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You are equating government imprisonment with public cancellation here because they both have a chilling effect, but we very quickly run into the paradox of tol

by Latty 5y ago

You are equating government imprisonment with public cancellation here because they both have a chilling effect, but we very quickly run into the paradox of tolerance: do you restrict the expression of "cancelling" to protect other speech? Those Nazis you use an example of abhorrent speech that must be allowed were calling for communists to be rounded up and killed for their views. Surely that is partaking in cancellation? Who cancels the cancellers?

whiddershins 5y ago
Explicit threats, defamation, calls to violence, harassment, inciting riots, fighting words … these have a legal precedent for the reason that cause and effect are traceable. By the same token, ‘cancellation’ if it leads to loss of livelihood etc. is questionable. Being offended or hurt by someone’s words are much harder to quantify.
- Latty 5y ago
  So freedom of speech should be limited if you could cause someone to lose their job? So I go to a shop, and the employee calls me a piece of shit, I could be arrested for telling their boss that they were rude?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
noduerme 5y ago
Who cancels the cancellers of the cancellers? You've hit the nail on the head: Cancellation is not a viable means of stopping criminal calls to violence, and it's pretty much useless as a rhetorical tool. For the former we have a legal system which should be shored up rather than undermined by vigilantism; for the latter we have a democratic political system which, ditto, should be treated with respect rather than undermined by stooping to the same dirty tricks one's political enemies pulled. Which is probably why cancellation usually appears like virtue signalling, since it serves little purpose in either stopping violence or improving the system, let alone convincing anyone but potentially violent imbeciles in one's own camp to holler and mob up on a target of rage for the benefit of whoever controls the mob. It has nothing to do with justice. No matter how shitty a human the target of it is. It's always just a really transparent attempt for someone to collect "likes". Who gets "likes" for calling for civil debate rather than attacking the group's enemies? No one. Anyone who dares to would be cancelled too. That should tell you all you need to know about the nature of intolerance toward intolerance. It's categorically intolerant as well, and it is no longer on the right side of anything.

by Latty 5y ago

whiddershins 5y ago

Explicit threats, defamation, calls to violence, harassment, inciting riots, fighting words … these have a legal precedent for the reason that cause and effect are traceable. By the same token, ‘cancellation’ if it leads to loss of livelihood etc. is questionable. Being offended or hurt by someone’s words are much harder to quantify.

Latty 5y ago
So freedom of speech should be limited if you could cause someone to lose their job? So I go to a shop, and the employee calls me a piece of shit, I could be arrested for telling their boss that they were rude?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

noduerme 5y ago

Who cancels the cancellers of the cancellers? You've hit the nail on the head: Cancellation is not a viable means of stopping criminal calls to violence, and it's pretty much useless as a rhetorical tool. For the former we have a legal system which should be shored up rather than undermined by vigilantism; for the latter we have a democratic political system which, ditto, should be treated with respect rather than undermined by stooping to the same dirty tricks one's political enemies pulled. Which is probably why cancellation usually appears like virtue signalling, since it serves little purpose in either stopping violence or improving the system, let alone convincing anyone but potentially violent imbeciles in one's own camp to holler and mob up on a target of rage for the benefit of whoever controls the mob. It has nothing to do with justice. No matter how shitty a human the target of it is. It's always just a really transparent attempt for someone to collect "likes". Who gets "likes" for calling for civil debate rather than attacking the group's enemies? No one. Anyone who dares to would be cancelled too. That should tell you all you need to know about the nature of intolerance toward intolerance. It's categorically intolerant as well, and it is no longer on the right side of anything.