Heh. All my life people have been lamenting, “Max, don’t say anything online because in the future everything will be politically incorrect.”
~Max… who apparently didn’t listen
Exactly; it’s about how this reaction occurs, and whether that’s actually a productive way to react—for either side.
Say that I, rather than engaging you in debate, were to take matters to ATMB, and call for your banning, because I didn’t like the opinion you expressed. Say further that the mods agreed, and you’re summarily banned.
Clearly, both I and the mods would be well within our respective rights to act this way—I’ve freely expressed an opinion, and they’ve made use of their house rights. Neither of us should, in a free society, be prohibited from reacting to you in this way.
But suppose that this becomes the dominant style of reaction. Whenever somebody posts something not in accordance with the predominant rules of the board, someone calls for their removal, which perhaps more often than not will be enacted. Indeed, at some point, to avoid the kerfluffle, people posting problematic opinions are summarily removed, in anticipation of complaint.
Do you really think that this is just as fine as the present culture of debate? Don’t you think this place would loose something due to such exclusionary measures? I’m not even talking about those whose views are removed; nobody’s entitled to be given a platform for their views, on this board or elsewhere. But the board itself, and those toeing the party line enough to still post here, would be deprived of a plurality of opinion that I think is essential to an open society, and indeed, would be prohibited from evolving for lack of exposure to novel stimuli.
Now suppose I were to argue the above—that such an exclusionary policy is ultimately harmful to the board. I’m not thereby calling for a silencing of those going to ATMB to call for the removal of outside voices—I’m not trying to infringe on anybody’s freedom to do so, I’m calling into question whether this sort of action is always a good idea. Everybody’s allowed to go to ATMB and complain bitterly about whatever they think is worth complaining about, and in some cases, this is clearly the right course of action—the boundary cases, as it were. But that doesn’t mean that it should be the first and only course of action, and it doesn’t mean that it can’t be actively harmful if it is. There’s—again—middle ground here.
That’s what the letter claims is happening, or is in danger of happening, with society at large. Dissenting viewpoints, rather than being engaged in productive debate, are silenced, in whatever way. Arguing this isn’t calling for freedom from consequences for stating one’s opinion, it’s calling into question whether the consequences that are being drawn actually fit the case. It’s also not saying that there aren’t cases where it’s perfectly valid to call for certain opinions not being given a platform. These are both just missing the mark as criticisms of the letter, which I think is due to undue focus on the boundary cases—those were going to ATMB and calling for a ban is actually a good idea, so to speak.
(Somewhat ironically, the new board software is presently trying to lecture me on the need for diversity in debate, because I’ve replied to you too many times:
You’ve replied 3 times to @k9bfriender in this particular topic!
A great discussion involves many voices and perspectives. Can you get anybody else involved?
)
Again, no, it’s not. It’s calling into question whether this should be the first, last, and only line of reply, and arguing that we lose something if it is. Just as this board would lose something if every thread not falling within some narrow confines of opinion is met with a banning. Still, people are perfectly within their rights to act this way, and nobody’s claiming otherwise; but not every course of action within one’s rights is always wise.
Why, though? Why can’t you just withstand the difference in opinion? Besides, it’s not like everybody whose voice is heard has that ‘power’ just by divine fiat. They’ve found a market for their views, which you’re free to try and find for yours, as well. Furthermore, among other things, this tells you that there’s some portion of the population that shares them. That’s something I would want to know, especially in cases of repugnant views like Hannity’s.
As a personal anecdote, I was honestly unaware of the level of support populist and outright racist views still have in Germany—‘thanks’ to the rise of the AfD, now I know. It doesn’t make me happy to know this, but I prefer this knowledge to my earlier naivety.
Which then means that society was wrong about racism, and the attendant shouting down unjustified. Which then means that what’s shouted down by society isn’t a reliable means of establishing what’s right and what’s wrong. Which then means that we can do without the shouting—indeed, should perhaps strive to, trying to find more reliable means of deciding between opposing opinions.
But the mere fact that you’d be shouted down doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing that you’d be shouted down, that things ought to be this way. (Recall, you can’t derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’!) But if things ought not be this way, and perhaps need not, then why not try to change?
And by saying it’s ‘them’ that makes is ‘us vs. them’, you’re essentially granting them that power. The problem is that, in most cases—they’re us, whether we like it or not.
