16 ms·

pg has been opining about so-called "cancel culture" on twitter, and the last paragraph makes it clear that this entire post is his attempt to formulate a respo

by Kapura 6y ago

pg has been opining about so-called "cancel culture" on twitter, and the last paragraph makes it clear that this entire post is his attempt to formulate a response: >Once you realize that orthodox privilege exists, a lot of other things become clearer. For example, how can it be that a large number of reasonable, intelligent people worry about something they call "cancel culture," while other reasonable, intelligent people deny that it's a problem? Once you understand the concept of orthodox privilege, it's easy to see the source of this disagreement. If you believe there's nothing true that you can't say, then anyone who gets in trouble for something they say must deserve it. "Orthodox privilege" is, he sees, why some people are not worried about being "cancelled." In his mind, these people are saying what is considered correct, so they don't fear cancellation. Perhaps this is true for some people, but I think that it is inventing (or at least overscoping) a phenomenon to answer a question that has another, simpler answer. Some people are able to honestly assess their past positions and statements, understand why things could be construed as problematic, and make efforts to better themselves. That, and a sense of what conversations are appropriate for public forums versus informal conversation over drinks, act as pretty great cancellation buffers.

Tainnor 6y ago
I think it's more that most people realise "I get in trouble if I say that, so I just won't say it anymore" or "everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore". Those people might be leading healthier lives (why die on a hill you don't have to die on), but it doesn't mean they're closer to the truth necessarily. The fact about some debates not being acceptable on public forums as opposed to private discussions would be fine, if it weren't for that fact that it's being applied extremely inconsistently.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > "everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore" I would like to quote pg's own rhetoric of "is my situation unique?": > And yet at every point in history, there were true things that would get you in terrible trouble to say. Is ours the first where this isn't so? What an amazing coincidence that would be. I suspect that many people, myself among them, think "everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I am likely to be wrong." Otherwise I am forced to believe that I am the only person who can see things correctly, a mindset that is at least statistically false, even if it might very occasionally apply to a particular person. This response I think naturally worries a lot of people, since it sounds awfully close to silencing dissent, but there are two things that I think make it meaningfully different. 1. If everyone disagrees with you about your scientific, or otherwise verifiable, ideas, then you definitely should not say "oh well, I must be wrong." You should test those ideas. The risk (failed investment in a test whose outcome was widely predicted) and reward (being the scientific or other leader in a discovery that upends expectations) here are both high, and many parts of science, at least, are set up to reward individuals who decide to make that trade. 2. There is a difference between my saying "everyone disagrees with me, so I am likely to be wrong", which I think is a good thing, and my saying "everyone disagrees with me, so I am wrong", which I think is a bad thing. Experiencing widespread disagreement should make me carefully examine my assumptions and biases, not just import opposite assumptions and biases.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    I think we just disagree about the implications of "everyone disagrees with me". I may not be fully knowledgeable about many things, but in the few things that I do know a lot about, I know that many people have no idea what they're talking about; but this also means that even in the areas where I'm not necessarily 100% sure whether my opinion is right, I don't tend to just go with whatever everyone believes is true. That doesn't necessarily mean that I am correct, but it also doesn't mean that the other person is. I do tend to believe well-respected and well-published scientists unless I have very, very strong reasons to believe the contrary, but that's about it. edit: Furthermore, your statement assumes that it's always about a situation where you can be "right" or "wrong", but in many, especially ethical, questions, there is no "right" or "wrong", just different priorities and points of view. I think many people do recognise that "it can't be that wrong to disagree about this, whatever my personal opinion", but prefer not to object because why bother?
  - totony 6y ago
