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It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you

It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.

A12-B 6y ago
I don't really think no one is allowed to say anything controversial anymore. Plenty of national newspapers are willing to give people front-page editorials to say things that are not mainstream. That's hardly a dark age.
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  I love "anymore" in these statements, like in the US thirty years ago where anywhere you could speak to a wide audience was tightly controlled by wealthy white men
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  >Plenty of national newspapers are willing to give people front-page editorials to say things that are not mainstream. Do you have some examples?
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    I have a counter example, just look at the debacle when the New York Times published an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton and the editorial page editor had to resign because of the outrage about its content: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/07/nyt-opinion-bennet-resigns-cotton-op-ed-306317 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/07/nyt-opinion-bennet-...
    - deleted 6y ago
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    - kennywinker 6y ago
      He called for using military force against civil rights activists. Is this the kind of great intellectual leap forward the grandparent post was talking about? Because if you want to talk about cancelling things, using the military to crush and jail activism is cancelling things pretty hard.
      - _-david-_ 6y ago
        He called on the use of force against people doing violence, not the peaceful protestors.
        kennywinker 6y ago
        "One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers." Incited by "violence" (mostly property damage, some clashes with cops trying to box in and disperse non-violent protestors) - but calling for dispersal of everyone. Using the military to crush a civil rights movement
        _-david-_ 6y ago
        Someone peacefully protesting is not a "lawbreaker". The quote you provided only refers to criminals. In fact "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" is explicitly allowed in the Constitution. Please show me where he said peaceful protestors should have force used upon them.
        kennywinker 6y ago
        When he said send in the military to do "an overwhelming show of force". The military isn't going to walk through the crowd picking out the few people smashing windows or throwing bottles. That would not be an OVERWHELMING SHOW OF FORCE. They would march on the crowds, and almost inevitably use lethal force on them. Even if the target is only the ones throwing bottles or smashing windows, the military cannot and would not make that distinction in the moment. We don't have to imagine what it would be like, it's happened before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - rrose 6y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cancel-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cance... https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-11614531962 https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-1... depending on if you consider george will "mainstream"- he is an establishment conservative which certainly is a dissenting viewpoint at the washington post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unprecedented-untargeted-spending-is-not-necessarily-a-stimulus/2021/02/25/b5902a26-7796-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unprecedented-untarg... not a newspaper, but a national magazine a front page article with a definitively non-mainstream message: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/good-guys-with-guns-socialist-gun-club/ https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/good-guys-with-guns-soci...
    - _-david-_ 6y ago
      >https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cance https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cance... Seems like a mainstream article. Not sure what the point of this was? I didn't look at the articles mentioned in this article so if that was your point then let me know so I can review them. > https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-1 https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-1... I got a paywall so I could only read part of the article. The first part of the article seems to agree with my point that viewpoint discrimination is in fact happening. I didn't get to anything about newspapers before I got the paywall so I don't know what exact this had to do with what I posted. The article seemed quite mainstream to me though. > depending on if you consider george will "mainstream"- he is an establishment conservative which certainly is a dissenting viewpoint at the washington post I am getting a paywall so I couldn't read the article, but it seemed mainstream. Based on what I could gather it sounds like he supports a more fiscally responsible stimulus and to have it targeted to people who actually need it rather than to everybody. Assuming that is the gist of the article then I think that is decently mainstream. I would agree that it is a dissenting viewpoint for the Washington Post though. >not a newspaper, but a national magazine a front page article with a definitively non-mainstream message This article was pretty long so I skimmed it (so if I missed an important detail let me know). It sounds like a mainstream message. Gun ownership and protection of oneself with guns is a mainstream message in the US. Maybe it is a bit non-mainstream since the author is a socialist, but nothing stood out as out of the norm.
cblconfederate 6y ago
Who knew, the age of unrestricted access meant that others would have unrestricted access to our secrets too
standardUser 6y ago
There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.
- lainga 6y ago
  Or fired from your job, branded with the scarlet letter, have your private information shown to the public by some news outlet...
- c06n 6y ago
  And fired from your job. And yelled at on the street. And prevented from working in your field ever again. And death threats. So, blacklisting: check. Excommunication: check. I'd rather not wait till it goes down further.
  - tstrimple 6y ago
    Who (apart from Colin Kaepernick) has been prevented from working in their field ever again?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    All of those things happen to homosexuals and non-Christians in huge geographic swathes of the country, and with MUCH greater frequency. When CPAC starts eg hosting FFRF or ADL speakers I'll take the cancel culture bugbear seriously.
