The comments on this thread seem to be quite wildly missing White's point. Many of the arguments taking place here seem premised on the idea that Ken White has attempted to solve, once and for all, the "cancel culture" problem --- or somehow write a dispositive argument that "cancel culture" isn't real.
He's not doing any of these things. He's responding to a specific NYT staff editorial.
White agrees with many of you that disproportionate responses to speech happen, are harmful, and are occurring regularly. He cites several instances, from both sides of the American political spectrum. You don't have to come up with an elaborate argument about how White is wrong about how harmful "cancel culture" is; White almost certainly agrees with you (at least in a general sense; maybe not in your particulars).
His point is that you have to discuss something more particular than "the right to speak your mind without fear of shame or shunning". You've never had that right. You can't have it. To be free of shame or shunning is to be free of other people's speech. If you're saying something provocative, you are almost certainly responding in a sense to something someone else said; if you think you have the right to speak without shame or shunning, so does the person you're effectively responding to. At best, you're arguing for what White has in the past mockingly referred to as a "replevin of feels"; at worst, what you're asking for is totally incoherent.
This Substack post would be bigger news if Ken White had, Solomonically, worked out the whole problem of disproportionate responses to speech. He has not, and I think he's probably much too smart to try. He's just critiquing someone else's bad argument. That's all you really have to engage with here; you don't have to let cortisol trick you into believing this is an amassing of the forces of "cancel culture isn't real" that you must mobilize against.
I don't think we should lose sight of just how batshit insane the NYT editorial was.
We can continue to talk about Cancel Culture, but the opening assertion of the editorial was that we have a right to, "...speak [our] minds and voice [our] opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned." That's gobsmackingly wrong.
It's the kind of sentence that, to me at least, grinds my mental gears to a halt. I just... I have a very hard time thinking generously about the author of that sentence.
I'm glad people like Ken exist, to put into words something more coherent than what I'd ever be able to create.
> Americans don’t have, and have never had, any right to be free of shaming or shunning. The First Amendment protects our right to speak free of government interference. It does not protect us from other people saying mean things in response to our speech.
First, the term "free speech" is overloaded-- it means a legal right to speak free of government interference, and it also means a cultural environment of pluralism where opposing views are welcomed and debate is encouraged. Here Ken conflates the two meanings.
Second, unlike legal norms, cultural norms are continuous rather than discrete. There are maybe 3-5 definitions of murder (premeditated, involuntary, etc.), but saying mean things is a continuum. You can live in a society like Soviet Union c 1930 where your coworker who wants your position calls for "the people's court" because of a joke you made-- a completely informal struggle session that doesn't involve the government. Or you can live in a society where you can express anything whatsoever and not get fired. Or at a million points in between.
Third, legal norms follow cultural norms. See gay marriage.
When people talk about cancel culture they talk about cultural norms shifting toward struggle sessions (the word "culture" is in the term!), and concerns that some day legal norms may follow this cultural shift. In this context the word "right" is used colloquially. Obviously nobody has a legal right to speak without fear of shaming.
We want to live in a culture where a joke on the internet doesn't lead to a struggle session at work. It isn't batshit insane, it isn't gobsmackingly wrong, and it isn't that difficult to understand.
> We want to live in a culture where a joke on the internet doesn't lead to a struggle session at work.
Everyone wants to do that, until they find themselves the target of a joke while struggling to have a good career, live in a nice place, and raise a family as a member of an unprivileged group with a lot of adverse baggage to overcome. Not everyone thinks such jokes are funny, and they have just as much a right to be pissed off about them as you think you have to make them. Getting along with your peers is an essential duty at most jobs, and that includes refraining from unnecessarily upsetting them.
> Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87 percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness.
In 30+ years of being a "brown guy" in the U.S., the only thing that's ever really gotten under my skin is the self-righteous paternalism of white liberals when it comes to the social norms related to race and identity. It really gives me an understanding of what working class people (another target of liberal paternalism) must have felt like all these decades...
The fundamental problem is that people have become conditioned to think of themselves as a member of a group first and an individual second. In many cases, the individual identity is completely obscured by the group identity. It doesn't matter if one is black, white, gay, straight, etc. It matters who they are as an individual, how they live their lives, care for their families, and so on. If one doesn't like a joke, a tv show, a book, a statue, or so on, ignore it and find something you do like. A Robert E Lee statue, for example, is not racist. It does not glorify slavery. It's history. The media and politicians stir up controversy and conflict for their own purposes, both in the States and elsewhere. Informed, confident individuals do not allow themselves to be played. The younger one is, the more accustomed they are to accepting group think whether it's about racial identity, sexual identity, and so forth. Older guys, such as myself, who grew up in a very blue collar world, and went on to college, and worked with people from all over the world, know that so much of what the media reports is simply false. Talk to and get to know people from other parts of the world and all of this "cancel culture" and group identity BS looks stupid and petty.
I’ll bring a third perspective to this: as an immigrant from a more collectivist society, I am conditioned to see myself as a member of a group. I recognize the benefits of it, but I just don’t like individuality all that much. I’m inclined to be very deferential to what my sources of authority (parents, aunts, uncles, etc.) say to conform to group norms.
What’s driving me nuts is that “identity politics” is about fake identities. Most of these “identity groups” are fronts for the white progressives who donate to liberal causes. E.g. MacKenzie Scott donated tons of money to “AAPI causes.” https://asamnews.com/2021/06/17/mackenzie-scott-donates-2-7-.... What the heck does she know about Asians or what causes they care about? I asked my dad if he could recognize any of the organizations on the list. Of course he couldn’t. What does that tell you about the incentive structure of these identity activist groups? As a result, the “Asian identity” and the “Muslim identity” that I see in the media seems to be essentially progressivism with window dressing, and has nothing to do with what my parents or aunts and uncles think about our culture. In fact, it’s often overly hostile to our values.
“Identity politics” doesn’t actually reflect what people in these groups want, except incidentally. E.g. “Asian activists” flipped out at Andrew Yang for a taking a more pro-policing stance, but most Asian voters supported him in the primary: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang. White progressives talk incessantly about “Black and brown people” but they hated Eric Adams, who overwhelmingly won the “Black and brown” vote. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/opinion/nyc-mayor-adams.h.... It’s not groups pursing their own political interests, but the political capital of minority groups being put in service of causes championed mainly by white people.
This is a straw man. I've never been talking about the people who aren't bothered by the jokes in question here because they're not personally carrying the baggage I'm referring to. I've talking about the people who are. Those people exist and are numerous, and they seek out and appreciate the allies they have on their side.
> I've never been talking about the people who aren't bothered by the jokes in question here because they're not personally carrying the baggage I'm referring to. I've talking about the people who are. Those people exist and are numerous
It’s impossible to talk about these groups separately because our norms and policies around race have costs and benefits which must be balanced across all the minorities who will be on the receiving end. Maybe some people will be heartened by their white professors standing up and declaring themselves “gatekeepers of white supremacy” (https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator...) but a lot of other “people of color” are going to find such treatment othering and uncomfortable.
There’s also the very real risk that all this race consciousness holds back the progress of minorities. I know progressives imagine a utopian future where they’ve vanquished racism but people of color have to live in the real world. And looking back at my own life (growing up as a brown guy in Virginia), I don’t think it would have been better if everyone had been super conscious about my skin color versus their’s.
Given the potential costs to all members of minority groups, we can’t just adopt the most extreme standards in deference to unspecified “numerous” people carrying unspecified “baggage.” If we’re going to change the norms around how white people relate to minorities, we will have to take account of how everybody affected feels about that. Mostly white progressives knocking over tables and demanding extreme policies actually gets in the way of minorities getting to control how society treats them.
> they seek out and appreciate the allies they have on their side.
White “allyship” is problematic and paternalistic: https://musaalgharbi.com/2020/05/15/definition-racist-action... (“Rather than actually dismantling white supremacy or meaningfully empowering people of color, efforts often seem to be oriented towards consolidating social and cultural capital in the hands of the ‘good’ whites.”)
It’s an agency problem: white “allies” don’t suffer the harms they’re trying to address, and for the most part don’t bear the cost of unintended consequences. For example, as the dad of brown kids, I find that a lot of “anti-racist education” risks putting brown kids in a mindset that their success or failure depends on factors outside their control. By contrast, even if such education makes white kids feel guilty, it simultaneously tells them that they’re the ones with agency and power. The mostly white people advocating these educational policies for the most part don’t have to deal with the consequences to kids that might result.
Likewise, white progressives can freely engage in rhetoric and hostility to other whites and don’t have to suffer the consequences of any backlash. Frankly I’m perplexed why—if progressives think white people are as racist as they say—that they think it’s a good idea to constantly call half the country “white supremacists,” send them to the back of the vaccine line, etc.
I urge you to get out from behind your desk and actually talk to people who are adversely impacted by people's poor behavior on a day-to-day basis. (This will help you determine who these "unspecified" people are for yourself.) Even though you are "brown” it doesn't grant you license to make excuses for jerks.
Others can argue "we don't need your help," and that's fine, but at this point in time, given where we are today as a society, and the damage I see done to people on a frequent basis, I'd rather err on the side of helping in a constructive way, how the impacted people ask us to, and advocating for people to be respectful. Call people like me "paternalistic" and "othering" if you must; it's just a rhetorical smear as far as I'm concerned. Highfalutin' characterizations add as little to this conversation as simpler-sounding ones.
> we can’t just adopt the most extreme standards in deference to unspecified “numerous” people carrying unspecified “baggage.”
There's nothing extreme whatsoever about adopting a professional demeanor. You are arguing against a position I do not hold. Again, I beg you, check your straw men at the door, and stick to the subject.
