23 ms·

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

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.
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      > Don't emulate it! Where in this thread do I justify or emulate? Please quote something from any of my posts that would give you the impression that I approve of "cancel culture". However, if people are genuinely concerned about chilling speech, then why are they spending so much effort to call out SJW in a tiny handful of big cities instead of raising hell about the overt and often legal discrimination that happens in tens of thousands of rural communities? It's hard for me to take the concern about cancel culture seriously when the concern is exclusively focused on one side of the political/cultural divide even though the phenomenon happens far more on the other side of that divide. I have zero confidence that such concerns are genuine.
      - refenestrator 6y ago
        If you're going to hold yourself up as the more enlightened group, it creates a bit of an obligation to act that way. In my book at least.
        throwawaygh 6y ago
        > If you're going to hold yourself up as the more enlightened group, it creates a bit of an obligation to act that way. In my book at least. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I'm saying ;-)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    That is cancel culture too. No one upthread made this about political sides. Why are you?
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      > No one upthread made this about political sides AFAICT every example in the article. I always assume that the contents of the article are upthread because I always assume people read the article before commenting :) Aside from the article, my impression is that "cancel culture" has a more specific meaning than you seem to prescribe. One on hand, we never called it "cancel culture" when a teacher is fired for being gay. And on the other, CPAC's theme this year is "America Uncanceled". My understanding is that, at this point, the term does have political content.
      - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        Naive.
        throwawaygh 6y ago
        Perhaps it is a bit naive to assume people read the article :).
        read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        Thanks for expanding your original reply, I can see how the term itself might come across as politically charged. It’d be better if it wasn’t used mostly in conjunction with the left.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        I think "cancel culture" definitely has some left-wing connotations, but I think that's because it came into existence at a time when the left was doing the majority of the canceling. In the aughts, "canceling" was mostly a conservative thing (usually criticizing the war effort) and it was much less egregious (if only because social media barely existed at the time). One prominent, egregious example of conservative cancellation from the time was the Dixie Chicks. So yeah, "cancellation" has some left-wing connotations, but it's not something that only the left can do. Further, there absolutely are hypocrites who criticize "cancel culture", but who happily try to cancel people they don't like. Hypocrites are bad, but there are still lots and lots of principled critics of cancel culture (indeed, I'm pretty sure most of the Harper's letter signatories are left-of-center). That there are hypocrites doesn't validate cancel culture. Also, if you're upset about the left-wing connotations, the proper response is not to try to legitimize cancel culture, but rather to persuade your political associates to behave better for sake of the brand. TL;DR: Canceling is bad no matter who does it; recently it's mostly been the woke left who have been doing it so it does have some political connotations; sometimes people are disingenuous in criticizing "cancel culture".
  - fallingknife 6y ago
    First of all nobody is saying its good when right wingers do it. But here is Bernie Sanders invited to make a speech at the right wing Liberty University: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9323041/bernie-sanders-liberty-university https://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9323041/bernie-sanders-liberty...
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. A statement of faith is a required component of the faculty application packet. The student code of conduct prohibits homosexual behavior. Passing off Liberty as a bastion of free expression because they invited Sanders to give a speech is beyond disingenuous, and a perfect example of the enormous double standard in discussions of "cancel culture" right now.
      - fallingknife 6y ago
        First of all I never said or implied that it was a "bastion of free speech" > In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. > A statement of faith is a required component of the faculty application packet. UC requires a mandatory "diversity statement" for faculty job applications: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/19/mathematician-comes-out-against-mandatory-diversity-statements-while-others-say-they https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/19/mathematician...
        throwawaygh 6y ago
        > Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. I can't speak to all of Harvard's departments, but I know it's completely possible to have a wide variety of political viewpoints in SEAS. The faculty itself is probably to the right of the immediately surrounding community (that that this means much in Boston Metro, but I think it's probably true in the case of SEAS). > UC requires a mandatory "diversity statement" for faculty job applications: Diversity statements typically focus on a certain type of service and teaching activity. The "how it effects my teaching and advising" part of the statement could talk about making special efforts in your teaching to help first generation college students, or supporting students who aren't neurotypical, or being really good at working with the specific circumstances of students who come from non-traditional backgrounds (eg adult learners). The outreach/service portion of the statement could discuss bringing resources to underserved rural communities. Or providing learning opportunities for prisoners. Or a million other things. Source: actually did this. Got job offers. The fact that you think writing a "diversity statement" means you have to fit a certain political mold says a lot more about what you think diversity means than about diversity statement requirements. The diversity statement is about proving that you can at the very least create an inclusive learning environment for people from non-traditional backgrounds. Why in god's name should this be political, or in fact not a requirement for a teacher? Comparing diversity statements to statements of religious faith is absurd. If you can't write a page about eg helping autism spectrum students succeed in CS 1, and someone else can, then you might not be the best candidate for a CS 1 lecturer. Opinions on the Westminster Catechism, on the other hand, are not relevant to teaching students about linked lists.