    - refenestrator 6y ago
      And that's really bad! Don't emulate it! "We're gonna hurt some people ourselves to get even" is the devil speaking.
silicon2401 6y ago
Everything rises and falls. Even in the west we've had the inquisition, the Stasi in the DDR, McCarthyism in the US. Hopefully the modern trend towards censorship and rightthink will encourage the future generations to appreciate freedom of speech and ideas
- jpxw 6y ago
  The worrying thing, to me, is that it’s the young who are pushing this. Previously it was old conservatives, who were on the way out anyway. It’s different now.
  - phendrenad2 6y ago
    Cancel culture is mostly millennial-led. Gen Z seems to take it as the status quo, and we'll see what they do with it when they have power.
    - artificial 6y ago
      Cancel culture is McCarthyism, just driven by the left. Millenials are barely in power. I'd say GenX has more of a say.
  - artificial 6y ago
    I recall the scares about D&D and Satanism back in the day. The shoe is on the other foot now, weirdly backed by the corporations. Do you think it's organic or inculcated?
throwaway5752 6y ago
Here's a counterpoint: in the last 150 years we've seen the enslavement and legally mandated racial segregation of African-Americans, same-sex marriages illegal until recently, enormous and largely forgot historical support of Hitler and Franco, a mass shooting of a synagogue amid a resurgence in neonazism, and are only celebrating 100 years of womens' right to vote. It's hard, from the outside of the bubble of this generally white and male forum, sometimes to appreciate how badly other people have it. Some people are effectively cancelled all the time and even a small taste of it has people in an uproar here. Perhaps a little empathy on all sides would be beneficial.
- edbob 6y ago
  This is exactly why we should cherish the standard of moderation and equality that has been achieved, because it is that rare and precious and is so very easily lost. There are significant threats to this both from the left and the right, and they must be carefully guarded against. Cancel Culture hasn't destroyed it yet, but the people driving cancellations most definitely aim to suppress the voices of at least 40% of the country, and add insult to injury by falsely claiming that "only racists/fascists/etc. are canceled". As if Twitter mobs phoning in death threats were composed of good, rational people who can be trusted with the power to decide whether a person deserves to be seen as a human being or as scum.
- bart_spoon 6y ago
  Even if it were only white males suffering from cancel culture, this wouldn't be an argument that justifies the modern environment. That said, it isn't simply white, straight, upper class males being targeted: * The dutch translator for Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem quit after backlash due to the fact that they are a white, nonbinary individual rather than a "spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black". This despite the fact that they were specifically chosen by Gorman, herself a black female. [0] * Back in 2018, a black female student at Smith College complained of being discriminated against for "eating while black" because she was asked to leave an area that had been marked as off-limits to everyone. Subsequent investigations revealed the employees involved did nothing wrong and did not target the student. Despite this, the New York Times reported last week that they continue to receive harassment and threats. One woman, a cafeteria worker who suffers from chronic health issues, can't find employment because of it. The ACLU has continued to insist that the employees wronged the student, despite the result of the investigations. [1] * The YA fiction scene is constantly embroiled in controversy, often due to perceived crimes against woke culture. In one notable instance, the author Amelie Wen Zhao, a Chinese-American immigrant, had her upcoming novel cancelled and her career derailed due to the story involving a society in which people could be enslaved on a basis not involving the color of their skin. [2] * A highly praised science fiction short story published in Clarksworld magazine called "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter", written by a trans author who was repurposing the meme, was pulled (along with all of the author's future submissions) after intense public backlash towards the author by the Twitter woke mob. [3] * Glenn Greenwald, a gay journalist, has been targeted in recent weeks as a "transphobe" for drawing attention to recent study defending a book questioning if young people are being pressured into transitioning too strongly against an ACLU lawyer who was publicly arguing the book should be censored, and for drawing attention to recent research regarding the skyrocketing rates of those who identify as LGBTQ in the youngest generations [4] [5] Plenty of women, people of color, members of the LGBT community, and the poor are being targeted and harmed for not toeing the cultural party line. This cultish group think is dangerous for individuals, and it's dangerous for our society, regardless of who you are. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/01/amanda-gorman-white-translator-quits-marieke-lucas-rijneveld https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/01/amanda-gorman-... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.htm... [2] https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-the-line-between-criticism-and-cancel-culture https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/17/sci-fi-magazine-pulls-story-by-trans-writer-after-barrage-of-attacks?fbclid=IwAR1cPSjyv9bUyWBkPR0yxrSjxWNx4alqpC3JegNt4j9XQeBpkKB6tHkiee8 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/17/sci-fi-magazin... [4] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-s... [5] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1364617687423471621 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1364617687423471621
kennywinker 6y ago
What kind of intellectual progress do you think we're missing out on? I see people getting "cancelled" (aka facing consequences) for things like sexual misconduct / abusive behavior. For anti trans views. For fascistic ideas, or storming the capital to re-instate a democratically defeated politician. Are any of these places where the next big leap in intellectual progress is going to come from?
- prionassembly 6y ago
  You’re blurring away the gap between behavior and ideas. Sexual misconduct and “anti trans” views are as incommensurable as musical scales and baseball bats.
