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Imagine not understanding that there may be some disagreement about whether something 'considered objectionable or offensive' is truly objectionable or offensiv

Imagine not understanding that there may be some disagreement about whether something 'considered objectionable or offensive' is truly objectionable or offensive, having problems with shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to canceling people, or believing there may be some gray area in anything in the world. Look, we can do this back and forth all day unless we all agree there is nuance to anything - including cancel culture. There are great applications of free association (the benign aspect of cancel culture) and there are poor mob justice applications of cancel culture. Let's not pretend the issue is black and white. Or in other words on one end of the spectrum you have moral progress and on the other end you have witchhunts/mccarthyism/moral panic.

jjk166 6y ago
> Imagine not understanding that there may be some disagreement about whether something 'considered objectionable or offensive' is truly objectionable or offensive And this is really the crux of the issue. If I find what you have done to be objectionable or offensive, it shouldn't matter that there is debate about what society at large considers objectionable or offensive, you have lost my personal support. If lots of people also consider it objectionable or offensive, and they all subsequently withdraw their support, that's how things are supposed to work. You don't get to decide what other people get offended by, nor do you get to decide how long it should take them to get offended by it. If my support is valuable to you then you shouldn't do those things which I say offend me for fear of losing my support. If you don't value my support, then you are free to ignore my cancelling of said support. This is what it means to live in a free market of ideas. Let's not pretend that this issue is some complicated and nuanced situation. There have always been weirdos out there who get vocally offended by dumb things - maybe you pissed off a bunch of flat earthers by having a globe in your profile pic - and nobody cared. The reason people are concerned about cancel culture is that they recognize that some of the things they have said or done or plan to do could legitimately be considered objectionable and offensive by a significant number of people, and rather than choosing to address their own behavior they instead choose whine about how unfair it is that people don't unconditionally support them.
- Normille 6y ago
  >> whine about how unfair it is that people don't unconditionally support them... There's a difference between 'not unconditionally supporting' someone who offends you and, mob-handed, hounding that person, their associates, their employers in an attempt to have them ostracised, sacked and their life ruined.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    Imagine you went into a McDonalds and the cashier called you a racial slur. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to tell people that this happened and why it offended you. I think it would be quite reasonable if other people agreed that such behavior was unsupportable. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to request that McDonalds take measures so this sort of thing doesn't happen again. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for others who are also appalled that this happened to do the same. I think it would be quite reasonable to stop frequenting McDonalds if they instead did nothing. I think it would be quite reasonable for McDonalds to make the requested changes for the sake of not losing those paying customers. Now let us consider the reverse. Would it be reasonable to say that you shouldn't tell anyone this happened to you? Would it be reasonable to say no one else should be able to form an opinion on this? Would it be reasonable to forbid you from asking McDonalds for any sort of change to address the issue? Would it be reasonable to force you to continue frequenting that McDonalds if it didn't? Would it be reasonable to forbid McDonalds from firing their employee for a decision they had made which McDonalds considers to be wrong? No, there is no middle ground between forcing people to support things and them being free not to support things; it's a boolean situation. Cancel culture is merely a large number of people deciding to excersize that freedom to not support things. Sure should a situation move beyond people just complaining on twitter - perhaps people start doxxing or inciting violence - then that is unacceptable. But that's not what we are talking about here. If you have the freedom to say what you wish, they have the freedom to denounce you for what you say. If you can't take it, you shouldn't dish it out to begin with.
    - slowmovintarget 6y ago
      > Cancel culture is merely a large number of people deciding to excersize that freedom to not support things. No, Cancel Culture is the deliberate attempt to destroy people who disagree. "Not supporting" would be an avoidance of the person or business. You don't give them any of your money. That is the middle ground, by the way, and like nearly all the rest of real life it isn't a binary situation. Actively tearing down someone's life is not the same as "not supporting" them. Unless one lives in some sort of philosophical bubble where one's actions must always have the approval of the group or else be prevented, non-support is simply lack of encouragement. What we're really talking about is intolerance. Now we have something to sink our teeth into. Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance" is that in a tolerant society, there would necessarily be some intolerance. The primary thing to oppose? We must not tolerate attacking people whose ideas differ from ours. After that, I think we can come to some agreements on what social behaviors cannot be tolerated (violence, racism, theft...). There's one other thing missing from this whole notion of cancelling. No one is ever actually allowed to change their ways and gain forgiveness. It provides no room for mercy or growth. It only hands out condemnation, replacing one set of unreasonable biases with a different set. We can do better than that.

