Banned in Wichita
Princess Ivanka is having an angry.
Oh no, did somebody cancel her? From what? Who wants to hear her in the first place?
The people of Wichita, maybe.
Ivanka Trump has
hit out atcomplained about “cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination” after plans for her to give a virtual commencement speech to students in Kansas were canceled amid criticism of Donald Trump’s response to anti-police brutality protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
The really interesting question here is why was she asked in the first place? Really, why?
She’s a talentless ignorant opportunist. She sells clothes and jewelry, and profits off her criminal father’s presidency. How is any of that a reason to invite her to say things to students?
Meanwhile she has an absolutely stomach-turning InspirAtional talk of some kind, in which she tries to come across as serious and thoughtful not at all like a Barbie doll and instead…
…well, doesn’t.
Notice there’s a god damn White House logo in the top right corner, so this is some kind of official White House something or other – this pontificating robot in 5 pounds of makeup and snowy white princess dress is speaking in her capacity as a ???? in the current administration.
Notice that the man she works for is not all that dedicated to “listening to one another” – and neither is the man she’s married to, who also has an illegal and corrupt “job” in the White House.
She cites “the philosopher Joseph Campbell” – except he wasn’t a philosopher, he was a professor of comparative literature. He talked a lot of deepities, but deepities don’t a philosopher make.
discomfort and uncertainty
What shoes shall I wear?
I do sort of agree about cancel culture – actually, I very much agree – but I don’t see this as “cancel culture”. This is a school making a decision based on the well-being of their students not to invite someone to speak. Disinviting and deplatforming are not always cancel culture.
As for viewpoint discrimination, I think that phrase is loaded. Disagreeing with someone’s ideas is a form of viewpoint discrimination, but it isn’t what is meant when we complain about discriminating against minorities, women, indigenous cultures, or differing views on religion. Some viewpoints should be discriminated against, at least as far as speakers invited to graduation ceremonies. I would find it inappropriate for them to have David Irving speak, or David Duke (hey, is there something wrong with the name David?). I would find it inappropriate for them to ask Kim Jong Un or Vlad Putin to speak. That might be viewpoint discrimination in some broad sense of the term, but it is not what this term is usually designed to cover, the failure to promote bad ideas espoused by the dominant culture.
Well, that’s the thing, I agree about cancel culture when I do but not when I don’t. I can’t make a general statement on it because it depends on the particulars. I can think of a lot of people I would consider cancel-worthy if someone invited them to talk to students. I do think it’s far better to figure it out before ever inviting the cancel-worthy people, but I don’t think it’s invariably wrong to rescind the invitation. War criminals for instance? Donald Trump?
Yeah, it’s difficult to make a generalization on things like that. It requires actually thinking about things. I don’t mind doing that, but a lot of people seem to prefer slogans and memes. Less work, I guess.
I find it hard to call the cancellation viewpoint discrimination. I listened to the clip, and she didn’t HAVE a viewpoint. It was just a series of platitudes plagiarized from an American Greetings display of graduation cards.
There had to be some response to Obama’s own virtual commencement adress. Can’t let that smart, compassionate, uppity, former President Black guy go unanswered, can they? The Trumpistas have to insert something into the moral vacuum they’ve done so much to create.
So all you people out there getting pepper sprayed, maced, truncheoned, pushed, kicked, zip-tied, arrested and brutalized can use these experiences as wonderful opportunities for personal growth, just like George Floyd, who’s having a wonderful day looking down on the great things that are happening for equality, thanks to the personal growth he came to through the thoughtful application of a knee to his neck.
What Barbara said. Viewpoint shmiewpoint. A TED talk for rabbits is more like it.
For a moment there, I thought she was coming out in favour of listening to the concerns of people who are protesting peacefully, rather than tear-gassing them and beating them up.
[Raucous laughter, fading to sobs]
I may have this wrong, but: After Joseph Campbell’s death a journalist heard rumors about Campbell being a virulent anti-Semite. When the writer interviewed some of Campbell’s colleagues, they freely admitted Campbell’s behavior and added that none of them understood what drove his prejudice. Apologies for any major errors.
I bet you don’t have it wrong. Erik Tarloff replied to a tweet of mine about Princess Ivanka & Campbell with “and an anti-Semite.”
I’m surprised that nobody’s calling this a Wichita hunt.
Ha!
I too find cancellations generally problematic but…. somehow OK when… I feel they’re OK… It’s not a response I’m proud of, but I’ve never quite been able to get to the bottom of the matter, at last as far as my own response is concerned.
My first personal experience with cancellation was a cancelled lecture by James Watson. During the promotion of his lecture tour he said a number of problematic things about sex and race and the Newcastle venue cancelled in response. It seemed rude to cancel… but I could see why the venue (a combination of the university and the science museum) didn’t want to be seen to support those views…. But couldn’t they have made it clear that they don’t support those views while still holding the lecture….? But wouldn’t they be kinda-sorta supporting them anyway by allowing him to speak….? But shouldn’t they be keen to support even controversial (or just plain wrong) topics in an appropriate environment of discussion and enquiry…? But does that mean they should agree to host talks by creationists….?
There were protests about Watson’s talk, which surely contributed to the cancellation…. but there were protests about Dawkins giving a talk in the same series (OK, maybe a bad example ;) Perhaps more pertinently, there was a talk by another biologist in the same series the following year. I can’t remember who it was now, but the talk was deemed controversial because he was a supporter of animal testing. There were protests, but that talk went ahead (with increased security).
I never really managed to resolve my feelings on this to my satisfaction. As iknklast said, it’s difficult to generalise. I’d love to think that the university could have hosted a ‘controversial’ event providing it had some real substance (thus ruling out talks by creationists etc) and with an appropriate and unapologetic statement by the organisers regarding their stance. But we know this would turn into a nightmare for the organisers in practice as they’d constantly have to defend each and every decision which would undermine the point of having controversial talks in the first place, assuming there is one. It’s sometimes hard to blame venues for wanting to avoid that whole mess. But it still seems as though we’re all being left the poorer as a result.
In general, it seems as though organisers should do their homework, stand by their decisions and own any criticism. They should take great care over cancelling talks they’ve already booked. But to do that, they’d need to count on support from their institutions/employers which we all know can evaporate in a heartbeat without warning.
As for Ivanka’s talk: fuck it, cancel it. Cancel it just to piss her off. Cancel it in support of people whose time would otherwise be wasted. Cancel it in support of the victims of muscle strain due to excessive eye rolling. Cancel it because cancelling it is funny. Damn right I’m inconsistent.
The real question is why anyone would ever invite her in the first place. She’s such a zero. What’s the point of having a zero give a commencement speech? It would make more sense to get a dress dummy to do it, and it would spare the audience all that bizarre head-tossing and grin-flashing.
Joseph Campbell, philosopher. Is that a thing?
Not as far as I’m concerned! But a lot of people who don’t know what philosophy is think it’s just having some ideas about stuff. A lot of bookshops shelve Ayn Rand in philosophy, while others don’t do that but do put self-helpy soul-fixy stuff under the label “philosophy” with no actual philosophy present at all.