I disagree. With freedom to speak your mind comes my freedom to respond to it. When it was people speaking out in favor of civil rights, they didn’t complain about cancel culture, they just chose to accept the consequences that came with doing the right thing.
Only now that it is the repressive point of view that has gone out of favor is suddenly this an issue. Now that hateful people get push back for their views, they want to infringe on my right to express my opinion on their views.
What part exactly is “not right”, and will it continue to be “not right” if repressive views become the more popular again?
The principle, in general, is that people are allowed to not like you and your opinions, and they’re allowed to refuse to deal with you, employ you, whichever. Given that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I, as a liberal, have to ask what’s wrong with firing your employee because he advocates for gay marriage, likes the yankees, or whichever.
Part of the answer, of course, is federally protected classes. There are some things that we’ve decided you can’t be fired for, at the societal level.
I have the worrying feeling that the other part of the answer is that if we let decent companies fire you for being a shithead, then that means that Fox News can fire you for being a decent person.
From New York magazine, a guy named David Shor (who had worked as a data analyst for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, and was working for a consulting company called Civis Analytics) sent out a tweet that said
Someone not only reacted to Shor’s tweet on Twitter (saying it was “tone-deaf” and accusing Shor of “anti-blackness”), but also included Shor’s boss in the Twitter conversation with the statement “Come get your boy”. Some employees at Civis Analytics apparently also complained that Shor’s tweet “threatened their safety”. Shor was then fired from his job.
There’s a difference between someone being ignorant or having a bad moment, which is educable and forgivable, and being a confrontational entitled, bigoted, bully asshole. I think the former should be confronted but not fired or canceled, but the latter should be shamed and forced into submission.
I guess what I mean is, you have to like, go out of your way. It’s not enough to walk away when you happen to recognize his face - that’s just normal asshole avoidance. If some guy I have beef with is waiting tables at a local diner, my refusal to go there has nothing to do with the diner and everything to do with the waiter. For what we’re talking about, it has to be shame on his employer, friends, etc by mere association. You would have to refuse to go to that McDonalds even when he’s not working the shift.
With celebrities, you refuse to watch their movies, to support their charities, to buy products which pay him for endorsements, to watch programs (eg: talk shows and TV stations) which give him air time, to respect people who still like him, etc. You have to go out of your way - my understanding is that if enough people actually boycott everything associated with the guy, he just gets cut off. He loses his movie deals, his charity funding, his paid endorsements, his talk show appearances, his fans, his friends, etc. He becomes “cancelled”.
What about people who aren’t even “being ignorant or having a bad moment”? What about people who are expressing perfectly reasonable opinions–do you think they should be “shamed and forced into submission”?
"Come get your boy” was posted to someone’s boss because the “boy” in question posted a link to a study that said that peaceful demonstrations help Democrats win elections, but violent demonstrations/riots hurt the chances of Democrats. That is what at least a couple of y’all in this thread appear to have no problems with.
If I try… really hard to think about this topic… there is something that I don’t like about a society of cancel culture, or a society that is a “viewpoint minefield”. It’s when an individual decides, that’s it, this guy is an unreasonable asshole and I won’t have any more to do with it. One the one hand, that is entirely your right. On the other hand, it detracts from the open marketplace of ideas because debate has broken down. Just another one of those incongruities I have to keep in mind next time I’m in ATMB.
The last time I had this discussion I came to the conclusion that only certain viewpoints should be shouted down and forced into submission - those which discredit opposing viewpoints, Catch-22 style.
No, I don’t have a problem with private companies firing whoever they want for whatever reason, as long as it’s not because the person was fired for being a member of a protected class.
If I was asked, I would say the problem is companies that appear to bow down to the wishes of a few people on Twitter.
Yes, but the implication is that the democrats are encouraging violent demonstrations, or at least have the capacity to prevent them.
Peaceful demonstrations turn into riots sometimes. The only ones at fault are the rioters. To make that tweet is to imply that the peaceful protesters and other democrats are responsible for the violence.
What other reason could there be to point that out?
It’s not just concern trolling, it’s disingenuous accusatory concern trolling. “Oh, you know, the protests are great, everyone loves them, but it’s just when they turn violent that you lose voters.” That’s textbook right there. As they know that you cannot prevent a protest from turning into a riot, what they are saying is that you shouldn’t have protests.
I can see a reason for pushback on that.
We also don’t know why he was fired. Maybe they took him into the office and tried to have a reasonable conversation with him, and he became belligerent and threatening. Maybe he was the unreasonable party, maybe it was his employers. We don’t know, there is an NDA associated with his departure.(Which also means we don’t know what kind of severance package he got.) (I can say I’ve seen people fired for far less.)
If you were cooking for a group of people, and one day, one of them comes to you and says, “Lots of the people at my table like pizza, but they don’t like when it tastes like shit.” would you not get the impression that they are saying that your pizza tastes like shit? This is the same framing that he is using.
Like I said, the letter, and the poster’s quotation of the letter leaves out a huge amount of context. He was not fired for simply tweeting a link to a peer reviewed study. I lost quite a bit of respect for everyone that signed onto that letter.
The only thing that I don’t like about it is that I could have to pay a consequence for my speech. If that means that I don’t go march with Nazis because I am afraid of losing my job over it, that’s fine. People got fired for marching in Pride parades, I didn’t hear any of the people that are now showing such concern about “cancel culture” stick up for anyone then.