  - xenophonB 6y ago
    It's not 1960 lol, there are not vast swathes of the country where that happens, since the liberal left has almost total control via the Federal bureaucracy for enforcing their values everywhere, not just in blue states
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      This isn’t true.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Very little of that is new ("You'll never work in this town again" is an old statement). What has changed is that the Internet and the associated record of a person's conduct online can make the town very, very big indeed.
- omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
  I think the point is this had been around for a while, and what people are calling "cancel culture" is the same old-same old, but with (hopefully) less prison/death. There's nothing new about receiving negative feedback for having and expressing unpopular opinions. That's really common in pretty much every single social group I've been in, including on HN.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    People are upset now that the current is shifting and you get shunned for being racist, rather than being shunned for not speaking properly or whatever the heck. The underlying mechanism has not really changed.
    - refenestrator 6y ago
      It's specifically about speaking properly. Nobody gives a shit when Uber classifies their drivers as independent contractors to stiff them on benefits, but everybody cares about the propriety of master/slave replication terminology. We're dealing with police violence by capitalizing Black in our style guides. Etc etc etc.
      - whimsicalism 6y ago
        > Nobody gives a shit when Uber classifies their drivers as independent contractors to stiff them on benefits, I think quite a few people gave a shit? I think you're attacking a straw man, it is perfectly possible to have opinions on small stylistic issues (like master vs main) while also thinking that there are fundamental economic things that need to change.
        refenestrator 6y ago
        Uber's referendum won in California. I'm sure that people 'care', and I suppose I'm straw-manning those people.. I'm not straw-manning the system. Time and again, challenges to monetary order aren't permitted but puritanical word-propriety is encouraged. It's an energy outlet.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Half a century ago, in Japan, someone wrote a fictional story critical of the Emperor, and someone broke into the publishers house and murdered their housekeeper and severely injured their wife. [0] In response to the murder, the writer was pretty much universally condemned and the a bill was introduced in the legislature to ban writings of that sort. The fact that so many have convinced themselves that somehow we're in some new illiberal age is comical. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimanaka_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimanaka_incident
  - lainga 6y ago
    Well, peoples' expectations have changed in America since we declared independence from Japan.
    - slg 6y ago
      I am curious what era of US history do you think was free of this stuff?
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        For right-leaning, racist, sexist White male elites? Most of it. Which is why that's where most of the whining that this is a new and dangerous phenomenon is coming from. Heck, the government hyperfocus on rooting out Communism began almost immediately after the suggestion of turning the same apparatus against the KKK was rebuffed because of that organizations loyalty and patriotism.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      I erroneously thought the critic in the article was Japanese, although the "sir" should have been an obvious giveaway. In the states, just off the top of my head: the McCarthy era, the reaction to the 1968 Olympic raised fist incident
      - lainga 6y ago
        I guessed as much :)
- conception 6y ago
  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuCsAqKWYAkfEIF.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuCsAqKWYAkfEIF.jpg
- AngryData 6y ago
  I agree with your sentiment, but it wasn't that long ago that people were being brought to court in the US just for accusations of being socialist or communist. Any there wasn't even anything against the law with have different economic ideals.
jpxw 6y ago
Try 20 years ago.
- dashundchen 6y ago
  Try reading about the ridiculous fallout conservatives triggered in 2004, following a one second exposure of a female nipple on TV.
aparsons 6y ago
> some companies won't work with you It's a pretty big deal when that company is your employer. We need better protections around speech in this country. Firing someone for something they said cannot be a one-sided decision. At the minimum, the worker deserves the chance to go to court/arbitration
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  This is one of the categories of protections unions historically offered. Probably also worth noting that one does have the right to go to court if one believes one was wrongfully terminated. When Google fired James Damore, he sued. But the National Labor Relations Board ruled the firing was justified because he had made not-legally-protected statements that risked creating a hostile work environment. https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391 https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391
- standardUser 6y ago
  Conservatives have fought tooth and nail for at-will employment for a hundred years. If they would like to moderate those views I am sure we could find a way to expand protections for workers in a variety of ways, including speech.
nobodyandproud 6y ago
It’s an outgrowth of a larger problem: The problem today is that nobody will work with you nor can you get employed, unless you have the right connections. There is no starting over, because there is no anonymity or way to become obscure/forgotten.
seneca 6y ago
> There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. I suppose it depends how fine grain you can be when considering eras, but there were periods even within my own lifetime that were much more tolerant. In the 90s, there was a period where the influence of religious prigs had waned, and the secular prigs had yet to be taken seriously. The internet in particular was pretty wide open to ideas of all sorts, and no one would seek to ruin your life over disagreements. If you coursen the grain to wider epochs, then yes I think you're correct.
throwawaygh 6y ago