  - kennywinker 6y ago
    I understand there is a difference. I’m saying I think the ideas being cancelled are actually just the kind of garbage ideas that don’t have merit but do cause harm. Do you think that anti-trans beliefs are going to be a source of intellectual progress? Because i’d argue that the deconstruction of the gender binary IS the kind of transformative idea that some people in this thread are saying is being stifled. Is the group of young people refusing to buy jk rowling’s next work the ones crushing an idea to maintain social order, or are they the iconoclasts breaking down the old ways with radical ideas? I’d say the latter, but...
    - prionassembly 6y ago
      My general intuition agrees with your views on gender. But I don’t trust my general intuition blindly - nor do I think it should be the basis for social engineering.
    - jimbokun 6y ago
      > Is the group of young people refusing to buy jk rowling’s next work the ones crushing an idea to maintain social order This one. The idea there is some sophisticated science and nuanced understanding behind the critique of JK Rowling's statements about trans people is completely laughable. It consists of name calling and social signalling, almost exclusively. > the deconstruction of the gender binary IS the kind of transformative idea that some people in this thread are saying is being stifled You can't be serious. There are countless studies showing real differences between men and women in physical and mental traits, and it is incredibly rare for the people deconstructing the gender binary to seriously engage with them. Again, it mostly devolves to name calling and insulting people who mention any evidence that might challenge their pre-established world view.
kylestlb 6y ago
did you miss McCarthyism?
- Helloworldboy 6y ago
  No, we live in an era of McCarthyism
heterodoxxed 6y ago
| This is truly the dark age of the information era. This is nonsense. Losing your audience has always been a concern for authors and it is easier to get an audience now than it has ever been.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  It is not easy if popular platforms are pressured to not do business with you, because vocal minority deem you unfit to be published.
  - heterodoxxed 6y ago
    Which authors have experienced this?
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      Isabel Fall seems to be an interesting example: https://reason.com/2020/01/17/canceled-transgender-story/ https://reason.com/2020/01/17/canceled-transgender-story/
      - heterodoxxed 6y ago
        I'm not clear why this applies, she wasn't dropped by her publisher or blacklisted. She chose to cancel the story herself.
        A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
        This is exactly what the article discusses and this is also the reason why it is relevant and why it applies. The topic becomes too controversial for a vocal minority and an author "voluntarily" self-censored. I chuckled when you said she did it herself. She did, likely after she was told what would happen otherwise. I chuckled, because I assume you think she is free the way Sartre suggested she is free?
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
>It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Cancel culture coming for me yet? No? Obama and Trump have condemned it and here we are.
RobLach 6y ago
Hardly so. There's ample evidence that the current is the greatest opportunity for dissenting thought and opinion to have massive reach without much consequence or effort. The idea that we're in a dark age of thought is purely rhetorical and only serves to frame a narrative that further amplifies ideas that would never had a chance to propagate before the information era. Furthermore, we are living in a time of such absurdity that there are politicians giving internationally televised press conferences about how their speech is being suppressed and they have no power. The only self-restriction is by people that don't have the conviction to stand by their ideas, or actually have not thought through their perspective to adequate level of introspection and evidence that can survive free and open discourse. Instead it's much easier to exclaim victimhood and censorship and not bother examining ideas beyond a gut feeling.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  And perhaps, in this era of such free and open access to information, individuals are being held to a higher standard of not speaking from a position of authority without the knowledge that can be gleaned from that free and open access and not doubling-down on their ignorance when it is brought to light for them?
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    Or being elected and then turned power broker in a major political party. It's definitely an interesting time to be alive.
  - farias0 6y ago
    And who is the judge of what is and isn't true? You seem to imply social network consensus is a safe ruler for what kind of speech should be allowed but to me it sounds absurd.
- refenestrator 6y ago
  What's interesting is that heretical liberals have the most to fear in this environment. MAGA people can't be cancelled, and it's a badge of honor if attempted. But well-meaning unorthodox liberals really have to watch themselves.
codezero 6y ago
I haven't seen a dearth of people sharing their unpopular opinions, so I'm not sure I really agree with the sentiment that people are _actually_ self censoring in any more meaningful way than they normally do.
rapind 6y ago
Voicing an unpopular opinion always had a cost, today and hundreds of years ago. Either your conviction outweighs the consequences or it doesn’t. We shouldn’t assume that all or even most unpopular opinions will advance our intellectual progress. Like always there’s plenty of noise. I’m not keen on the automated (AI) filtering though, or how fast opinions can spread in the Information Age. Feels like we’re headed for disaster by skipping the organic and slow human vetting process.
weeblewobble 6y ago
This seems to sort of elide the extremely popular and lucrative media ecosystem of the "IDW"/"free speech movement"/anti-woke movement. Certainly it's true that the Overton window has shifted in large sections of the legacy media, but the Overton window always existed. The idea that its illegitimate for a private organization to shift their personal Overton window seems vaguely authoritarian to me. Anyway it's never been easier to grow, reach, and monetize your personal audience (substack, podcasts, etc.) without gatekeepers.
deleted 6y ago
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A12-B 6y ago

