The American Way: Accountability, Entitlement & Cancel Culture | UNPACKED WITH TIA TAYLOR EP 5 

In questo video Tia offre un interessantissimo punto di vista. Assolutamente non banale. Grazie Tia (also, adoro il "anzi" messo lì in mezzo a un discorso interamente in inglese, perché ci sta)

Well, this is so interesting! I think that you are right. Italy has a long tradition descending from the roman laws of trying to make things square in a non-destructive and fair way. Italy had tribunals and attorneys, mandated by the various states, since before the middle ages. The first treaty about the need for restorative justice (so education not punishment ) was written in Milan. I think that there are good and bad things that come from this: On one side, I cannot fathom who is still voting for Berlusconi, on the other hand, do we always need to police and punish? Pointing out a mistake is fair, but removing the livelihood of someone for it, well, that is less... fair...

La cultura dell'impero romano era molto simile alla mentalità degli USA. Esisteva infatti la "damnatio memoriae", il precursore di tutti i tipi di cancel culture.

Well, it's not proper to say "accountability" doesn't exist in Italy. It's included in the word "Responsabilità" itself. If you do something bad, you are "responsabile" of what you have done, therefore of the consequences of your actions. Thus in english, the two concepts of esponsibility and accountability are not only two different meanings but also two different words. In italian is a single word for both meanings. I agree 100% on one thing. In Italy there are never "responsabili", especially for bad things. Only victims of plots against them, or people "who just got there" 😅

This is one of the most interesting episodes so far!

In Italy, "responsabilità" means BOTH responsibility AND accountability. Plus, Italians rely heavily on the concept of "colpa" (guilt). To say that in Italy no one is ever held accountable for their wrongdoing is incorrect and misleading.

Very interesting and thought provoking! Absolutely loving this new series so far, great job Tia!

This video is so interesting. It's good to have an outside perspective on one of Italy's big problems, it made me think a lot

Mi è piaciuta particolarmente la parte storica di come e perchè la società statunitense si sia evoluta in un certo modo. Sia riguardo all’accountability e entitlement, sia per la questione armi. Hai fatto bene a inserirla 💯

Italy and the USA share one of the highest levels of legal litigation in the world. Countries in which one always seeks guilt and responsibles and others in which one never knows who is accountable for anything are basically places in which distrust for our neighbours prospers.

I think the closest translation would be "risponderne". For example: "you will be held accountable" translates: "dovrai risponderne personalmente"... or "dovrai pagarne le conseguenze" (that's even stronger). To be accountable for one's actions: "rispondere delle proprie azioni".

Anzitutto complimenti, credo che questo sia il video più bello e interessante che tu abbia fatto, anche perché fa intuire come sia difficile capire fino in fondo il proprio Paese se sei completamente immerso nella sua cultura e non provi ad uscirne in qualche modo. Quanto all'argomento del video, credo di aver trovato la traduzione di accountabiity e cioè rendicontabilità, il dovere di rendere conto delle proprie azioni in base al solo presupposto della posizione che si occupa.

You waded right into the deep waters, Tia! 😍 --This was actually so thought-provoking for me. As an American who wants to eventually live in Italy, I think about these topics often, but I didn't put responsibility, accountability, and even cancel culture together. But they do go together! --I can't speak to the Italian ways of life, as I really only know it from visiting and reading about it (and hearing about it from people like you!), but the concept of American exceptionalism has *always* bothered me. The U-S-A chants, the guns 🤐, the way that Americans cling to that Constitution when they want to assert their rights but not when they are facing any sort of accountability... --Know that I come to this from the side of being a feminist, BLM advocate, LGBTQ+ advocate, and a supporter of unhoused people and immigrants. The way anyone who challenges the "American" way of life is immediately attacked as unamerican or unpatriotic (kneeling during an anthem, as just one example) is terrifying to me. And the fact that many of those people doing the attacking have guns - a lot of them, often - is even more terrifying. --Problems like racism and misogyny certainly aren't uniquely American, but the way many Americans react to being challenged about those ideas is unique. Then Italy - per your example of #MeToo - falls on the opposite side by dismissing it, not addressing it much at all. --Thanks for making me really take these issues apart (and put them together). Lots to think about!

