I was staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton in 2004 during Oscars week. I was in the business center on the Internet (this was the dark ages before ubiquitous hotel WiFi and personal devices.)
Someone comes in, and then a few minutes later says in a completely unmistakable voice
“Excuse me, do you know how to print this?”
I immediately jumped into parental IT support mode, it was a pretty easy thing to do, he said, Thanks, and (this is the awkward thing) continued to stay in there on the computer while I had to do the whole “pretend to be normal around Sean freaking Connery” for the next 20 minutes. I couldn’t even bring up the courage to mention my childhood favorite, Darby O’Gill and the Little People …
PS the reason I was there was to film an episode of Jeopardy, and I told Alex what had transpired (he loves those skits) and he was pretty pumped, he asked if I’d pop him in the mouth and tell him “that’s from Trebek” if I saw him again.
Merchant Navy, milkman, nude model, lifeguard, truck driver, bricklayer, boxer, bodybuilder, street brawler (he once beat a gang of four while hanging out with Michael Caine, and another time, he defeated six people in a street fight.) ...
... and, finally, backstage maintenance worker at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh. The rest is history.-
Any living person can hold a reprehensible point of view, and as much as I may disagree with it, I really can't stand this attitude of writing people off because of a flawed perspective. That doesn't mean I support spousal abuse by association, it means I recognise he has a shitty point of view amongst all of his other flaws, as well as his qualities.
There isn't a single person in history that can meet this standard of 'goodness'. Not you, nor I, nor anyone. So yeah, let's acknowledge people for all that they are, good and bad, but let's not reduce people to a two dimensional caricature of themselves based purely on what is now considered unacceptable.
Indeed, I think it's a terrible mistake to hold historical figures to modern standards and morals. I'm sure there are things even the best among us do today that could be harshly judged in the future.
"Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future" -- Winston Churchill
>Indeed, I think it's a terrible mistake to hold historical figures to modern standards and morals. I'm sure there are things even the best among us do today that could be harshly judged in the future.
Well, to be fair, people where aghast at his position towards women when he took it as a position. Not just in modern times.
Watch some of his interviews -- he seems to think he is coming off as manly and possessive, but the female journalists interviewing him usually come off as insulted, scared, and overall disrespectful towards his misogynist attitudes. Barbara Walters saw right through his image, which is why that interview was one of the ones to go so lopsided.
He was judged plenty when he was 'modern', too. Since the judgement came about when he was young, I don't think it's too great a leap to discuss now around his death.
This isn't a case where his behavior was normalized by his time of existence : he was a misogynist during the hay-day of the first wave of Womens' Rights, he was well known to be one, and his antics and interviews were broadcast around the world.
He decided to go 'against the grain' during one of the most important civil rights movements in the United States so that he could keep his macho demeanor. His comments in no way encapsulated a standard male response, he was deliberately pushing the buttons of people to strengthen and embolden his image as a playboy misogynist.
RIP Sean, I loved you as an actor. You were amazing in a lot of ways, and not-so-amazing in some others, but that is to be human.
'To ignore either righteous or the condemning would be to ignore history and humanity itself.'
Some morals aren't as modern as people make them out to be when making this argument.
Also interesting to use a quote from a man responsible for starving millions of innocents in a debate about morality, but that's neither here nor there.
Not people? I'd hate to be referred to as 'an innocent'.
---
To address the main point, history is full of this. I mean, try quoting Mother Theresa and see what people will say then.
We _could_ try to cleanse history of all memorable quotes written or spoken by people who have don't have a clean track record in morality (whatever that actually is at a certain point in time) but I don't think we'd be left with all too much to learn from.
To go further into my own thought process, I'm much more in line with non-dual tantric attitudes to this than I am with what we commonly call morals these days.
About 'innocent', I'm not sure why I went for that choice of word. I think an earlier version of the comment in my head had "killed" instead of "starved" but that would include war casualties which are more ambiguous so the innocent thing. Either way, it was incoherent and you're right that "people" was a better choice of word. English isn't my native language but it's no excuse because I've been speaking and writing in it for years.
>To address the main point, history is full of this.
I agree, but I do feel it is relevant to acknowledge the portions of someone's legacy that aren't clean. The quote in isolation is a fair and fine one, I suppose. I would show more restraint in bringing up the cursory comment on Churchill if the context of the thread was something else entirely.
> it is relevant to acknowledge the portions of someone's legacy that aren't clean
For sure. I think this gets complicated, especially in the middle of heated discussions or on the internet, when this stuff is brought up ad-hominem. Or close enough. It's why I don't want to bring anger into this discussion and create another pro/anti divide, because we're all going to see it different ways.
I challenge anyone to come up with a person who was a squeaky clean legacy. I contend that it is impossible, because the goalposts for 'cleanliness' change as the times do.
It has nothing to do with people having a squeaky clean legacy.
If a world famous celebrity uses the megaphone of a televised interview to double down on and expand on views that it’s ok to slap women, that is a huge, dramatic event. That’s not just some small “we all make mistakes” transgression to be forgiven while we remember that person at his best. It is a huge, intentional literal broadcast of a very harmful belief, that we should not minimize or ignore or even set aside to remember other things about them, due to its level of severity and the sustained commitment to it over years that he displayed.
I think it’s very specious and very disingenuous to try to bring in any type of “let he who is sinless cast the first stone” or “let’s remember the good with the bad because he is only human” type of defense. That is just not acceptable in a case like this.
Alright, so what is your proposed idea to deal with _anyone_ like this? If Connery's remark is huge and dramatic, what does that mean for everyone else?
It took Connery to die for you to bring this topic up. I would expect you cared about this before the news, and not just in light of it.
This issues has been brought up about Connery all the time.
Most people who display this type of direct misogyny don’t happen to also be world-famous movie stars using a national television broadcast to amplify the message.
So obviously because of the harm it propagates and the precedent it sets, Connery’s behavior should be railed against with much more effort than transgressions with far less widespread impact - but of course regular people committing the same transgression absolutely deserve for their behavior to be used to highlight moral reprehensibility (assuming they refuse to apologize or retract those views like Connery).