    You assume dissent is because "everyone disagrees with me", but, from what I've seen, cancel culture-style fisagreements are about a side being way more vocal than the other, not necessarily correlated with thr number of people who agree.
    - JadeNB 6y ago
      It's worth it to me to question my perspective if even one person disagrees with me—frankly, even if no-one disagrees with me. If my beliefs can't hold up even under my own scrutiny, how can they hold up under anyone else's? I would mention besides that, while there are often a few people very loud about their disagreement, there is no reason to think that there aren't more people made uncomfortable by an assumption I made that I didn't even realise I was making, people who don't feel safe confronting me about it. Maybe I hold the opinion sufficiently strongly that it's more important to me to say than to avoid worrying about it offending someone else, and I think that can be the right decision; but I'd rather make that decision consciously than bumble into offending someone out of ignorance.
      - 6y ago
- gus_massa 6y ago
  What about historical scenarios like: * I think that slavery is immoral, but I get in trouble if I say that, so I just won't say it anymore. * I'm {gay, lesbian, ...} but everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore. * I think that the Holy Trinity should have {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...} members, but I get in trouble if I say that, so I just won't say it anymore. * I think that {capitalism, communism} is {good, bad} but everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here. All these things have happened and still sometimes continue to happen. I don't know whether anyone has ever denied that but I certainly haven't.
    - gus_massa 6y ago
      I think we agree that these opinions caused problem in the pass and even now. The problem is that self censorship can be used to suppress bad ideas and also to suppress good ideas.
tinalumfoil 6y ago
Some parts of the US have culture such that a working class utility worker can get fired for unintentionally making the OK symbol, because a Twitter mob decided it's racist and harassed his employer [0]. It's McCarthy 2.0 (although not the entire US), driven by employers worried about their brand. Talk of "understand[ing] why things could be construed as problematic, and mak[ing] efforts to better themselves" is detached from this realty. [0] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...
- Kapura 6y ago
  the twitter mob didn't "decide it was racist," racists started co-opting that symbol to identify themselves to one another in a way that flies under the radar[1]. The term is "dog-whistle." I can't speak to the case in question, but my guess is that there were other dynamics in play if the "ok symbol" was enough to get him fired. [1] https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-h...
  - emiliobumachar 6y ago
    > but my guess is that there were other dynamics in play if the "ok symbol" was enough to get him fired. Hypothetically, if it turned out that there were no "other dynamics in play", would you then agree that his firing was wrong and every single twitter user who demanded it is morally responsible?
    - llbeansandrice 6y ago
      No, that's ridiculous. The twitter mob didn't fire them, their employer did. This premise is flawed.
      - emiliobumachar 6y ago
        There's plenty of blame to go around. If I ask someone to do something and they do it, do I really bear no responsibility?
kspacewalk2 6y ago
>Some people are able to honestly assess their past positions and statements, understand why things could be construed as problematic, and make efforts to better themselves. That, and a sense of what conversations are appropriate for public forums versus informal conversation over drinks, act as pretty great cancellation buffers. This is wonderfully sensible when the problematic things in question are unequivocally problematic (e.g. justification of genocide, or explicit racism). For those things that are borderline, as well as those whose problematic nature is in dispute, it's not so clear cut. Herein lies a strategy for silencing a viewpoint - descend on those who express it with vigorous Twitter fury, deprive a few of them of their livelihoods, et voila! Something that has been discussed in public (and perhaps ought to be discussed) is now confined to "informal conversation over drinks". The offensive-to-some viewpoint is silenced, all is well! Well, not to me. I am a liberal, and thus I believe that discussion and disagreement over ideas helps improve the good ones and helps sink the bad ones. Disagreement is not a chore, it's the fundamental feature that every free society should cherish. But we should probably restrict justification of genocide, and explicit racism.
btilly 6y ago