Exactly. I grew up in the Midwest and outside of the city. When I visit home, I pretend to believe in God, lie-by-omission about my bisexuality, stay silent about politics, pretend to say grace at dinner, and go to Church on Sunday mornings. If I didn't, then in many ways I'd not longer be welcome in that social group. Finding a iving-wage job in the local community would certainly be impossible. There are only a few tech firms and all the owners are members of the same bible study. Want to see real cancel culture? Live in any of America's many culturally homogeneous rural communities for a month. Put up a Biden sign in panhandle. None of this is a defense of cancel culture, but it's worth keeping in perspective that way more "cancelling" goes on in deeply conservative communities than in extremely liberal communities. We just call it "keeping American a Christian nation" instead of "cancel culture".
- Covzire 6y ago
  The opposite has been true for many decades now. There are many Christians who are extremely capable scientists, ready to perform experiments, document cause and effect and all manners of empirical scientific study but can't find work (or tenure) because they're not willing to bet all their beliefs on the theory that everything came from literally nothing, which is by itself non-scientific anyway.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    > but can't find work (or tenure) because they're not willing to bet all their beliefs on the theory that everything came from literally nothing, which is by itself non-scientific anyway. Can you point to a single example of a hiring or T&P policy that overtly discriminates on the basis of religion? I certainly can. Wheaton College, Cedarville University, and Liberty University come to mind. None of those places will hire non-Christians, and a Statement of Faith is a required component of every faculty application.
  - cbryan 6y ago
    This is complete hogwash. I know and work with plenty of Christian scientists. They do just as well as everyone else in the job market.
icelancer 6y ago
Two decades ago it was a lot safer, so, yeah.
dahfizz 6y ago
It depends entirely on what you mean by "unpopular opinions". You would face backlash in the 80's if you advocated overthrowing the government. Today, you can lose your job for not having your gender pronouns in your bio. I don't think its fair to equate both of those things as "unpopular opinions".
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Who was fired for not having pronouns in their bio?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    It was supposedly one of the reasons Disney fired Gina Carano. However, she had apparently been annoying the powers that be with her generally Trumpian social media postings for a while.
    - hannasanarion 6y ago
      Supposed by whom? Tucker Carlson?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      I just looked it up. She added boop/bop/beep to her name on Twitter and doubled down when people asked her to remove it. [1] And like you said it wasn't her first PR problem. [1] https://uproxx.com/movies/pedro-pascal-sister-trans-lux-gina-carano-pronouns/ https://uproxx.com/movies/pedro-pascal-sister-trans-lux-gina...
adolph 6y ago
Maybe there is a higher awareness of the costs imposed by censors and as the censorship encoded in government recedes that of private realms is brought more into light.
colechristensen 6y ago
It has also been hundreds of years of Western history since the intellectual class was driving this "punishment", and that was when religion and education were tightly linked. The problem isn't that ideologues are new, it is that ideology has seeped into the highest levels of education and culture. You have people across the spectrum of disciplines and stances afraid to contradict the received knowledge of the masses (or one of usually two sects). This hasn't been the case for a LONG TIME.
africanboy 6y ago
the post specifically talks about young people self-censoring themselves. I can't recall another era were young authors were afraid of being marginalized by other young people for being young and having radical (and sometimes plain stupid) ideas. I remember old, conservative people doing it to youngsters, but not to themselves, despite being the ones with bad - sometimes very bad - thoughts.
SignalNotSecure 6y ago
You could post just about anything online and mostly get away with it for a brief period of time ending around 2004 unless you were wholesale drug trafficking out in the open. Those websites were taken down but not very quickly. Sometimes I miss the lulz of the sheep being taken to slaughter by tubgirl and goatse.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  What is keeping you from opening up your own shocksites right now? I think it is more cultural zeitgeist - the generation involved with it largely grew out of it and the younger ones don't have the same sort of "culture" to reoccur in the same way. It isn't something you would want to boast about running and would have people thinking ill of you but it doesn't really trigger outrage.
  - SignalNotSecure 6y ago
    Younger generations don't use the web browser as their main source of entertainment. Their attention and energy has been siloed to the largest media platforms. They enjoy being serfs on the FAANG plantation.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      So in otherwords the issue is they don't want your puppet show when there is TV. That isn't cancel culture any more than nobody showing up to my TEDx talk where I count to ten thousand.
tannhauser23 6y ago
I find attitudes like this mystifying. No one is saying that today's cancel culture is comparable to getting tortured, imprisoned, or killed for one's beliefs. We're talking about perfectly good and unobjectionable books being hounded out of publication because of thought crimes. Lest you think this only happens to the Alex Jones of the world, look at what's happening in the young adults world: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/young-adult-author-cancels-own-novel-after-race-controversy https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/young-adult-au...
- standardUser 6y ago
  Artists receiving critical attacks from their patrons certainly isn't new. What is new is this idea that these objections are unacceptable. What do you think anarchists and queers and sex freaks endured for the last hundred years of art and media? If you have a viewpoint you think is worth defending, then defend it and work to advance it. Don't just pout when it's not automatically accepted.
throwaway894345 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. Granted, but what's the logic here? We ought to content ourselves with regression so long as no one is being imprisoned or killed? We want to progress, not regress. We don't want a conformist society, we want a tolerant society[^1]. We want free speech[^2], not compelled/coerced speech. We want ideas to compete freely so the best rise to the top; we don't want a prescribed set of beliefs to be forced on everyone. [^1]: (yes, I know all about the Paradox of Tolerance and how some use it to give themselves moral license to persecute anyone they deep intolerant). [^2]: No, I'm not talking about the strict 1st Amendment legal definition, but the broader principle.
- lostcolony 6y ago
  I think the prior post was making the case we -have- progressed?