I wonder about this a lot. I love meat, but I'm fairly certain our descendants will judge us the same way we judge slave owners: we were intelligent, we had the necessary mental ingredients to come to the conclusion that some of the animals we consume possessed some level of sentience, but we were unable to do so due to sheer historical and cultural momentum.
I’m sorry, but this comment is in bad faith. Plants do no have brains, they do not emote or feel pain. Someone will chime in with a "well actually ..." no doubt, but to ascribe any form of equivalence between plants and animals in this way is a bad faith argument. And more to the point: our descendants horror will be that we knew we were causing the suffering of living beings and yet we did it anyway.
Trees have friends, feel loneliness, scream with pain and communicate underground via the “woodwide web”. Some act as parents and good neighbours. Others do more than just throw shade – they’re brutal bullies to rival species. The young ones take risks with their drinking and leaf-dropping then remember the hard lessons from their mistakes. It’s a hard-knock life.
A book called The Hidden Life of Trees is not an obvious bestseller but it’s easy to see the popular appeal of German forester Peter Wohlleben’s claims – they are so anthropomorphic. Certainly, a walk in the park feels different when you imagine the network of roots crackling with sappy chat beneath your feet. We don’t know the half of what’s going on underground and beneath the bark, he says: “We have been looking at nature for the last 100 years like [it is] a machine.”
Building off othe dendritic consciousness structures, my own suspicion isn't that trees have brains, but that trees are components of a larger brain-analogue --- forests or ecosystems.
Not to drift too far off topic, but you may be surprised to learn about biomass transfer efficiency. It takes a lot more plant mass to feed to animals than eating those plants directly. This "plants might feel pain too" gotcha doesn't really play out.
I feel you misunderstood the point being made. Societal norms and attitudes evolve and blindly measuring history against contemporary standards is often counterproductive.
Please don't mistake this as some apology for slavery, wife beating, antisemitism or whatever. It isn't; people did reprehensible things in the past. Just realize that it's extremely unlikely that our current norms are the objectively correct ones that will be forever unchanged.
That's assuming the biomass can be eaten by humans in the first place. We can't digest a lot of stuff that can be eaten by animals whom we can eat in turn.
I hate the recent “Cancel Culture” thing (that the phenomenon you descrive is an instance of).
Firstly, and beside the point, the term itself is wonderfully (though I suspect accidentally) ambiguous and self-defeating, as one can read it as “the culture of a cancelling” (as intended) or “this will cancel culure” (a possible side-effect).
Anyway... yes, cancel culture... I criticised it here once previously and amongst the various responses, most contrarian, was one that stuck with me: paraphrasing, it read “you’ve always told us to vote with our feet and now you’re complaining about cancel culture?”
Clearly this responder considered “cancel culture” to be the latest term for “boycot”, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I cannot (yet?) justify even to myself what utterly subtle distinction must exist between the two, but until I do and probably even thereafter I will accept that they do have a point.
I think people can vote with their wallets/feet if they don’t approve of someone, it’s their right. I am not sure whether that constitutes cancel culture or not. However, there are cases where the cancelled is abused, sent death threats and such and this is absolutely a bad thing and should not happen. Also some people are ‘cancelled’ before the complete news breaks out or the whole picture emerges and in the end it turns out they were setup or completely innocent. That is a big problem and seems to be a part of the cancel culture. An example of a guy coaxed to do the ok sign, filmed and posted everywhere had his life ruined for no reason. That is not okay and we should do something to stop it
I think the point is fair. From the perspective of liberty, there's no government using aggressive force against you; this is a perfectly free-market phenomenon.
That said, that doesn't mean it's always moral. For example, I don't feel comfortable saying at my place of work (software engineer) that women are biologically different than men and this probably has a large impact on why the field isn't 50/50 men/women.
I think this is a perfectly reasonable position, yet there's no way I could say this at work. I'd lose my job, just like James Damore.
So, I don't think that what is being done is wrong in the political sense, but I do think unfair cancellations are unethical. I think it's fine to "cancel" people/businesses/organizations that cause or allow unfair cancellations to take place. I already quietly decline to do business with and lobby against companies that adopt "woke" postures.
I'm part of a silent majority that votes with their wallet, I suppose.
I don't think anyone here was saying that we should reduce people to a two-dimensional caricature of themselves.
I think the point that was trying to be made was that, this is something people should know about before they decided to unreservedly push this man as a saviour or as a hero, and that giving this knowledge to people allows them to decide how they feel about it, whether they are comfortable with it, and ultimately, be aware of it.
'Cancelling' public artists and figures is always about three things:
1) Reducing the effect, or putting into context, their platform. In other words: allowing people to be aware about the ideas creators hold -- there's almost always some kind of bleed-over -- and if that person tends to go on a soapbox, allowing people to be able to discern whether they want to listen based on this new fact that could be extremely relevant. For example, it would change your mind whether someone was talking about the nature of consent, based on whether they were known for being abusive and acting non-consensually with other people, no? That seems like a hugely important fact to know.
2) Allowing us to be aware and put into context the people that we, as a society, hold up -- people who for all intents and purposes can 'do no wrong'. And deciding whether or not we still want to consume those works, and hold them up on that pedestal, with that information.
3) If they are still alive, ensuring that they remain accountable for actions or beliefs that have harmed or will harm people. Ensuring people who are vulnerable and likely to interact with them, can be aware and avoid being harmed. This gives the public figure a choice: They can either push back against it and dig their heels in deeper, or they can take responsibility, grow as a person, and maybe even cast off or recant whatever made them act in such a way or believe such things. It allows them to introspect into what they've done, and gives them the opportunity to decide to become a better person. A wonderful example of this is Dan Harmon, who acted inappropriately towards staff under him, and did not realise it at the time because of his emotional state. He introspected to figure out why that happened, apologised in full, and has presumably taken steps and made himself more aware so he will not repeat those actions. In addition, staff around him can be more aware, and can more openly and safely broach the issue with him now if he does relapse, because of how he responded. What better can we ask for?!
It's not about destroying people, or encouraging people to see them as some monster, it's fundamentally about allowing people to choose how they want to interact with that person -- even in a parasocial way. It's about allowing choice, and allowing people to act with discretion, more than anything else.
Arguably, this encourages people to see them less as a two dimensional caricature. My reaction to this information was that this person was obviously very complex, and had both good ideas and bad ideas.