The example of Niel Golightly demonstrates that opinions we held decades ago and have not held for many years can still get us fired. Thus, being willing to better yourself is no protection. See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-resignation/boeing-communications-chief-resigns-over-decades-old-article-on-women-in-combat-idUSKBN24334J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-resignation/boeing... for the story. Just to give a sense, at the time more than 50% of Americans agreed with each of these statements: Women should not serve in the military. Homosexual relationships between consenting adults should not be legal. Interracial relationships are wrong. Today, those opinions are a firing offense. And if you said them publicly, they are a firing offense no matter how many years it has been since you thought them.
- Kapura 6y ago
  I mean, they're a C-level executive, i could see why employees, especially women working under him, might be less than thrilled if they were still in power. I think that his response in that article was appropriate, but I'm also not losing sleep for any millionaire airplane executives that now need to find something else to do with their time.
  - btilly 6y ago
    Did you notice that you moved the goalposts? You went from, "People who try to improve themselves are safe" to, "We can't have sympathy for rich people." But it doesn't just happen to rich people. And when you're presented with an example of that, you'll find another excuse. The honest thing to do is to go back to your original statement and say, "I was wrong." To demonstrate in yourself the very open mindedness and willingness to rethink your beliefs that you think should be protection against shifts in political culture. (But which aren't.) Are you going to be honest? Or will you continue moving goalposts to justify your wrong claim?
    - Kapura 6y ago
      You're putting words into my mouth. I never said "People who try to improve themselves are safe;" the world is full of too much nuance and complexity for me to make a sweeping statement like that. Nor did I say "We can't have sympathy for rich people;" my main concern in the specific case mentioned would be power dynamics at play moreso than wealth dynamics (although there is an undeniable link). I suggest you re-read my original post; I was trying to suggest in a broad way that pg was wrong about why some people aren't afraid of being cancelled in a way that has nothing to do with so-called "orthodox privilege."
NoodleIncident 6y ago
After scrolling past hundreds of comments, this is the highest top-level comment that's actually about the post, and not an unrelated monologue triggered by the words used in the post. So thank you. After 20 minutes on the internet, I have grown so, so tired of reading long, principled, idealistic essays that just so happen to defend racists, sexists, nazis, etc at the end. It's obviously a huge coincidence that he happened to be thinking about privilege, and just happened to come up with this concept of Orthodox Privilege, and by only applying sound logic to this premise, it proves that actually cancel culture is bad mmk. There isn't a chance in the world that he started with the conclusion that he doesn't like cancel culture, and then searched around for some word used by those people that can be twisted into denouncing them. No sir. And for the record, I felt the same way before getting to the end, not knowing any of this context, because the actual essay is entirely unconvincing. Sampling his other essays to refresh my memory, they're stuffed full of examples to convince you in between each logical leap. Where this essay should have done that, it just vaguely subtweets people disagreeing with stuff he says that you "can't" say. You're expected to fill in the blanks yourself with some noble suppressed truths (ideas... are bulletproof!), when the whole time he's really talking about people getting cancelled (yelling at black people on the internet).
- emiliobumachar 6y ago
  Assuming that he started out not liking cancel culture and then searched around for how to denounce them, what's wrong with it? I'm generally opposed to cancel culture but generally can't be bothered to clearly articulate my objections, i.e. search around for the best words to denounce them. I think it's generally positive that some people, such as pg, are willing to articulate their objections to cancel culture.
  - NoodleIncident 6y ago
    Well, I don't like being lied to. In July of 2020, has there actually been a lot of talk about privilege? Is that really where this thought process started? It seems way more likely that he started by complaining about cancel culture, so the beginning of this essay seems dishonest to me. While I'm replying, I might as well link the comic I was referencing for anyone who hasn't seen it. This is what I think of whenever someone starts getting really abstract about free speech or not being allowed to say things instead of clearly articulating what they actually mean: https://imgur.com/YWK9z19 https://imgur.com/YWK9z19
closeparen 6y ago
>things could be construed as problematic, and make efforts to better themselves The substantive disagreement here is whether backing off things that "could be construed as problematic" makes you or the discourse "better."

