5 ms·

"His point is that you have to discuss something more particular than "the right to speak your mind without fear of shame or shunning". You've never had that ri

"His point is that you have to discuss something more particular than "the right to speak your mind without fear of shame or shunning". You've never had that right" This is a bit flawed, essentially 'straw man' argument in the grand scheme. While there might be good reason to critique the NYT article, the response I think missed the bigger point. Nobody is really making the argument that speech isn't going to have consequences. The 'Cancel Culture Does not Exist' or 'This Is Not A 1st Amendment Issue' arguments are already tired, empty canards. The awful failure of the authors argument are clearly evident in his dismissal of the Harper's Magazine moment - he argues 'nobody bothers to define cancel culture' etc. which is bullshit. Stephen Pinker, one of the Harper's signatories, faced concerted and vicious attempt at 'cancellation' of some of his positions and credentials when he dared to voice the heretic idea along the lines that policing in America is largely much more heavy handed than eslewehere, and that this is the fundamental issues, less so race. God forbid (!). Thankfully, Stephen Pinker has enough credentials to hold off the cancellers. JK Rowling is another good pop culture example. People lament that 'she's a billionaire and can't be cancelled' again which is not true. The amount of front page sardonic vitriol about her by ostensibly 'respectable' publications is very directly translated into hesitancy on every popular front: movie deals, book deals, actors fear of 'being in the out club' if they appear in a film based upon her book etc. Her 'cancellation' can be literally be measured in dollars. It's pernicious specifically because the vast majority of participants actually are probably not bothered entirely by Rowling or Pinker comments - but that the 'fear of association' created by the 'Cancel Screamers' creates a chilling effect on speech and participation. Ergo the 'consequence' of speech is not legitimate: people are not 'running from Rowling' because of what they think of her positions, they are running from her because of what others might think of them. I'll step back my argument an inch and admit that there are actually nutbars (of all stripes) who probably believe they can 'say whatever, whenever' - 1 minute on Twitter will remind us of that, however there's a gigantic grey are of obvious areas of public cancellation.

tptacek 5y ago
Steven Pinker (it's Steven, not Stephen) wrote a letter that helped obtain for Jeffrey Epstein an 18-month sentence for child sex trafficking in which his cell was kept unlocked and he was allowed to leave the prison for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, to work from his own office. My point here being: maybe Pinker isn't the example you want to call out here; maybe we can argue about somebody with perhaps fewer reasons to be "canceled". Pinker is a complicated figure; he is not, as many would have it, a perfect example of a pure academic singled out purely for his opinions on culture-war issues. I agree with you about the potency of his credentials; lesser academics have been driven out for much smaller roles in the Epstein saga.
- gjm11 5y ago
  Alan Dershowitz wrote to Pinker asking "do you reckon this statute means X or Y?" and Pinker said "It obviously means X". So far as I can tell, (1) Pinker didn't know that this was specifically about the Epstein case, (2) Pinker gave an honest answer to the question, and (3) Pinker's answer was in fact obviously correct. Epstein was an awful person who did awful things and should have spent the rest of his life in prison. But that doesn't mean that every specific attempt to put him in prison was legally sound, and it doesn't mean that anyone whose actions contributed to that specific attempt's failure is somehow complicit in Epstein's evils. It seems to me that it's a positively good thing that when someone is accused of something awful, they can still get vigorous legal representation, and that the people providing that vigorous legal representation can solicit opinions from experts that they hope will back them up. Because 1. sometimes people who are accused of awful things turn out not to have done them, and 2. when they did do them we want the legal proceedings establishing that they did to be as watertight as possible. In this particular case, the issue wasn't "did Epstein do X or not?" but "are the things Epstein did covered by this specific law or not?". It seems that they weren't. Again, I think it's a positively good thing that when someone is accused of something awful we only get to use a law against them if that law really covers what they did. Because if there isn't a general principle that you only get punished for things that are actually against the actual law then what we have isn't laws, it's excuses for the powerful to punish whoever they feel like punishing. To be clear, it looks as fishy as all hell to me that Epstein didn't get a much harsher sentence in the 2006-2008 case. It looks, in fact, like some sort of corruption or cover-up. But in that case, I don't see how Pinker's letter had anything much to do with it. And, again, so far as I can tell what Pinker wrote was simply correct, and when he wrote it he didn't know it was for Epstein's case.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    I'm not interested in rehabilitating Pinker, who appeared in Epstein's flight logs and has been photographed socializing with him. My point is simply that he tends to be a bad example when brought up in these kinds of discussions. He's treated as if he's simply a celebrity scientist caught in the limelight over political tweets. But he's not just that.
krisoft 5y ago
> People lament that 'she's a billionaire and can't be cancelled' again which is not true. She has enough money that if she wants to be heard she can literally print her opinion and pay people to stuff it in everyones postbox. If she as much as posts a long form article on her blog millions will read it. Her voice is not supressed in any way. If she wants to publish a book, she rings up a publishing house and they will publish it for her. This is what people mean when they say that she “cannot be canceled”. > The amount of front page sardonic vitriol about her by ostensibly 'respectable' publications is very directly translated into hesitancy on every popular front That is one reading. The other reading is that she used her considerable reach to clearly, and articulately express reprehensible thoughts. People have seen and read these thoughts and decided that they don’t want to be associated with her. As it is their right. How do you know that your reading is right and mine is wrong?

