Mumford and Sons - cancelled?

[WotgunShedding]

I'm completely baffled by this. The lead guitarist of Mumford and Sons is leaving the band because he tweeted in March about a book.

The tweet:

“Congratulations @MrAndyNgo. Finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man”.

I know Andy Ngo's controversial (although the specifics evade me - I vaguely remember something about a milkshake and reporting on Antifa?) but perhaps I'm missing context as this seems like quite an extreme reaction to saying you liked a book.

The few times I've seen similar behaviour have been when women are targeted for talking about sex vs gender but it's not related to that.

Here's the statement Winston (the banjo player) made about leaving:

mrwinstonmarshall.medium.com/why-im-leaving-mumford-sons-e6e731bbc255

The statement seems reasonable enough to me - am I missing something?

In the culture wars Andy Ngo is viewed as the antichrist by extreme left wingers. There's a whole back story and Ngo is certainly controversial but suffice to say an element of it is, ironically, absolutely fuelled by racism (towards Ngo). Funnily enough I was listening to a good podcast about him (and the book) today. It's called Blocked & Reported and the episode has his name in the title. It's from a few weeks ago.

It'll be to protect the band's dreary brand I imagine.

Dull, white woke slebs making music for dull white woke people so they need to perform wokeness at all times, at all costs.

It's all so very un fucking rock n roll. I just can't picture Led Zep back in the day kicking a member out for having one conflicting political belief to the rest of the band. Can you?

His band are arseholes if you ask me (and no one does). Looks like they have thrown him to the wolves to save their own skins. They started this together, they were lucky to have “made it”. I can imagine them awkwardly saying to him “it’s not you it’s…well actually it is you and we think you should do the decent thing and leave so we can pretend that it wasn’t us”.
The bloke (who I have never heard of before) is an excellent writer. I’m sure he will have a nice life anyway but it would have blown over in a few months if they’d just ignored it. Very dramatic.

Read the book for yourself to judge if he deserves to be cancelled.
I've read the book.
If everyone who has cancelled him has, I'll eat my flip flop.

Am I losing my mind?! A man has lost his job because he sent one tweet saying he liked a book? But no, cancel culture doesn't exist. Who are these fucking people?! Are they rejoicing right now?

A man has lost his job because he sent one tweet saying he liked a book?

I'm very tempted to invoke Godwin's Law. Because this is some fucked up Nazi/Stasi shit.

We should burn all the books and invade Poland.

If Winston Marshall is too stupid to recognise that book for the dishonest tripe it is, his band mates might be glad to see the back of him. In any event, he should be easily replaceable by tying a subdued owl to a barbed wire fence and recording any ensuing noises.

I’m just not sure anyone deserves to be cancelled for book reading unless they’re endorsing mein kampf.

Maybe that’s too simplistic and I’m sure there are examples that would be very unpalatable but if there are awful ideas being bandied about, surely the way to change minds is to debate and argue your case, not silence anyone who dissents!

But isn’t that what’s happened? He has been challenged for his view, i.e. invited to debate it. How is that him being silenced?

It's bloody ludicrous. Anyone should be able to read whatever book they like - even if it is Mein Kampf. I haven't read the book in question but maybe I will now, just because I should be allowed to. So there.

He says they were attacking the band members and their families? Is that debating his views?

We should burn all the books and invade Poland

This would probably be less contraversial. I find it genuinely bizarre where people choose to direct their outrage, I really do.

No, I agree that families should be off limits and his band members aren’t responsible for his views. But I think it’s fair game for him to be challenged for what he believes, and fair for people to choose not to support the band on the basis of those views if they don’t want to.

This sounds a bit more like invited to debate though:

I’ve had plenty of abuse over the years. I’m a banjo player after all. But this was another level. And, owing to our association, my friends, my bandmates, were getting it too. It took me more than a moment to understand how distressing this was for them.

Despite being four individuals we were, in the eyes of the public, a unity. Furthermore it’s our singer’s name on the tin. That name was being dragged through some pretty ugly accusations, as a result of my tweet. The distress brought to them and their families that weekend I regret very much. I remain sincerely sorry for that. Unintentionally, I had pulled them into a divisive and totemic issue. Emotions were high. Despite pressure to nix me they invited me to continue with the band. That took courage, particularly in the age of so called “cancel culture”. I made an apology and agreed to take a temporary step back.

[…]In the mania of the moment I was desperate to protect my bandmates. The hornets’ nest that I had unwittingly hit had unleashed a black-hearted swarm on them and their families. I didn’t want them to suffer for my actions, they were my priority.

I know these are his words and I’m new to this story so I don’t know what happened before but having seen internet pile ons before, they can be relentlessly vile and frightening so if it’s been anything like that, debate isn’t the intended outcome.

A hipster once said to me that they had enjoyed eggs benedict (oh sorry, eggs benny for the truly woke) after going to a Mumford and Sons concert the night before.

Everything about that sounds like my idea of hell.

He cancelled himself before he became irrelevant - there are plenty of right-wing musicians around (usually older). He is rather thick and is blaming his political naivety on those who attack the views he has neither the brains or critical logic to challenge. And yes Mumford and Sons are dreary, irrelevant and dull musicians - fronted by a misogynist too! I'd be ashamed if I was his age and my Dad was defending my meh views in the media - hardly Rock n Roll

@HollyGarland

No, I agree that families should be off limits and his band members aren’t responsible for his views. But I think it’s fair game for him to be challenged for what he believes, and fair for people to choose not to support the band on the basis of those views if they don’t want to.

Gaugin is still in the art galleries and Michael Jackson is still on the radio but we should boycott a band based on tweeting his like of a book?

I'm all for robust debate out in the open air. But boycotting and going after people online is just a feeding frenzy for twats whatever their political leaning.

oh sorry, eggs benny for the truly woke

What do you think woke means, just out of interest?

I'm so bloody bored of this 'X has been cancelled' phrase. Someone choosing not to buy someone's record/book/film isn't 'cancelling' them, they're just choosing not to spend their money on them. And that's okay!

I don't think that's what has happened here though - it looks like he and the other band members came under such abuse that he felt he had to leave to protect the others.

That's different to not buying someone's products (which is of course absolutely ok!)

Reading a book and commenting on it is worse than agressively trolling the band and their families? Welcome to 2021 people.

Fucking ridiculous.

Rapists and pedos run wild in Hollywood. Men threaten to rape and murder women all over Twitter. It’s all glossed over.

But someone congratulates an author on a published book and that’s it career over.

I've not read the book, but if it leads to the end of Mumford and Sons, I won't be sad. Not as bad as the bedwetters' music of Coldplay or the soppy rubbish of Keane, but getting close.

Mumford and Sons are still going?

Time for social media needs to be switched off. It's turning the whole world into such a circus. I hadn't even heard about any of this in the real world.