Interestingly enough, I always percieve people (like you) who so vehemently argue against spreading information like this, and allowing people to choose how they view public figures and interact with content that they have produced, as arguing this from fear. From the fear that acts that you have done will catch up with you. This might not be true, but it does make me wonder.
I appreciate the nuanced response and I also believe you're also coming from a place of compassion here too.
I agree to an extent, but I think it is too easy to take a nasty turn in this age of information overload. It's very easy to cherry pick salacious details and run with them, knowing that people will take it at face value.
I'm absolutely not accusing anyone here of doing that, and in part I'm not responding to the parent in as much as I'm also venting my exasperation about how we talk about people on the internet these days.
Even if Connery did publicly retract or apologise, for example, how many people would try to seek that out if all they saw was the original video in isolation? Once a criminal, always a criminal? Or can we imagine that people may change even without making a public song and dance about it?
> Even if Connery did publicly retract or apologise, for example, how many people would try to seek that out if all they saw was the original video in isolation? Once a criminal, always a criminal?
See: Dan Harmon's apology which so easily disproves this :) In the case of Connery, it would have been easy for him to push his PR people to publicly denounce the video, do a few interviews, and donate some token sum of a couple of thousand to the relevant charities. I remember (But unfortunately can't cite) some other people who have then gone on to be advocates for these causes as a form of penance. As a celebrity, pretty much anything like this is newsworthy, if not, he doesn't have good PR people and should fire them and hire new ones, because they aren't effective enough for his purposes :P
> Or can we imagine that people may change even without making a public song and dance about it?
I mean, he stated it publicly in the first place, so obviously he thought at the time that that public statement on that was worth his salt. Assuming he had reformed and then gone on to improve his perspectives, it seems unlikely that from then on he would be unaware of the harm that that video, still in perpetuity, could cause and want to undo that to some extent.
Reforming isn't possible on a personal level, because we (and I'm sorry for this so heavily memed statement) live in a community. On a fundamental level our public statements take on a life of their own, and because we made them, we should have responsibility for them. From then on, that statement can do untold harm or benefit. Such is the way of living in a community, where your actions will affect other people. Part of reforming yourself is attempting to undo the damage that you have caused in the past. And so part of that reformation would inherently have to be, retracting or attempting to undo the damage caused by those public statements.
A different way to put this would be: Is it possible to reform yourself and not try to undo the damage of your past actions in some way? Are you truly reformed if you wave your hand and do not take responsibility for them?
I'm not sure I agree with you on the thing about reform and community. I don't want to sound unfair but 'community' this way reminds me of how 'family' is often used as a blunt instrument too. You're powerless against the larger group (or the mob) and their expectations, which are ever changing. Reform is quite a strong word (with strong authoritarian connotations) and I do wonder what the reaction would be if the proponents of this found themselves on the receiving end of it.
Again, I find it amusing that you went straight to an authoritarian, and particularly uncharitable answer, when it is clear what my comment means in context of my previous comment. You know, the one that you read and responded to.
It's interesting that you went to that place when the TL;DR of my post is:
Can you really become a better person if you haven't attempted to undo harm you caused? If you have changed, part of that change is acknowledging that you harmed people, and how those actions were harmful. You can't acknowledge that you have harmed people, and then handwave that harm by ignoring it, and still say you are a changed person.
It's inherent to self-improvement that you would want to undo the harm that you have caused, if you understand it.
And if you don't, then can you be said to have improved?
I'm sorry, but your response is far more uncharitable as you're making the case that I didn't read it and need a summary that isn't really that close to what you actually said. I thought we were having a conversation.
I don't know who you're arguing with, but it's not with me or what I wrote.
But let's address it: let's say that someone raped another person. The rapist serves a prison sentence for his crime and he comes out of prison as a rehabilitated man. Are you saying he has to go to his victim to specifically make amends to them? And if he doesn't, he's still a rapist? That, in my opinion, is one of the most toxic parts of the 12 step process in the US, where you make your victims responsible for your penance by requiring them to accept your apology, which by its very nature involves bringing up that trauma _again_.
And what even does it mean to 'undo harm'? What's done is done, for better or worse.
> and need a summary that isn't really that close to what you actually said.
Aha, so this:
> Such is the way of living in a community, where your actions will affect other people. Part of reforming yourself is attempting to undo the damage that you have caused in the past. And so part of that reformation would inherently have to be, retracting or attempting to undo the damage caused by those public statements.
> A different way to put this would be: Is it possible to reform yourself and not try to undo the damage of your past actions in some way? Are you truly reformed if you wave your hand and do not take responsibility for them?
is not at all similar to this:
> Can you really become a better person if you haven't attempted to undo harm you caused? If you have changed, part of that change is acknowledging that you harmed people, and how those actions were harmful. You can't acknowledge that you have harmed people, and then handwave that harm by ignoring it, and still say you are a changed person.
> It's inherent to self-improvement that you would want to undo the harm that you have caused, if you understand it.
> And if you don't, then can you be said to have improved?
Because to me they are relatively close retellings of the other.
You're rewriting it outside of the concept of reformation. So no, they're not compatible retellings. Your tl;dr is basically the same post with 'reform' taken out of it. Even without that, it's patronising to assume I didn't read what you had to say such that you had to reword it while also being sarcastic about it.
I don't feel that you're responding to me in good faith. More to that, I still feel like you're responding to your imagined version of my response, and not the actual one. It feels to me like you're creating an argument when I was merely disagreeing and presenting my reason why. I don't really understand how the tone of this chat became so aggressive through you.
Our peers here on HN can decide that, one way or another.
> I don't feel that you're responding to me in good faith. More to that, I still feel like you're responding to your imagined version of my response, and not the actual one. It feels to me like you're creating an argument when I was merely disagreeing and presenting my reason why. I don't really understand how the tone of this chat became so aggressive through you.
My sentiments to you exactly. You hyperfocused on the term "reformation" when it was very clear from the context and the previous 5 - 6 paragraphs I had written on the subject, that it was intended as a substitute for "self improvement", "self betterment", "taking accountability for one's actions". You decided to somehow interpret it as an authoritarian argument, and deliberately twisted my argument into something that you could then argue against. It was utterly fascinating and simultaneously irritating to witness how deft you were at doing it, hence the sarcasm.
