Intellectuals weigh in on Cancel Culture

Tired Gardener · 10-07-2020 7:02pm

wildeside wrote: »

So you don't think there exists a world of facts independent of your own thoughts, beliefs and opinions i.e. an objective reality?

And humans could not fly simply because we had not yet understood and mastered various laws of physics i.e. an objective reality that exists independant of humans and has done so, in our universe at least, for billions of years.

Also their point is a false equivalent. We Humans have developed machines capable of flight, we are unable to fly unassisted. Upon discovering how to build and improve flying machines it didn't change the natural laws, we simply worked within them with a better understanding. Using the invention of mechanical flight to try to argue flaws in objective reality is quite the reach.

I am starting suspect that One eyed Jack is a troll... sorry, the user who goes by the name One Eyed Jack.

wildeside · 10-07-2020 7:11pm

One eyed Jack wrote: »

You’re still working off the assumption that scientists, clinicians and a whole body of medical professionals don’t already exercise reason and caution when it comes to children’s healthcare, as to do otherwise would simply be regarded as unethical.

https://quillette.com/2020/01/17/why-i-resigned-from-tavistock-trans-identified-children-need-therapy-not-just-affirmation-and-drugs/

Maybe reason and caution aren't actually always being exercised by medical professionals due to pressure from activist mobs?

10-07-2020 7:14pm

joe40 wrote: »

I can agree with most of that. I was thinking of cancel culture as the cancelling of talks on University campuses that were deemed harmful. The other stuff about destroying careers, I have very little time for. I suppose you're right that's what cancel culture has come to mean.

Fair enough. I'd forgotten about the university debates/talks which had been cancelled due to SJW protests.

Trans as simply a lifestyle choice shouldn't be promoted but at the same time I believe there are genuine transgender people. I'm really not knowledgeable enough about the issue, but I think it should belong more in the realm of Medicine and science as opposed to politics.

I don't know any Transpeople in the West (although I have encountered some). I do know a few Trans in Thailand and China who have undergone the complete range of surgical procedures, and that's generally what I consider to be those serious about changing their gender (which I have no problem with since they're adults). I'm very iffy about those who only partially changed, or claim a different gender identity without actual physical change.

So absolutely more research on the long term affects.

That applies to both sides in my opinion. Total denial of trans issues versus unquestioning acceptance and actual promotion are both wrong. People are impressionable.

Agreed.

As for removing corporal punishment from schools, absolutely glad to see the back of it. I couldn't imagine hitting a child, or a parent tolerating it.
I think Ireland is a safer country now in many respects. There were cases years ago of abuse in families that were widely known in local communities but nothing done about. I'm just talking about the 80s

It's more the case of introducing change for laudable reasons but not considering the long term effects, such as teenage violence, and disruptions since many adults are unable to enforce discipline, or fear to protect themselves from their children. I know two single mothers who live in fear of their teenage sons, simply because a claim of corporal punishment would be enough to end their careers. They've also been on the receiving end of violence by their sons... it's often hard to prove self-defense was merited against minors.

Times change and each era has its own problems. I think maybe in an effort to ensure fairness and equality for all the equilibrium is shifting too far in one direction. I think it will correct itself.

I don't. Too much has changed without real consideration of what will happen as a consequence. We'll simply have to adjust to the new reality. However, it would be nice if more thought was put into issues, rather than basking in the praise for the short term gains.

One eyed Jack · 10-07-2020 7:18pm

Tired Gardener wrote: »

Also their point is a false equivalent. We Humans have developed machines capable of flight, we are unable to fly unassisted. Upon discovering how to build and improve flying machines it didn't change the natural laws, we simply worked within them with a better understanding. Using the invention of mechanical flight to try to argue flaws in objective reality is quite the reach.

I am starting suspect that One eyed Jack is a troll... sorry, the user who goes by the name One Eyed Jack.

I didn’t do that though, but I can’t stop you thinking whatever you like either way on the basis of your interpretation of what I actually said. I never said that humans were somehow endowed with the power of flight, that would be silly. I said that obviously there’s more to it than that, and there is.

