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This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. I have the right to judge your statements just as much as you have a r

by tedivm 5y ago

This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. I have the right to judge your statements just as much as you have a right to say them. I have the right to leave jobs when it turns out the people working there hate people like me, and companies have the right to hire people who aren't going to alienate future potential employees. When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes. People aren't getting fired for picking nomad over kubernetes. People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. When someone gets fired for, as an example, purposefully misgendering their colleagues- that isn't getting fired for having a bad opinion, that's being fired for making a hostile work environment. What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here, when the right is the one passing "don't say gay" legislation and refusing to allow trans children the healthcare needed to save their lives. The right is also kicking everyone out of their party who doesn't bow before Trump. To say that the left is creating heresies while ignoring that the right is literally creating new dogma is just delusional to me.

ekianjo 5y ago
> This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. Define horrible.
baggy_trough 5y ago
Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me.
- eganist 5y ago
  > Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me. Here's the question: Are you tolerant of people who do? Or do you make the lives of those people (who viscerally feel their gender identity to be true) more difficult than those who share your belief? The line is crossed with the latter.
  - kijin 5y ago
    The latter is a fairly broad concept with multiple shades and blurry lines within. Which is why people with good intentions can still disagree badly on whether something someone did was okay or not. Has GP crossed the line merely by expressing his/her/their opinion? This probably depends on his/her/their social status as well. The CEO of a company saying something in an official meeting carries a different weight for all employees than some random employee saying the same thing. Or does GP need to say or do something personal to someone in order to be considered to have crossed the line? Be careful there: add too many constraints and we will end up giving a free pass to people who genuinely offend and cause serious discomfort to those around them. These are the kinds of issues about which we as a society need to have reasonable discussions and make consensus-building efforts, but it all descends into name-calling too soon.
- mcronce 5y ago
  Yes, it does. You don't get to decide for other people who or what they are.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pjbeam 5y ago
    But other people get to demand positive affirmation? This doesn't sit right.
    - throwmeariver1 5y ago
      Everyone demands positive affirmation... that's a nothing burger comment mate.
      - pjbeam 5y ago
        Big difference between "yes I'll call you Sarah" and "trans women are women".
        tomrod 5y ago
        Elaborate?
    - ruined 5y ago
      you wouldn't consider it "positive affirmation" of most people to simply accept the name and gender they provide, it is simply the bare minimum for normal interaction. why do you consider it beyond reasonable accommodation for some people? do you think you know some deeper truth about these other people than they know about themselves? why do you think you can reliably identify that case? couldn't you simply leave them alone, and not make a big deal out of it? if you think it doesn't matter, prove it. refuse to recognize anyone's identity. start misgendering and misnaming people you wouldn't do that to before. see how far that gets you.
      - 5y ago
- edent 5y ago
  That's fine. You are welcome to believe that. What you can't do is harass people, deny them service, or make their lives a misery. No one is forcing you to believe in something. They're asking you not to be an arsehole about something which doesn't affect your life.
  - SaintGhurka 5y ago
    >> No one is forcing you to believe in something. But they are forcing you to pretend to believe in something by dictating what you are allowed to say about it.
- fosefx 5y ago
  It does not really matter what your stance on that topic is. If your co-workers don't what to be called a certain way, just respect that. E.g. I don't want to be called by my full first name but rather a short version of it. If you deliberately disrespect my request that is simply hostile.
  - eppp 5y ago
    How far does this extend in reasonableness though? If my co-worker asked me to refer to them as "your highness" for example?
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      Has that ever happened? What is the point of this hypothetical?
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        I think the idea is that you do not believe your coworker to be royalty, in the same way you do not believe them to be male/female. Even if there is no harm in calling them ‘your majesty’ it doesn’t feel right.
        eppp 5y ago
        I think my point is more that there are tons of various requirements that people have that are at best unreasonable and as a society we don't indulge every request that people make. One day someone comes in and says I must now refer to them as xe or emself after years of knowing them without mistake is not reasonable. I still refer to lots of women as their maiden names because that how I remember them. It isnt out of meanness or vitriol. That is just the label my brain still applies to them because I knew them for many years as that. I dont care if you are male or female or whatever you want to be. I just want everyone to be happy to the extent they can be, but be tolerant of those who remember you as you were to them as well. It isnt just a switch you can turn off instantly.
- ryanobjc 5y ago
  So, your new colleague says their name is Richard. You decide it’s hilarious to call him “dick” and refuse to stop even after he’s asked you multiple times. Pronouns aren’t any different - if you had a masculine looking female coworker at work - say she was into bodybuilding - and you keeping calling her “he” as a “joke”… persisting when you were asked not to, by your boss, by hr perhaps even. What kind of person are you being here? You can not believe in gender identity, I don’t care. But be respectful to your colleagues at work. Is that so much to ask for? To literally not be as asshole? Is that what you’re defending - your right to be a flaming asshole to your coworkers without any consequence??
  - pjbeam 5y ago
    You've picked the worst interpretation of the above. Addressing people how they'd like to be addressed is basic decency. Demands for affirmation beyond this is how I read the comment you're replying to.
    - ryanobjc 5y ago
      The poster perhaps should have noted how they intended on treating their coworkers. Instead we are left to infer that their intent was to lean into their ideology against basic decency. And in the end this is what the “culture wars” are about: the right to not be decent to certain people.
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        I think the problem is more in people automatically assuming the worst possible interpretation of any remark as soon as it is about race/religion/gender.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  Your supposition that it does not make for a hostile work environment is a privilege you should examine.
- em-bee 5y ago