The argument was literally just about how everything you do in public happens to affect the people it reaches. And people should be accountable for the effects of their actions in that public (or private) space.
Your response here is very poor. In the present discussion the correct analogy with Connery’s behavior would not be that the rapist served the sentence, but that they served the sentence and after they got released, went on a nationally televised news program and stated unequivocally that they did not regret what they did and in fact believed that their victim “wouldn’t shut up” which in some sense meant the victim brought it on themselves.
If someone did that, they deserve to have those words brought up and used to identify their poor character, regardless of whether they “served their time.”
Just as in Connery’s behavior - he doubled down on saying (extremely publicly) that he was ok with women being slapped and gave some extremely contrived misogynistic reasoning about what they could do to deserve it. Connery didn’t just say that and then later apologize or clear the record. He said it once, then years later said it again in response to a direct interview question about that exact topic, and doubled down on not changing his mind, and then never in the rest of his life did he explicitly apologize or retract it.
That is such a forceful application of misogyny that it goes beyond an unfortunate character flaw we should overlook and instead is borderline a defining characteristic of his legacy.
You're way off base, unless you can tell me that Connery was convicted for domestic abuse, went to prison, and _then_ made his comments to Playboy and Vanity Fair and so on that he was right to do that.
> poor character, regardless of whether they “served their time.”
This is where I tune out, because that is a whole damn can of worms you've opened up.
I respect that you think Sean Connery's a cunt and shouldn't be celebrated because he's said some things that go against what you stand for, but beyond that we're done here.
> Allowing us to be aware and put into context the people that we, as a society, hold up -- people who for all intents and purposes can 'do no wrong'. And deciding whether or not we still want to consume those works, and hold them up on that pedestal, with that information.
The thing is, people already know that. Bringing those things up is really just being a downer.. peeing in the punchbowl.
I find it more perplexing that we pre-occupy ourselves with splitting the people of the world into those who are good and those who are bad. And then making sure the bad group can't ever make its way back into the good one.
Rarely, if ever, is it so clear cut. And if anything, it's quite a juvenile (and pervasively Western) value system.
I find it particularly exhausting and the world is as it is because there isn't enough compassion going around to even consider how we might approach our problems with kinder, less vengeful, hearts.
> Rarely, if ever, is it so clear cut. And if anything, it's quite a juvenile (and pervasively Western) value system.
And the opposite edge of the same sword are stories of Keanu being such an amazing human being etc. All the while no one knows or seems to even care who they truly are. We demonize and idolize for a sense of moral righteousness and to strengthen our world view. It's far from compassion, has little to do with them, and it's juvenile.
Bad behavior is not an argument against good behavior. Bad character is not an argument against good character. They're not mutually exclusive, and it's a false dichotomy.
Let the police arrest the criminals. But speech should be free. We've all said dumb sh_t. We've all believed dumb sh_t. We've all done dumb sh_t.
To paraphrase George Carlin, we're all born guilty.
For all the sins of past societies, they at least had the good grace and civility to regard those who spoke ill of the recently dead (even if deserved) with scorn. There are times where, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "To be kind is more important than to be right."
Let's celebrate the good parts and forgive the bad parts of a person's life at it's end, just as we would want others to do for us. Leave chewing over their failings to those pale few who derive nourishment from it.
Indeed. Be honest with me until I'm on my deathbed -- at that point, please follow Fitzgerald; there's little point in changing a dying person's mind and I'll probably be in plenty of anguish already. But once I'm dead? Whatever, I'm dead. Don't delude yourself for my sake!
And, does anybody remember when bin Laden died? Was it inappropriate to speak ill of him on that day? Nope, that was roundly celebrated with back-slapping and champagne on the very day it happened, by democrats and republicans alike
Time and place, my dude. You might as well start picketing outside of the man's wake. It's rude to trample on the emotions of people who are mourning together.
Nah. Airing of grievances is a perfectly legitimate form of grief. When my (very popular, publicly beloved, but privately abusive) dad died, I didn't speak my mind at his funeral because of attitudes like yours. People with an incomplete understanding of his person wanted to censor my experiences in order to relish in the good times. My grief process would require several years of counseling. They were there for a party, and most of them experienced a day or less of grief. The truth is complex. The weirdest reaction to "cancel culture" is people who would censor the truth in favor of fantasy, but complain that their fave artist is the one being censored.
Erasing history in any form isn't great, really. Which is why I was quite specific in the original reply about acknowledging _all_ of it, not just specific bits.
I mean, you can still say that someone was an asshole about a few things but you still loved them. Other people can say they didn't love him at all and have nothing positive to say. They're intimate feelings.
It's not the same as going to someone who is grieving and celebrating and saying, don't forget that he did X, Y and Z though! Where X, Y and Z are hideous things. It's not a place to start trying to change people's minds about someone.
That'll happen all by itself over time, as we can see with people such as Mother Theresa and Jimmy Saville.
My parents were similar in having one public appearance, but being abusive to me in private. I cut contact so I don't imagine or expect to be at any family funeral, so I can't say how I'd react. But I know they would be appreciated by others in a way that I could never be.
You're welcome to have that feeling. I'm also not downvoting you.
As it stands, I'm quite happy being ludicrous and unreasonable if that's what you think it is. I just can't (and won't) see the world the same way as you and likeminded others.
Most reasonable people understand his overall sentiment and the underlying humorous opinion on the interaction between the sexes, but that requires nuance and context.
In the absence of that, perhaps a modern interpretation would be useful, so here is Bill Burr (famous world-class comedian) on a similar subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksKvZoUCPQ
Yes, it is hard because even here in supposedly enlightened and fair minded Hacker News, even just making comments about his unequivocal support for slapping women, it is met with ridiculous downvotes, claims that there’s “a time and a place” to criticize abuse (and that this apparently isn’t it) and various other mental gymnastics that either tacitly support misogyny or try to deflect rightful criticism of misogyny into some meta debate about good vs bad, remembering the good in people and other plainly irrelevant platitudes.
And that’s just the vitriolic response I’m getting as a commenter on an internet forum. You can start to see the ways in which abuse and rape victims, for example, are dismissed, blamed, insulted and ignored.
