Then why isn’t the letter just part of society deciding which opinions to shout down?
Suppose we agree that it’s always been a minefield: what does that change about the points being raised?
Doesn’t the OP realize that we are in the middle of a revolution? The oppressed have risen up and declared they will not be silenced, marginalized, or shouted down. This is long past due.
There are always people in the middle of revolutions who cry that people should be more civil. They survive in history as bad examples. Yes, revolutions are bloody. Yes, revolutions hit the innocent as well as the guilty, the powerless as well as the powerful. Yes, we should all take steps to mitigate these evils. The Harper’s letter is one such step.
At the same time I’m an old-school free speech advocate from the days when espousing the right side could get you threatened. I think that the Times was right to run Tom Cotton’s idiocy: he’s a sitting Senator and we need to know what they are thinking.
The only wrong side of this argument is the one that tells the revolutionaries to shut up and sit down. That happened in the 1960s and the result was 50 years of conservative oppression and culture war victories. Never again. I use the phrase deliberately. Those beliefs must be crushed and consigned to the slimy side of dark rocks, as Fascism mostly has been. There are not two equal sides here and the centrism of pretending that there are is equally worth fighting.
Maybe it is.
Honestly, I don’t see any novel or insightful points being raised by the OP, that I didn’t already address.
Well, obviously, the same people that decide which opinions should be welcome in the public sphere. People.
If I decide that I don’t like what you have to say, and I use my 1st amendment right to let you know that, then I’m not shouting you down, I’m just stating my opinion, same as you.
If a whole bunch of us decide that we don’t like what you have to say, and we use our first amendment right to let you know that, we’re still not shouting you down, just stating our opinion, same as you.
That your opinion may be unpopular enough to attract enough people to tell you that you feel as though you are being shouted down just means that you have a very unpopular opinion.
People have been shouted down for having progressive opinions as well as regressive. Abolitionists have been shouted down, woman’s suffragettes have been shouted down, civil rights advocates have been shouted down, gay rights advocates have been shouted down.
Go back a hundred years, and it would have been the person that was trying to get people to stop being racist that would be shouted down (and often times worse than just words were hurled at them). Now that it’s the people that are trying to bring racism back that are being shouted down, suddenly it’s inappropriate for people to voice their opinion. Now that it is the regressive opinion that is unpopular, it’s now those holding regressive opinions that want to be able to express their opinion with no consequence.
Freedom of speech has never been freedom from consequence, a lesson that progressives have been taught over and over through history as they tried to improve the lot of humans in this world against those who support the status quo. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and it’s regressives who are receiving consequence for voicing unpopular opinions, suddenly, it’s a big concern.
The people that are now complaining about the minefield are largely the ones who benefited from the minefield in the past.
The difference in my opinion is the sheer volume of shouting, the increase in visibility of the vitriol displayed, and how technology has enabled much wider networks of like-minded people to band together. Perhaps in the past if some celebrity expressed some unpopular opinion, they might get hate mail from some people and criticized by other prominent people who have access to media outlets. The vast majority of people who might disagree with their opinion really had no way of expressing that to the public at large. There was no way for the general public to know just how much hate or death threats that person got for expressing their opinion. The average person also would only be at risk of pissing off the people they knew if they expressed an unpopular opinion, instead of millions of people around the globe.
Nowadays, with social media platforms, and even comment sections on media pages, any sort of controversial statement will result in hordes of people coming out to attack that person, or defend that person, resulting in a war of the words that both involves the average person, and is visible to the average person. Perhaps society has always been this polarized and unaccepting of dissenting viewpoints, but I don’t think it has ever been this apparent. I think it is highly likely that the visibility of these verbal conflicts has increased the polarization of people’s views, as they can now see that thousands of people think the same way that they do, reinforcing their own viewpoint. Before, someone might hear a viewpoint that they disagreed with and think “hmmm, I think that person is an asshole, but I’m not too sure what other people are thinking, and there’s not much I can do about it anyways”. Now, it takes minimal effort to dogpile on to attack whoever is being attacked, and I think this has a snowball effect on the intensity of people’s own viewpoints. Perhaps just as many people thought Reagan or Carter were the antichrist as people think Trump or Obama are, but I’m not sure how you would go about showing it. It’s readily apparent now to any person how widely each of the latter presidents are reviled within certain social groups.