  the question is how you go about it. what do you do when you are asked to respect someone else's choice of gender identity? do you go along with it, while quietly keeping your own opinion? or do you complain and purposefully ignore their request? or maybe do something else entirely? how do you keep a friendly work environment when the mere questioning of someones gender identity can be considered hostile? you ask that your rejection of the idea is considered not hostile, yet you consider the enforcement of rules of interaction as something hostile.
- jleyank 5y ago
  s/gender/religious/g and see how well things go down.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Difference being that you cannot see what someone’s religion is, nor are there only two variations.
    - jleyank 5y ago
      Often you can see the religion, or at least the outward sign. This is the basis for laws about large-scale religious display such as head scarves, turbans, ... It seems that groups of people don't like seeing differences no matter what they are.
- ratww 5y ago
  It depends. I know people who thinks like you, but they don't shut the fuck about these things, and take every possible the opportunity to proselytise about it. I've seen it happening in workplaces, for example. But also parties, random people on the street. Not shutting the fuck about it is fucking annoying and if it's in the workplace I'll be complaining the fuck about it until you stop and/or looking for another job. Now, I'm a 100% neutral part on this, and even me don't wanna hear about your bullshit. Imagine now if you were to use this to actively hurt people.
- tomrod 5y ago
  > Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept One funny thing I learned from studying high demand religions: you don't have to believe something for it to be true. It's existence is entirely orthogonal to a person's opinion.
shadowgovt 5y ago
I think Graham's essay conflates two phenomenon when he describes heresy as thought that people equate to a crime. In fairness to him, societies have conflated them also. But if we're talking about modern American society, they are fundamentally different but can smell the same to somebody who doesn't see the distinction. A heresy is a position that damages trust. When someone publicly espouses a heretical position, they damage other people's trust in them to make good decisions and have good judgment. Now, you can also breach trust via committing a crime, so the overlap is clear. But nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard things has always worked. Somebody who says women don't belong in space is going to end up as unqualified to be director of NASA as somebody who fundamentally and with great conviction mis-states the tyranny of the rocket equation. Both mark the person as a poor fit for a high-trust job were there opinion on those topics matters. And people who believe themselves against "canceling" seem to often be in agreement even if they don't realize it of themselves. A talk was famously pulled from a security conference several years back because after the talk, people concluded that the speaker didn't know what they were talking about. The difference in opinion is on what constitutes a breach of trust, not on whether people can respond to such breaches by routing around other people.
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  >> nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard things has always worked. That's because no trials are held in modern mob justice for heretics. The mob justice punishments are more like lynchings. Medieval heretics could at least expect a "witch hunt"-style trial. The monarchy or church was the authority and there was a semblance of rule of law. Modern heretics face mob justice by self-appointed vigilantes and mob justice punishments. The lack of due process is concerning.
  - confidantlake 5y ago
    They are not like lynchings in one pretty fundamental way, ie they are not being lynched.
pikma 5y ago
Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone? I see this expression often, but I'm genuinely puzzled by what it means in practice. I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. It's about people who are tolerant of others and in general try to be nice people, but just disagree about certain things - for example, how criminal transgenders should be incarcerated, or whether affirmative action is a good way to help disadvantaged people.
- tedivm 5y ago
  >I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. I do think the article is about that. I think it was purposefully left vague so he could take advantage of people giving the benefit of the doubt. I don't think people's pronouns should be up for debate, and I believe PG does.
  - tlogan 5y ago
    This is the problem of this “free speech”. They think it is “free speechl to call one “he” even if that one prefers being called “she”. Anyway, maybe GP is talking about other “heresies”.
  - Ste_Evans 5y ago
- eadmund 5y ago
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    In case anyone is genuinely confused: this is the kind of bigotry people expect to get away with sans consequence, and complain about “heresy” when they’re called out on it.
    - 5y ago
mjburgess 5y ago
Does the right have hold of corporate culture however? I think the issue is the consequences of speech which are permissible themselves -- I think being shunned by a friendship group seems always permissible. Being marginalized in one's workplace, shunned by one's colleges, and so on -- this seems far less permissible. I dont think this is a strictly left/right issue; and what today is called "left" is rather a kinda of corporate politics --- "corporate correctness" rather than "political correctness". This is about embracing "diversity and equality" of your workplace identities (vs., diversity of skills; and equality of treatment, for example). I'd imagine if work/life were better seperated, and the workplace better managed, these issues would be felt less seriously. The question of "free speech" is a massive red-hearing. Everyone accepts some concequences to some speech in some situtations. The only useful conversation to have is: what concequences are permissible, and when. Presumably, likewise, no one believes abitary ones, whenever -- yet this seems to be the implied position of many who think you can just stop the argument at the point where some "anarchism of speech" is shown to fail. Nope.
- tedivm 5y ago
  I think it's ridiculous to think the left has hold of corporate culture. I think a lot of different companies have a lot of different cultures, and I think for the majority of companies the right holds power. I think that tech companies are a major exception to this, in part because it seems that a much larger percentage of queer people are in tech (both directly and indirectly, via companies that support tech)- but if you pick any random company in the US you're going to find a fairly conservative culture. The only reason I brought up left versus right was because that's the reductionism PG resorted to here. I also think it's a bit more nuanced. I also think focusing on this being a free speech issue, as PG does, is a red herring for other cultural issues.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Yes, which is why i say "corporate correcntess" isnt actually leftwing. But I do think many self-describing "leftwing" people are actually, in this sense, just peddling a certain corporate respectability ideology. Their upper-middle class concerns of who's who in the elite culture, is more-or-less just using the trappings of leftwing thought to beat a path to the top. And corporations gladly play the same game as a branding exercise, today ran by the same upper-middle who delusionally think their use of "diversity" corresponds to something actually morally significant. As far as where this culture is present, at least: tech, academia, etc. Ie., the places where we do see this counter-reaction. Though the counter-reaction is dressed in the language of free speech -- I think its more just about the capture of corporate policy, in these industries, by a certain descendent of political correctness. People have to turn up to work in these industries, or otherwise participate in them, whilst holding their nose at this mawkish soapboxing display of which rich idiot is "changing the world" all the while those who are repulsed by this are ever-more seen as inherently immoral for not singing from the same hymm sheet. If we recast this whole issue as one where previously political activity has spilled over into most areas of life, such that many now cannot espcae it --- then we see what the problem is. It isnt free speech. Its the lack of quiet places. It's that if you want to work in these areas, you're bombarded with the loud noises of loud opinions that you can't escape.
