7 ms·

>It may seem narrower to people who's views are sliding out of the window, but I see no evidence that the overton window in the US is any narrower now than say,

>It may seem narrower to people who's views are sliding out of the window, but I see no evidence that the overton window in the US is any narrower now than say, the 1950's. I can probably think of several views supported by the median American in 2021 (or at least 30% of Americans) that would get you summarily dismissed from most high-visibility jobs if publicly expressed. You probably could too. What views in the 1950s do you think were similar? Again, there was undoubtedly an Overton Window in the 1950s. What's peculiar about 2020s cancel culture imo, however, is how zealously it goes after people who hold views that are extremely common among the broader population.

lapetitejort 6y ago
A view in the 1950's that could get you dismissed from a high-visibility job? How about being a communist? Have people forgotten about the McCarthy Era?
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  You'd probably still get dismissed from a high visibility job for being a communist, actually. IIRC in California being a communist bars you from holding office still today.
- jihadjihad 6y ago
  In that case there wasn't even a requirement to actually be a communist. You could be dismissed for simply being accused of being a communist.
- souprock 6y ago
  dismissed from a high-visibility job: agree supported by the median American in 1950's (or at least 30% of Americans): not a chance
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Ah but you see, you didn't actually have to be a communist, you just had to close enough to one. For example, Eugene Debs despite getting more electoral support than the Libertarian party ever did, was branded as a communist, and also made a political prisoner.
    - yanderekko 6y ago
      If your response to being challenged about the 1950s political climate is to raise a story about someone who died before 1930, then that says a lot...
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        It got even worse after 1950, it's just that at that point all socialist were already atomized.
        yanderekko 6y ago
        But afaik it's simply not the case that 30% of the population was sympathetic to socialism in the 1950s. Maybe if you really tortured the term "socialism", but come on.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        30% is an arbitrary number, but even at the time where more people in the US were sympathetic to socialism and were ever sympathetic to modern libertarianism, it was violently suppressed by the state, much less "canceled". As far as how many people were sympathetic to socialism at that point, 15-20% isn't a bad estimate. But if you want something closer to 30% in the 1950s, how about just being black?
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Eugene Debs was an out and out socialist, who led the most violent strike in US history. You can make an argument that he didn't make it violent -- that was the Pinkertons -- but he didn't get tossed in jail because he ran an opposition party a la Navalny. He's not the boogyman that some would make him out to be, but he didn't pull punches, either. Got 3% of the US vote behind bars, too.
- tarboreus 6y ago
  Were 30% of Americans Communist? The argument isn't that there wasn't anything you couldn't say, but that the window doesn't cover the full range of opinions a substantial part of the population actually holds.
mattnewton 6y ago
> What views in the 1950s do you think were similar? How about professing atheism, or believe in communism? Being in a same sex or different race relationship in the 50's wouldn't just get you fired, it could lead to people refusing to give you a mortgage or the police driving you out of town. It's difficult to find examples from the 50's america of a widespread belief that wasn't in the "mainstream" acceptable view because the effects of going against the acceptable view were so harsh. I doubt we could find a reliable poll from that time period to hit your arbitrary 30% threshold, but I like to flatter my ancestral countrymen at least enough to think that miscegenation laws weren't thought of as morally right by 70% of the population. The difference, as you point it out, is that today's "cancel culture" can target people from the majority classes.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > How about professing atheism, or believe in communism? Even today these are sub-5% viewpoints.
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    Okay, how about allowing mixed race marriages? I think the 30% threshold is arbitrary and not worth fixating on, but there are certainly counter examples.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      In 1958, only 4% of Americans supported interracial marriage. (And in 1951 you had Support was around 30% by the 1970s. It was below 50% into the mid-1990s. In 1975, The Jeffersons featured an interracial married couple on TV. So that’s not a great example of being cancelled for something 30% of Americans supported.
      - mattnewton 6y ago
        Another example is catholicism; Catholics absolutely were barred from some jobs in the 50's, despite being nearly a quarter of the population. We can keep looking at examples, but I don't think the 30% is a meaningful number, as I wrote above it seems impossible to find an opinion that the majority felt comfortable expressing that went against the stringent vocal monitory setting the overton window. I hypothesize that the vast majority of people just did not care strongly about interracial marriage but did not want to tangle with those who did. It seems to just be another way of saying that today's overton window doesn't include some of the views common in conservative white america, and before it was defined by conservative white america.