jjk166 6y ago

> Imagine not understanding that there may be some disagreement about whether something 'considered objectionable or offensive' is truly objectionable or offensive And this is really the crux of the issue. If I find what you have done to be objectionable or offensive, it shouldn't matter that there is debate about what society at large considers objectionable or offensive, you have lost my personal support. If lots of people also consider it objectionable or offensive, and they all subsequently withdraw their support, that's how things are supposed to work. You don't get to decide what other people get offended by, nor do you get to decide how long it should take them to get offended by it. If my support is valuable to you then you shouldn't do those things which I say offend me for fear of losing my support. If you don't value my support, then you are free to ignore my cancelling of said support. This is what it means to live in a free market of ideas. Let's not pretend that this issue is some complicated and nuanced situation. There have always been weirdos out there who get vocally offended by dumb things - maybe you pissed off a bunch of flat earthers by having a globe in your profile pic - and nobody cared. The reason people are concerned about cancel culture is that they recognize that some of the things they have said or done or plan to do could legitimately be considered objectionable and offensive by a significant number of people, and rather than choosing to address their own behavior they instead choose whine about how unfair it is that people don't unconditionally support them.

Normille 6y ago
>> whine about how unfair it is that people don't unconditionally support them... There's a difference between 'not unconditionally supporting' someone who offends you and, mob-handed, hounding that person, their associates, their employers in an attempt to have them ostracised, sacked and their life ruined.
- jjk166 6y ago
  Imagine you went into a McDonalds and the cashier called you a racial slur. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to tell people that this happened and why it offended you. I think it would be quite reasonable if other people agreed that such behavior was unsupportable. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to request that McDonalds take measures so this sort of thing doesn't happen again. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for others who are also appalled that this happened to do the same. I think it would be quite reasonable to stop frequenting McDonalds if they instead did nothing. I think it would be quite reasonable for McDonalds to make the requested changes for the sake of not losing those paying customers. Now let us consider the reverse. Would it be reasonable to say that you shouldn't tell anyone this happened to you? Would it be reasonable to say no one else should be able to form an opinion on this? Would it be reasonable to forbid you from asking McDonalds for any sort of change to address the issue? Would it be reasonable to force you to continue frequenting that McDonalds if it didn't? Would it be reasonable to forbid McDonalds from firing their employee for a decision they had made which McDonalds considers to be wrong? No, there is no middle ground between forcing people to support things and them being free not to support things; it's a boolean situation. Cancel culture is merely a large number of people deciding to excersize that freedom to not support things. Sure should a situation move beyond people just complaining on twitter - perhaps people start doxxing or inciting violence - then that is unacceptable. But that's not what we are talking about here. If you have the freedom to say what you wish, they have the freedom to denounce you for what you say. If you can't take it, you shouldn't dish it out to begin with.
  - slowmovintarget 6y ago
    > Cancel culture is merely a large number of people deciding to excersize that freedom to not support things. No, Cancel Culture is the deliberate attempt to destroy people who disagree. "Not supporting" would be an avoidance of the person or business. You don't give them any of your money. That is the middle ground, by the way, and like nearly all the rest of real life it isn't a binary situation. Actively tearing down someone's life is not the same as "not supporting" them. Unless one lives in some sort of philosophical bubble where one's actions must always have the approval of the group or else be prevented, non-support is simply lack of encouragement. What we're really talking about is intolerance. Now we have something to sink our teeth into. Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance" is that in a tolerant society, there would necessarily be some intolerance. The primary thing to oppose? We must not tolerate attacking people whose ideas differ from ours. After that, I think we can come to some agreements on what social behaviors cannot be tolerated (violence, racism, theft...). There's one other thing missing from this whole notion of cancelling. No one is ever actually allowed to change their ways and gain forgiveness. It provides no room for mercy or growth. It only hands out condemnation, replacing one set of unreasonable biases with a different set. We can do better than that.