4 ms·

Culture cancels abhorrent ideas, same as it ever was. Notice how it’s COMPLETELY unacceptable to suggest slavery should be made legal. Or children sent to work

by aklemm 6y ago

Culture cancels abhorrent ideas, same as it ever was. Notice how it’s COMPLETELY unacceptable to suggest slavery should be made legal. Or children sent to work in factories. All commonplace 150 years ago and we only benefit from the ideas being practically unutterable.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Notice how it’s COMPLETELY unacceptable to suggest slavery should be made legal. Only if you use the word "slavery". Suggesting that "workers should be able to sell an equity stake in their future earnings“ isn't just acceptable, it's fashionable.
- aklemm 6y ago
  I’m failing to see how that’s a sensible comparison.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Holding an equity stake in a freelancer's earnings is a very common form of slavery, including slavery in the American South.
nilkn 6y ago
Cancel culture is completely unnecessary for the examples you gave. Supporting slavery was essentially unutterable long before cancel culture existed.
- random314 6y ago
  Supporting slavery being unutterable is a perfect example of the benefits of cancel culture.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
Thorentis 6y ago
> Culture cancels abhorrent ideas My issue with cancel culture, is that social media and the general "outrage culture" has magnified beyond all proportion, what constitutes an "abhorrent idea". Slavery and child labor is a very different level of abhorrent to "I prefer my sexual partners to have vaginas" (which is not abhorrent at all to any sensible person). This article is calling out the latter. This isn't about saying society should tolerate every single possible opinion there is to have. It's about bringing back some common sense to discourse, and not allowing the mob outrage of social media to dominate our society.
- aklemm 6y ago
  Well, it makes sense to ask the question whether that’s bigotry, and I completely understand why a mob may form when the mainstream can’t even hear the discussion, which is what the article and your comment display. To be first worried about cancel culture over the issue at hand is to be deaf to the issues.
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    Honestly, it doesn't make sense to question if that is bigotry, especially when transgender and LGBTQ rights are predicated on sexual freedom and liberation. Asking sincerely if that is bigotry shows that the questioner is willing to contradict their own strongly held views, in order to call somebody else a bigot.
    - aklemm 6y ago
      No, it’s a very important and basic question: what does it mean to treat someone’s gender identity irrespective of their genital status. I don’t know the answers, this isn’t one of my main issues that I follow, but it’s pretty clear the question makes sense.
      - Thorentis 6y ago
        Sexual attraction includes attraction to genitals. You cannot separate the gender identity from the genitals when it comes to having sex. Just because somebody says they're a woman, doesn't mean I want to have sex with them. This applies to trans and biological females. Plenty of biological females are unattractive to me. That isn't bigoted. Why does them being trans suddenly make me a bigot? It's such a ridiculous question to ask.
ralusek 6y ago
On the surface, your logic is "I think there are concepts which have been made taboo to discuss, and this is a good thing, therefore making topics taboo to discuss is a good thing." To be charitable, let's change this to mean "making _some_ topics taboo to discuss is a good thing." The obvious danger comes from who gets to decide, and why? Recent cases seem to have been arrived at not as a natural good faith progression of society, but rather as a militant assertion by certain factions. Bringing up relevant policing statistics is off the table. Bringing up relevant psychological literature on gender population preferences is off the table. In many cases the notions of individualism and universalism are off the table. The discussion regarding transgender individuals is a perfect example of an off limits conversation that has just been asserted as having been completely resolved. Understand, I am personally sympathetic to and defend most arguments made on behalf of transgender individuals, but to most advocates the discussion begins and ends with something like "trans women are women," which is an assertion that has convinced approximately 0 people to be sympathetic to the cause. In my own attempts to bring people around to the arguments on behalf of transgender people, I have only been successful when I'm willing to do all the necessary legwork to peel back the arguments, clarify the language conflicts, acknowledge any inconsistencies, etc, and only then have I had people emerge with a different opinion. But the prevailing conversation is instead "you're denying the existence of this marginalized group and exacerbating their risk of actual violence by discussing this." This is hardly a caricature of these conversations. And in the meantime, the person who has expressed their own, in many cases, perfectly reasonable objections to some of the tripwires and double standards that arise on the path to the sympathetic conclusion, they've very likely made a pariah of themselves. So basically, your point is still entirely contingent on how, when, and why things move into the territory of taboo. There is a lot of danger in the game you advocate on behalf of.
bargl 6y ago
Yes, but in the past your wrongs stayed as local or tribal knowledge. You said the "N-Word"? You dealt with it locally and then moved on, hopefully grow up and become a better person. Now, you tweet the "N-Word" when you're 16, but raise millions of dollars for a great foundation years later. You get canceled. This just isn't cool. I was an ass hat at 16, but I also didn't have twitter, most of my mistakes aren't still out there. We need to recognize that people aren't who they were, we need to allow people to change, grow, and move past their past. This is why I love liberals move to reduce prison sentences for non-violent offenders and conservatives push-back on cancel culture for historical stupidity. Granted, there are some videos that surface where people should be fired. I get there's some egregious shit out there, but overall, I'd rather see courtrooms determine that than social media.
