"Do what I say but not what I do..." is a terrible way to get people around to one's way of thinking.
I'm not sure Wil gets that he's never going to have any inner peace while holding on to a mythos that regards him as subhuman because of things he can't control like his race or sex.
Some of the thoughts in that post feel like they're from another century. Almost ike reading Jonathan Edwards' diary, where any time he catches himself feeling happy he has to go off an meditate on how he is but a lowly worm deserving of death.
In both cases it's actually pretty self-absorbed, but at least Edwards had the good sense not to complain to other people (or even to himself in his diary) that the metaphorical hair shirt he'd put on was uncomfortable. In that sort of mythos, the only peace the righteous can expect is a life of suffering, since happiness and success are signs of worldliness (or, in Wil's case privilege).
Definitely, this post is littered with examples like this, like pointing out Gunn getting fired while Gunn himself cheered when the exact same thing happened to Roseanne. There's just so much hypocrisy on every side. If you want the moral high ground, then don't reach for weapons when someone disagrees with you.
People enjoy when weapons wielded against those they view as enemies, but decry the injustice of them being used against those they see as friends. But in the end, war only benefits the war mongers.
Dehumanizing people is never a reasonable response, and so weapons should never be needed, especially against fellow citizens.
The things Gunn said have enough distance to them that you could reasonably say that he learned better since then. Firing him for something he said a decade ago seems off.
Barr got fired for something she said that day.
So I wouldn't say it's the exact same thing.
What happened to Barr seems like punishment. What happened to Gunn feels more chilling. It's a world that will never tolerate or forgive a mistake. That "permanent record" your teacher warned you about has come to fruition.
People love inciting the mob when it suits them, but the mob is fickle and cuts both ways. Gunn's poetic punishment for encouraging mob rule was to be cut down by it.
And frankly, I don't see how recency is relevant to such matters anyway. Should a murderer who was never caught still face justice 30 years later? Does it matter that "he may have learned better by now"?
Either forgiveness and compassion is a virtue and neither Gunn nor Barr should have faced harsh punishment more than a few sharp rebukes to demonstrate what they did wrong, or they both deserved what they got.
And let's not pretend saying words is the equivalent of murder or that what happened to either Barr or Gunn is the equivalent of the punishment faced by murderers. Murder is a far more serious crime than saying something insensitive.
Even in the legal system, there is the concept of the statute of limitations. And it is different for different crimes.
Forgiveness and compassion are virtues, but that does not lead to the conclusion that both Barr and Gunn should have been immediately forgiven for what they said.
If Gunn had said what he had said the day before, then it would be a fair cop. But he didn't. The recency does matter. Gunn can legitimately say, "Yeah, I'm not proud of that. I know saying that is wrong now" and be convincing. It's been years. He's grown, he's learned. How much growing and learning can you do overnight?
No, the point of the example was to illustrate that justice is not temporally dependent.
While I agree and disagree with some of your points, I'm short on time, so I'll just focus on my main point which you seem to have missed:
If you encourage mob justice, you deserve mob justice. A mob is not open to nuanced moral reasoning. Gunn was fully supportive of mob justice for those with whom he disagreed. Gunn therefore deserves the same treatment, and he got it.
Also, in what manner is ABC a mob? ABC took no time at all firing Barr.
Again, you're stuck in your own mindset of what constitutes justice. Clearly mob justice is not your justice. Gunn's view on Barr's firing is not the only example of his support for mob justice, just the most high profile. The mob makes its own rules for what constitutes a transgression, that's why it's so dangerous.
> Also, in what manner is ABC a mob? ABC took no time at all firing Barr.
ABC is not the mob here, they wouldn't have done anything if there were no furor surrounding Barr's comment.
But if he was already punished, then he's being punished twice. And that wouldn't be fair. Unless you believe people should be punished continuously in perpetuity for their mistakes.
Saying ABC would have done nothing is speculative at best.