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    It seemed like “we have progressed, therefore it’s okay to backslide and no one should criticize cancellation”. After all, no one here is arguing that the 1500s, 1600s, etc were the golden ages of speech.
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      I think it's presumptuous to assume "it's okay to backslide" was part of that comment. What/when are we backsliding from? There was never some 'golden age' where comments anathema to the culture at large wouldn't have consequences. Even the popular victims of cancel culture now have it better than the ones in the 1950s, say (i.e., Gina Carano may have been fired from one company, but that was because she persisted in espousing views they disagreed with; compare that to 1950s era blackballing from all of Hollywood for being -suspected- of supporting communism/socialism). I think for it to imply "it's okay to backslide" we have to have actually broached a time we've backslid -from-. Pursuant to the article, I don't really consider it backsliding if authors are now having second thoughts about writing from cultural perspectives other than their own. They have to be selective, of course, but we don't need, for instance, a white author writing about noble savages. That's not to say a white author can't write a western; it does mean they need to be very careful with the tone of it, or, yes, risk offending people. And recognize that some people will be offended no matter what, so they also need to recognize that some people aren't worth listening to. It's called sensitivity, not censorship. Yes, sensitivity might lead to self-censorship, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And you may miss the mark, and there will be consequences, and you might hit the mark but still have angry people, but angry people have yelled about every piece of literature we have. It's a balancing act, and it always has been; and I would contend consequences now are the weakest they have ever been.
kradeelav 6y ago
Just this past weekend a disabled animator was blacklisted from the industry because an ex-friend objected to their NSFW drawings on a twitter handle (completely separate from their professional handle). The number of death threats were also an immense psychological toll, and a bit more than just "being yelled at" (I am open to the fact there is a fuzzy continuum between the two). Regardless - "some companies won't work with you" is effectively a blacklist for those who don't have traditional backgrounds. Another point is that the online social circles acts as a support network for some disenfranchised folks (queers like myself), and when that gets turned against them, it gets ugly. I don't think I'm exaggerating that we're in a satanic panic against certain kind of art and works. (Not providing public links out of real concern for safety, but happy to if individuals DM me here.)
- threatofrain 6y ago
  If people don't like you, whether justly or unjustly, then they don't like you. Try persuading people who have a choice to work with people they dislike. The only way to stop this is enforcement with teeth.
  - kradeelav 6y ago
    On a practical basis, I would agree as somebody that fits a number of protected categories, and have had to work around this. Ethically, this is why we have organizations like the ACLU, ADA, and many, many others to be the enforcement with teeth. It's an uphill battle. I would disagree in the sense that pushing back against censorship - particularly of minorities - has many battlegrounds, not just enforcement with teeth. Greater social awareness/acceptance, education (history of blacklisting of sexual minorities for example), grassroots activism of simply supporting authors at risk of being deplatformed ... no sense in ignoring a tool that's available.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that blacklists are a new phenomenon? "cancel culture" has always existed. The only thing that is changing is that who is "cancelled" is no longer chosen by TV producers and news editors (ie, white men), but democratically by self-directed popular discourse. In 2003 the Dixie Chicks said at a show in london, "We don't want this war, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas". Immediately their recording contracts were cancelled, venues would no longer book their shows, radio stations would no longer play them, MTV stopped showing their music videos, they lost all of their sponsorships, and their colleagues in the genre ostracized them and started including segments in their shows about how the Dixie Chicks are terrorists. If that's not cancel culture, what is? Why is it okay and normal for white male venue owners, disc jockeys, and record label CEOs to destroy somebody's career for a single sentence of political speech, but "political correctness run amok" when marginalized people on twitter decide that they aren't going to buy tickets to a show with a comedian who's known for assaulting female stagehands?
toomim 6y ago
Blacklisting and excommunication are exactly what is happening today, but the difference is that it's much worse in a global world. In 200 BC, if you were excommunicated from a tribe, it would be horrible, but you could walk 20 miles and join another tribe that hasn't heard or bought into the ostracization. In 2021 AD, if you are excommunicated from an industry on the internet, there's nowhere else you can physically go. The entire intellectual globe is connected online. Excommunication is now worse than it used to be -- it's global.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  > In 2021 AD, if you are excommunicated from an industry on the internet, there's nowhere else you can physically go. The entire intellectual globe is connected online. Excommunication is now worse than it used to be -- it's global. When has this ever happened? There's lots of claims that people have been cancelled and can never work in their field again, but actual examples never seem to materialize.
  - icelancer 6y ago
    Try being falsely accused of sexual assault (or similar), forced into a plea bargain due to trumped up charges (or hell, beat the charge and still be considered guilty because "believe women"), and having your name plastered all over the Internet - and then getting a job in anything remotely public-facing. I know two people personally who had their lives ruined as a result of the amplification effect of the Internet. The companies don't have to believe you did anything wrong. They just have to fear that the mob might believe it and hurt their bottom line.
lonelyasacloud 6y ago
>>" Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you." And is that good?
zo1 6y ago
There are a lot of people that would get fired and worse if they simple stated their actual opinion instead of repeating the "popular opinion".
manigandham 6y ago
"Some companies" not working with you can be the end of your career in some cases, especially with an online record of it that will come up forever in the future.
rayiner 6y ago
Do you remember the 1990s?

