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Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

popehat.substack.com

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Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#31

Post by civilized »

This is a good post.

Regardless of how we feel about cancel culture, I think we can all agree that the quality of thought coming from the NYT Editorial Board is (and always has been) pretty mediocre at best.

I'm vaguely anti-cancel culture (with a lot of nuance and context-dependence) but I don't feel particularly galvanized by the Board coming out for or against me. They don't think or write clearly enough for it to make any difference in my mind.

And so long as we're on the topic, some of the worst "cancel culture" incidents have been perpetrated by NYT management itself, such as the firing of veteran science reporter Donald McNeil for "using the N-word". He did not use the N-word, he mentioned the word in a context where it came up, as the NYT and other prestige media have themselves done in a variety of situations. And as John McWhorter has reminded us over and over, the use-mention distinction is relevant here but for some reason completely ignored.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#32

Post by Latty »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #17
Latty wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what Popehat actually wants here. For people to stop calling it "cancel culture" whenever they face reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others would be a good start. People not wanting to patronize or associate with you when you cause harm to people they care about is really not a bad thing, and it's not new either, and yet it is what gets called "cancel culture" by a lot of people.…

But who decides what "actions they take that harm others" is? If you look up if there are nazis in Ukraine army in US news, it will claim it's false, but international news sources say it's true. Since nazis are the worst ever, don't you think it's important to get this right? And how can we tell if we can't have openly opposing sources that don't get cancelled?

Individuals make that decision, just as they do when it comes to democracy as a whole. That's the point of freedom of speech: we can't have an authority on the truth.

The alternative is you aren't allowed to dislike and refuse to patronize someone because of their actions, which is obviously absurd.

Everyone agrees people shouldn't face disproportionate responses, so arguing for that is nothing. Either you need to argue there are general things causing that (e.g: not looking into context, retractions, etc... before making judgements, which is a real problem) or argue the ethics of the particular situation, which is unique to a case.

Almost always, I see "cancel culture" used as a shield to avoid having to defend the actual harm done.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#33

Post by pas »

whatshisface wrote: post #4

There has to be some kind of term for making your case against the absolute least sympathetic adversary ("We're allowed to boycott giant corporations right?") while using the same word that describes the absolute most sympathetic cases ("Are all companies allowed to get together and jointly refuse to sell food to farm animal rights activists?")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy ?

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#34

Post by ashtonkem »

noduerme wrote: post #21
Latty wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what Popehat actually wants here. For people to stop calling it "cancel culture" whenever they face reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others would be a good start. People not wanting to patronize or associate with you when you cause harm to people they care about is really not a bad thing, and it's not new either, and yet it is what gets called "cancel culture" by a lot of people.…

As you point out, while boycotting someone based on your perception of their opinion is not new , the modality of mass mob boycotts of individuals over things potentially taken out of context is entirely new, and that's exactly what "cancel culture" refers to. The underlying mechanism of Twitter is what gave birth to the term, regardless of whether it's used by haters to justify hate speech. One other thing that's ne…

> As you point out, while boycotting someone based on your perception of their opinion is not new, the modality of mass mob boycotts of individuals over things potentially taken out of context is entirely new. … One other thing that's new, in America, is the idea that speech is less important than people's feelings.

They used to kill people for advocating for integration and civil rights. Actual mobs used to assemble to kill black men accused of hitting on white women. Not internet “mobs”, actual ones with guns and pitchforks.

Literally nothing you’re talking about is new, in fact it has gotten way less bad over the past few decades. In fact, arguing that its new and pernicious requires us to purposefully ignore the history of political and speech based violence throughout the 20th century and earlier.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#36

Post by [deleted] »

whatshisface wrote: post #4

There has to be some kind of term for making your case against the absolute least sympathetic adversary ("We're allowed to boycott giant corporations right?") while using the same word that describes the absolute most sympathetic cases ("Are all companies allowed to get together and jointly refuse to sell food to farm animal rights activists?")

[deleted]

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#37

Post by tptacek »

commandlinefan wrote: post #23

Quoted post unavailable.

People on both ends of the political spectrum are pretty constantly trying to cancel Ken White. People on the left claim he's a pawn of the Koch Brothers (especially for his vocal support of FIRE), and on the right because he's vehemently opposed to Donald Trump. He's received semi-credible death threats.

This seems like another instance of what Dan Gackle refers to as "notice-dislike" bias: you're unlikely to notice as much when people say things you don't find objectionable, but notice acutely when they say things you find problematic. We all have that bias; it's a limitation of our cognition.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#38

Post by commandlinefan »

whatshisface wrote: post #4

There has to be some kind of term for making your case against the absolute least sympathetic adversary ("We're allowed to boycott giant corporations right?") while using the same word that describes the absolute most sympathetic cases ("Are all companies allowed to get together and jointly refuse to sell food to farm animal rights activists?")

"Motte and Bailey" is the term you're looking for - although I wish there were a less pretentious term (or at least one that didn't have two words that you then have to define when you use it).

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#39

Post by hraedon »

commandlinefan wrote: post #23

Quoted post unavailable.

That's a pretty tendentious view of both Popehat's expressed opinion and the NYTime's article.

Popehat is pretty clearly against what he defines as "cancel culture," and the NYTimes article is primarily about journalists and elite opinion writers not liking backtalk from their readers.

Re: Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

#40

Post by tptacek »

nullc wrote: post #14

There is a big difference between: (1) Not associating with someone who you know has done some wrong. (2) Not associating with someone where there are unproven public rumors that they've done some wrong. (3) Not associating with someone who associates with someone who is subject to unproven public rumors of wrong doing. (4) Publicly attacking people over unproven rumors of wrong doing for which you have no personal k…

The author likely agrees with all of this.
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