You're just looking for a way to say "Ha ha, tu quoque" by expressing this "concern" over "mob justice".
Not to mention, Disney fired Gunn when the overwhelming opinion is that he shouldn't have been fired. So it also isn't even "mob justice".
Gunn's outcome is justified by simply logical consistency: Gunn endorsed mob justice, therefore Gunn's judgment by mob justice is justified by his own logic. My own views have no bearing on this argument, you're just confusing the fact that I have also expressed personal satisfaction at seeing poetic justice for a loathsome form of judgment.
> Saying ABC would have done nothing is speculative at best.
Not really. Corporations literally only take action that affect their present or future bottom line in some way. This is simple economic fact. Barr's show was making them money, they fired her because the long-term cost of the PR nightmare outweighed the revenue. If there were no cost, there'd be no reason to fire her and lose out on that revenue. The weight of evidence exceeds mere "speculation".
> Not to mention, Disney fired Gunn when the overwhelming opinion is that he shouldn't have been fired.
You have some actual data backing up that claim?
> So it also isn't even "mob justice".
"Mob justice" is not "majority justice". Mobs can reflect minority or majority views, there's no relationship here.
It's not logically consistent. You don't like Gunn or his particular brand of activism/politics/discourse and therefore you are enjoying his downfall. If his movies simply failed, you'd likely be just as satisfied.
And if the advertisers would have pulled from the show? Then the show doesn't even make them money. Is that mob justice? I mean, what isn't mob justice according to you? And what if they just don't want her there for her views. And there are plenty of times where there's no cost and things get denied or cancelled. These decisions are never purely financial.
More data than you do that Barr's firing was "mob justice". All of the actors in Guardians have expressed support for him. Other peers have decried Disney's decision. Articles were written about it. You can do a simple search for "James Gunn firing backlash".
I mean, at this point, say what you really want to say.
That's irrelevant. Given Gunn endorses mob justice, then the mob decides what is and isn't right. That's what mob justice means. The number of times you've been punished is immaterial. My personal satisfaction in this outcome is immaterial. How much you've suffered is immaterial. The mob decides what you deserve.
Further, people being judged according to how they judge others is the definition of logical consistency. To do otherwise would be special pleading.
> Is that mob justice? I mean, what isn't mob justice according to you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy
Throngs of people driven by emotional motives rather than rational consideration of the facts and the context of any given scenario. No recognition of people's fallibility. No formal system recognizing the rights of both perpetrators and victims. Dehumanization of perpetrators. These are all characteristic of mob justice.
The rise of doxxing, shaming culture, and so on are virtually all forms of mob justice, and it's frankly abhorrent.
> And if the advertisers would have pulled from the show? And what if they just don't want her there for her views. And there are plenty of times where there's no cost and things get denied or cancelled. These decisions are never purely financial.
Those are all purely financial motivations. Advertisers pull from the show because the bad PR may affect sales. They don't want her there for the same reasons. It's frankly bizarre that you think there's any other motivation here, particularly for big corporations that are effectively amoral.
Also, I started with financial reasons then said that even after those, there are reasons things get pulled that aren't financial. And no decision exists in a vacuum. New studio head, expect cancellations of shows that are otherwise doing well. Expect shows that were about to be in production get scrapped for the new head's pet project. To say that everything is purely financial is not only ignoring that people are not rational actors, but undercuts your point about mob justice.
Or makes everything mob justice. Taco Bell removes your favorite item due to poor sales: mob justice.
You are also saying that ABC was both driven by emotional motives and that it was solely a financial move. It can't be both.
And yes, people can be fallible. Sometimes they need a stern reprimand in order to reform. And when several of those stern reprimands don't work and you continue tweeting crazy conspiracy theories and borderline racist things, you get fired.
It's funny that you believe the Barr thing was a single, isolated incident. Just say what you want to say: That you're glad that that leftist cuck got fired because fuck PC culture.