- aklemm 6y ago
  You want to see courts determine firings?
  - bargl 6y ago
    Poorly phrased. I'd rather see a courtroom or some structured independent body that is given time to review all evidence and hear both sides determine guilt than mass public opinion. What I see is mob justice not real justice. I don't want courts to have to get involved before someone can be fired. I like that they are there to protect against illegal firings but not before hand.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Culture cancels abhorrent ideas" -In the age of religion, being an atheist was considered an "abhorrent" idea as was tolerance of other religious beliefs. The culture of the day tried hard to cancel it and things done to silence heretics were quite terrible. -During the US civil right's movement of the '60s, the idea that all people deserved equal treatment, regardless of skin color, was considered an "abhorrent" idea. The culture of the day tried hard to cancel it; MLK was widely disliked at the time of his death. Your words hit the nail squarely on the head but, unfortunately, drives it straight through the argument you were trying to defend. "Culture cancels abhorrent ideas" but it was only through looking at "abhorrent" ideas that progress was made.
lopmotr 6y ago
Those kind of issues are typically only universally seen as bad after technology changes so they're no longer necessary. Children now end up as more useful workers if they go to school first, so child labor is bad today but compulsory child schooling is good. Maybe future generations won't need school and they'll see our schools as completely unacceptable. Or they won't need to get meat from animals so they'll see our farming as completely unacceptable, or they won't need military defense and will see our armies are unacceptable. When technology reduced the need for housework and childcare, women somehow also got the right to work in traditionally male jobs. Not a coincidence.
throw0101a 6y ago
> Culture cancels abhorrent ideas, same as it ever was. Perhaps. Maybe. Eventually. But when those ideas are still accepted, have fun being against them. Eugenics was socially accepted from the late 1800s into the first half of the 20th century (with compulsory sterilization continuing even to 1980). If you were Catholic during that time period (when the encyclical Casti connubii was published), you'd be lambasted for being old fashioned. In Buck v. Bell (1927) the USSC ruled 8-1 that it was A-OK for the state to sterilize people: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell The sole vote against was coïncidentally the sole Catholic on the bench. As a somewhat controversial figure pointed a while ago: > Free speech is not a value, like mercy or justice: it's the fundamental problem-solving mechanism of humanity. * https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/801906496015470592 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/80190649601547059... What idea(s) do we accept now that will eventually be thought completely wrong in a generation? The whole point of allowing dissenting voices so to allow people to think of new ways of viewing the world, and filtering out the ones that are good and the ones that are bad: but if we don't allow people to speak, how can new ideas come to light?
happy_llama 6y ago
First, the situation is not the "same as it ever". Clearly, we are seeing a cultural trend towards more censorship. Secondly, I invite you to consider this: Being gay was seen as a completely "abhorrent" idea a few decades ego [1]. So, did that fact somehow made it good and justifiable to "cancel" someone for being gay? [1] Some people find it "abhorrent" even today, some countries even have laws against homosexuality.
philwelch 6y ago
So to some degree this is true; people can generally come to a consensus that certain things like slavery or genocide are deeply and inherently evil and that any advocacy for these things is worthy of dismissal. It's not always right, though. Millions of people were killed in the various wars that broke out when Catholic Europe tried to "cancel" the "abhorrent" ideas of the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps you can think of this phenomenon as a type of social immune system. It turns out that actual immune systems aren't perfect. Allergies and autoimmune disorders exist. Immune systems will sometimes overreact to a pathogen, or react to something that's harmless but resembles a pathogen, or even attack vital organs that the body needs to survive. I think you can probably infer the relevant metaphors from here. But to provide one particular example: during the 1950's, American culture decided to "cancel" the "abhorrent" idea of communism. Actual spies working for Stalin were discovered and put to death and there was a lot of scared talk about even more spies being afoot. At one point, a bunch of screenwriters with memberships in the American Communist Party were fired and blacklisted from their professions. Ultimately, the climate of paranoia and fear resulted in personal ruin for more and more people as anticommunist demagogues went after as many of their perceived enemies as they could. There was a broad chilling effect; not only was it considered totally abhorrent and unthinkable to actually be any stripe of Marxist, but even saying, "hey, I think this is going a little too far" was enough to be branded a communist sympathizer. The only way anyone managed to criticize it was to write vague stories about literal witch hunts and pretend that they weren't allegorical. Clearly, this system isn't perfect. But neither do the excesses of McCarthyism actually excuse Stalin or the now-thoroughly-documented actual infiltration of Soviet spies and assets in 1950's America. It is possible to see the evil in both.

