Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times

popehat.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 633 posts

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

#321

Post by ashtonkem »

Latty wrote: post #67
pessimizer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to imprison people for sending information about birth control through the mail. I don't know what planet the "it wasn't like this in the good old days" people live on. The most common phrase quoted by people to describe a hypothetical rational limit on speech[*] was cribbed from a case that found it was ok to imprison people for passing out pamphlets against WWI. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fi…

> I don't know what planet the "it wasn't like this in the good old days" people live on. Obviously not always, but often because you are viewing it through the a different lens: there is an unspoken "for people like me" missing from the end of their statement.

I think thats a big part of why powerful writers and journalists are complaining. They’re not used to the masses talking back to them, and they don’t like it very much.

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

#323

Post by enraged_camel »

rayiner wrote: post #287
otterley wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Are you a "member of an unprivileged group?" If not, what exactly do you think life is like for us that we can't take a joke? Sticks and stones and whatnot: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rP0nqe... > Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent),…

>> Are you a "member of an unprivileged group?" If not, what exactly do you think life is like for us that we can't take a joke? ... In 30+ years of being a "brown guy" in the U.S., the only thing that's ever really gotten under my skin is the self-righteous paternalism of white liberals when it comes to the social norms related to race and identity.

As another "brown guy" who has been in the US for decades, I can only say: you must have really thick skin. Either that, or you haven't actually had to deal with any vicious "jokes" from the more privileged groups.

>> It really gives me an understanding of what working class people (another target of liberal paternalism) must have felt like all these decades...

Well, coming from someone who used to be an engineer and is now a lawyer, this is simply a stunning statement, to say the least. So you think you understand how working class people must feel like because of "self-righteous paternalism of white liberals"? That's just so incredibly tone-deaf and presumptions. Jesus Christ.

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

#324

Post by dudeDDRrulez »

tootie wrote: post #204
olivermarks wrote: post #8

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/worlds-dullest-editorial-launc... Matt Taibbi's great post on this same topic. 'This Times editorial is watered down almost to the level of a public service announcement written for the Cartoon Network, or maybe a fortune cookie (“Free speech is a process, not a destination. Winning numbers 4, 9, 11, 32, 46…”). It made the Harper’s letter read like a bin Laden fatwa, but it’s somehow aro…

Taibbi has mostly torpedoed his credibility with Russian apoligism. Him and Glenn Greenwald.

Taibbi’s most recent article on Russia gives the history of how the US made several calculated moves which placed Putin in power. This the same history that the corrupt mainstream media is trying so desperately to whitewash lately.

We need another 1000 Taibbis with the same passion for fact based journalism. “Apologist”, yeah… sure he is.

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

#325

Post by [deleted] »

TameAntelope wrote: post #201
tptacek wrote: post #180

The comments on this thread seem to be quite wildly missing White's point. Many of the arguments taking place here seem premised on the idea that Ken White has attempted to solve, once and for all, the "cancel culture" problem --- or somehow write a dispositive argument that "cancel culture" isn't real. He's not doing any of these things. He's responding to a specific NYT staff editorial. White agrees with many of yo…

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..…

[deleted]

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

#326

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

eric_b wrote: post #322

Taibbi had a great take on this: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/worlds-dullest-editorial-launc... Why the hell did this editorial get the reaction it did? I can’t understand it and this “rebuttal” should not be front page HN.

Because the general HN commenter crowd is apparently pretty pro- cancel culture. They’re in either the “it’s not real” or “actually, it’s good” camps. And this article gives what they feel to be rhetorical cover for their opinions.

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

#327

Post by lapsis_beeftech »

l33t2328 wrote: post #280
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…

> cortisone rush This is such an outstanding term. Sometimes I’ll see a comment of someone arguing with me or insulting me and I’ll get a spike of anger and literally feel my eyes twitch for a split second and I’ve never really thought about it but that’s exactly what it is.

Whatever it is you are experiencing it is definitely not cortisone, which is an inactive metabolite of cortisol.

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

#328

Post by TameAntelope »

Banana699 wrote: post #242
TameAntelope wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>It’s exceedingly hard to be cancelled if you’re acting genuinely, kindly, and with empathy for the topic you’re discussing. This a hypocritical Isolated Demand For Rigor[1], or in this case for Niceness. Many people doing the cancelling don't have to be and don't bother with civility or politeness, they are entirely ok with the worst slurs if it came from mouths they support. The kindness they demand is a thin wrapp…

There's no difference between the people doing the cancelling and the person being cancelled, from a "what are their fundamental rights?" perspective. Both must be kind, and both can face shame and shunning for failing to do so. "The Demand for Rigor" here is not Isolated.

More "cancellers" should be shamed and shunned for failing in this way. Isabel Fall should not have been ridiculed for her work, Ken White would agree with you on that.

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

#329

Post by bendbro »

Great article, I agree that defining Cancel Culture is important, that it's definition relates to the proportionality of response, and that some on the right misuse the term.

I have a better definition, and I also believe that the left owns cancellation.

A definition I like is: action taken to remove privileges from a person based on some qualities of that person, where those qualities do not predict harmful use of those privileges. Yes, there is room for partisan disagreement in what "predicts harmful use", but it is still a step closer to a definition that can produce more frequent agreement both population wide and in sub-populations.

1. This definition naturally encapsulates the common free speech angle of Cancel Culture- most often, expressions of political theory have no predictive power over how a person behaves in some job, role, etc.

2. This definition allows for people's privileges to be removed without it being considered Cancel Culture- ex: Weinstein, Orange Man, CRT Teachers, etc.

3. This definition allows for collectives to boycott a business without it necessarily being Cancel Culture- reasonable for gays to boycott Chick-Fil-A since they fund whatever-it-was anti-gay thing, unreasonable for gays to boycott a business who's CEO ate Chick-Fil-A that one time.

4. This definition allows for extrajudicial and mob justice in general, without it necessarily being Cancel Culture.

On the left owning cancel culture- see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25977399

Post reply on HN