You want to nail people down to agreeing with you (not only you btw), but I don’t, not because I can’t, I could easily do so and it would shut you up because you’d finally have the answer you wanted. That’s something I don’t mind doing with children when they’re being a pain in the arse. Adults who champion ideas being challenged shouldn’t have any issue with someone telling the truth, unless what they really want is for everyone to simply accept their ideas and opinions without question, which I suspect is far more likely intent of advocates of “free speech”.

One eyed Jack · 10-07-2020 8:08pm

wildeside wrote: »

https://quillette.com/2020/01/17/why-i-resigned-from-tavistock-trans-identified-children-need-therapy-not-just-affirmation-and-drugs/

Maybe reason and caution aren't actually always being exercised by medical professionals due to pressure from activist mobs?

That’s why consensus in determining treatments is as important as it is - so that medical professionals aren’t reliant on the opinions of a single medical professional who appears to have had their reservations since the 80’s, still went to work for the Tavistock Institute anyway, and then left because they had a beef with management.

Sure what would a disgruntled employee have to gain from trying to smear their former employer in shìt? Adulation from the people who agree with them, kinda like the way JK licked Stephen Kings arse from here to high heaven when she thought he agreed with her, then “cancelled” Stephen King when she realised he didn’t.

Stephen King was never likely to give a shìte for JK’s opinions, no matter how important she thinks she is.

fly_agaric · 10-07-2020 9:47pm

joe40 wrote: »

A lot of advanced quantum physics would seem to dispute some of our observable objective truth. I'm not going to pretend to understand it but the ideas can get very weird.

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

An objective truth is something that is the way it is, regardless of humans are aware of it or not.

Possibly going off the point a bit now but this interested me. Returning to quantum physics as an example, it is strange but (as far as our scientists can tell) it is the truth (i.e. the way things are) and it accurately describes how the universe operates at that level.

The fact that it contains "weirdness" + is very hard for us to get our heads around and poses philosophical questions is beside the point in a way.

briany · 10-07-2020 10:08pm

suicide_circus wrote: »

Hmmmm.....that gives me an idea.

How about flooding social media with bogus cancel outrages...accusing all and sundry blue ticks of outlandish supposed historical indiscretions, bot accounts churning out constant false accusations. Drown the market, make a mockery of it, turn it into a meme.

Then that'd just leave us with an opposite but similarly damaging situation where you can't call people out for legitimate reasons because it gets lost among the noise and/or no-one will take it seriously. We can't lurch from one extreme to another.

Cancel culture isn't anything new in a sense. Mob mentality has existed for probably as long as organised human society has, and we have long realised that it's a dangerous and irrational thing. I would have to think that the ideas of fair trials and legal systems and due process sprang up as a direct response to this damaging tendency of ours - to provide an at least somewhat systematic way of handling grievances and disputes.

So while I don't think people will stop having a robust dialogue about certain issues on social media, I just think that there comes a point where it's a case of put up or shut up and escalate your concerns to a civil or criminal case in the courts where there is some sort of oversight, or else give it a rest. Trial by social media is no way to go.

Yellow_Fern · 10-07-2020 10:26pm

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I haven't accused him of anything. I think you need to take his advice and be more precise with your words. This sort of hysterical overreaction to legitimate criticism isn't healthy.

He goes on and on about gulags but references to the Holocaust, Hitler and the Nazis are very sparse by comparison.

Again when he talks about the gulugs he doesn't claim they were uniquely evil. Why would he need to pepper his talks with references to the Holocaust? I dont see why he would need. It just seems that you are implying that he is suspect or somewhat favourable to fascism because of this and something is very wrong when we cant criticise the USSR without this accusation.

Junkyard Tom · 10-07-2020 10:26pm

I think it's important to understand that cancel culture has been a thing for a long time it's just more subtle and pervasive.

In Ireland we had Section 31 suppression of Republican views that caused a chilling effect in the culture. The way the audiences are picked for Question Time in Britain, Operation Mocking Bird in the US, The German Journalist who spoke of continuing manipulation of news media.

I could go on but we'd be here all night.

10-07-2020 10:33pm

briany wrote: »

So while I don't think people will stop having a robust dialogue about certain issues on social media, I just think that there comes a point where it's a case of put up or shut up and escalate your concerns to a civil or criminal case in the courts where there is some sort of oversight, or else give it a rest. Trial by social media is no way to go.

