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Maybe this reply to my comment wasn't directed specifically at me, but I want to make it clear you are arguing against points I didn't make. I wasn't saying can

by slg 5y ago

Maybe this reply to my comment wasn't directed specifically at me, but I want to make it clear you are arguing against points I didn't make. I wasn't saying cancel culture doesn't exist. I wasn't saying people don't self-censor. I was instead saying that people who complain about self-censorship often don't understand the reason behind why some things are now objectionable. This results in them painting with too broad of a brush when they talk about that self-censorship and cancel culture. You can still make edgy and politically incorrect jokes today if you do it right.

vimy 5y ago
> You can still make edgy and politically incorrect jokes today if you do it right. Not really. Doing it right means adhering to the left’s idea of what is right. Your whole position is based on the left being correct about everything. Take non-binary for example. I’ve looked into it, read the studies and my conclusion is that it’s pseudoscience that deserves to be mocked. But you probably think it’s real so if I joke about it you think I’m a bigot. From my perspective, joking about it is like when we used to mock people who believed in creationism. So what is doing it right if we both have two fundamentally different positions about a subject? ——- I’m not gonna get into a debate over non-binary. That’s not the point here, it’s an example.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  So were you against mocking people who believed in creationism? It sounds like you’re fine with shaming people when you’re in the ingroup, while at the same time you don’t want to be shamed for being part of an outgroup.
  - vimy 5y ago
    I mocked creationism too. You can mock my dying mother for all I care. I wouldn’t like it but believe in your right to say whatever you want.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      You are free to mock non-binary people, though. And others are free to call you a bigot. Both of those comport with a right to say whatever you want.
- KyleJune 5y ago
  It's not a democrat thing. Large parts of the population disagree on things. When people do things objectionable to republicans, they all try to cancel them too. Many republicans want to cancel gay people, trans people, immigrants, minorities, socialists, etc.
- slg 5y ago
  Let me focus on this part of what I said in my first comment "joke made at the expense of innocent people simply trying to live their life." Would your joke about non-binary people be about the idea of being non-binary or at the expense of the people who are non-binary? The former is allowed. The latter is cruel regardless of your opinion on the science. Even if you believe that every non-binary person in the world is mentally ill and suffering from a mass delusion, why would you think it should be acceptable to mock the mentally ill? It is cruel regardless of politics.
  - vimy 5y ago
    > Would your joke about non-binary people be about the idea of being non-binary or at the expense of the people who are non-binary? That line is so thin, one person might think it has been crossed while another might not. Ideally, the joke would be about the idea but some will say that’s still at the expense of those people. Mocking the mentally ill has been done for decades. I don’t think there should be any taboo in humor. There’s always someone who will be offended, no matter who or what you joke about. For the record, I don’t think non-binary people are mentally ill.
    - slg 5y ago
      >That line is so thin, one person might think it has been crossed while another might not. Ideally, the joke would be about the idea but some will say that’s still at the expense of those people. This is shifting the goal posts. We were talking about cancel culture not offending one person. No one is cancelled when there is only a single person that objects. The problem is when large groups of people object. The line for that is not nearly as thin or hard to ascertain. >Mocking the mentally ill has been done for decades. Do I have to point out how silly this excuse is? People also spent centuries yelling the n-word as Black people. Should that still be acceptable today? >I don’t think there should be any taboo in humor. I have seen comedians joke about almost every controversial issue under the sun. The only real taboo in modern comedy is to not punch down. Mocking people who have historically been oppressed and who want nothing but the end of that oppression is punching down.
- formerkrogemp 5y ago
  Is it not ok to mock creationism anymore? I need to get out of my cave that's 5,000 years old and learn modern customs.
- pksebben 5y ago
  You either used a bad example, or don't understand your terms. There's nothing pertinent about non-binary you could possibly glean from studies, because it's cultural. What someone feels about their identity isn't the sort of thing you can create a science around. This is precisely why someone would call you a bigot; Oxford defines the term thusly: > a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. The belief in this case being that your opinion of their identity, based on the studies you have read, is more relevant to their truth (or anyone's) than their feelings about their identity. As far as some of us are concerned, it isn't. This isn't a left-vs-right matter, either. That framing establishes factional conflict where there could be simple misunderstanding, which isn't terribly productive. Really, the issue at hand is that you feel like you should get to make jokes about people's identity, and others feel like joking about people based on their identity is rude so they call you out on it. It just happens that there are enough people who feel that way that being ostracized by them stings. Your options are to not do it or accept that a large portion of society will think you're a dick.
