with business adopting the theme of 'disruption' so we can never settle and be content. Mainly our governments have bowed to business leaders reminiscent of the David Low cartoon of the two despots of Hitler and Stalin. We are being organised by machines, which the authorities have accepted without a whimper, children being required to have them for education so they might be among the chosen to have a job. (I note David Low had no formal secondary schooling - https://spartacus-educational.com/Jlow.htm)

There is a machine or device inserted between us and almost every action of living that we wish to do; I have to look to the right and left when I step onto the footpath to avoid being run into, I must have a cellphone, government and businesses are closing their physical doors, and making contact through the internet that is full of crims and hackers who will steal your details and can cause you to be declared dead. While we peck over the seeds of discord in our times, the big picture can never be envisaged, because we only look up to watch television in vivid shades of unreality.

(Some deep thoughts looking past the jibes about stone age people and we modern wonders!)

Ricardo said...

Ah Chris

Once again, while you and I are some way apart on an ideological spectrum we sit side by side in the middle of the broad, renaissance, post-enlightenment highway called classical liberalism.

I share your deep sense of discomfort.

greywarbler said...

John Hurley 8/2 17.06
I don't get the Peter Whittle - you don't explain why and what about him?
Is it -
* Peter Whittle (politician) (born 1961), former deputy leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party
* Peter Whittle (mathematician) (born 1927), mathematician and statistician
* It's not Pike River Peter Whitttall I think.

So why Whittle? Is he good at making insensitive statements about people at struggler level?

Nick J said...

A little deconstruction required here re GS comments. For several years as GM legal issues stopped with me. Mainly employment contracts.

Most contracts state you cannot bring your company into disrepute but this is usually subject to your company core business, and with regard to legal and ethical business behaviour.

Should a company fire an employee for political views or actions they would break several Acts, and be likely found out of order in Court. Going there would probably cost employers lots of money. What is more the Employment contract only usually applies when at work.

With regard to employees views costing companies business GS would do well to consider that half the population invariably thinks differently to the other. What an opinion costs from one side you will pick up from the other. If your product or service is valued your customers will forgive sins of employees. In my experience however the customers don't care.

So all up take GS commentary as what you would expect from somebody with no commercial experience. Basically dogmatic nonsense.

sumsuch said...

I'd be interested in your opinion of the vital influence of right-wing media in bringing America to Amerika. How that dovetails in with free speech, shouting fire in a theatre and our situation here in NZ?

sumsuch said...

Kiwidave, 'the apparent unholy alliance ...' There is no coalition between the Left and the rich. If you see that you're mistaken at the core. Everything Right however ... Look to the lowest 20 percent we haven't 'carried along with us' as we did before 1984. Their desperation. And then look in the mirror.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

So Nick – what political views was Banks fired for? I mean I consider the man so toxic as to be radioactive and wouldn't dream of even hiring him - but political views? So now racism is just another political opinion?

David Stone said...

Greywarbler
Some interesting thoughts there; But in some sense what has happened to society with the developments in transportation and communication is that the "stone age" social unit has expanded. First throughout individual countries, and now we are a truly global community, and share everything with the people of the world.
We might have gone too far, but there's no going back.
Once fire was invented there was technology to get out of control and environmental destruction, with primitive tools species important to society's welfare were over hunted and wiped out. A scientific approach and global co-operation is needed to now assess what developments are ultimately unsustainable , and take the measures to manage the environment. It is now a truly enormous task and not looking hopeful, but we probably have it in our power as a species. The greatest difficulty is agreeing to seek the truth in everything rather than adopting a "belief" and exercising our intellect to rationalise it.
Cheers David J S

John Hurley said...

greywarbler said...

I mean this
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuYHZz4-qdDSPNvuCfN4wMQ

As I was saying above about being banned - things are tinder dry and don't start a camp fire.

The Soviet Union had a fatal flaw and that was that as things go (the real world) prices are signals (high price tells us what to produce more of), and I believe there are fatal flaws in the new societies which started when the 'racist' societies were declared immoral and Lyndon Johnson, Tony Blair, Lange, Whitlam, Trudeau started the multicultural society.