True, it's not, but some people will always prefer it to dealing with actual justice. By being part of a mob, they get to share their righteous anger with others, who in turn, stoke their own outrage over what's going on. A circle jerk of sorts... The problem is when these groups decide to step off the internet and apply their mob justice themselves... which is likely to happen. Especially during periods of anarchy, as seen in the US within recent weeks. When the rule of the law is suspended, the mob will step forward to reclaim that empty space... and all shall be judged wanting..

Silentcorner · 10-07-2020 10:57pm

Have a listen to Gerry Harvey...Harvey Norman founder, on his experience with pressure groups regarding diversity and what he believes to be the disastrous consequences of succumbing to these "mobs".

There is a very big network of activists across the developed world who spend a lot of their time, targeting venues, targeting media outlets, targeting advertisers, targeting listed companies...pushing an agenda that has failed commercially, failed electorally and has damaged and continues to damage our collective culture, nobody wants this suffocating culture but no one seems to have the will to stop it...the crazy thing is, the nutters who are pushing it, believing it, believe they are leading us all to a greater place....

Only last week you had the sight of an exiled Prince and his celebrity wife, releasing a video lecturing British people about their privilege....you couldn't make this stuff up!!!

Yellow_Fern · 10-07-2020 11:13pm

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

I think it's important to understand that cancel culture has been a thing for a long time it's just more subtle and pervasive.

In Ireland we had Section 31 suppression of Republican views that caused a chilling effect in the culture. The way the audiences are picked for Question Time in Britain, Operation Mocking Bird in the US, The German Journalist who spoke of continuing manipulation of news media.

I could go on but we'd be here all night.

I agree, it is not new, but twitter is oil on the fire. What people in positions of power have to do is to refuse to apologise and ignore the mobs.

joe40 · 11-07-2020 12:57am

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

I agree, it is not new, but twitter is oil on the fire. What people in positions of power have to do is to refuse to apologise and ignore the mobs.

It's funny how language is used. When the issue is something one opposes it is a "mob" when one is supportive it is the silent majority finally standing up for what is right.
You're right about people in positions of power though. The centre must hold in these things regardless of where the noise is coming from.

utyh2ikcq9z76b · 11-07-2020 1:07am

Silentcorner wrote: »

There is a very big network of activists across the developed world who spend a lot of their time, targeting venues, targeting media outlets, targeting advertisers, targeting listed companies...pushing an agenda that has failed commercially, failed electorally and has damaged and continues to damage our collective culture, nobody wants this suffocating culture but no one seems to have the will to stop it...the crazy thing is, the nutters who are pushing it, believing it, believe they are leading us all to a greater place....

The big corporate funded ones are called lobbies

Junkyard Tom · 11-07-2020 1:41am

Silentcorner wrote: »

There is a very big network of activists across the developed world ...Only last week you had the sight of an exiled Prince and his celebrity wife, releasing a video...

Do you want them cancelled, or what? Should they be silenced?

Also corporations are subject to corporate governance because they opt in to it, they could remain a privately owned business that doesn't trade publicly.

2u2me · 11-07-2020 2:06am

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Do you want them cancelled, or what? Should they be silenced?

Also corporations are subject to corporate governance because they opt in to it, they could remain a privately owned business that doesn't trade publicly.

What's the actual problem here? Why should anyone give a **** about this?

I don't want them cancelled or silenced. I just wish more rational minded people would speak up, instead of 'I don't really know', 'I'm not educated enough' everyone has a faculty for reason.

This allows discourse to be dominated by the extremes. The ones who know better.

Most reasonable people seem to go silent, or start to virtue-signal themselves when the spotlight shines on them. "Is there a way that I can appease this mob so that they can leave me alone and go hound someone else?"

It is a way of controlling people's behaviour; the ultimate goal to have people self-censoring. How many people are genuinely afraid to give their opinion on the trans issue?

In recent times the regard for evidence when making accusations has been nullified.

"The media coverage, particularly television, greatly contributed to McCarthy's decline in popularity and his eventual censure by the Senate the following December."

That's how McCarthyism ended, but what force will stop this current set of witchhunts? The media have failed us in recent times.

jimmyohallogan · 11-07-2020 2:09am

https://youtu.be/nsMUxdZGgWI

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nsMUxdZGgWI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

jimmyohallogan · 11-07-2020 2:10am

oh christ.

jimmyohallogan · 11-07-2020 2:11am

no. isnt there a way of embedding the you tube video thumbnail?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsMUxdZGgWI

2u2me · 11-07-2020 2:12am

jimmyohallogan wrote: »

https://youtu.be/nsMUxdZGgWI

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nsMUxdZGgWI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

jimmyohallogan wrote: »

oh christ.

