Listen ladies I know you're coming out about years and years of stories of assault, harassment and abuse and rape but Adam Sandler got criticized for a week so y'all have got to dial it back.
Liam Neeson says harassment allegations are now 'a witch-hunt'
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By and large, it isn't, but there are more than a few people on the internet (including here) who are really trying to make it into one. Which isn't strange for any large social movement, there's always extremes. I don't think the first half of Neeson's comments were that crazy though. The Hoffman thing was the bad one.
Ok but a few people is not enough to really be starting to talk about witch hunts...
The Adam Sandler thing isn't even similar to what these things are really about...it was not in response to an accusation from the person he touched...
The topic is clearly about witch-hunts, and claiming this is a witch-hunt does not mean one does not believe the women making the accusations, saying that is such a ridiculous stament meant to silence dissenting opinions via public shaming.
Nobody has a monopoly on the way to deal with the sexual harrasment that -sadly- has become ingrained in our society.
Yeah, I'm gonna need some actual data from the poeple calling this a witch hunt to support that claim.
It is completely obvious that anyone calling what is going on a "witch hunt" is the one who actually wants to silent dissent. What are any of these people doing to offer up solutions to this massive problem? Nothing. They don't care.
Gotta love a good thread derailing.
but
No men were ever accused of witchcraft and killed?
There absolutely is a gendered aspect to witch hunting, but I find a lot of modern people that are progressive overemphasize it. That's part of the more general problem I'm talking about here, and I was actually considering addressing that post in particular.
Depends on the country. In some countries, men were the majority accused. At times, children made up the majority accused. Witch hunts weren't there to historically target women only, and there's a lot more nuance to it than that. People have mistaken assumptions more than likely based on depiction in popular media. It's pretty interesting and twisted history in general.
That's neither here nor there though. It'd be nice if people stuck to the conversation at hand, rather than focus on some Twitter thing.
Ok so it's been 4 months or so since this started and people are already talking about being worried of witch hunts.. maybe don't...
Calling it a "witch-hunt" absolutely dismisses the women making the claims, as it implies they are only after attacking men, rather than receiving justice they've been denied. Because "witch-hunts" have a flavor of chasing after innocents. So inherently, using the term implies that the speaker believes those being outed are innocent.
Even Adam Sandler certainly DID touch a woman's knee. The only question there is whether touching women can equal sexual harassment, not whether he did it. It was on camera. Using him as an excuse to silence the #metoo participants shows the underlying attitude of the speaker, which is that women are being too complainy.
Neither the poster you're quoting nor I called this a witch hunt though. I've addressed the fact that others in this thread have used the phrase, used the phenomenon for an analogy, or attacked its use as an analogy. That makes it part of the topic. Again the phrase is in the title.
If people were just using the phrase I wouldn't have said anything, but people are also talking about its validity as a conscious analogy.
People aren't entitled to high profile acting or TV careers. If they're dropped from their program or show for any harassment or assault, whether knee touching or worse, that's the way business works. They can't just expect the movie or show to soak up the financial losses in order to give these guys a job, when there are plenty of other actors out there. If the accused doesn't have enough to retire on, then there are plenty of normal jobs out there or even the option of starting a business.
Let's just say, having a semantic argument in the face of the #metoo campaign is not going to make you, the person bothering to spend time on semantics instead of societal issues, look good. It makes you look instead, like you want to distract from the more important conversation being had.
And I say this as a semantics warrior. Sometimes it's just out of place.
I think very few of you watched the video. This has nothing to do with Adam Sandler. It has to do with a guy getting fired because he touched a women's back when she was upset. Liam maybe used a poor choice of words but his point was it went to far with someone he knew. This mob pitch fork mentality is crazy. People accusing him because of an awkward interview is exactly what he is talking about.
The problem with the term witch-hunt is that they people saying it think this movement is about them. "What if I'm falsely accused" or "What if that joke I made gets me in trouble". It's not though. It's not about you.
It's about creating an environment people feel safe in, both professionally and personally. Abuse happens everywhere, at work, on the street, in homes, schools, church, this isn't just about Hollywood. You have to shine a light on it before we can try to stop it alltogether. People (for the most part) aren't going around looking for these stories, they're asking victims who've already experienced it to come forward. That's all.
Again this isn't a semantic issue, but one of historical content. I've also addressed this earlier. I didn't post that to look good. If I wanted to look good I wouldn't be a historian, but I'm invested in more than looking good.
I get that some people will read me poorly, but I'm pretty used to it and frankly that's more on people trying to make value judgments about others based on very little than it is on me. Again I'm not here to look good and I feel that I have a professional obligation to do what I'm doing here.
Besides I've already referred to my thoughts on that element of the topic and why I'm not addressing it.
I get that you think this is out of place, but I'm not exactly the one that brought it up am I? I wouldn't have otherwise, but I honestly think this is important and that few people here were going to address this. Moreover it's not like I'm coming out of the woodwork to do something totally out of character for me. Look through my thread history here and on the old site.
Demonstrably untrue. What you mean is that you don't believe that the magical aspects of it work. For the record I don't either, but what you and I believe about the natural world has very little to do with how people in the past acted. That's why this is anachronistic.
