6 ms·

"There is a difference between valid criticism, which should be part of free expression, and this kind of backlash, ugly personal insults, putting addresses of

• djaychela 4y ago
  I think she's talking about the level at which this campaign would occur. In the past it would have been at a far higher level. Now, almost any sentence can be taken in the worst-faith way, and a campaign be started based on that assumption.
• phpisthebest 4y ago
  Outside the confines of them making official representation about their employer or actions they would take under their authority/power/employment or while on the job, I do not believe there is anything someone writes for which they should be removed from their job.
  • Jarmsy 4y ago
    To clarify - say a schoolteacher writes expressing their strongly held personal racist beliefs (without specific reference to how this relates to their teaching role) would you consider that a reason?
    • wongarsu 4y ago
      That sounds like a great example of the confines of "actions they would take under their authority/power/employment or while on the job", if those racist beliefs are relevant to their teaching job. Or at least something that the school should follow up on to determine if their expressed beliefs lead to unjust actions in the real world.
    • helge9210 4y ago
      A person is schoolteacher by profession. The same person holds a personal belief. The same person writes about personally held belief. There is some distance between job/profession and expressing personal beliefs.
    • phpisthebest 4y ago
      The problem here is what is "racist" If the teacher says "Race X is dumb and can not learn" then yes remove them as they are an educator and racist views on the ability to learn would impact their ability to teach if the teacher says "We should have strong border controls" which is now viewed by the public as racist then no
      • Jarmsy 4y ago
        Okay, so it sounds like you do agree with what I actually wrote.
        • phpisthebest 4y ago
          Your comment was vague to the limits. In modern days cancellation can come from many statements not directly connected to a person's employ, plenty of people have been fired for the social media posting that have NOTHING to do with their employment Thus, when you write "There are absolutely things that people can write which they should be removed from their job" it is interpreted by me (and it seems many others) to be a much wider context than my narrowly focused statement
          • Kbelicius 4y ago
            > Your comment was vague to the limits. In modern days cancellation can come from many statements not directly connected to a person's employ, plenty of people have been fired for the social media posting that have NOTHING to do with their employment So you think that in this case employers and other employees should be denied the right to free association so that a racist can keep their job?
            • endominus 4y ago
              This comment very strongly reminded me of the chain of logic called out in an article recently shared on this site, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vam... > In the febrile McCarthyite atmosphere fermented by the moralising left, remarks that could be construed as sexist mean that Brand is a sexist, which also meant that he is a misogynist. Cut and dried, finished, condemned. It is a rather distressing habit to think in this way.
    • jeltz 4y ago
      Nope, because next time it might be for something else. Maybe next year society decides to dislike socialists. Just because I dislike racism and racists does not mean we should fire them for things outside their job.
      • Kbelicius 4y ago
        So we should take away the right of free association from employers and other employees so that, in this case, a racist could keep their job?
        • trention 4y ago
          The right of free association was already taken away the moment discrimination on the basis of race was outlawed. Find a better argument.
      • nicbou 4y ago
        First they came for the racists And they pretty much stopped there because everyone agrees that it was not comparable to a political belief and deserving of the same protections.
        • trention 4y ago
          [flagged]
          • nicbou 4y ago
            If you want people to consider your opinion charitably, don't preface it with "newsflash"
    • naasking 4y ago
      > To clarify - say a schoolteacher writes expressing their strongly held personal racist beliefs (without specific reference to how this relates to their teaching role) would you consider that a reason? No, unless the bias actually shows up in their marking or treatment of students. People can say they believe all kinds of things but their professed beliefs and their actions don't always align. A job entails certain duties, and "duties" are actions you must perform between certain hours, it does not govern how you should think or what you should believe. Or do you not believe that scientists can be religious too? The problem here is that you do not believe that people can separate their beliefs from their duties, and you want to presumptively and proactively punish people without evidence that their beliefs have compromised their duties.
      • spoiler 4y ago
        Alas this rings true: > People can say they believe all kinds of things but their professed beliefs and their actions don't always align. Us software developers often end up doing what we don't believe should be done, in the spirit of getting things done within deadlines!
