The Ethics of Consuming Media in Bad Ways or as a Bad Person

*shuts curtains*

So, you're mind-reading and speculating.

"Can you you prove that you're not a Communist?" asked Crumb, innocently.

Friend, you don't even have to post in this thread.
You don't have to back up your side of the case, because... ..let's see here... ...insult, ad hominem, whine, unsupported assertion. Yep, you're checking your usual boxes.

The bait? Was "Hey, Crumbroom, I have candy!" in the title of this thread?

I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you should go to talk to someone else?

Tears of a clown, what can I say. Again, perhaps it's time to move on to another love shack?

I never claimed that it was, at present, legally binding, however, it is not obvious that it may not, in some cases, not be morally binding. If Billy Holiday informed the Klan that she would prefer that they no longer ironically play "Strange Fruit" at their marches and meetings, she might have a valid point, no?

And there are other examples I have offered (e.g., the art exhibition that was for women only for the first month). I would have been a disinvited viewer had I secreted myself in to see the exhibition during the period when it was for women only. Did male patrons have a moral (as well as "official" / "procedural") responsibility not view that exhibit during that time frame? If you're specifically disinvited, it would seem that the answer is yes (or, at least, plausibly so).
I do.

Alas, you don't speak for everyone.

I am not ignoring any issue. Rather, I am discussing how these "real thing" sometimes might engender a moral duty impacting how we consume and who may consume.

We're not in the realm of hypotheticals. We have real examples here of artists regulating their public (or attempting to do so) and the public self-regulating their own consumption.

This ain't Dodge City and you ain't Bill Hickock.

When you're ready to engage in good faith, I'll be ready to offer my services. Until then, have a better one.

Ha! Good faith. Give me a break.



Just because you've got a long leash here to keep pulling the same shit, nudging in your politics with the hopes no one will notice, or might not get any push back from the threat the thread will be closed as a result, I'll respond as often as I like. And I don't have to meet your expectations of what a response should be. Pointing out what a phony you are is all I'm interested in at this point. Not getting pulled down in the undertow of all your semantics.



You don't like it, block me. I'm completely happy insulting you behind your back as well if you keep it up.

OK then.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I'll do some lower-case crowing about the historical changes since way since way back in my kid-hood and place of upbringing, I DO remember hard-core segregation, when people were not allowed in some places because of their race, ethnicity or religion. I've seen this sh*t up close and personal, thankfully a long time ago.

In regard to "ethics of viewing or listening as a disinvited user or consuming media in a disinvited manner.", I have heard people take the view that they are going to this place or viewing whatever BECAUSE they were excluded. The logic being that, if going to this place or seeing whatever "contaminates" it for the people who support the exclusion, that's just fine.

I can recall old folks remarking that "you just can't go anyplace nice anymore". The meaning of that should be obvious to the cynical as long as you know what "nice" means.

No. This is much worse. I was lured into a box by the promise of listening to a grown man worry over a Fred Schneider quote he half remembers from a decade ago.


The only candy I deserve at this point would be laced with cyanide.

You need more.



The only way to do vinyl, is to have it completely subsume your life.


No half measures. No common sense.

Alas, our collective memory is seems be comparable that of a goldfish.
Right, it's a subversive act to go where you're not invited. However, there seems to be cases where this is noble (e.g., Rosa Parks) and cases where it isn't (e.g., those Radio DJ's who entered a Mosque with a boom box blaring the national anthem after 9-11).

There was a controversy, for example, at Evergreen Campus over the "Day of Absence" (this is the controversy that Brett Weinstein got wrapped up in as a prof.). It started as a day when POC would absent them from campus as a political message (i.e., to get people to notice how essential POC are by way of their absence). When this changed to a day of absence for non-POC (i.e., when whites were told that on this day that they should absent them from campus), Brett objected (in a faculty email that was not intended to be read publicly) and then everything went south (i.e., roving mobs of students on campus trying to hunt him down).
Right, but that means it would be just fine for people to show up on the day of absence at Evergreen campus for the sole purpose of poking a finger into the eye of the people set up that day (e.g., like the two white students with the "Police Lives Matter" stickers on their computers who sat down in the multicultural space at ASU two years ago).

In art, we've struggled with questions of making (can a white man play the blues?), partaking
, and appreciating (e.g., gentrification, appropriation, colonization).