roflc0ptic 5y ago
> When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes. There are plenty of examples of stuff that is way less clearcut "that's bad" than your example. See e.g. David Schor getting fired for retweeting a black professor's paper arguing riots are bad for black political movements. See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement. I don't personally spend a lot of time talking to my social milieu - left/liberal about the right, because there's not a lot to say. Watching my immediate vicinity devolve into... whatever you want to call the current moment, is frustrating as hell. The left has a lot of cultural power that the right simply doesn't, and watching it be wielded by fanatics towards ever morphing, questionable goals makes me want to push back.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  > See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement. Is this really a topic you needed to weigh in on? I’m assuming you weren’t concern trolling or playing devil’s advocate, but it’s very easy to imagine how a “gentle challenge” might get interpreted as such if your relationship with the other person doesn’t generally include similar discussion topics.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    Also, "I'm not friends with someone anymore after arguing with them" has historically not been called "cancel culture". Certainly I wouldn't hang around with someone constantly reminding me which of my views they currently think aren't falsifiable.
    - roflc0ptic 5y ago
      Right, I'm not claiming it's ~cancel culture~, it is however anti-heretic behavior. See other comment; she's a professor and aspiring public intellectual. This combination of "I'm an authority so you have to listen to me" and "you can't challenge my beliefs because it's oppression" is a recipe for bad thinking.
Aeolun 5y ago
I don’t think people want to say bad things without consequence. They want to be able to discuss a topic without the rabid tone police descending on it. Like, I say I cannot understand trans people at all, and people will jump on me because I’m rejecting them and making them feel bad, when I’m just stating a fact. There’s a lot of this stuff.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  “I don’t understand it but I’ll trust their feelings and the recommendations of their doctor” is very different from “I don’t understand it so I’ll call them mentally ill, misgender them, or insist that legislation prevent access to medical care”.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Indeed. But I do not feel like the wolves care about the distinction, or they just don’t attempt to figure out that nuance before they descend.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      My experience has been the opposite. Empathy and willingness to learn are treated well, both by activists and trans people themselves.
    - falcolas 5y ago
      If you don’t understand, why are you drawing the attention of the “wolves” by speaking before trying to understand?
    - philjohn 5y ago
      I've seen more than a few posts where people have said "I really don't get this whole issue, but live and let live" and haven't been descended upon, that's just anecdata though.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      On one hand, you're right. The nuance is sometimes lost. On the other hand, think about what we're talking about: a political party is trying to erase the existence of a class of people, and they are wielding the power of the state to do so, especially in places where there's one party control and no hope of electing any opposing party. When you say "I don't understand trans people", trans people have heard this many times before. Unfortunately for you, many people who have said this phrase before followed it up with "...and therefore I hate them. I will legislate against them; I will pass laws against their existence in public space; I will demonize them; I will jail them; I will murder them." Those are the stakes, so the pushback is in proportional to the life and death nature of what's going on here. When you say "I don't understand trans people" they are expecting you to follow it up with more of the same. And I get that's not great for the general public's understanding of trans people. But understand that it's a reaction to years and year of abuse from other people who also proclaim that they "don't understand." Your general confusion is being received in an environment where people are literally fighting for their lives. Maybe in a different time, when people aren't facing down the vast power of the state to dictate their existence, there would be more room to treat you gentler. But the pressure has been ratcheted up to 11 by powerful forces bent on a 21st century new moral panic, and that's not the fault of trans people and their defenders, but the people who are trying to make their lives hell for no reason other than intolerance.
lowkey_ 5y ago
> People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. I see this a lot and it makes no sense to me. What does it mean to deny the existence of someone? To pretend they do not exist? People who make that comment usually seem to be falling into a trap of viewing a disagreement or difference in opinion as something much more extreme.
- malnourish 5y ago
  Take this statement: "all trans people are misgendering themselves and _should_ conform to the gender assigned to them based on the sexual organs they had at birth". This effectively denies the existence of people who believe or desire to be their non-assigned gender. The statement tells trans people that in the eyes of the speaker, their personal identity is a fabrication.
  - trash99 5y ago
- daveoc64 5y ago
  I've read comments on articles about LGBT issues (often trans topics these days), and there are a lot of people that say things like "Being gay is a choice". If that's not denying the existence of a different kind of person to you, I don't know what is.
chmod600 5y ago
If it were only about a hostile work environment, it would only be about behavior/speech in the workplace that is not easily avoidable. But a lot of these heresies are about behavior/speech outside the workplace, or behavior/speech that you need to actively look for. So I don't buy the "hostile work environment" justification.
ekianjo 5y ago
> What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here Looks like someone didnt understand the article, because PG directly addressed that point.
javajosh 5y ago
