5 ms·

What I find most interesting are those arguing against "cancel culture" and the revival of heretics don't find issue with things like the "critical race theory"

What I find most interesting are those arguing against "cancel culture" and the revival of heretics don't find issue with things like the "critical race theory" boogeyman and the "don't say gay"-style bills preventing teaching of sexuality topics. It's interesting how consistency of free thought isn't really the important thing here.

deleted 5y ago
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jimmygrapes 5y ago
Both of those topics are fraught with gaslighting ("nobody is teaching X") and misrepresentation ("don't say gay") along with outright fabrication ("it's a right").
- XorNot 5y ago
  > and misrepresentation ("don't say gay") Exactly like you're doing here when you rode on in to "both sides!" this argument.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    You condemn “both sides” but the fact of the matter is that large groups of human being suck. It’s impossible to maintain any kind of nuance or individual compassion at scale. So, yeah not just both sides, all sides. If you think there’s some large group of people that all wear white hats and aren’t being shitty or ruining anyone’s life, you are being willfully blind. Furthermore, when you engage in this whataboutism garbage (“what’s always interesting to me”, yeah I’m sure it’s fascinating) when someone tries to point out something your “team” is doing wrong, you are part of the problem. Yes, Trumpists suck—-that means everyone else should get a free pass? By that token shouldn’t Trumpists get a free pass because Putin is out there committing atrocities?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
nonesuchluck 5y ago
Whole thing boils down to "I've always been in the cultural in-group, but man it sucks here in the out-group," as he notices for the first time what life has been like for most people, for most of history. Hilarious.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  > what life has been like for most people, for most of history Aren't most people in the majority, in whatever metric is under consideration, by definition? Which tends to be the in-group in democracies?
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  That's a bad faith argument. He isn't complaining being shunned out of some culture, he is talking about people losing their job, people losing access to platforms that contain lots of people who want to listen to them.
- glogla 5y ago
  Yup. If you want trans and gay people, history of racial oppression and female nipples on tv banned, that is just "normal" and "natural". But anything else is horrible attack on mah freeze peach.
deleted 5y ago
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bufferoverflow 5y ago
- otterley 5y ago
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    - otterley 5y ago
- tedivm 5y ago
  This is pure bigotry. Allowing children to know that gay people exist is not grooming. It isn't even close to grooming. Knowing that two men or two women can be married isn't grooming.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Yes, but the commeter is saying that he's read the bill -- and it actually says nothing about whether you can tell children that men can be married. I personally dont see where it prevents this at all. As far as I can see, the explicit wording of the bill is just to delay "social sex education" till c. 8/9 years old -- right?
    - tedivm 5y ago
      I've also read the bill, and it's easy to quote. It explicitly says that any discussion about "sexual identity" is banned. One of the requirement clauses states that the bill is "prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or in a specified manner". That quote is the whole clause. It doesn't ban instruction, it bans discussion. It is explicit. Those exact words. Anyone who says otherwise either did not actually read the bill, or they didn't read it very well.
pjbeam 5y ago
None of the competing thoughtcrime tribes seem to care about things like free thought, discourse, etc. This is the frightening part to me--people in the "other tribe" aren't worthy of things like due process, and authoritarian approaches are fine as long as they are aimed at the "other". I know history repeats itself but wow, c'mon.. the 20th century wasn't that long ago.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  I have heard a scant few stories of people having their due process taken away. There is some controversy though about whether the concept of due process as per law should be extended to a general principle that guides the operation of privately-owned websites. That isn't how the internet used to work so the jury's still out.
  - pjbeam 5y ago
    "aren't worthy of" is distinct from realized actions of the state. If you recall the impulse of the mob during me too was to burn without trial any accused--this sentiment is what I'm talking about.
- otterley 5y ago
  Nobody’s trying to put you in jail for having differing views. But there’s never going to be a world in which there aren’t social consequences for having them. If you think, for example, that the world is going to greet people who think it’s ok to molest children (whether they do it or not) with open arms, you’re just deluded.
  - throw_away_lol 5y ago
    >Nobody’s trying to put you in jail for having differing views. >>Man guilty of hate crime for filming pug's 'Nazi salutes' https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925 Turns out they are and will.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
tomrod 5y ago
Precisely my thoughts. > In the late 1980s a new ideology of this type appeared in US universities I don't think this was new. Liberality tends to go hand in hand with seeking reality, as discovering something and then adopting it requires intellectual big-tentism. Perhaps the author bemoans the rise of bureaucracy within the university, which has demonstrably increased? My concern is that these arguments about moral puritanicalism aren't without merit, but that they are often ignore the cancerous alt-right, which is bereft of morality beyond racial nationalism. Perhaps the cancel culture creedal concern is considered to be salvageable.
- newbamboo 5y ago