>> Are you a "member of an unprivileged group?" If not, what exactly do you think life is like for us that we can't take a joke? ... In 30+ years of being a "brown guy" in the U.S., the only thing that's ever really gotten under my skin is the self-righteous paternalism of white liberals when it comes to the social norms related to race and identity.
As another "brown guy" who has been in the US for decades, I can only say: you must have really thick skin. Either that, or you haven't actually had to deal with any vicious "jokes" from the more privileged groups.
>> It really gives me an understanding of what working class people (another target of liberal paternalism) must have felt like all these decades...
Well, coming from someone who used to be an engineer and is now a lawyer, this is simply a stunning statement, to say the least. So you think you understand how working class people must feel like because of "self-righteous paternalism of white liberals"? That's just so incredibly tone-deaf and presumptions. Jesus Christ.
I'm sure you meant this out of genuine curiosity, but it comes across as a bit "prove it." The fact is that people have a broad range of experiences. Speaking of "brown people," 10% of e.g. Indian Americans say that racism is a "major problem" in America: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/16/miss-americ....
But 48% think it's a "minor problem" and 38% who think it's "not a problem at all." At the end of the day our social norms around race have to be broadly workable. Gearing our social norms around the 10% are not cost-free. The folks directly affected those norms may well be more worried about stifling friendships and interactions than about racism. It's like having your immune system--too sensitive isn't good either.
I’m using the poll of Indian Americans to specifically to contextualize my experience with that of enraged_camel. See my post further up about 87% of Hispanics and 82% of Asians saying that “political correctness is a problem in the country.” That’s not consistent with large numbers of people in those groups feeling so burdened by the things other people say that it impairs their daily life.
As to action items, have some perspective! Don’t feed the fear/outrage machine by writing overwrought stuff like this:
> Everyone wants to do that, until they find themselves the target of a joke while struggling to have a good career, live in a nice place, and raise a family as a member of an unprivileged group with a lot of adverse baggage to overcome.
This sort of attitude is othering and doesn’t reflect how most minorities actually experience and are affected by insensitive comments. As a corollary, be skeptical of activists—don’t let a minority of loud voices dictate how your approach to whole groups. And don’t overlook that social stability and harmony with others are also things that minorities want. Resist the urge to provoke an all-out race war through your rhetoric, writings, political support, etc.
> "My comments are not advocating a race war. I’m saying, maybe don’t be a dick; and don’t be surprised if people react negatively if you act like one."
Ironically, the progressives are getting increasing pushback precisely because they're failing to heed your advice, in the eyes of the general public. The NY Times has had an increasingly alarmed stream of editorials (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/opinion/politics/latinos-...) saying that minorities are drifting away from the Democrats to the GOP largely because the latter has been able to portray progressive overreach as a problem.
I don't understand why you're so fixated on the partisan angle here. Both right-wing and left-wing Twitter engages, viciously, in "cancellation" behavior. How is it helping us understand the phenomenon to digress into whether liberals are paternalistic towards working class people? The thread you're writing on is rooted in a comment saying that Ken White doesn't purport to have figured out the whole "cancel culture" problem, but rather simply rebuts an NYT editorial that you yourself think is sloppy and poorly written. Nevertheless, here you are, proposing what seems to be a unified field theory of toxic political behavior: it's "paternalism", apparently.
This is weak. You have stuff to say. Say it, don't just barb people.
“Right-wing cancel culture” is a well understood, world-wide phenomenon. To use the example in your other post, people try to blockade abortion clinics because certain religious people understand those clinics to be engaged in mass murder. Or to use another example people freak out over cartoons of Mohammad because it’s a grave offense in Islam. That is what it is.
I talk about left-wing cancel culture because it’s a marked departure from certainly what’s been my experience. Unless we go down the path of calling progressivism a new religion, I think we have to posit that the cause of left-wing hostility to ideological pluralism has a different cause.
The overwrought nature of @otterley’s post suggested one possible explanation. If people genuinely believe that members of “unprivileged groups” suffer so much from an errant joke or political statement (even one made outside their presence) that it affects their ability to “have a good career, live in a nice place, and raise their family” then that might explain their hostility to any expression that may even remotely affect such “unprivileged groups.” If issues of race, gender, immigration status, etc., are literally life and death, then that justifies zealotry.
That mindset and reaction, in turn, seems to me to be a direct outgrowth of liberal paternalism. You have people preoccupied with harms to other people—harms that they are unable to experience directly and thus cannot put into perspective. Nonetheless, they’re convinced that they understand how society should be reshaped to help the people they’re concerned about. It’s a political agency problem.
Sure. But all we're establishing here is that everybody is hostile to ideological pluralism. That shouldn't surprise us. We live in a hyperpolarized society (and that's not the fault of "cancel culture", but rather preceded it by over 50 years, surviving multiple zeitgeist shifts in the interim, from the defeated cynicism of the post-Nixon 70s through the Reagan years and the post-9/11 culture of nationalism that got the Dixie Chicks and Bill Maher cancelled.) In a hyperpolarized society, countervailing ideologies are perceived as threatening. That's just human nature, isn't it?
So where does that leave us? Is your point that it's disappointing to you that the left is now as responsible for ideological hostility as the right? Because the left has always been just as hostile as the right.
(I was frustrated with your previous comment, but am not with this one; I'm just responding to it because you took the time to write it.)
One of the frustrating things about this discussion is the lack of a coherent definition of what "canceling" actually means. Bill Maher's cancellation quickly resulted in his own HBO show that he's hosted for almost 20 years. Or, to pick a more contemporary example, Dave Chapelle talks about being canceled from sold-out arena stages. It seems like everyone wants the "cool" factor of being a controversial figure without generating any actual controversy.
> Sure. But all we're establishing here is that everybody is hostile to ideological pluralism.
But I don’t see why liberals (broadly defined) need to be so ideological or hostile. I can understand why evangelical Christians are the way they are. But liberals, especially highly educated ones, should be able to look at the facts and see what is and what isn’t.
> So where does that leave us? Is your point that it's disappointing to you that the left is now as responsible for ideological hostility as the right? Because the left has always been just as hostile as the right.
I’m disappointed that liberal elites (and I don’t mean that pejoratively—I include myself in that class) aren’t being the grownups and taking care of stability and our institutions. I’m not surprised that zealous young college students are embracing radical ideas. I’m surprised that university administrators and deans are egging them on.
I don’t think it was always like this. There was an interregnum between when conservatives controlled the institutions and the present when things were more… liberal. Even among the liberal elite there were libertarian and populist impulses, which seem to have been driven away, leaving a strident Puritanism.
I'd be very interested in your take on the powell memo.
It makes exactly the same points (young liberals from Yale undermining American society etc.) but its written 50 years ago, when American business was pumping lead into the air and painting houses with it, while other nations had already phased it out. And complains that no one listens to businessmen, and politics only cares about the environment and consumer safety.
This was written by a supreme court judge (who incidentally voted for Roe Vs Wade because his secretary nearly died from a backstreet abortion) so no dummy, yet his points seem ridiculous to us now. What leads you to think you're not making the same mistakes? Especially as you seem to acknowledge that in the past things were too much on the conservative side and it's kids today that are taking it too far.
I think you're overcomplicating the issue. When you come from an underprivileged group with a lot of baggage to overcome to be as successful as others, having to tolerate mean-spirited jokes at work on top of all of that baggage is just another thing you have to deal with. It's depressing, dispiriting, and disheartening, and can interfere with one's ability to be productive.
I’m not referring to those people, and I think you know that. Nor am I saying that everyone who looks like a member of an underprivileged group is actually personally underprivileged. And I think you also know that. I’m not sure why you made the above comment.
I believe he explicitly mentioned the accused behavior. It is not a unified theory, it is a specific accusation that some people propose to speak over minorities and use their voice to mount attacks on speech and champion policies for more content control against nebulous terms like hate.
Cancellation is primarily a radical leftist domain. For example, pro-abortion speakers don't normally need police escorts to speak at a university. It's not true that both wings engage in the behavior equally. There are many problems with radical right, but canceling people isn't one of them.
> Cancellation is primarily a radical leftist domain.
No it isn’t. Not even close. There are countless examples of the right engaging in the same behaviors, including the recent massive wave of passing laws attempting to silence people.
>Cancellation is primarily a radical leftist domain.
Wait, what?
* Kaepernick/the NFL
* “Freedom Fries”
* Dungeons & Dragons
* Heavy metal and rap.
* Starbucks (happy holidays)
I mean you can easily pick out all sorts of attempts at “cancelling” by conservatives from the last 30 years without even having to think too hard about it. It’s an American tradition to virtue signal and cancel, it’s not relegated to the left.
Actually, can you list some successful conservative cancellings from last decade?
In my experience, the successful ones are many decades old, and the more recent ones are unsuccessful. I mean, I don’t think heavy metal or dungeons and dragons have been meaningfully cancelled in any sense, and last time conservatives seriously tried to do so was two decades ago.
I agree that conservatives also attempt to cancel, it just doesn’t work when they do.
> Actually, can you list some successful conservative cancellings from last decade?
What would be the point? You're just going to move the goalposts again once we do.
In any case, yes, the post you replied to already mentioned one recent example. The Kaepernick kneeling "scandal" happened just 4 years ago. And it's an especially egregious example because President Trump even threatened to use the power of his office and take away NFL's non-profit status if he didn't get Kaepernick fired.
Also, cancelling happens every day in America. Is your son gay? Cancel him. Is one of your classmates gay? Bully him. Is your white daughter dating a black kid? Cancel her. Did a family member stop being a Mormon/Jehovah's witness/Muslim/Scientologist/Baptist/fundamentalist Christian, cancel them. Teaching black history? Cancel the teacher. Cancel the principal. Was your kid killed in Sandy Hook? Shut the f-up, or your life will be cancelled. Did you do your job correctly as a GOP election official and call the race for the Democrats? You better watch your back.