      • gadders 4y ago
        Yes. I think if your private opinions don't affect the carrying out of your work duties, then I don't think they should get you fired.
    • pannSun 4y ago
• LightHugger 4y ago
  Maybe they should be removed from their job if it's something related to their job, but it almost never is. It always comes down to "this person disagrees with me, therefore cause their employer a nuisance till its no longer worth employing them". There's not a moral court judgement or fairness, it's just some people harassing other people and insisting they deserve it.
  • jackmott 4y ago
    But you forget to mention that the disagreements are things like: “I think you dont have the right to exist because you are gay or black or non christian “ or “nevermind democracy trump should be president even though he lost” People aren’t getting cancelled because they think taxes are 5% too high
    • philovivero 4y ago
      No-one believes either of those things. You should familiarise yourself with the arguments and beliefs of people outside your ideological bubble. To be charitable, I suppose what you mean is: "I don't believe gays/blacks are being genuine in their efforts to promote their agendas" and "there has been significant election interference, including against my preferred candidate (Trump|Clinton)." Note that the latter belief is also widely held by those who preferred eg Clinton in 2016, including Clinton herself, who has loudly and proudly declared repeatedly that she would/should have been president but for election interference. So if the latter belief is enough to get someone canceled from their job, and you support that, then I guess that includes about 90% of the population. I don't think you're being reasonable here. As to the former belief, I think looking back at how Black Lives Matter has turned out should be enough to convince most reasonable people that some of the biggest/loudest agendas promoted over the past few years aren't genuine. As to your last assertion, you're correct. No-one is getting canceled over minor quibbles over tax rates. I don't know anyone who is claiming that.
      • amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        There have been plenty of claims that people have been kicked off social media because they are conservative.
• concinds 4y ago
  She's distinguishing between mob behavior (fundamentally emotional, with people trying to cancel someone they just heard of 2 minutes ago, likely without caring about any context or evidence), and intellectual criticism. It's a reasonable distinction, since except for the past ~10 years, all well-educated people used to understand that mobs are dangerous, even the well-intentioned ones.
• Ligma123 4y ago
  >There are absolutely things that people can write which they should be removed from their job for though, and where it is appropriate to campaign for this as a response. It's really good to see you say the quiet part out loud, and I do hope some people start to become more aware of the friend-enemy distinction. That's why when people who have the same stance as you get fired, specially when they have a history of trying to get other people get fired for something they said, always warms my heart.
  • Jarmsy 4y ago
    Who said anything about a friend-enemy distinction? I'm talking about when someone writes things which reveal that they hold values or beliefs which make them unsuitable for a role they hold.
  • krastanov 4y ago
    I am quite confused by your phrasing. What "quiet part"? This has never been a quiet part. There has always been a self-consistent view of the world in which employers have been asked to respond for perceived immoral behavior among their employees, even if that behavior has little to do with their job. Nothing here is new. You can argue whether that world view is itself moral, but it is silly to claim it is not a fairly standard or common world view that plenty of people consider "obvious and correct". On the other hand, it is certainly worthwhile to discuss what actually deserves such heavy-handed treatment, but that needs to be an honest and polite and patient conversation.
• trention 4y ago
  "There are absolutely things that people can write which they should be removed from their job for though" No, there are not. Anything you say outside of your working time is not the business of your employer.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• jfengel 4y ago
  The "ugly personal insults" part really stands out. It seems inherently self-contradictory: "I should be able to say anything I want, but you should be restricted in the nature of your reply." As you say, doxxing is much closer to violence, and there's every reason to forbid it. But she's attracting attention because of what many people see as "ugly personal insults" against them. Similarly, right at the beginning, she talks about being "afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions". There is already a term for this, JAQing off, where questions are not sincerely intended because you're not going to listen to the answers. They may be intended to sow doubt, spread misinformation, or simply waste time re-re-reexplaining the same point. Those are "wrong questions" because they're not really questions.