191–200 of 633 posts
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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.
What are things that you would say in the 1990's that you wouldn't feel comfortable saying today?
I'm not afraid to say so here, but I would be if I were on social media.
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> 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.…
> 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. Someone having an opinion different than you does not cause you harm. This is the Big Lie underlying a lot of the rhetoric that has been labeled "cancel culture". The potential harm at shutting down the opportunity to find out you were wrong about something by heari…
Phrased differently, if someone advocates for a policy that I believe will be harmful, why should I treat that differently than a stated intent to harm me?
The problem with the debate on "cancel culture" is a lack of specificity. The fact is that there are certain occasions where "canceling" seems fine, and others, where it does not. And I think a problem with the progressive argument is the refusal to acknowledge that there can ever be any excesses. For example, there is the case of Dorian Abbot, who was disinvited from an MIT lecture after he wrote an op-ed criticizin…
One of the reasons this debate is so useless is that it's mostly about cherry-picking anecdotes that support your partisan biases.
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?")
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That's exactly the point that was being made to you. The debate here is precisely what is reasonable, and what is harm.
The comment I replied to seemed to trivialize emotional harm and suggest that loss of livelihood might be too severe. Did I read too much into it? I was providing an actual scenario as a basis of comparison. I think concrete examples are more useful here.
If you had to let an employee go and caused even more emotional harm (brought on by their no longer being employed), you wouldn't receive a reprisal.
Why are you pointing out that speech sometimes is reasonable to punish? How does this clarify the question of whether we have become too punitive regarding political and controversial social speech.
I think his notion of "disproportionate response to to speech" is a good start, but is too generic to help us understand why this has become an issue of discussion over the past decade. When I think of cancel culture, my primary thought is of private individuals facing meaningful harms (mainly economic) as a result of public outcry over the individuals (perfectly legal) speech or actions that signal the individual is…
I think this is more neatly described by the right having more mainstream and surreptitious avenues of "cancelling" people they don't like. Gang lists, credit scores, police intimidation/brutality, selective enforcement of drug policy, the prison system, good ol' boys clubs, etc etc etc.
That's a lot of words to say "people are free to steer clear of people they don't like and always have been". And not much of thought into "what changed that now it is a problem perceived by some?" There has been a fundamental change to our reality over the past couple decades: things you say and do are now by default in public and permanent record. If your not-too-famous grandpa said something outrageous, he ruined…
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.…
>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. That's never going to happen. Such people have a vested interest in gaining sympathy for their views and actions by discrediting their critics as nothing but a hateful mob or a conspiracy to silence and oppress them, and clearly their efforts are working. "Cancel cul…
1: http://leftycartoons.com/2018/08/01/i-have-been-silenced/
That's a lot of words to say "people are free to steer clear of people they don't like and always have been". And not much of thought into "what changed that now it is a problem perceived by some?" There has been a fundamental change to our reality over the past couple decades: things you say and do are now by default in public and permanent record. If your not-too-famous grandpa said something outrageous, he ruined…
> If you write an outrageous blog post today, you're hosed. This just isn’t true, and I’m not sure why the discussion around cancel culture is framed like it is true. It’s exceedingly hard to be cancelled if you’re acting genuinely, kindly, and with empathy for the topic you’re discussing. You can say literally anything you want if you can figure out how to be nice when you say it, but you do have to put real effort…
Sure, but that isn't the premise of what I wanted to express. You've had a bad day, or are a genuine jerk, and wrote something that you really shouldn't have. Passage of time, personal growth, change of opinions, conduct that demonstrably disagrees with the post and an apology does not prevent that from possibly ruining your future.
Who of us wasn't an easily influenced jerk as a teenager? Well, right, some weren't. But many more outgrew that. Some took more time than others. Some remained jerks, at least for now. But I prefer to hope they will change for the better. And would prefer if we recognized the change in those who succeeded.
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I've heard it called a "non-central example". That has a negative connotation though, I wish there was a more neutral term. The statement "all natural numbers are greater than 1" is false, and it's not helpful to object that 0 and 1 are noncentral examples. (It's not a motte-and-bailey, that's about a particular sort of shifting goalposts)
Nitpick, I don't think 0 is a natural number