I think that the only answer to that is to get rid of the internet.
China probably doesn’t have this problem.
I took the OP to mean that people were being attacked in meaningful ways, that they were losing jobs or social opportunities for their opinions.
But what is actually being complained about is that someone on twitter can call you out for your opinion? As you say, it’s takes minimal effort to join in with expressing your opinion on someone’s statement. It seems it should take approximately the same effort to ignore it.
Yeah, I don’t see how we can get to a system where people can express their opinions in public with no fear of having anyone disagree without doing some pretty drastic infringements on free speech. Can you?
This. Apparently, getting “ratio’d” on Twitter is a thing, something to do with likes vs retweets or some other stupid thing.
This is either incredibly naive or disingenuous.
Nobody cares if a bunch of millenials drag someone on twitter. In the letter it provides examples of people being persecuted for their opinions. One researcher was fired for tweeting a link to a study that did not support a narrative. A professor was investigated for quoting a work of literature. People are afraid and are self censoring. Over half of college students have said they don’t feel comfortable speaking their minds in class.The editor of the NY Times opinion page was fired for publishing an op ed by a sitting senator advocating a position a majority of Americans are in favor of…
that letter also mentions “public shaming”. what is that if not “a bunch of millennials drag[ging] someone on twitter”?
I don’t think it’s a problem that people can call you out on Twitter for views that they disagree with. People losing their jobs or social opportunities is an issue, and it’s a side effect of the visibility and magnitude of hate being thrown around and the bandwagon and viewpoint polarization effect that social media enables. The problem is that people think calling for firing, deplatforming and social ostracization of people are appropriate responses to disagreeing with someone. And companies are OK firing people for their views because of the number and visibility of people calling for it. Somewhat unrelated, I also disagree that it’s equally easy to ignore other people’s opinions than to express your own opinion - people are social animals and care what other people think. It’s one reason that I don’t really participate on social media.
How can that problem be fixed? Not easily - I think it will require a shift in society in general to be more accepting of dissenting views (not that they have to agree with those views, but just that they believe it is possible for decent people to hold opposing views). Perhaps that things like the Harper letter will move things in that direction.
Maybe it’s the case that there have always been a lot of hateful people and social media is just bringing that to light. That’s kind of sad to think but I guess it’s probably true.
I think what’s more apparent is that more voices are being heard.
People who were used to their opinions being taken for granted as normal are finding out that a lot of other people think those opinions are wrong. Some of them are very indignant about this.
And no, this is nothing new, either in minor matters or in large ones. As a socially clueless kid I can tell you that saying the wrong thing or even gesturing in the wrong fashion could get you in trouble in the 1960’s; and I suspect it probably did in the 1960BCE’s, for that matter. I certainly often didn’t feel comfortable speaking my mind in class, anywhere from grade school to high school. What’s different now, perhaps, is which groups of people feel uncomfortable doing so, though I suspect that varies from school to school.
And there’s nothing new about losing one’s job for one’s opinion, either. People used to lose their jobs for being gay, or for being suspected of being gay. People used to lose their jobs for being communists or suspected of sympathizing with communists – or, elsewhere, for not being communist enough. Maybe the USA should rethink being a fire-at-will country; or maybe political opinions should be a protected class – although if the political opinion is that one should be free to harrass others, that one runs into difficulties, both practical and recursive.
No, what is naive is simply repeating the words in the letter with no source or context.