I took the cheeseburger to stand for something like a professed opinion, which is after all what this thread is about. Hence, you wouldn’t accept the notion that vegetarianism is good from a Nazi, while you might from another. It’s this sort of relevance of the origin of an opinion, as opposed to the opinion’s justification, that I was addressing.
Alright, so are you actually saying that if you didn’t have such strategies, you wouldn’t be permitted to point to the fact that Global Warming is problematic, since in that case, it would just be a complaint, or am I misunderstanding you there?
Again, I think you’re completely misunderstanding the intent of the letter (not that I claim any special insight into the intentions of those who wrote it, mind). It’s as in my board example above: what’s being criticized is people calling for a banning, so to speak, of opposing voices, and thus, precisely not engaging with them in a meaningful way.
That might well be the case, I don’t know. I do think it’d be sort of curious to get 150 high-profile individuals, noted intellectuals in some cases, to sign off on a letter that’s published simultaneously in four different widely circulated periodicals in four different countries, translated into the respective languages, with the entirety of the complaint just being a great big nothingburger—and if that’s indeed what happened, then I think it’d still be worthwhile to try and find out what actually is the reason for this shared misperception.
As things are, I think the simplest explanation of a great number of people telling the same story is that there’s actually something to the story, and the onus of proof is on those who think otherwise. But then
again, I’ve explored that line of argument rather exhaustively back in November.
I think that’s also a misunderstanding. The point is not predominantly that the people signing the letter worry about their livelihoods, it’s that society itself suffers from restricting the diversity of viewpoints that one is permitted to express—
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. […] We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.
In addition to the harm to society in general, there is also what one signer of the letter, Steven Pinker, said:
It seems to me that most if not all of the signatories are people who are, as they say, “privileged”–and are trying to use their privilege to speak out on behalf of those who are not so privileged. Which I think is a good thing.
I agree.
While hardly any of the signators have been a victim of cancel culture, a few of them have. I am sure that Noam Chomsky gets death threats for his leftist political opinions despite being a supporter of free speech for the far right. And I’m sure that Randi Weingarten has gotten lots of death threats for allegedly bringing a homosexual agenda into schools. The experience of signator Katie Herzog is an almost pure example of what the letter is against.
I think it is admirable that the great majority of the signatories, people who have never faced an internet or other mob, have willingly risked taking on about 0.1 percent of what the people I just mentioned have faced’ They did is by publicly standing up against guilt by association and for viewpoint diversity.
As for what that 0.1 percent looks like, see this complaint-to-the-boss about a co-worker’s associates:
…Emily is fucking awesome, one of the genuinely good people out there on the internet, and there was nothing wrong with what she wrote. And calling Matt a “co-worker” is misleading. He is one of the two co-founders of Vox.
I have to admit I don’t see the ‘dog-whistles’ she talks about, but I appreciate that I might not be familiar with the relevant issues well enough to appreciate them, so I’m going to take her at her word there. The thing I find problematic, however, is the guilt-by-association—the insinuation that the letter is problematic because it’s signed by anti-trans voices. How does the list of people that support an issue reflect poorly on the issue itself? The idea seems to be that, by drawing support from the wrong people, the letter itself gets tainted, or corrupted. That would be a prime example of just the sort of issue pointed to in the letter—the right people shouldn’t associate with the wrong people, lest their moral stain rubs off. Or how else should this be understood? Does Hitler’s vegetarianism reflect poorly on the moral nature of vegetarianism? Are the right opinions only those supported by the right people?
Thanks, I will, but it starts off really badly:
They write, in the pages of a prominent magazine that’s infamous for being anti-union, not paying its interns, and firing editors over editorial disagreements with the publisher:
From the outset, attacking the moral standing of the publication in which the letter appeared, before even any consideration is made regarding the actual issues—associating with the wrong sort of platform evidently means the letter must be wrong, too, again to my eyes giving a good example of the sort of thing the letter alleges occurs while trying to argue against it.
…there is nothing wrong with attacking the so-called “moral stand” of the publication where the letter appeared. Especially when that “moral standing” shows the publication to be a fucking big shitload of hypocrisy.
And of course it does the “sort of thing the letter alleges.” The Harpers letter wants to stifle free speech and debate. They can’t criticism and even the mildest of rebukes causes them to have a case of the vapours. Harpers is a shit-show of an employer, the letter makes a case that they deliberately misrepresented the letter to some of the signatories and there is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing that out.