And yes, if your teenager becomes homeless, or ends up killing him/herself. I'd say that's a pretty "successful" cancellation. It's just so common, it has been normalized.
And the abortion clinics, it's not like the threats have stopped these past 10 years. It's just old news. That kind of shunning has never stopped. If it had stopped, we'd have abortion clinics everywhere in America.
And again, we're not saying that cancelling does not happen on the left, but claiming that cancelling is a tool predominantly used by the left is just nonsense. It's not just the left doing it. If you think it is, you've been watching too much Fox News.
Honestly it sounds like every description of conservatives is coming from not only 10 years ago but 20 years ago. Keapernick is a terrible example because he had shoulder surgery and then lost nearly every game of the following season before he was cut by the most liberal team in the league, the San Francisco 49ers, and also to mention he had very key interceptions in playoff games that were all but won. The claim that anything bad that happens based on sex, race, religion are conservatives is patently false. These are every democrats talking points only used to demonize their opposition. Abortions are not under threat at all, unless you count those claiming that you can’t have an abortion after 8 months pregnant when the baby can be born instead. However, this is not cancel culture. It would be cancel culture if someone had an abortion and because of it they were fired from their job. When we talk about cancel culture it is very specific to overreaction, typically losing revenue from millions of views per the direction of big tech censors and even banks and credit card companies these days. I have no doubt both sides are attempting cancel culture and I have no doubt the only ones who can quantify this would be the big tech companies themselves, but the rules posted themselves by big tech align with left leaning ideas it is all but obvious who would be breaking those rules. Reddit for example specifically allows in its written rules hateful speech against whites but disallows it against all the groups you would expect.
> Abortions are not under threat at all, unless you count those claiming that you can’t have an abortion after 8 months pregnant when the baby can be born instead.
The Texas law was not supported by mainstream conservatives, it was done by Christians and the federal law is not under threat, this yet another thing meant rile people up to earn votes for a specific party. There is a zero percentage chance the Supreme Court re-hears the case on abortion.
There is no Federal law governing abortion. State law governs abortions, subject to Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases that provide a Constitutional right to abortion within certain parameters that the States cannot abrogate.
The Supreme Court is already considering a Mississippi abortion law case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, nr. 19-1392) that, depending on the outcome, could significantly curtail this right, possibly lowering the deadline to 15 weeks. The decision is expected in June.
> There is a zero percentage chance the Supreme Court re-hears the [Texas] case on abortion.
If they do, will you come back and admit you were wrong?
Federal case law is essentially law. This is all besides my original point that abortion debates are not cancel culture but a political argument. But yes absolutely I’ll admit I was wrong if it ever happens.
> The Texas law was not supported by mainstream conservatives
This is a classic No True Scotsman argument: that law was enacted by Texas Republicans and has been protected by the Republicans at various levels of federal court up to the Supreme Court, and copies of that law are being enacted by Republicans in other states. If you want us to believe that’s not aligned with mainstream conservatism, show that the larger conservative movement is fighting it.
Yeah, it's insane watching this degree of confirmation bias unfold real time just reading this thread.
Directly addressing what this person is saying with the facts isn't going to work, because it's obvious that nothing can convince them otherwise. I think it's better to look at why they've fixated themselves so strongly on this opinion and are so desperate to maintain it.
You are right other conservatives won’t fight against it but it is also only religious conservatives that support it, at least banning abortion per the Texas law. In my own experience in a heavily democrat area, every single democrat I’ve met also support a ban on abortion after a certain period of time and the debate is more over how long or what point after conception until it should be banned.. that point is often swayed lower and I’d argue too low with conservatives, but even as you see in the Texas, it’s still allowable for 6 weeks after, not at birth. Mainstream conservatives rarely call for banning this early barring religious conservatives. And while this may sound no true Scotsman, conservatives are much less religious than they used to be in my experience, the country itself is also much less religious and this is allowing the mainstream conservatives to move away from religion based positions.
1) The law compels people to out abortions and circumvents the law of the land - I.e. the SCOTUS ruling - by forcing it into a civil court matter. You seriously don’t see the issue there? How about democrats pass a parallel law where instead of abortions it’s because you used hate speech? How would you feel about that?
2) 6 weeks is not a long time. Plenty of people don’t find out their pregnant until 4-6 weeks, many later than that. You think it’s right that they can be forced to make that decision with only a few days to consider it? Or worse, that they have to leave the state to get one because they’re past 6 weeks? There are so many problems with this.
You are arguing against things I am not arguing for and never have. Literally I wrote I also thought 6 weeks was too soon in the post you are responding to and you continue to flame me here. Your hypocrisy is getting upset I called your post a lie, when you were completely factually incorrect, as you admitted, all the while in your first response calling me “blatantly dishonest.” I’m sorry but that is literally you calling me a liar first, and using in your explanation lies, even if by mistake. Now, after you are claiming that I am the one flaming you in your other post and saying you will no longer respond, continue to respond and flame me, do you understand why this conversation is not productive from your end?
1) Relax. I wasn’t aware you were the same person. It’s not a big deal.
2) you wrote “you still get 6 weeks,” as if that’s adequate.
I’m sorry you think your brand of conservative politics is the party line, because frankly it isn’t and even you - who I disagree with - deserve to be represented by a party that shares your values. The GOP is the anti-abortion party. They will continue claw back any and every part of a woman’s right to choose until Roe v. Wade is functionally overturned, as they have done for decades. Whether or not that is the majority opinion is irrelevant because they are doing it anyway and your denial of that reality doesn’t make it go away. Much like most Americans don’t want weed illegal anymore but neither party seems interested in making a move at the federal level despite the public mandate.
Kaepernick [edit: almost] had a ring. You think the Browns couldn’t have used him? The Lions? The Bengals?
Your point is also moot when a former NFL exec confirms he was blackballed for his protest.
>Colin Kaepernick was not bounced by NFL team owners because of his skill. He was not bounced because of salary demands. And he was not bounced because he wanted a starting job. No, he was rejected by NFL team owners because he became a financial liability, kneeling for social justice and igniting a telling firestorm with President Donald Trump.
You can sit here and argue all day about whether or not they’re within their rights to do it, and frankly I would probably agree with you. They are a business, they have to make business decisions. But to pretend it’s about his skill as a player is blatantly dishonest.
NFL teams have continued to let plenty of players who have suffered injuries and had less-than-stellar records continue to play. If you can demonstrate that there's a clear pattern of players with Kaepernick's on-the-field record being treated similarly, then your argument holds some water; but otherwise, it's just a convenient pretext.
Comparisons to other players are just silly, yes it has happened before but that doesn’t mean anything when it comes down to an individual. I’m not sure what else is needed to explain what makes a poor QB other than losing records in both recent and lifetime stats, injuries, and failure under pressure? If that isn’t a pattern showing lack of skill I don’t know what is. He is also aging as a scrambling QB, everyone knows speed diminishes rapidly with age and when this weapon is only getting worse, and your other weapon, your arm, was injured, then there isn’t much left. He has been scouted by tens and none decided to pick him up, this in itself should be primary evidence that he was give a chance and failed.
> He has been scouted by tens and none decided to pick him up
If you're on the margin performance-wise, and you are also carrying this controversial political baggage, then that baggage is likely going to be the tipping factor. The argument you have to convincingly make is that even without the baggage, Kaepernick would not be playing. That is why comparisons to players with similar performance records are relevant, not "silly."
I think that I am still making a compelling argument on his performance even without the PR issues. I mean the browns just signed a QB with 22 active sexual assault cases, it’s a reach to believe that they would not sign Kaepernick because one time he upset some cops and overzealous fans by kneeling. He takes too much blame for starting that but it was a very popular trend among players afterwards and many players kneel without issue.
I was referring to the bias ignorance and pressure that causes there to always be someone on the opposing side of a political topic as per his claim that one executives statement on Kaepernick was true. If you will also note he called me blatantly dishonest when he in fact has provable lies in his statement which he admits.
Again, as I said that is one persons opinion who through either ignorance, pressure, or bias will choose a political side. We have former military generals claiming there were aliens found but one person’s claim while it makes a story for an article does not represent evidence.
To compare a former exec listing a very possible situation to the ravings about aliens is, once against, blatantly dishonest.
To get back to the original point, I don't know what to tell you. If you think cancelling is a tactic only implemented by the left, then there is a very thick layer of irony in your "one persons opinion who through either ignorance, pressure, or bias will choose a political side" line.
This is just common sense in my eyes that you should scrutinize a source when especially if it comes from a very small group or one person with motivations to pick a political side and you will find one person to pick an opposite side in every case. I already stated that cancel culture comes from both sides and we don’t have data to prove this definitively but when the cancellation is an overreaction it is typically coming from one side and in particular on claims of sex, race, and religion. I’m not going to pretend there’s a clear cut line what makes someone right or left but when it comes to specific topics big tech will always lean to one side of the line.
> you will find one person to pick an opposite side in every case
Of course there will be someone with a contrary opinion in almost every controversial issue. The key is to closely scrutinize the competing arguments based on the strength of the argument, the available data, and your moral compass, and make your judgment based on those. Personally, I am biased towards the positions that are based on the most intellectually-rigorous arguments supported by voluminous data; and I'd hope the type of people who frequent HN do the same, regardless of their political affiliation.
>I’m not going to pretend there’s a clear cut line what makes someone right or left but when it comes to specific topics big tech will always lean to one side of the line.
The cut throat cancel culture group can be divided into three categories. The people who use it as a tool for control, the people who embrace it as a form of group identity, and the well-meaning folks supporting the above two.
The group identity, dominance fighting group is probably the largest group. The well-meaning folk seem to either graduate up or wash out.
