I don't like Pinkers books but this just makes me sad that cancel fascism is getting so bad. Unfortunately I think it's just the beginning and going to get worse, much worse. The future will look like Idiocracy, only it wont be funny.
Chomsky is consistent in his defense of free speech. It’s funny anyone would be upset with him since he is someone who has effectively been cancelled by mainstream media over the decades for his views of topics such as Palestine it US imperialism.
But that’s just it. We have given everyone on the world a way to speak now, amongst those people you’re going to find a subset who maybe have a poorly formed opinion about something, and they’re going to voice it.
Those guys get a ton of criticism. Universities have been deciding to oust people for public outrage. Zuckerberg owns most of his company. Elected officials are removed by voting, and their critics are trying to reduce those votes.
Edit: My point is that all these people receive criticism. Universities seem to act on it more often, but they don’t have to. They choose to.
That’s a miscategorization. Cancel culture isn’t about being free to criticize others (that’s fair), but that’s not what they want. They want to control other people by means of intimidation (force people out for having a difference in opinion) via economic peer pressure.
It’s not about being able to say “eating meat is cruel, so since you don’t denounce eating meat you are cruel” it’s you don’t denounce meat eating therefore you are evil and your peers and employers should ostracize you else the are complicit in your cruel behavior too, we demand they see it fit to remove your means of perpetuating that cruelty”.
>you don’t denounce meat eating therefore you are evil and your peers and employers should ostracize you (...)
This seems like a valid position to me. It’s extreme, I don’t agree with it, and I think people with such positions should be encouraged to be more tolerant, but it’s a valid position to hold in the public space nonetheless.
I don’t think the problem is people holding these positions - outrage will always exist if you allow crowds to converse freely, which is easy on the internet - but that institutions like universities instead see the outrage as an excuse to fire people. The institutions ultimately make the choices that alter people’s careers, not the crowd. Universities and companies should do more to stand up for tolerance of opinions. If the crowds themselves are viewed as the problem, then I fear for the future of free communication on the internet.
I don’t think it’s a valid reason. It’s not considered widely unethical or evil to eat meat, therefore people should not suffer disproportionate consequences. Note I’m not saying eating meat is unassailable, I’m saying for most people it’s an okay position.
In the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s universities allowed people to espouse things which were then outside the norm, contrarian and subversive. We could construct philosophies to either support or impune (the whole somewhat discredited moral relativism which had garnered popularity) but at the end of the day universities allowed people to say foul things or upset large populations of people without resorting to firing or censuring or shaming them.
I don't. It makes no sense to intimidate and threaten anyone just because that person happens to not agree with you on a position you singled out as being relevant.
It may make no sense to you (or me, much of the time), but should they be allowed to say it? I think so.
To me, I think it’s valid for a group of people to organize and write a letter criticizing someone, and then to send that letter to the person’s peer group. They can also criticize the employer of that person. That’s part of what of what being in a free speech society entails.
I don’t agree with the positions, but I think the complainers should have a space too, even if it’s outside of the relevant institution.
I also don’t like that universities threaten people’s jobs over this such complaints. I agree with mc32 in that such places should tolerate unpopular or contrarian opinions. And that’s where I view the problem appearing: it’s not the angry internet mob, it’s the university giving in to them. It’s up to the university to show thought leadership in their own spaces, and to ignore such ridiculous controversies. If signatories on my imagined letter threatened to stop working with the institution if not have their requests met, it might be best to cut ties with them, not the allegedly problematic peer. The university has to show that leadership.
There's a world of difference between expressing an opinion on how you feel something is wrong, and demanding that anyone who doesn't show enough enthusiasm for your personal cause should be punished and persecuted out of existence or relevance.
You don’t propose a solution but you seem to imply, given the context of what I said, that you want to prevent people from being able to say things, and maybe given the context of this case prevent people sending letters asking for honorary titles to be withdrawn from members of their society as in this case. Is that right?
> but you seem to imply, given the context of what I said, that you want to prevent people from being able to say things,
Please don't put your words on anyone else's mouth. If you didn't understood what someone said then try do get information instead of trying to attribute to others the absurd and entirely baseless statements that you're fabricating.
Let me adjust it: You don’t propose a solution but I infer, given the context of what I said, that you want to prevent people from being able to say things, and maybe given the context of this case prevent people sending letters asking for honorary titles to be withdrawn from members of their society as in this case. Is that right?