  - lliamander 5y ago
    > The belief in this case being that your opinion of their identity, based on the studies you have read, is more relevant to their truth (or anyone's) than their feelings about their identity. As far as some of us are concerned, it isn't. But why should I take someone's view of their identity without question? Why, and to what extent, am I obliged to uphold and reinforce someone's self-perception? And why on some issues but not their race, height, age, etc.? Saying it's a "cultural issue" or a "social construct" doesn't help here. "Social construct" does not mean an individual gets to decide unilaterally - quite the opposite in fact! A social constructed category is one which society decides. Nor does "socially constructed" mean something is arbitrary. Language is socially constructed, but that does not mean we can change anything we want about a given language without consequence. > Really, the issue at hand is that you feel like you should get to make jokes about people's identity, and others feel like joking about people based on their identity is rude so they call you out on it. Presuming to know someone else's motives better than they know themselves is not persuasive.
- hooande 5y ago
  the OP's point was that public reaction will depend on the specific joke you make and the context in which you make it. a skilled comedian can make a nonbinary joke that is perfectly acceptable. a person at random is more likely to have their joke taken the wrong way. Or, in the common case, just reveal their bigotry. The consequences for a misunderstood joke / revealed bigotry are going to be higher when billions of people can interpret your comments out of context. keep that in mind when posting to social media?
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  When has it ever been possible to be openly and purposefully offensive without consequence? What about cancel culture is unique to the left? The thing that’s so tiring about this argument is that people seem to have forgotten about societal events that took place before Twitter was created. This strain in society has always existed, the U.S. evangelical wing mastered cancel culture before smartphones were invented. So yeah, if you want to be openly derisive about wide swaths of the population, you’re going to get pushback. I’m not sure what about this is novel or noteworthy, this is part of the way society functions. I mean hell, Bentham invented the panopticon in 1786!
  - buildbot 5y ago
    Right? People have been getting “canceled” for things since humans have had fire. Probably before. It was possibly also more lethal. “Let them eat cake” <- doesn't go well
  - letitbeirie 5y ago
    There was a brief period of time, say from the 60s to the early 10s, where offensive takes in public were slightly more tolerated, but that's what's in a lot of peoples memory. I'm sure it waxes and wanes. Either way it's not as personally damaging to be accused of being a racist in 2022 as being accused of being a communist in 1952, let alone before that when expressing the wrong opinions loudly enough could get you tarred and feathered.
    - mechanical_bear 5y ago
      > being a communist in 1952 A bit different as that was the mortal enemy of the day, with good reason. It wasn’t someone with a different viewpoint, it was a very real potential mole from the enemy.
      - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
        The red scare was about as justified as the invasion of Iraq, which is to say, not at all and not even a little bit.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  >> You can still make edgy and politically incorrect jokes today if you do it right. >Not really. Doing it right means adhering to the left’s idea of what is right. Your whole position is based on the left being correct about everything. Also, whats right today may not be right tomorrow. Tweets live forever.
- jmopp 5y ago
  > Not really. Doing it right means adhering to the left’s idea of what is right. A good counter-example to that is South Park. They make edgy jokes that offend everyone and have withstood criticism from both the left and the right.
- headsoup 5y ago
  I think this thread is missing the main point, which is people are being cancelled for the content of their speech, not their behaviour. That is the key difference between free speech and censorship. You can support free speech and still remove people for horrible behaviour, but as soon as you start removing people because of the content of their speech, you move to tyranny. That is cancelling and why people self censor (you're full of it if you say that's not happening), because their content is considered dangerous, not their behaviour. Just watch, if Musk buys Twitter the mass of woke narcissists will immediately move to demand social media be regulated, after feverishly admonishing Trump for desiring the same thing...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pengstrom 5y ago
    How is speech not a behavior? Self-censoring is crudely how civilisation works. We accept some restraints on our biological urges for the safety and order collective society provides.
    - psyc 5y ago
      You could say everything we do is behavior, but it's still useful to make a distinction between one thing and another. Maybe you'd like a different term, but I really think everybody understands what is meant by distinguishing word from action, or message from tone, etc. We're not talking zoology here.
