Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Josquius]

I suspect there is no inconstancy in my stance at all. I suspect you just can't figure out a better way to reconcile your support for stifling free speech in a liberal society then to insist that we have to do so or else tolerate apartheid.

Maybe you can throw some Nazis in as well?

Ah yes. The old "you just call anyone who disagrees with you a nazi"

The apartheid south Africa boycott is a very good example of collective people action to cancel a regime that was beyond the pale.
It's a perfect example for why its wrong to just say cancel culture is bad and leave it at that.
A truly free and liberal society has controls on free speech. Even America I believe.

[Berkut]

I suspect there is no inconstancy in my stance at all. I suspect you just can't figure out a better way to reconcile your support for stifling free speech in a liberal society then to insist that we have to do so or else tolerate apartheid.

Maybe you can throw some Nazis in as well?

Ah yes. The old "you just call anyone who disagrees with you a nazi"

The apartheid south Africa boycott is a very good example of collective people action to cancel a regime that was beyond the pale.
It's a perfect example for why its wrong to just say cancel culture is bad and leave it at that.
A truly free and liberal society has controls on free speech. Even America I believe.

I will keep that in mind next time I run into someone who says "cancel culture is bad and leave it at that".

Maybe you could have a discussion with those of us who are not saying that though?

Have you ever heard of the term "strawman" or "steelman"?

[Berkut]

For the record, I don't know of anyone who considers boycotting South Africa as "cancel culture". 

I certainly don't.

[Josquius]

I suspect there is no inconstancy in my stance at all. I suspect you just can't figure out a better way to reconcile your support for stifling free speech in a liberal society then to insist that we have to do so or else tolerate apartheid.

Maybe you can throw some Nazis in as well?

Ah yes. The old "you just call anyone who disagrees with you a nazi"

The apartheid south Africa boycott is a very good example of collective people action to cancel a regime that was beyond the pale.
It's a perfect example for why its wrong to just say cancel culture is bad and leave it at that.
A truly free and liberal society has controls on free speech. Even America I believe.

I will keep that in mind next time I run into someone who says "cancel culture is bad and leave it at that".

Maybe you could have a discussion with those of us who are not saying that though?

Have you ever heard of the term "strawman" or "steelman"?

I mean. You literally did just speak about stifling free speech being bad as an absolute, saying you were fine with generally undebatable examples when it is controlled such as with hate preachers.

Have you ever heard of the terms "example" or "precedent"?
It's awfully convenient if those which happen to go against one side can be just ignored.

For the record, I don't know of anyone who considers boycotting South Africa as "cancel culture".

I certainly don't.

Because cancel culture, woke, etc... Are bullshit fluffy terms that let people pretend they're speaking up against a new and dangerous menace, cherry picking at will due to the loose definition, when really they're not all that different to what has gone before; sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.

[Berkut]

I call bullshit.

I posted an article that was VERY specific. It had a study talking about the chilling effects on free expression in universities.

*You* are the one trying to turn that into something to do with Apartheid South Africa.

The label is irrelevant. The terms are "fluffy" because YOU make them so, because you insist that rather then talking about the very specfic cases that are being talked about, that we *have to* somehow defend these vague definition that equate apartheid with students in colleges being afraid to speak their minds.

I am not cherry picking anything, I am talking about very specific principles and the effect that the intolerant lefts decision that those prinicples just don't matter anymore is having. I think stifling free expression IS a menace - it isn't a new menace, your position has many, many historical precedents. There have been many, many times throughout history where the desire to force conformity of thought into narrow acceptable boundaries has manifested itself - you have lots of company.

And it isn't the anti-apartheid movement.

[grumbler]

For the record, I don't know of anyone who considers boycotting South Africa as "cancel culture".

I certainly don't.

People who have no idea how to intellectually support cancel culture but who are emotionally unable to acknowledge its perils use the apartheid example, even though it predates cancel culture by almost 25 years.

[Josquius]

I call bullshit.

I posted an article that was VERY specific. It had a study talking about the chilling effects on free expression in universities.

*You* are the one trying to turn that into something to do with Apartheid South Africa.

The label is irrelevant. The terms are "fluffy" because YOU make them so, because you insist that rather then talking about the very specfic cases that are being talked about, that we *have to* somehow defend these vague definition that equate apartheid with students in colleges being afraid to speak their minds.

I am not cherry picking anything, I am talking about very specific principles and the effect that the intolerant lefts decision that those prinicples just don't matter anymore is having. I think stifling free expression IS a menace - it isn't a new menace, your position has many, many historical precedents. There have been many, many times throughout history where the desire to force conformity of thought into narrow acceptable boundaries has manifested itself - you have lots of company.