If he had just told that story and left it at that, this wouldn't be a thread.
That example is confusing, since that is a person making an accusation from speculation, not a first-hand account of what occurred.
These women are relaying first hand accounts of their experiences with sexual assault, thats not a witch hunt.
Liam Neeson show's tremendous fragility to suggest theirs a witch-hunt that is being conspired against men when women speak up about there's experiences of sexual assault.
When you're like me who has led his life basically not participating at all in that side of life and have no points of reference in your own life, it's better to be safe than sorry and ask around, even if they only reinforce what your common sense already told you.
I'm not talking about Liam Neeson though, I'm talking about the analogy being made here and people's fundamental misunderstandings about the content of the phenomenon that this is being compared to.
You're right that what's going on is different. That's part of what was so difficult about witch trials, especially in common law, and that's why the admission of spectral evidence was so impact in Salem.
As I've established earlier, I don't think the analogy is a good one. I think this is a bad way to talk and think about the me too movement, but I also think some of the ways that people are dismissing the analogy are bad and fueled by misunderstandings that are perpetuated by such dismissals.
User warned: actually comparing #metoo to actual witch hunts.
So long as the general attitudes towards these claims is "Guilty until proven innocent" then there will be no shortage of people claiming that they are a witch hunt. I mean, that was kinda the problem of being accused of witchcraft -- the allegation alone was enough to make life untenable for the accused.
Witch trials were abolished at different times in different countries. Clearly contention existed among 'people in the past'. And in Salem it ended after 20 people were executed.
A lot of this irrational fear that every man is now going to lose their job is coming from guys being woefully inept at interacting with women. They already struggle with not trying to come off as awkward so when they see Ben Affleck and Adam Sandler catching heat for hugs and a knee touch they laser focus on those instances and lose their shit. "Once they're done getting the big fish they're gonna come for me!" "OMG all Adam Sandler did was touch a knee! I touched somebody's knee before, am I going to lose my job?!"
Shut up man, nobody is coming for your stocking job at Wal Mart. Know your boundaries, stop watching youtube pick up artists that tell you to be an over-assertive dick, and you'll be perfectly fine.
Shut up man, nobody is coming for your stocking job at Wal Mart. Know your boundaries, stop watching youtube pick up artists that tell you to be an over-assertive dick, and you'll be perfectly fine.
Enough. This is not the thread for long, drawn-out arguments over the historical purpose of the Salem Witch Trials. If this is a discussion that you feel is important to have, start a different thread and talk about it there.
Stay on topic.
Stay on topic.
Here's the funny thing about that story....
That's him repeating what Garrison Keillor claims he got fired for...
Keillor unlike a lot of these was not fired because of public pressure from a tweet or someone speaking up... but through an internal complaint at the radio station where he worked... aka he was accused through the "proper channels", investigated and fired...
Literally his accuser did what those who decry women using twitter instead of the police or HR want women like her to do... and guess what she did and it's still used as an example of a witch hunt, and to boot his is the only voice we hear.
We don't actually know what the complaint was or what he was accused of doing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...allegations-stand-out/?utm_term=.184259e3a0e5
He lost his Washington Post gig because he wrote an article defending Al Franken without telling the WP he was being investigated at MPR for sexual harassment....
So this witch-hunt example Neeson is using was entirely from the POV of Keillor and was a story of an accuser reporting to her employer (and not the public... this woman has yet to speak publicly) and her employer doing their due diligence and investigating and concluding to fire him with enough warning that Keillor was able to get his side of the story out before it was even announced he was fired, you know the exact opposite of a witch-hunt.
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Your points all appear valid and I fully admit not knowing the details. Maybe Liam is the same though. My issue is the mob mentality, the he must be one of them, what is he hiding. He gave an awkward interview that was probably one of 20 or 30 that day. Having to measure evey word and tip toe in fear of the internet rage is crazy. The judgment passed with so little. I'm not talking about the accused or the women it's just anyone that says anything. It's totally going against the point.
Well see here;s the thing... I found this stuff out in about 3 minutes literally just by reading the article in the OP and googling his name... Neeson should do the same before speaking out...
Okay
How many people you know research before runnin off at the mouth bout some shit
Yeah I disagree, this culture that every word is judged is not helpful. Googling something hardly makes it fact. People need to stop this crazy division and hostility. Have a little empathy not just constant will he should have done this and he should have looked it up or kept his mouth shut. Why is everyone just looking to get pissed off.
Many but they're wrong too... especially doing it with the platform he was... we ain't just talking about someone not reading the OP on a message board here.
I'd expect people before calling things witch hunts to you know be informed.
And what do you mean googling something doesn't make it fact.
I read the stories... read how his situation was handled.... It's a fact it was not a twitter accusation but a formal complaint to his employer, it is a fact that it was investigated, it is a fact that the accuser has never spoken publicly , it is a fact that only his story is being heard. It was a fact that while under investigation he wrote a story in defense of Franken without telling the people who were paying him to write it.
These are facts
He still a person
And the rule "Niggas don't fuckin read" applies for like 85% of people
Oh sorry, I was just talking about unwanted flirting, not the other actions that usually go along with it. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.
