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In an Age of Increasing Authoritarianism, What Becomes Tolerable or Even Morally Necessary?
Ace of Spades posted a question (which I can’t find anymore) in relation to Disney canceling Gina Carano.
Increasingly Pressing Question: Does Piracy Become Not Only Tolerable, But Morally Necessary, In An Age of Nazi Media Companies?
That’s a worthy topic to be sure, but the thought that forced it’s way to the front of my brain after reading that is this: Han Solo was only likable and acceptable to good people because he was a smuggler and rogue in context of an evil regime. If he were the same rogue smuggler during the time of the Republic then he would have been just a selfish criminal. The pervasive evil of the totalitarian Empire made his life an acceptable and in some sense even admirable endeavor, a declaration of individualism and free will in the face of evil and oppression. In 1977 we all understood that implicitly, as the Soviet Union was quite real and a constant reminder of precisely the kind of totalitarian evil represented by the Empire. We didn’t need backstory for either the Empire or for Han Solo to know that it was ok to like Han Solo and to hate the Empire.
This is why the sequels ruined Han Solo. Once the Empire was destroyed, Solo returned to the black market of piracy and smuggling (and all that goes with it presumably). How could Solo return to such a shiftless and parasitic life absent the evil regime? How could he destroy his family? His replay of his old life wasn’t admirable or even excusable anymore. Now it was just a catastrophic and almost total failure of character. Was he always a low character? If the answer is yes then that seems to erase the original movies where he obviously had good character where and when it really counted; if the answer is no then how could anyone think it a reasonable development that Solo would not only return to that life but reject his found and earned good life?
I suppose it’s just another dead canary in the American coalmine of the 21st century. Only a culture that doesn’t understand what made Han Solo a beloved character to begin with or doesn’t understand why the sequels ruined Han Solo could cancel Gina Carano from a supposedly quality Star Wars product in a most totalitarian and fascistic way and feel righteous in doing it.
Published in General
In the context of Nazi media companies, I consider it “privateering”, not piracy, and I would be fine if all of them went bankrupt-they actively seek to blackball and restrict non-SJW competitors, they brought this nuclear option on themselves.
As for Han, while he wasn’t a low character, he always had a pronounced, even explicit selfish streak (largely a defense-mechanism for navigating the dystopia he operated within), but he also always had enough good qualities to overcome it when it mattered-I’m talking about the original trilogy, not the Disney movies.
The morality of interstellar smuggling depends on the morality of the trade laws one is violating and the goods one is transporting, not the era in which one operates.
In the Republic Era, there were plenty of unjust trade restrictions that a smuggler with a heart of gold could violate with a clear conscience. The Trade Federation’s outrageous blockade of Naboo, for example.
There are similar opportunities in the New Republic era. For example, a smuggler with a heart of gold should have no qualms about transporting unlicensed goods across the First Order’s borders.
Meanwhile, in the Empire Era Han was a spice smuggler. According to Wookiepeedia, spice is a dangerous narcotic, so it’s not like Han’s original trilogy smuggling was a victimless crime.
And that is how the prequels started ruining Star Wars. Poorly filling out a back story that no one needed. First, the event you’re referring to, while technically occurring while the Republic existed, was effectively occurring during the birth of the Empire. Second, I didn’t think that the Trade Federation was a Republic agency but a separate private association; transporting goods through such an extra-legal or illegal blockade isn’t actually smuggling – it’s just legal freight under duress. Third, yes a real Republic can do unjust things, but the legitimate response is persuasion and activism through your elected representatives – not breaking the law because you don’t get your way. Fourth, yes those smugglers with a heart of gold are born of injustice and oppression; if they’re smugglers before injustice and oppression, though, they are just criminals.