Cancel culture is about making sure people you disagree with (and their dependants) are out of jobs.
Pressing companies to fire people for their political views should be a crime. The judicial system is meant for punishing people, not a pile-on of twitter users.
Over here in The Netherlands it is illegal to fire employees for their political views. Although that law is increasingly ineffective because of the huge (biggest in EU) growth of contract workers.
You could ask, are murders, rapists, felons in general, entitled to have jobs? We have existing ethical standards which might be a good jumping off point.
I think the conventional answer used to be that mainstream politically moderate people believe that criminals should be able to work, that the government should take steps to encourage people to hire those with criminal records, but that there are legitimate concerns for specific jobs. But we can and do pass laws that say the discrimination must directly relate to logically necessary aspects of the job.
It seems to me like this standard could be applied to behavior people think is abhorrent (but not technically criminal yet) basically the same way. Being able to work is a human right, but having a specific high status, high trust job is not.
To which my response would be: are you entitled to decide?
2. We have existing ethical standards
Where my response would be: who is 'we'? Do you think society is one group, that has the same ethical standards? Because in fact there are many groups, with different values, that's why democracy was invented.
Summarizing you may be unaware you are speaking from a position of privilege here.
We means Americans, and more specifically I'm thinking of NY state laws. The existing norms are that felons are not expected to be excluded from society forever and reforms have been made to try to deal with discrimination against them.
I wasn't suggesting that you or I get to decide. Obviously we don't. My point was that collectively, people have decided, and extrapolating from that would be logical. I'm not advocating any specific policy, I'm concerned that people are debating stuff while losing track of or just being ignorant what their fellow citizens and the establishment considers normal and reasonable. I'm not expressing an opinion of my own, but trying to provide what I think is an appropriate frame for discussion.
Did you know that it's possible to lose constitutional rights according to law without being accused, arrested or convicted of a crime? That too is a feature of our society and its laws. Have you ever thought about that? Should it be abolished?
I re-read your responses multiple times, and it seems you are advocating for pushing people out of high-paying jobs in case they display morally reprehensible behavior, for example racism?
If you are, I can only repeat what I said earlier: we have the judicial system for punishing people, not the twitterverse. Cancelculture itself is morally wrong.
No, I wasn't advocating anything or taking any side really - about people with criminal records or any other records that stigmatize them.
I was highlighting that there are existing norms, laws, balancing acts, for people who are stigmatized for past actions, because I feel like these discussions often seem like they are in a vacuum without context.
Rightly or wrongly, it's normal and always has been, that people get punished in many ways beyond the specific penalty that results from being convicted of a crime. If you don't pay your bills or you sue people, there are consequences even if you don't lose a court case. If you have a health problem that is considered to cause risk to others, you can lose rights without any criminal issues. Despite ideas about criminals being rehabilitated, or exonerated, you don't necessarily get back 100% of everything you lost after being arrested or imprisoned, guilty or innocent.
Historically, there is no single answer to whether any particular consequences are ok and just. It evolves over time depending on what people think is right and struggle politically over.
Extremism makes more sense if you have somehow blocked out of your mind or are just ignorant of every moderate opinion, and my goal was just to rub peoples' noses in the conventional attitudes, not because I believe they are correct or the best, but because I think you have to be aware of everyday reality as a reference point for any reasonable debate.
We always have had people pushed out of high paying jobs for "morally reprehensible behavior" and always will, so injustice lies in the details. I can't advocate or be against it in general. If internet mobs make injustice more common, it certainly seems reasonable to have debates and political concerns about it, the conditions that lead to it, etc. But I think it's palpably absurd to say "we have the judicial system for punishing people" in an exclusive sense. It's never been limited to that and never will be.
If a group of bully comes to you and tell you that you can for sure express yourself, but “there will be consequences” wink wink, I would argue that you’re not actually free to express yourself. It’s creating an environment of fear were people either self censor themselves or are subjected to a punishment by the mob.
When in history has anyone ever been free from the consequences of expressing themselves? Are you proposing that people such as neo-nazis should be allowed to just spread as much hate as they want as openly as they want?
That's a tautology. If I support freedom of expression, and believe it is in the say, national interest, then by definition I am against those who oppose freedom of expression.
