The Political Thread

[JayzusB.Christ]

I wish every comic character was male, white and straight. Then I wouldn't be afraid any more

[Professor Bear]

Oh for the days of Wolverine rolling around in the mud rubbing the sculpted muscles of his hairy body against the Adonis-like Sabretooth as they tear each other's clothes off with their nails.  You know -  the days when comics were made for straight men.

[The Legendary Shark]

Plato suggested banning poets from the Ideal Society, partly because a poet appeals to emotions to get perspectives and ideas across. I think Plato thought that exploring arguments emotionally was vastly inferior to logical explorations and rational debate, and more powerful because more people enjoyed a good play than a good debate.

I think he was only partially correct in that emotional arguments are just as dangerous as rational ones. The emotional argument put out in books, songs, plays and movies can lead to genocide as surely as X+Y/Z=Rwanda. What I think is needed is to balance the two, to learn about our basic selves so that we can understand first what it means to be human and then on to thinking and feeling in a human way. How does the logic of an argument make us feel and how do our feelings colour our logic? Would it be okay to reject an argument in favour of something repulsive simply because it feels repulsive? Would it be okay to accept an argument simply because it felt good? It's a hard thing to do, bringing the two sides of my brain into balance, and I'm still a long way off - but just being aware of the problem is a big help. And I think there is a problem.

Society is awash with poetic, or emotional, arguments. Politicians prey on fear; without them everything will fall apart. Bankers, CEOs, civil servants, monarchs - all use the same argument. Fear poverty, fear Europe, fear Brexit, fear disease, fear people, fear foreigners, fear idiots, fear children, fear teenagers, fear pensioners, fear animals, fear yourself. Hell, even shampoo adverts aren't selling you shampoo, they're selling you a cure to your fear of having hair like a scarecrow in a hurricane.

It's all so terribly imbalanced. The logical arguments are drowned out by all the screaming and ballyhoo, and I did not know how to filter it for the longest time, not really, and I'm still nowhere near what you'd call adept.

Anyway, emotional arguments lead to emotional responses and censorship is one of those responses. The logical arguments against censorship are manifold and some of them even chime with my emotional need to respect others' rights as much as I respect my own. Hopefully some of those arguments will succeed in this case and cooler heads prevail.

From what little I've read on this thread it seems the situation is symptomatic of the general imbalance, too much emotion and not enough thought.

Yeah, that Plato dude was definitely on to something.

TL;DR - f*ck censorship.

[TordelBack]

... I still say the gaping anuses thing is where we really pinned the button on this.

I always knew that Godpleton lad would go far.

[Tjm86]

It's all so terribly imbalanced. The logical arguments are drowned out by all the screaming and ballyhoo, and I did not know how to filter it for the longest time, not really, and I'm still nowhere near what you'd call adept.

Anyway, emotional arguments lead to emotional responses and censorship is one of those responses.

From what little I've read on this thread it seems the situation is symptomatic of the general imbalance, too much emotion and not enough thought.

See I'd argue that Plato was wrong on that score and that actually we cannot ignore the emotional aspect of our being.  By trying to pretend that they are something separate, alien or undesirable we set ourselves up for the current problem wherein we struggle to manage the emotional side of the debate.

On the one hand too much emotion, as with all things, is dangerous but so is the other extreme of too little emotion.  How many atrocities down through history have resulted from either approach?  Being able to handle the feelings that circumstances, objects and situations elicit is crucial. 

Of course I could be completely wrong about all of this.

[The Legendary Shark]

I completely agree, TJM. We've been given or evolved two fantastic abilities - reason and emotion - and we should use them both in equal measure. As I think, so I feel, so I act is one of the states to which I aspire.

Reason is the map, emotion is the compass. (I wonder if this concept is what is meant by 'moral compass'?)

[Hawkmumbler]

In the words of quiet literally the only good person to work on Youtube, Captain Disillusion, Love with your Heart, and use your head for everything else.

[Dandontdare]

As someone who doesn't do social media (this forum is the closest I get), most of this passed me by but I've just spent the last hour reading up on gamergate, comicsgate, the Hugo awards, Theodore Beale, Brad R. Torgersen, Sad Puppies, and more.

