7 ms·

I will never understand the extreme intellectual fragility of cancel culture. A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagr

I will never understand the extreme intellectual fragility of cancel culture. A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement or what is it that have created such a thin skinned generation of seemingly well educated people?

gedy 6y ago
I heard from a retired teacher that the change he saw over time in young people was somewhat due to they grew up in smaller families with 0-1 siblings, and didn't have to share rooms, toys, etc.
actuator 6y ago
Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. Mob like behaviour to hound someone for their beliefs just reeks of illiberalism.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. She has changed a lot since writing Harry Potter. It's obvious that she no longer believes in supporting marginalised groups or telling people that it's OK to be who you want to be. Her recent work is extremely political and designed to further marginalise people who are already marginalised - she's literally just had a book published that's about a serial killer who dresses as a woman to approach and attack other women, which isn't even slightly veiled as an attack on the trans community. If that's how she thinks now then she has every right to be like that, but everyone else has the right to point out she's being an asshole. As always, there's an XKCD for this - https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
  - shiba_developer 6y ago
    Oh yeah, because trans people are living saints and can never ever be murderers.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      The number of trans murderers is incredibly tiny - can you name even one? While trying to assert that being trans makes someone more likely to be a murderer is a slur.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        Yeah don't think there are many of those. But here is one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Schmidt#:~:text=Beate%20Schmidt%20(born%20Wolfgang%20Schmidt,Schmidt%20is%20a%20trans%20woman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Schmidt#:~:text=Beate%20.... Not sure what the point is though. The discussion I tried to start was about all the normal cis-gender if you like kids who are brought up in a well meaning home, getting the right education and the right jobs but being extremely intellectually fragile. Not sure why trans suddenly needs to get included into this.
        DanBC 6y ago
        Your argument seems to be: "I can say what I like, and when the people I'm insulting turn round and argue back they're fragile. But me, I'm not in anyway fragile when I'm trying to shut them down for criticising me."
        ThomPete 6y ago
        No my argument has a context, the context here is mostly Facebook employees and their likes at twitter, spotify etc which are mostly well educated young white people.
  - ptsneves 6y ago
    Damn you see the plot point of a serial killer dressing as a woman as attack on trans? I often wonder if I am crazy, because that would never cross my mind. Why would I associate a serial killer with trans? Maybe a woman serial killer that kills women is also an attack on women? I think this kind of reaction actually harms trans more than the story. So out of this world that people will think that trans or gay or blue bi are not good in their mind and thus not a fellow person.
- lalaland1125 6y ago
  Do you think it would be "illiberal" to hound someone for believing that white people are inherently superior to black people? To keep things in context, JK Rowling has stated that she believes that biologically male people are inherently a danger to biologically female people. This is fundamentally the paradox of tolerance: is it intolerant to be hostile to intolerant beliefs? JK Rowling's essay explaining her stances on trans people: > ... I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety. > When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-...
  - mathgladiator 6y ago
    I feel JK Rowling was echoing a common sentiment in many women: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Atwood is not anti-trans and has criticised JKR for her bigoted beliefs.
  - actuator 6y ago
    I never said if I agree or disagree with her, but seeing her experience with assault in the past. Can you see why she might feel like that? I sympathise with her and the groups she referred to as well. We all are a product of our experiences and hardships, at the end of the day that shapes our opinions. We can disagree with her but do we really need to resort to these methods.
raverbashing 6y ago
> A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement You mean the "anti-maskers" who throw a fit for wearing a face covering for 30min when they have to go to the supermarket?
- jcims 6y ago
  No because there’s no desire to build or maintain a relationship with the person. You just emotionally reduce them an NPC and do damage control until they are gone. Pretty much how social media works.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Thanks for a good answer, you've got a point, though I suspect it works in similar ways with people you do and don't want to maintain a relationship (and a lot of relationships fail because of similar reasons) (Unless of course the person is good at manipulation, though eventually things fall apart)
- pwned1 6y ago
  There are plenty of "pro-maskers" who have the same meltdowns. Videos are replete online. It's all just a symptom of a culture that can't handle treating each other like human beings. Like everything is an anonymous forum online.
dx87 6y ago
I just finished reading "The Coddling of the American Mind", and it goes into the subject pretty well. A lot of it stems from parents not letting their kids be independent, so they never learn to deal with disagreements from dealing with other kids, then colleges cave to whatever demands they have because they just want to collect tuition money.
- monadic2 6y ago
  Smells like bullshit meant to coddle the american mind.
- shagie 6y ago