Notice the youtu.be doesn't work. You need the youtube.com URL.

This URL "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsMUxdZGgWI" Not this one "

https://youtu.be/nsMUxdZGgWI"

jimmyohallogan · 11-07-2020 2:14am

thanks man. whats the code?

2u2me · 11-07-2020 2:56am

Silentcorner wrote: »

There is a very big network of activists across the developed world who spend a lot of their time, targeting venues, targeting media outlets, targeting advertisers, targeting listed companies...pushing an agenda that has failed commercially, failed electorally and has damaged and continues to damage our collective culture, nobody wants this suffocating culture but no one seems to have the will to stop it...the crazy thing is, the nutters who are pushing it, believing it, believe they are leading us all to a greater place....

Actually I was surprised to learn how often it was print jouranlists agitating for cancellations.

It happened to Roger Scruton by George Eaten of the New Statesmen. Scruton was invited for a long form audio interview where several of his quotes about China and Hungary were taken out of context and published in an article that within hours lead his removal from his unpaid advisor position within the UK government. A twitter mob had formed and several MP's and reputable people called out Scruton's 'reprehensible speech'.

It wasn't until 3 months later and the release of the full audio tapes by a rival newspaper(Spectator) that the New Statesmen was forced to apologize.

'The New Statesman interview with Sir Roger Scruton (“Cameron's resignation was the death knell of the Conservative Party”, 10 April) generated substantial media comment and will be readily recalled by most readers. We have now met with Sir Roger and we have agreed jointly to publish this statement.

In the interview, Sir Roger said of China: “They’re creating robots of their own people … each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing.” We would like to clarify that Sir Roger’s criticism was not of the Chinese people but of the restrictive regime of the Chinese Communist Party.

Sir Roger is quoted accurately in the article: “Anybody who doesn’t think there’s a Soros empire in Hungary has not observed the facts.” However, the article did not include the rest of Sir Roger’s statement that “it’s not necessarily an empire of Jews; that’s such nonsense”. We would like to clarify that elsewhere in the interview Sir Roger recognised the existence of anti-Semitism in Hungarian society.

After its publication online, links to the article were tweeted out together with partial quotations from the interview – including a truncated version of the quotation regarding China above. We acknowledge that the views of Professor Scruton were not accurately represented in the tweets to his disadvantage. We apologise for this, and regret any distress that this has caused Sir Roger.

By way of rectification we provide here a link to a transcript of the interview and the original article so that readers can learn for themselves what Professor Scruton actually said in full.'

That also happened to Markus Meechan, Tommy Robinson and 'Sargon of Akkad' by Mark Di Stefano formerly of Buzzfeed, formerly of the Financial Times.

Exactly how did Di Stefano practise this 'activism'? He would write an article mentioning something about far right trolls and then have two lines ready;

1. "Youtube et all are hosting these far fight nazis"
2. "Youtube have since banned or demonetized these far right nazis".

He would contact the social media platforms often with 1 day notice about his readiness to publish one of his 'articles'. It was of course easier for the social media site to cave.

https://twitter.com/hannahbayman/status/1256258397739061248

SlowMotion321 · 11-07-2020 5:23am

briany wrote: »

Then that'd just leave us with an opposite but similarly damaging situation where you can't call people out for legitimate reasons because it gets lost among the noise and/or no-one will take it seriously. We can't lurch from one extreme to another.

Cancel culture isn't anything new in a sense. Mob mentality has existed for probably as long as organised human society has, and we have long realised that it's a dangerous and irrational thing. I would have to think that the ideas of fair trials and legal systems and due process sprang up as a direct response to this damaging tendency of ours - to provide an at least somewhat systematic way of handling grievances and disputes.

So while I don't think people will stop having a robust dialogue about certain issues on social media, I just think that there comes a point where it's a case of put up or shut up and escalate your concerns to a civil or criminal case in the courts where there is some sort of oversight, or else give it a rest. Trial by social media is no way to go.