The rebuttal has lots of flaws. Far too many to summarize in one post. But, for now, it’s enough to note that how Harper’s pays its staff has absolutely no bearing on the truthfulness of the arguments in the letter.
…the Harpers letter has a lot of flaws.
Many of those flaws were pointed out in the rebuttal.
Strawman. Nobody claimed that “how much Harper’s pays it staff” had anything to do with “the truthfulness of the arguments in the letter.” Harper’s (allegedly) told one of the signatories to the letter that it would be “arguing for bolder, more meaningful efforts at racial and gender inclusion in journalism, academia, and the arts.” Not only did the letter not do that, but the process of using unpaid interns is a substantial hindrance to meaningful inclusion of racial and gender at the journalism outlet in question. It was exactly on point.
No.
You did. The rebuttal said:
They write, in the pages of a prominent magazine that’s infamous for being anti-union, not paying its interns, and firing editors over editorial disagreements with the publisher:
To which Half-Man-Half-Wit responded:
Therefore, it’s clear that when HMHW referred to “attacking the moral standing of the publication”, he was referring to Harper’s alleged anti-union stance and unpaid internships. Because that’s the part he quoted.
In response to this, and only this, you said:
It’s reasonable to conclude that you think Harper’s position on unionization and how much Harper’s pays its staff is germane to the arguments propounded in the letter.
It isn’t.
The ‘allegedly’ is doing a lot of work here. I don’t trust the paraphrasing of someone who refused to sign the letter. Without a primary source, this allegation is worthless.
How?
It was not.
OK, so just to be clear—you think it’s perfectly fine that a letter decrying the notion that you’re only allowed an opinion if you keep the right sort of company is attacked for not keeping the right sort of company? No sad irony there at all?
I don’t think it’s particularly ironic, since it’s perfectly consistent to attack a position you don’t hold using a position you do hold.
Yes, well, I suppose an additional commitment to logically sound argumentation is needed; otherwise, if you think that guilt by association is a perfectly fine argumentative strategy, then yes, it’s indeed not a problem to employ it against a piece making a case against it. The problem is that even then, you’ve (they’ve) just made a lame guilt by association argument that carries no persuasive weight whatever.
…yep.
LOL.
It literally doesn’t matter what I said or what I think. The letter stands for itself, and the letter (and myself for that matter) made no claims that how “Harpers pays its staff had bearing on the truthfulness of the arguments in the letter.” You argued a strawman.
“Allegedly” did a lot of fucking work in the Harpers letter as well in case you didn’t notice. Without a primary source for any of the stories that it used to frame its argument, why would you take any of the allegations in the Harpers letter seriously? We are all guessing what they were talking about. The Harper’s letter was worthless.
Because the only people who can undertake unpaid internships are those that can afford to live independently, typically those with “privileged backgrounds” that can “be supported financially by parents”. They get a “seat at the table.” Those without that privilege, which typically skews along racial and gender lines, do not get the same opportunities. The process of simply offering paid internships can open a lot of doors.
…which letter are you claiming did what now?
No.
Yes you did, as I showed in my previous post.
No I didn’t. I was responding to what you alleged in your conversation with HMHW.
Because they alluded to well known events. I don’t need a primary source for Harper’s claim that editors are fired for running controversial pieces, because there was a very high profile example of that happening very recently. I do, however, need a primary source for what an unnamed non-signatory alleged Harper’s told him about the letter’s purpose.
No we aren’t.
The Harper’s letter made a principled stand on an important issue.
This is an interesting observation, but it seems to me that this is a class barrier, not a racial one. I assume Harper’s only offer a select few unpaid internships per year. There are enough black middle class families in America that Harper’s could fill every one of them with a black intern if they so chose - and for all we know, maybe they do.
Somebody upthread linked to this NY Times article:
(Ah, the board software helpfully points out it was @PhillyGuy…)
I think this is a good illustration of the dangers to progressive viewpoints fostered by cancel culture. The whole article is essentially about how ‘cancellation’ now forms the common ground for a basket of deplorables coming together, grooming their hurt egos, supporting one another and organizing in resistance. People with mildly abhorrent views find themselves united with those whose opinions are absolutely monstrous; this way, the ostracism stands to hurt the cause of those doing the ostracizing, by galvanizing and pushing to the boundaries the views of those that stand against them. Moreover, they’ve been given a legitimate grievance to rail against—or at least, the perception of such.