I dunno. If I was told by a filmmaker that a film was made only for devout Muslims and not for the eyes of unbelievers, I would at least pause and think about it. What would you do? Would you enter the theater for the premier at some local theater having been told this by the filmmaker that this film was NOT for you?

Yes, there is absolutely no difference between POC doing a walk out to try and raise awareness that their contributions have value, and white people walking out on their job because they....I don't know....want a day off too?


Notice how even Corax doesn't supply a reason why the white members of campus needed to stage a protest? Or what the protest was about?


Must have been a very vital stand they were taking.

I also think he doesn't quite grasp the joke in that Office Space clip.

Whites did NOT stage a protest on campus. Whites did not absent themselves in protest. Rather whites were being asked to voluntarily absent themselves from campus in solidarity with POC. Professor Weinstein objected to whites being asked to absent themselves on campus in a faculty email that leaked. And then the students freaked out.

The question in this case is hypothetical. If you were specifically disinvited from campus for a cause would you absent yourself in solidarity with that cause? Or would it depend on the cause? And if you didn't absent yourself would it be because you would find the request non-binding or would you specifically come to campus on that day to just irritate people? Skizzerflake was speaking the subversive participation, transgressing boundaries in the attempt to show that those boundaries are not legitimate. It seems to me that there are cases where this is laudable, but also cases where its obnoxious. Thus, there is no one-size fits all answer for who may consume art and how.

Then in this case there are a lot of details here that I feel might be important to be aware of.



Who was asking the white students to absent themselves and what was this reason?



What was Weinstein's objection?



What was the reason why students freaked out?


And a dozen other questions that might clarify whether your point has any relevancy at all.

The case has been documented widely.

As you have expressly indicated that you're not proceeding in good faith, I am not going to perform the labor you have requested. Google is your friend.

The relevance is a question I put to Skizzerflake--how would you feel about showing up on campus on that day for no other reason than to upset people? Skizzer has committed to the virtue of transgressive protest (i.e., occupying space as a disinvited party), but there might be limits to the acceptability of transgression. To return to another example, if a filmmaker told me in a face-to-face conversation that s/he had made a film expressly for Muslims and that non-believers really shouldn't attend a premier, I'd be inclined (at least initially) to be polite and leave the film to its intended audience. Ditto for a women's only art exhibition. OK, this isn't a men's space, so as a man I won't enter this space. This exhibition is not for me. The point in connection with this press for relevance is that there are cases that are not so easy to decide.

This isn't accurate, though. I won't try to lay it all out, because it was a complex situation that escalated very quickly, with some staff eventually being sort of held against their will and subjected to a struggle session of sorts. The professor in question was and is, in his words "deeply progressive," and I think he went well above and beyond with these students as he tried to explain why forcing students to not attend their college classes against their will was indeed quite different that people voluntarily staying home to make a point about society. He was placed in physical danger and had to first evade capture and then get taken away under guard for his trouble.

Professor Weinstein (and also his wife, also an academic and also former facility at the college) haven't changed their social views, but after a lawsuit (which they won) they are no longer tenured at Evergreen. I think this incident was when I really started to understand how vast the divide was between the various ideologies and factions in our county.

There is plenty of info on these events online, and I found it fascinating, if unsettling, to read about.

I presume Corax might get a reply in with some of these facts before I finish typing this, but I am hitting POST anyway...

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I misread his initial post. But it still stands in regards to him, I'm not just going to accept his take on some story because he references it. He consistently misrepresents things for the sake of his argument.



If this happens to be an issue where someone who self proclaims themselves as a progressive was acting like a bullish puritan, it's not like it comes as a surprise to me. I've been consistently disappointed with the behavior of lots of people, of all political stripes, the last ten years. And if it wasn't for how grotesque those acting in the name of the right have become during these same years, I would probably spend even more time being hostile to those from my own general ideology for dropping the ball.


But I don't know this story in nearly enough detail to comment. And, maybe if it was anyone else referencing it, someone who isn't notorious for pulling things out of context, I might have more 'good faith' that it wasn't a pile of stinking shit that was being handed to us.

Just wanted to highlight this again, because THIS 1000 times!

Dogmatic puritans of all stripes, and I can't stand it as someone who considers myself to be a free thinker. I guess people dig and start knee-jerking almost immediately when presented with something or someone they dislike or feel runs counter to their strongly held beliefs these days, which makes it really difficult to find common ground.

Maybe I won't fix my turntable.

In other words, "no soup for you!!!"

No way. Sexy always made me laugh.