It is. But it isn't necessarily the in-crowd of success. On the contrary, strong indignation often arise from a position of deep insecurity. Maybe the insecurity to lose social status, sure, but there could be any other reason too.
It also was always part of the internet that people pile up on others. What is new is that there are some groups that seem to get a direct endorsement for such behavior from the media landscape.
That's just the first half good advice. Don't be a jerk when you talk, don't be a jerk when you listen. Don't try to offend people unnecessarily, and don't be offended unnecessarily.
As soon as you decided that the only metric which matters is when someone is unnecessarily upset, offended, or whatever, everything was lost. In that case nobody can say anything.
That unfairly burdens the target of the joke. And if you take pains not to offend your work colleagues, then the "don't be offended unnecessarily" half is far less likely to be an issue.
> if you take pains not to offend your work colleagues, then the "don't be offended unnecessarily" half is far less likely to be an issue.
I sort of agree, but not to the point where I think you can disregard the second half of the advice. For every person in the wild who is acting in bad faith, trolling, trying to be offensive, there is someone else on a hair trigger who takes offense to everything, who reads into every statement an underlying insult.
These things start out attempting to correct an injustice and then take on a life of their own. Unscrupulous people see it as a career opportunity under the pretense of moral righteousness. This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union in 1930s. All the evils were done in the name of correcting injustice and helping the oppressed.
I'm in favor of correcting injustices, obviously. The problem is with the opportunists.
Do you have to be part of an unprivileged group to find a joke offensive and deserving of a severe reaction? And does this only apply in America? Like if I go to Germany and they make fun of Americans for being fat I can get really mad and shame them and stuff right?
———-
Though in my own personal experience of being the butt of many jokes, I find it’s easiest to just disarm them by laughing and then trying to take the person out for a beer. Then we can laugh at my expense together. I’ve never found being angry to be a long-term solution TBH. But that’s my experience.
> in my own personal experience of being the butt of many jokes, I find it’s easiest to just disarm them by laughing and then trying to take the person out for a beer. Then we can laugh at my expense together
It sounds like the jokes people are making at your expense are because of a single action that they are mocking, possibly as a callback to a trait you have. Do you see how it would be different was a joke about something intrinsic and permanent that you've been hearing your whole life? And that instead of being good natured, it was being told by someone who would never share a beer with you?
Well there are very few such people, and even KKK members can be befriended by a black person.
> It sounds like the jokes people are making at your expense are because of a single action that they are mocking, possibly as a callback to a trait you have.
Are traits ok to make fun of? And if I take an action and someone makes fun of it, is it not hurtful? I’m not trying to draw comparisons here, but I’m not sure you can generally invalidate the experiences of others either.
Comedy, and making fun of these things and each other is progress. When we let words make us fragile we give them power that they shouldn’t have. People all over the world are or can be mean because of ignorance. Why give them more power and leverage over you?
There are plainly people that abuse this and are offended because they want to. Maybe they just don't like you or have an unresolved problem with themselves. Being upset doesn't net you anything, but the a important thing is that you aren't allowed to shut people up in the name of an abstract unprivileged group and we see that too often when people want to police speech.
What you are suggesting is impossible in practice. It is impossible to not accidentally upset somebody no matter what you say. Unless what you say is so meaningless and vanilla that you might as well not have said anything. We would have to ban all jokes, all political opinions, all scientific discoveries (because religious people might be upset), all expressions of art etc. That is impossible.
They accomplish it because the folks around them are normal human beings that don't completely fly off the handle when something they don't like is said by someone else. You talk about it, rib back or leave. It's not rocket science.
That's possible, but a more likely explanation is that most people know better than to make inappropriate jokes about their colleagues. In my 30-year-long career, the number of people I've observed making such jokes is far outweighed by the number of people who maintain a professional demeanor.
Let me give you an example: Let’s say (for arguments sake) that I got upset reading your comment. Following your logic it is now your fault that I am upset. So you need to change your behaviour until I am no longer upset. Can you see how impractical/impossible that is? Any opinion you have might upset somebody. So the only way to not upset anybody is to stay silent.
You're not following my logic, because it's not what I said, or what I mean. We're talking specifically about off-color jokes about work colleagues, not factual statements like "I ate an apple" or uncontroversial personal opinions like "I like cheese."
“I like cheese” will be offensive and perhaps upsetting to some vegans. So better not talk about food at work. The same with pretty much any subject you can think of. Making the work environment or any other environment non-upsetting to everybody at all time is impossible. Somebody gets promoted instead of you: now you are upset. So let’s ban promoting people. The CEO makes 1000x more money than you while golfing every day? That upsets a lot of people. So let’s ban that. Some people are better dresses than you at work. How upsetting. Let’s all wear identical clothes. I could go on. But that might upset somebody somewhere.
I get why this “could” happen but I find it hard to believe you think that’s how things shake out even 1% of the time. You’re spiking the conversation with a vaguely-slippery-slope argument rooted in niche theoretical scenarios.
Not at all. I have experienced co-workers getting upset over things like that. Leading to heated arguments and bad feelings. My point is that what you happens to think is offensive and what isn’t does not match what others find offensive. So trying to ban everything that might offend somebody somewhere will lead to everything being banned. It won’t just be your particular pet ban list.
I just don't know how you can say things like this when professional environments like Activision-Blizzard exist. You act like it's either "everything we say can be said without any social consequence" or "everyone is offended by everything all the time," when the reality is it's a sliding scale based on context.
I have a higher tolerance for things with a small group of friends than I do in the workplace. I will talk about religion, politics, get heated/passionate, etc. in a friend-context. I do NOT want that at work, and I think I am entitled to a workplace where people have to self-censor a bit in an effort to keep the peace. I do it every day around conservatives who get their feathers ruffled if I say something bad about the GOP/Trump, what makes them so special that they can talk about whatever they want whenever they want and expect NO social repercussions?
It's a one-way street with people who behave like that, we all know it. I guarantee you I can offend and get a bad reaction out of anyone who says "anything goes."
> I just don't know how you can say things like this when professional environments like Activision-Blizzard exist
You don't agree people should leave Activision-Blizzard? I'm not convinced all the drama actually improved the company, though it was probably very satisfying to see for some folks.
> I do NOT want that at work, and I think I am entitled to [...]
That's a valid feeling, but nobody else is obliged to give that to you. You find a company that works for you, or you adapt to the one that you want to work for you. You don't go to war with the culture of a company just because something you feel entitled to isn't yet there.
> I guarantee you I can offend and get a bad reaction out of anyone who says "anything goes."
Yes, and there's nothing wrong with bad reactions. I literally said "you talk about it, rib back or leave". If you are incapable of solving your issues that way and find some sort of middle ground when someone really feels you stepped over the line, I think you have some growing up to do. That said, I recognise it doesn't mesh with a lot of folks' feelings on the matter and that's fine. I can live with that. I hope you can too.
I think it's reasonable to have conversations like these at work. Just like you can have them anywhere else. If conversations about it are had and you have thoughts on whether or not they should be had, you should be heard. Then the other party is free to do with that what they want. That's how life works.
>That's a valid feeling, but nobody else is obliged to give that to you. You find a company that works for you, or you adapt to the one that you want to work for you. You don't go to war with the culture of a company just because something you feel entitled to isn't yet there.
No, I am entitled to that. I am there to do a job, not put up with someone's ravings about politics or whatever. I am forced into a space with them 40+ hours a week, my choice to remove myself from their presence has been taken way from me.
It is the company's responsibility to not foster a hostile work environment or one where people are constantly uncomfortable. If I have a colleague constantly going off on political rants and/or interacting with me in a different (unprofessional) manner at work it is the company's problem as well.
Respectfully, I think with these paragraphs you've established that in this situation it's primarily your problem. The environment was there before you came around and clearly it worked well enough to keep things afloat, so unless you are the one person on earth with the skills you have it is not the company's problem.
They don’t. What happens in practice is that people get upset but choose not to make a big deal out of it. They recognise that we are all different and have different opinions and values. Most people are anti-fragile and can handle being a bit upset. Expecting the world to conform to your values is an example of extreme narcissism.
People in practice choose who they want to be with based on shared values and behaviour. I can’t stand hypocrites, religions fanatics, Trump lovers, or fanatical left/right leaning people. So I choose not to spend time with people like that. However I am not going to insist that they change their behaviour because I get upset listening to them. That would be extremely narcissistic of me.
Ken White agrees with you that there are disproportionate responses to speech on the Internet and, if you follow him, isn't any more amenable to struggle sessions than you are (see: his years-long advocacy of what Lukianoff is doing at FIRE).
The problem is that the NYT here managed to articulate a different, and stupid, problem: the eroding of our supposed right to speak without shame or shunning. The NYT's arguments are in a line of similar arguments that are not in fact about free speech, but rather the opposite: they purport to defend speech, but only selectively, and in the cases they don't defend, they're an appeal to shut down speech and voluntary association.
I didn't interpret the editorial this way. I saw it as articulating a very real problem of eroding cultural norms that welcome and promote pluralism. I don't know why you say "supposed right". It's not a legal right, obviously, but in a sense people have a human right to give a talk at a university without needing a police escort.
> First, the term "free speech" is overloaded-- it means a legal right to speak free of government interference, and it also means a cultural environment of pluralism where opposing views are welcomed and debate is encouraged. Here Ken conflates the two meanings.
Wait, what? No he doesn't. "Free speech" isn't in the quote you pulled from, nor was it in the quote that Ken was responding to. The Times started by saying that there was a "fundamental right" to speak your mind without fear of reprisal. That's pure hogwash.
As I understand the history of the United States, I can't recall a single time where the cultural environment you've described existed. It might be an ideal, but we've never even been close to it. There's always been public backlash for unpopular opinions.