This is such an interesting and insightful video! Thanks for this series 💫

Il fatto di cui si parla in questi giorni riguardante le tre ragazze italiane razziste diventate virali su tiktok ha messo alla luce proprio questa differenza culturale fra Italia e USA (o meglio, tra Italia e i social condizionati dalla mentalità USA). Se i commentatori italiani si sono accontentati di condannare le loro azioni, quelli anglofoni sono arrivati addirittura a chiedere la loro espulsione dall'università e il loro licenziamento

Ostracizing someone to loneliness, to certain social circle or certain profession happened in Italy as well.. during Mussolini's fascism. It is, indeed, a fascist technique of social control.

This is similar in Spain/Spanish. It's also present in the language itself. Saying something like "I dropped the glass" literally translates to "The glass dropped from me," subtly implying that it's not your fault.

A possible factor for the Italian lack of accountability (in actual practice, not from the purely linguistic point of view which may or may not be relevant) is the different tradition due to the influence of catholic vs protestant ethic. For example, a recent study showed that Catholics are significantly more likely to lie in order to cover up a friend than Protestants [Protestants and Catholics: similar work ethic, different social ethic, Benito Arrunada]. After all Catholics can just later confess and repent.

This was so super interesting thank you.

Very nice video, it is interesting to see the other side of this in Italy. I think especially for rich people in America cancel culture doesn’t exist, there may be a bit of performative shaming and subsequently people patting themselves on the back for doing nothing, but that is often the only consequence.

Accountability is a word that is often bandied about in the US these days but essentially doesn't mean much if anything . After all, one can be held responsible. The law holds one responsible for their action if these violate legal codes by jail, fine, prison or all 3. The law however does not hold you accountable. Being held to account doesn't add up unless an individual does it to themselves. A person hold themselves accountable . Other people have no power to hold you accountable . They can blame and shame . They can shun. That's it though.

The cancel culture is the modern version of the damnatio memoriae; however the "memories" were so "damned" to the point that we still remember all of them. 😄

Loved it!

Hi Tia, your take on this topic is very interesting, I'd say I agree with everything you said. Of course Italian tradition was different, it was made of "uomini di parola", respectable men whose word could always be counted on, and if they couldn't respect the promise they made, they were the first ones to hold themselves accountable for it. Sadly, that kind of seriousness is long gone and very VERY hard to find nowadays, leading to the kind of society that you experienced yourself, one in which no one is ever accountable for anything... 🤧 On the other side, I appreciate how you discussed the hypocritical urge to find people to hold accountable in the US, when in reality the consequences those people face are ridiculous. All it takes is for them to put on a sad face and apologize, then they can carry on doing almost exactly what they were doing. 🙄 In this case, we really are polar opposites... but, unfortunately, I'm afraid the final result is almost the same one.

Cancel culture is more of a behavior to me. If you go to great lengths to harm someone in a significant way (turning people against them, trying to get them fired, etc) for not holding a particular belief, that person is being cancelled. Even if they ultimately prevail in their cancellation, it doesn't change the fact that someone tried to ruin them. Not to mention, there's the weaponization of the word "accountability," which some are using to mean "think like me or else." America is most exceptional at exporting its cultural nonsense.

Actually several examples of cancel culture do come to my mind (some I somewhat agree with, some I don't): 1- Johnny Depp and the whole process with his ex-wife caused him (but not her) not to be cast in lots of movies; also, I read articles saying that streaming platforms should ban his content. This somewhat stopped after the end of the trial afaik 2- Kevin Spacey was everywhere before the allegations against him went public, now he is not seen anywhere anymore. 3- I am reading in these days lots of idiotic articles that criticise Robert Downey Jr for starring in Tropic Thunder with a black face (even though the whole point of him having it was to criticise blacksploitation and white victim complex) 4- some episodes of Community and Scrubs have been cancelled because they showed exaples black face, even though in Community it was done to impersonate a black elf from d&d, and in Scrubs it was never done as disrespect to black people (in one instance the wearer even gets beaten up). These come to my mind with a very quick brainstorming, I'm sure there's more.

Your videos are always superinteresting and help me to understand a lot of things about Italy that, as an Italian, have never noticed. When it comes to the way the concept of "accountability"/"responsilibity" has developed and perceived in Italy, I think that there are basically two elements that have historically influenced our way of thinking: Roman law and Catholicism. The development of law has led to the evaluation of actions being delegated to written laws. On paper, this is something positive, but in the long run it has led to a strong individual disempowerment: "do you think I did something wrong? Let's see what the law says!!!". But as the lawyer in "The Betrothed" said, “A saper ben maneggiare le gride, nessuno è reo, e nessuno è innocente (With a good manipulation of the laws, no one is guilty, and no one is innocent)." Surely you have heard an Italian say many times, "Dove è scritto che...? (Where is it written that...?)". It's not written in any law or regulation? Then it's not my responsibility or anyone else's. Catholic culture, on the other hand, has instilled the concept that you can commit the worst actions, but just confess your sins and you are magically forgiven of everything, returning to being "a good person." I believe that over the centuries, this Catholic mentality has led us to think that there can be no absolute evil and that everything can be forgiven. The other side of this way of thinking is that, in my opinion, we unconsciously always think that one day we could be the ones to behave badly or make a mistake, so if today we turn a blind eye to the responsibilities of others, in the future others will turn a blind eye to us.

