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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

#81

Post by systemvoltage »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #3

> "Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. When some people vaguely complain about “cancel culture” in a way that lends itself to promoting this constant partisanship, other people not unreasonably see it as partisan." Popehat seems to be falling into the trap of thinking the precisely defining something will lead to clarity. It rarely, if ever, does. Each one of us h…

This completely leaves out that the tolerance for speech, even minor offenses, which used to be acceptable are now being weaponized to destroy each other in visceral, tribal fashion.

You can have an accountable society and cancel someone for crossing the line. That line used to be for things such as Pedophilia, encouraging violence, promoting rape-culture, etc. Truly terrible things.

I hope people will wake up or we'll end up with a worse place than ever.

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

#82

Post by jimbokun »

ashtonkem wrote: post #34
noduerme wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Speech is far more free in the US today than in, say, the 1950s and 1960s.

But I would argue less free than, say, the 1990s.

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

#83

Post by hraedon »

egberts1 wrote: post #70

I got blocked by Sacramento Bee (a California newspaper) Editorial from their Facebook page. Pretty sure that they didn’t like the different facts that I have pointed out over several different times as rebuttal to their dated opinions … with using each of their own website pages as counter-citations. But hey, Editorial folks reserve the rights to cancel me for their own idiocy of their own makings. It’s just the sli…

Did you suffer any sort of consequence for your responses beyond being deprived of the ability to continue accessing their Facebook page?

If not, you're really straining even the most generous definition of "cancel culture" beyond the point of even minimal usefulness.

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

#84

Post by abnry »

tptacek wrote: post #55
abnry wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel culture is... targeted at individuals, for the loss of their job, invitations, or positions, for offenses that are minor in comparison to historical offenses, or offenses that are based on guilt by association or speculative inference, often for things in the past, which were things many people accepted at the time, and often which the individual disavows today.

That's a more specific and coherent definition of cancel culture, but it's certainly not the current consensus definition: many "cancel culture" debates --- probably most of them --- are about speech or opinions that the individual stands resolutely behind. And, of course, "for offenses that are minor in comparison" or "speculative" is almost always subjective; it just shifts the debate to a different set of words, b…

> And, of course, "for offenses that are minor in comparison" or "speculative" is almost always subjective.

They really aren't. I used the word "historically" for this reason. Years ago, for example, people would openly espouse directly racist views. Today, you can get fired for using a slur in the "mention" category, rather than in the "use" category.

And speculative inference isn't anything more than saying, "this person said x, y, & z... which means they _must_ also believe horrendous things a, b & c" when it is in fact logically possible to believe x, y & z without believing a, b, & c.

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

#85

Post by Natsu »

tptacek wrote: post #49
noduerme wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you're making White's point for him. You're implying that free speech should be at least as important as other people's feelings. He agrees. Which is why appeals for a new norm of shutting up critics is so problematic. This is what he's talking about with his "First Speaker Problem" thing: the "free speech" you're alluding to is virtually always a response to someone else's speech. How do you coherently isola…

It's funny to see all the shifts on this. 18 USC 1001 was "chickensh-t" that they wouldn't pull back in his day to Ken... at least until it wasn't. We talked about chilling effects and heckler's vetoes, but now they're well-deserved social sanctions?

I've been reading him for probably a decade now, so it's hard not to notice how things change whenever the shoe is on the other foot.

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

#86

Post by Latty »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #72
Latty wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to decide what the excess is? I'm not saying they don't exist: if I advocate for gay rights, and turns out my employer has a bunch of homophobic customers who get me fired because they don't want to spend money that ends up in my pocket, that would be deeply wrong in my view. The question is, what does the "regulatory framework" do there? Force those customers to spend money that ends up funding someone that…

> Force my boss to employ me even though I hurt their business? Well probably the answer would be stronger wrongful termination regulation and then if they fire you for advocating for gay rights then you would probably get paid a reasonable amount of money for the loss you suffered, and your boss would have more of an incentive to think over if they really need to fire you to avoid losses to their business or if they…

OK, but then the government is deciding what speech should be allowed without losing your job.

If it's any speech, then do I get to tell people my company sucks and they shouldn't shop there without being fired? What about telling individual customers they don't deserve human rights? That very quickly becomes obviously absurd. So the question becomes "where is the line", and if they government gets to draw that line, then that no longer looks like freedom of speech to me.

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

#87

Post by BitwiseFool »

_jal wrote: post #61
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I mention that I don't understand what Popehat actually wants, I'm looking at it in the context of the concept of "competing rights" that he writes about. >"People complaining about “cancel culture” frequently suggest that it chills speech. Perhaps. But so does a vague denunciation of other people’s speech." My confusion stems from the fact that Popehat seems to want to have it both ways. On one hand, he enterta…

He's pointing out that many (not all) people complaining are asking for criticism - other peoples' speech - to be shut down. There are a few sincere people out there. But most whining about cancel culture are just asking to be free from criticism. Sometimes it is blatantly obvious [1], more frequently layered with complaints about legitimately out of line acts and misdirects. The answer to bad speech is more speech.…

>"But most whining about cancel culture are just asking to be free from criticism"

This assessment doesn't sit right with me because I don't sense the people 'whining' about cancel culture are trying to get out of ideological critique. I sense they're calling for tolerance because the 'critique' is laden with threats to livelihood and societal standing.

From that perspective, I don't believe that calling on people to be more tolerant of other people's speech is a substantial reduction in speech. One could say it results in a net gain of speech.

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

#88

Post by jimbokun »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #71
Latty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it depends on what you view as harmful, and who's opinions you agree with. There is no obvious right answer. Pretending we can say "so this should never happen" is absurd in my view, it implies people have to give their money to people that will use that money to fund harm. The core of free speech is that even abhorrent views should not face censorship by the government, because democracy requires it. If t…

> The answer, as with democracy and freedom of speech, is to make the better argument, get people to agree with you, and then use that to support the things you think are right. I find this difficult to agree with but not because of the sentiment but because of the environment. If a bad faith actor wants to smear even totally reasoned speech by spouting complete fabrications, so long as they have the bigger platform/…

Once you start increasing the power to censor "false" ideas, who do you really trust to make those decisions and not abuse that authority?

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

#89

Post by lazide »

Latty wrote: post #5
BitwiseFool wrote: post #3

> "Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. When some people vaguely complain about “cancel culture” in a way that lends itself to promoting this constant partisanship, other people not unreasonably see it as partisan." Popehat seems to be falling into the trap of thinking the precisely defining something will lead to clarity. It rarely, if ever, does. Each one of us h…

> 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.…

The type of people who complain and lash out when they face reasonable consequences for harming someone else are the least likely to follow any such guidance here though?

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

#90

Post by egberts1 »

hraedon wrote: post #83
egberts1 wrote: post #70

I got blocked by Sacramento Bee (a California newspaper) Editorial from their Facebook page. Pretty sure that they didn’t like the different facts that I have pointed out over several different times as rebuttal to their dated opinions … with using each of their own website pages as counter-citations. But hey, Editorial folks reserve the rights to cancel me for their own idiocy of their own makings. It’s just the sli…

Did you suffer any sort of consequence for your responses beyond being deprived of the ability to continue accessing their Facebook page? If not, you're really straining even the most generous definition of "cancel culture" beyond the point of even minimal usefulness.

sure, they’re rallying people at the behest of the governor against the middle-class. sure enough, they got what they wanted and we are paying dearly for it to this day.
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