And it isn't the anti-apartheid movement.

Except we aren't speaking about any specific example here. We are speaking about the entire concept of cancelling.
I pointed out this has happened since forever and the only difference is in recent times more and more powerless people have been able to do it rather than just the ruling classes.
Apartheid South Africa is an excellent example of this. It perfectly highlights how you can't just boil it down to a black and white (no pun intended) cancelling is bad.
It's precisely because it's a pretty uncontroversial issue where I'd have thought everyone would be in agreement that its such a good example.
And you try to twist this into a debate about apartheid South Africa where I'm accusing you of being for it?

The world doesnt work on simple binaries. Suppression of free speech has been used for negative purposes in the past. However in more modern times it is successfully used for positive purposes. Words have power and can very directly lead to people dying.
The US has history of controlling free speech - the difference in the modern day is people want this to be done to protect the weak rather than the strong, as is the way in most other free countries.

Talking about specific examples on their own merits is what should be done. But that's not the discussion we are having here.

[The Brain]

My recollection of the 80s is that the South African regime was shunned because it was oppressing non-whites. Not because of any opinions it had expressed.

[viper37]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve5PlNrqG0E&t=88s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN__M-3sl6Y

Two examples of people I'm totally happy were cancelled.

that second guy has to be a Canadian expat.

[viper37]

[
...which is why we should be against anyone cancelling those they don't like through stifling free speech.

This isn't complicated.

So let hate preachers continue to do their thing, anti abortion extremists to hang around outside clinics screaming their nonsense, teachers to tell kids whatever they fancy, dodgy regimes to do whatever they want with zero consequences for their businesses etc...

Yes, yes (depending), no (is that a problem?), and I don't know what you mean by a "dodgy regime".

I'm not sure I'm following you now...  Are you saying the guys showing up at military funerals to protest gay marriage should be allowed unhindered because they exercise their right to free speech?

what about those in Yi videos?

[viper37]

And I disagree. Hate speech is a very real and harmful thing. Cancel the hate preacher and you can stop a suicide bomber from killing hundreds.

but then, you will be accused of islamophobia and be cancelled yourself...

[Jacob]

I've been thinking a lot about this whole cancel culture thing recently - which maybe makes sense given it's a social and political (and thus languish) fault line.

Here's where I'm at:

Societies - and social groups within societies - always have rules about what can and cannot be said, and an understanding what sort of price someone might have to pay for transgressing against them.

These rules are highly contextual. The same statement can be inside or outside the rules depending on who the speaker is, who or what the subject is, who the audience is, and where it is spoken. I think we can all imagine situations - present-day or in the past - where someone saying they're attracted to someone else and wants to fuck them could lead to social bonding, could lead to minor negative social repercussions, could lead to job loss, and in some cases could even result death - depending on context.

While some of the rules are enforced legally, many of them are informal but still pretty clearly understood. And if someone doesn't know the rules, they typically learn pretty quickly through experience.

Defining what the rules are - and who is subject to them, who gets to be excused transgressing against them and who suffers the most severe consequences - is an expression of power. Whether to morally good or bad ends, successfully defining and enforcing "this line shouldn't be crossed" or "there is no line here" or "this is the correct consequence for this action" is to exercise power.

Where the rules are informal, they're usually defined and enforced by a form of social consensus. That consensus could be directed by a few charismatic individuals or it could be more amorphous, but in either case - those who direct it are wielding power.

Where the rules of what can be said and what cannot be said are legal - or matters of clearly stated policy - it's easy enough to understand who wields the formal power. It's those who make the law or policy. But typically there's another layer of informal power being wielded in how the law or policy is being enforced. Again, I think we can all think of examples where policy or law is enforced unevenly, to the benefit of some groups or individuals and not others. Again this is an exercise of power.

I think all that is a fairly non-controversial if generalized description on how limits on speech are enforced in groups and societies.

Now we have the internet and social media which makes it possible for statements - or reports of other people making statements - to be very widely circulated. Something that might be fine in one context easily gains another context in which it may not be fine (e.g. it's exposed to people who are unaware of some of the context which makes it fine, or to people who think it's not fine no matter context).

At the same time the internet also allows a wide array of people to attempt to marshal other people to exact consequences against people who transgress against what they think the rules are (or what the rules should be). The rules - that is who gets to exercise power on whom and to what consequence - is more dynamic and uncertain at the moment than it used to be.

Again, I hope this is a fairly non-controversial argument that the internet has affected how speech is judged and controlled on a societal level because the boundaries and enforcement mechanisms have been changing rapidly.