I don't really think no one is allowed to say anything controversial anymore. Plenty of national newspapers are willing to give people front-page editorials to say things that are not mainstream. That's hardly a dark age.

agentdrtran 6y ago
I love "anymore" in these statements, like in the US thirty years ago where anywhere you could speak to a wide audience was tightly controlled by wealthy white men
_-david-_ 6y ago
>Plenty of national newspapers are willing to give people front-page editorials to say things that are not mainstream. Do you have some examples?
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  I have a counter example, just look at the debacle when the New York Times published an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton and the editorial page editor had to resign because of the outrage about its content: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/07/nyt-opinion-bennet-resigns-cotton-op-ed-306317 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/07/nyt-opinion-bennet-...
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - kennywinker 6y ago
    He called for using military force against civil rights activists. Is this the kind of great intellectual leap forward the grandparent post was talking about? Because if you want to talk about cancelling things, using the military to crush and jail activism is cancelling things pretty hard.
    - _-david-_ 6y ago
      He called on the use of force against people doing violence, not the peaceful protestors.
      - kennywinker 6y ago
        "One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers." Incited by "violence" (mostly property damage, some clashes with cops trying to box in and disperse non-violent protestors) - but calling for dispersal of everyone. Using the military to crush a civil rights movement
        _-david-_ 6y ago
        Someone peacefully protesting is not a "lawbreaker". The quote you provided only refers to criminals. In fact "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" is explicitly allowed in the Constitution. Please show me where he said peaceful protestors should have force used upon them.
        kennywinker 6y ago
        When he said send in the military to do "an overwhelming show of force". The military isn't going to walk through the crowd picking out the few people smashing windows or throwing bottles. That would not be an OVERWHELMING SHOW OF FORCE. They would march on the crowds, and almost inevitably use lethal force on them. Even if the target is only the ones throwing bottles or smashing windows, the military cannot and would not make that distinction in the moment. We don't have to imagine what it would be like, it's happened before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
- deleted 6y ago
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- rrose 6y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cancel-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cance... https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-11614531962 https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-1... depending on if you consider george will "mainstream"- he is an establishment conservative which certainly is a dissenting viewpoint at the washington post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unprecedented-untargeted-spending-is-not-necessarily-a-stimulus/2021/02/25/b5902a26-7796-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/unprecedented-untarg... not a newspaper, but a national magazine a front page article with a definitively non-mainstream message: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/good-guys-with-guns-socialist-gun-club/ https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/good-guys-with-guns-soci...
  - _-david-_ 6y ago
    >https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cance https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/opinion/bon-appetit-cance... Seems like a mainstream article. Not sure what the point of this was? I didn't look at the articles mentioned in this article so if that was your point then let me know so I can review them. > https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-1 https://www.wsj.com/articles/academic-freedom-is-withering-1... I got a paywall so I could only read part of the article. The first part of the article seems to agree with my point that viewpoint discrimination is in fact happening. I didn't get to anything about newspapers before I got the paywall so I don't know what exact this had to do with what I posted. The article seemed quite mainstream to me though. > depending on if you consider george will "mainstream"- he is an establishment conservative which certainly is a dissenting viewpoint at the washington post I am getting a paywall so I couldn't read the article, but it seemed mainstream. Based on what I could gather it sounds like he supports a more fiscally responsible stimulus and to have it targeted to people who actually need it rather than to everybody. Assuming that is the gist of the article then I think that is decently mainstream. I would agree that it is a dissenting viewpoint for the Washington Post though. >not a newspaper, but a national magazine a front page article with a definitively non-mainstream message This article was pretty long so I skimmed it (so if I missed an important detail let me know). It sounds like a mainstream message. Gun ownership and protection of oneself with guns is a mainstream message in the US. Maybe it is a bit non-mainstream since the author is a socialist, but nothing stood out as out of the norm.

