Conservatives have embraced a campaign against "cancel culture" because it's one of the few things they offer that sells. However they are hot to ban "critical race theory" even though they struggle to define it.
Yes, the legal restrictions against critical race theory are very hypocritical
It's misguided, since it's not really being taught to begin with. But both sides support restrictions on curriculum, and speech in schools. So I guess we're all just hypocrites.
Is this really new? It seems subgroups of either side have selectively supported free speech based on whether they agree with the message.
It is new. Historically, the left aggressively defended its opponent’s right to freedom of speech and assembly on the understanding that legalized limits on free speech will ultimately be used against the left more than it will be used against the right. An often cited American example is the ACLU defending the rights of Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members to speak freely and assemble. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/u…
The balance of power has now changed. Liberal positions are favoured by majorities; conservative positions are favoured by minorities.
I don't see how supporting freedom of speech can be a "weapon against outgroups". Perhaps he refers to incidents where censorship was sold under the wrong label, "War is Peace" bullshit has a long, bipartisan history after all.
The support of freedom of speech by conservatives is both selective, largely limited to issues they feel oppressed on, and temporary, likely to be dropped as soon as they have the upper hand. Liberalism has freedom of speech as a core principle but liberals are now treated as hostile not only by conservatives but also the illiberal left.
Agreed - traditional liberalism is being squeezed and it's a tremendous challenge for liberal democracy.
Whichever group seeks to push its values on others via force or compulsion will find a reason to dismiss or vilify freedom of expression and speech. Then all other groups will band together to oppose that first group of would-be tyrants. Claiming that there's something psychologically distinct about one political party or another at an individual level (which goes beyond a mere snapshot or moment in time) is to see t…
Yet countless academic studies find psychological differences between conservatives and liberals; see the blog for references.
Is this really new? It seems subgroups of either side have selectively supported free speech based on whether they agree with the message.
It is new. Historically, the left aggressively defended its opponent’s right to freedom of speech and assembly on the understanding that legalized limits on free speech will ultimately be used against the left more than it will be used against the right. An often cited American example is the ACLU defending the rights of Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members to speak freely and assemble. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/u…
Cancel culture isn't a pursuit of legalized limits on free speech, it's an expression of free speech. Only conservatives are currently pursuing anything of the sort, by attempting to regulate social media, banning critical race theory, the discussion of gender identity and sexuality, etc.
The way some people talk these days you'd think that freedom is the freedom to disable the fire alarm and lock the doors in a burning theater. (e.g. climate change and COVID-19 denialism) "Free speech" is so 1980s. Today it is all about protecting communication channels from spam, disinformation, revenge porn and other forms of coordinated disingenuous communications.
I understand how coordinated disingenuous information is dangerous to society. But censorship of things like hateful speech (short of calls to violence which are illegal for good reason) or political misinformation has historically been abused. Even when we put that power in the hands of a transparent democratic or crowd-sourced non-governmental body we see minority views quashed by associating them with more obviously bad actors. Peer review has shown in the past the problems with letting group think suppress papers we found decades later to be accurate. I think we should use lower barriers to entry and try to create as many information outlets as possible while also using policy to make the economic or political interests behind those information sources more apparent both through financing laws and identification requirements. Free speech is one thing, anonymous free speech is another. Apart from policy, I think we should be more forgiving to those who feel differently on issues, even when we find them very important. I have some racist neighbors, and some that are prejudiced against people of certain (or all) faiths. I still talk with them all, laugh and share a beer with them, and openly disagree with them. I'm not going to try to get them fired, I'm trying to persuade them. And sometimes it works, a little. Technologically I think we have the tools to make following money trails feasible by the public, especially with a few policy changes regarding anonymity, though the scotus has made that much more difficult. If we reject anonymous donations from everyone, that would affect corporations too right? Simce they are people?
Is this really new? It seems subgroups of either side have selectively supported free speech based on whether they agree with the message.
It is new. Historically, the left aggressively defended its opponent’s right to freedom of speech and assembly on the understanding that legalized limits on free speech will ultimately be used against the left more than it will be used against the right. An often cited American example is the ACLU defending the rights of Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members to speak freely and assemble. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/u…
> The real story is that the historical left no longer exists.
Is there any left left in the US? From an outsider perspective, the US political scene seems to consist of right and far-right.
The way some people talk these days you'd think that freedom is the freedom to disable the fire alarm and lock the doors in a burning theater. (e.g. climate change and COVID-19 denialism) "Free speech" is so 1980s. Today it is all about protecting communication channels from spam, disinformation, revenge porn and other forms of coordinated disingenuous communications.
Whilst these are undoubted challenges, I also think that there are more traditional challenges to freedom of speech. As majorities within societies have accepted liberal ideas, liberals have become increasingly censorious, threatening the freedom of speech of conservatives.
Majorities have become so tired of disingenuous and untruthful nonsense and rabble-rousing.
The way some people talk these days you'd think that freedom is the freedom to disable the fire alarm and lock the doors in a burning theater. (e.g. climate change and COVID-19 denialism) "Free speech" is so 1980s. Today it is all about protecting communication channels from spam, disinformation, revenge porn and other forms of coordinated disingenuous communications.
I understand how coordinated disingenuous information is dangerous to society. But censorship of things like hateful speech (short of calls to violence which are illegal for good reason) or political misinformation has historically been abused. Even when we put that power in the hands of a transparent democratic or crowd-sourced non-governmental body we see minority views quashed by associating them with more obvious…
arxiv.org and the replication crisis prove peer review is a joke.
It makes my blood boil that when they do a meta analysis in clinical medicine they regularly reject 70% or more of the studies due to fundamental problems such as no control group (that study that failed to find vitamin C in the blood of COVID-19 patients but didn't test anybody else) or insufficient sample sizes.
Studies like that shouldn't be accepted for publication, in fact they shouldn't even get funded.