As for the New Republic era, I don’t think they actually demonstrated or even asserted that the First Order was anywhere near as pervasive or evil as the Empire in its operation. They also didn’t exactly show that Solo’s turn had anything to do with the First Order; my impression was that it was unrelated. However, Solo was a general and so had more effective and legitimate means of combating the First Order if that was his motive (which I do not think it was). He could have continued serving the New Republic – while staying with his family – by staying active in special forces or intelligence service. That ain’t what he did.
So, as to the question of the subject header, are you saying that we should all cancel Disney+, but find a piratey source to continue watching the shows we like?
No. No I am not. Ace is saying that, indirectly. We’re still technically in the Old Republic era.
Our jedi council is also having a hard time seeing what is happening and is also infected with some goofy balance philosophy along with lethargic apathy. Some are actually just sith in hiding. For now.
Because the Star Wars universe set up a noble ending in the first three movies (Episodes 4-6). Thus it was necessary to deconstruct everything good that happened with Episodes 1-3 revealing the force was nothing more than an energy field that interacted with genetic matter. I haven’t seen the last episodes, but I imagine the noblity of the characters had to be taken down several notches . . .
Indeed. Nothing matters in a material world except who can will to power.
I agree with Ace; though frankly, I have little interest in watching anything Star Wars at this point.
The practical, self-interested reason to oppose ‘piracy’ is that it bankrupts entertainment sources you desire to stay in business, which is no longer the case when the media companies in question ruin or abandon their own IPs just to spite their prospective customers. Moral considerations against the practice are null and void when media companies collude to restrict and repress non-SJW competition. Outside of jailtime and fines (which have all but fallen into disuse for this sort of thing, though the Democrats seem intent on reviving them), there’s really no reason not to, anymore.
So you believe it’s okay to call people Nazis and propose to steal their property. Have you shifted over to the hard Left?
No, no, and no.
Okay, I didn’t think so either. But you are saying that if a company fires an actress, it’s okay to pirate–that is, steal–their property. And if you aren’t calling them Nazis, what’s that word doing in the title?
I do think it’s a question that Americans in particular should grapple with and be able to answer in great depth, though. When we look back at the intolerable infringements on liberty that led to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution we can see that while there were infringements and while they were intolerable they were also legal. Oh, and some citizens could tolerate them and even welcomed the measures.
Of course we don’t like piracy, smuggling, and roguery or those who engage in such dirty business which is destructive to civil society. However, like Han Solo in the original Star Wars movies we can understand it and maybe even begin to accept it as part of a legitimate response to growing injustice and evil in an uncivil society.
No I’m not saying that. The first two sentences of the OP make all this clear. I confess that I’m not seeing where the communication breakdown is occurring.
Perhaps related: do you find Cancel Culture to be nazi-ish in any non-overwrought way? Do you think that the media has blown past mere bias into propaganda and censorship? Along with other institutions like major corporations, colleges, and political entities, and politicians?
Perhaps nazi is too freighted. How about Soviet? Khmer Rouge? Fascist? CCP? Jacobin? Inquisition? McCarthyite? Generic authoritarian?
Go ahead, pick one. Yeah, Nazi is too freighted. I thought this was something we understood, since the word is so often thrown at us.
No. It’s a lousy comparison.
Yes.
Yes. But describing a company like Disney as evil and authoritarian is wrong and over the top.
It’s thrown at us illegitimately and hysterically and disingenuously. I’ve never agreed that therefore we should refrain from legitimate and sober comparisons.
Just amongst us, though, can you see the overall point past the nazi baggage? Either Ace’s or mine?
I think it’s a legitimate comparison. Cancel Culture is nazi-ish, stalinist-ish, jacobin-ish, fascist-ish. It isn’t exactly those things (yet), it’s just very much “-ish”. Those things don’t arise without plenty of “-ish”. Politics is downstream of culture until politics reverses the course of the stream (hey I’m from Chicago and we did exactly that so our sewage would flow to someone else’s drinking water).
I’m glad that we agree that we’re past mere bias into something more sinister, anti-American, anti-liberty, and anti-civil.