I don’t doubt that people have likely been fired in the past for having marched in a pride parade, but I would think the vast majority of people speaking out against cancel culture now would think that is wrong too. Do you have some examples showing otherwise?
To each his own. My way, I feel justified shutting down the worst forms of Nazism while still being fine with Pride parades, as a form of neutral public policy, without simply assuming any particular viewpoint is evil.
[quote=“am77494, post:5, topic:914785, full:true”]
Is the cancel culture a result of the “duopoly” political system ? In my opinion, A republican doesn’t have a great option going into this election and neither does a democrat.[/quote]
I’m sure there’s no single cause, but I sometimes wonder if our fragmented media has something to do with it. It’s trivially easy for me to tune out opinions that aren’t aligned with mine compared to 30 years ago. So rather than listen to anything respectfully I can just shut out all the bad noise.
Sure. But this implies precisely that it’s not just society that decides which opinions are permissible, and which aren’t: you’re implying that there are some opinions that deserve being shouted down, and some that don’t. But then, the shouting itself achieves nothing: we should rather strive to find out which is which. You can’t really have it both ways: on the one hand, claiming that one has to accept the shouting, while on the other, that sometimes shouting is justified, and sometimes, it’s not.
The letter is claiming that the shouting down that happens when people are fired for perceived failures to hold the right opinion isn’t justified; consequently, that’s the issue you’d have to take up, showing that the shouting in this case is justified, rather than pointing to the mere fact that shouting always has existed: with that, you’re engaging the wrong target.
And because, in your opinion, the wrong people are now raising the issue, that means it’s not an issue worth being raised?
Well, who else does? Who else can? Individuals make their individual choices. The amalgamation of those choices is society.
I have my list of opinions that I think should be drowned out for how offensive they are to a just and peaceful society, other people have their opinions.
If you start advocating for child prostitution, I think it’s only fair that your voice be drowned out by those who find your position reprehensible. I think we can all agree on that, right?
The shouting is how society decides which is which.
I’m not trying to have it both ways. I am saying that one has to accept the shouting, if you are going to accept that we live in a country where people are allowed to freely express their opinions. Whether or not I feel it is justified only determines which side of the shouting match I am on, not whether or not I would allow one.
And they feel that way, and are entitled to express their opinion on the matter. The examples given in the letter were very disingenuous and one sided perspectives, and did not give the context that would better allow one to determine if said firing was justified. In the one that we have discussed the most in this thread, we don’t even know why he was fired, or what his severance package was, as that is protected by an NDA, but we do know that he wasn’t fired just for sharing a peer reviewed study, as the letter falsely claimed.
If someone is disruptive to the workplace, or disruptive to your ability to function as a business, then they are likely to get fired. Sometimes, expressing an opinion may cause you to become disruptive to the workplace or to the functions of a business. I don’t see why an employer should be required to hold onto an employee that is harming them.
I disagree that that relates to my argument. I am saying that everyone is free to express their opinion, including their opinion on someone else’s opinion. What those who abhor “cancel culture” want is to limit that to only the first case, and limit the freedom of the second.
IMHO, it is not an issue worth being raised by anyone, but these hypocrites especially. They are the ones who want to have it both ways. They want to be able to express their opinion, as noxious as they desire to share it, with no consequence for sharing that opinion.
Also, what is the remedy here? What is is that is actually being asked for, either by the writers of the letter or by those in this thread? Is it that we are not to judge people by the opinions that they hold? Noble as that is, I’m going to judge you if you are on the street advocating for child prostitution, sorry, I just am. Is is that we are not to express our opinions about our judgments on someone’s opinion? I also disagree with that, I have the right to make my opinion heard, to disagree with yours in the same public sphere that you are advocating your position in.
The remedy that those who were discriminated against for being gay or advocating for civil rights was to move society to where it no longer found those views abhorrent. You don’t get fired for marching in a Pride parade anymore, because society in general would think more poorly of the employer than of the employee (and it’s now, very recently, illegal to do so.) they put a whole lot of work and took a whole lot of shit in their efforts to push society to accept their opinion.
If racists want to express their opinion in public without societal backlash, then they can do the work of moving society back to being racist and accepting of such opinions.
The remedy that they want is to be able to simply able to express their opinion with no reply from society. Not only do I disagree that they deserve that, I also do not see how it would be possible without severely infringing our rights to free speech.
Now, if all it is is asking people to put some thought into their positions before jumping on the bandwagon, I’ll agree with that, that’s always a great idea. But, I still don’t see how you enforce that, and even if everyone only expressed the most thought out and researched opinions, people with abhorrent opinions will still be “shouted down” by the individuals who make up society.
So, I ask straight up, what remedy is being sought here, and what is the process for achieving that? Are we not to hold people’s opinions against them, no matter how abhorrent? Are we not to discuss with others how abhorrent someone’s opinion is? Are we not to be allowed to vote with our wallets, and avoid giving money to those we feel will use that money in a harmful way? Are we not to be allowed to encourage others as well to vote with their wallet? Are we not to allow employers to make decisions based on the opinions of their customers and other employees about an employee’s actions?
If the remedy is any of those, then I disagree, the remedy will cause more damage than allowing free speech to have consequences.