Where the line ends is when they stop merely saying "we are against freedom of expression" and actually harm people expressing themselves. We've definitely crossed that.
There is an obvious difference between disagreeing with what someone says and believes and circling a petition that harms their livelihood because of said disagreements.
Cancel culture people do not believe in freedom of speech. They do not believe in free and open debate.
The cancel culture people have a set of views on topics such as race. They further believe that every institution should have an elaborate, harshly enforced set of rules that forbids and punishes anyone who expresses contrary views.
My question to you is, do you believe it would be good for institutions to have such a set of rules?
That's not really correct, though. We may safely assume that the dean of Harvard would prefer to keep Steven Pinker on board (and, if not, substitute another controversial figure whose boss does). But the dean of Harvard is afraid to do so: afraid to follow his own moral compass and act upon the strength of his convictions because the Harvard donors are likewise afraid to support him if he does: not because they agree with Pinker's firing, but because they're afraid of anonymous mob justice, too, and on and on up the line. "Cancel culture" is the exact opposite of people expressing themselves as a reaction: it's weaponized fear such as has only ever been used by Marxist dictators or as a precursor to such.
This is a fever which may kill or cripple the organism, but will probably pass eventually.
Meanwhile, the tweets being criticized are such small potatoes that the lot of signatories seem ridiculous to me. Removing the police is definitely dangerous. I grew up in a high-crime area, mugged 4 times before out of high school, and I definitely needed the police around. Berkeley is considering eliminating real traffic law enforcement. I do not look forward to the deaths that will occur when people speed through streets and stoplights just because they can. We have more than enough people in the Bay Area who will push any envelope that presents itself.
I’ll explore the article with the idea that the disproportionate death rate is caused by disproportionate engagement rate. Intuitively and from personal experience it’s not the entire story but it may have explanatory power. Actual statistics (as opposed to regular lies and damn lies) are really useful and yet are going to anger someone whose worldview becomes endangered, whoever that is. A real scientist follows the data, not the fashion.
Getting police that pay attention to the right things and avoid the wrong things is what we need.
NYC reduced their "stop and frisk" policies and WaPo analysis of crime pre/post change and the rates were more or less unchanged.[1][2]
NYPD turned their back on the mayor when he didn't show in person to the funeral of 2 murdered officers (which is a rejection of civilian rule of law) then proceeded to do the minimum enforcement required by their employment contract for ~2 weeks. Crime didn't rise noticeably.[3][4][5]
In the 1990s when "broken windows" policing was popular in NYC, crime levels fell but by no more than other areas of the world. It's far more likely that additional policing did little but increase the population of convicted felons and prisons because officials were so hypnotized by "tough on crime" advocates above falsifiable evidence.
My city (top 10 population in the USA) cut a lot of police jobs after 2008 and replaced some of those former police numbers with a "Community Service Officer" role. CSOs are far cheaper, aren't armed, and take a lot of the basic workload off of the expensive officers.
I'm tired of the incessant "we can't reduce their numbers". We've been doubling police numbers and budgets every 2-3 decades and so few people in power are willing to take a moderate stance to say we should experiment and reduce their numbers a little to see if we can save money for about the same levels of crime. It's not like giving police a lot more money actually increases their clearance rates.
Having seen first hand how HN cast judgement on anyone speaking out against Elizabeth Holmes, and really any 1) woman or 2) minority, and seeing people going so far to feign outrage with comments like "What the fuck? I can't believe this is tolerated on Hacker News", I'm partial to this whole thing.
On one hand, we should be standing up and saying "Hold on, regardless of what trifle thing triggered you today, that person might have a point"; on the other hand, if an institution, community, or website cannot defend themselves against this pithy nonsense, then I don't see a reason to bother with it at all. On HN in particular, the voting system is dumb and allows for imbecile mobbing, but never mind that.
>Reached at his home on Cape Cod, Professor Pinker, 65, noted that as a tenured faculty member and established author, he could weather the campaign against him. But he said it could chill junior faculty who hold views counter to prevailing intellectual currents.
I guess a third option exists which is the one that Mr. Pinker has chosen to pursue, which is to simply not give a fuck.
Media sure seems to spend a lot of time navel gazing lately. Any random group of five people or random bunch of twitter users criticizing an “intellectual” or pointing out the hypocrisy of an opinion columnist now seems to rise to the most important moral issue of our time.