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.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    > Don't emulate it! Where in this thread do I justify or emulate? Please quote something from any of my posts that would give you the impression that I approve of "cancel culture". However, if people are genuinely concerned about chilling speech, then why are they spending so much effort to call out SJW in a tiny handful of big cities instead of raising hell about the overt and often legal discrimination that happens in tens of thousands of rural communities? It's hard for me to take the concern about cancel culture seriously when the concern is exclusively focused on one side of the political/cultural divide even though the phenomenon happens far more on the other side of that divide. I have zero confidence that such concerns are genuine.
    - refenestrator 6y ago
      If you're going to hold yourself up as the more enlightened group, it creates a bit of an obligation to act that way. In my book at least.
      - throwawaygh 6y ago
        > If you're going to hold yourself up as the more enlightened group, it creates a bit of an obligation to act that way. In my book at least. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I'm saying ;-)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  That is cancel culture too. No one upthread made this about political sides. Why are you?
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    > No one upthread made this about political sides AFAICT every example in the article. I always assume that the contents of the article are upthread because I always assume people read the article before commenting :) Aside from the article, my impression is that "cancel culture" has a more specific meaning than you seem to prescribe. One on hand, we never called it "cancel culture" when a teacher is fired for being gay. And on the other, CPAC's theme this year is "America Uncanceled". My understanding is that, at this point, the term does have political content.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      Naive.
      - throwawaygh 6y ago
        Perhaps it is a bit naive to assume people read the article :).
        read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        Thanks for expanding your original reply, I can see how the term itself might come across as politically charged. It’d be better if it wasn’t used mostly in conjunction with the left.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      I think "cancel culture" definitely has some left-wing connotations, but I think that's because it came into existence at a time when the left was doing the majority of the canceling. In the aughts, "canceling" was mostly a conservative thing (usually criticizing the war effort) and it was much less egregious (if only because social media barely existed at the time). One prominent, egregious example of conservative cancellation from the time was the Dixie Chicks. So yeah, "cancellation" has some left-wing connotations, but it's not something that only the left can do. Further, there absolutely are hypocrites who criticize "cancel culture", but who happily try to cancel people they don't like. Hypocrites are bad, but there are still lots and lots of principled critics of cancel culture (indeed, I'm pretty sure most of the Harper's letter signatories are left-of-center). That there are hypocrites doesn't validate cancel culture. Also, if you're upset about the left-wing connotations, the proper response is not to try to legitimize cancel culture, but rather to persuade your political associates to behave better for sake of the brand. TL;DR: Canceling is bad no matter who does it; recently it's mostly been the woke left who have been doing it so it does have some political connotations; sometimes people are disingenuous in criticizing "cancel culture".
- fallingknife 6y ago
  First of all nobody is saying its good when right wingers do it. But here is Bernie Sanders invited to make a speech at the right wing Liberty University: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9323041/bernie-sanders-liberty-university https://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9323041/bernie-sanders-liberty...
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. A statement of faith is a required component of the faculty application packet. The student code of conduct prohibits homosexual behavior. Passing off Liberty as a bastion of free expression because they invited Sanders to give a speech is beyond disingenuous, and a perfect example of the enormous double standard in discussions of "cancel culture" right now.
    - fallingknife 6y ago
      First of all I never said or implied that it was a "bastion of free speech" > In the general case, you're not allowed to teach at Liberty unless you're a very specific type of conservative christian. Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. > A statement of faith is a required component of the faculty application packet. UC requires a mandatory "diversity statement" for faculty job applications: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/19/mathematician-comes-out-against-mandatory-diversity-statements-while-others-say-they https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/19/mathematician...
      - throwawaygh 6y ago
        > Let's not pretend that you are allowed to teach at Harvard, at least in certain departments, without a very specific political leaning. And certain other political leanings are not allowed in any department. I can't speak to all of Harvard's departments, but I know it's completely possible to have a wide variety of political viewpoints in SEAS. The faculty itself is probably to the right of the immediately surrounding community (that that this means much in Boston Metro, but I think it's probably true in the case of SEAS). > UC requires a mandatory "diversity statement" for faculty job applications: Diversity statements typically focus on a certain type of service and teaching activity. The "how it effects my teaching and advising" part of the statement could talk about making special efforts in your teaching to help first generation college students, or supporting students who aren't neurotypical, or being really good at working with the specific circumstances of students who come from non-traditional backgrounds (eg adult learners). The outreach/service portion of the statement could discuss bringing resources to underserved rural communities. Or providing learning opportunities for prisoners. Or a million other things. Source: actually did this. Got job offers. The fact that you think writing a "diversity statement" means you have to fit a certain political mold says a lot more about what you think diversity means than about diversity statement requirements. The diversity statement is about proving that you can at the very least create an inclusive learning environment for people from non-traditional backgrounds. Why in god's name should this be political, or in fact not a requirement for a teacher? Comparing diversity statements to statements of religious faith is absurd. If you can't write a page about eg helping autism spectrum students succeed in CS 1, and someone else can, then you might not be the best candidate for a CS 1 lecturer. Opinions on the Westminster Catechism, on the other hand, are not relevant to teaching students about linked lists.
- xenophonB 6y ago
  It's not 1960 lol, there are not vast swathes of the country where that happens, since the liberal left has almost total control via the Federal bureaucracy for enforcing their values everywhere, not just in blue states
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    This isn’t true.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Very little of that is new ("You'll never work in this town again" is an old statement). What has changed is that the Internet and the associated record of a person's conduct online can make the town very, very big indeed.
omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
I think the point is this had been around for a while, and what people are calling "cancel culture" is the same old-same old, but with (hopefully) less prison/death. There's nothing new about receiving negative feedback for having and expressing unpopular opinions. That's really common in pretty much every single social group I've been in, including on HN.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  People are upset now that the current is shifting and you get shunned for being racist, rather than being shunned for not speaking properly or whatever the heck. The underlying mechanism has not really changed.
  - refenestrator 6y ago
    It's specifically about speaking properly. Nobody gives a shit when Uber classifies their drivers as independent contractors to stiff them on benefits, but everybody cares about the propriety of master/slave replication terminology. We're dealing with police violence by capitalizing Black in our style guides. Etc etc etc.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > Nobody gives a shit when Uber classifies their drivers as independent contractors to stiff them on benefits, I think quite a few people gave a shit? I think you're attacking a straw man, it is perfectly possible to have opinions on small stylistic issues (like master vs main) while also thinking that there are fundamental economic things that need to change.
      - refenestrator 6y ago
        Uber's referendum won in California. I'm sure that people 'care', and I suppose I'm straw-manning those people.. I'm not straw-manning the system. Time and again, challenges to monetary order aren't permitted but puritanical word-propriety is encouraged. It's an energy outlet.
whimsicalism 6y ago
Half a century ago, in Japan, someone wrote a fictional story critical of the Emperor, and someone broke into the publishers house and murdered their housekeeper and severely injured their wife. [0] In response to the murder, the writer was pretty much universally condemned and the a bill was introduced in the legislature to ban writings of that sort. The fact that so many have convinced themselves that somehow we're in some new illiberal age is comical. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimanaka_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimanaka_incident
- lainga 6y ago
  Well, peoples' expectations have changed in America since we declared independence from Japan.
  - slg 6y ago
    I am curious what era of US history do you think was free of this stuff?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      For right-leaning, racist, sexist White male elites? Most of it. Which is why that's where most of the whining that this is a new and dangerous phenomenon is coming from. Heck, the government hyperfocus on rooting out Communism began almost immediately after the suggestion of turning the same apparatus against the KKK was rebuffed because of that organizations loyalty and patriotism.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    I erroneously thought the critic in the article was Japanese, although the "sir" should have been an obvious giveaway. In the states, just off the top of my head: the McCarthy era, the reaction to the 1968 Olympic raised fist incident
    - lainga 6y ago
      I guessed as much :)
conception 6y ago
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuCsAqKWYAkfEIF.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuCsAqKWYAkfEIF.jpg
AngryData 6y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but it wasn't that long ago that people were being brought to court in the US just for accusations of being socialist or communist. Any there wasn't even anything against the law with have different economic ideals.