And we gave a prize to Kevin Spacey too! 🤪

"be accountable for" si traduce "rendere conto di".

The word for accountability in Italian is “rendicontabilità” it refers only to politicians and public administration in management of common goods. However, in general, the Italian voter does not care about the accountability of the politician since he does not vote for a politician, but against other politicians. There are also generally no penalties for those who are not accountable to others. The lack of accountability is due to the absence of monitoring by the institutions, monitoring is often strongly opposed by those who should be monitored, one case is that of learning tests which are strongly opposed by the teaching staff. As I have already written in the past, Italy has a self-absolutory approach generated by the fact that it did not want to deal with the fascist regime. Over time, self-absolution has become an individual thing and is based on the collectivization of individual bad actions such as "If everyone is incompetent and dishonest, what do you want from me? It's the fault of a perverse and immutable system". An Italian politician now deceased Bettino Craxi in the Enimont trial when asked why he stole, his answer was "everyone did it". Since you talk about school, school shows a lot about accountability in Italy. The school in Italy teaches you to cheat teaches you that there is no relevant punishment for those who cheat and those who do not, he is an imbecile (like me that I always studied until phd). If you talk about federalism, it is probably one of the most opposed arguments in Italy except from the old Northern League (the modern one is only a party against immigrants). Italians don't want a system that makes them accountable for what administrators do because they couldn't live in the illusion they live in today, like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. The original idea of Italian federalism was to give responsibility and accountability to local administrators. As you can see, this has been completely opposed by everyone and attempts to change have foundered. About Ostracism and Damnation Memorie and cancel culture are different things: No, ostracism is the physical exile of the citizen who, according to informers, was attempting to establish a dictatorship. The damnatio memoriae was a punishment against the enemies of the state of Rome. It was applied only to rulers and only to acts done directly by them and not decades later. The damnatio memoriae was a very rare thing. In the 2206 years of Roman and Byzantine history, it was applied only 37 times. Cancel culture, on the other hand, is a form of presentism, that is, of judging with current criteria of facts or acts that took place decades ago when the law and morals were profoundly different.

Cancel culture has made Theodore Roosevelt statue be removed fro its original place, for example. Other statues have been even destroyed. I don't think it's fair if it's not about bloodthirsty dictators' statues. You could remove without destroying an historical object.

🎯🎯🎯 Oh I have A LOT to say on this for anyone ready to hear more tea spilt than the Boston Tea Party 😉

Michele Boldrin would probably find this video quite interesting. Un bello spunto di discussione.

Cancel colture works well with people that works with social media, RU-vid, Instagram and such, maybe they won’t loose all of it but since the sponsors are a big part of their income I would say it’s a big deal.

Thanks Tia! Very interesting video! I wonder though whether in Italy there’s a difference between white straight man and everyone else on this topic. I have the feeling this group can say and do whatever they want and have the privilege not be held accountable, but if someone else does it… Apriti cielo 😅

If you ask me the biggest issue are women not being held accountable for their actions in north america.

what about RELIABILITY ?

Forse accountability si può tradurre con “rendere conto” delle proprie azioni

in italy the opposite of accountability is valued positevly: FURBO.

Asia Argento might as well be a perpetrator herself.....

It's time to talk. When we talk about cancel culture we do not refer to people who are actually cancelled, like forever. Think about Chris Brown who is still doing stadiums despite the horrible things he did in the past. Cancel Culture today is mainly (but not only) referring to the fact if you even slightly dare to say something different from intersectional feminism (which is a modern plague) you'll find yourself thousands of comments of woke people telling you how racist and bigot you are. This happens every single day in Italy as well as in the US, cause these people are verbally violent. I'm thinking about what JK Rowling said (she literally said that women are women, OMG) and she even got death threats. Most people deny the fact that this type of cancel culture exist because OMG there is so much racism and homophobia outside. What these same people are denying is the fact that because there is racism and homophobia so cancel culture does not exist or, even, that it is "fair" to treat people online like that. These two scenarios cohexist, just like misoginy and misandry exist or homophobia and heterophobia. Of course, some issues are worse (homophobia and misoginy) but denying the fact that a lot of people are starting to hate white "cis"straight man is cancel culture itself. We should all stop, honestly, because it is getting extremely dangerous.