by aklemm 6y ago

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> Notice how it’s COMPLETELY unacceptable to suggest slavery should be made legal. Only if you use the word "slavery". Suggesting that "workers should be able to sell an equity stake in their future earnings“ isn't just acceptable, it's fashionable.

aklemm 6y ago
I’m failing to see how that’s a sensible comparison.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Holding an equity stake in a freelancer's earnings is a very common form of slavery, including slavery in the American South.

nilkn 6y ago

Cancel culture is completely unnecessary for the examples you gave. Supporting slavery was essentially unutterable long before cancel culture existed.

random314 6y ago
Supporting slavery being unutterable is a perfect example of the benefits of cancel culture.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

Thorentis 6y ago

> Culture cancels abhorrent ideas My issue with cancel culture, is that social media and the general "outrage culture" has magnified beyond all proportion, what constitutes an "abhorrent idea". Slavery and child labor is a very different level of abhorrent to "I prefer my sexual partners to have vaginas" (which is not abhorrent at all to any sensible person). This article is calling out the latter. This isn't about saying society should tolerate every single possible opinion there is to have. It's about bringing back some common sense to discourse, and not allowing the mob outrage of social media to dominate our society.

aklemm 6y ago
Well, it makes sense to ask the question whether that’s bigotry, and I completely understand why a mob may form when the mainstream can’t even hear the discussion, which is what the article and your comment display. To be first worried about cancel culture over the issue at hand is to be deaf to the issues.
- Thorentis 6y ago
  Honestly, it doesn't make sense to question if that is bigotry, especially when transgender and LGBTQ rights are predicated on sexual freedom and liberation. Asking sincerely if that is bigotry shows that the questioner is willing to contradict their own strongly held views, in order to call somebody else a bigot.
  - aklemm 6y ago
    No, it’s a very important and basic question: what does it mean to treat someone’s gender identity irrespective of their genital status. I don’t know the answers, this isn’t one of my main issues that I follow, but it’s pretty clear the question makes sense.
    - Thorentis 6y ago
      Sexual attraction includes attraction to genitals. You cannot separate the gender identity from the genitals when it comes to having sex. Just because somebody says they're a woman, doesn't mean I want to have sex with them. This applies to trans and biological females. Plenty of biological females are unattractive to me. That isn't bigoted. Why does them being trans suddenly make me a bigot? It's such a ridiculous question to ask.

ralusek 6y ago

On the surface, your logic is "I think there are concepts which have been made taboo to discuss, and this is a good thing, therefore making topics taboo to discuss is a good thing." To be charitable, let's change this to mean "making _some_ topics taboo to discuss is a good thing." The obvious danger comes from who gets to decide, and why? Recent cases seem to have been arrived at not as a natural good faith progression of society, but rather as a militant assertion by certain factions. Bringing up relevant policing statistics is off the table. Bringing up relevant psychological literature on gender population preferences is off the table. In many cases the notions of individualism and universalism are off the table. The discussion regarding transgender individuals is a perfect example of an off limits conversation that has just been asserted as having been completely resolved. Understand, I am personally sympathetic to and defend most arguments made on behalf of transgender individuals, but to most advocates the discussion begins and ends with something like "trans women are women," which is an assertion that has convinced approximately 0 people to be sympathetic to the cause. In my own attempts to bring people around to the arguments on behalf of transgender people, I have only been successful when I'm willing to do all the necessary legwork to peel back the arguments, clarify the language conflicts, acknowledge any inconsistencies, etc, and only then have I had people emerge with a different opinion. But the prevailing conversation is instead "you're denying the existence of this marginalized group and exacerbating their risk of actual violence by discussing this." This is hardly a caricature of these conversations. And in the meantime, the person who has expressed their own, in many cases, perfectly reasonable objections to some of the tripwires and double standards that arise on the path to the sympathetic conclusion, they've very likely made a pariah of themselves. So basically, your point is still entirely contingent on how, when, and why things move into the territory of taboo. There is a lot of danger in the game you advocate on behalf of.

bargl 6y ago

Yes, but in the past your wrongs stayed as local or tribal knowledge. You said the "N-Word"? You dealt with it locally and then moved on, hopefully grow up and become a better person. Now, you tweet the "N-Word" when you're 16, but raise millions of dollars for a great foundation years later. You get canceled. This just isn't cool. I was an ass hat at 16, but I also didn't have twitter, most of my mistakes aren't still out there. We need to recognize that people aren't who they were, we need to allow people to change, grow, and move past their past. This is why I love liberals move to reduce prison sentences for non-violent offenders and conservatives push-back on cancel culture for historical stupidity. Granted, there are some videos that surface where people should be fired. I get there's some egregious shit out there, but overall, I'd rather see courtrooms determine that than social media.