lapetitejort 6y ago

A view in the 1950's that could get you dismissed from a high-visibility job? How about being a communist? Have people forgotten about the McCarthy Era?

sudosysgen 6y ago
You'd probably still get dismissed from a high visibility job for being a communist, actually. IIRC in California being a communist bars you from holding office still today.
jihadjihad 6y ago
In that case there wasn't even a requirement to actually be a communist. You could be dismissed for simply being accused of being a communist.
souprock 6y ago
dismissed from a high-visibility job: agree supported by the median American in 1950's (or at least 30% of Americans): not a chance
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Ah but you see, you didn't actually have to be a communist, you just had to close enough to one. For example, Eugene Debs despite getting more electoral support than the Libertarian party ever did, was branded as a communist, and also made a political prisoner.
  - yanderekko 6y ago
    If your response to being challenged about the 1950s political climate is to raise a story about someone who died before 1930, then that says a lot...
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      It got even worse after 1950, it's just that at that point all socialist were already atomized.
      - yanderekko 6y ago
        But afaik it's simply not the case that 30% of the population was sympathetic to socialism in the 1950s. Maybe if you really tortured the term "socialism", but come on.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        30% is an arbitrary number, but even at the time where more people in the US were sympathetic to socialism and were ever sympathetic to modern libertarianism, it was violently suppressed by the state, much less "canceled". As far as how many people were sympathetic to socialism at that point, 15-20% isn't a bad estimate. But if you want something closer to 30% in the 1950s, how about just being black?
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Eugene Debs was an out and out socialist, who led the most violent strike in US history. You can make an argument that he didn't make it violent -- that was the Pinkertons -- but he didn't get tossed in jail because he ran an opposition party a la Navalny. He's not the boogyman that some would make him out to be, but he didn't pull punches, either. Got 3% of the US vote behind bars, too.
tarboreus 6y ago
Were 30% of Americans Communist? The argument isn't that there wasn't anything you couldn't say, but that the window doesn't cover the full range of opinions a substantial part of the population actually holds.

mattnewton 6y ago

> What views in the 1950s do you think were similar? How about professing atheism, or believe in communism? Being in a same sex or different race relationship in the 50's wouldn't just get you fired, it could lead to people refusing to give you a mortgage or the police driving you out of town. It's difficult to find examples from the 50's america of a widespread belief that wasn't in the "mainstream" acceptable view because the effects of going against the acceptable view were so harsh. I doubt we could find a reliable poll from that time period to hit your arbitrary 30% threshold, but I like to flatter my ancestral countrymen at least enough to think that miscegenation laws weren't thought of as morally right by 70% of the population. The difference, as you point it out, is that today's "cancel culture" can target people from the majority classes.

rayiner 6y ago
> How about professing atheism, or believe in communism? Even today these are sub-5% viewpoints.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  Okay, how about allowing mixed race marriages? I think the 30% threshold is arbitrary and not worth fixating on, but there are certainly counter examples.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    In 1958, only 4% of Americans supported interracial marriage. (And in 1951 you had Support was around 30% by the 1970s. It was below 50% into the mid-1990s. In 1975, The Jeffersons featured an interracial married couple on TV. So that’s not a great example of being cancelled for something 30% of Americans supported.
    - mattnewton 6y ago
      Another example is catholicism; Catholics absolutely were barred from some jobs in the 50's, despite being nearly a quarter of the population. We can keep looking at examples, but I don't think the 30% is a meaningful number, as I wrote above it seems impossible to find an opinion that the majority felt comfortable expressing that went against the stringent vocal monitory setting the overton window. I hypothesize that the vast majority of people just did not care strongly about interracial marriage but did not want to tangle with those who did. It seems to just be another way of saying that today's overton window doesn't include some of the views common in conservative white america, and before it was defined by conservative white america.