I don't understand your preoccupation with "cancel culture"; first of all it's a right wing formulation and therefore likely dishonest or not even real. Let's ,ake sure we're talking about the same thing here; two examples
1) a university invites a right wing speaker, but between the invitation and the speech he gets his name in the pape…
I don't understand your preoccupation with "cancel culture"; first of all it's a right wing formulation and therefore likely dishonest or not even real. Let's ,ake sure we're talking about the same thing here; two examples
1) a university invites a right wing speaker, but between the invitation and the speech he gets his name in the papers saying something vile. homosexuals should be executed, Democrats are pedophiles. The university cancels his speech.
2) a pundit says something vile on his show; his advertisers are pressured into dropping him.
I don't have any problem with these. Nobody is required to provide a forum for people who express horrible views. Debating those views just lends them undeserved legitimacy. Cancel away.
I do agree that pulling some remark from years ago out of the trash can and using it to attack people who have recanted or who just had a fit of pique is going way too far.
"I don't understand your preoccupation with "cancel culture"; first of all it's a right wing formulation and therefore likely dishonest or not even real."
Hmmm, first, I think the temptation to dismiss things because they're "right-wing" is an exceedingly self-limiting way of thinking. I notice increasingly in certain online circles that every opinion that people want to discredit without contending with the facts of it, is simply labelled as "conservative" or "far-right" or held by a "white male." In fact, it doesn't even need to be directly connected anymore. Just saying, "X person...who has interacted with conservatives" is enough to have many people tune out.
I'm certainly not right-wing. Yet cancel culture is a formulation I happily use, because it clearly describes a real phenomenon. A phenomenon that I've given real-world examples of here, that go far beyond homophobes being disinvited from university lectures. But as I said above, even the examples I've given aren't really the point.
The highest profile victims of cancel culture will be fine whatever happens. They can happily retire, or, alternatively, continue saying whatever the hell they want, and aside from a few mean tweets, they'll usually be completely fine (though it's worth noting that Dave Chappelle was physically attacked recently and JK Rowling receives regular death threats, so maybe not *completely* fine). But people who don't have millions in the bank, who can't afford to lose their job or jeopardise their academic career and future prospects, these are the real targets of cancel culture.
So while I certainly wouldn't say I'm "preoccupied" with cancel culture, there are a few reasons it matters to me.
First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people like Peyton Gendron.
Second is that it shuts down discourse through bullying. Even if it *were* only right wing people who were silenced by this I'd have an issue with it. But it absolutely isn't. I receive messages every week from people thanking me for speaking up because they're too afraid to do so for fear of losing their job or the abuse they'd face.
And third, as you say, the whole "ten year old tweets" thing is going too far. Yet it still happens. This cruelty, this vindictiveness, all it does is drive people into the arms of conservatives. Or, more accurately, the "alt-right." Most of those idiots don't stand for actual conservative values, or much of anything really. They're just sick of the moral puritanism that is synonymous with the extremely vocal fringes of the left and ignored by most of the reasonable people on the left.
"First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people like Peyton Gendron.
Second is that it shuts down discourse through bullying. Even if it *were* only right wing people who were silenced by this I'd have an issue with it. But it absolutely isn't. I receive messages every week from people thanking me for speaking up because they're too afraid to do so for fear of losing their job or the abuse they'd face."
You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums.
You're a good man, Steve, an idealistic man, a compassionate man. But when you speak of discourse having potential for effect you cross over from idealistic to starry-eyed.
Example. Many, many, many times I've read from right wingers that the Democrats are the true racists, citing Sen. Byrd and other history preceding the Civil Rights Act. . Someone leaps in (it was me a few times) to point out that Byrd recanted his earlier Klansmanship and that with the CRA and the Southern Strategy most of the Dixiecrats became Republicans; the liberal wing of the GOP evaporated.
Within an hour some winger, often the same one, posts all over again that the Democrats are the true racists, often pasting the same post.
How much of your life do you want to devote to engaging with such nonchalantly dishonest people? I have no more time for it. I don't want to engage with them. I don't need the stress, and it's futile.
I've been online since the Compuserve days, since dialups; I've argued with wingers for decades. In all that time I have seen exactly two (2) abandon their allegiance to cruelty and falsehood. That is, for all intents and purposes, none. For me to say as I did at the opening of my previous post that conservatives or alt-right or whatever can be presumed to be lying .... maybe that isn't true in ev-ry sin-gle in-stance, but it sure is a statistically defensible presumption.
"You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums."
No, there's no contradiction. What happens on places like 4chan simply isn't discourse, it's indoctrination. It's one sided, agenda-driven lies, with nobody even slightly interested in anything but boosting their confirmation bias. That's how they produce ideas like QAnon and Pizzagate and Peyton Gendron's manifesto. Because their nonsense goes unchallenged. The same as on places like Tumblr (though mostly less dangerous to anybody but themselves).