But again, we're getting distracted from the larger point, which is that was a _horrible_ piece by The Times.
We want to live in a culture where a joke on the internet doesn't lead to a struggle session at work. It isn't batshit insane, it isn't gobsmackingly wrong, and it isn't that difficult to understand.
I question, however, if there's been as much societal change between the internet wild west days we all miss and the current day. Sure, you could write a ten page screed on how much you hate those evil left-handed people and think they should all be put into death camps, but you weren't doing it under your own name and your next-door neighbor wasn't reading it. It's only when people insist on linking their online persona with their real-life persona that they have problems. That is what I think changed. Not the way people respond to speech but peoples' propensity for making that speech under their real name.
First, I think your points are well made and articulated. I particularly like your term "struggle session".
Second, I think you're missing what Ken called the "First Speaker Problem" (which IMHO is one of the most important parts of Ken's thinking)
> "We want to live in a culture where a joke on the internet doesn't lead to a struggle session at work"
The implication I'm hearing in those word is that the "first speaker" shouldn't be thrust into a struggle session at work for their speech; what I'm not hearing (although your literal words would cover this situation, so maybe I'm mishearing) is consideration into if the joke (or other statement) thrusts someone else into a struggle session at work.
IMHO, to re-use your words; it isn't batshit insane, it isn't gobsmackingly wrong, and it isn't that difficult to understand - whatever principles you want to apply to the responders to the apparent "First Speaker" should also be applied to the "First Speaker" as if they are themselves a responder. (If only because, I'd argue, they are meaningfully actually a responder themselves)
I don't understand the "first speaker" problem, or why this abstraction is necessary. You shouldn't be thrust into a struggle session at work independent of when you entered the conversation or whether you entered into it at all.
Ken talks about it in depth. Is there a part in there where he loses you? (by which I mean: a part where you're understanding it, and then in the next part you're not). I might be able to help you get your head around it.
Perhaps you should spend some time thinking about the distinction he's making before trying to take the piece apart based on an abstraction he's not talking about.
I did, and I still don't understand why it's a necessary abstraction. As I said, you shouldn't be thrust into a struggle session at work independent of when you entered the conversation or whether you entered into it at all. That's the whole point of liberal order-- equal justice under the law.
Nobody is trying to get responders to shut up. They're trying to stop responders from shutting up the initiators. The distinction between the two is that the latter is usually qualitatively escalatory.
Alice makes a joke on Twitter, but rather than respond on Twitter Bob calls her employer. Alice schedules a talk at a university, but rather than scheduling a rebuttal Bob calls the university demanding to cancel the talk. Alice writes an op-ed, Bob publishes her address.
Both are speech, but a cultural norm of escalation makes the culture a pretty awful place to live.
Ken's idea of "First Speaker Problem" is that you're giving Alice additional rights/consideration/privileges when you apply the abstraction of "initiator" and "responder", rather apply the "speaker" abstraction equally to everyone, and that that different is a Problem.
FSP isn't an abstraction, it's a named bug.
Everything else you're saying is just Ken's point about proportionate response.
As the top post says, White would probably agree with you about the struggle session. But there is room for a wide gulf between a joke leading to a struggle session and "other people people saying mean things in response to your speech". The category potentially covered by "cancel culture" is too broad, and failure to dig into the details and trade offs is at best unserious. At worst, it's a dishonest way to use norms at one end of the spectrum (let's all take jokes in stride) to defend norm-breaking on the other side (Milo should get invited to university stages even though he uses them to bully individuals).
White didn't conflate anything. I'm pretty sure White understand the difference between free speech and Free Speech (shoot, he even said so in the article)
White was basically saying we need to come to an agreement on a definition of Cancel Culture.
And he suggests the messaging is about the disproportionate response to speech.
It's the kind of sentence that, to me at least, grinds my mental gears to a halt.
This is the cortisone rush that tptacek was referring to. You need to let it go through you (or past you) until you feel your mental gears loosen up again. Then step back and look at the bigger picture.
What the editorial author meant was not some kind of absolute freedom from the threat of being shamed or shunned. But that, once upon a time, and it wasn't too long ago, there was a thing known as "civil discourse" in this country. In which (and granted the boundaries are fuzzy hear) -- in itself the mere fact of having an unpopular (or difficult) opinion on the state of the world ... did not run such an alarmingly and dysfunctional risk of getting you shut down in form or another as it does today.
Note that this don't mean "unpopular or difficult" in the anything-goes sense. Spouting sheer idiocy can (and should) get you shunned and shamed, along with threats of implications of violence, and a whole lot of other things I don't need to mention.
But taking unpopular / difficult (or even simply naïve) stances within the boundaries of plausibility and reason, by themselves, should not merit such a reaction. And yet increasingly they do. That is what is meant by a breakdown in the standards of civil discourse. And it this breakdown of standards -- and the creeping climate of "better hold your tongue" that has taken over this country -- that is the main concern of the editorial piece. Not absolutist notions of freedom or freedom-from.
>But that, once upon a time, and it wasn't too long ago, there was a thing known as "civil discourse" in this country. In which (and granted the boundaries are fuzzy hear) -- in itself the mere fact of having an unpopular (or difficult) opinion on the state of the world ... did not run such an alarmingly and dysfunctional risk of getting you shut down in form or another as it does today.
But doesn't this cut both ways? Once upon a time it wasn't possible to spout whatever's in one's head to countless people at once. The surface area is much larger today, and so are the consequences.
The surface area isn't always all that big. The student's essay, cited in the article, had to do with comments she made within the walls of a college classroom. And I think that essay (if I didn't mix it up with another one) talked about students getting lambasted on social media for their comments in class.
I think among the action items that TFA suggests for discussion, another could be: "What happens in class stays in class." If a student needs to be called out for egregious behavior, that can be handled by the teacher.
Also, things like electronically submitted essays and papers need to be deleted from any kind of server or database once the class is finished.
This is a consequence of the Internet. In the old days if you said something stupid people would laugh at you and that would be the end of it. Now if you say something stupid and it ends up online people will dig it out of your past to use against you. This is an especially big problem for people who were edgy in their youth but are older now. Societal standards shifted out from under them and you aren't grandfathered in the court of public opinion.
> Spouting sheer idiocy can (and should) get you shunned and shamed
This is where the modern world has an issue. The window of what is considered beyond the pale has grown quite a big larger than it was in the past. In the old days you would never hear the President of the US repeating obviously fabricated insane conspiracy theories.
> The window of what is considered beyond the pale has grown quite a big larger than it was in the past.
Nonsense. I was born into a world where being gay was beyond the pale. My parents were born into a world where interracial marriage was beyond the pale, and advocating for integration in some states could get you shot. For most of my grandparents lives it was literally a crime to be a socialist, or to hand out leaflets opposing WW1. When my parents were children the state was busy arresting people for distributing information about birth control, and beating up anti-war protesters. There was a government agency that controlled “decency” in media. When I was growing up people lost careers over protesting the Iraq War. Jon Stewart lost his first hosting job after Marilyn Manson burned a bible on set, and Sinead O’Connor got death threats for (correctly) accusing the pope of covering up child sexual abuse on SNL.
We are not a perfect country, there is always room for improvement. But the idea that the range of “cancelable” acts is wider than it used to be is absolute nonsense. We have way more free speech now than we’ve ever had in our past, its not even close.
Scale matters. And in terms of sheer magnitude of insanity and frequency of its emission -- no one who has held that office can hold a candle to number 45.
> The window of what is considered beyond the pale has grown quite a big larger than it was in the past.
I'd say it's worse than that. Our information diets are so heterogeneous, that with respect to certain topics, it's plausible that two people might have non-overlapping windows of what they consider reasonable/plausible, and of what they consider totally bat-shit insane. e.g., your uncle's views on climate change fall into your bat-shit insane window, and your views on climate change fall into your uncle's bat-shit insane window.
> But that, once upon a time, and it wasn't too long ago, there was a thing known as "civil discourse" in this country. In which (and granted the boundaries are fuzzy hear) -- in itself the mere fact of having an unpopular (or difficult) opinion on the state of the world ... did not run such an alarmingly and dysfunctional risk of getting you shut down in form or another as it does today.
This is so disconnected with history its almost delusional. Go read about how civil rights advocates were treated in the south, or gay rights advocates a mere 30 years ago. Go read about how distributing information on birth control was a crime, or how being a socialist brought the state down on you. Go read about the labor movement before WW2, and how many workers and would be reformers were shot for their words.
For a decent chunk of the 20th century, straying outside the bounds of “civil discourse” wouldn’t get you “shut down”, it might get you killed or jailed.
This doesn't prove that we haven't taken steps backwards in terms of what is allowed as civil discourse in recent years. You're correct that many things were once completely unallowed by virtue of repercussions, which we now see as within the overton window. We've worked towards getting better though and we shouldn't throw that away. What people today are reacting to is that it feels like we are less free to speak our minds, at least on some topics, than we were just a few decades ago. Just because it used to be worse long before that doesn't mean it isn't a problem worth dealing with now. Racism also used to be much worse than it is today, but that's not an excuse for the amount of racism that still exists either.
> What people today are reacting to is that it feels like we are less free to speak our minds, at least on some topics, than we were just a few decades ago.
And yet nobody ever produces any evidence that that’s actually true. This is particularly troubling when people are asserting that something ought to be done culturally or legislatively, when all they’ve got is a vague feeling that things are getting worse.
Such observations seem to be completely disjoint from the rapid widening of the overton window that’s happened since the advent of the “alt-right” and to the lesser extent the dirtbag left. I cannot square the evidence free assertion that people feel less free to speak their minds with nazi marches in major cities chanting about jews, and tucker carlson talking about white replacement theory on prime time television. These two things are fundamentally incompatible.