jpxw 6y ago

Try 20 years ago.

dashundchen 6y ago
Try reading about the ridiculous fallout conservatives triggered in 2004, following a one second exposure of a female nipple on TV.

aparsons 6y ago

> some companies won't work with you It's a pretty big deal when that company is your employer. We need better protections around speech in this country. Firing someone for something they said cannot be a one-sided decision. At the minimum, the worker deserves the chance to go to court/arbitration

shadowgovt 6y ago
This is one of the categories of protections unions historically offered. Probably also worth noting that one does have the right to go to court if one believes one was wrongfully terminated. When Google fired James Damore, he sued. But the National Labor Relations Board ruled the firing was justified because he had made not-legally-protected statements that risked creating a hostile work environment. https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391 https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45826e6391
standardUser 6y ago
Conservatives have fought tooth and nail for at-will employment for a hundred years. If they would like to moderate those views I am sure we could find a way to expand protections for workers in a variety of ways, including speech.

nobodyandproud 6y ago

It’s an outgrowth of a larger problem: The problem today is that nobody will work with you nor can you get employed, unless you have the right connections. There is no starting over, because there is no anonymity or way to become obscure/forgotten.

seneca 6y ago

> There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. I suppose it depends how fine grain you can be when considering eras, but there were periods even within my own lifetime that were much more tolerant. In the 90s, there was a period where the influence of religious prigs had waned, and the secular prigs had yet to be taken seriously. The internet in particular was pretty wide open to ideas of all sorts, and no one would seek to ruin your life over disagreements. If you coursen the grain to wider epochs, then yes I think you're correct.

throwawaygh 6y ago

Exactly. I grew up in the Midwest and outside of the city. When I visit home, I pretend to believe in God, lie-by-omission about my bisexuality, stay silent about politics, pretend to say grace at dinner, and go to Church on Sunday mornings. If I didn't, then in many ways I'd not longer be welcome in that social group. Finding a iving-wage job in the local community would certainly be impossible. There are only a few tech firms and all the owners are members of the same bible study. Want to see real cancel culture? Live in any of America's many culturally homogeneous rural communities for a month. Put up a Biden sign in panhandle. None of this is a defense of cancel culture, but it's worth keeping in perspective that way more "cancelling" goes on in deeply conservative communities than in extremely liberal communities. We just call it "keeping American a Christian nation" instead of "cancel culture".