They say a researcher was fired for circulating a “peer-reviewed study”. I don’t know where you got tweeting a link, unless you know more about the context than the letter. What was the study? Just because it was peer reviewed doesn’t mean anything, that just means some people looked at it, and made sure that it followed the basic standards of a scientific paper. It doesn’t mean that they followed up any of the data in it. It also doesn’t say who it was peer reviewed by, there are some outfits that are more reputable than others. So, if someone sends their black colleagues “peer reviewed” papers on scientific racism, then I could see that being a fire-able offense. But you seem to know more about this circumstance than what is in the letter, would you like to elaborate on context?
Same with the rest of the claims in the letter, without context, they mean nothing. If I yell “N*”, and if someone takes offense, be like, “What you don’t like Huck Finn? I was just quoting it.” then I can see an investigation taking place.
People are always self censoring. I’d love to tell people what I think of them all the time, but due to the fact that I’m not a sociopath, I think about how the things that I say can affect others.
I didn’t see this claim in the letter.
This too, was not in the letter, but I assume you are talking about the piece from Tom Cotton about encouraging police brutality to put down protests that the editor apparently did not get permission to print before doing so?
Also, speaking of cancel culture, the piece you are talking about is to use the force of the government to silence an opinion. Are you saying that the majority of Americans are in favor of using the police to prevent people from exercising their first amendment rights, but are afraid that someone one the internet may call them out for it?
No, what it all comes down to is that they have been able to say horrible things about others without consequence, while being able to use violence to shut up those who disagreed with them. Now that they cannot speak without consequence, and those who disagree with them are also able to speak without being persecuted by the government, they are calling “no fair”.
People have always lost jobs or social opportunities for having unpopular views. Go back 40 years and advocate for gay marriage. See if you have a job in the morning.
If someone is advocating for child prostitution today, then yeah, I hope that they receive some consequence for that. I don’t want to support that sort of thing, so if I knew that someone was advocating for that in your business, then I would not patronize your business anymore. Shouldn’t that be my right?
There is in between. Some people think that being a racist is something that they can not tolerate in someone that is performing services for them, and some people don’t mind it at all. I personally would prefer to obtain goods and services, and give my money to, a place that does not have racists on the payroll.
If I pull up to McDonalds, and I recognize the guy taking my order as one of the guys who was marching with Nazis last night, then I’m going to go somewhere else. Is that cancel culture?
The only thing that is new at all is that people are being held to account for stuff they used to get away with. Maybe the problem can be fixed by making people more tolerant of hate and violence, or maybe the problem can be fixed by making people less hateful and violent. I kinda have my opinion on which is the better option.
Just as a follow up, it sounds like you have found an easy way to ignore other’s opinions.
Yes.
I think so. It is my understanding (from Vox) that you have to pretty much boycott the person in general. If for example he had a second part time job at Taco Bell you would have to boycott Taco Bell too.
But the way I’ve seen the word used in media, it might have to be a celebrity to qualify as cancel culture. I don’t know for sure. I think @Velocity may be resting his argument on the false assumption that everybody wants to have discussions on the merits of fascism or racism or how best to deal with either. Intellectuals and journalists signing the Harper’s letter probably want an open marketplace of ideas. I feel like normal people… do not really care so long as their own opinions aren’t being stifled.
~Max
Sure, but that’s not right. As another Doper pointed out upthread, just because something has always been a certain way does not mean it is ideal. Society should have been less of a verbal minefield then, too.
No, just the one he works at.
If that is the case, then I’m not all that concerned. Being a celebrity is a privilege, not a right. If I can be fired by my boss for offending him*, then people should be allowed to stop watching someone’s movies if they say something that offends them. They are probably going to be in the public spotlight a bit more. If they post something to twitter that offends, then sure, they are going to be be held to a higher account than if random nobody does.
I sometimes look up actors just to see what they are all about, and sometimes I learn things about them that makes me not want to consume their work anymore.
OTOH, the guy at Taco Bell, I have no need to look him up, so if he’s posting some racist stuff on Twitter, I don’t know or care. But, if he makes himself prominent enough that I do notice him, then I will care.
*I can’t be, but as an example.