  An article from four days ago: How Boomer Parenting Fueled Millennial Burnout -- https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/09/anne-helen-petersen-burnout-millennial-parenting/616406/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/09/anne-hele... The initial bit of the interview in the article: > Anne Helen Petersen: There are two major factors. The first is conceiving of children as mini-adults—trying to cultivate behaviors, postures, and skills that are associated with adults, like being able to carry on conversations with adults or advocating for themselves when they feel something is unfair. I think we often admire that sort of precociousness without understanding what’s lost when you cultivate that in a child. The other component is thinking of childhood as a means to an end, and that end is getting into a good college. So instead of viewing childhood as simply childhood, parents are thinking, How can these various experiences—everything from playdates to piano lessons—lead to this larger résumé-building path to college? > When childhood is treated that way, it can eliminate space for the formation of personality, independence, or confidence. Anything not oriented toward that goal of college—things like hobbies—gets lost. One of the saddest things I heard when talking to many Millennials is that when they reach a point of exhaustion with work, lift their head up, and look around them, they're like, What else is there? Do I have a personality? Do I know what I like? There's no there there, other than their ability to work, and I think that's really difficult.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    > The first is conceiving of children as mini-adults Or it's opposite. Children recently get so overprotected (eg they no longer can go walk in the forest alone for example), so when they reach 20, they are still children mentally, they cannot stand for themselves, and they expect protection from employee, government, society even when they hear something offensive (which is a lot).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 6y ago
A lot of kids have grown up with "disagreement". The leading edge of this is trans people; if you're trans you'll find that basically everyone "disagrees" with that, sometimes to the point of violence. I think people are very used to dealing with that kind of "disagreement". What they would like is for it not to be based on prejudice, wrong assumptions, and cruelty, and to be able to get on with their lives without having to run into "disagreement" at every turn.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Given that there aren't "a lot" of transpeople I am not sure I understand your point is, care to elaborate?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    That was an example of people who receive "disagreement" simply by existing. My point is that a lot of people have recieved what you call "disagreement" and what I and they call "prejudice".
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      You are talking about two very different things. I am talking about our upbringing I am fairly sure most parents aren't prejudice against their children and I am pretty sure most kids aren't trans although it's certainly in vogue to call yourself to something of that effect in many youth circles. So it's not a good example it's missing the point as most people we are talking about here aren't trans.
      - ben_w 6y ago
        I’ve had someone openly claim I must be lying when I say I’m vegetarian; I’m just young enough to avoid my left-handedness being problematic (Latin: sinister); I don’t believe in any god, and some people think that is impossible; I’m bi and people deny that exists; I know people who are ace and the position of some Catholics is “Question: What do you call a person who is asexual? Answer: Not a person. Asexual people do not exist.” [Vision, David Nantais, S.J. and Scott Opperman, S.J., 2002]; there are people who say black lives don’t matter; likewise refuges, gypsies, Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, the disabled, communists, and billionaires; and for every successful woman you can find a man who thinks their place is the kitchen, for every lesbian a man who thinks they can be “turned straight”. The trans people I became friends with around 2008 have gone from being open about it then to being in the closet about it now. The category “trans” a valid example of the violent-denial-of-existence that some groups face. And yes, some of those trans people have their existence denied by their parents, just as some gays and lesbians are sent to “straight conversation therapy” by their parents. How prevalent that is I can’t say, but I can say that overall trans people have a surprisingly high rate of violent-existence-denial compared to all the other groups I’ve listed.
charlesu 6y ago
Like that time a professional athlete was blacklisted from his league for kneeling silently during the national anthem? Is that the cancel culture you're talking about?
- ThomPete 6y ago
  I talk about all forms of cancel culture and don't care which side of the political ail it comes from.
  - AlexandrB 6y ago
    But you said: > A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement or what is it that have created such a thin skinned generation of seemingly well educated people? Are you referring to NFL executives? I suspect not.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      The context of this is the employees at Facebook, I don't think there are many NFL executives employed at Facebook.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 6y ago
Judith Butler -- > Interviewer: You weren't a signatory to the open letter on “cancel culture” in Harper’s this summer, but did its arguments resonate with you? > JB: I have mixed feelings about that letter. On the one hand, I am an educator and writer and believe in slow and thoughtful debate. I learn from being confronted and challenged, and I accept that I have made some significant errors in my public life. If someone then said I should not be read or listened to as a result of those errors, well, I would object internally, since I don't think any mistake a person made can, or should, summarise that person. We live in time; we err, sometimes seriously; and if we are lucky, we change precisely because of interactions that let us see things differently. > JB: On the other hand, some of those signatories were taking aim at Black Lives Matter as if the loud and public opposition to racism were itself uncivilised behaviour. Some of them have opposed legal rights for Palestine. Others have [allegedly] committed sexual harassment. And yet others do not wish to be challenged on their racism. Democracy requires a good challenge, and it does not always arrive in soft tones. So I am not in favour of neutralising the strong political demands for justice on the part of subjugated people. When one has not been heard for decades, the cry for justice is bound to be loud.