by Kapura 6y ago

Tainnor 6y ago

I think it's more that most people realise "I get in trouble if I say that, so I just won't say it anymore" or "everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore". Those people might be leading healthier lives (why die on a hill you don't have to die on), but it doesn't mean they're closer to the truth necessarily. The fact about some debates not being acceptable on public forums as opposed to private discussions would be fine, if it weren't for that fact that it's being applied extremely inconsistently.

JadeNB 6y ago
> "everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore" I would like to quote pg's own rhetoric of "is my situation unique?": > And yet at every point in history, there were true things that would get you in terrible trouble to say. Is ours the first where this isn't so? What an amazing coincidence that would be. I suspect that many people, myself among them, think "everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I am likely to be wrong." Otherwise I am forced to believe that I am the only person who can see things correctly, a mindset that is at least statistically false, even if it might very occasionally apply to a particular person. This response I think naturally worries a lot of people, since it sounds awfully close to silencing dissent, but there are two things that I think make it meaningfully different. 1. If everyone disagrees with you about your scientific, or otherwise verifiable, ideas, then you definitely should not say "oh well, I must be wrong." You should test those ideas. The risk (failed investment in a test whose outcome was widely predicted) and reward (being the scientific or other leader in a discovery that upends expectations) here are both high, and many parts of science, at least, are set up to reward individuals who decide to make that trade. 2. There is a difference between my saying "everyone disagrees with me, so I am likely to be wrong", which I think is a good thing, and my saying "everyone disagrees with me, so I am wrong", which I think is a bad thing. Experiencing widespread disagreement should make me carefully examine my assumptions and biases, not just import opposite assumptions and biases.
- Tainnor 6y ago
  I think we just disagree about the implications of "everyone disagrees with me". I may not be fully knowledgeable about many things, but in the few things that I do know a lot about, I know that many people have no idea what they're talking about; but this also means that even in the areas where I'm not necessarily 100% sure whether my opinion is right, I don't tend to just go with whatever everyone believes is true. That doesn't necessarily mean that I am correct, but it also doesn't mean that the other person is. I do tend to believe well-respected and well-published scientists unless I have very, very strong reasons to believe the contrary, but that's about it. edit: Furthermore, your statement assumes that it's always about a situation where you can be "right" or "wrong", but in many, especially ethical, questions, there is no "right" or "wrong", just different priorities and points of view. I think many people do recognise that "it can't be that wrong to disagree about this, whatever my personal opinion", but prefer not to object because why bother?
- totony 6y ago
  You assume dissent is because "everyone disagrees with me", but, from what I've seen, cancel culture-style fisagreements are about a side being way more vocal than the other, not necessarily correlated with thr number of people who agree.
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    It's worth it to me to question my perspective if even one person disagrees with me—frankly, even if no-one disagrees with me. If my beliefs can't hold up even under my own scrutiny, how can they hold up under anyone else's? I would mention besides that, while there are often a few people very loud about their disagreement, there is no reason to think that there aren't more people made uncomfortable by an assumption I made that I didn't even realise I was making, people who don't feel safe confronting me about it. Maybe I hold the opinion sufficiently strongly that it's more important to me to say than to avoid worrying about it offending someone else, and I think that can be the right decision; but I'd rather make that decision consciously than bumble into offending someone out of ignorance.
    - 6y ago
gus_massa 6y ago
What about historical scenarios like: * I think that slavery is immoral, but I get in trouble if I say that, so I just won't say it anymore. * I'm {gay, lesbian, ...} but everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore. * I think that the Holy Trinity should have {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...} members, but I get in trouble if I say that, so I just won't say it anymore. * I think that {capitalism, communism} is {good, bad} but everyone seems to disagree with me on this, so I won't even think about it anymore.
- Tainnor 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here. All these things have happened and still sometimes continue to happen. I don't know whether anyone has ever denied that but I certainly haven't.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    I think we agree that these opinions caused problem in the pass and even now. The problem is that self censorship can be used to suppress bad ideas and also to suppress good ideas.

tinalumfoil 6y ago

Some parts of the US have culture such that a working class utility worker can get fired for unintentionally making the OK symbol, because a Twitter mob decided it's racist and harassed his employer [0]. It's McCarthy 2.0 (although not the entire US), driven by employers worried about their brand. Talk of "understand[ing] why things could be construed as problematic, and mak[ing] efforts to better themselves" is detached from this realty. [0] https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...

Kapura 6y ago
the twitter mob didn't "decide it was racist," racists started co-opting that symbol to identify themselves to one another in a way that flies under the radar[1]. The term is "dog-whistle." I can't speak to the case in question, but my guess is that there were other dynamics in play if the "ok symbol" was enough to get him fired. [1] https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-h...
- emiliobumachar 6y ago
  > but my guess is that there were other dynamics in play if the "ok symbol" was enough to get him fired. Hypothetically, if it turned out that there were no "other dynamics in play", would you then agree that his firing was wrong and every single twitter user who demanded it is morally responsible?
  - llbeansandrice 6y ago
    No, that's ridiculous. The twitter mob didn't fire them, their employer did. This premise is flawed.
    - emiliobumachar 6y ago
      There's plenty of blame to go around. If I ask someone to do something and they do it, do I really bear no responsibility?

kspacewalk2 6y ago

>Some people are able to honestly assess their past positions and statements, understand why things could be construed as problematic, and make efforts to better themselves. That, and a sense of what conversations are appropriate for public forums versus informal conversation over drinks, act as pretty great cancellation buffers. This is wonderfully sensible when the problematic things in question are unequivocally problematic (e.g. justification of genocide, or explicit racism). For those things that are borderline, as well as those whose problematic nature is in dispute, it's not so clear cut. Herein lies a strategy for silencing a viewpoint - descend on those who express it with vigorous Twitter fury, deprive a few of them of their livelihoods, et voila! Something that has been discussed in public (and perhaps ought to be discussed) is now confined to "informal conversation over drinks". The offensive-to-some viewpoint is silenced, all is well! Well, not to me. I am a liberal, and thus I believe that discussion and disagreement over ideas helps improve the good ones and helps sink the bad ones. Disagreement is not a chore, it's the fundamental feature that every free society should cherish. But we should probably restrict justification of genocide, and explicit racism.