As for the article you linked, it’s very specious to suggest that is a defense or mitigates Connery’s endorsement on national television of slapping women. It’s obviously a quick PR filler piece to run interference on his choice to decline that Holyrood interview knowing he would be grilled on his abuse comments, purely and obviously self-serving and obviously not any type of sincere apology or retraction of his earlier remarks.
It would have been trivially easy for him to make a press release specifically apologizing for and retracting the earlier remarks. Any little Scottish press article where he doesn’t even explicitly apologize and retract is just simply not something relevant to consider at all.
What part of the response is vitriolic? Or unequivocally supporting Connery? I've read every reply completely and all I see is a group of people wrangling what is a difficult topic.
I'll note you seem remarkably dismissive of any viewpoint that isn't full agreement, and even the parent's reply isn't good enough to meet your standard.
All I can say is that if you wanted to rake someone over the coals rather than have what seems to be a pretty mature discussion, I don't think you'll find what you want from this. Otherwise, there's a lot to unpack in what I think is quite a philosophical conversation.
Now that you've made up your mind, anything to the contrary is a conspiracy.
Did you actually listen to what Sean said? He starts by saying it's wrong to hit women. He knows it's wrong. What he's saying is if a woman doesn't know when to shut up, they could get themselves slapped and it wasn't beneath him either. He's justifying physical retaliation to verbal abuse. That's very different from straight DV. In fact, maybe he doesn't want any women to be slapped. Maybe they do it to themselves just as he made you publicly shame him?
Which brings us to another nuanced topic. Is public shaming non-violent?
Of course, maybe he hit first or just uses that as an excuse, who knows. His first wife's autobiography has some dirt, but then again, was it PR filler to sell her book? Or maybe he never hit anyone in his life, but just said something he believed which just happened to no longer be in fashion.
My only point is, demonizing or idolizing is all absurd. It's an act that only gets easier when nuance is removed and positions are deemed absolute. Because ultimately that's what it is. Removal of all nuance.
Today it's still okay by most for a woman to hit a man. Tomorrow will men get the justice they deserve? Also my 2yo hits me and I have video evidence. Should I hold on to it?
If someone needs help, let's help them. Public shaming helps no one.
> supposedly enlightened and fair minded Hacker News
>Today it's still okay by most for a woman to hit a man.
The context here is that a woman can't threaten a man with violence due to being unable to injure or harm the man (I'm excluding stinging for a few seconds from a slap).
Whereas a woman is always at a great disadvantage for defending herself against a man, so if a man hits her, even if it's just a slap, it indicates that he is willing to hit her, and might hit her harder next time causing damage. This context makes the difference between a woman slapping a man versus a man slapping a woman. A similar situation is if a very small child slapped an adult.
Note that my statement isn't comparing women to small children, but to illustrate the role of differences in displays of physical power between two people.
None of the above is me endorsing any sort of violence or physical retribution, but I'm trying to explain most people wouldn't be okay with a woman hitting a man in a way that injures him or causes long term intimidation, but why a slap in a sitcom is accepted.
But that's not a true context is it? It's the sexist one that says women are weaker and must be harmless. A woman can absolutely threaten a man with violence. We see it every day in all of the broken marriages, divorce settlements, and situations where children become weapons. The whole situation with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is one where the traditional roles are reversed.
The truth is that a human being is capable of untold destruction in many forms, and history proves it over and over again. It can be physical, emotional, torturous...you can't make good and evil out of it.
It’s not sexist to say a woman (in general) is physically weaker than a man, it’s a fact due to biology.
I’m just saying that I only see society accepting women hitting a man in the context of a rare slap in sitcoms or movies in the heat of the moment, but I wouldn’t take that to mean society accepts women harming men long term or whatever Depp / Heard thing you’re referring to.
Which is all sexist, but accepted. Which again is interesting.
> might hit harder next time
Pre-crime?
I am not sure if you saw Mr. Connery's interview, but this is far closer to what he was saying than any straight up endorsement of domestic violence:
"None of the above is me endorsing any sort of violence or physical retribution, but I'm trying to explain most people wouldn't be okay with a man hitting a woman in a way that injures her or causes long term intimidation, but why a slap in a sitcom is accepted."
> “ Now that you've made up your mind, anything to the contrary is a conspiracy.”
This is an absurd response. Just look at the article - it is emphatically not a retraction or apology. You can’t just claim I’ve become close-minded and therefore dismiss anything else that’s said. That’s just your own close-mindedness.
> “ He starts by saying it's wrong to hit women. He knows it's wrong. What he's saying is if a woman doesn't know when to shut up, they could get themselves slapped and it wasn't beneath him either. He's justifying physical retaliation to verbal abuse.“
This is not what he said at all. This is an attempt by you to whitewash it and cover it with things that are exposing your own misogyny. Framing any behavior Connery ascribed to these hypothetical women that could “cause” him to slap them as “abuse” perpetrated by the women is directly misogynistic by you!
I shudder that I even have to point this out to you - that your own comments here are pretty morally contemptible but you very blindly and very wrongly appear to think you’re representing some sort of higher plane of discourse where you don’t reduce people to binary good or bad characterizations.
> “ Today it's still okay by most for a woman to hit a man. Tomorrow will men get the justice they deserve? Also my 2yo hits me and I have video evidence. Should I hold on to it?”
What point do you think you’re making here? This is borderline incoherent? Are you claiming a two year old hitting you is somehow the same as a world famous movie star going on national TV and saying he thinks it’s ok to slap women? Because there’s no other rhetorical flair to your comment that could make any sense.
> “ If someone needs help, let's help them. Public shaming helps no one.”
This sounds like a true defender of abusers. You sincerely ought to be ashamed of yourself for the position you’re describing.
You're free to disagree or challenge any statement, but character assassination is something else. This is modern witch hunting. This is bullying. What if I had then gone and killed myself. You don't know me. No context should ever justify bullying.
And if you'd asked me whether I am a defender of abusers, I could have writted how I am not. Yet, you've already made assumptions to the contrary.
> your own close-mindedness.
What I said could also be interpreted as open-minded. You just don't appreciate the context in which it was practiced.
