In A Piece of the Action, Cosby and Poitier were crooks who were blackmailed into doing something good. They learn it's better to be good guys.

A lazy response deserves a lazy response.

Movie Producer Dillon Jordan Arrested for Allegedly Running a Prostitution Ring

https://www.vulture.com/2021/07/dill...aundering.html

It's always confusing to me when people understand analogies as equivalences. Everybody took the SATs, right?

Flour is a cake, as steel is to a car.
Flour and steel are things used to make cakes and cars, respectively.
It is not a comparison between flour and steel, or an equivalence between cakes and cars. The analogy is the relationship.

Bill Cosby is to Cliff Huxtable, as Selleck is to Magnum, as Broderick is to the kid from War Games, as Scar Jo is to Black Widow. I set what I know about the actor aside, willingly suspend my disbelief, and engage with the fiction.

Again, don't see how that point was difficult to apprehend.

There seems to be a missing comparison here: serial rape is to touting for the NRA as baking a cake is to recommending a brand of flour.

Recently, Billie Eilish had to come out and apologized because before she was a public figure she lip-synched a racial slur in a Tik Tok video.Hurtful.

Why would that be hurtful? I'd like to ask anyone who claims they were hurt by her actions to explain exactly how they were hurt.

That's what I mean when I use the term "woke police." Eilish did something that nobody should give a shit about, but the woke police saw an opportunity to wield power like a night stick and beat an apology out of her.

And the only way they get that power is if people claim to care deeply about things that really don't matter to them at all.

Bill Cosby is a criminal. He drugged and raped women. He hurt his victims. He never hurt me.
No crimes he ever committed affected me. I have much stronger feelings about the person that broke into my car three years ago, than I will ever have about Bill Cosby.

His entire career was premised upon an outrageous hypocrisy, as he lied to the public about who he was to enrich himself and accumulate power. Doesn't that describe (maybe) 80% of every rich and powerful person in American history

I love comedy and I love sitcoms, and I can't pretend that Bill Cosby was not a great comedian and the star/producer of one of TV's greatest shows.


Checked in on the thread after a couple weeks and just wanted to respond to a couple things. for now.

When Tom Selleck did commercials for the NRA, he identified himself as the organization ("I am the NRA").
He told the world that he supported EVERYTHING the NRA did, and he was selling people on the idea that as much trust as they had invested in the rightfulness of his persona as solid, American good guy, they could trust the NRA to be doing good for the USA.
So, to me, he's complicit in all the work the NRA did to fight gun control laws.

I also hold Bill Cosby responsible for New Coke.

I liked New Coke.

If you didn't want comparisons, why did you ask the above?

Regarding SATs, no we don't take those in Canada.

You hold Cosby responsible for New Coke, I hold him responsible for multiple rapes. I guess that's the difference between you and me.

Have you ever stopped to think about his victims as anything more than an obstacle in your enjoyment of his comedy? Because this strikes me as an inadvertent admission that you aren't capable of empathy.

It's an odd argument. We might say the same thing about most crime, that we don't care about it because it didn't directly affect us.

Just spitballin’ here but perhaps Asian people who liked her music feel differently than you?

If our barometer for outrage is only “did it affect me specifically?” then we’re going to undo a lot of progress we’ve made for people who aren’t straight white men.

Well, feelings are by definition irrational, but the way we behave based on those emotions must be rational because the capacity for rational self-reflection is essential to being fully human.
Like I posted before, if someone claims that they were "hurt," I would challenge them to examine what that word means.

I understand why, from a PR perspective, it was easiest for BE to be contrite and apologize for hurting people, the same way I understand why Jerry Seinfeld felt the need to lie about changing his opinion about Bill Cosby.
However, it would have been better for society if BE had not apologized, but instead released a statement that she is 18/19 years old, and that 5 years ago, she did something stupid that she would not do today. And further, that she is going to do something this year that she will look back on when she is 25, and it think was stupid. That's how life works.
Put it back on the legions of devastated individuals to explain why anyone should give a crap about something so insignificant that she did when she was a child.

Seriously, and I do mean seriously, if you love Billie Eilish's music, and finding out that she used a racial slur many years ago, changes how you feel about her music, then there is something wrong with you, psychologically.
And if finding out that somebody used a racial slur when they were 13/14 changes your opinion of who that person is at 18/19, there's something wrong with you.

It's not about "our barometer for outrage," it's about our eagerness to (pretend to be) outraged. We have to fight the virus of self-imposed victimhood.

Thank you for the opportunity to further explain my thoughts on this subject.

Everyone did. I've never really understood that particular bit of history. Pepsi overwhelmingly won in blind taste tests. Coke reformulated and obviously came up with a slight variation that also overwhelmingly won in blind taste tests (vs old coke). But the people where aghast. Taste better?! To the streets!

Also I watched Uptown Saturday Night the other day, it was ok. Not worth the praise people have been heaping on it for years.

Ah! You're mixing up ideas.

Jaywalking and murder are both crimes, so they are comparable as examples of different kinds of crimes.

An analogy like: jaywalking is to getting a ticket as murder is to getting thrown in prison, is not comparing jaywalking and murder, their status as crimes is a premise of the analogy, and it is certainly not equating them.

But it is just a philosophical question. I am asking people about their ability to compartmentalize the art from the artist. Cosby's crimes are too egregious to compartmentalize, but other crimes can be compartmentalized. It's a curiosity to me because I compartmentalize everything, but I completely understand others don't. Their way seems like it would make enjoying entertainment very difficult because we all know so much (good, bad, and indifferent) about artists' personal lives.

