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Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

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

#301

Post by paganel »

jimbokun wrote: post #79
commandlinefan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the modality of mass mob boycotts I was watching the news this morning and they were talking about the latest company that's boycotting Russia in response to the social media storm. It occurred to me that governments are becoming increasingly irrelevant. They don't have to impose sanctions (and their own rules make it difficult to do so) - the Twitter mob is deciding who to banish. It's a form of democracy, I guess…

A handful of tech companies arguably have far more power to regulate speech than any government.

Hopefully Russia banning FB will be just the start. I say that even though my highest upvoted submission since I've been on this website is a denunciation of my than Government apparently wanting to censor FB posts related to protests against it. That was back in 2017, I've since changed opinion when it comes to social networks and their vicious effects on our polities (be it a democracy or an autocracy).

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

#302

Post by DangitBobby »

lliamander wrote: post #238
Misdicorl wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Left has generally been far more likely to cancel people than the reverse. There are a number of possible causes (people on the left are more politically active, will be amplified by a left -leaning media industry, etc) 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/brutali…

That grab-bag of issues suggests you have a confused notion of what constitutes "the right". For instance, how is police brutality a example of "right-wing cancel culture" when some of our most salient examples occurred in left-wing dominated cities? Not everything you disagree with is a political weapon used by your enemies. I will concede (though you didn't make this point explicitly) that the religious right has h…

I think religious beliefs largely underly payment processors' refusal to do business with porn websites, wouldn't you agree? If it weren't for Christian beliefs, advertisers wouldn't be worried about being associated with porn and payment processors wouldn't either. That's the first example that came to my head, but I'm sure there are many, many such examples of the right having true social power to eliminate speech and expression they don't agree with.

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

#303

Post by TameAntelope »

Banana699 wrote: post #254
TameAntelope wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is cancel culture is not very chilling if you're a competent speaker/writer, and it ought to be even less chilling than it is (possibly not chilling at all). If you believe you're entering a conversation with positive intent, a genuine point of view, and empathy for others, you are more or less immune to being cancelled.

>If you believe you're entering a conversation with positive intent, a genuine point of view, and empathy for others, you are more or less immune to being cancelled Any sufficiently selective style guide is indistinguishable from a censor. It's bizarrely hilarious how "Progressives" mirror religious fundamentalists, down to the particular language used to dispel accusations of censorship and closed-mindedness. "You c…

> Any sufficiently selective style guide is indistinguishable from a censor.

Completely disagree. Censorship is the prohibition of the expression of certain ideas, not the prohibition of the expression of specific language.

> "You can say whatever you like, just in ways we like (which will sometimes include you shutting up entirely)"

The parenthetical is a strawman, and not what I said, nor is it true.

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

#304

Post by SomewhatLikely »

In response to the call for actions that can be taken, I think this comes down to fostering better skills in discussing nuanced topics. By the time something has been hate shared several times, all the context has usually been removed and only the most triggering snippet retained allowing scrollers by to dehumanize the speaker because they've only been presented what has essentially become a strawman of the original thought. We need a shift in the culture that allows it even encourages second hand parties to step up and point out misunderstandings. Instead such actions are usually seen as defending the evil person and therefore that person is also evil and should be cancelled.

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

#305

Post by rootusrootus »

otterley wrote: post #252
coffeemug wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: > 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 o…

> 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…

> unnecessarily upsetting them

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.

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

#306

Post by jandrese »

akhmatova wrote: post #244
TameAntelope wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..…

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…

> 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.

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

#307

Post by Misdicorl »

lliamander wrote: post #238
Misdicorl wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Left has generally been far more likely to cancel people than the reverse. There are a number of possible causes (people on the left are more politically active, will be amplified by a left -leaning media industry, etc) 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/brutali…

That grab-bag of issues suggests you have a confused notion of what constitutes "the right". For instance, how is police brutality a example of "right-wing cancel culture" when some of our most salient examples occurred in left-wing dominated cities? Not everything you disagree with is a political weapon used by your enemies. I will concede (though you didn't make this point explicitly) that the religious right has h…

Even left wing dominated cities have large numbers of right wing constituents. There are more registered Republicans in NYC than live in the entire state of Wyoming.

Right wing cancel culture are lynch mobs and the literal bombing of an American city and the imprisonment of an unconscionable number of black males. While I agree the power is waning, saying that it isn't on par with a few people losing their jobs due to misplaced outrage is hilarious.

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

#308

Post by baggagehandler »

otterley wrote: post #252
coffeemug wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: > 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 o…

> 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…

No post body was provided.

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

#309

Post by WesternWind »

akhmatova wrote: post #244
TameAntelope wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..…

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…

[flagged]

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

#310

Post by jandrese »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #290
akhmatova wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 way…

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.
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