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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

#461

Post by [deleted] »

dtjb wrote: post #159
jimbokun wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Nobody is getting cancelled for having a different opinion on tax rates or foreign policy. There are very specific and narrow types of speech that lead to 'cancellation,' and it's almost always speech that attacks people's identity, race, and sexuality. Historically that type of speech has been equated with harm.

[deleted]

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

#462

Post by ericmay »

HWR_14 wrote: post #455
ericmay wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to be part of an unprivileged group to find a joke offensive and deserving of a severe reaction? And does this only apply in America? Like if I go to Germany and they make fun of Americans for being fat I can get really mad and shame them and stuff right? ———- Though in my own personal experience of being the butt of many jokes, I find it’s easiest to just disarm them by laughing and then trying to take t…

> in my own personal experience of being the butt of many jokes, I find it’s easiest to just disarm them by laughing and then trying to take the person out for a beer. Then we can laugh at my expense together It sounds like the jokes people are making at your expense are because of a single action that they are mocking, possibly as a callback to a trait you have. Do you see how it would be different was a joke about…

Well there are very few such people, and even KKK members can be befriended by a black person.

> It sounds like the jokes people are making at your expense are because of a single action that they are mocking, possibly as a callback to a trait you have.

Are traits ok to make fun of? And if I take an action and someone makes fun of it, is it not hurtful? I’m not trying to draw comparisons here, but I’m not sure you can generally invalidate the experiences of others either.

Comedy, and making fun of these things and each other is progress. When we let words make us fragile we give them power that they shouldn’t have. People all over the world are or can be mean because of ignorance. Why give them more power and leverage over you?

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

#463

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#464

Post by zdragnar »

TameAntelope wrote: post #243
zdragnar wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not too far off. Any behavior which constitutes assault or harassment is not protected by the first amendment. Shaming and shunning can easily be considered harassment in the right context, though actually proving it in a court of law gets much trickier.

Shaming and shunning is not harassment, harassment is harassment which requires additional components beyond just shaming and shunning; you have to take it to an excess or compound it with other behavior for shaming and/or shunning to reach anything even remotely resembling harassment. So decidedly no; you are not granted a freedom from shaming and shunning for your opinion, not in American culture, not in Western or…

There is no objective, bright line boundary at which shaming crosses into illegal harassment. They can be both one and the same thing quite easily.

See also "bullying".

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

#465

Post by lliamander »

RangerScience wrote: post #382
lliamander wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find the quote, but Norman Rockwell said that the inspiration for his Freedom of Speech painting was a town hall he attended where a man not much liked by the community was allowed to speak his piece, even when the people did not like what he had to say. I'm not arguing we shouldn't be able to shame or shun (the NYT itself would be my preferred target). I think the idea is that we should aspire to resolving o…

> What we have now But this isn't a new thing, not even a little bit. The House Unamerican Committee, and anti-abolitionists (as in slavery) are both examples of exactly this from history. Arguably, worse and more extreme because of all the, you know, death and murder.

Of course political violence is not a new thing. And given your choice of examples, I feel compelled to remind you that it is certainly not just a right-wing phenomenon.

I am simply stating the ideal, and how the present state of affairs differs from that ideal. I would also add that we are the downslope from a relatively high-water mark period of free speech, and I see no value in regressing in the manner we have.

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

#466

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #374
rayiner wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you meant this out of genuine curiosity, but it comes across as a bit "prove it." The fact is that people have a broad range of experiences. Speaking of "brown people," 10% of e.g. Indian Americans say that racism is a "major problem" in America: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/16/miss-americ... . But 48% think it's a "minor problem" and 38% who think it's "not a problem at all." At the end of…

What's your point, Rayiner? What are we meant to do with the observation that Indian Americans generally feel like racism is not a major problem?

I’m using the poll of Indian Americans to specifically to contextualize my experience with that of enraged_camel. See my post further up about 87% of Hispanics and 82% of Asians saying that “political correctness is a problem in the country.” That’s not consistent with large numbers of people in those groups feeling so burdened by the things other people say that it impairs their daily life.

