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.
“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” Noam Chomsky