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Yeah, but the “climate of fear” arises only because powerful people with prominent platforms are afraid of being criticized. And criticism is protected speech.
by iron0013 6y ago
Yeah, but the “climate of fear” arises only because powerful people with prominent platforms are afraid of being criticized. And criticism is protected speech.
- throwaway894345 6y agoThis is utterly disingenuous. 1. Cancelling targets anyone who fails to adequately toe the progressive party line. Sometimes those people are "powerful" relative to any individual mob constituent, but often they are not (for example, the hispanic worker at the California utility company who was fired for making the "ok" gesture without realizing that it offends progressives). 2. Cancelling isn't criticism, it's harassment, usually by doxxing or trying to get someone fired. Criticism is perfectly fine, cancelling goes beyond criticism. 3. Focusing solely on the power dynamics minimizes the moral issue, which is that slander, harassment, and bullying are abhorrent irrespective of power dynamics (although yes, being 'powerful' means you're better capable to weather the injustice). 4. Not only is cancellation wrong on an individual level, in aggregate it creates a climate of fear which affects everyone whose views are unapproved (although as the mob realizes its power, it increasingly goes after its own for astonishingly trivial offenses). For those lovers of "power dynamics", it should be noted that this climate of fear disproportionately affects the powerless (who could have predicted that an angry mob would be more invested in its own destructive catharsis than the people it purports to care about?).
- iron0013 6y agoEverything you just said is either wrong or a lie.