>This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence People say horrible things all the time! In fact, I reckon that if you said anything, a non-negligible fraction of the world's 7.5 billion people would think you horrible for saying it. It is not possible to avoid saying horrible things, especially out of context. Even if you limit yourself to racist and sexist speech, how do you deal the fact that roughly 100% of the people on this planet, of ALL races and sexes, are themselves racist and sexist, and say racist/sexist things all the time? What are the consequences for a homophobic black person? What are the consequences for the Japanese woman who hates the Chinese? What are the consequences for the Libyan mother who circumcised her 4 daughters, with the support of her government and community? The culture war that the left has started is an intellectually bankrupt grab for cultural power, who's primary effect has been to piss off the good people of the left, and to inspire a once-in-a-century outbreak of insanity on the right. I get that you want to make the world a better place, and it makes sense that punishing people for wrong views could make it so, but you've done the experiment now. Tell me, how is it going?
seaourfreed 5y ago
* Heresy supporters give themselves a license thinking it is about issues of real racism, sexism, and other real bad problems, but... * The tools of censorship are then used for normal speech. Proof: Ron Paul had a YouTube channel. He left politics before the covid and no videos had been posted since the pandemic started. But they censored his YouTube channel full of videos by censoring all of the videos and the channel. * Proof here: https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1308849979730071554 https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1308849979730071554 * This censorship of the political right happens in a long list of cases that have nothing to do with racism, sexism, or false propaganda. Ron Paul's YouTube channel being censored is one example in a list of thousands just like it.
chmod600 5y ago
"This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird." It's really easy to think/say horrible things. The main defense humans have against it is following orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly represents historical knowledge about good and bad. If you think you are naturally good (whatever that means), you are wrong. If you think you are good because of your intellect, you're also wrong. It takes many generations to build up the kind of orthodoxy that keeps humans good. And the lessons behind it are too many to learn in a lifetime. So, we need to mostly follow orthodoxy, at least in our actions. But that poses an intellectual problem: orthodoxy is imperfect, and to discuss and advance it, or even understand it well, you have to challenge it. If merely by challenging it you transgress, then it will never be understood very well and certainly not advanced. Granted, there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a good situation. Remember: gay marriage was illegal almost everywhere 20 years ago. Imagine the surprise to, say, a 60 year old, that "misgendering" (by using pronouns associated with one's biological sex) might be a firable offense today.
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  >> orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly represents historical knowledge about good and bad. One issue is that there are multiple orthodoxies. Each human culture has its own orthodoxy which is reflected in the culture's norms and practices. >> there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a good situation. When and why is it right or just to judge one culture against another? We can try to place ourselves in someone else's shoes, but it is very difficult to understand without having lived their lives and experienced it ourselves. Perhaps the best we can do is to be compassionate and tolerant of others who think or live differently than us. We can educate, persuade, and help, but condemning them and punishing them strikes me as unfair and perhaps unjust depending on the circumstances.
subjectsigma 5y ago
1) Whenever people call it the "Don't Say Gay" bill, I ask them if they've read the text of the bill. So far it's like 0-8. 2) I think you're conflating two different groups of people to make your argument sound better. I don't like cancel culture and I don't like the Florida bill either. People aren't just "ignoring" it. 3) > denying the existence of people who aren't like them This is such a weird, vague statement and I have no idea what it means - which is great because it perfectly captures the mob mentality of the far-left cancel culture. The reason everyone is so afraid of it is because you never know exactly what you can say, and it changes by person by day. In my professional experience, even "acknowledging the existence" of trans people is a minefield. The term to describe someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the past five years and using the outdated term is considered wildly offensive. Certain people think changes of pronouns should be handled differently and if you disagree with them you eventually get a meeting invite from your supervisor called "Discussion". Speaking of hostile work environments...
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > The term to describe someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the past five years and using the outdated term is considered wildly offensive. I understand the euphemism treadmill can be difficult, but understand why it exists: when people in a group use certain words to self identify, those words are then coopted by outsiders of the group to vilify insiders. Therefore the old self-identifying words are abandoned by insiders and left as markers of those outsiders who are attempting vilify them. Meanwhile new words of self identification are adopted by insiders that have no negative connotation. Take for instance people with mental disabilities. The words lunatic, insane, retarded, disabled, mentally disabled, special etc. have all been used to describe the same mental state, and have all been at times the "correct" way to refer to such people, and also the "insensitive" way to refer to such people. Calling someone "retarded" used to be clinical. Now you say "retarded" and it's a grave insult. This is just the price of diversity, and existing in a world where people want to use powerful words to shame and demean. Words have amazing power, and when they are wielded in evil ways you have no other choice but to abandon the word and move to a next one. This is why the N-word is so forbidden to say; Black Americans took a stand and said: "No more. We are reclaiming the power of this word, and you just can't use it anymore, period." It took a huge movement to make that social change, and it'll take the same similar movement to stop the euphemism treadmill for trans people. In the meantime, try to keep up. If you make a real effort people notice and they have tolerance for that. However if you make clear that you have no idea why you have to keep up with all these words in the first place, and it's really all just a bother to you that you'd rather not deal with, you're implicitly signaling you're more aligned with someone who may use those words in a harmful way, and that may be why you are met with hostilities. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill
Eli_Beeblebrox 5y ago
[dead]
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  > The bill would prevent teachers from keeping secrets about children from their parents. It enforces more speech, not less. If teachers must disclose student confidences to parents, it discourages students in unsafe homes from letting on to their teachers that they’re questioning their sexuality. That’s a chilling effect on speech.
  - Eli_Beeblebrox 5y ago