I don't always agree with American culture and god knows how desperately I want to leave this horrible country but I personally think accountability is something I will never budge on. I don't think in this day and age it's acceptable to let inappropriate and disgusting behavior slide. If you're a horrible person doing horrible things then you deserve to have your life ruined as a consequence. Its 2023 and people should not be allowed to keep their dehumanizing medieval values without consequence.

Non posso che concordare con la tua conclusione finale, in italia manca sicuramente una certa dose di ''prendersi le proprie responsabilità'' ed infatti è assurdo che personaggi come Berlusconi ancora stiano in parlamento. Però ovviamente il modo americano di affrontare gli scandali non è ben visto, perchè lì davvero ti rovinano del tutto la vita. L'idea che mi son sempre fatto è che si tratta semplicemente di due visioni culturali differenti, una ''protestante'' e l'altra ''cattolica''. Gli americani sono sempre stati dei puritani, se sbagli vieni messo sulla sedia elettrica, non è concepito il perdono. Qui in Italia invece siamo sempre stati molto più ''garantisti'' (per una rapina rischi un paio d'anni, nei paesi anglosassoni anche 10), errare è umano e tutti hanno diritto ad essere perdonati, retaggio della cultura cattolica dove il pentimento è un grosso pilastro. Durante le inquisizioni della chiesa cattolica si avevano due strade, o ti pentivi e venivi salvato, oppure rischiavi la pena di morte. Nel mondo protestante invece finivi direttamente al rogo. Al giorno d'oggi la religione ha sicuramente sempre meno potere, tuttavia rimane l'imprinting culturale su quella che è la filosofia di vita nelle società moderne, che poi si riflette inevitabilmente sul modo di intendere la giustizia.

you don't know Italian very well, which is the most complete language in the world, deriving from LATIN, where everything expressed takes on a sound, a meaning, subdividing the tenses, the modes, and distinguishing with precision every introverted aspect from the sentiments of man and the things, people and animals, male and female, that surround us. So the word is "ACCOUNTABILITY" in Italian is precisely " RENDICONTABILITA'' ".

“Cancel Culture” is something awful and demential hope it will never come in Europe. If not we need to forget about history of the Roman Empire… there is difference between the cancel culture as promoted in US by leftist and recognize a problems like me too or problems with women status in Italy that need to be solved. Cancel Culture in European culture is seen as fascist and is definitely a fascist idea to cancel what we don’t like. Harry Potter is still a good book despite any idea of the author that wrote it

As an italian, I prefer the American way in this. It's lovely to see American politicians resign after scandals. That NEVER happens in Italy. You can even lie in Italy. Renzi said he would resign if the referendum was rejected, and when it did, he just carried on like normal 🤣. Ps: you mentioned black face. You should do a video on black face, what it means and why it is offensive. I see it often in italian media and it's hard to explain to someone who's not familiar with American culture.

Temo che lodando Laura Boldrini e Asia Argento ti sei messa contro tutti i tuoi viewers italiani...

Cancel culture? I'll give you an example: It's when the people from what the French colonizers called "Latin America" identify as "Latins or Latinos instead of calling themselves "Latin Americans" because Latin/Latino has only one meaning and that is: possessing Roman culture which encompasses the knowledge of a Latin-derived language: Italian, French, Romanian, Portuguese and Spanish, coming from a country whose laws are based on Roman laws and being Christian Catholics. (All Roman) This is what means when we say Sono Latino or Sono Latina. We are referring to our Roman culture. However, in the United States the Spanish-speaking people have twisted and manipulated the term "Latin Americans" and made it "Latin/Latino or Latina" not to identify with the Roman culture but with their geographical location of origin "Latin America". In other words for us Latin Europeans saying I'm Latin means one thing (Identification with Roman Culture) while when the people of the Americas say I'm Latin they are actually saying that they are "Latin Americans" and "Mestizos, for them being Latin means also being Mestizos!!! which is cultural alienation and cancel culture. What they don't understand is that Latin it's Roman/it's Italian and European and has nothing to do with their Indigenous heritage.This is not acceptable because being Latins means one thing and being Latin Americans means another. In the final analysis I wish that the French colonizers had find a different term instead of using "Latin" in naming that part of the Americas.