As to action items, have some perspective! Don’t feed the fear/outrage machine by writing overwrought stuff like this:

> 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.

This sort of attitude is othering and doesn’t reflect how most minorities actually experience and are affected by insensitive comments. As a corollary, be skeptical of activists—don’t let a minority of loud voices dictate how your approach to whole groups. And don’t overlook that social stability and harmony with others are also things that minorities want. Resist the urge to provoke an all-out race war through your rhetoric, writings, political support, etc.

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

#467

Post by [deleted] »

ericmay wrote: post #462
HWR_14 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in my own personal experience of being the butt of many jokes, I find it’s easiest to just disarm them by laughing and then trying to take the person out for a beer. Then we can laugh at my expense together It sounds like the jokes people are making at your expense are because of a single action that they are mocking, possibly as a callback to a trait you have. Do you see how it would be different was a joke about…

Well there are very few such people, and even KKK members can be befriended by a black person. > It sounds like the jokes people are making at your expense are because of a single action that they are mocking, possibly as a callback to a trait you have. Are traits ok to make fun of? And if I take an action and someone makes fun of it, is it not hurtful? I’m not trying to draw comparisons here, but I’m not sure you ca…

[deleted]

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

#468

Post by xyzzyz »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #434
coffeemug wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancellation is primarily a radical leftist domain. For example, pro-abortion speakers don't normally need police escorts to speak at a university. It's not true that both wings engage in the behavior equally. There are many problems with radical right, but canceling people isn't one of them.

>Cancellation is primarily a radical leftist domain. Wait, what? * Kaepernick/the NFL * “Freedom Fries” * Dungeons & Dragons * Heavy metal and rap. * Starbucks (happy holidays) I mean you can easily pick out all sorts of attempts at “cancelling” by conservatives from the last 30 years without even having to think too hard about it. It’s an American tradition to virtue signal and cancel, it’s not relegated to the left…

Actually, can you list some successful conservative cancellings from last decade?

In my experience, the successful ones are many decades old, and the more recent ones are unsuccessful. I mean, I don’t think heavy metal or dungeons and dragons have been meaningfully cancelled in any sense, and last time conservatives seriously tried to do so was two decades ago.

I agree that conservatives also attempt to cancel, it just doesn’t work when they do.

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

#469

Post by otterley »

rayiner wrote: post #466
tptacek wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point, Rayiner? What are we meant to do with the observation that Indian Americans generally feel like racism is not a major problem?

I’m using the poll of Indian Americans to specifically to contextualize my experience with that of enraged_camel. See my post further up about 87% of Hispanics and 82% of Asians saying that “political correctness is a problem in the country.” That’s not consistent with large numbers of people in those groups feeling so burdened by the things other people say that it impairs their daily life. As to action items, have…

My comments are not advocating a race war. I’m saying, maybe don’t be a dick; and don’t be surprised if people react negatively if you act like one.

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

#470

Post by da39a3ee »

tptacek wrote: post #420
da39a3ee wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. A better way of saying what I intended is this: We cannot control the statistical distribution of opinions within the population and hence cannot control whether we will be shunned or shamed. However, that does not mean that we throw up our hands and define "repulsive" to be whatever gets us shunned by the majority: neither truth nor morality is completely relative. The two propositions I gave differ marke…

What I find repulsive isn't the point. There certainly are people who will avoid working with you if you make public statements in support of (2). It's not up to us to define the threshold at which people will or won't shun us. Unless you want to give up on the concept of free association --- it seems clear you don't --- you're going to have to accept that it's possible to have and express opinions that will foreclos…

Yes of course I accept all of that — one can hardly have missed that in the last five or so years, since completely unreasonable positions have been raised to the status of dogma by educated liberals in the sorts of workplaces that you and I work in. One can and should remind the world that it shouldn’t be that way: shunning and shaming should be reserved for extreme opinions.
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