by tedivm 5y ago

ekianjo 5y ago

> This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird. Define horrible.

baggy_trough 5y ago

Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me.

eganist 5y ago
> Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force it on me. Here's the question: Are you tolerant of people who do? Or do you make the lives of those people (who viscerally feel their gender identity to be true) more difficult than those who share your belief? The line is crossed with the latter.
- kijin 5y ago
  The latter is a fairly broad concept with multiple shades and blurry lines within. Which is why people with good intentions can still disagree badly on whether something someone did was okay or not. Has GP crossed the line merely by expressing his/her/their opinion? This probably depends on his/her/their social status as well. The CEO of a company saying something in an official meeting carries a different weight for all employees than some random employee saying the same thing. Or does GP need to say or do something personal to someone in order to be considered to have crossed the line? Be careful there: add too many constraints and we will end up giving a free pass to people who genuinely offend and cause serious discomfort to those around them. These are the kinds of issues about which we as a society need to have reasonable discussions and make consensus-building efforts, but it all descends into name-calling too soon.
mcronce 5y ago
Yes, it does. You don't get to decide for other people who or what they are.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pjbeam 5y ago
  But other people get to demand positive affirmation? This doesn't sit right.
  - throwmeariver1 5y ago
    Everyone demands positive affirmation... that's a nothing burger comment mate.
    - pjbeam 5y ago
      Big difference between "yes I'll call you Sarah" and "trans women are women".
      - tomrod 5y ago
        Elaborate?
  - ruined 5y ago
    you wouldn't consider it "positive affirmation" of most people to simply accept the name and gender they provide, it is simply the bare minimum for normal interaction. why do you consider it beyond reasonable accommodation for some people? do you think you know some deeper truth about these other people than they know about themselves? why do you think you can reliably identify that case? couldn't you simply leave them alone, and not make a big deal out of it? if you think it doesn't matter, prove it. refuse to recognize anyone's identity. start misgendering and misnaming people you wouldn't do that to before. see how far that gets you.
    - 5y ago
edent 5y ago
That's fine. You are welcome to believe that. What you can't do is harass people, deny them service, or make their lives a misery. No one is forcing you to believe in something. They're asking you not to be an arsehole about something which doesn't affect your life.
- SaintGhurka 5y ago
  >> No one is forcing you to believe in something. But they are forcing you to pretend to believe in something by dictating what you are allowed to say about it.
fosefx 5y ago
It does not really matter what your stance on that topic is. If your co-workers don't what to be called a certain way, just respect that. E.g. I don't want to be called by my full first name but rather a short version of it. If you deliberately disrespect my request that is simply hostile.
- eppp 5y ago
  How far does this extend in reasonableness though? If my co-worker asked me to refer to them as "your highness" for example?
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    Has that ever happened? What is the point of this hypothetical?
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I think the idea is that you do not believe your coworker to be royalty, in the same way you do not believe them to be male/female. Even if there is no harm in calling them ‘your majesty’ it doesn’t feel right.
      - eppp 5y ago
        I think my point is more that there are tons of various requirements that people have that are at best unreasonable and as a society we don't indulge every request that people make. One day someone comes in and says I must now refer to them as xe or emself after years of knowing them without mistake is not reasonable. I still refer to lots of women as their maiden names because that how I remember them. It isnt out of meanness or vitriol. That is just the label my brain still applies to them because I knew them for many years as that. I dont care if you are male or female or whatever you want to be. I just want everyone to be happy to the extent they can be, but be tolerant of those who remember you as you were to them as well. It isnt just a switch you can turn off instantly.
ryanobjc 5y ago
So, your new colleague says their name is Richard. You decide it’s hilarious to call him “dick” and refuse to stop even after he’s asked you multiple times. Pronouns aren’t any different - if you had a masculine looking female coworker at work - say she was into bodybuilding - and you keeping calling her “he” as a “joke”… persisting when you were asked not to, by your boss, by hr perhaps even. What kind of person are you being here? You can not believe in gender identity, I don’t care. But be respectful to your colleagues at work. Is that so much to ask for? To literally not be as asshole? Is that what you’re defending - your right to be a flaming asshole to your coworkers without any consequence??
- pjbeam 5y ago
  You've picked the worst interpretation of the above. Addressing people how they'd like to be addressed is basic decency. Demands for affirmation beyond this is how I read the comment you're replying to.
  - ryanobjc 5y ago
    The poster perhaps should have noted how they intended on treating their coworkers. Instead we are left to infer that their intent was to lean into their ideology against basic decency. And in the end this is what the “culture wars” are about: the right to not be decent to certain people.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I think the problem is more in people automatically assuming the worst possible interpretation of any remark as soon as it is about race/religion/gender.
halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
Your supposition that it does not make for a hostile work environment is a privilege you should examine.
em-bee 5y ago
the question is how you go about it. what do you do when you are asked to respect someone else's choice of gender identity? do you go along with it, while quietly keeping your own opinion? or do you complain and purposefully ignore their request? or maybe do something else entirely? how do you keep a friendly work environment when the mere questioning of someones gender identity can be considered hostile? you ask that your rejection of the idea is considered not hostile, yet you consider the enforcement of rules of interaction as something hostile.
jleyank 5y ago
s/gender/religious/g and see how well things go down.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Difference being that you cannot see what someone’s religion is, nor are there only two variations.
  - jleyank 5y ago
    Often you can see the religion, or at least the outward sign. This is the basis for laws about large-scale religious display such as head scarves, turbans, ... It seems that groups of people don't like seeing differences no matter what they are.
ratww 5y ago
It depends. I know people who thinks like you, but they don't shut the fuck about these things, and take every possible the opportunity to proselytise about it. I've seen it happening in workplaces, for example. But also parties, random people on the street. Not shutting the fuck about it is fucking annoying and if it's in the workplace I'll be complaining the fuck about it until you stop and/or looking for another job. Now, I'm a 100% neutral part on this, and even me don't wanna hear about your bullshit. Imagine now if you were to use this to actively hurt people.
tomrod 5y ago
> Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid concept One funny thing I learned from studying high demand religions: you don't have to believe something for it to be true. It's existence is entirely orthogonal to a person's opinion.