  Is there an alt-right? People use that term, but they might as well be talking about unicorns. All these years, I’ve not met a single alt-right person despite being told this is a large and growing segment of our population, a pernicious and growing “threat to democracy!”Well, if they exist they look a lot like the old-right that voted in exactly the same fashion. If anything the right has gotten much more progressive. My statements here can all be quantified lest you disagree.
  - skellington 5y ago
    I think you know that the alt-right is mostly a fantasy created by the current neo-marxist religion. Religion always requires a devil, and if it doesn't exist you make it up.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    > Is there an alt-right It's a nicer form of the term fascist. Here is more information to start with, as well as several linked sources, compiled by people for your benefit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
    - newbamboo 5y ago
      Read your own link: “He deemed the size of the alt-right to be "miniscule".[409]”
zozbot234 5y ago
It's not "don't say gay", it's "don't subject, expect or mandate young kids to learn stuff about things like sexual orientation (or even gender identity) that they cannot possibly relate with prior to the biological changes of adolescence, and that are enough of a minefield for adults already. Leave this stuff to family and broader society for the time being."
- edent 5y ago
  Do you really think that young kids don't notice their parents affection for each other? Or that their older sibling is dating someone? Or that people get pregnant?
  - zozbot234 5y ago
- brohoolio 5y ago
  The teachers can’t address why someone in the class has two dads without risk of being sued. Heck the wording is vague enough you might not discuss marriage. The ambiguity in the law is there as a feature to hush normal conversations that might otherwise happen.
  - kurthr 5y ago
    Arguably, using "Mom" or "Dad", or even gendered pronouns is restricted. Of course not using these would upset the very people who wrote the laws, which is another part (beyond the enforceability) that makes them insane.
  - scruple 5y ago
    Why is an individual students parents a subject for a classroom? That is utterly bizarre and it sounds like the teacher in your hypothetical is singling out the student.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Florida education law, and this law, and education law in general, all have some real problems. It's somewhat unfortunate that misinformational memes of this sort travel much faster than reasonable understandings of its problems (this is but one example.) I believe it impairs the resolution of the nation's problems. Yeah, it galvanizes some support, but also hardens the opposition, and impairs the ability to make any sort of incremental progress, leaving achievable reforms stalled for years or even decades. Moreover, as a matter of principle, I don't really want to be part of a political movement which values spinning a story to its advantage more than it cares about informing the public. Build your movement on something solid.
deleted 5y ago
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throwaway5752 5y ago
Yup. It is conveniently one-side. I don't think it's by design, just accident. When you've concluded that there is a partisan problem, it takes a lot mental discipline (more than even some prominent technology figures have) to see it on both sides of an acrimonious divide. Nothing could be more cancel-culture than ethnic nationalism and efforts to disenfranchise large groups of persons. Who even came up with the phrase cancel culture to begin with? When? Why does it rhyme and is a just a few syllables? Why doesn't anyone who creates and pushes these slogan/memes and what their motivation is?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sputr 5y ago
This comment is not just intellectually dishonest, it's also a basic example of the core problem of our society: demonization of "others". You can have a problem with cancel culture and not be anti CRT. Who would have thought, right?
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Who are the major anti-cancel culture pro-CRT figures? It seemed to me that the firing of Timnit Gebru at Google was superficially the political reverse of the firing of Antonio García Martínez at Apple. And yet the latter case is considered cancel culture, while the former is not.
ZoomerCretin 5y ago
I find these "the same people who argue for/against X are the same people who argue for/against Y" comments odd. Do you have a specific example of this outside of politicians*, or are you lumping everyone in camps X and Y together without proof of significant overlap? *Politicians don't start from "I believe X/Y, let's do something about it." They start from "How do I get my voters agitated and eager to vote for me, and what position should I take on controversial issues X/Y during an election year to achieve this goal?" Politics/electioneering is showmanship first. Silly things like real personal political beliefs only get in the way of politicians' end goal of power.
babyshake 5y ago
Another thing I have found related to heresy is that the strongest accusations of heresy often involve ideas and statements that are the most difficult to argue against. Recently, I was involved in a workplace conversation about how the org had a certain gender/racial proportional makeup and there was a goal of those diversity numbers being different within a specified timeframe. I suggested that this implied bias, and was warned that what I said might offend people. I think this was because I said something fairly rational and it would have been difficult to argue against in rational terms. Along these lines, the calls to cancel Dave Chappelle for example are largely because he has made some good points.
kardianos 5y ago
Yes, I have a problem with teachers talking to my kindergarten kid about sex.
jimbob45 5y ago
DSG is the status quo as far as I’m concerned. In the most liberal US state a decade+ ago, we had to have parent-signed slips to attend sex ed at all. The idea that you could introduce homosexuality or anything else without the same basic check seems backwards. Granted, the DSG bill has some badly-written foibles but the general idea is on the mark.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jimmygrapes 5y ago

Both of those topics are fraught with gaslighting ("nobody is teaching X") and misrepresentation ("don't say gay") along with outright fabrication ("it's a right").