Well, I don't think about his victims "as an obstacle to my enjoyment of his comedy" because, honestly, I've never thought much about his victims at all. I never really have. I don't know any of those people. Terrible, terrible, incredibly terrible things are happening to people all over the world every day. I don't think about that.

I totally get that someone could say they can't watch The Cosby Show and not think about Cosby being a rapist, but how do you shut off thinking about the suffering of rape victims when you watch The Goldbergs? Rape victims are still out there. In fact, in the time it takes to watch an episode of The Goldbergs with commercials, 15 rapes will occur. If I am thinking about that, how could I ever enjoy that family's wacky 80s hi-jinks.

Every time any one of us sits down to "escape" with a movie or TV show, we use a dimmer switch on our awareness of all the suffering in the world. In fact, I don't think any of us could make it through our daily lives if we couldn't control our empathy.

When I still went to the office, everyday I stopped at a light, where first thing in the morning, homeless people were out with their signs begging for help. And then I turned left and drove under the highway where the homeless were camping. If I couldn't turn off my empathy for these people, how could I ever just drive a few more blocks, park my car, and go into work?

I'm going to profile you both as being born in the mid-70s. Kids liked New Coke because it was sweeter and lacked "the burn" of real Coke.

Coke and Pepsi had existed as competitors fro 50 years before New Coke was introduced. If people wanted to drink something that tasted like Pepsi, Pepsi was right there for them to buy. Real Coke tasted different. People who like Coke liked the taste of Coke.

That's so much bullshit. I'm not sure if this all is a show of yours because you want to appear to cool for school or if you have to tell yourself this bullshit because you actually feel shitty for liking a serial rapist. So if tomorrow Hitler's comedy album Fat Adolf was released and it would be funny as hell, your personal escapism would enable you to forget about the holocaust or if you're in a movie theater and an active shooter kills 5 people, before killing himself, you would watch the movie until it's finished, because you didn't know the victims?

Telling us, that there you don't connect the crimes of a serial rapist to the face of the serial rapist, is a big fat lie, if you ask me.

Of course nobody thinks about the suffering all around the world all the time, but if I see the face of a known serial rapist I have a hard time to see him as a funny comedian with no context whatsoever.

I would add, lack of empathy perpetuates social ills like homelessness.

I was born in the late 60's...

These days I prefer Coke to Pepsi (I have since the late 80's), but I prefer real sugar versions of either one. The HFCS is sweeter and tastes artificial compared to real sugar.

I can't imagine that Adolf Hitler had much of a sense of humor, but I would be interested to see what someone who died in 1945 had to say about airline food.

It's not "a big fat lie" what I am saying about Cosby. I just don't think that way. I'm not saying I am not aware of his crimes or think that Bill Cosby is a not aterrible man, but I mentally just turn it off and just see the fictional character Cliff Huxtable and the fictional story of the Huxtable family.
I can only say this over and over so many times. It's like watching 30 Rock. I'm not thinking about the fact that I am watching Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin, I am watching Liz and Jack and their crazy stories.
Or, if I listen to his 60s stand-up, they are funny stories delivered in a humorous manner. It really doesn't matter to me who's saying the words. What if Kenan recorded all of Cosby's 60s material doing a Cosby impression, would it be okay to think the material was funny then?

If it came out tomorrow that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were serial rapists who murdered their victims all throughout the 1960s, would that suddenly mean that The Beatles' music sucked? Or that The Beatles weren't really, really important?

A lot of people have mentioned how his hypocrisy offends them. Well, then that doesn't really have anything to do with his crimes and his victims, it's about you. How he tricked you.

But really, I am not so interested in Bill Cosby. I am interested in the idea that what I think is so unacceptable to you, and how that exemplifies a mentality in our society.

People are saying that their ethical sensibility is such that the sight of Bill Cosby offends them because they empathize with his victims. Fair enough. How do we decide who gets empathized with, and for what? Where's the empathy for Desiree Washington?

And what is a victim? Bill Cosby has victims. Does Billie Eilish? People claim she does.

Empathy and ethics are connected.
The seriousness of rape as a crime was not acknowledged in our culture because our culture was constructed by men, and men didn't empathize with the victims of rape, rather they identified with justifications of the rapists.

And that patriarchal mindset defined the parameters of ethical understanding, which in turn became the law. When rape victims started to be seen truly as victims, the empathy for them altered people's ethical sensibility, which started affecting the legal system.

So what does it mean for our society going forward, as people claim victim-status and demand empathy for slights and insults?

So-and-so said a word or made a joke or voiced an opinion that I don't like. They hurt me. I'm a victim. I demand your empathy and demand that we all take action.
So-and-so has to go away because now they trigger me. And if you don't respect my pain, then you are just as much a POS that needs to go away as So-and-so.
And now people get wished into the cornfield, but not because they are your enemy, but because they weren't enough of an ally. But your real enemies are still out there.

I won't comment on your whataboutism, but to answer your question. Empathy is not a decision, either you have it or not. You claim not to have it, I'm still pretty sure you're trying to be cool.

PS: The Beatles suck anyway.

Why not take him at his word? You feel empathy, and expect everyone else to feel the same way you do. You accuse him of lying to be cool, yet millions of soldiers have been able to turn off their empathy for the duration of a war.

I don't get how someone can simultaneously argue that people are crazy for not believing that everyone conforms to their beliefs (ie: hey, some people can watch Cosby without feeling guilt, why can't you understand that) and then saying that if you're hurt by some racial slur some celebrity uttered, "something must be wrong with you psychologically" and it's gotta be the woke police, you sheep.

Like you're saying let me feel the way I feel, but don't feel the way you feel because reasons.

What's with the whataboutism all the time? Yet, I will give you 4 letters: PTSD

And now tell me again, one can turn off empathy.