cblconfederate 6y ago

Who knew, the age of unrestricted access meant that others would have unrestricted access to our secrets too

standardUser 6y ago

There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.

lainga 6y ago
Or fired from your job, branded with the scarlet letter, have your private information shown to the public by some news outlet...
c06n 6y ago
And fired from your job. And yelled at on the street. And prevented from working in your field ever again. And death threats. So, blacklisting: check. Excommunication: check. I'd rather not wait till it goes down further.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  Who (apart from Colin Kaepernick) has been prevented from working in their field ever again?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  All of those things happen to homosexuals and non-Christians in huge geographic swathes of the country, and with MUCH greater frequency. When CPAC starts eg hosting FFRF or ADL speakers I'll take the cancel culture bugbear seriously.
  - refenestrator 6y ago
    And that's really bad! Don't emulate it! "We're gonna hurt some people ourselves to get even" is the devil speaking.

silicon2401 6y ago

Everything rises and falls. Even in the west we've had the inquisition, the Stasi in the DDR, McCarthyism in the US. Hopefully the modern trend towards censorship and rightthink will encourage the future generations to appreciate freedom of speech and ideas

jpxw 6y ago
The worrying thing, to me, is that it’s the young who are pushing this. Previously it was old conservatives, who were on the way out anyway. It’s different now.
- phendrenad2 6y ago
  Cancel culture is mostly millennial-led. Gen Z seems to take it as the status quo, and we'll see what they do with it when they have power.
  - artificial 6y ago
    Cancel culture is McCarthyism, just driven by the left. Millenials are barely in power. I'd say GenX has more of a say.
- artificial 6y ago
  I recall the scares about D&D and Satanism back in the day. The shoe is on the other foot now, weirdly backed by the corporations. Do you think it's organic or inculcated?

throwaway5752 6y ago

Here's a counterpoint: in the last 150 years we've seen the enslavement and legally mandated racial segregation of African-Americans, same-sex marriages illegal until recently, enormous and largely forgot historical support of Hitler and Franco, a mass shooting of a synagogue amid a resurgence in neonazism, and are only celebrating 100 years of womens' right to vote. It's hard, from the outside of the bubble of this generally white and male forum, sometimes to appreciate how badly other people have it. Some people are effectively cancelled all the time and even a small taste of it has people in an uproar here. Perhaps a little empathy on all sides would be beneficial.