tptacek 5y ago

Steven Pinker (it's Steven, not Stephen) wrote a letter that helped obtain for Jeffrey Epstein an 18-month sentence for child sex trafficking in which his cell was kept unlocked and he was allowed to leave the prison for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, to work from his own office. My point here being: maybe Pinker isn't the example you want to call out here; maybe we can argue about somebody with perhaps fewer reasons to be "canceled". Pinker is a complicated figure; he is not, as many would have it, a perfect example of a pure academic singled out purely for his opinions on culture-war issues. I agree with you about the potency of his credentials; lesser academics have been driven out for much smaller roles in the Epstein saga.

gjm11 5y ago
Alan Dershowitz wrote to Pinker asking "do you reckon this statute means X or Y?" and Pinker said "It obviously means X". So far as I can tell, (1) Pinker didn't know that this was specifically about the Epstein case, (2) Pinker gave an honest answer to the question, and (3) Pinker's answer was in fact obviously correct. Epstein was an awful person who did awful things and should have spent the rest of his life in prison. But that doesn't mean that every specific attempt to put him in prison was legally sound, and it doesn't mean that anyone whose actions contributed to that specific attempt's failure is somehow complicit in Epstein's evils. It seems to me that it's a positively good thing that when someone is accused of something awful, they can still get vigorous legal representation, and that the people providing that vigorous legal representation can solicit opinions from experts that they hope will back them up. Because 1. sometimes people who are accused of awful things turn out not to have done them, and 2. when they did do them we want the legal proceedings establishing that they did to be as watertight as possible. In this particular case, the issue wasn't "did Epstein do X or not?" but "are the things Epstein did covered by this specific law or not?". It seems that they weren't. Again, I think it's a positively good thing that when someone is accused of something awful we only get to use a law against them if that law really covers what they did. Because if there isn't a general principle that you only get punished for things that are actually against the actual law then what we have isn't laws, it's excuses for the powerful to punish whoever they feel like punishing. To be clear, it looks as fishy as all hell to me that Epstein didn't get a much harsher sentence in the 2006-2008 case. It looks, in fact, like some sort of corruption or cover-up. But in that case, I don't see how Pinker's letter had anything much to do with it. And, again, so far as I can tell what Pinker wrote was simply correct, and when he wrote it he didn't know it was for Epstein's case.
- tptacek 5y ago
  I'm not interested in rehabilitating Pinker, who appeared in Epstein's flight logs and has been photographed socializing with him. My point is simply that he tends to be a bad example when brought up in these kinds of discussions. He's treated as if he's simply a celebrity scientist caught in the limelight over political tweets. But he's not just that.

krisoft 5y ago

> People lament that 'she's a billionaire and can't be cancelled' again which is not true. She has enough money that if she wants to be heard she can literally print her opinion and pay people to stuff it in everyones postbox. If she as much as posts a long form article on her blog millions will read it. Her voice is not supressed in any way. If she wants to publish a book, she rings up a publishing house and they will publish it for her. This is what people mean when they say that she “cannot be canceled”. > The amount of front page sardonic vitriol about her by ostensibly 'respectable' publications is very directly translated into hesitancy on every popular front That is one reading. The other reading is that she used her considerable reach to clearly, and articulately express reprehensible thoughts. People have seen and read these thoughts and decided that they don’t want to be associated with her. As it is their right. How do you know that your reading is right and mine is wrong?