5 ms·

I commented about the coming cancellation of Steven Pinker 6 days ago, as it has been developing for a little bit on social media and follows several other camp

I commented about the coming cancellation of Steven Pinker 6 days ago, as it has been developing for a little bit on social media and follows several other campaigns to censor and oppress other professors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23788095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23788095. The charge of “scientific racism” leveled against Pinker is simply rhetorical warfare, waged using an emotionally charged term like “racism”. The pursuit of objective, quantitative, rational, scientific analysis is now under attack using this label. It is the mob burying their head in the sand, unwilling to yield when reality disagrees with their ideological stance. It is anti-science. But these days, even being objective and scientific is seen as offensive to the progressive mentality. And I mean this literally, as seen in the recent Smithsonian chart that they took down (https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333 https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rationa...). Cancel culture isn’t a recent trend - there are entire websites dedicated to cancel culture on college campuses, such as https://www.thecollegefix.com/ https://www.thecollegefix.com/. Free thought, free inquiry, and open debate are under attack from those that want only their worldview to prevail. It is a direct threat to a free society and much has been written about it recently from Quillette (https://quillette.com/2020/07/01/on-steve-hsu-and-the-campaign-to-thwart-free-inquiry/ https://quillette.com/2020/07/01/on-steve-hsu-and-the-campai...) and Harper’s (https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/ https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/) and others. I’m not sure how to fight back except to create direct consequences for those pursuing cancellation. Perhaps we need to shame and demand the firing of everyone who signs such letters, demanding censorship and cancellation of others.

eesmith 6y ago
The "Open Letter to the LSA" by what what you describe as "crazed and radicalized students at Harvard" asks: > to remove Dr. Pinker from the LSA fellows list and the list of media experts falls within the purview of the LSA because of the goals that the LSA has set for itself ... > We want to note here that we have no desire to judge Dr. Pinker’s actions in moral terms, or claim to know what his aims are. Nor do we seek to “cancel” Dr. Pinker, or to bar him from participating in the linguistics and LSA communities (though many of our signatories may well believe that doing so would be the right course of action). If that's "cancel culture" - how do I tell the difference between "cancel culture" and any other sort of advocacy which results in removing someone from a couple of lists? Because I've been trying hard to understand what "cancel culture" means, and the descriptions of it don't seem to make any sense.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  There is some debate as to whether cancel culture is real and what its exact definition is. This article from RealClearPolitics discusses it and includes links to some opposing views as well: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/15/cancel_culture_is_real.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/15/cancel... To me, cancel culture is the notion of introducing political/ideological/personal stances into various spheres where it doesn’t belong (is not directly relevant) and using it to suppress certain views, punish those who harbor those views, exclude certain lines of research/debate from being pursued, and instill fear (of reprisal) in those who might otherwise explore those areas. It is not focused on correctness of views or resolution of conflicting conclusions, but rather blind censorship, suppression, and use of fear. In this case, the LSA recently introduced a “racial justice” policy and now the signatories of this letter are claiming that inclusion of Pinker is not aligned to this new policy. What does racial justice have to do with the LSA’s core field that isn’t already included as part of the pursuit of truth? Very little. It is the injection of a political and ideological view into a scientific sphere. Adoption of such a policy enables the weaponization of the organization’s structure/laws against Pinker. The specific incidents (statements made by Pinker) that are called out in the letter are issues that can be debated without such a policy in place. The correctness of some claim (like “there is no racial bias in police shooting”) is worthy of scrutiny independent of this campaign to cancel Pinker. After all, isn’t that the point of research - to develop ideas, gather facts, form arguments, and compare against other findings? Why isn’t that sufficient - shouldn’t the truth set us free? Researchers and professors are both allowed to be wrong and allowed to form opinions that disagree with the prevailing sentiment. Without that there is no environment for honest learning and expansion of societal knowledge. But cancel culture precludes such exploration by taking ideological opinions as fundamental factual presumptions. And there is no room for error in these situations - someone like Pinker can have a lifetime of achievement and correctness and then be judged on a couple tweets by a random selection of engineers, grad students, and assistant professors. As for Pinker’s specific claims - it is fairly trivial to validate them, or at least agree that there is substantial grounds to hold those opinion. The letter itself makes no serious argument against those statements that they find so problematic. I don’t want to derail this post by analyzing each claim, but my point is that it is about ideology not facts.

eesmith 6y ago

The "Open Letter to the LSA" by what what you describe as "crazed and radicalized students at Harvard" asks: > to remove Dr. Pinker from the LSA fellows list and the list of media experts falls within the purview of the LSA because of the goals that the LSA has set for itself ... > We want to note here that we have no desire to judge Dr. Pinker’s actions in moral terms, or claim to know what his aims are. Nor do we seek to “cancel” Dr. Pinker, or to bar him from participating in the linguistics and LSA communities (though many of our signatories may well believe that doing so would be the right course of action). If that's "cancel culture" - how do I tell the difference between "cancel culture" and any other sort of advocacy which results in removing someone from a couple of lists? Because I've been trying hard to understand what "cancel culture" means, and the descriptions of it don't seem to make any sense.

throwawaysea 6y ago
There is some debate as to whether cancel culture is real and what its exact definition is. This article from RealClearPolitics discusses it and includes links to some opposing views as well: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/15/cancel_culture_is_real.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/15/cancel... To me, cancel culture is the notion of introducing political/ideological/personal stances into various spheres where it doesn’t belong (is not directly relevant) and using it to suppress certain views, punish those who harbor those views, exclude certain lines of research/debate from being pursued, and instill fear (of reprisal) in those who might otherwise explore those areas. It is not focused on correctness of views or resolution of conflicting conclusions, but rather blind censorship, suppression, and use of fear. In this case, the LSA recently introduced a “racial justice” policy and now the signatories of this letter are claiming that inclusion of Pinker is not aligned to this new policy. What does racial justice have to do with the LSA’s core field that isn’t already included as part of the pursuit of truth? Very little. It is the injection of a political and ideological view into a scientific sphere. Adoption of such a policy enables the weaponization of the organization’s structure/laws against Pinker. The specific incidents (statements made by Pinker) that are called out in the letter are issues that can be debated without such a policy in place. The correctness of some claim (like “there is no racial bias in police shooting”) is worthy of scrutiny independent of this campaign to cancel Pinker. After all, isn’t that the point of research - to develop ideas, gather facts, form arguments, and compare against other findings? Why isn’t that sufficient - shouldn’t the truth set us free? Researchers and professors are both allowed to be wrong and allowed to form opinions that disagree with the prevailing sentiment. Without that there is no environment for honest learning and expansion of societal knowledge. But cancel culture precludes such exploration by taking ideological opinions as fundamental factual presumptions. And there is no room for error in these situations - someone like Pinker can have a lifetime of achievement and correctness and then be judged on a couple tweets by a random selection of engineers, grad students, and assistant professors. As for Pinker’s specific claims - it is fairly trivial to validate them, or at least agree that there is substantial grounds to hold those opinion. The letter itself makes no serious argument against those statements that they find so problematic. I don’t want to derail this post by analyzing each claim, but my point is that it is about ideology not facts.