Actually, that does fit the way that “woke” can be used nowadays as a Shibboleth.
Cliché’d right-wingers (and misguided centrists), use it as a slur that in reality causes them to reveal themselves as having the qualities of a willful ignorant with all the trappings and conspiracies that many right-wingers are following.
An example was seen by me in the SDMB, finding first about John Cleese using “woke” as a slur, and then another poster mentioning how right and bigoted he had become.
Scott Adams, Pointy-Haired Boss
More like his brother (Who I always pictured him as bald): Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light.
Ruler of Heck. That was not as bad as Hell.
“I sentence you to Heck!” (Back when I found Dilbert funny.)
With his pitchspoon, which was not as bad as a pitchfork.
Dilbert had some funny insights on how low-key unpleasant office work was, while hinting that it was way better than the choices in the recent past.
Assholes do sometimes say interesting things.
I’m sure the majority of right wingers will never personally kill a black person. But what do they do when a black person is killed in questionable circumstances?
Do they express outrage over the killing? Do they publicly condemn the killers? Do they call for action that will prevent future murders?
Or do they shrug their shoulders and say “these things are complicated…”
If you’re not opposing racial violence then you’re supporting it. Because if you look the other way and ignore it, you’re helping the people who commit racial violence.
Right wing terrorism is a real thing that is happening right now in this country. And every right winger needs to pick which side he’s on.
Well, Scott still has one fan.
I wasn’t kidding before. Scott Adams and Elmo are two peas in a pod. They really should both go to Mars (and stay there).
As for the latest loss in Dilbert subscriptions, it’s in the hundreds now – and it’s not the first time a purge of Dilbert strips from newspapers has happened. But this is the latest:
Naturally.
As a person who really enjoyed Dilbert in the past, I find this incredibly sad and distressing. Like watching someone you liked or admired descend into madness or get sucked into a cult.
Maybe it was social media algorithms or a steady diet of right-wing media that contributed to his descent and led up to this over-the-top racist rant. Or maybe he’s always been a racist asshole, and the mask finally came off.
But regardless, he is responsible for his own actions, and if he is cancelled by mainstream society, he has no one to blame but himself.
And with respect to “free speech,” there is a great xkcd strip that sums this up:
But it really doesn’t sum up free speech at all. It’s equally misguided when smart people (including Randall here and most people persistently on SDMB) seem to think that the concept of free speech refers only to the narrow American legal concept. The concept of freedom of expression is much broader, and goes far beyond whether something is illegal in America.
You don’t have to be an alt-right asshole to be concerned about the free exchange of ideas in modern society, and whether “cancel culture” is ever a valid complaint about our society does not rest on whether actions are technically legal or illegal in the U.S.
Look at the proportion of the Wikipedia that is concerned specifically with the First Amendment:
But even if you look at it more broadly, “cancel culture” is still a part of freedom of speech, not opposed to it. Because a fundamental part of freedom of speech is that everyone also has the right to not say something. When a newspaper publishes Adams’ works, they’re sharing in saying what he’s saying. They have the right to choose not to do that.
Yeah, I hadn’t engaged with Dilbert in about 20 years, so the blow wasn’t that bad, but in the late 90s (post Calvin and Bloom County) it really was the highlight of the comics page. Back in that era I subscribed to Adam’s email newsletter. I think it went through a few different names, but “Dogbert’s new ruling class” is what it was called in the early 2000s.
I’m sure it’s archived online someplace, but I have a few still sitting in my email archives, so I looked through them to see if there was some foreshadowing. The couple I looked at, not really. It was mostly shilling for his book (fair, it was his newsletter), and collections of reader contributed stories of stupid behavior. The kind of stuff you might see in r/pettyrevenge or a number of other places.
In my brief look, the only thing problematic was saying that Dilbert would “get his necktie straightened” with a woman if his book was on the NYT best seller list. Next newsletter he rescinded the promise, and seemed a bit surprised people found it in bad taste.
Please Randall, never go milkshake duck.
Yes, I’m certainly not supporting any kind of alt-right position on “cancel culture” here. The part of the comic that points out that freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences is well made.
What I’m much less comfortable with is the “First Amendment means anything that a private entity does is fine” line that is so often trotted out. It may be fine legally, but it may not be desirable.
But you cannot take for granted that this principle extends to the modern world without potential problems when the major fora for the exchange of ideas are in private hands.
The concept is indeed broader than what the government can do. But he’s correct that the things described do not infringe on anyone’s freedom of speech. The concept does not guarantee you an audience. And it would be antithetical of freedom of speech for it to shield you from criticism. The ability to criticize is why freedom of speech exists.
If the best argument you have to defend your speech is that you have to say it, then it has failed in the marketplace of ideas. It’s okay for people to dismiss your ideas. It’s okay for them to stop buying things from you.
Freedom of speech doesn’t work if your speech cannot be rejected.
Sure, but “by whom” is a huge issue. At one end of the spectrum everyone agrees that a private blogger can ban someone from posting comments on their blog. At the other end of the spectrum nobody thinks Google should be checking everyone’s emails and refusing to deliver emails it doesn’t like.
And what consequences is a debate that goes far beyond narrow legal issues. We are constantly debating what speech is acceptable on SDMB in ATMB, and that’s a freedom of speech debate that has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
If someone is “concerned” that someone else might express the idea that they’re a toxic asshole who should be shunned by civilized society, they obviously aren’t advocates for any logically coherent concept of “free speech”.
I’m not sure what that has to do with anything I wrote. But for what it’s worth, what you said implies that you think SDMB does not have any logically coherent concept of free speech, since SDMB rules clearly speak to when and where someone can call someone else a toxic asshole.
You make some good points, but to be fair to XKCD, it doesn’t claim to sum up free speech, but rather the “right to free speech.”
The poster who linked it claimed that it did, but that part doesn’t really matter.
What I’m really concerned with is the knee-jerk “it’s a private entity it can do what it wants” as though that always resolves a complex issue decisively. I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say that this supposed “gotcha” is trotted out every single time on this board in free speech discussions. It’s a very parochial view to imagine that the term “free speech” is precisely synonymous with the First Amendment, or that the First Amendment resolves such a complex issue perfectly.
And I’ve realized that I don’t quite know what distinction you are trying to draw here. “Free speech” and “the right to free speech” are synonymous to me. With respect to my point about the debate not just being about legal proscriptions under the First Amendment - if the SDMB bans someone, they have lost the right to express their ideas on here.
What free speech debate are you envisioning that is not about rights?