The fact that you need to dial as far back as 1930s to find a climate worse than what we have now (just so you can say "I betcha you didn't know about that stuff!") would seem to indicate... that there's not a lot substance to this argument.
Are we in a worse place than the darkest decades of the 20th century? Or even half as bad of place? Of course not. That doesn't that the current climate hasn't deteriorated substantially over the last 15 years or so. Or that some aspects of it aren't reminiscent of the darker times that you are referencing.
> The fact that you need to dial as far back as 1930s to find a climate worse than what we have now (just so you can say "I betcha you didn't know about that stuff!") would seem to indicate... that there's not a lot substance to this argument.
I listed examples from the 1990s though, not just the 1930s. The moral panics of the 1980s and 1990s provides a ripe set of examples, if you’re interested in more.
There is also the radical change that social media and the internet has brought since the 1990s. And one of the great advents that things like Twitter has brought is the ability to get an audience and to speak anonymously if one so wishes. This has been an incredible boon to free speech, and it’s kind of frustrating that people aren’t treating it like the miracle that it is.
> Are we in a worse place than the darkest decades of the 20th century? Or even half as bad of place? Of course not. That doesn't that the current climate hasn't deteriorated substantially over the last 15 years or so. Or that some aspects of it aren't reminiscent of the darker times that you are referencing.
How, precisely are we worse off than the 1990s? Be specific, please. All these arguments break down to hand waving over how free speech has broken down, and yet nobody ever provides any evidence, only vague assertions and feelings.
Mean while I personally see the alt right out chanting things that were unthinkable in the 1990s. It is very hard for me to square the idea that free speech is worse off with the alt right openly saying racist and bigoted things.
The best answer I can give you is: "Go read a book or two about it."
Unfortunately you weren't very civil in your initial response, a few levels above. And it takes time to provide even a cursory list of examples you are asking for. Meanwhile there is an active genocide operation happening in a part of the world I have some close connections to. And a day job that I theoretically need to tend to, as well.
This is such an outstanding term. Sometimes I’ll see a comment of someone arguing with me or insulting me and I’ll get a spike of anger and literally feel my eyes twitch for a split second and I’ve never really thought about it but that’s exactly what it is.
Yeah that's a good point. There is not a single person complaining about cancel culture today that wouldn't immediately join the snarling mob and try to cancel someone that argued something like "we should rape 1 year olds" or something like that, for example.
If we kept the arguments to "It is wrong to hate people just for holding the same opinion as 50% of the population", or "Hating someone for making a joke is wrong", it would make a lot more sense.
You know, the more I think about it, the fact that there are a large body of people who literally hate and want to destroy the lives of half the people living in the western world, simply because of their opinions about life, really rubs in how psychotically dangerous they are. It is amazing they are allowed to get away with their behavior. The reason is that people really are instinctively terrified of a ravenous mob (and rightly so), so they keep quite, but, in the age of the internet, there is less to fear from these mobs.
I can't find the quote, but Norman Rockwell said that the inspiration for his Freedom of Speech painting was a town hall he attended where a man not much liked by the community was allowed to speak his piece, even when the people did not like what he had to say.
I'm not arguing we shouldn't be able to shame or shun (the NYT itself would be my preferred target). I think the idea is that we should aspire to resolving our differences through dialog. What we have now is a crowd of people who feel that dialog is no longer necessary, and that to even simply engage in dialog with one's political enemies is bad and might somehow taint you.
But this isn't a new thing, not even a little bit. The House Unamerican Committee, and anti-abolitionists (as in slavery) are both examples of exactly this from history. Arguably, worse and more extreme because of all the, you know, death and murder.
Of course political violence is not a new thing. And given your choice of examples, I feel compelled to remind you that it is certainly not just a right-wing phenomenon.
I am simply stating the ideal, and how the present state of affairs differs from that ideal. I would also add that we are the downslope from a relatively high-water mark period of free speech, and I see no value in regressing in the manner we have.
I don't know if I have a definition of "cancel culture" but consider the time NY Times ran an entire article about a single person from Goldman Sachs that donated to the wrong political candidate in 2016, which they publicly named.
> Records show just one Goldman employee, a financial adviser in the wealth management division, has donated to Mr. Trump — $534.58, to be precise.
The Times also did some research on him and found he was selling MAGA style hats. Running a side hustle while working at GS is a big no-no and it got him fired.
Can we all agree that whatever the hell that is is wrong? One of the largest newspapers in the world combing through public donations, finding a private individual that happened to donate a small amount to a politician that would go on to win the presidency, and feel the need to name that person publicly.
Or if you're more sympathetic to the other side, how about the woman that gave Trump the middle finger? She lost her job as a government contractor, but she won political office off of the debaucle.
I don't think it was and I believe there is a obviously missing element of letting people speak with whose opinion you disagree. Especially in the US but it also has spread beyond that. It is an intellectual requirement, it is a scientific requirement. I don't think there is much dispute to that. So especially academia has a responsibility here. And yes, the principle of free speech does not allow for retaliation aside from more speech with which you can express your disagreement with what was said.
If you need a law to adhere to the principle which is often reduced to government, you are not a proponent of freedom of speech. That is an position you can take, but you should not have any further illusion about that.
You’re taking the use of the word “right” to literally in this instance.
The editorial is using it in the sense when someone says “i have the right to not have my house egged by teens”. It’s more the a reference to the ideal world than some right codified in the Constitution.
If someone said "we have a right to food and housing," would you call them "batshit insane"? While I agree that we don't have a right "speak [our] minds and voice [our] opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned," you (and the author) are adopting a style of argument where certain positions are subjected to intense scrutiny. The first paragraph of the NYT op-ed doesn't stand up under that scrutiny but the rest of it does, more or less.
The blog just gets weird:
> It’s good that the Times is worried about speech-suppressing laws promoted by some conservatives, but it’s terrible that the Times is gullibly accepting the Right’s deeply dishonest assertion that it doesn’t engage in the sort of behavior it calls “cancel culture.” There is no serious argument that conservatives refrain from “cancel culture.”
Which part of the following quote from the op-ed claims that conservatives "refrain from cancel culture"?
> How has this happened? In large part, it’s because the political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around cancel culture. Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many on the right, for all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms.
None of it! It says that conservatives have taken cancel culture further.
The author is worried that agreeing that cancel culture is a problem will help the right. But he does agree, so he does his agreeing in a roundabout way while heaping scorn on the op-ed. The overall effect is unpleasant.
You don't in fact have a right to food and housing. But a right to food and housing would be a coherent proposition; you could design such a right (within obvious limits). You can't do that with the proposition that people have a right to speech without fear of shame or shunning; like, the logic itself literally doesn't work. You could simply shut down anyone's objectionable political speech by saying that it is shaming or shunning; they could respond in kind. Again: this is what White is saying with his "First Speaker Problem".
I don't think you've very effectively rebutted his argument here.
I didn't try to rebut the blog. And anyway, my comment doesn't hang on right to no-shunning/right to food being identical. My point was that the blog is strange because the author agrees with the spirit of the op-ed while taking pains to criticize it. I think this is clearly because he dislikes being on the same side as conservatives.
If I was going to disagree with the blog, it would be over this strange idea that we should only talk about specific cancel culture incidents and never about the principle of free speech. Why not both?
He clearly doesn't agree with the spirit of the editorial (it's a staff editorial, not an op-ed). He thinks there are real free speech problems, but that the editorial (and the public sentiment it cites) terribly misconstrues them, succumbing to sloppy thinking in a way that not only works against their stated goal but actually further jeopardizes speech.
> I believe that “cancel culture” exists — that is, I believe that some responses to speech are disproportionate and outside norms of decency, and I think the culture sometimes encourages such responses.
He's criticizing how the editorial talks about the problem. I agree with the spirit of the blog and the op-ed. I'm criticizing how the blog talks about the op-ed.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
NYT would prefer:
"I slightly disapprove, err--- I mean I very very very mildly approve of what you say, and I will defend to the death your right to say it, while also acknowledging that I must be respectful to you in all that I say regarding what you said."
(Here in British Columbia, Canada, a Jewish lawyer famously defended a holocaust denier's right to free speech (pro-bono!). I remember the lawyer telling people that he planned to be the first to piss on his client's grave, but that he also intended to defend him in the courts to the very best of his abilities.)
"In the right context" is doing a lot of work there! I think we can all agree that:
* If you say that vanilla ice cream is boring, and I respond by getting 10,000 Twitter users to email your CEO saying they'll boycott your company until you're fired, that's at least colloquially harassment and completely unacceptable behavior.
* If you go on a 10 minute rant about how much my political and religious views suck, and I respond by uninviting you from my birthday party, that's a reasonable response and not harassment at all.
So to meaningfully address the issue of "cancel culture", which the NYT and Popehat both agree is real, we really have to talk about what is and isn't the right context or we won't be able to get anywhere.
Shaming and shunning is not harassment, harassment is harassment which requires additional components beyond just shaming and shunning; you have to take it to an excess or compound it with other behavior for shaming and/or shunning to reach anything even remotely resembling harassment.
So decidedly no; you are not granted a freedom from shaming and shunning for your opinion, not in American culture, not in Western or Eastern culture, not historically, not in any religion, nowhere has this concept been held up as a societal more. The concept literally does not exist, and yet here the NYT cites it as some cultural artifact like it's been a cornerstone of American society from the beginning.
And what's provable in a court of law is completely immaterial to this discussion, not sure why you'd bring that up. The NYT was not citing the First Amendment, and in fact directly says so later on in the editorial.
> Shaming and shunning can easily be considered harassment in the right context
Shunning is never harassment. Shaming could be, but not on its own -- it would probably have to be either extraordinarily sustained/egregious and/or paired with credible threats to person or property.