shadowgovt 5y ago

I think Graham's essay conflates two phenomenon when he describes heresy as thought that people equate to a crime. In fairness to him, societies have conflated them also. But if we're talking about modern American society, they are fundamentally different but can smell the same to somebody who doesn't see the distinction. A heresy is a position that damages trust. When someone publicly espouses a heretical position, they damage other people's trust in them to make good decisions and have good judgment. Now, you can also breach trust via committing a crime, so the overlap is clear. But nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard things has always worked. Somebody who says women don't belong in space is going to end up as unqualified to be director of NASA as somebody who fundamentally and with great conviction mis-states the tyranny of the rocket equation. Both mark the person as a poor fit for a high-trust job were there opinion on those topics matters. And people who believe themselves against "canceling" seem to often be in agreement even if they don't realize it of themselves. A talk was famously pulled from a security conference several years back because after the talk, people concluded that the speaker didn't know what they were talking about. The difference in opinion is on what constitutes a breach of trust, not on whether people can respond to such breaches by routing around other people.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard things has always worked. That's because no trials are held in modern mob justice for heretics. The mob justice punishments are more like lynchings. Medieval heretics could at least expect a "witch hunt"-style trial. The monarchy or church was the authority and there was a semblance of rule of law. Modern heretics face mob justice by self-appointed vigilantes and mob justice punishments. The lack of due process is concerning.
- confidantlake 5y ago
  They are not like lynchings in one pretty fundamental way, ie they are not being lynched.

pikma 5y ago

Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of someone? I see this expression often, but I'm genuinely puzzled by what it means in practice. I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. It's about people who are tolerant of others and in general try to be nice people, but just disagree about certain things - for example, how criminal transgenders should be incarcerated, or whether affirmative action is a good way to help disadvantaged people.

tedivm 5y ago
>I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about that. I do think the article is about that. I think it was purposefully left vague so he could take advantage of people giving the benefit of the doubt. I don't think people's pronouns should be up for debate, and I believe PG does.
- tlogan 5y ago
  This is the problem of this “free speech”. They think it is “free speechl to call one “he” even if that one prefers being called “she”. Anyway, maybe GP is talking about other “heresies”.
- Ste_Evans 5y ago
eadmund 5y ago
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  In case anyone is genuinely confused: this is the kind of bigotry people expect to get away with sans consequence, and complain about “heresy” when they’re called out on it.
  - 5y ago

mjburgess 5y ago

Does the right have hold of corporate culture however? I think the issue is the consequences of speech which are permissible themselves -- I think being shunned by a friendship group seems always permissible. Being marginalized in one's workplace, shunned by one's colleges, and so on -- this seems far less permissible. I dont think this is a strictly left/right issue; and what today is called "left" is rather a kinda of corporate politics --- "corporate correctness" rather than "political correctness". This is about embracing "diversity and equality" of your workplace identities (vs., diversity of skills; and equality of treatment, for example). I'd imagine if work/life were better seperated, and the workplace better managed, these issues would be felt less seriously. The question of "free speech" is a massive red-hearing. Everyone accepts some concequences to some speech in some situtations. The only useful conversation to have is: what concequences are permissible, and when. Presumably, likewise, no one believes abitary ones, whenever -- yet this seems to be the implied position of many who think you can just stop the argument at the point where some "anarchism of speech" is shown to fail. Nope.

tedivm 5y ago
I think it's ridiculous to think the left has hold of corporate culture. I think a lot of different companies have a lot of different cultures, and I think for the majority of companies the right holds power. I think that tech companies are a major exception to this, in part because it seems that a much larger percentage of queer people are in tech (both directly and indirectly, via companies that support tech)- but if you pick any random company in the US you're going to find a fairly conservative culture. The only reason I brought up left versus right was because that's the reductionism PG resorted to here. I also think it's a bit more nuanced. I also think focusing on this being a free speech issue, as PG does, is a red herring for other cultural issues.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Yes, which is why i say "corporate correcntess" isnt actually leftwing. But I do think many self-describing "leftwing" people are actually, in this sense, just peddling a certain corporate respectability ideology. Their upper-middle class concerns of who's who in the elite culture, is more-or-less just using the trappings of leftwing thought to beat a path to the top. And corporations gladly play the same game as a branding exercise, today ran by the same upper-middle who delusionally think their use of "diversity" corresponds to something actually morally significant. As far as where this culture is present, at least: tech, academia, etc. Ie., the places where we do see this counter-reaction. Though the counter-reaction is dressed in the language of free speech -- I think its more just about the capture of corporate policy, in these industries, by a certain descendent of political correctness. People have to turn up to work in these industries, or otherwise participate in them, whilst holding their nose at this mawkish soapboxing display of which rich idiot is "changing the world" all the while those who are repulsed by this are ever-more seen as inherently immoral for not singing from the same hymm sheet. If we recast this whole issue as one where previously political activity has spilled over into most areas of life, such that many now cannot espcae it --- then we see what the problem is. It isnt free speech. Its the lack of quiet places. It's that if you want to work in these areas, you're bombarded with the loud noises of loud opinions that you can't escape.