Covzire 6y ago
The opposite has been true for many decades now. There are many Christians who are extremely capable scientists, ready to perform experiments, document cause and effect and all manners of empirical scientific study but can't find work (or tenure) because they're not willing to bet all their beliefs on the theory that everything came from literally nothing, which is by itself non-scientific anyway.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > but can't find work (or tenure) because they're not willing to bet all their beliefs on the theory that everything came from literally nothing, which is by itself non-scientific anyway. Can you point to a single example of a hiring or T&P policy that overtly discriminates on the basis of religion? I certainly can. Wheaton College, Cedarville University, and Liberty University come to mind. None of those places will hire non-Christians, and a Statement of Faith is a required component of every faculty application.
- cbryan 6y ago
  This is complete hogwash. I know and work with plenty of Christian scientists. They do just as well as everyone else in the job market.

icelancer 6y ago

Two decades ago it was a lot safer, so, yeah.

dahfizz 6y ago

It depends entirely on what you mean by "unpopular opinions". You would face backlash in the 80's if you advocated overthrowing the government. Today, you can lose your job for not having your gender pronouns in your bio. I don't think its fair to equate both of those things as "unpopular opinions".

pseudalopex 6y ago
Who was fired for not having pronouns in their bio?
- ghaff 6y ago
  It was supposedly one of the reasons Disney fired Gina Carano. However, she had apparently been annoying the powers that be with her generally Trumpian social media postings for a while.
  - hannasanarion 6y ago
    Supposed by whom? Tucker Carlson?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    I just looked it up. She added boop/bop/beep to her name on Twitter and doubled down when people asked her to remove it. [1] And like you said it wasn't her first PR problem. [1] https://uproxx.com/movies/pedro-pascal-sister-trans-lux-gina-carano-pronouns/ https://uproxx.com/movies/pedro-pascal-sister-trans-lux-gina...

adolph 6y ago

Maybe there is a higher awareness of the costs imposed by censors and as the censorship encoded in government recedes that of private realms is brought more into light.

colechristensen 6y ago

It has also been hundreds of years of Western history since the intellectual class was driving this "punishment", and that was when religion and education were tightly linked. The problem isn't that ideologues are new, it is that ideology has seeped into the highest levels of education and culture. You have people across the spectrum of disciplines and stances afraid to contradict the received knowledge of the masses (or one of usually two sects). This hasn't been the case for a LONG TIME.

africanboy 6y ago

the post specifically talks about young people self-censoring themselves. I can't recall another era were young authors were afraid of being marginalized by other young people for being young and having radical (and sometimes plain stupid) ideas. I remember old, conservative people doing it to youngsters, but not to themselves, despite being the ones with bad - sometimes very bad - thoughts.

SignalNotSecure 6y ago

You could post just about anything online and mostly get away with it for a brief period of time ending around 2004 unless you were wholesale drug trafficking out in the open. Those websites were taken down but not very quickly. Sometimes I miss the lulz of the sheep being taken to slaughter by tubgirl and goatse.

Nasrudith 6y ago
What is keeping you from opening up your own shocksites right now? I think it is more cultural zeitgeist - the generation involved with it largely grew out of it and the younger ones don't have the same sort of "culture" to reoccur in the same way. It isn't something you would want to boast about running and would have people thinking ill of you but it doesn't really trigger outrage.
- SignalNotSecure 6y ago
  Younger generations don't use the web browser as their main source of entertainment. Their attention and energy has been siloed to the largest media platforms. They enjoy being serfs on the FAANG plantation.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    So in otherwords the issue is they don't want your puppet show when there is TV. That isn't cancel culture any more than nobody showing up to my TEDx talk where I count to ten thousand.

tannhauser23 6y ago

I find attitudes like this mystifying. No one is saying that today's cancel culture is comparable to getting tortured, imprisoned, or killed for one's beliefs. We're talking about perfectly good and unobjectionable books being hounded out of publication because of thought crimes. Lest you think this only happens to the Alex Jones of the world, look at what's happening in the young adults world: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/young-adult-author-cancels-own-novel-after-race-controversy https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/young-adult-au...

standardUser 6y ago
Artists receiving critical attacks from their patrons certainly isn't new. What is new is this idea that these objections are unacceptable. What do you think anarchists and queers and sex freaks endured for the last hundred years of art and media? If you have a viewpoint you think is worth defending, then defend it and work to advance it. Don't just pout when it's not automatically accepted.

throwaway894345 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. Granted, but what's the logic here? We ought to content ourselves with regression so long as no one is being imprisoned or killed? We want to progress, not regress. We don't want a conformist society, we want a tolerant society[^1]. We want free speech[^2], not compelled/coerced speech. We want ideas to compete freely so the best rise to the top; we don't want a prescribed set of beliefs to be forced on everyone. [^1]: (yes, I know all about the Paradox of Tolerance and how some use it to give themselves moral license to persecute anyone they deep intolerant). [^2]: No, I'm not talking about the strict 1st Amendment legal definition, but the broader principle.