At this point I'm not intending to argue that cancel culture (or its cousin woke culture) is real/ not real, nor whether it's benign/ malign/ morally neutral. What I do think, however, is that the debate about it is about who draws the lines, and where, when it comes to speech in the social media and internet age.

[viper37]

I suspect there is no inconstancy in my stance at all. I suspect you just can't figure out a better way to reconcile your support for stifling free speech in a liberal society then to insist that we have to do so or else tolerate apartheid.

Maybe you can throw some Nazis in as well?

Ah yes. The old "you just call anyone who disagrees with you a nazi"

The apartheid south Africa boycott is a very good example of collective people action to cancel a regime that was beyond the pale.
It's a perfect example for why its wrong to just say cancel culture is bad and leave it at that.
A truly free and liberal society has controls on free speech. Even America I believe.

Let's get some definitions involved, shall we?

When we talk of cancel-culture, we talk of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture

Cancel culture or call-out culture is a contemporary phrase used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person.

First, it talks of a person.  And individual, not a corporation, not a country/state/organization.  You can't "cancel" NRA because you disagree with them.  You can call for a boycott, but it's not the same.

So, this would be cancel-culture:
https://youtu.be/TwGiU0rGgGI?t=57

This is not cancel culture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfTSrhzONJM

Some religious person who decides to leave their cult will become cutoff from all family and friends of that religious circle.  It's also a form a cancel-culture.  It's not the same as criticizing or boycotting scientology.

In your example, boycotting South Africa because of the Apartheid was not cancel-culture.  Ostracizing Charlize Theron because she's a white South African would be cancel culture, and profoundly unfair too, in her specific case.

If you can't see the difference between the too, if you can't see how profundly unfair cancel-culture has become for trivialities, you are as far gone on the opposite side as Berkut can be on his.

Limits on free speech should be limited to violent speech, or extremely racist speech that can incite to ostracization or violence of certain groups, irrelevant of their general status.  I won't make any difference between a black artist saying all whites are stupid and a white artist saying all blacks are stupids. 

But I won't cancel either of them.  I won't stage protests in front of their house, burn their cars, their garage, their barns, whatever.  I won't wish for that to happen either.  I won't call for someone to violently "solve their case".  I won't stage protests in front of every venue they play in the way Tipper Gore did in the 80s.  I certainly won't lobby local and national politicians to outlaw some forms of entertainment, specifically the ones of these artists.

[Admiral Yi]

that second guy has to be a Canadian expat.

Why is that?

[Jacob]

Let's get some definitions involved, shall we?

When we talk of cancel-culture, we talk of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture

Cancel culture or call-out culture is a contemporary phrase used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person.

First, it talks of a person.  And individual, not a corporation, not a country/state/organization.  You can't "cancel" NRA because you disagree with them.  You can call for a boycott, but it's not the same.

Thank you for that definition Viper37. It's good to get a bit of clarity in a discussion that often goes all over the map.

The first case of internet driven cancel culture in action that I'm aware of is GamerGate successfully cancelling Alison Rapp's job at Nintendo - and I believe her career in video games - my manufacturing spurious accusations of pedophilia (and there are other ones extant calling her a whore as well, just because I suppose) for her social justice and feminist aligned tweets

By the definition that you posted, I think it's fair to say that Colin Kaepernick was successfully cancelled as a result of his actions in favour of Black Lives Matter.

I'm aware of a number of instances where alt-right/ neo-Nazi activists engaged in violence and public disorder have been publicly identified and - apparently - their employers contacted resulting in job loss (and others where there's been no consequence for contacting the employer). I think that happened to some of the Jan 6th insurrectionists, for example.

I recall in incident a few years ago where an executive in Vancouver was filmed kicking a dog he was looking after (IIRC not enough to cause lasting harm, but definitely enough to cause it distress). People on the internet identified him and he lost his job over it.

Some of those examples I'm more okay with than others. Some I actively approve of, others I'm more like "yeah, that kind of sucks but I'm not upset", and others I think are pretty horrible. On reflection my reaction maps pretty well to my political beliefs, which I don't think is surprising. I'd be curious how other languishites feel about these incidents (or others).

I suppose there are many other examples out there, but it seems to me that a great number of attempted "cancellings" are unsuccessful and end up working out okay for the targets. It's my impression that there are a number of operators on the right wing side of the spectrum who are very effective at monetizing the appearance of left-wing attempts at cancelling them, for example. Maybe it goes the other way too?

On the other hand things, by your definition things like "deplatforming" is a separate (but probably related) concept. Objecting to - say - Jordan Peterson speaking at a campus does not particularly harm him, even if successful. It probably helps his brand, and his voice continues to be heard.