roflc0ptic 5y ago

> When people bring up posts like this they never say what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes on taxes. There are plenty of examples of stuff that is way less clearcut "that's bad" than your example. See e.g. David Schor getting fired for retweeting a black professor's paper arguing riots are bad for black political movements. See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement. I don't personally spend a lot of time talking to my social milieu - left/liberal about the right, because there's not a lot to say. Watching my immediate vicinity devolve into... whatever you want to call the current moment, is frustrating as hell. The left has a lot of cultural power that the right simply doesn't, and watching it be wielded by fanatics towards ever morphing, questionable goals makes me want to push back.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
> See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic statement. Is this really a topic you needed to weigh in on? I’m assuming you weren’t concern trolling or playing devil’s advocate, but it’s very easy to imagine how a “gentle challenge” might get interpreted as such if your relationship with the other person doesn’t generally include similar discussion topics.
- morelisp 5y ago
  Also, "I'm not friends with someone anymore after arguing with them" has historically not been called "cancel culture". Certainly I wouldn't hang around with someone constantly reminding me which of my views they currently think aren't falsifiable.
  - roflc0ptic 5y ago
    Right, I'm not claiming it's ~cancel culture~, it is however anti-heretic behavior. See other comment; she's a professor and aspiring public intellectual. This combination of "I'm an authority so you have to listen to me" and "you can't challenge my beliefs because it's oppression" is a recipe for bad thinking.

Aeolun 5y ago

I don’t think people want to say bad things without consequence. They want to be able to discuss a topic without the rabid tone police descending on it. Like, I say I cannot understand trans people at all, and people will jump on me because I’m rejecting them and making them feel bad, when I’m just stating a fact. There’s a lot of this stuff.

UncleMeat 5y ago
“I don’t understand it but I’ll trust their feelings and the recommendations of their doctor” is very different from “I don’t understand it so I’ll call them mentally ill, misgender them, or insist that legislation prevent access to medical care”.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Indeed. But I do not feel like the wolves care about the distinction, or they just don’t attempt to figure out that nuance before they descend.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    My experience has been the opposite. Empathy and willingness to learn are treated well, both by activists and trans people themselves.
  - falcolas 5y ago
    If you don’t understand, why are you drawing the attention of the “wolves” by speaking before trying to understand?
  - philjohn 5y ago
    I've seen more than a few posts where people have said "I really don't get this whole issue, but live and let live" and haven't been descended upon, that's just anecdata though.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    On one hand, you're right. The nuance is sometimes lost. On the other hand, think about what we're talking about: a political party is trying to erase the existence of a class of people, and they are wielding the power of the state to do so, especially in places where there's one party control and no hope of electing any opposing party. When you say "I don't understand trans people", trans people have heard this many times before. Unfortunately for you, many people who have said this phrase before followed it up with "...and therefore I hate them. I will legislate against them; I will pass laws against their existence in public space; I will demonize them; I will jail them; I will murder them." Those are the stakes, so the pushback is in proportional to the life and death nature of what's going on here. When you say "I don't understand trans people" they are expecting you to follow it up with more of the same. And I get that's not great for the general public's understanding of trans people. But understand that it's a reaction to years and year of abuse from other people who also proclaim that they "don't understand." Your general confusion is being received in an environment where people are literally fighting for their lives. Maybe in a different time, when people aren't facing down the vast power of the state to dictate their existence, there would be more room to treat you gentler. But the pressure has been ratcheted up to 11 by powerful forces bent on a 21st century new moral panic, and that's not the fault of trans people and their defenders, but the people who are trying to make their lives hell for no reason other than intolerance.

lowkey_ 5y ago

> People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. I see this a lot and it makes no sense to me. What does it mean to deny the existence of someone? To pretend they do not exist? People who make that comment usually seem to be falling into a trap of viewing a disagreement or difference in opinion as something much more extreme.

malnourish 5y ago
Take this statement: "all trans people are misgendering themselves and _should_ conform to the gender assigned to them based on the sexual organs they had at birth". This effectively denies the existence of people who believe or desire to be their non-assigned gender. The statement tells trans people that in the eyes of the speaker, their personal identity is a fabrication.
- trash99 5y ago
daveoc64 5y ago
I've read comments on articles about LGBT issues (often trans topics these days), and there are a lot of people that say things like "Being gay is a choice". If that's not denying the existence of a different kind of person to you, I don't know what is.

chmod600 5y ago

If it were only about a hostile work environment, it would only be about behavior/speech in the workplace that is not easily avoidable. But a lot of these heresies are about behavior/speech outside the workplace, or behavior/speech that you need to actively look for. So I don't buy the "hostile work environment" justification.

ekianjo 5y ago

> What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here Looks like someone didnt understand the article, because PG directly addressed that point.