    - adamauckland 5y ago
      I was going to question whether you agreed in "free speech" because our U.S. counterparts are always up in arms about that, but then I see you're from Stockholm so no worries!
    - alophawen 5y ago
      > Self-censoring is crudely how civilisation works. We accept some restraints on our biological urges for the safety and order collective society provides. Are you saying our civilization is no longer working?

by slg 5y ago

vimy 5y ago

> You can still make edgy and politically incorrect jokes today if you do it right. Not really. Doing it right means adhering to the left’s idea of what is right. Your whole position is based on the left being correct about everything. Take non-binary for example. I’ve looked into it, read the studies and my conclusion is that it’s pseudoscience that deserves to be mocked. But you probably think it’s real so if I joke about it you think I’m a bigot. From my perspective, joking about it is like when we used to mock people who believed in creationism. So what is doing it right if we both have two fundamentally different positions about a subject? ——- I’m not gonna get into a debate over non-binary. That’s not the point here, it’s an example.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
So were you against mocking people who believed in creationism? It sounds like you’re fine with shaming people when you’re in the ingroup, while at the same time you don’t want to be shamed for being part of an outgroup.
- vimy 5y ago
  I mocked creationism too. You can mock my dying mother for all I care. I wouldn’t like it but believe in your right to say whatever you want.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    You are free to mock non-binary people, though. And others are free to call you a bigot. Both of those comport with a right to say whatever you want.
KyleJune 5y ago
It's not a democrat thing. Large parts of the population disagree on things. When people do things objectionable to republicans, they all try to cancel them too. Many republicans want to cancel gay people, trans people, immigrants, minorities, socialists, etc.
slg 5y ago
Let me focus on this part of what I said in my first comment "joke made at the expense of innocent people simply trying to live their life." Would your joke about non-binary people be about the idea of being non-binary or at the expense of the people who are non-binary? The former is allowed. The latter is cruel regardless of your opinion on the science. Even if you believe that every non-binary person in the world is mentally ill and suffering from a mass delusion, why would you think it should be acceptable to mock the mentally ill? It is cruel regardless of politics.
- vimy 5y ago
  > Would your joke about non-binary people be about the idea of being non-binary or at the expense of the people who are non-binary? That line is so thin, one person might think it has been crossed while another might not. Ideally, the joke would be about the idea but some will say that’s still at the expense of those people. Mocking the mentally ill has been done for decades. I don’t think there should be any taboo in humor. There’s always someone who will be offended, no matter who or what you joke about. For the record, I don’t think non-binary people are mentally ill.
  - slg 5y ago
    >That line is so thin, one person might think it has been crossed while another might not. Ideally, the joke would be about the idea but some will say that’s still at the expense of those people. This is shifting the goal posts. We were talking about cancel culture not offending one person. No one is cancelled when there is only a single person that objects. The problem is when large groups of people object. The line for that is not nearly as thin or hard to ascertain. >Mocking the mentally ill has been done for decades. Do I have to point out how silly this excuse is? People also spent centuries yelling the n-word as Black people. Should that still be acceptable today? >I don’t think there should be any taboo in humor. I have seen comedians joke about almost every controversial issue under the sun. The only real taboo in modern comedy is to not punch down. Mocking people who have historically been oppressed and who want nothing but the end of that oppression is punching down.
formerkrogemp 5y ago
Is it not ok to mock creationism anymore? I need to get out of my cave that's 5,000 years old and learn modern customs.
pksebben 5y ago
You either used a bad example, or don't understand your terms. There's nothing pertinent about non-binary you could possibly glean from studies, because it's cultural. What someone feels about their identity isn't the sort of thing you can create a science around. This is precisely why someone would call you a bigot; Oxford defines the term thusly: > a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. The belief in this case being that your opinion of their identity, based on the studies you have read, is more relevant to their truth (or anyone's) than their feelings about their identity. As far as some of us are concerned, it isn't. This isn't a left-vs-right matter, either. That framing establishes factional conflict where there could be simple misunderstanding, which isn't terribly productive. Really, the issue at hand is that you feel like you should get to make jokes about people's identity, and others feel like joking about people based on their identity is rude so they call you out on it. It just happens that there are enough people who feel that way that being ostracized by them stings. Your options are to not do it or accept that a large portion of society will think you're a dick.
