5 ms·

As someone who grew up in China, I think this analogy is overblown. PG and others are up in arms about "cancel culture," but I'm not seeing substantial evidence

by mifeng 6y ago

As someone who grew up in China, I think this analogy is overblown. PG and others are up in arms about "cancel culture," but I'm not seeing substantial evidence of people's voices being suppressed by the masses. The few anecdotes cited (James Bennet fired by NYT, JK Rowling finally being called out for being anti-trans, random people being unfairly fired) don't seem to point toward a mass movement toward intolerance in the US. On the other hand, it's clear, especially to young people, that traditional liberalism has failed at actually addressing inequality, racism, and other systemic problems that the US faces. A big part of what people refer to as "cancel culture" is frustration over the ineffectiveness of traditional liberalism, especially when the far right seems to play by a different set of rules. I'm definitely concerned about far left zealotry, but I don't think that's what I'd happening in the US.

jdkee 6y ago
“ JK Rowling finally being called out for being anti-trans“ And where is the evidence for this assertion?
- bendbro 6y ago
  Apologies for the amp link. I would recommend looking at Twitter replies to the Harper's Mag letter about her being a signer, and then other discussions on it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/j-k-rowling-defends-anti-trans-comments-twitter/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/j-k-ro...
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Turns out that we aren't electing a counsel composed of the liberals most active on twitter. Lets look at the situation clearly. I don't think JK Rowling is a bigot and yet and the internet hate machine is sure going full steam but her detractors are a smaller group than her fans and the woman is worth almost a billion dollars. She could burn dollar bills for warmth in her house for warmth for the rest of her life if she wanted. A minority of angry people on twitter can't cancel her life. Cancel culture is a distraction from more relevant issues.
  - jariel 6y ago
    "A minority of angry people on twitter can't cancel her life. Cancel culture is a distraction from more relevant issues." Not true at all. It's not about her money, it's about her ability to speak and to have a public opinion, and therefore a relationship with us - not about her 'personal wealth'. She has specific views on gender, which she should be allowed to have and which I don't think are objectively 'anti trans'. The statement above, ie that her views are 'anti trans' is really a problem. 'Shutting down her voice' is significantly worse than 'taking her money' - because it means the rest of us are not allowed to have a debate or to have our own opinions. I generally agree with her assessment. It's nuanced, informed and not 'anti trans'. Labelling it 'anti trans' is precisely the kind of 'Red Guards killing the unpure' we need to worry about. 'Cancel culture' has succeeded in banning speakers on most University campuses, and systematically disabled tons of voices from being heard. Speakers aren't even on the slot anymore 'can't afford the security' is now a common statement. This is inexcusable. The fact that 100 or so of the world's leading thinkers had to take out page to tamp down people in their own midst is crazy, and a sign of a problem. It's a fairly existential problem right now. A lot of this actually may be a kind of 'anti Trump' anger exhibiting in an odd kind of way, maybe it dies down a little bit, but the 'winds' are heading in one direction right now, and the press in particular seem to have joined in.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      A reasonable reading of her statement is that she doesn't regard trans women as actual women and indeed a lot of people hold that opinion and others hold the opinion that that opinion is bigoted. Pretending its a purity test instead of a debate is disingenuous although I'm not here to debate that particular point. More importantly her voice hasn't been silenced. She and her detractors are equally capable of talking past each other as long as they like. The degree of energy injected into what amounts into rather trivial debates, for example who cares what an author of mediocre fiction thinks about gender, is a byproduct of the stress put on society at this moment in history. We have a charismatic Hitler like cult like figure testing the boundaries of what degree of illegality he is allowed to commit and whether or not he is allowed to end democracy as we know it. This crisis is a hand upon the soul of America twisting its body into a knot and the cracks that are appearing and a sign of that stress. If you want that stress to dissipate taking Lenny's hand off the rabbit is the answer. This didn't start as a wholesale rejection of conservationism or republicans. It is becoming so because they have tied themselves to it relentlessly. If either of those things are near and dear to you then it must be separated as soon as possible.
bendbro 6y ago
I understand why you would not think it is a problem. Unfortunately the only evidence for something like this is anecdotes, so unless you personally experience cancellation or are a member of a community where someone is cancelled, you won't notice. The lack of concern about the cancellation narrative makes sense in this respect. Beyond "random people being fired", there are a number of notable examples in the programming community, like James Damore, Stallman, and Donglegate. After CoCs were added to open source projects, there are a handful of accounts of people being removed for their views expressed outside of the open source community. In the wider world, things like the Harper's Magazine letter criticizing cancel culture (signed by many notable individuals, including Noam Chomsky), Obama's criticism of the "circular firing squad", leading philosophy researchers decrying sanctions for expressing ideas [1], the Joe Rogan discussion between Twitter Exec and Tim Pool on online censorship, the Evergreen College fiasco, and the rioting of Berkeley students into a Ben Shapiro lecture, paint the picture of a worrying trend: some subset of people on the left respond to argument not with argument, but with censorship, boycotts, and sometimes violence. Hell, one from a few days ago: https://statenews.com/article/2020/06/michigan-state-geu-calls-to-remove-vp-research-administrator-stephen-hsu?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest https://statenews.com/article/2020/06/michigan-state-geu-cal... [1]: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/07/22/philosophers-should-not-be-sanctioned-their-positions-sex-and-gender-opinion https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/07/22/philosophers...