XorNot 5y ago
> and misrepresentation ("don't say gay") Exactly like you're doing here when you rode on in to "both sides!" this argument.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  You condemn “both sides” but the fact of the matter is that large groups of human being suck. It’s impossible to maintain any kind of nuance or individual compassion at scale. So, yeah not just both sides, all sides. If you think there’s some large group of people that all wear white hats and aren’t being shitty or ruining anyone’s life, you are being willfully blind. Furthermore, when you engage in this whataboutism garbage (“what’s always interesting to me”, yeah I’m sure it’s fascinating) when someone tries to point out something your “team” is doing wrong, you are part of the problem. Yes, Trumpists suck—-that means everyone else should get a free pass? By that token shouldn’t Trumpists get a free pass because Putin is out there committing atrocities?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

nonesuchluck 5y ago

Whole thing boils down to "I've always been in the cultural in-group, but man it sucks here in the out-group," as he notices for the first time what life has been like for most people, for most of history. Hilarious.

ethbr0 5y ago
> what life has been like for most people, for most of history Aren't most people in the majority, in whatever metric is under consideration, by definition? Which tends to be the in-group in democracies?
bufferoverflow 5y ago
That's a bad faith argument. He isn't complaining being shunned out of some culture, he is talking about people losing their job, people losing access to platforms that contain lots of people who want to listen to them.
glogla 5y ago
Yup. If you want trans and gay people, history of racial oppression and female nipples on tv banned, that is just "normal" and "natural". But anything else is horrible attack on mah freeze peach.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bufferoverflow 5y ago

otterley 5y ago
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  - otterley 5y ago
tedivm 5y ago
This is pure bigotry. Allowing children to know that gay people exist is not grooming. It isn't even close to grooming. Knowing that two men or two women can be married isn't grooming.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Yes, but the commeter is saying that he's read the bill -- and it actually says nothing about whether you can tell children that men can be married. I personally dont see where it prevents this at all. As far as I can see, the explicit wording of the bill is just to delay "social sex education" till c. 8/9 years old -- right?
  - tedivm 5y ago
    I've also read the bill, and it's easy to quote. It explicitly says that any discussion about "sexual identity" is banned. One of the requirement clauses states that the bill is "prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or in a specified manner". That quote is the whole clause. It doesn't ban instruction, it bans discussion. It is explicit. Those exact words. Anyone who says otherwise either did not actually read the bill, or they didn't read it very well.

pjbeam 5y ago

None of the competing thoughtcrime tribes seem to care about things like free thought, discourse, etc. This is the frightening part to me--people in the "other tribe" aren't worthy of things like due process, and authoritarian approaches are fine as long as they are aimed at the "other". I know history repeats itself but wow, c'mon.. the 20th century wasn't that long ago.

shadowgovt 5y ago
I have heard a scant few stories of people having their due process taken away. There is some controversy though about whether the concept of due process as per law should be extended to a general principle that guides the operation of privately-owned websites. That isn't how the internet used to work so the jury's still out.
- pjbeam 5y ago
  "aren't worthy of" is distinct from realized actions of the state. If you recall the impulse of the mob during me too was to burn without trial any accused--this sentiment is what I'm talking about.
otterley 5y ago
Nobody’s trying to put you in jail for having differing views. But there’s never going to be a world in which there aren’t social consequences for having them. If you think, for example, that the world is going to greet people who think it’s ok to molest children (whether they do it or not) with open arms, you’re just deluded.
- throw_away_lol 5y ago
  >Nobody’s trying to put you in jail for having differing views. >>Man guilty of hate crime for filming pug's 'Nazi salutes' https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925 Turns out they are and will.
- bradleyjg 5y ago

tomrod 5y ago

Precisely my thoughts. > In the late 1980s a new ideology of this type appeared in US universities I don't think this was new. Liberality tends to go hand in hand with seeking reality, as discovering something and then adopting it requires intellectual big-tentism. Perhaps the author bemoans the rise of bureaucracy within the university, which has demonstrably increased? My concern is that these arguments about moral puritanicalism aren't without merit, but that they are often ignore the cancerous alt-right, which is bereft of morality beyond racial nationalism. Perhaps the cancel culture creedal concern is considered to be salvageable.