Eg the bitchers and moaners (myself above) are to be suppressed; people will go through schools and universities and emerge with a head full of Paul Spoonley. People like me will be cleansed with time?

Except that you look at Stuff anti-racism: everything is aimed at Whites. It is unlikely we will all identify as Good Whites as there will be nobody to compare ourselves to. If there weren't the Deplorables, all we can say is "Hello, good morning, don't we suck!?"

The message needs repression and that is becoming more and more apparent (as per Marcuse). People are seeing the 'thems" in the message (as it makes them feel bad). The "thems " will be seen in the history curriculum and people have an emotional immune system which fights back.

There is an assumption that you can just ignore the talk back caller as ignorant bitchers and moaners. They are the subjects of the celebrated authors novel but it is the author that gets the adoration. Any actor, or author who comes from their ranks is instantly lifted out of it (irony). The ordinary people would like to feel special, not "diverse" as Vodafone wishes us to. You can only be special if you are unique to your society and your part of the world. Stuff is complaining about migrants being "always the foreigner" and finding subjects for the scripted message. A Japanese person FFS a Chinese, whites are the most racist people in the world! If "whiteness" was abolished we could see the chauvinism of all the other groups here in bulk.

In the UK Saddik Khan is having groups look at London's statues. Some are "problematic". Except that this is only happening in those white Anglo countries and you have to ask yourself: if migrants come on the basis that the host population will be better off (we can assume that is how it was sold), this eating out of cultural artifacts of the host population must be a negative? We don't have culture and myths for accuracy we have them for fun - self esteem. There is a major flaw in the new history curriculum for a start. That's why we close ourselves off from those who aren't "us" and attempt to assimilate newcomer into our culture.

The talk back bitchers and moaners taste the discourse of the elites understand they are the "thems" and the weirder ideas like chem trails are readily adopted; readily shot down but those elites are still the "thems". They tweet about whiteness and toast themselves as smarter than their fellows, which (I suppose) coming from an egalitarian base exacerbates as we saw in school how people are graded.

David George said...

Grey, those were my words: "It is the responsibility of all of us to speak the truth no matter the consequences", my conclusion, particularly in light of where we know "The Big Lie" can lead, and how it can gain currency from a general failure to "See the truth. Tell the truth" -Peterson. That's why we need the freedom to speak. That was also the conclusion reached by Solzhenitsyn, the survivors of the Eastern European repression and the Nazis in Dreher's book Live not By Lies.
Sumsuch, note the word apparent. There is no doubt that big business, big tech and global media have cosied up to justice activist and far left/Marxist revolutionaries, BLM etc.
The disparate eventual outcome, a bowed and compliant people unaware of their oppression to be achieved by the same strategy, totalitarianism, as I outlined.

Nick J said...

GS you would never be in a position to hire him. I doubt you would have customers either. Or employees given that they would probably have to pass some hard political questions to your satisfaction. Which incidently is illegal.

Id also note that I never attempted to defend Banks from any racist comments he may or may not have made. I merely pointed out his views are likely coloured by his upbringing.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"There is no doubt that big business, big tech and global media have cosied up to justice activist and far left/Marxist revolutionaries, BLM etc."

Kiwi Dave. Utter tosh. What the hell advantage would big business get from cosying up to "Marxist revolutionaries BLM et cetera"? Christ on a crutch this is tinfoil hat territory.
Big business is on the side of big business. If big business sees some loudmouth on their site, using their stuff for nothing, yet costing them clicks and money, they will enforce the contract that they have signed – even though it's just may be click click click yes I agree – and get rid of that person that is losing them clicks and money. Maybe people should read their contracts instead of just clicking?
As I've said before that's capitalism – if you don't like it the barriers to entry are not that great, after all Parler managed to enter the space. Of course totally incompetently but that's competition – which is also capitalism. And incidentally they include a clause in THEIR contract which says they can ban you for any reason or no reason. Bet you didn't realise that when you joined.
Nice to see you quoting Marx about the compliant people unaware of their oppression though. Although Marx did not necessarily foresee capitalism's ability to revise itself to make sure that people STAYED unaware of their oppression.

greywarbler said...