aklemm 6y ago
You want to see courts determine firings?
- bargl 6y ago
  Poorly phrased. I'd rather see a courtroom or some structured independent body that is given time to review all evidence and hear both sides determine guilt than mass public opinion. What I see is mob justice not real justice. I don't want courts to have to get involved before someone can be fired. I like that they are there to protect against illegal firings but not before hand.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

> "Culture cancels abhorrent ideas" -In the age of religion, being an atheist was considered an "abhorrent" idea as was tolerance of other religious beliefs. The culture of the day tried hard to cancel it and things done to silence heretics were quite terrible. -During the US civil right's movement of the '60s, the idea that all people deserved equal treatment, regardless of skin color, was considered an "abhorrent" idea. The culture of the day tried hard to cancel it; MLK was widely disliked at the time of his death. Your words hit the nail squarely on the head but, unfortunately, drives it straight through the argument you were trying to defend. "Culture cancels abhorrent ideas" but it was only through looking at "abhorrent" ideas that progress was made.

lopmotr 6y ago

Those kind of issues are typically only universally seen as bad after technology changes so they're no longer necessary. Children now end up as more useful workers if they go to school first, so child labor is bad today but compulsory child schooling is good. Maybe future generations won't need school and they'll see our schools as completely unacceptable. Or they won't need to get meat from animals so they'll see our farming as completely unacceptable, or they won't need military defense and will see our armies are unacceptable. When technology reduced the need for housework and childcare, women somehow also got the right to work in traditionally male jobs. Not a coincidence.

throw0101a 6y ago

> Culture cancels abhorrent ideas, same as it ever was. Perhaps. Maybe. Eventually. But when those ideas are still accepted, have fun being against them. Eugenics was socially accepted from the late 1800s into the first half of the 20th century (with compulsory sterilization continuing even to 1980). If you were Catholic during that time period (when the encyclical Casti connubii was published), you'd be lambasted for being old fashioned. In Buck v. Bell (1927) the USSC ruled 8-1 that it was A-OK for the state to sterilize people: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell The sole vote against was coïncidentally the sole Catholic on the bench. As a somewhat controversial figure pointed a while ago: > Free speech is not a value, like mercy or justice: it's the fundamental problem-solving mechanism of humanity. * https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/801906496015470592 https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/80190649601547059... What idea(s) do we accept now that will eventually be thought completely wrong in a generation? The whole point of allowing dissenting voices so to allow people to think of new ways of viewing the world, and filtering out the ones that are good and the ones that are bad: but if we don't allow people to speak, how can new ideas come to light?

happy_llama 6y ago

First, the situation is not the "same as it ever". Clearly, we are seeing a cultural trend towards more censorship. Secondly, I invite you to consider this: Being gay was seen as a completely "abhorrent" idea a few decades ego [1]. So, did that fact somehow made it good and justifiable to "cancel" someone for being gay? [1] Some people find it "abhorrent" even today, some countries even have laws against homosexuality.

philwelch 6y ago

So to some degree this is true; people can generally come to a consensus that certain things like slavery or genocide are deeply and inherently evil and that any advocacy for these things is worthy of dismissal. It's not always right, though. Millions of people were killed in the various wars that broke out when Catholic Europe tried to "cancel" the "abhorrent" ideas of the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps you can think of this phenomenon as a type of social immune system. It turns out that actual immune systems aren't perfect. Allergies and autoimmune disorders exist. Immune systems will sometimes overreact to a pathogen, or react to something that's harmless but resembles a pathogen, or even attack vital organs that the body needs to survive. I think you can probably infer the relevant metaphors from here. But to provide one particular example: during the 1950's, American culture decided to "cancel" the "abhorrent" idea of communism. Actual spies working for Stalin were discovered and put to death and there was a lot of scared talk about even more spies being afoot. At one point, a bunch of screenwriters with memberships in the American Communist Party were fired and blacklisted from their professions. Ultimately, the climate of paranoia and fear resulted in personal ruin for more and more people as anticommunist demagogues went after as many of their perceived enemies as they could. There was a broad chilling effect; not only was it considered totally abhorrent and unthinkable to actually be any stripe of Marxist, but even saying, "hey, I think this is going a little too far" was enough to be branded a communist sympathizer. The only way anyone managed to criticize it was to write vague stories about literal witch hunts and pretend that they weren't allegorical. Clearly, this system isn't perfect. But neither do the excesses of McCarthyism actually excuse Stalin or the now-thoroughly-documented actual infiltration of Soviet spies and assets in 1950's America. It is possible to see the evil in both.