Even emergent behavior that has the same effect as blatant harassment isn't harassment. I.e., sending one person 10K letters, some of which contain (even unspecific) threats, is CERTAINLY harassment. But if 10K people each send one letter, there are probably zero instances of harassment unless one of the letters is seriously egregious (e.g., contains specific and credible threats). And even then, the other 99,999 letters aren't instances of harassment.
Organized behavior might be. It depends on the amount of coordination. But probably the case is too difficult to take on.
It depends on the subject. I don't have the right to deny racial equality without fear of being shamed or shunned. But I certainly have the right to point out that transgender biological males aren't women in the normal sense and don't match many people's definitions of the word "woman" without fear of being shamed or shunned.
If you say repulsive things, lots of very qualified, valuable engineers are going to exercise their right to free association to avoid working with you. There is no cure for that problem that doesn't eliminate the right to free association (or worse). If you're odious, you can't make people work with you. And you don't get to decide what other people find odious.
Of course. A better way of saying what I intended is this:
We cannot control the statistical distribution of opinions within the population and hence cannot control whether we will be shunned or shamed. However, that does not mean that we throw up our hands and define "repulsive" to be whatever gets us shunned by the majority: neither truth nor morality is completely relative.
The two propositions I gave differ markedly in the degree to which they should be controversial to a kind rational mind:
(1) That ceteris paribus two humans who differ only in their ethnicity should be accorded the same rights, a kind rational mind will always agree with.
(2) That a man who decided recently to try to become a woman is not a woman in exactly the same sense as a standard biological woman is something that most kind rational minds will agree with, but some still perhaps might not.
I'm sure you're not suggesting that either of those propositions is repulsive in any absolute sense. What I am saying is that in order to maintain standards in society, rather than letting those standards drift with cultural fashions and whims, all those who write and speak with the aim of maintaining a healthy culture should state clearly that proposition (2) is not repulsive or deserving of shame.
What I find repulsive isn't the point. There certainly are people who will avoid working with you if you make public statements in support of (2). It's not up to us to define the threshold at which people will or won't shun us. Unless you want to give up on the concept of free association --- it seems clear you don't --- you're going to have to accept that it's possible to have and express opinions that will foreclose on some options in life for you. You have freedom of speech, but not freedom from social repercussions, and there is no clean divide between "social" and "workplace".
People in countries which had civil wars, can work together today even if they were literally fighting each other a decade ago. But disagreeing with some woke theory makes you somebody who can't be worked with?
I think the point should be that society benefits greatly by giving room for a wide variety of thought and opinion without shame and judgement. Opinions, generally, shouldn’t be considered odious, rather, the actions we take that impinge on others directly.
As a teen in the 80s, I was a conservative on a debate team full of liberals, including members of the Young Communists. Guess what- we were all good friends despite being ideologically at odds.
Having room to rationally discuss our differences makes for an ability for a pluralistic society to have open debate without rancor and violence. Using well formed argument rather than vitriol and public shaming to truly convince rather than force public agreement and private grievance seems to me a better recipe for a harmonious and just society.
Yes of course I accept all of that — one can hardly have missed that in the last five or so years, since completely unreasonable positions have been raised to the status of dogma by educated liberals in the sorts of workplaces that you and I work in. One can and should remind the world that it shouldn’t be that way: shunning and shaming should be reserved for extreme opinions.
Who's to say what's "reasonable"? Marriage equality was considered absolutely unreasonable just 15 years ago. I think you need to learn to live with the fact that people can simply decide to find your opinions odious, and a consequence of that will be you not being able to work with them. You don't have a right to force people to associate with you.
I’ve already told you that I accept that. But odious cuts both ways: people like me find people who would shun and shame someone for holding a differing view odious, and we wouldn't want to work with them. Or hire them. I would never have shunned and/or shamed them had they not started it, but I am capable of retaliation.
In fact, this conversation has inspired me. I interview for SWE positions. It's time to stand up against these people. I will argue against hiring anyone whom I suspect would engage in shunning/shaming someone for failing to fall into line with progressive dogma; I'll find excuses for making the argument on technical grounds.
> But I certainly have the right to point out that transgender biological males aren't
I... don't think you do, actually. I would argue that you should be able to start a conversation about the differences between trans women and cis women without that fear, but that's a) rather different than "pointing out" and b) highly dependent on how you go about that (and c), not a right, legally or morally).
It's akin to me going "your comment shows you to be an asshole" and me going "hey I'd like to talk to you about how you said that so you can say it without pissing people off."
Don’t be silly. A man who decides they want to be a woman is a human being who should absolutely be sympathized with and treated kindly, but simply isn’t a woman. That’s such an obviously reasonable opinion (even if you disagree with it) that there’s no need to tie yourself up in knots worrying about the difference between “pointing out” and “starting a conversation”. Yes, I mean “right” in an informal or moral sense, not legal.
> at worst, what you're asking for is totally incoherent.
It was an eye-opening experience to realize that I was taken egalitarianism as a given. I, too, couldn't help but see people who were simultaneously demanding the right to speak while also demanding that others should be denied the right to speak out against their original speech. I dismissed these people as irrational hypocrites. But eventually I realized that they weren't hypocrites, their philosophy is entirely consistent. I was implicitly assuming that they valued egalitarianism, but this was a mistake on my part. When these people beat the drum of free speech, they're referring only to their own rights. They aren't interested in granting rights to others. With such people, any appeal to "natural rights" is not intended to be reciprocal: you should be obligated to give them rights, but they should not be obligated to give you rights. They have managed to solve the ethical dilemma of "if people have the freedom to swing their fist and the freedom to not be punched in the face, what happens when someone swings their fist into your face?"; rather than arriving at the egalitarian solution of making some freedoms subservient to other freedoms, they have arrived at the classist solution of making some people subservient to other people. It's entirely coherent. Terrible, but coherent.
I don't think that the problem is cancel culture per se. The problem is how internet identity works. If you attach a real identity to the things you say online, you have a social credit score. Hell, even if you don't attach a real identity to these things, you will very likely not say things that you think are correct, but unpopular, even if you are prepared to defend you position ad nauseam. And you will avoid saying them out of fear of downvotes.
The problem gets much worse if your karma is a thing that you are obligated to attach to your real identity to.
Do you think the problem arises because of the formalization of the social credit score (it existed prior to this, just in a non-quantified way), and/or the accessibility of that score to people who aren't in your community?
Not the formalization, because it isn't formalized, but definitely the consolidation, and the emphasis on linking all of your accounts.
For my own part, I have deleted every reddit account that I have ever made in which I felt that I had become attached to my karma. I just rebuild from scratch when that happens. I hate being afraid of saying things. It helps a lot, but I also don't participate in any of the real identity emphasized social media outlets.
Prior to the modern era you had something analogous to non-quantified "social scores" and "credit score". By "formalized" I mean, I can see an actual, formally quantified measure by looking at Reddit Karma and/or your Experian provided credit score.
I think it’s a strong point. Shunning is an effective social strategy to push out unwanted radical minority views. It’s been used all throughout history. The internet has greatly diminished its power. The guy reaction against ANY canceling is naive and a terrible path. Canceling is not novel or bad at all. That some people have taken it to extremes is a separate issue.
I like the thrust of your and Ken's post overall, but I think this misses the mark:
> To be free of shame or shunning is to be free of other people's speech. If you're saying something provocative, you are almost certainly responding in a sense to something someone else said; if you think you have the right to speak without shame or shunning, so does the person you're effectively responding to.
While it's true that almost anything you might say contradicts something that someone else has said before, it's not the case that anything you might say, even something provocative, encourages shaming or shunning of that previous speaker, or really harms or threatens them in any way.*
No one is advocating for the "right" to speak without any response. They're advocating for the liberal norm that one can speak freely without disproportionate shaming and ostracism.
*And there's the rub. Anyone can claim to have been horribly harmed, shamed, or excluded by something a speaker said, which then justifies retaliatory harm, shame, or exclusion against that speaker. We can't get away from adjudicating these claims of harm if we want to have a healthy culture. No abstract system of rules and rights will suffice.
Somehow write a dispositive argument that "cancel culture" isn't real.
With so many things defined as cancel culture, with so many qualities ascribed to cancel culture, with cancel culture having committed so many crimes and offended so many people, how indeed could it not be real? How preposterous! So many now are lying in the gutter with ruined lives, so many have ruined careers, what thing could have done this if not cancel culture? How could it not be real?
True, cancel culture might have some contradictions in it's definition. But I propose we iron those out those straight away and define cancel culture as American culture and then clearly, we can say, as Doonesbury author Garry Trudeau said, "we have me the enemy and he is us".
Edit: More seriously, the phrase "cancel culture" is poor way to way to deal with something with a raft of only semi-related explosions of anger against things that used to be OK. If someone doesn't like what's happening, they need to deal constructive with what's happening, not imagine that the genie will go back into the bottle by condemnation of this "cancel culture".
I think both you and Ken and the New York Times are getting tripped up by the phrase "free speech." What the New York Times is actually talking about is "ideological pluralism." When elderly Millennials like me were growing up, you could have--at least in educated circles--a broad range of heterodox opinions without anyone getting too upset about what you said.
And that's just not true anymore. I've got in trouble with white progressives in my social circle (which is mostly white progressives) for saying we should carefully scrutinize refugees from Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile my dad--whose grandfather was an Imam and who has worked in Afghanistan--expressed the exact same opinion after we withdrew from Afghanistan and there was the question of Afghan refugees.
Ken is absolutely correct that conservatives used to do it too. But I didn't grow up in the deep south where being in favor of same-sex marriage in the 1990s would get you socially ostracized. I am alarmed, however, that in blue America in 2022, I can't even discuss how my Muslim family members feel about marriage, divorce, etc., except to condemn their views. Saying "rural America in the 1990s was just as bad" doesn't actually score any points with me.