Jordon Peterson, making definitive pronouncements on everything just sounds like another cult leader. He says he has reached his conclusions rationally, and apparently his audience don't try to do the same for themselves, just pick up on his ringing tones. (That would be a good idea for the faithful - to have his voice as a cellphone ringtone announcing to all around, that Truth is All.) I am trying to point out to someone I know that truth is a matter of perspective (proved by all the different truths that bystanders give about seeing an accident unfold.)

The Jordan River has played an important part in Jewish history, one being that it dried up allowing escape across the dry bottom away from their enemies. That was a good thing and I wish it would be an example for the prophet with that name.
https://kangclaire.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/why-did-god-dry-up-the-jordan-as-he-did-to-the-red-sea/

One very important truth that he has told is how desperate young men are for some positives, someone who cares about them. There is a problem that adult men seem to prefer authoritarian measures and generally show less care and compassion than average women. They call it 'not fussing' when the children are young, 'they are being taught to be strong and self-reliant'; 'Don't cry, big boys don't do that' (ie have feelings of sadness and loneliness). Men are getting much flak for what other men have done but don't understand their empathy and compassion gap. (Read books about the behaviour in boys boarding schools etc. 'Posh Boys" is a book recently published.) Men criticised by women in the recent moral outrage are protesting their innocence, yet seem unwilling to improve the way that all men are socialised. So the blame-game goes on and the gap of friendly, respectful relationships grows. And Jordan, though appearing to have good intentions, deluges his audience with words that in the end confuse those looking for ways of coping in our denatured society, both environmentally and through business setting aside morality as a restraint to profit.

greywarbler said...

David Stone
Cheers to you as well. I hope that globally we all can come together and solve our problems but there is a trend in economics to think up good models and anything that hasn't been considered is an externality that disrupts the perfect model. I fear that we will settle further into that thinking and much and many will become an externality.

What is left will be the internality and I don't know if Jesus* will be sent again to save them. Productivity-wise he did a lot in his active preaching and works years, three about, in the near future he could be zapped by some automatic weapon from outer space whenever he uttered sensitive words that have been dropped from our lexicon.

Boys with their toys will be the final spawn of our world, they will make meat to eat in their laboratories, and babies will be developed there, and sex will somehow be tamed as a wildcard in an ordered society. Physical work will be done by robots, so no need for forming partnerships with females to do the cooking and most of the housework and produce children. That seems a likely outcome from the thinking that has proceeded in fits and starts over the last centuries. Or alternatively the above may occur to embittered warrior women and they may rise up and replace men, not necessarily for a better and happier outcome. (Brave New World anyone?)

*A chronology of Jesus typically has the date of the start of his ministry estimated at around AD 27–29 and the end in the range AD 30–36. Jesus' early Galilean ministry begins when after his baptism, he goes back to Galilee from his temptation in the Judaean Desert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Jesus/

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"Or employees given that they would probably have to pass some hard political questions to your satisfaction. "
Nick. Nonsense. I've hired people, and never once enquired about their political views, only their competency. I'm sorry, but your competency in argument is suspect.

sumsuch said...

Kiwidave, you're not serious. 'There is'...!

The Left loves, by you fuckwits, reason above everything, and that includes the rule of the people.

sumsuch said...

Your strange magic outside Truth, Kiwidave. In the last 20 years before the 270 year-old shit we've delved for ourselves turns up at our doorstep.

Reality has to come first as a fiat in our last minutes as we continue to fondle our pulliating stomachs.

My nic-nac-storing-in-his brain brother at 30 to 40 % of his heart performance prefers his 'ground-breaking' conspiratorial nonsense from 1980 on ahead of reality. Of course in the safe republic of NZ he despises the prick won't have to pay for his sin against rationality.