Holy fucking shitbiscuits what is going on in the world? How do such colossal wankjockeys get so much support?

[Eamonn Clarke]

I'm bemused by the #Comicsgate thing with both sides claiming the other is responsible for some truly loathsome harassment, although I am inclined to believe it is the Comicsgaters who are lying about this.

Interestingly the Lakes comic art festival has just announced that Mitch and Elizabeth Breitweiser have pulled out over fears for their personal safety. I understand that they are possibly associated with the Comicsgate movement.

The Lakes festival having to tread carefully after their self-confessed mishandling of the Comics and Cola incidents last year.

I'm now feeling unsure about which creators might be suspect. At least I'm on safe ground with John and Carlos at Brum-Ice next month.

[Tjm86]

I wasn't aware of the 'furore' over the Lakes but thanks for the link.  Certainly makes for some interesting reading.  As a former Lancaster resident, Kendal was an occasional visit.  Nice enough for a day out and IIRC the Chocolate Cafe was a real treat.  I can see where Akhtar was coming from in terms of her thoughts on the place.  There are definitely more diverse places to visit.

Looking at the responses from the Lakes organisers, that was pretty much an own goal really wasn't it.  I can understand their take on her piece.  By her own admission she conflates her experience in the town with her experience at the festival.  How exactly the organisers are expected to be responsible for the behaviour of a handful of locals who probably had no interest whatsoever in the festival is a mystery to me.  I'm not sure how she can appear to hold them responsible for the casual racism of individuals.  At the same time though it does seem that 'offence' is now something that only certain groups are allowed to experience.  It's probably fair to say that it would have been much more sensible to start with a reasonable query as to why she chose to suggest that the organisers should be held in any way accountable and go from there.

[Professor Bear]

Holy fucking shitbiscuits what is going on in the world? How do such colossal wankjockeys get so much support?

By othering the problems of the industry and laying them at the feet of outside influences, they appeal to those fans who want reading comics to be the experience it was when they were kids by telling them the reason comics are different now is because they are made and/or consumed by younger, left-leaning and more diverse people, but this has the side-effect of creating an in-road for the wider alt-right movement that wants to curtail the influence of women, LGBTQ and non-white voices in the media.
Also a factor is that birth of the Comicsgate movement is arguably when retailers started whining at Marvel that no-one wanted to buy more diverse comics and that diversity was the cause of low sales, and not - as any moment's rumination might suggest is entirely more likely - a failure on the part of retailers to attract new customers despite essentially free product, free advertising, and a sea change in the perception of the medium.

[Steve Green]

I think pneumonia was more of a concern for me last time I went to the Lakes.

[Tjm86]

[ ... ] retailers started whining at Marvel that no-one wanted to buy more diverse comics and that diversity was the cause of low sales, and not - as any moment's rumination might suggest is entirely more likely - a failure on the part of retailers to attract new customers despite essentially free product, free advertising, and a sea change in the perception of the medium.

The big problem though is that a lot of this 'free' product is failing to prove to be the gateway drug the comics industry was hoping for.  There is a massive disconnect between the screen and page audiences with a lot of folks simply enjoying the spectacle on the screen and not particularly worried about the fifty plus years worth of history in print.  Pricing doesn't really help mind.  £2 - £3 a time doesn't really stack up against the old days.  How many of us remember the days when 50p was a premium price to pay for an advanced order American import?

Personally I'm not so sure that the diversity agenda was as big a problem as the quality of product.  When readers have a high level of emotional investment in characters that they've essentially grown up with they are far more forgiving of lapses in quality. Granted the most vocal segment are not perhaps the most representative but those that were possibly on the verge may well have used it as the perfect jumping off point.  (How many of us did that back in the nineties with tooth and the likes of the Summer Offensive?)

[JayzusB.Christ]

I dreamt last night about Trump (he was a teacher and I was in his class; he treated the foreign students like shit), then I woke up to find that the biggest twat in the world is coming to Dublin in November.

Can we borrow your balloon?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Also, I'm kind of relishing the schadenfreude of imagining him sitting at home in a huff while all the other presidents get to go to John McCain's send-off.

McCain - one of the last of a dying breed of non-toadying, honourable Republicans.