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

51–60 of 633 posts

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

#51

Post by Latty »

macrolocal wrote: post #25
Latty wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what Popehat actually wants here. 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. People not wanting to patronize or associate with you when you cause harm to people they care about is really not a bad thing, and it's not new either, and yet it is what gets called "cancel culture" by a lot of people.…

> People not wanting to patronize or associate with you when you cause harm to people they care about is really not a bad thing, and it's not new either, and yet it is what gets called "cancel culture" by a lot of people. Although nowadays, soft penalties scale and can be automated. So it feels sensible to explore regulatory frameworks that could rein in the worst excesses.

Who gets to decide what the excess is?

I'm not saying they don't exist: if I advocate for gay rights, and turns out my employer has a bunch of homophobic customers who get me fired because they don't want to spend money that ends up in my pocket, that would be deeply wrong in my view.

The question is, what does the "regulatory framework" do there? Force those customers to spend money that ends up funding someone that fights for something they see as morally wrong? Force my boss to employ me even though I hurt their business?

The whole point of freedom of speech is the government doesn't get to ban views they don't like. Not supporting someone because of their views surely needs to be as much of a protected view as any other.

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

#52

Post by pessimizer »

ashtonkem wrote: post #34
noduerme wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you point out, while boycotting someone based on your perception of their opinion is not new , the modality of mass mob boycotts of individuals over things potentially taken out of context is entirely new, and that's exactly what "cancel culture" refers to. The underlying mechanism of Twitter is what gave birth to the term, regardless of whether it's used by haters to justify hate speech. One other thing that's ne…

> As you point out, while boycotting someone based on your perception of their opinion is not new, the modality of mass mob boycotts of individuals over things potentially taken out of context is entirely new. … One other thing that's new, in America, is the idea that speech is less important than people's feelings. They used to kill people for advocating for integration and civil rights. Actual mobs used to assemble…

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_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

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

#53

Post by Vaslo »

hraedon wrote: post #39
commandlinefan wrote: post #23

Quoted post unavailable.

That's a pretty tendentious view of both Popehat's expressed opinion and the NYTime's article. Popehat is pretty clearly against what he defines as "cancel culture," and the NYTimes article is primarily about journalists and elite opinion writers not liking backtalk from their readers.

Seems he is against it until conservatives are victims of it. Then suddenly it’s a good thing. You have a right to not patronize someone who you disagree with. Just like I think there will be a backlash against those who call for the pitchforks - they’ll find people peacefully protesting them outside of the their workplaces, places they frequent, outside their homes. Just another ACLU shill in this article.

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

#54

Post by kritiko »

alphabettsy wrote: post #16
abnry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others This is what is at issue. What does "reasonable consequences" mean for "harm to others"? Sometimes the harm to others is disputed, as the harm is almost always considered emotional. Sometimes what is considered "reasonable consequences" is something as significant as loss of livelihood.

> Sometimes what is considered "reasonable consequences" is something as significant as loss of livelihood. What if it’s reframed? If I call my boss a fatty and they fire me that’s ok right? It’s just their feelings and I’m losing my income, but in that case it’s acceptable. Why?

In America, in most jobs you can be fired for any reason as long as it is not discriminatory against a protected class.

What do you mean by “acceptable” here? As in, an average person would consider it fair?

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

#55

Post by tptacek »

abnry wrote: post #10
BitwiseFool wrote: post #3

> "Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. When some people vaguely complain about “cancel culture” in a way that lends itself to promoting this constant partisanship, other people not unreasonably see it as partisan." Popehat seems to be falling into the trap of thinking the precisely defining something will lead to clarity. It rarely, if ever, does. Each one of us h…

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, but it doesn't narrow it or offer us any guidance. People think all sorts of things are minor, or world-ending; proven, or fabricated.

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

#56

Post by liquid_bluing »

alphabettsy wrote: post #16
abnry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others This is what is at issue. What does "reasonable consequences" mean for "harm to others"? Sometimes the harm to others is disputed, as the harm is almost always considered emotional. Sometimes what is considered "reasonable consequences" is something as significant as loss of livelihood.

> Sometimes what is considered "reasonable consequences" is something as significant as loss of livelihood. What if it’s reframed? If I call my boss a fatty and they fire me that’s ok right? It’s just their feelings and I’m losing my income, but in that case it’s acceptable. Why?

I think it's broadly considered acceptable because insulting your boss is an aggresive behavior directed at a colleague. Simply stating an opinion is not.

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

#57

Post by oh_sigh »

legitster wrote: post #45

> Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. Can we please just define it so we can move on as a society? I'm equally tired of this game where snarky writers try to pretend it doesn't exist. The first amendment doesn't protect against secret blacklists or mobs but we can still agree they are "bad things" and could agree on at least some new set of common courtesy. All so…

Popehat did, I think, an excellent job of it, even though he doesn't believe this is synonymous with cancel culture:

> some responses to speech are disproportionate and outside norms of decency

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

#58

Post by jakelazaroff »

anamax wrote: post #47
alphabettsy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes what is considered "reasonable consequences" is something as significant as loss of livelihood. What if it’s reframed? If I call my boss a fatty and they fire me that’s ok right? It’s just their feelings and I’m losing my income, but in that case it’s acceptable. Why?

The case we're talking about is I accuse you of calling me a fatty and get a bunch of people to tell your employer that they'll boycott, costing a bunch of people their income, people who didn't do anything, unless they fire you. Note that I said "accuse". Maybe you called me a fatty, maybe you didn't. Note that "get" is too strong. There appear to be people waiting for an excuse to go after "your employer" for prett…

Let's not move the goalposts. If you hurt your boss's feelings, should you lose your livelihood?

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

#59

Post by orangecat »

abnry wrote: post #10
BitwiseFool wrote: post #3

> "Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. When some people vaguely complain about “cancel culture” in a way that lends itself to promoting this constant partisanship, other people not unreasonably see it as partisan." Popehat seems to be falling into the trap of thinking the precisely defining something will lead to clarity. It rarely, if ever, does. Each one of us h…

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.

Or "offenses" that are purely imaginary, like suggesting that people should read a book before accusing its author of transphobia (https://laurenhough.substack.com/p/a-question-for-lambda-lit...), or discussing a common Chinese expression whose pronunciation vaguely resembles a slur in English (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-sus...).
Post reply on HN