Heresy

This is pathetic. Why is multi-millionare Paul Graham bothering to write trite generalizations about "the left's cancel culture?" It is boring and tired no matter now pretentiously you dress it up. At lest Tucker Carlson knows how to deliver the goods in less than 500 words.

And I'm sorry but: what specific opinions does this guy hold that he is so angry about? It feels dishonest to whine like this without expressing any of the heresy himself.

Also, it isn't "cancel culture" if your belief system is trying to dispossess and devalue people I care about. It is self defense. 30 years ago you could wear blackface and speak open hatred towards non-binary people. I think it is a good thing we don't tolerate hate anymore. Apparently Paul Graham disagrees.

> For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion.

I can't think of the last time a thing like this happened to me. I seriously doubt it has ever happened to Paul Graham outside of social media. If you are being kind and honest, I can guarantee someone will be interested in having a conversation with you about the subject. Unless they are an asshole.

I get the feeling Paul is main-lining Fox News and not actually having discussions with that many people. The TV man is making him angry about dumb culture war issues.

I've spoken before about how I feel the left can have shitty priorities and be extremely whiny. But here is the thing:

There are a lot of mentally ill people on social media who do nothing but harass and terrorize others based on their narrow world-view. This happens on both the left AND the right. It is impossible to know if these people are acting in good faith, or trying to give the left/right a bad name by being annoying and reactionary.

Every time you see someone say something controversial, they complain about "death threats on social media." While that IS vile and disgusting, it happens all the time. Every time. You can get death threats for saying Super Mario World is overrated.

Why are we still taking these pathetic social media people seriously?

Answer: Because they are a useful tool for the opposite side to use as a cudgel to while about "cancel culture."

You don't need a straw man anymore. You can always find an idiot or crazy person to represent an insane world-view and present it as if this person is The Pope of Leftists/Conservatives.

Candice Owens is a great example. She doesn't exist for CONSERVATIVES. Sure, they like her ( maybe ), but that isn't why she is famous. Her job is to have reactionary takes that gets picked up by centrist / left leaning orgs so the TV man can make the TV viewers angry.

"Cancel culture" is a TV show that has been doing nothing but re-runs since the 80s when it was called "political correctness."

> You can avoid the whole thing by just not participating.

No you can't. If someone records you saying something heretical, they can share it on social media and the cancel mob will get you fired from your job, even if you don't have social media yourself.

> people Graham agrees with are encouraged to weaponize their victimization, while people he disagrees with are denied.

Where do you get that from the original post? I am not seeing it.

I think this is a useful take because it points to a positive solution: Taking the time to weigh evidence and context on an individual, case by case basis, as opposed to walking around as if you have a "mute" button for everything.

I was accused of saying something I didn't say at a bar, by a black woman I was talking with. She complained to the bartender who, without having heard any of the conversation, called me a racist and threw me out.

I was very distressed by this. On hearing the story, a friend brought up the fact that bartenders don't have the time or training to resolve every dispute between customers, so they just make snap decisions that are often wrong. He also said that in days gone by, the black person would have been the one who got thrown out in a dispute, and so this is a form of restorative justice. I found this a helpful idea, because it implies that people still aren't treating each other any more equally or listening to both sides, or weighing things wisely or on the merits; and that's what needs to be fixed if we want to have any kind of discourse at all.