- lliamander 5y ago
  > The belief in this case being that your opinion of their identity, based on the studies you have read, is more relevant to their truth (or anyone's) than their feelings about their identity. As far as some of us are concerned, it isn't. But why should I take someone's view of their identity without question? Why, and to what extent, am I obliged to uphold and reinforce someone's self-perception? And why on some issues but not their race, height, age, etc.? Saying it's a "cultural issue" or a "social construct" doesn't help here. "Social construct" does not mean an individual gets to decide unilaterally - quite the opposite in fact! A social constructed category is one which society decides. Nor does "socially constructed" mean something is arbitrary. Language is socially constructed, but that does not mean we can change anything we want about a given language without consequence. > Really, the issue at hand is that you feel like you should get to make jokes about people's identity, and others feel like joking about people based on their identity is rude so they call you out on it. Presuming to know someone else's motives better than they know themselves is not persuasive.
hooande 5y ago
the OP's point was that public reaction will depend on the specific joke you make and the context in which you make it. a skilled comedian can make a nonbinary joke that is perfectly acceptable. a person at random is more likely to have their joke taken the wrong way. Or, in the common case, just reveal their bigotry. The consequences for a misunderstood joke / revealed bigotry are going to be higher when billions of people can interpret your comments out of context. keep that in mind when posting to social media?
femiagbabiaka 5y ago
When has it ever been possible to be openly and purposefully offensive without consequence? What about cancel culture is unique to the left? The thing that’s so tiring about this argument is that people seem to have forgotten about societal events that took place before Twitter was created. This strain in society has always existed, the U.S. evangelical wing mastered cancel culture before smartphones were invented. So yeah, if you want to be openly derisive about wide swaths of the population, you’re going to get pushback. I’m not sure what about this is novel or noteworthy, this is part of the way society functions. I mean hell, Bentham invented the panopticon in 1786!
- buildbot 5y ago
  Right? People have been getting “canceled” for things since humans have had fire. Probably before. It was possibly also more lethal. “Let them eat cake” <- doesn't go well
- letitbeirie 5y ago
  There was a brief period of time, say from the 60s to the early 10s, where offensive takes in public were slightly more tolerated, but that's what's in a lot of peoples memory. I'm sure it waxes and wanes. Either way it's not as personally damaging to be accused of being a racist in 2022 as being accused of being a communist in 1952, let alone before that when expressing the wrong opinions loudly enough could get you tarred and feathered.
  - mechanical_bear 5y ago
    > being a communist in 1952 A bit different as that was the mortal enemy of the day, with good reason. It wasn’t someone with a different viewpoint, it was a very real potential mole from the enemy.
    - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
      The red scare was about as justified as the invasion of Iraq, which is to say, not at all and not even a little bit.
jay_kyburz 5y ago
>> You can still make edgy and politically incorrect jokes today if you do it right. >Not really. Doing it right means adhering to the left’s idea of what is right. Your whole position is based on the left being correct about everything. Also, whats right today may not be right tomorrow. Tweets live forever.
jmopp 5y ago
> Not really. Doing it right means adhering to the left’s idea of what is right. A good counter-example to that is South Park. They make edgy jokes that offend everyone and have withstood criticism from both the left and the right.
headsoup 5y ago
I think this thread is missing the main point, which is people are being cancelled for the content of their speech, not their behaviour. That is the key difference between free speech and censorship. You can support free speech and still remove people for horrible behaviour, but as soon as you start removing people because of the content of their speech, you move to tyranny. That is cancelling and why people self censor (you're full of it if you say that's not happening), because their content is considered dangerous, not their behaviour. Just watch, if Musk buys Twitter the mass of woke narcissists will immediately move to demand social media be regulated, after feverishly admonishing Trump for desiring the same thing...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pengstrom 5y ago
  How is speech not a behavior? Self-censoring is crudely how civilisation works. We accept some restraints on our biological urges for the safety and order collective society provides.
  - psyc 5y ago
    You could say everything we do is behavior, but it's still useful to make a distinction between one thing and another. Maybe you'd like a different term, but I really think everybody understands what is meant by distinguishing word from action, or message from tone, etc. We're not talking zoology here.
  - adamauckland 5y ago
    I was going to question whether you agreed in "free speech" because our U.S. counterparts are always up in arms about that, but then I see you're from Stockholm so no worries!
  - alophawen 5y ago
    > Self-censoring is crudely how civilisation works. We accept some restraints on our biological urges for the safety and order collective society provides. Are you saying our civilization is no longer working?