lostcolony 6y ago
I think the prior post was making the case we -have- progressed?
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  It seemed like “we have progressed, therefore it’s okay to backslide and no one should criticize cancellation”. After all, no one here is arguing that the 1500s, 1600s, etc were the golden ages of speech.
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    I think it's presumptuous to assume "it's okay to backslide" was part of that comment. What/when are we backsliding from? There was never some 'golden age' where comments anathema to the culture at large wouldn't have consequences. Even the popular victims of cancel culture now have it better than the ones in the 1950s, say (i.e., Gina Carano may have been fired from one company, but that was because she persisted in espousing views they disagreed with; compare that to 1950s era blackballing from all of Hollywood for being -suspected- of supporting communism/socialism). I think for it to imply "it's okay to backslide" we have to have actually broached a time we've backslid -from-. Pursuant to the article, I don't really consider it backsliding if authors are now having second thoughts about writing from cultural perspectives other than their own. They have to be selective, of course, but we don't need, for instance, a white author writing about noble savages. That's not to say a white author can't write a western; it does mean they need to be very careful with the tone of it, or, yes, risk offending people. And recognize that some people will be offended no matter what, so they also need to recognize that some people aren't worth listening to. It's called sensitivity, not censorship. Yes, sensitivity might lead to self-censorship, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And you may miss the mark, and there will be consequences, and you might hit the mark but still have angry people, but angry people have yelled about every piece of literature we have. It's a balancing act, and it always has been; and I would contend consequences now are the weakest they have ever been.

kradeelav 6y ago

Just this past weekend a disabled animator was blacklisted from the industry because an ex-friend objected to their NSFW drawings on a twitter handle (completely separate from their professional handle). The number of death threats were also an immense psychological toll, and a bit more than just "being yelled at" (I am open to the fact there is a fuzzy continuum between the two). Regardless - "some companies won't work with you" is effectively a blacklist for those who don't have traditional backgrounds. Another point is that the online social circles acts as a support network for some disenfranchised folks (queers like myself), and when that gets turned against them, it gets ugly. I don't think I'm exaggerating that we're in a satanic panic against certain kind of art and works. (Not providing public links out of real concern for safety, but happy to if individuals DM me here.)

threatofrain 6y ago
If people don't like you, whether justly or unjustly, then they don't like you. Try persuading people who have a choice to work with people they dislike. The only way to stop this is enforcement with teeth.
- kradeelav 6y ago
  On a practical basis, I would agree as somebody that fits a number of protected categories, and have had to work around this. Ethically, this is why we have organizations like the ACLU, ADA, and many, many others to be the enforcement with teeth. It's an uphill battle. I would disagree in the sense that pushing back against censorship - particularly of minorities - has many battlegrounds, not just enforcement with teeth. Greater social awareness/acceptance, education (history of blacklisting of sexual minorities for example), grassroots activism of simply supporting authors at risk of being deplatformed ... no sense in ignoring a tool that's available.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hannasanarion 6y ago
Are you suggesting that blacklists are a new phenomenon? "cancel culture" has always existed. The only thing that is changing is that who is "cancelled" is no longer chosen by TV producers and news editors (ie, white men), but democratically by self-directed popular discourse. In 2003 the Dixie Chicks said at a show in london, "We don't want this war, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas". Immediately their recording contracts were cancelled, venues would no longer book their shows, radio stations would no longer play them, MTV stopped showing their music videos, they lost all of their sponsorships, and their colleagues in the genre ostracized them and started including segments in their shows about how the Dixie Chicks are terrorists. If that's not cancel culture, what is? Why is it okay and normal for white male venue owners, disc jockeys, and record label CEOs to destroy somebody's career for a single sentence of political speech, but "political correctness run amok" when marginalized people on twitter decide that they aren't going to buy tickets to a show with a comedian who's known for assaulting female stagehands?

toomim 6y ago

Blacklisting and excommunication are exactly what is happening today, but the difference is that it's much worse in a global world. In 200 BC, if you were excommunicated from a tribe, it would be horrible, but you could walk 20 miles and join another tribe that hasn't heard or bought into the ostracization. In 2021 AD, if you are excommunicated from an industry on the internet, there's nowhere else you can physically go. The entire intellectual globe is connected online. Excommunication is now worse than it used to be -- it's global.

tstrimple 6y ago
> In 2021 AD, if you are excommunicated from an industry on the internet, there's nowhere else you can physically go. The entire intellectual globe is connected online. Excommunication is now worse than it used to be -- it's global. When has this ever happened? There's lots of claims that people have been cancelled and can never work in their field again, but actual examples never seem to materialize.
- icelancer 6y ago
  Try being falsely accused of sexual assault (or similar), forced into a plea bargain due to trumped up charges (or hell, beat the charge and still be considered guilty because "believe women"), and having your name plastered all over the Internet - and then getting a job in anything remotely public-facing. I know two people personally who had their lives ruined as a result of the amplification effect of the Internet. The companies don't have to believe you did anything wrong. They just have to fear that the mob might believe it and hurt their bottom line.

lonelyasacloud 6y ago

>>" Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you." And is that good?

zo1 6y ago

There are a lot of people that would get fired and worse if they simple stated their actual opinion instead of repeating the "popular opinion".

manigandham 6y ago

"Some companies" not working with you can be the end of your career in some cases, especially with an online record of it that will come up forever in the future.

rayiner 6y ago

Do you remember the 1990s?