by mifeng 6y ago

jdkee 6y ago

“ JK Rowling finally being called out for being anti-trans“ And where is the evidence for this assertion?

bendbro 6y ago
Apologies for the amp link. I would recommend looking at Twitter replies to the Harper's Mag letter about her being a signer, and then other discussions on it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/j-k-rowling-defends-anti-trans-comments-twitter/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/j-k-ro...
michaelmrose 6y ago
Turns out that we aren't electing a counsel composed of the liberals most active on twitter. Lets look at the situation clearly. I don't think JK Rowling is a bigot and yet and the internet hate machine is sure going full steam but her detractors are a smaller group than her fans and the woman is worth almost a billion dollars. She could burn dollar bills for warmth in her house for warmth for the rest of her life if she wanted. A minority of angry people on twitter can't cancel her life. Cancel culture is a distraction from more relevant issues.
- jariel 6y ago
  "A minority of angry people on twitter can't cancel her life. Cancel culture is a distraction from more relevant issues." Not true at all. It's not about her money, it's about her ability to speak and to have a public opinion, and therefore a relationship with us - not about her 'personal wealth'. She has specific views on gender, which she should be allowed to have and which I don't think are objectively 'anti trans'. The statement above, ie that her views are 'anti trans' is really a problem. 'Shutting down her voice' is significantly worse than 'taking her money' - because it means the rest of us are not allowed to have a debate or to have our own opinions. I generally agree with her assessment. It's nuanced, informed and not 'anti trans'. Labelling it 'anti trans' is precisely the kind of 'Red Guards killing the unpure' we need to worry about. 'Cancel culture' has succeeded in banning speakers on most University campuses, and systematically disabled tons of voices from being heard. Speakers aren't even on the slot anymore 'can't afford the security' is now a common statement. This is inexcusable. The fact that 100 or so of the world's leading thinkers had to take out page to tamp down people in their own midst is crazy, and a sign of a problem. It's a fairly existential problem right now. A lot of this actually may be a kind of 'anti Trump' anger exhibiting in an odd kind of way, maybe it dies down a little bit, but the 'winds' are heading in one direction right now, and the press in particular seem to have joined in.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    A reasonable reading of her statement is that she doesn't regard trans women as actual women and indeed a lot of people hold that opinion and others hold the opinion that that opinion is bigoted. Pretending its a purity test instead of a debate is disingenuous although I'm not here to debate that particular point. More importantly her voice hasn't been silenced. She and her detractors are equally capable of talking past each other as long as they like. The degree of energy injected into what amounts into rather trivial debates, for example who cares what an author of mediocre fiction thinks about gender, is a byproduct of the stress put on society at this moment in history. We have a charismatic Hitler like cult like figure testing the boundaries of what degree of illegality he is allowed to commit and whether or not he is allowed to end democracy as we know it. This crisis is a hand upon the soul of America twisting its body into a knot and the cracks that are appearing and a sign of that stress. If you want that stress to dissipate taking Lenny's hand off the rabbit is the answer. This didn't start as a wholesale rejection of conservationism or republicans. It is becoming so because they have tied themselves to it relentlessly. If either of those things are near and dear to you then it must be separated as soon as possible.

bendbro 6y ago

I understand why you would not think it is a problem. Unfortunately the only evidence for something like this is anecdotes, so unless you personally experience cancellation or are a member of a community where someone is cancelled, you won't notice. The lack of concern about the cancellation narrative makes sense in this respect. Beyond "random people being fired", there are a number of notable examples in the programming community, like James Damore, Stallman, and Donglegate. After CoCs were added to open source projects, there are a handful of accounts of people being removed for their views expressed outside of the open source community. In the wider world, things like the Harper's Magazine letter criticizing cancel culture (signed by many notable individuals, including Noam Chomsky), Obama's criticism of the "circular firing squad", leading philosophy researchers decrying sanctions for expressing ideas [1], the Joe Rogan discussion between Twitter Exec and Tim Pool on online censorship, the Evergreen College fiasco, and the rioting of Berkeley students into a Ben Shapiro lecture, paint the picture of a worrying trend: some subset of people on the left respond to argument not with argument, but with censorship, boycotts, and sometimes violence. Hell, one from a few days ago: https://statenews.com/article/2020/06/michigan-state-geu-calls-to-remove-vp-research-administrator-stephen-hsu?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest https://statenews.com/article/2020/06/michigan-state-geu-cal... [1]: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/07/22/philosophers-should-not-be-sanctioned-their-positions-sex-and-gender-opinion https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/07/22/philosophers...