gedy 6y ago

I heard from a retired teacher that the change he saw over time in young people was somewhat due to they grew up in smaller families with 0-1 siblings, and didn't have to share rooms, toys, etc.

actuator 6y ago

Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. Mob like behaviour to hound someone for their beliefs just reeks of illiberalism.

onion2k 6y ago
Yeah, the way people like JK Rowling have been hounded for not agreeing on every point with some people is very depressing to see, considering that she has been quite supportive in the past of the very groups that are hounding her. She has changed a lot since writing Harry Potter. It's obvious that she no longer believes in supporting marginalised groups or telling people that it's OK to be who you want to be. Her recent work is extremely political and designed to further marginalise people who are already marginalised - she's literally just had a book published that's about a serial killer who dresses as a woman to approach and attack other women, which isn't even slightly veiled as an attack on the trans community. If that's how she thinks now then she has every right to be like that, but everyone else has the right to point out she's being an asshole. As always, there's an XKCD for this - https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- shiba_developer 6y ago
  Oh yeah, because trans people are living saints and can never ever be murderers.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    The number of trans murderers is incredibly tiny - can you name even one? While trying to assert that being trans makes someone more likely to be a murderer is a slur.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      Yeah don't think there are many of those. But here is one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Schmidt#:~:text=Beate%20Schmidt%20(born%20Wolfgang%20Schmidt,Schmidt%20is%20a%20trans%20woman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Schmidt#:~:text=Beate%20.... Not sure what the point is though. The discussion I tried to start was about all the normal cis-gender if you like kids who are brought up in a well meaning home, getting the right education and the right jobs but being extremely intellectually fragile. Not sure why trans suddenly needs to get included into this.
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Your argument seems to be: "I can say what I like, and when the people I'm insulting turn round and argue back they're fragile. But me, I'm not in anyway fragile when I'm trying to shut them down for criticising me."
        ThomPete 6y ago
        No my argument has a context, the context here is mostly Facebook employees and their likes at twitter, spotify etc which are mostly well educated young white people.
- ptsneves 6y ago
  Damn you see the plot point of a serial killer dressing as a woman as attack on trans? I often wonder if I am crazy, because that would never cross my mind. Why would I associate a serial killer with trans? Maybe a woman serial killer that kills women is also an attack on women? I think this kind of reaction actually harms trans more than the story. So out of this world that people will think that trans or gay or blue bi are not good in their mind and thus not a fellow person.
lalaland1125 6y ago
Do you think it would be "illiberal" to hound someone for believing that white people are inherently superior to black people? To keep things in context, JK Rowling has stated that she believes that biologically male people are inherently a danger to biologically female people. This is fundamentally the paradox of tolerance: is it intolerant to be hostile to intolerant beliefs? JK Rowling's essay explaining her stances on trans people: > ... I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety. > When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-...
- mathgladiator 6y ago
  I feel JK Rowling was echoing a common sentiment in many women: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Atwood is not anti-trans and has criticised JKR for her bigoted beliefs.
- actuator 6y ago
  I never said if I agree or disagree with her, but seeing her experience with assault in the past. Can you see why she might feel like that? I sympathise with her and the groups she referred to as well. We all are a product of our experiences and hardships, at the end of the day that shapes our opinions. We can disagree with her but do we really need to resort to these methods.

raverbashing 6y ago

> A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement You mean the "anti-maskers" who throw a fit for wearing a face covering for 30min when they have to go to the supermarket?

jcims 6y ago
No because there’s no desire to build or maintain a relationship with the person. You just emotionally reduce them an NPC and do damage control until they are gone. Pretty much how social media works.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Thanks for a good answer, you've got a point, though I suspect it works in similar ways with people you do and don't want to maintain a relationship (and a lot of relationships fail because of similar reasons) (Unless of course the person is good at manipulation, though eventually things fall apart)
pwned1 6y ago
There are plenty of "pro-maskers" who have the same meltdowns. Videos are replete online. It's all just a symptom of a culture that can't handle treating each other like human beings. Like everything is an anonymous forum online.

dx87 6y ago

I just finished reading "The Coddling of the American Mind", and it goes into the subject pretty well. A lot of it stems from parents not letting their kids be independent, so they never learn to deal with disagreements from dealing with other kids, then colleges cave to whatever demands they have because they just want to collect tuition money.