In the past it was great because nobody really had a means to criticize or point out problems with “the paper of record” or our “intellectuals”. So we didn’t have to hear this constantly. Now they don’t know what to do with themselves that people do and that criticism is everywhere.
By 'criticizing' you of course mean trying to get them fired, and claiming their presence makes them feel 'unsafe'? Lets not pretend 'cancel culture' refers to pointing out flaws in arguments.
Did you read the letter? If not go read it. They’re essentially making a complaint to the manager of their society. Their criticisms are there and public. They’re within their right to do so. The society considered and rejected the merits of the complaint or decided it didn’t rise to the level of warranting removing Pinker’s honorary title.
The letter may have been entirely fabricated since its not even verified. Which even leaves open the possibility this is a very small group of “cranks” who wrote it and forged people’s names which then gets turned into “OMG CANCEL CULTURE” level story.
What are the “get them fired” and “makes them feel unsafe” ones? Is that where Bari Weiss tried to get the professors fired and suggest she was harassed at work because she misrepresented things that went on inside NYT and a whole bunch of other NYTers were like “uh, no that didn’t happen”, then she made a big splash this week about the end of “centrism” leading to the past few days of endless media navel gazing about cancel culture?
There are real cases of people trying to get others fired and plenty of real cases of reporters being “cancelled” for having contrary opinions (such as on Israel-Palestine) over the decades. But strangely those aren't the cases the media are talking about.
Tldnr: Pinker can publicly say whatever he wishes and participate in any linguist society activities, but his public discourse is at odds with the LSA's officially stated goals. Therefore he should not be given representative powers for the society, which being a distinguished fellow grants him.
Agree with this sentiment or not, but TFA does not do a good job summarising the issue.
> but his public discourse is at odds with the LSA's officially stated goals.
It should be noted that the complain singles out LSA's stated goals of "listening to and respecting [the experience of students of color] is crucial", but their criticism of Pinker is that they feel he doesn't support their pet cause enthusiastically enough.
And to substantiate their accusation, the persecuters cherry-pick a hand-full of tweets dating way back from 2015, where he cited the New York Times showing real-world statistics on police shootings.
So, I feel the article summarizes the problem pretty well. This is a good example of how this Cancel Culture systematically resorts to persecutions and chilling effects as weapons to punish and censor away anyone who doesn't enthusiastically endorse their pet political cause.
I didn't find their case to be well made either. But what they are asking is for Pinker to not appear to speak in their name. They state explicitly that they don't request that any of his public discourse to be removed or censored.
This doesn't seem to be an example of cancel culture to me, because it is not an issue of freedom of speech or of opinion vs audience sensibilities. It is an issue of representativity.
If the letter states explicitly that they don't question Pinker's right to free speech, then in my view the article misrepresents the argument by talking about an "outcry over free speech".
For what it's worth, I don't personally believe that the right solution is to remove Pinker from that position, but rather to aim to increase diversity among the fellows of that society. But then I'm not a member of the linguists' society, nor even a linguist so I also believe that my personal opinion shouldn't matter here.
> But what they are asking is for Pinker to not appear to speak in their name.
No, they don't. The petitioners demand that Pinker should be taken out of the distinguished lecturers list regardless of his academic merit, which no one has any doubt it is well deserved.
The reason? Because the petitioners feel he doesn't show enough enthusiasm supporting their own pet political views. The evidence? A pair of tweets posted in 2014 and 2015. Therefore, he must be punished for his crimes and made an example to everyone who dares not support their political pressure group.
Make no mistake: this sort of fascist stunt to silence each and every "reactionary", whether they oppose their political views or simply doesn't further their agenda, poses a very dangerous threat to any democracy. They might not color-coordinate their shirts yet, but they're running plays from Italy's and Germany's inter-war period.
Matt Taibbi, in his last email to subscribers, has a great write up on this.
Going after people like Steven Pinker is, I think, bat shit crazy.
It seems like here in the US that we have 5% of the far right who are crazy and 5% of the far left who are crazy. I wish they would leave the other 90% of us alone.
The Steven Pinker thing is evidence of the craziness on the far left. Evidence for the craziness on the far right is self evident.
“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” Noam Chomsky