Salem witch trials, the Spanish inquisition, Frankenstein...!

11-07-2020 8:06am

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Do you want them cancelled, or what? Should they be silenced?

I do think there should be some independent bodies set up (state sponsored) to monitor the wide range of activists and their groups, with the aim of tracking and determining their various agendas. There should be campaigns to make people aware of what the more "dodgy" groups behave when they use nefarious

or dodgy tactics to pursue their aims.

I don't believe anyone should be silenced, but there should be acceptable modes of behavior, just as we have acceptable norms within the boundaries of the law. The Internet has evolved far beyond what it used to be... and while I'm very iffy about many government related regulations about the internet (since they just seem to protect corporations rights), I do feel it's time to start reining in the more extreme activists.

Also corporations are subject to corporate governance because they opt in to it, they could remain a privately owned business that doesn't trade publicly.

Larger Corporations, for the most part, can laugh off the fines and penalties for breaking corporate governance. Few courts can levy any kind of punishment to really hurt them, and when it does happen, it's extremely rare. It's actually quite scary the amount of protection that corporations receive under US law.

political analyst · 11-07-2020 4:39pm

This piece was written by Canadian journalist Margaret Wente.

https://quillette.com/2020/07/09/it-wasnt-my-cancelation-that-bothered-me-it-was-the-cowardice-of-those-who-let-it-happen/

I was cancelled by one of Canada’s quainter institutions, a University of Toronto graduate residential school called Massey College. Few people outside Canadian academia have heard of it. But the cultural revolution has entered its mass-spectacle Reign of Terror phase, and so my story made news across Canada. I was depicted as a racist, anti-feminist heretic whose mere presence inside Massey’s halls would have presented a threat to students.

But Massey College hasn’t fared too well, either: In this climate, every fusty institution is just one trivial scandal away from public-relations crisis and knives-out infighting, as all concerned flail about in a bid to prove their moral purity. I’ll survive. I’m not sure Massey will.

Why are university authorities afraid of 'woke' activist students?

Silentcorner · 11-07-2020 4:44pm

political analyst wrote: »

This piece was written by Canadian journalist Margaret Wente.

https://quillette.com/2020/07/09/it-wasnt-my-cancelation-that-bothered-me-it-was-the-cowardice-of-those-who-let-it-happen/

Why are university authorities afraid of 'woke' activist students?

They are customers....that simple...and they have created/allowed a culture of indulgence in a kind of childish behaviour that will not serve the students well in life, they'll come out of those institutions worse off than they were going in...

11-07-2020 4:51pm

political analyst wrote: »

Why are university authorities afraid of 'woke' activist students?

Because such activist groups often encourage their members towards activities which might break the "honor code" of the university, or the law in general. These kind of groups are quite aggressive against those they target, which can also cause violence to occur. Which, in turn, puts the university in the awkward position of needing to impose discipline, or ignore it entirely, which alienates the victims of the activists attention.

People talk about peaceful protests being common, but SJW activists are often very aggressive, believing that they're safe from harm because they're female (throwing paint at people, pushing other students, etc).

Junkyard Tom · 11-07-2020 4:58pm

Asian Flanders

Nothing encapsulates how meaningless the "cancel culture" discourse is than Margaret Wente - a serial plagiarist who had a column national column for 33 years before retiring on her own terms - getting wall to wall coverage for a blog post in which she claims she was silenced.

twitter.com

My heart bleeds for her.

James Brown · 11-07-2020 5:24pm

Why are people so quick to support the counter argument? BLM is to speak up for the plight of black people. Some want to take about the rioters instead of the protesters and what about white lives?
Being woke is a compliment. Like SJW it's used to dismiss or ignore people calling out things they believe are not acceptable. Using terms like snow flakes etc. Are a way to compartmentalise, so if you can dismiss one they are all tarnished.
The same can be said for cancel culture.
Take things on a case by case.
Give the complaint a chance for 5 minutes.
Change can be scary but its needed. Theres a lot of **** being called out because a lot of **** needs calling out.

SlowMotion321 · 11-07-2020 5:27pm

I feel truly sorry for students today, protest, anti protest. When i was in college we worried about
Getting drunk
Getting stoned
Getting laid
Getting through exams

Chose your order, I had a great fcuking time!

Intellectuals weigh in on Cancel Culture

Comments