monadic2 6y ago
Smells like bullshit meant to coddle the american mind.
shagie 6y ago
An article from four days ago: How Boomer Parenting Fueled Millennial Burnout -- https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/09/anne-helen-petersen-burnout-millennial-parenting/616406/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/09/anne-hele... The initial bit of the interview in the article: > Anne Helen Petersen: There are two major factors. The first is conceiving of children as mini-adults—trying to cultivate behaviors, postures, and skills that are associated with adults, like being able to carry on conversations with adults or advocating for themselves when they feel something is unfair. I think we often admire that sort of precociousness without understanding what’s lost when you cultivate that in a child. The other component is thinking of childhood as a means to an end, and that end is getting into a good college. So instead of viewing childhood as simply childhood, parents are thinking, How can these various experiences—everything from playdates to piano lessons—lead to this larger résumé-building path to college? > When childhood is treated that way, it can eliminate space for the formation of personality, independence, or confidence. Anything not oriented toward that goal of college—things like hobbies—gets lost. One of the saddest things I heard when talking to many Millennials is that when they reach a point of exhaustion with work, lift their head up, and look around them, they're like, What else is there? Do I have a personality? Do I know what I like? There's no there there, other than their ability to work, and I think that's really difficult.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  > The first is conceiving of children as mini-adults Or it's opposite. Children recently get so overprotected (eg they no longer can go walk in the forest alone for example), so when they reach 20, they are still children mentally, they cannot stand for themselves, and they expect protection from employee, government, society even when they hear something offensive (which is a lot).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 6y ago

A lot of kids have grown up with "disagreement". The leading edge of this is trans people; if you're trans you'll find that basically everyone "disagrees" with that, sometimes to the point of violence. I think people are very used to dealing with that kind of "disagreement". What they would like is for it not to be based on prejudice, wrong assumptions, and cruelty, and to be able to get on with their lives without having to run into "disagreement" at every turn.

ThomPete 6y ago
Given that there aren't "a lot" of transpeople I am not sure I understand your point is, care to elaborate?
- pjc50 6y ago
  That was an example of people who receive "disagreement" simply by existing. My point is that a lot of people have recieved what you call "disagreement" and what I and they call "prejudice".
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    You are talking about two very different things. I am talking about our upbringing I am fairly sure most parents aren't prejudice against their children and I am pretty sure most kids aren't trans although it's certainly in vogue to call yourself to something of that effect in many youth circles. So it's not a good example it's missing the point as most people we are talking about here aren't trans.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      I’ve had someone openly claim I must be lying when I say I’m vegetarian; I’m just young enough to avoid my left-handedness being problematic (Latin: sinister); I don’t believe in any god, and some people think that is impossible; I’m bi and people deny that exists; I know people who are ace and the position of some Catholics is “Question: What do you call a person who is asexual? Answer: Not a person. Asexual people do not exist.” [Vision, David Nantais, S.J. and Scott Opperman, S.J., 2002]; there are people who say black lives don’t matter; likewise refuges, gypsies, Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, the disabled, communists, and billionaires; and for every successful woman you can find a man who thinks their place is the kitchen, for every lesbian a man who thinks they can be “turned straight”. The trans people I became friends with around 2008 have gone from being open about it then to being in the closet about it now. The category “trans” a valid example of the violent-denial-of-existence that some groups face. And yes, some of those trans people have their existence denied by their parents, just as some gays and lesbians are sent to “straight conversation therapy” by their parents. How prevalent that is I can’t say, but I can say that overall trans people have a surprisingly high rate of violent-existence-denial compared to all the other groups I’ve listed.

charlesu 6y ago

Like that time a professional athlete was blacklisted from his league for kneeling silently during the national anthem? Is that the cancel culture you're talking about?

ThomPete 6y ago
I talk about all forms of cancel culture and don't care which side of the political ail it comes from.
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  But you said: > A lot of kids must have grown up never facing and learning to to deal with disagreement or what is it that have created such a thin skinned generation of seemingly well educated people? Are you referring to NFL executives? I suspect not.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    The context of this is the employees at Facebook, I don't think there are many NFL executives employed at Facebook.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

DanBC 6y ago

Judith Butler -- > Interviewer: You weren't a signatory to the open letter on “cancel culture” in Harper’s this summer, but did its arguments resonate with you? > JB: I have mixed feelings about that letter. On the one hand, I am an educator and writer and believe in slow and thoughtful debate. I learn from being confronted and challenged, and I accept that I have made some significant errors in my public life. If someone then said I should not be read or listened to as a result of those errors, well, I would object internally, since I don't think any mistake a person made can, or should, summarise that person. We live in time; we err, sometimes seriously; and if we are lucky, we change precisely because of interactions that let us see things differently. > JB: On the other hand, some of those signatories were taking aim at Black Lives Matter as if the loud and public opposition to racism were itself uncivilised behaviour. Some of them have opposed legal rights for Palestine. Others have [allegedly] committed sexual harassment. And yet others do not wish to be challenged on their racism. Democracy requires a good challenge, and it does not always arrive in soft tones. So I am not in favour of neutralising the strong political demands for justice on the part of subjugated people. When one has not been heard for decades, the cry for justice is bound to be loud.