edbob 6y ago
This is exactly why we should cherish the standard of moderation and equality that has been achieved, because it is that rare and precious and is so very easily lost. There are significant threats to this both from the left and the right, and they must be carefully guarded against. Cancel Culture hasn't destroyed it yet, but the people driving cancellations most definitely aim to suppress the voices of at least 40% of the country, and add insult to injury by falsely claiming that "only racists/fascists/etc. are canceled". As if Twitter mobs phoning in death threats were composed of good, rational people who can be trusted with the power to decide whether a person deserves to be seen as a human being or as scum.
bart_spoon 6y ago
Even if it were only white males suffering from cancel culture, this wouldn't be an argument that justifies the modern environment. That said, it isn't simply white, straight, upper class males being targeted: * The dutch translator for Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem quit after backlash due to the fact that they are a white, nonbinary individual rather than a "spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black". This despite the fact that they were specifically chosen by Gorman, herself a black female. [0] * Back in 2018, a black female student at Smith College complained of being discriminated against for "eating while black" because she was asked to leave an area that had been marked as off-limits to everyone. Subsequent investigations revealed the employees involved did nothing wrong and did not target the student. Despite this, the New York Times reported last week that they continue to receive harassment and threats. One woman, a cafeteria worker who suffers from chronic health issues, can't find employment because of it. The ACLU has continued to insist that the employees wronged the student, despite the result of the investigations. [1] * The YA fiction scene is constantly embroiled in controversy, often due to perceived crimes against woke culture. In one notable instance, the author Amelie Wen Zhao, a Chinese-American immigrant, had her upcoming novel cancelled and her career derailed due to the story involving a society in which people could be enslaved on a basis not involving the color of their skin. [2] * A highly praised science fiction short story published in Clarksworld magazine called "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter", written by a trans author who was repurposing the meme, was pulled (along with all of the author's future submissions) after intense public backlash towards the author by the Twitter woke mob. [3] * Glenn Greenwald, a gay journalist, has been targeted in recent weeks as a "transphobe" for drawing attention to recent study defending a book questioning if young people are being pressured into transitioning too strongly against an ACLU lawyer who was publicly arguing the book should be censored, and for drawing attention to recent research regarding the skyrocketing rates of those who identify as LGBTQ in the youngest generations [4] [5] Plenty of women, people of color, members of the LGBT community, and the poor are being targeted and harmed for not toeing the cultural party line. This cultish group think is dangerous for individuals, and it's dangerous for our society, regardless of who you are. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/01/amanda-gorman-white-translator-quits-marieke-lucas-rijneveld https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/01/amanda-gorman-... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.htm... [2] https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-the-line-between-criticism-and-cancel-culture https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/in-ya-where-is-... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/17/sci-fi-magazine-pulls-story-by-trans-writer-after-barrage-of-attacks?fbclid=IwAR1cPSjyv9bUyWBkPR0yxrSjxWNx4alqpC3JegNt4j9XQeBpkKB6tHkiee8 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/17/sci-fi-magazin... [4] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-speech https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-death-of-free-s... [5] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1364617687423471621 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1364617687423471621

kennywinker 6y ago

What kind of intellectual progress do you think we're missing out on? I see people getting "cancelled" (aka facing consequences) for things like sexual misconduct / abusive behavior. For anti trans views. For fascistic ideas, or storming the capital to re-instate a democratically defeated politician. Are any of these places where the next big leap in intellectual progress is going to come from?

prionassembly 6y ago
You’re blurring away the gap between behavior and ideas. Sexual misconduct and “anti trans” views are as incommensurable as musical scales and baseball bats.
- kennywinker 6y ago
  I understand there is a difference. I’m saying I think the ideas being cancelled are actually just the kind of garbage ideas that don’t have merit but do cause harm. Do you think that anti-trans beliefs are going to be a source of intellectual progress? Because i’d argue that the deconstruction of the gender binary IS the kind of transformative idea that some people in this thread are saying is being stifled. Is the group of young people refusing to buy jk rowling’s next work the ones crushing an idea to maintain social order, or are they the iconoclasts breaking down the old ways with radical ideas? I’d say the latter, but...
  - prionassembly 6y ago
    My general intuition agrees with your views on gender. But I don’t trust my general intuition blindly - nor do I think it should be the basis for social engineering.
  - jimbokun 6y ago
    > Is the group of young people refusing to buy jk rowling’s next work the ones crushing an idea to maintain social order This one. The idea there is some sophisticated science and nuanced understanding behind the critique of JK Rowling's statements about trans people is completely laughable. It consists of name calling and social signalling, almost exclusively. > the deconstruction of the gender binary IS the kind of transformative idea that some people in this thread are saying is being stifled You can't be serious. There are countless studies showing real differences between men and women in physical and mental traits, and it is incredibly rare for the people deconstructing the gender binary to seriously engage with them. Again, it mostly devolves to name calling and insulting people who mention any evidence that might challenge their pre-established world view.

kylestlb 6y ago

did you miss McCarthyism?

