Nerd Pride Radio

I started by saying H. is a "reedy, fatuous jerk" and went on to criticize his described behavior further, so I have to assume these questions about "can we call him a bad person" aren't directed at me. I'm not a fan and never was; I barely even know who these people are.

If I were a "person around" D., or, say, someone she had called upon for support, I would respond very, very differently than I do as a member of the public presented with a list of allegations and a lack of detailed understanding of the situation. Because at that point my job isn't to worry about my own epistemic position, but to respond to another human being's suffering and accept what she's saying at face value, regardless. Like I said before, it wouldn't surprise me if she really had been sexually assaulted and simply hasn't yet found the language adequate to accurately describe the truth of it all. That happens. People elide things, try to cushion it for the other person and even for themselves. Frankness and precision on these matters is difficult.

Or, maybe what she wrote is the fullest negative extent of how she could have described it, so it's horrid behavior in a very bad relationship, but it's not assault of the kind the law says one ought to be in prison a few decades for committing. Unfortunately, "kids these days" use that gross terminology (starfishing) to describe a variety of sexual things that aren't rape, so I'm not seeing the fact that H. used that term himself as some earthshattering coincidence that proves it was rape, even assuming D. is overstating her own consent to what happened. If we go by her own words in her account, she consented to what happened. It's horrible, and I feel great sympathy for anyone who consents to other people doing things that make them miserable, but that happens too and it is different from rape. It's different from the kind of non-consent that happens under the threat of physical violence. Non-violent coercion is usually quite morally wrong, and people who do it are usually assholes we don't want coming anywhere near other people, but it's not wrong in the way rape is. It's different when someone says "I am a callous jerk who broke up with the last girlfriend who didn't put out enough for my taste, and maybe I'll do the same to you unless you put out", as opposed to when someone violently assaults you to gain your non-consent to sex, or punches through the window next to you, or threatens your kid, or lays the gun on the table casually, or you hear the ch-ch of a shotgun barrel in the other room. These are situations where consent is impossible. The man threatening to dump you does not make consent impossible even if it puts you through great anguish. We can't rob women of their autonomy in these cases; we can't say that they are mental and emotional children who never really agree to anything freely, and thus can never really disagree with anything either.

So, James Gunn's firing was largely brought about by the publicizing of his dated older jokes by Mike Cernovich. Cernovich supported the idea that since Gunn made jokes about pedophilia, that he was a pedophile. Mike Cernovich is also a huge proponent of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, again all about pedophilia. He is an alt-right spokesperson (though he would describe himself as new right). Just learned this.

Does it change any viewpoints about Gunn's firing?

I think I mentioned this earlier, but it did change the calculus for me somewhat.

I think the jokes were bad enough that in a vacuum, Disney would arguably be justified in firing him, but I'm never going to think a company makes its decisions on moral grounds anyway.

If James Gunn's co-workers were saying "I don't feel comfortable working with this guy," I'd totally get it. Or if there was any indication that they weren't actually jokes but a reflection of his beliefs and behavior, of course they should fire him. But when the source of the information makes it painfully clear that any outrage was manufactured and in obvious bad faith, the decision served only to empower Mike Cernovich - genuinely one of the worst, most heinous people on the planet. I think that makes it a poor decision, both ethically and as a business decision.

Since I already didn't think he should be fired, it just reinforces that view further. One more reason I loathe the current "toss it all in the air and condemn equally" strategy for seeking justice. I get that people resort to this strategy when public condemnation is more effective at achieving their goals than other more legit and appropriate means would be, but that doesn't make it right or okay and we should resist it.