btilly 6y ago

The example of Niel Golightly demonstrates that opinions we held decades ago and have not held for many years can still get us fired. Thus, being willing to better yourself is no protection. See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-resignation/boeing-communications-chief-resigns-over-decades-old-article-on-women-in-combat-idUSKBN24334J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-resignation/boeing... for the story. Just to give a sense, at the time more than 50% of Americans agreed with each of these statements: Women should not serve in the military. Homosexual relationships between consenting adults should not be legal. Interracial relationships are wrong. Today, those opinions are a firing offense. And if you said them publicly, they are a firing offense no matter how many years it has been since you thought them.

Kapura 6y ago
I mean, they're a C-level executive, i could see why employees, especially women working under him, might be less than thrilled if they were still in power. I think that his response in that article was appropriate, but I'm also not losing sleep for any millionaire airplane executives that now need to find something else to do with their time.
- btilly 6y ago
  Did you notice that you moved the goalposts? You went from, "People who try to improve themselves are safe" to, "We can't have sympathy for rich people." But it doesn't just happen to rich people. And when you're presented with an example of that, you'll find another excuse. The honest thing to do is to go back to your original statement and say, "I was wrong." To demonstrate in yourself the very open mindedness and willingness to rethink your beliefs that you think should be protection against shifts in political culture. (But which aren't.) Are you going to be honest? Or will you continue moving goalposts to justify your wrong claim?
  - Kapura 6y ago
    You're putting words into my mouth. I never said "People who try to improve themselves are safe;" the world is full of too much nuance and complexity for me to make a sweeping statement like that. Nor did I say "We can't have sympathy for rich people;" my main concern in the specific case mentioned would be power dynamics at play moreso than wealth dynamics (although there is an undeniable link). I suggest you re-read my original post; I was trying to suggest in a broad way that pg was wrong about why some people aren't afraid of being cancelled in a way that has nothing to do with so-called "orthodox privilege."

NoodleIncident 6y ago

After scrolling past hundreds of comments, this is the highest top-level comment that's actually about the post, and not an unrelated monologue triggered by the words used in the post. So thank you. After 20 minutes on the internet, I have grown so, so tired of reading long, principled, idealistic essays that just so happen to defend racists, sexists, nazis, etc at the end. It's obviously a huge coincidence that he happened to be thinking about privilege, and just happened to come up with this concept of Orthodox Privilege, and by only applying sound logic to this premise, it proves that actually cancel culture is bad mmk. There isn't a chance in the world that he started with the conclusion that he doesn't like cancel culture, and then searched around for some word used by those people that can be twisted into denouncing them. No sir. And for the record, I felt the same way before getting to the end, not knowing any of this context, because the actual essay is entirely unconvincing. Sampling his other essays to refresh my memory, they're stuffed full of examples to convince you in between each logical leap. Where this essay should have done that, it just vaguely subtweets people disagreeing with stuff he says that you "can't" say. You're expected to fill in the blanks yourself with some noble suppressed truths (ideas... are bulletproof!), when the whole time he's really talking about people getting cancelled (yelling at black people on the internet).

emiliobumachar 6y ago
Assuming that he started out not liking cancel culture and then searched around for how to denounce them, what's wrong with it? I'm generally opposed to cancel culture but generally can't be bothered to clearly articulate my objections, i.e. search around for the best words to denounce them. I think it's generally positive that some people, such as pg, are willing to articulate their objections to cancel culture.
- NoodleIncident 6y ago
  Well, I don't like being lied to. In July of 2020, has there actually been a lot of talk about privilege? Is that really where this thought process started? It seems way more likely that he started by complaining about cancel culture, so the beginning of this essay seems dishonest to me. While I'm replying, I might as well link the comic I was referencing for anyone who hasn't seen it. This is what I think of whenever someone starts getting really abstract about free speech or not being allowed to say things instead of clearly articulating what they actually mean: https://imgur.com/YWK9z19 https://imgur.com/YWK9z19

closeparen 6y ago

>things could be construed as problematic, and make efforts to better themselves The substantive disagreement here is whether backing off things that "could be construed as problematic" makes you or the discourse "better."