To only be able to see things in specific ways to the detriment of others and yourself is close-mindedness, similar to what you have demonstrated with your views.
> If someone needs help, let's help them. Public shaming helps no one.
Take Bill Cosby, since he's been found guilty of acts, not just speech. Do you think Cosby needs any shaming beyond the facts?
If you're going around spewing hate regarding someone who has already shamed themselves by their own actions, what exactly does anyone need you for? And what exactly are you doing?
Sean Connery is the same. What he said embarassed him enough. People already hated him enough for it and punished him at the time.
If you want to help DV victims then let's help DV victims. Shaming a dead Bond does little for your cause, just as shaming Dr. Huxtable will do little or nothing to protect anyone that needs help now. No DV perp is going to read what you wrote and change their ways.
So I have a problem with this. So his worldview differs from your own, even promotes a little violence against women. You never had to date him so what does his views on that have anything to do with you? Or anything to do with his work? I'm a supporter of social issues, but social justice advocates who dismiss someone's life's work because of their beliefs is a shallow, hypocritical, human being. So you don't have to like the guy. That's really only your problem. Stop trying to make it everyone else's. The guy was stuck in 1950s style misogyny, HE WAS JAMES BOND! His character was that to the extreme. But to take what someone said once, and forever label them that is wrong, immoral, and is completely unempathetic.
I will assume this is an honest un-loaded question, but would be most comfortable giving an honest answer in a throwaway.
First, I think Connery was pretty clearly saying that slapping a woman isn't always abuse, not saying that it is abuse and abuse is okay. Besides being literally false if narrowly interpreted, this violates the HN guideline, "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
Second, because it's an attempt to side-load a hot-button topic into a non-political thread, and HN frowns on that. (Note that the hot-button topic is "Were Connery's comments acceptable", which was contentious at the time he made them and still is today; it is not, as OP's phrasing might suggest, "Is spousal abuse acceptable" which almost no one agrees with)
Third, discussion of this Connery interview has been ubiquitous online today (it has been mentioned in every article, Reddit thread, FB post, etc about Sean Connery I have seen today) and I suspect lot of people come to HN to get away with that.
Fourth, there is indeed a long, long tradition of people who dislike a celebrity using the occasion of their death to launch one last attack on them, and other people who liked the celebrity indignantly complaining that that's a bad thing to do.
I watched because I was curious after your comment, but he doesn't seem to say anything about her being abusive, just not taking your (his/the man's) 'final word'?
I was curious because arguably behaving differently according to their gender (i.e. not hitting a woman back) is what would be sexist, (albeit a widely accepted form) but as it is it ('my word is final or I hit you'?) just seems bad regardless of whether the other person's a man or a woman...
I dont think its about gender. I think he talks about a specific type of girls (and possibly guys too but i have not met any in private) who can be very insisting and pushing you contantly to the limit and never leaving you alone in private even if you clearly say "please leave me alone now im done"... so you feel your only last options is to walk away or actually engage in violence. These people sometimes even resort to violence even before you would..
The only gender specific and slightly sexist part of that video is assuming only girls could behave like that (you know the whole "its the periods") but i personally think its not the case its just a type of person.
Abuse is abuse. Separating physical abuse from moral abuse and thiniking it is worse is a very modern idea.
Before, slapping a child was not abuse, now it is. But that doesnt mean before the abuse of children did not exist, just that a slap was not considered abuse if it was justified.
Personally i think moral abuse can be far far worse than physical... in part because people have harder times to take the decision to leave.
Im not even defending sean connery's point here, just trying to make some sense in why he could be something else than THE BIG EVIL for having this opinion at that time.
It's not that simple. I was smacked as a child because I was a little shit and deserved it. It wasn't abuse. It worked and taught me to respect my parents.
Not only is that actually abuse, it's also illegal in most of the developed world for that very reason. That some people have internalised their childhood abuse and rationalised it as 'it worked', because they don't want to recognise that their parents treated them wrong doesn't change that. In fact it actually proves an important point, that it is important to always speak up against abuse, because a lot of people who have been abused often in an attempt to not deal with it rationalise it away.
This comment is flagrantly misogynistic. This is a ridiculous interpretation and the mental gymnastics to try to distinguish “slapping” from abuse, or to do victim blaming by saying it’s qualified by the woman already abusing you (wtf?) - it’s really inappropriate and upsetting to see some on HN making this argument.
If you aren’t realizing that your comment is sincerely amplifying misogyny, you need a sensitivity training course or something of the sort.
Its not misogynistic because it is not related to gender at all. His point is basically:
"If some is already verbally abusing you, its fine to resort to light violence if nothing else works".
Its actually a point that i disagree personally, because i would just go away. But if you cant understand that verbal abuse can be far far worse than physical, you are probably the one that needs a sensitivity training more than me.. Or you just need to live life a little more until you meet some really narcisisstic and abusive partner (whichever his gender) which will harass you and make you seriously consider violence.
I’m sorry but this is in no way a fair characterization of his comments to Barbara Walters. It is specifically brought up in the context of slapping women, and he is quite obviously not talking about slapping in response being verbally abused, not at all. That is an attempt to completely whitewash what he said and the circumstances referring to his earlier quote from Playboy.
I am sickened to see this mental gymnastics and attempt to whitewash what he actually said. It’s absolutely misogynistic to try to reinvent the meaning of what he said so as to obfuscate the fact that gender played a dominant role in his suggestion and that it was specifically in reference to slapping women.
> and he is quite obviously not talking about slapping in response being verbally abused, not at all.
Well maybe we have not seen the same video then. i quote:
"Some women wont leave it alone. They want to have the last word and wheb you give them the last word their are not happy with it and they want to say it again. And they will try to get you into a provocative situation."
Its the litteral definition of gaslighting your partner. Its a litteral case of verbal abuse.
Sure he talks about women but only because the interviewer asks about the provocative idea of "slapping a women", but its the same situation with a guy in a bar that tries to provoke you and it gets physical..
If anyone is sexist here its the interviewer framing the situation as "omg man slapping a woman" to make him look bad, when its just "person who is verbally abused slapping the abuser to make it stop".
Once again i wouldnt personally react like he advocated but he is kilometers away from a spousal abuser. If anything the video ends by saying he never had any trouble with his wife..
