Liam Neeson says harassment allegations are now 'a witch-hunt'
- Thread starter Deleted member 15428
- Start date
Lol you can be pretty damn safe on me not thinking women owe me something (Like I said, I've never been inside this game and I'm almost 30yo). It goes the other way if anything, as in I tend to think I deserve absolutely nothing from women :D (you could say my self esteem is not in a good shape) And of course I know the basic rule that if she shoots me down then move on, but I've become worried lately that I could enter "sexual harrassment" zone the moment I talk to a woman if the woman in question has made up her mind for the night that she wants no attention from men at all.
He said he does them because it keeps him busy to keep his mind off his deceased wife.
No issue with real offenders being outed. That's an obvious issue that needs to be taken care of.
But as others have pointed out , you have people putting Adam Sandler on blast for putting his hand on an actresses knee on a talkshow host while talking about her, as if that is sexual assault.
But as others have pointed out , you have people putting Adam Sandler on blast for putting his hand on an actresses knee on a talkshow host while talking about her, as if that is sexual assault.
Which nothing came off.... context was clarified and Sandler continues his life and career.
Depends who in this thread you ask.
Some of these posts read like they're coming from the type of person to post about how they're a nice guy and have no luck with women on facebook.
That's not a term for hunting and killing women because they are women, either.
Real witch hunts didn't just target women. In fact in some places, men made up a majority of the victims.
But that doesn't matter, because it's a gender-neutral phrase that just references the fact that people are being condemned for something they haven't actually done.
The crux of Liam's argument is that people's careers are being ruined because a woman's knee was touched, which is a gross exaggeration of the kinds of things people are being accused of from lewd behavior to actual sexual assault.
And frankly not many people who are being accused are denying the allegations against them. Few like Franco and George Takei have either come up with their own side of events or just patently said that the stories about them are false, or if you're Kevin Spacey you tried to change the subject by coming out.
But a lot of these stories are coming from multiple, unrelated sources which makes you think that it's likely not some secret plot to just destroy someone's career for the lulz.
Maybe Liam has been lucky enough to have never been able to witness any potential wrong doing in his long career in Hollywood. But I think if he actually followed these stories closely aside from just reading headlines perhaps he'd have a different perspective on these accusations than the mindset of people are being accused of sexual assault for brushing up against someone's bum.
And frankly not many people who are being accused are denying the allegations against them. Few like Franco and George Takei have either come up with their own side of events or just patently said that the stories about them are false, or if you're Kevin Spacey you tried to change the subject by coming out.
But a lot of these stories are coming from multiple, unrelated sources which makes you think that it's likely not some secret plot to just destroy someone's career for the lulz.
Maybe Liam has been lucky enough to have never been able to witness any potential wrong doing in his long career in Hollywood. But I think if he actually followed these stories closely aside from just reading headlines perhaps he'd have a different perspective on these accusations than the mindset of people are being accused of sexual assault for brushing up against someone's bum.
Why does that matter? It still happened. I'm sure many would have been happy if he had been punished, otherwise it wouldn't have trended. Intentions were clear.
Because it's proof that the movement is not out of control...
My argument is that the people at the time actually truly believed in the existence of magic and that there were certain widely understood rules by which it was thought to work. The existence of such rules means that there were people, not so much at Salem because of the preeminence of spectral evidence, that truly believed that they had been involved in acts of maleficium.
More importantly my argument is that saying "witches don't exist" and using that as your starting point to talk about the past is clearly incredibly anachronistic, and simply repeating the state "witches don't exist" doesn't make it less anachronistic. More importantly this ties into a general culture of assuming things about the past, most obviously that people in the past were just idiots, based on nothing but a conception of the present.
I asked how much research you've done in a topic that you're disagreeing with an expert on, and you deflected with an appeal to "common sense". That's a problem, because as is true in so many fields, what is called common sense, essentially just the cultural assumptions that a society shares in common, is generally quite misleading. Essentially what this does is say well we don't need to actually look into a topic in itself, lets just assume that what makes the most sense to me without research must be what is true.