newbamboo 5y ago
Is there an alt-right? People use that term, but they might as well be talking about unicorns. All these years, I’ve not met a single alt-right person despite being told this is a large and growing segment of our population, a pernicious and growing “threat to democracy!”Well, if they exist they look a lot like the old-right that voted in exactly the same fashion. If anything the right has gotten much more progressive. My statements here can all be quantified lest you disagree.
- skellington 5y ago
  I think you know that the alt-right is mostly a fantasy created by the current neo-marxist religion. Religion always requires a devil, and if it doesn't exist you make it up.
- tomrod 5y ago
  > Is there an alt-right It's a nicer form of the term fascist. Here is more information to start with, as well as several linked sources, compiled by people for your benefit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    Read your own link: “He deemed the size of the alt-right to be "miniscule".[409]”

zozbot234 5y ago

It's not "don't say gay", it's "don't subject, expect or mandate young kids to learn stuff about things like sexual orientation (or even gender identity) that they cannot possibly relate with prior to the biological changes of adolescence, and that are enough of a minefield for adults already. Leave this stuff to family and broader society for the time being."

edent 5y ago
Do you really think that young kids don't notice their parents affection for each other? Or that their older sibling is dating someone? Or that people get pregnant?
- zozbot234 5y ago
brohoolio 5y ago
The teachers can’t address why someone in the class has two dads without risk of being sued. Heck the wording is vague enough you might not discuss marriage. The ambiguity in the law is there as a feature to hush normal conversations that might otherwise happen.
- kurthr 5y ago
  Arguably, using "Mom" or "Dad", or even gendered pronouns is restricted. Of course not using these would upset the very people who wrote the laws, which is another part (beyond the enforceability) that makes them insane.
- scruple 5y ago
  Why is an individual students parents a subject for a classroom? That is utterly bizarre and it sounds like the teacher in your hypothetical is singling out the student.
fennecfoxen 5y ago
Florida education law, and this law, and education law in general, all have some real problems. It's somewhat unfortunate that misinformational memes of this sort travel much faster than reasonable understandings of its problems (this is but one example.) I believe it impairs the resolution of the nation's problems. Yeah, it galvanizes some support, but also hardens the opposition, and impairs the ability to make any sort of incremental progress, leaving achievable reforms stalled for years or even decades. Moreover, as a matter of principle, I don't really want to be part of a political movement which values spinning a story to its advantage more than it cares about informing the public. Build your movement on something solid.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwaway5752 5y ago

Yup. It is conveniently one-side. I don't think it's by design, just accident. When you've concluded that there is a partisan problem, it takes a lot mental discipline (more than even some prominent technology figures have) to see it on both sides of an acrimonious divide. Nothing could be more cancel-culture than ethnic nationalism and efforts to disenfranchise large groups of persons. Who even came up with the phrase cancel culture to begin with? When? Why does it rhyme and is a just a few syllables? Why doesn't anyone who creates and pushes these slogan/memes and what their motivation is?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sputr 5y ago

This comment is not just intellectually dishonest, it's also a basic example of the core problem of our society: demonization of "others". You can have a problem with cancel culture and not be anti CRT. Who would have thought, right?

Apocryphon 5y ago
Who are the major anti-cancel culture pro-CRT figures? It seemed to me that the firing of Timnit Gebru at Google was superficially the political reverse of the firing of Antonio García Martínez at Apple. And yet the latter case is considered cancel culture, while the former is not.

ZoomerCretin 5y ago

I find these "the same people who argue for/against X are the same people who argue for/against Y" comments odd. Do you have a specific example of this outside of politicians*, or are you lumping everyone in camps X and Y together without proof of significant overlap? *Politicians don't start from "I believe X/Y, let's do something about it." They start from "How do I get my voters agitated and eager to vote for me, and what position should I take on controversial issues X/Y during an election year to achieve this goal?" Politics/electioneering is showmanship first. Silly things like real personal political beliefs only get in the way of politicians' end goal of power.

babyshake 5y ago

Another thing I have found related to heresy is that the strongest accusations of heresy often involve ideas and statements that are the most difficult to argue against. Recently, I was involved in a workplace conversation about how the org had a certain gender/racial proportional makeup and there was a goal of those diversity numbers being different within a specified timeframe. I suggested that this implied bias, and was warned that what I said might offend people. I think this was because I said something fairly rational and it would have been difficult to argue against in rational terms. Along these lines, the calls to cancel Dave Chappelle for example are largely because he has made some good points.

kardianos 5y ago

Yes, I have a problem with teachers talking to my kindergarten kid about sex.

jimbob45 5y ago

DSG is the status quo as far as I’m concerned. In the most liberal US state a decade+ ago, we had to have parent-signed slips to attend sex ed at all. The idea that you could introduce homosexuality or anything else without the same basic check seems backwards. Granted, the DSG bill has some badly-written foibles but the general idea is on the mark.