"And they will try to get you into a provocative situation."
Jesus you guys really would really say anything to make him look bad. How else would you even be able to convey "gaslighting" or "abuse" with words at that time.
Gaslighting was called gaslighting or trying to make someone think they're crazy.
Abuse was called abuse.
Even trying to provoke someone isn't gaslighting. But that isn't what he said. He just said "and get into a really provocative situation". He also said he hadn't changed his mind from when he said "If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I’d do it."
Reacting to verbal abuse with physical abuse usually just escalates the situation. So it would be bad advice even if he meant what you think he did.
I think he meant exactly what you said, and i agree its escalation, and personally i would not do it.
Its just not "spousal abuse" like OP said trying to make hime look like evil. Its just light escalation that he say he doesnt want to do on the first place. Its not the end of the world even if its bad. Its just like the end of world in this thread because its about hitting a woman.
He would say yeah "i would puch a guy who harrass me in a bar if he doesnt stop" and no one would bat an eye.
I'm going to add my reply to be downvoted with the rest of them.
There seems to be some unwritten rule that you're only allowed to say good things about people when they die. And I think that rule needs to end. Let's be honest and recognize that people are complex even when they die.
Spousal abuse is wrong and people who think it's OK should be called out for that.
Perhaps celebrate the best of people (who are flawed but otherwise good) when they die, and then after a discrete interval acknowledge their faults, too? - Would be my opinion.
> There seems to be some unwritten rule that you're only allowed to say good things about people when they die.
It seems to always happen in forums, as here, where some people complain that it's somehow 'too soon' to mention something negative, but it doesn't happen in obituaries, which commonly don't just stick to superficial 'good' aspects of someone's life or career.
In the case of Connery, for example, all of the following, and more, refer to his statements on slapping/abuse:
It sounded cool and tough guy thing at the time to quite a lot of people. And the books also contain open racism.
Let's chalk it to improvement over time. It is not cool not classy anymore. But it is also good to remember that it used to be acceptable thing to say for cool guy, so that we don't idealize past.
This is not about the art, it is about the man. While he was a great actor, style icon, artist, and had a tremendously interesting life, he was also quite explicitly misogynistic in several interviews.
I get that. We can criticize that aspect surely. However, if you like the performance like it. Disconnect the person from the performance and from the larger context (his movies were complicit in sexism).
Look, consensual people can engage in degrading stuff, but we don’t come down on that because we believe that’s a private matter between consenting adults.
edit: interesting, went from +2 to -1 in a minute. Going to take this time to point out Hacker News's routine degradation of women as well now that it's on full display again.
So I’m not saying you _have_ to like his art. But merely they are not one and the same. It’s okay to not like him or his characters, but it’s not okay to conflate the two.
Yeah, fortunetaly the movie industry was not a reflection of society. I mean, it's not like any of our parents or grandparents approved of any of this, right?
Our grandparents generation had more domestic violence then we do. Parents were in between. The domestic violence was much more accepted by those people. So, it is safe to say quite a few approved.
They even had jokes that approved that sort of thinking.
I mean, they did. That's the implicit critique; it's a relic of a darker time at least in societies that try a bit better today to treat people as peers.
So the people we love get away with an implied critique (nudge nudge wink wink), but we hurl stones at anyone famous?
Changing makes us better. Virtue signaling does not. Assuming we're monotonously moving towards tolerance and treating people better is also extremely arrogant. The comments to this post demonstrates that with great clarity. Sean Connery isn't even cold and already people line up to piss on his grave.
Next time someone in your family dies, are you going to list their moral shortcomings? The "but" right after listing their accomplishments and good sides? "BUT...he didn't like Asian people, spoke ill of jews and objectified women and stared at Mrs Jenkins daughers tits whenever he could. He ate red meat and belonged to a religion that terrorized much of the world for a thousand years".
Of course not.
But then again, Sean Connery isn't a person to any of us. He is just a symbol of something it is okay to hate. So pissing on his grave is somehow permissible.
What annoys me isn't that people get upset about his views. What upsets me is that people have the absolutely disgusting idea that pissing on his grave makes them better. It doesn't. It just means they are a different kind of asshole.
They climb and they fall, that’s how it’s always been and probably won’t change anytime soon. The Overton window is sliding a bit faster and characters who did questionable things get in the spotlight in their lifetime not a few centuries later. That is okay as long as it doesn’t degenerate into violence, but that is easier said than done
Regular people tacitly endorsing misogyny is awful and should be confronted, not sugarcoated.
But that is in no way remotely comparable to a huge worldwide movie star openly endorsing spousal abuse on a major television news program and never retracting it or apologizing.
Obviously we should criticize that extreme of an act far far more than tacit sexism passively accepted by eg an out of touch grandparent or something. You are trying to equate the two but they are not similar at all.
There’s no logical requirement for people to apply this criticism uniformly eg to every racist extended family member in order to be unhypocritical when leveling the criticism against a big media figure.
I feel like Daniel Craig delivered some witty comedy in his portrayal even if the films themselves were very gritty. But yeah, I felt like it was absolutely absent from Pierce Brosnan's Bond.
Whenever someone of this stature goes, I tend to gather together their films, what I have of them, and work through them. So here I am looking at Outland (which isn't as terrible as Harlan Ellison said but goodness it isn't great), Zardoz, In the Name of the Rose, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (it's fun, I will grant it that), Time Bandits and was left wondering: what films had his iconic performances? What's a good sample to understand the range he had?
I grew up with the Bond films so they're very much background to me, almost hard to notice in a way. Any recommendations?
He wasn't as bad of an actor as people say (compared to the greats), but he didn't take a lot of challenging roles. I wish he'd played more villains/anti heroes.
In my mind, I was listing the Connery movies that I liked and I completely forgot The Man Who Would Be King. I love that movie! Along with Michael Caine and Saeed Jaffrey as Billy Fish, it really shows a fun side to him.
That seems to be curiously common with that film - people seem to:
1) think it's awesome
2) but somehow forget that they think that until they're reminded of it!
I enjoyed it when it first came out. But I watched it again with my family, recently, and the cringe factor was high. The janky special effects were of their time. But there is no excuse for the accents! The music is amazing though.