Regardless of if you want to call them witches, there absolutely were people in the past that truly and honestly believed that they were witches, and there were many more people that truly and honestly believed that they had been involved in black magic. To actually start looking into the past we have to accept that.
Do you happen to know how the accusations in Salem started?
Another sex assualt etc related thread and another thread which ends up showing why so many women don't come forward sadly
So answer my question (Because I said Witches didn't exist in Salem) are you arguing that some actual witches were killed in Salem... because you responded to a comment I made specifically about Salem.
And on the contrary, you could view it as proof that people are now taking similar situations and trying to criminalize the "offender" for doing something that's out of their (the peoples) context.
Well no one has gone to jail yet not even Harvey Weinstein and no new laws are being crafted to criminalize anything that isn't already illegal.
Fact of the matter is Adam Sandler is not being pursued like a Weinstein like a Spacey or even a Franco.
That is generally not how this kind of stuff works. "This guy talked to me at a bar once and I wasn't in the mood" is not going to even register in someone's brain unless you do something specific to make that moment memorable enough for them to think about it later. You'll notice whenever real examples of this kind of stuff are brought up, it's never flirting or "approaching" that gets mentioned: it's groping, it's unwanted sexual advances, it's men pulling their dicks out, and so on and so forth. It's guys overstepping their boundaries and either being directly physical or incredibly rude. Again, nobody's going to throw you in the stocks for trying to talk to a woman unless you keep at it well after the point at which it's clear she doesn't want you around.
Also, important thing to keep in mind: in the year 2018, most adults don't go to bars to flirt with people or be flirted with. Most adults, especially once they approach and hit their thirties, go to bars to be with their friends because it's one of the few places they can usually get a group together to go to. The "woman who goes to a bar to find her soulmate" cliche isn't really a thing outside of Hollywood.
Is this true? Bars are one of the only places I feel comfortable dropping a cheesy line or entering a conversation without permission.
Do an informal poll of your married/long-term relationship friends. See how many of them are together because one of them walked up to the other one at a bar and tried a pickup line on them.
Attacks on victims of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault are not welcome in this or any other thread. This is also not a thread about the statistically tiny number of false accusations. Attempts to derail this thread into a discussion about women who lie, etc, will be moderated accordingly. This has been our policy from day one and should not require a reminder.
Sure, I believe that. None of my peers at my age go to bars for hooking up and I don't go to bars/clubs, period. I don't also flirt, ever. I wasn't really asking for advice for practical reasons as I propably will carry on like I have so far, as in not treat women as anything more than friends. Most of what you said more or less confirmed my own beliefs, as I'm not stupid (well I am but you know what I mean) and am aware of societal guidelines etc. More of just wanting to make sure, because I don't want to accidentally make someone genuinely uncomfortable and not even know it myself.
I don't see the value in making such a statement because at the end of the day I do not know and because your question is less directed towards history, what people thought and believed, and more directed towards my personal ideas, do I think witches exist as a real phenomenon. I'm fine with talking about the former, I see no need to talk about the latter. For the same reason, when I teach religious history I don't make value judgments about theology but I'm totally comfortable with making value judgments about ecclesiastical matters.
But let's be honest here you aren't only interested in Salem, no one is exclusively interested in Salem, people are interested in Salem as the most famous example of Witch Hunting in the Anglo Western Hemisphere. Salem had some endemic problems that made the craze go much further than it should have and some judicial problems that led to a very high rate of convictions, but that speaks more to the severity of the specific phenomenon there, not to its general shape and causes.
I'll ask again, do you happen to know how the accusations were started? This isn't just a fun question, it's quite germane.
Yeah, I don't really feel like pretending the term 'witch hunt' is gender neutral just so I can avoid the irony of men claiming to be unfairly targeted.
Call it a warlock hunt.
Call it a warlock hunt.
