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When I mention that I don't understand what Popehat actually wants, I'm looking at it in the context of the concept of "competing rights" that he writes about.
by BitwiseFool 5y ago
When I mention that I don't understand what Popehat actually wants, I'm looking at it in the context of the concept of "competing rights" that he writes about.
>"People complaining about “cancel culture” frequently suggest that it chills speech. Perhaps. But so does a vague denunciation of other people’s speech."
My confusion stems from the fact that Popehat seems to want to have it both ways. On one hand, he entertains the idea that "cancel culture" has a chilling effect. It is not a stretch to say that "cancel culture" is a kind of "denunciation of other people's speech". But he's simultaneously criticizing people who want to end "cancel culture" because he sees them as also committing a "denunciation of other people’s speech".
If Popehat's main gripe is that the liberty of speech is being limited, both "cancel culture" and "anti-cancel culture" lead to speech being denounced and limited. With this contradiction in mind, I don't understand what Popehat hopes to achieve.
- Imnimo 5y ago>But he's simultaneously criticizing people who want to end "cancel culture" because he sees them as also committing a "denunciation of other people’s speech". Right, but I think his criticism here is not that "they should not denounce other people's speech", it's that they are being hypocritical in their reasoning. He's arguing against the soundness of their denunciation, not arguing against their right to make it.
- _jal 5y agoHe's pointing out that many (not all) people complaining are asking for criticism - other peoples' speech - to be shut down. There are a few sincere people out there. But most whining about cancel culture are just asking to be free from criticism. Sometimes it is blatantly obvious [1], more frequently layered with complaints about legitimately out of line acts and misdirects. The answer to bad speech is more speech. End of story. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/palin-criticism-threatens_n_139729 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/palin-criticism-threatens_n_1...
- BitwiseFool 5y ago>"But most whining about cancel culture are just asking to be free from criticism" This assessment doesn't sit right with me because I don't sense the people 'whining' about cancel culture are trying to get out of ideological critique. I sense they're calling for tolerance because the 'critique' is laden with threats to livelihood and societal standing. From that perspective, I don't believe that calling on people to be more tolerant of other people's speech is a substantial reduction in speech. One could say it results in a net gain of speech.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y agoI don’t know if tolerance of speech is always a net gain of speech. Communities can enter death spirals where only extreme speech exists because everyone reasonable is so turned off by the extreme speech that they leave. (Edit: I’m not saying that tolerance of speech is always a net negative either. I’m just saying it might be too complex to say.)
- Banana699 5y ago>Communities can enter death spirals where only extreme speech exists because everyone reasonable is so turned off by the extreme speech that they leave. This never happens in a country, people will not abandon their land and their social networks because $MEAN_PERSON said something bad about trans people. What you describe only happens in online communities or hobby clubs, and not all of them at that. In practice, fears from "unpolite" speech is almost always hysterical reactions by those unprepared and/or ill-equipped to counter speech with speech.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago> This never happens in a country I’m super confused where I ever invoked the idea of what this looks like outside of online communities. I’m sorry if I caused you to misunderstand my speech.