The Name of the Rose is pretty terrible. The book is incredible, though. It's the movie I instantly think of when someone asks "what is the worst movie adaptation of a book you've seen?"
I think it's probably important with Connery just to accept him as the man and actor that he was, rather than worrying about his range - whether he was playing Bond, or King Arthur in the execrable "First Knight", or a Russian submarine commander, he was always the same handsome, suave man with an unmistakable Scottish accent: that, in itself, was his great achievement. But he definitely wasn't a method actor or particularly dynamic.
Yes, usually the accent goes unmentioned in-story, but I liked how in "The Presidio" (1988) they actually explained why Sean Connery's character (a US Army officer) would have the accent by explaining that his family moved from Scotland to the US when he was a child.
Ohh I loved that one. I haven't watched his bond films and I didn't liked the few clips. Him as an older actors was fabulous everytime I saw him.
Dragonheart - I loved his voice in that. I think I realized for the first time, what a voice can do. The angry, bitter dragon turning to the wise advisor.
"Outland" (despite its faults) can be seen as an early example of cyberpunk with its evil mega corporation ruling Io (even though it was inspired by real life company mining towns just on a larger scale)
I wouldn't underestimate the thief character he played in "Entrapment" (though the movie in itself was IMHO so-and-so), which is clearly derived/has connections with the one in "The rock".
I recently re-watched most of his films as I created a programming language that emits error messages based on his accent[0]. I was unable to find a single film that he was involved in that I did not enjoy. Some actors not only practice their craft well but also only seem to put their stamp on films that are worth the audiences time.
[0]Example: "shtirred: filter requiresh a function and a lisht ash input!" - http://connerylang.org/
I love Red October. Fantastic movie. Also I will never forget his role as Indiana Jones’ father. The scene where he scares away the birds with his umbrella in order to take down a German Messerschmidt.
I was first introduced to him as Indiana Jone's dad, and I loved him in the screenplay of the Hunt of the Red October.
Will miss you Sean Connnery!
They say imitation and parody are the sincerest forms of flattery, in his honor here is one of the many great SNL Celebrity Jeopardy skits with Darrell Hammond playing Sean Connery:
Yeah, Connery and Harrison Ford were really hilarious in that movie! And I have the impression Connery thoroughly enjoyed not having to play the action hero for once...
Rowan Atkinson appears in "Never Say Never Again" as a character that is almost Mr. Bean. It's not really a cameo though.
Minnie Driver had a cameo in "Goldeneye", and Madonna had a small role in one of the Brosnan flicks. Richard Branson also appeared in one of the Brosnan films.
They tried to have a reoccurring comic relief character in Sheriff John W. Pepper but it only lasted two films. He played a sheriff or prison guard in a number of films of that era as well.
That old guy you see in Skyfall who helps him setup the home alone traps was supposed to be Connery, but it didn’t happen.
This isn’t really surprising though, Connery stopped associating himself with bond many years ago, so it’s was unlikely he would ever agree to do a cameo.
I would rate Zardoz to be the best movie that Connery was in.
It's widely panned as schlocky B-grade scifi, but it's actually pretty interesting and more profound than most A-grade films that garner much higher critical acclaim.
Sure, there's plenty of cheese in that film, but it doesn't make it any less great... more great, in my view.
I love it, he plays an immortal being born in Egypt yet has a Spanish name and speaks with a Scottish accent. Though I guess it's easier to wrap your head around those bits since he's immortal and has had time to live different lives than explaining why a Soviet submarine commander speaks with a Scottish accent.
He did retract it 2006. You types can look up evidence that fits your agenda but not what is also out there in the matrix that would make you retract your crap.
I will probably be downvoted to death but I am not particularly impressed by Sean Connery. He wasn’t a bad actor by any means but nothing resonates with me, all known his movies are commercial stints and I couldn’t see any depth to his acting other than the known Sean Connery type we’re familiar with. Actors that weight heavier on my scale are for example Rutger Hauer or Jeremy Irons or even the recently cancelled Kevin Spacey. Sean Connery was the posterboy for that genre and didn’t go beyond that. I liked his look though and he seemed to get sexier and sexier as he got older but that’s about it
Love his stage presence, but do check out his interview with Barbara Walters. He had some seriously crazy views on how to treat women. https://youtu.be/oo0d1zTAFKA
Pretty sure it has been acceptable if you go back far enough. It certainly would've been nice for Connery to keep learning throughout his life and getting some misconceptions out of his head. But I'll make the split to disagree with those views and still consider him a behemoth of an actor that I hugely adore.
One thing that annoyed me with his acting is as he got older his particular lisp got stronger and it gets harder to not notice. In his early movies it was merely a peculiar speech pattern.
Of all the reasons to pick on him (and I don't think there are many, but the few that exist are pretty big), I'm not sure picking on him for a speech impediment that was beyond his control is particularly kind.
Is it possible for you to move past it? Not that you have to, just wondering if it's possible. I did pretty well understanding his later films; what you mentioned never occurred to me until you mentioned it.
That’s one of those things like flavors (ex. coriander) or smells (certain flowers, wet dogs). For some people they are “ambient” for others they are overwhelming. It’s obviously not on him but on me, but at the same time I find it hard to listen past it.
I mean, the Bond character didn't really help either. Much as his original take on Bond is a marvelous one for what it is, Bond was always written as an absolute jerk to women. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48512928
I was staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton in 2004 during Oscars week. I was in the business center on the Internet (this was the dark ages before ubiquitous hotel WiFi and personal devices.)
Someone comes in, and then a few minutes later says in a completely unmistakable voice
“Excuse me, do you know how to print this?”
I immediately jumped into parental IT support mode, it was a pretty easy thing to do, he said, Thanks, and (this is the awkward thing) continued to stay in there on the computer while I had to do the whole “pretend to be normal around Sean freaking Connery” for the next 20 minutes. I couldn’t even bring up the courage to mention my childhood favorite, Darby O’Gill and the Little People …
PS the reason I was there was to film an episode of Jeopardy, and I told Alex what had transpired (he loves those skits) and he was pretty pumped, he asked if I’d pop him in the mouth and tell him “that’s from Trebek” if I saw him again.
RIP Sean Connery, a great actor!