To the extent that Disney engages in evil and authoritarian crap then I think it’s legitimate to call them evil and authoritarian. I do not think it’s over the top as they’ve gone pretty far. It would have been over the top if we were still on the summit of Slippery Slope, but we’re well into the slide toward Rock Bottom with none of the brakes engaged and in fact many feet jamming the gas pedal.
Sure I can. There’s nothing less liberal than a liberal these days. They’ve behaved abominably–some of them, anyway; I’m thinking of Tlaib types and Rachel Maddow, not the old Democratic lady down the street. I’m old enough to remember that after the brief success of McCarthyism, McCarthy and his followers have been treated as villains for more than sixty years. If we do our jobs right as citizens, I hope to live long enough to see today’s inquisitors get the same eternal treatment. That’ll happen if the right ever learns how to fight, culturally.
Is the issue with using the term “Nazi” for anything other than actual Nazis? As if Nazi-as-metaphor is somehow offensive and minimizes the Holocaust?
Yes.
(EDIT) I think it’s wrong to describe US border control as Nazi, and wrong to describe firing an actress as Nazi.
I think you’re wrong. I think the comparison was valid. But if you prefer, find me another historical example where one group of people systematically “unpersoned” another group of people to the point where the average citizen saw nothing wrong with rounding them up and destroying them. “Nazi” is useful because it’s (at least, for now) common knowledge, and everyone instantly understands the historical context that the metaphor draws on. To say a particular metaphor can never be used is the sort of language policing we expect from the authoritarian left.
I hope so too. However, we’re in a more perilous place than we were during McCarthyism. It’s the difference between the downsides of McCarthyism versus the downsides of Sovietism (lysenkoism might be a smaller stand in). Plus, I’ve heard that McCarthy was right in many ways. Are the progressive authoritarians right in any way? Just the opposite: they have literally nothing in their favor.
Are we still in a time where this can be corrected within the civil system? There is a tipping point that isn’t always demarcated by war. Have we tipped yet? Is it time yet for something more strenuous than the cultural fight that Republicans have been botching/shirking/losing for the last 100 years? How can we engage in the civil fight while being censored and propagandized?
When will we know we’re at that tipping point? Cancelling is a great indicator. Brazen and widespread corruption – while claiming righteousness and questioning to be illegitimate – is another. Forcing us to cease productive activity. Gun grabbing, Restriction of free speech, peaceable assembly, and religious practice. I fear that most people (including me) will not accept the reality until it’s too late. It’s kind of like how when I was a kid there would be this big build up and dread of the vomit that was inevitable, yet once I vomited I immediately felt better and it was a lot of torment for nothing.
Maybe we’re talking about different things. I’m talking about Gina Carano’s original comment.
Hutu and Tutsi. I can’t see how another example would escape the minimalizing critique, though. The Rwandan genocide shouldn’t be minimized any more than the German genocide. I don’t think sober and circumspect comparisons actually minimize it, though.
What if we are specifically thinking of the Nazi tactics employed during the early 1930s, as opposed to the culmination of their depravity during World War 2? The political nature of the targets may resemble Stalinist/Maoist pogroms more than Nazi pogroms (though the latter had those as well), but the details of the persecution seems more reminiscent of what happened in Germany during the latter stages of the Weimar Republic (as the Nazis had yet to gain absolute power, were at least in some sense allied with corporate interests, and had less time to indoctrinate and/or break the populace)?
I was going to bring that up as an example of the sort of historical reference that would get you blank stares from most of the populace. (Unfortunately.)
Nor do I. I put them in the category of “Never forget!”
Maybe you’re right. Gary I think is talking about Ace of Spades statement from which came the title of this post. Gary may also be talking about my ruminations on how Han Solo’s rise and fall indicate how Disney and the culture have been corrupted which of course makes their treatment of Gina Carano no big surprise.