I think the New York Times editorial is confused and inelegant. But kudos to them for actually speaking up. Because I don't think we're all just having some collective delusion that something has changed in "liberal society" and that change isn't a good one.
Saying we need to do so very carefully is implicitly suggesting that that's not currently the case, and that does absolutely feed into racism against MENA/South Asian people and Islamophobia.
The person you are responding to was talking about the Afghan refugees from the Afghanistan pull out. Those refugees do not appear to have been carefully scrutinized, at least not at the same level has past Middle Eastern refugees.
"I've got in trouble with white progressives in my social circle (which is mostly white progressives) for saying we should carefully scrutinize refugees from Syria and Iraq."
He was saying he got in trouble talking about Syria and Iraq.
Ken White doesn't think you're having a collective delusion either. See, for instance, his recent response on Twitter to the drama about unpopular speech at Occidental. So I'm not sure what you're rebutting here.
"His point is that you have to discuss something more particular than "the right to speak your mind without fear of shame or shunning". You've never had that right"
This is a bit flawed, essentially 'straw man' argument in the grand scheme.
While there might be good reason to critique the NYT article, the response I think missed the bigger point.
Nobody is really making the argument that speech isn't going to have consequences.
The 'Cancel Culture Does not Exist' or 'This Is Not A 1st Amendment Issue' arguments are already tired, empty canards.
The awful failure of the authors argument are clearly evident in his dismissal of the Harper's Magazine moment - he argues 'nobody bothers to define cancel culture' etc. which is bullshit.
Stephen Pinker, one of the Harper's signatories, faced concerted and vicious attempt at 'cancellation' of some of his positions and credentials when he dared to voice the heretic idea along the lines that policing in America is largely much more heavy handed than eslewehere, and that this is the fundamental issues, less so race. God forbid (!).
Thankfully, Stephen Pinker has enough credentials to hold off the cancellers.
JK Rowling is another good pop culture example. People lament that 'she's a billionaire and can't be cancelled' again which is not true. The amount of front page sardonic vitriol about her by ostensibly 'respectable' publications is very directly translated into hesitancy on every popular front: movie deals, book deals, actors fear of 'being in the out club' if they appear in a film based upon her book etc. Her 'cancellation' can be literally be measured in dollars.
It's pernicious specifically because the vast majority of participants actually are probably not bothered entirely by Rowling or Pinker comments - but that the 'fear of association' created by the 'Cancel Screamers' creates a chilling effect on speech and participation.
Ergo the 'consequence' of speech is not legitimate: people are not 'running from Rowling' because of what they think of her positions, they are running from her because of what others might think of them.
I'll step back my argument an inch and admit that there are actually nutbars (of all stripes) who probably believe they can 'say whatever, whenever' - 1 minute on Twitter will remind us of that, however there's a gigantic grey are of obvious areas of public cancellation.
> People lament that 'she's a billionaire and can't be cancelled' again which is not true.
She has enough money that if she wants to be heard she can literally print her opinion and pay people to stuff it in everyones postbox. If she as much as posts a long form article on her blog millions will read it. Her voice is not supressed in any way. If she wants to publish a book, she rings up a publishing house and they will publish it for her. This is what people mean when they say that she “cannot be canceled”.
> The amount of front page sardonic vitriol about her by ostensibly 'respectable' publications is very directly translated into hesitancy on every popular front
That is one reading. The other reading is that she used her considerable reach to clearly, and articulately express reprehensible thoughts. People have seen and read these thoughts and decided that they don’t want to be associated with her. As it is their right.
How do you know that your reading is right and mine is wrong?
Steven Pinker (it's Steven, not Stephen) wrote a letter that helped obtain for Jeffrey Epstein an 18-month sentence for child sex trafficking in which his cell was kept unlocked and he was allowed to leave the prison for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, to work from his own office. My point here being: maybe Pinker isn't the example you want to call out here; maybe we can argue about somebody with perhaps fewer reasons to be "canceled". Pinker is a complicated figure; he is not, as many would have it, a perfect example of a pure academic singled out purely for his opinions on culture-war issues.
I agree with you about the potency of his credentials; lesser academics have been driven out for much smaller roles in the Epstein saga.
Alan Dershowitz wrote to Pinker asking "do you reckon this statute means X or Y?" and Pinker said "It obviously means X". So far as I can tell, (1) Pinker didn't know that this was specifically about the Epstein case, (2) Pinker gave an honest answer to the question, and (3) Pinker's answer was in fact obviously correct.
Epstein was an awful person who did awful things and should have spent the rest of his life in prison. But that doesn't mean that every specific attempt to put him in prison was legally sound, and it doesn't mean that anyone whose actions contributed to that specific attempt's failure is somehow complicit in Epstein's evils.
It seems to me that it's a positively good thing that when someone is accused of something awful, they can still get vigorous legal representation, and that the people providing that vigorous legal representation can solicit opinions from experts that they hope will back them up. Because 1. sometimes people who are accused of awful things turn out not to have done them, and 2. when they did do them we want the legal proceedings establishing that they did to be as watertight as possible.
In this particular case, the issue wasn't "did Epstein do X or not?" but "are the things Epstein did covered by this specific law or not?". It seems that they weren't. Again, I think it's a positively good thing that when someone is accused of something awful we only get to use a law against them if that law really covers what they did. Because if there isn't a general principle that you only get punished for things that are actually against the actual law then what we have isn't laws, it's excuses for the powerful to punish whoever they feel like punishing.
To be clear, it looks as fishy as all hell to me that Epstein didn't get a much harsher sentence in the 2006-2008 case. It looks, in fact, like some sort of corruption or cover-up. But in that case, I don't see how Pinker's letter had anything much to do with it. And, again, so far as I can tell what Pinker wrote was simply correct, and when he wrote it he didn't know it was for Epstein's case.
I'm not interested in rehabilitating Pinker, who appeared in Epstein's flight logs and has been photographed socializing with him. My point is simply that he tends to be a bad example when brought up in these kinds of discussions. He's treated as if he's simply a celebrity scientist caught in the limelight over political tweets. But he's not just that.
Maybe you know something about them that I don't, but to me it seems alarming that someone needs to be "rehabilitated" for those things.
"Appeared in Epstein's flight logs" = "went on his plane to a TED meeting in 2002", and "has been photographed socializing with him" = "was at a few parties where Epstein 'socialized' with everyone famous he could find", so far as I can tell. From Pinker's account -- which obviously might be self-serving -- they disliked one another. What do you think Pinker did that he could reasonably have been expected not to do, given the information available to him at the time?
Rubbish - Pinker is exactly the person that should be protected and there's no need to 'rehabilitate him' from anything.
Celebrities of various kinds interact with each other, that's how that works.
If you were invited to a conference and the CEO invited you on his plane because you had something interesting to say, and 10 years later we find he was a rapist, do we cancel you?
If you're going to tell me that Pinker was 'on rape island sleeping with teens girls' - then obviously that's another matter, cancel away, but as far as I know that's not the case.
This is exactly the kind of petty, toxic, vindictive posturing exemplary of bad cancel culture.
Funny, I can't think of that many other "celebrities" that contributed directly to Jeffrey Epstein's sweetheart sentence in 2008, which enabled him to continue trafficking and abusing minors in the ensuing decade.
I genuinely hope both of you continue this thread, even as I think it's unlikely that you'll come to common ground. I'm finding it extremely helpful to clarify my thoughts on this type of situation.
Pinker is absolutely, unconditionally a very reasonable and thoughtful person, who in absolutely no way shape or form should be contemplated for cancellation or even marginalisation.
He's a polite, thoughtful, conscientious guy with barely objectionable opinions, not only that, he's pretty smart and actually contributes to discussions.
He's maybe the last person on earth we want to cancel - but they have attempted to cancel him anyhow.
Pinker is the ultimate case of 'Cancel Culture is Insane'.
Epstein is perhaps the most obvious case of 'Legit Cancel Culture' - but we didn't need the modern form of Cancel Culture to cancel him. Child Rapists tend to be excluded from society without needing to argue about it.
That 'someone was photographed with Epstein' just isn't hugely material. People socialise, and take photos with one another. That's how that works.
My point is simply that there are issues other than Pinker's dalliances with racialist pseudoscientists that prompt objections to him; for instance, the fact that he contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's defense. That's all.
> That's all you really have to engage with here; you don't have to let cortisol trick you into believing this is an amassing of the forces of "cancel culture isn't real" that you must mobilize against.
At least you are clear in what you think about the average person that is concerned about this topic.
He's not doing any of these things. He's responding to a specific NYT staff editorial.
White agrees with many of you that disproportionate responses to speech happen, are harmful, and are occurring regularly. He cites several instances, from both sides of the American political spectrum. You don't have to come up with an elaborate argument about how White is wrong about how harmful "cancel culture" is; White almost certainly agrees with you (at least in a general sense; maybe not in your particulars).
His point is that you have to discuss something more particular than "the right to speak your mind without fear of shame or shunning". You've never had that right. You can't have it. To be free of shame or shunning is to be free of other people's speech. If you're saying something provocative, you are almost certainly responding in a sense to something someone else said; if you think you have the right to speak without shame or shunning, so does the person you're effectively responding to. At best, you're arguing for what White has in the past mockingly referred to as a "replevin of feels"; at worst, what you're asking for is totally incoherent.
This Substack post would be bigger news if Ken White had, Solomonically, worked out the whole problem of disproportionate responses to speech. He has not, and I think he's probably much too smart to try. He's just critiquing someone else's bad argument. That's all you really have to engage with here; you don't have to let cortisol trick you into believing this is an amassing of the forces of "cancel culture isn't real" that you must mobilize against.