Discourse happens in the mainstream. It has to. Because you need the smartest people from each side of an ideological position to put forward their best arguments without constraint. This, naturally has the largest impact on overall thinking on an issue.
Discourse affects journalists, it affects teachers, it affects politicians, and they affect everything else. And the more open the better. See China and Russia and North Korea, for the impact that stifling the open and honest exchange of ideas has. The quality of a society's thinking is a product of the quality of its discourse. Do you think this is a starry-eyed viewpoint? It genuinely doesn't seem so to me.
Some people, obviously, are beyond hope. In a world where all ideas are debated with perfect freedom and openness, there will still be extremists. There will still be people who knowingly lie and others who are dumb enough to believe them. There will still be people who simply don't care about anybody but themselves. I try to change the minds of people like these, or sometimes just expose the flaws in their arguments for other people, but you're right. I don't spend a lot of time on them. Dishonest people, even when they realise they're wrong, won't acknowledge it.
I'm not saying that open discourse will create a utopia. I'm saying that its our best method for getting as close as human beings can manage.
"Nobody is required to provide a forum for people who express horrible views."
True, but it comes down to an issue you heaped scorn upon in the past; Who decides? Is the public square a public square? You told us in the past that the deciders thought nobody should be able to read your unacceptable (to them) thoughts, killed your account and deprived you of earned money. But you are fine with that being done to someone who's idea you find to be vile. Ironically, their idea being that your views are vile. Who decides? I don't write this to attack you, we simply have different views. I don't want you silenced. I agree with you quite often, sometimes not. I hope nobody decides to stop us from discussing it by canceling either of us.
In 1972 Shirley Chisholm ran for President. She was speaking someplace where I was. The crowd of listeners were black. They didn't object to me listening to what she had to say. There was also a crowd of white people ignoring her. They didn't try to shout her down (maybe that happened someplace else, I don't know). Too bad they didn't listen, but at least they didn't try to prevent people who wanted to listen from listening. To me, that's important. I don't want anyone deciding that I can't listen to someone. I read Chairman Mao's Little Red Book back in the 60s. I didn't become a communist, but I did want to understand the ideology that I was wearing a uniform to fight against.
At the moment the biggest political thing in America is electing people who will pack the Supreme Court (the deciders) with people who will enforce their political ideology. The ultimate cancelers. When the deciders decide vindictively, we have a big problem.
I dispute that vileness is a matter of personal perspective. I'd go so far as to say that people who think it's cool to cage children or shoot 12yo black kids with toys guns are objectively vile people.
I read Mao's book too.
Truth be told, honestly, I don't want vile people silenced. I want them to be able to speak their horrid minds so the rest of us can correctly identify them for who they are and get them out of our lives.
I don't understand your preoccupation with "cancel culture"; first of all it's a right wing formulation and therefore likely dishonest or not even real. Let's ,ake sure we're talking about the same thing here; two examples
1) a university invites a right wing speaker, but between the invitation and the speech he gets his name in the papers saying something vile. homosexuals should be executed, Democrats are pedophiles. The university cancels his speech.
2) a pundit says something vile on his show; his advertisers are pressured into dropping him.
I don't have any problem with these. Nobody is required to provide a forum for people who express horrible views. Debating those views just lends them undeserved legitimacy. Cancel away.
I do agree that pulling some remark from years ago out of the trash can and using it to attack people who have recanted or who just had a fit of pique is going way too far.
"I don't understand your preoccupation with "cancel culture"; first of all it's a right wing formulation and therefore likely dishonest or not even real."
Hmmm, first, I think the temptation to dismiss things because they're "right-wing" is an exceedingly self-limiting way of thinking. I notice increasingly in certain online circles that every opinion that people want to discredit without contending with the facts of it, is simply labelled as "conservative" or "far-right" or held by a "white male." In fact, it doesn't even need to be directly connected anymore. Just saying, "X person...who has interacted with conservatives" is enough to have many people tune out.
I'm certainly not right-wing. Yet cancel culture is a formulation I happily use, because it clearly describes a real phenomenon. A phenomenon that I've given real-world examples of here, that go far beyond homophobes being disinvited from university lectures. But as I said above, even the examples I've given aren't really the point.
The highest profile victims of cancel culture will be fine whatever happens. They can happily retire, or, alternatively, continue saying whatever the hell they want, and aside from a few mean tweets, they'll usually be completely fine (though it's worth noting that Dave Chappelle was physically attacked recently and JK Rowling receives regular death threats, so maybe not *completely* fine). But people who don't have millions in the bank, who can't afford to lose their job or jeopardise their academic career and future prospects, these are the real targets of cancel culture.
So while I certainly wouldn't say I'm "preoccupied" with cancel culture, there are a few reasons it matters to me.
First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people like Peyton Gendron.
Second is that it shuts down discourse through bullying. Even if it *were* only right wing people who were silenced by this I'd have an issue with it. But it absolutely isn't. I receive messages every week from people thanking me for speaking up because they're too afraid to do so for fear of losing their job or the abuse they'd face.