Exactly. Males making themselves out to be potential victims in topics about actual victims is a bit jarring, as if there's no investigation and you're just taken to the gallows. It's reaching "slippery slope" territory.
I think by 'witch-hunt' he meant the idea that as our society is swept up in this movement, some might be prone to overact to something that was less harassment and more of a misunderstanding, etc. and how easily lives and careers can be destroyed accordingly.
I think Liam worded it poorly and listening to the rest of the interview he definitely wasn't denouncing or looking to undermine the 'Me too' movement but I also think he made a mistake defending Hoffman.
That said, I think people denouncing him over this singular statement is excessive but oh well. Much of liberal Hollywood stood and applauded for Polanski but I'm personally not prepared to toss people away for one divergent opinion.
By most accounts Neeson is a good person who skews fairly liberal.
I think Liam worded it poorly and listening to the rest of the interview he definitely wasn't denouncing or looking to undermine the 'Me too' movement but I also think he made a mistake defending Hoffman.
That said, I think people denouncing him over this singular statement is excessive but oh well. Much of liberal Hollywood stood and applauded for Polanski but I'm personally not prepared to toss people away for one divergent opinion.
By most accounts Neeson is a good person who skews fairly liberal.
We killed witches...
Nothing happened to Sandler
Also that Adam Sandler thing was not caused by a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her.
I don't think we should be too literal here.
Edit: Well it does seem like he's trying to make light of recent sexual harassment allegations.
How am I being obtuse exactly? Moreover whether or not witches existed isn't a question of semantics even if semantics inform it. Not to go into semantics, but based on that I'm not sure you know what the word semantic means.
I made my point, which is that people shouldn't be anachronistic about witchcraft. That is my point, and I don't think it's distracting from the topic at hand, because the comparison to history and what that comparison means are part of the topic at hand. I get people might not like that, people generally dislike being told they are wrong, but I think it's part of my professional duty to call out anachronisms in the public sphere.
I get you might not directly care about this, but such problematic thinking informs other elements of how people look at many different issues.
This is my hope. Many well-intentioned men love women but simply do not understand how pervasive patriarchy is, nor how subtle its effects can be in making social/sexual situations more dangerous comparitive to their own. I also hope they eventually understand its full extent...
A witch hunt involves more than just talking about a guy's behaviour in a video for a week and then moving on.
Also again that Adam Sandler thing was not caused by a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her.
The topic is about current sexual harassment, abuse and assault. Which disproportionately affects women in today's culture.
You are arguing some odd tangent about whether a term commonly used by people who wish to dismiss alleged victims' claims is perfectly apropos or not. Perhaps if you stuck to the real topic, about how victim claims have historically been dismissed and how pervasive this stuff is, and how there's a movement aimed at changing that fact, you would not be looked at as being obtuse.
"there's some people, famous people, being suddenly accused of touching some girl's knee, or something, and suddenly they're being dropped from their program, or something".
Translation: I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Translation: I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
People are calling this a witch hunt because the process of reaching a conclusion is the same, not the consequences.
There we go.
This logic makes no sense and you know it. Accountability does not suddenly go away because there were no consequences.
That's part of the topic. Considering "witch-hunt" is literally in the title and people are drawing historical comparisons to them, witch hunts are also pretty clearly part of the topic. I'm sorry I'm not saying exactly what you want. Plenty of other people are covering what I have to say on the topic, that this is a bad way to talk and think about what is going on, and I don't really see the point in chiming in when that seems taken care of. Meanwhile what I'm talking about here is both not being covered and important in its own right.
I get that people want others to always say exactly what they want them to say, but ultimately that's an unrealistic expectation and this is pretty obviously not totally off topic even if it's not exactly the way you want me to talk about it. I certainly don't think any of this is particularly obtuse.
Just because the hunt went nowhere doesn't mean there wasn't an attempt.
To be fair most are actually worried of it becoming one (which it's nowhere close to being)
You're the first I've seen imply that it actually is one now....
Wasn't he referencing the case involving a radio host whose name is mentioned in the header of the article?