Helloworldboy 6y ago
No, we live in an era of McCarthyism

heterodoxxed 6y ago

| This is truly the dark age of the information era. This is nonsense. Losing your audience has always been a concern for authors and it is easier to get an audience now than it has ever been.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
It is not easy if popular platforms are pressured to not do business with you, because vocal minority deem you unfit to be published.
- heterodoxxed 6y ago
  Which authors have experienced this?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Isabel Fall seems to be an interesting example: https://reason.com/2020/01/17/canceled-transgender-story/ https://reason.com/2020/01/17/canceled-transgender-story/
    - heterodoxxed 6y ago
      I'm not clear why this applies, she wasn't dropped by her publisher or blacklisted. She chose to cancel the story herself.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
        This is exactly what the article discusses and this is also the reason why it is relevant and why it applies. The topic becomes too controversial for a vocal minority and an author "voluntarily" self-censored. I chuckled when you said she did it herself. She did, likely after she was told what would happen otherwise. I chuckled, because I assume you think she is free the way Sartre suggested she is free?

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

>It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Cancel culture coming for me yet? No? Obama and Trump have condemned it and here we are.

RobLach 6y ago

Hardly so. There's ample evidence that the current is the greatest opportunity for dissenting thought and opinion to have massive reach without much consequence or effort. The idea that we're in a dark age of thought is purely rhetorical and only serves to frame a narrative that further amplifies ideas that would never had a chance to propagate before the information era. Furthermore, we are living in a time of such absurdity that there are politicians giving internationally televised press conferences about how their speech is being suppressed and they have no power. The only self-restriction is by people that don't have the conviction to stand by their ideas, or actually have not thought through their perspective to adequate level of introspection and evidence that can survive free and open discourse. Instead it's much easier to exclaim victimhood and censorship and not bother examining ideas beyond a gut feeling.

shadowgovt 6y ago
And perhaps, in this era of such free and open access to information, individuals are being held to a higher standard of not speaking from a position of authority without the knowledge that can be gleaned from that free and open access and not doubling-down on their ignorance when it is brought to light for them?
- lostcolony 6y ago
  Or being elected and then turned power broker in a major political party. It's definitely an interesting time to be alive.
- farias0 6y ago
  And who is the judge of what is and isn't true? You seem to imply social network consensus is a safe ruler for what kind of speech should be allowed but to me it sounds absurd.
refenestrator 6y ago
What's interesting is that heretical liberals have the most to fear in this environment. MAGA people can't be cancelled, and it's a badge of honor if attempted. But well-meaning unorthodox liberals really have to watch themselves.

codezero 6y ago

I haven't seen a dearth of people sharing their unpopular opinions, so I'm not sure I really agree with the sentiment that people are _actually_ self censoring in any more meaningful way than they normally do.

rapind 6y ago

Voicing an unpopular opinion always had a cost, today and hundreds of years ago. Either your conviction outweighs the consequences or it doesn’t. We shouldn’t assume that all or even most unpopular opinions will advance our intellectual progress. Like always there’s plenty of noise. I’m not keen on the automated (AI) filtering though, or how fast opinions can spread in the Information Age. Feels like we’re headed for disaster by skipping the organic and slow human vetting process.

weeblewobble 6y ago

This seems to sort of elide the extremely popular and lucrative media ecosystem of the "IDW"/"free speech movement"/anti-woke movement. Certainly it's true that the Overton window has shifted in large sections of the legacy media, but the Overton window always existed. The idea that its illegitimate for a private organization to shift their personal Overton window seems vaguely authoritarian to me. Anyway it's never been easier to grow, reach, and monetize your personal audience (substack, podcasts, etc.) without gatekeepers.

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