javajosh 5y ago

>This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence People say horrible things all the time! In fact, I reckon that if you said anything, a non-negligible fraction of the world's 7.5 billion people would think you horrible for saying it. It is not possible to avoid saying horrible things, especially out of context. Even if you limit yourself to racist and sexist speech, how do you deal the fact that roughly 100% of the people on this planet, of ALL races and sexes, are themselves racist and sexist, and say racist/sexist things all the time? What are the consequences for a homophobic black person? What are the consequences for the Japanese woman who hates the Chinese? What are the consequences for the Libyan mother who circumcised her 4 daughters, with the support of her government and community? The culture war that the left has started is an intellectually bankrupt grab for cultural power, who's primary effect has been to piss off the good people of the left, and to inspire a once-in-a-century outbreak of insanity on the right. I get that you want to make the world a better place, and it makes sense that punishing people for wrong views could make it so, but you've done the experiment now. Tell me, how is it going?

seaourfreed 5y ago

* Heresy supporters give themselves a license thinking it is about issues of real racism, sexism, and other real bad problems, but... * The tools of censorship are then used for normal speech. Proof: Ron Paul had a YouTube channel. He left politics before the covid and no videos had been posted since the pandemic started. But they censored his YouTube channel full of videos by censoring all of the videos and the channel. * Proof here: https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1308849979730071554 https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1308849979730071554 * This censorship of the political right happens in a long list of cases that have nothing to do with racism, sexism, or false propaganda. Ron Paul's YouTube channel being censored is one example in a list of thousands just like it.

chmod600 5y ago

"This thing where people want to say horrible things without consequence is just so weird." It's really easy to think/say horrible things. The main defense humans have against it is following orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly represents historical knowledge about good and bad. If you think you are naturally good (whatever that means), you are wrong. If you think you are good because of your intellect, you're also wrong. It takes many generations to build up the kind of orthodoxy that keeps humans good. And the lessons behind it are too many to learn in a lifetime. So, we need to mostly follow orthodoxy, at least in our actions. But that poses an intellectual problem: orthodoxy is imperfect, and to discuss and advance it, or even understand it well, you have to challenge it. If merely by challenging it you transgress, then it will never be understood very well and certainly not advanced. Granted, there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a good situation. Remember: gay marriage was illegal almost everywhere 20 years ago. Imagine the surprise to, say, a 60 year old, that "misgendering" (by using pronouns associated with one's biological sex) might be a firable offense today.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
>> orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly represents historical knowledge about good and bad. One issue is that there are multiple orthodoxies. Each human culture has its own orthodoxy which is reflected in the culture's norms and practices. >> there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a good situation. When and why is it right or just to judge one culture against another? We can try to place ourselves in someone else's shoes, but it is very difficult to understand without having lived their lives and experienced it ourselves. Perhaps the best we can do is to be compassionate and tolerant of others who think or live differently than us. We can educate, persuade, and help, but condemning them and punishing them strikes me as unfair and perhaps unjust depending on the circumstances.

subjectsigma 5y ago

1) Whenever people call it the "Don't Say Gay" bill, I ask them if they've read the text of the bill. So far it's like 0-8. 2) I think you're conflating two different groups of people to make your argument sound better. I don't like cancel culture and I don't like the Florida bill either. People aren't just "ignoring" it. 3) > denying the existence of people who aren't like them This is such a weird, vague statement and I have no idea what it means - which is great because it perfectly captures the mob mentality of the far-left cancel culture. The reason everyone is so afraid of it is because you never know exactly what you can say, and it changes by person by day. In my professional experience, even "acknowledging the existence" of trans people is a minefield. The term to describe someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the past five years and using the outdated term is considered wildly offensive. Certain people think changes of pronouns should be handled differently and if you disagree with them you eventually get a meeting invite from your supervisor called "Discussion". Speaking of hostile work environments...

ModernMech 5y ago
> The term to describe someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the past five years and using the outdated term is considered wildly offensive. I understand the euphemism treadmill can be difficult, but understand why it exists: when people in a group use certain words to self identify, those words are then coopted by outsiders of the group to vilify insiders. Therefore the old self-identifying words are abandoned by insiders and left as markers of those outsiders who are attempting vilify them. Meanwhile new words of self identification are adopted by insiders that have no negative connotation. Take for instance people with mental disabilities. The words lunatic, insane, retarded, disabled, mentally disabled, special etc. have all been used to describe the same mental state, and have all been at times the "correct" way to refer to such people, and also the "insensitive" way to refer to such people. Calling someone "retarded" used to be clinical. Now you say "retarded" and it's a grave insult. This is just the price of diversity, and existing in a world where people want to use powerful words to shame and demean. Words have amazing power, and when they are wielded in evil ways you have no other choice but to abandon the word and move to a next one. This is why the N-word is so forbidden to say; Black Americans took a stand and said: "No more. We are reclaiming the power of this word, and you just can't use it anymore, period." It took a huge movement to make that social change, and it'll take the same similar movement to stop the euphemism treadmill for trans people. In the meantime, try to keep up. If you make a real effort people notice and they have tolerance for that. However if you make clear that you have no idea why you have to keep up with all these words in the first place, and it's really all just a bother to you that you'd rather not deal with, you're implicitly signaling you're more aligned with someone who may use those words in a harmful way, and that may be why you are met with hostilities. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

Eli_Beeblebrox 5y ago

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jakelazaroff 5y ago
> The bill would prevent teachers from keeping secrets about children from their parents. It enforces more speech, not less. If teachers must disclose student confidences to parents, it discourages students in unsafe homes from letting on to their teachers that they’re questioning their sexuality. That’s a chilling effect on speech.
- Eli_Beeblebrox 5y ago