And third, as you say, the whole "ten year old tweets" thing is going too far. Yet it still happens. This cruelty, this vindictiveness, all it does is drive people into the arms of conservatives. Or, more accurately, the "alt-right." Most of those idiots don't stand for actual conservative values, or much of anything really. They're just sick of the moral puritanism that is synonymous with the extremely vocal fringes of the left and ignored by most of the reasonable people on the left.
"First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people like Peyton Gendron.
Second is that it shuts down discourse through bullying. Even if it *were* only right wing people who were silenced by this I'd have an issue with it. But it absolutely isn't. I receive messages every week from people thanking me for speaking up because they're too afraid to do so for fear of losing their job or the abuse they'd face."
You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums.
You're a good man, Steve, an idealistic man, a compassionate man. But when you speak of discourse having potential for effect you cross over from idealistic to starry-eyed.
Example. Many, many, many times I've read from right wingers that the Democrats are the true racists, citing Sen. Byrd and other history preceding the Civil Rights Act. . Someone leaps in (it was me a few times) to point out that Byrd recanted his earlier Klansmanship and that with the CRA and the Southern Strategy most of the Dixiecrats became Republicans; the liberal wing of the GOP evaporated.
Within an hour some winger, often the same one, posts all over again that the Democrats are the true racists, often pasting the same post.
How much of your life do you want to devote to engaging with such nonchalantly dishonest people? I have no more time for it. I don't want to engage with them. I don't need the stress, and it's futile.
I've been online since the Compuserve days, since dialups; I've argued with wingers for decades. In all that time I have seen exactly two (2) abandon their allegiance to cruelty and falsehood. That is, for all intents and purposes, none. For me to say as I did at the opening of my previous post that conservatives or alt-right or whatever can be presumed to be lying .... maybe that isn't true in ev-ry sin-gle in-stance, but it sure is a statistically defensible presumption.
"You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums."
No, there's no contradiction. What happens on places like 4chan simply isn't discourse, it's indoctrination. It's one sided, agenda-driven lies, with nobody even slightly interested in anything but boosting their confirmation bias. That's how they produce ideas like QAnon and Pizzagate and Peyton Gendron's manifesto. Because their nonsense goes unchallenged. The same as on places like Tumblr (though mostly less dangerous to anybody but themselves).
Discourse happens in the mainstream. It has to. Because you need the smartest people from each side of an ideological position to put forward their best arguments without constraint. This, naturally has the largest impact on overall thinking on an issue.
Discourse affects journalists, it affects teachers, it affects politicians, and they affect everything else. And the more open the better. See China and Russia and North Korea, for the impact that stifling the open and honest exchange of ideas has. The quality of a society's thinking is a product of the quality of its discourse. Do you think this is a starry-eyed viewpoint? It genuinely doesn't seem so to me.
Some people, obviously, are beyond hope. In a world where all ideas are debated with perfect freedom and openness, there will still be extremists. There will still be people who knowingly lie and others who are dumb enough to believe them. There will still be people who simply don't care about anybody but themselves. I try to change the minds of people like these, or sometimes just expose the flaws in their arguments for other people, but you're right. I don't spend a lot of time on them. Dishonest people, even when they realise they're wrong, won't acknowledge it.
I'm not saying that open discourse will create a utopia. I'm saying that its our best method for getting as close as human beings can manage.
"Nobody is required to provide a forum for people who express horrible views."
True, but it comes down to an issue you heaped scorn upon in the past; Who decides? Is the public square a public square? You told us in the past that the deciders thought nobody should be able to read your unacceptable (to them) thoughts, killed your account and deprived you of earned money. But you are fine with that being done to someone who's idea you find to be vile. Ironically, their idea being that your views are vile. Who decides? I don't write this to attack you, we simply have different views. I don't want you silenced. I agree with you quite often, sometimes not. I hope nobody decides to stop us from discussing it by canceling either of us.
In 1972 Shirley Chisholm ran for President. She was speaking someplace where I was. The crowd of listeners were black. They didn't object to me listening to what she had to say. There was also a crowd of white people ignoring her. They didn't try to shout her down (maybe that happened someplace else, I don't know). Too bad they didn't listen, but at least they didn't try to prevent people who wanted to listen from listening. To me, that's important. I don't want anyone deciding that I can't listen to someone. I read Chairman Mao's Little Red Book back in the 60s. I didn't become a communist, but I did want to understand the ideology that I was wearing a uniform to fight against.
At the moment the biggest political thing in America is electing people who will pack the Supreme Court (the deciders) with people who will enforce their political ideology. The ultimate cancelers. When the deciders decide vindictively, we have a big problem.
I dispute that vileness is a matter of personal perspective. I'd go so far as to say that people who think it's cool to cage children or shoot 12yo black kids with toys guns are objectively vile people.
I read Mao's book too.
Truth be told, honestly, I don't want vile people silenced. I want them to be able to speak their horrid minds so the rest of us can correctly identify them for who they are and get them out of our lives.
We agree.
Schön!