I’m not clear on how you are establishing credibility.
When I have no possible way of knowing if an accusation is true or false, I don’t want to let bloggers and pundits determine truth for me. But if you are going to let me personally decide who gets “ostracized and denounced” I’ll be willing to make an exception.
You get to personally decide who YOU associate with or speak out against. So does everyone else.
The question at hand is “why do so many people in Hollywood continue to associate with Woody Allen and refuse to denounce him despite all the compelling evidence that he is a sex criminal?”
I am generally not permitted to associate with anyone of Woody Allen’s social class, and I have no way of validating or invalidating accusations against him, so I don’t really get to personally decide.
Your version is a whole lot more understandable than the headline formulation!
You can think what you like. I have no intention of countenancing false consciousness arguments of adult women, which is what Dylan Farrow is, and the fact that I also believe the abuse allegations against Mia Farrow deserve investigation does zero, zip, zilch to negate my belief of Dylan’s allegations of abuse against Woody Allen (to say nothing of the other women who’ve accused him).
False consciousness arguments are bad enough on their own, with their long sickening history of denying the agency of women especially; but to level what amounts to assumptions of psychological programming against someone who’s never even been known to be diagnosed is, well, I’m going to bow out now before I same something unkind.
It’s not the foundation of every working legal system and I think it might not even be the best one. We imagine that it protects us from the state coming down on us, but it also means that we put ourselves in an antagonistic system where the state is trying to prove we are guilty instead of trying to determine the truth. Sure, the burden of proof is on the state, but the resources of the state are immense. I feel like it sets up a red queen race where ordinary people keep demanding higher and higher standards of proof but those standards keep being met by people identified as experts in sciences that people can’t understand.
It’s also the cause of wild west retribution when it overbalances individual rights against societal interests.
I’m not saying we should change our whole justice system. I’m just saying I don’t think “innocent until proven guilty” or “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” do what people who grew up with them think they does. And as people more and more deploy them to defend people from social rather than judicial repercussions, I think they become actively negative.
I pretty much just rephrased the first sentence of the post:
So much for the Weinstein Moment: Woody Allen is still too powerful and too well-connected for people in Hollywood to speak ill of.
Still not sure why so many people equate “speaking ill of a sex predator” with “vigilante justice.”
Well, I can’t say for sure, since I don’t equate those things.
My posts were responses to the phrase punished extrajudicially.
That’s what vigilantism is.
It’s only “vigilantism” when the punishment violates the civil rights of the person suspected of a crime, such as illegal detention or threat of bodily harm. @wysinwyg specifically said “…through ostracism and denunciation (neither of which are actually illegal).”
I prefer the commonly understood definition, that’s in the dictionary, rather than trying to make up new ones.
But OK, using your definition instead, I’ll rephrase. If people want to ostracize and denounce people without trial or evidence, I’m only OK with that if I get to be the leader of the ostracizers and denouncers community.
I don’t understand what you mean by that. I apologize if you explained upthread and I missed it.
Why does there need to be a “leader?” People seem to be able to manage denouncing and ostracizing Weinstein without depending on a single figurehead to lead the movement.
Brainspore and I are driving trollies each other. I’m playing the part of Martin Niemöller.
Because that’s the only sure way I can protect myself and my family from these “extrajudicial punishments” based on hearsay that you’re promoting.
It’s not hearsay when a person gives an account of an incident in which she was involved.
Agreed, but that’s not the case here. Neither of us is that person.
It is hearsay when I read a blog post written about something I can’t possibly prove or disprove. I have no right or ability to make a judgement, and honestly, I feel no need to do so
OK, I gotta go. G’night all!
The linked article was written by Dylan Farrow in the Los Angeles Times.
Can you name even one prominent public figure, ever, whose career was ended based on sexual assault claims that were later exposed as false? I mean, that kind of thing must happen all the time for so many people to be this concerned about it, right?
I am not one to throw around false memory arguments left and right, and I admit the history of the issue gives me some pause, but a young child, a controlling and vengeful mother, and a heated custody battle all seem to make exactly the kind of case where it might apply; if one of the other siblings hadn’t described an atmosphere of “brainwashing” then I may never have considered it. That said I’m not leveling an accusation, but I recognize it’s a possibility and I can’t just dismiss it for political reasons. The fact that I am not 100% on board with those who think Woody Allen is guilty does not make me some monster nor an apologist for child abuse. Tomorrow some new piece of evidence may appear that changes my mind and puts me squarely in that camp.
Why is Mia Farrow a shrieking harpy not to be trusted and Dylan Farrow a manipulated sad sack with implanted memories, but the child who sides with his father is an honest neutral? How does Moses Farrow definitively know what did not happen between his father and his sister in that enormous household?
How do any of us know anything about these people except by bits and pieces we read in the news?
I mentioned earlier in this thread that I mistrust everyone involved in this, I think they all have the potential for bias and ulterior motives. I can’t see how anyone involved can be seen as neutral, they’ve all picked sides. I think that no matter who did what, Dylan has been subject to trauma, and that’s sad. You’re trying to make it like I’m choosing one side over the other when I very clearly said I am not.
Apparently unless I express seething hatred for Woody Allen I am his champion and defender.
And why are implanted memories in the interest of a custody battle more believable than the child’s own account that corroberates the witnessed, documented contact (thumb sucking, bed sharing, head in naked childs lap) that led to Allen seeking therapy and other protective measures? That a man who went on to have sex with the teen step daughter that he did have access to didn’t do what the daughter he was forcibly removed from said he did?
