Open Letters- "Cancel Culture"

[Inkdaub]

56 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I support the letter because I have an understanding of history. If one is happy to suppress views one doesn't like, one can't very well turn around and complain about McCarthyism. Et cetera. Too many Leftists seem to think that history bends only in their direction... no, it doesn't, and some of us are familiar with what right-wing attacks on freedom of speech look like. 

That Rowling has attached her name to this is neither here nor there. It doesn't affect my opinion of her (a profoundly negative one), but it doesn't invalidate the letter. 

Whose views are being suppressed?  People can hold any view they want.  Speaking out on said views may have consequences.

It isn't about right or left, it's about trying your best to consider right and wrong.  The truth is that if an ideal is righteous it will almost certainly fall under the umbrella of 'the left'. 

In all honesty I don't care much about that letter. 

This thread reminds me of argument I had with a coworker about Roseanne Barr.

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

  The truth is that if an ideal is righteous it will almost certainly fall under the umbrella of 'the left'. 

What do you mean by this?

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I support the letter because I have an understanding of history. If one is happy to suppress views one doesn't like, one can't very well turn around and complain about McCarthyism. Et cetera. Too many Leftists seem to think that history bends only in their direction... no, it doesn't, and some of us are familiar with what right-wing attacks on freedom of speech look like. 

That Rowling has attached her name to this is neither here nor there. It doesn't affect my opinion of her (a profoundly negative one), but it doesn't invalidate the letter. 

Well your right of course. Restricting speech sounds like a good idea when you think your the one that's going to be calling the shots. But, then the wind shifts and your out of power and it doesn't so good. Traditionally, in the USA at least, it was the left that had to fight for free speech rights, as its speech was restricted or punished.

And the right had its little crap tactics like, you can't say that because its "socialist" or its "un-American".

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 minute ago, Inkdaub said:

Whose views are being suppressed?  People can hold any view they want.  Speaking out on said views may have consequences.

As per the Letter:

Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.

Dismissing this as mere "consequences of speech" is to basically condone McCarthyism. 

Quote

It isn't about right or left, it's about trying your best to consider right and wrong.  The truth is that if an ideal is righteous it will almost certainly fall under the umbrella of 'the left'. 

Dear god. Pull your head back in - and I say this as a Leftist myself. Believing that you have a monopoly on Moral Righteousness and that the Other Side is Evil is a recipe for disaster. Not least because the Other Side thinks exactly the same about you. 

[Ran]

16 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

Whose views are being suppressed?  People can hold any view they want. 

Magnaninmous.

Quote

Speaking out on said views may have consequences.

A banal observation, but one that MLK, Malcolm X, the staff of Charlie Hebdo, Ruth First, and many others can attest to (posthumously, anyways)

The question is not whether one can be critiqued, or even about the idea of consequences. The issue is one of intolerance to different views leading to disproportionate action. 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think it comes down to making cancel culture clarify and commit to terms and tactics they use.  For instance, when they speech makes them "unsafe" they need to be made to commit to a principle where they will distinguish between "safe" and "unsafe" speech. Don't let them get away with changing its meaning every 5 seconds. Question them on every term and definition they use and make them defend it. When they use a term, don't presume you know what it means. Ask them what it means.

Its like arguing with Republicans about socialism. The meaning changes so much, you don't what in the hell your arguing about.

Quoted this but mostly addressing the left/right aspect of this debate, which I think kind of misses the point.

Did you read the response letter?  Several of the signatories of the first one have tried to get people fired over things they've said, or demanded professional consequences for supporting BDS (looking at you, Bari Weiss). "Cancel culture" is rarely squashing free speech, most of the time that's exactly what it is.  When a university decides they don't want to hear what Milo Yiannopoulis has to say, that's them exercising their free speech.  If some wants to boycott a company or newspaper, that's them exercising their right to free speech.  

The co-opting of the term in the original paper [letter] is the issue - it's explicitly calling out a tactic that plenty of people on the left and right have used and labelling it illiberal and anti-free speech when that really isn't the case.  

It's not really fair to say Chomsky and Weiss are making the same argument just because they both signed the letter.  Their actions and speech on the issue, history shows us, are not the same.  Would Weiss defend Finkelstein?

The idea that the first letter must be good or true because a variety of people with different ideas signed it is also weird.  It's mostly a bunch of platitudes anyone would agree with. 

Which [is] what you're getting into here?  What exactly do they all mean?  Well, very different things.  If they wanted to call out hate speech laws as illiberal or an attack on free speech then do so.  But the Bennet example is just a paper exercising [its] right to fire an incompetent editor.  

We can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, (cue libertarians pointing out the genesis of that phrase, yeah I know) or threaten someone's life without expecting legal consequences.  Are those things examples free speech being suppressed?

Read the room, everyone, and consider the context this first open letter was written in, and read about how the signatures were gathered.  There seems to have been some deception there.  And what were the actual authors' intentions, what were their specific grievances?  

I think many people responding here haven't even read the response letter: it certainly isn't an attack on free speech.  It's a criticism of what's actually happening in the first one.

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

10 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As per the Letter:

Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.

Dismissing this as mere "consequences of speech" is to basically condone McCarthyism. 

Dear god. Pull your head back in - and I say this as a Leftist myself. Believing that you have a monopoly on Moral Righteousness and that the Other Side is Evil is a recipe for disaster. Not least because the Other Side thinks exactly the same about you. 

Read how the second letter in the OP addresses these things.  It's not necessarily what you think it is.

[OldGimletEye]

4 hours ago, mormont said:

OTOH, it's undeniable that some speech *is* violent and makes us feel unsafe. And that this speech is often defended by the cry of 'free speech' as an absolute right, which it never has been. As outlined above, it has consequences. If you can sue someone for libel, why can't you stop people from making threatening speech or calling for genocide?

1. As I pointed out, many topics under public discussion, can potentially have negative consequences for people. Should we restrict speech on topics from healthcare policy to policing policy because some opinions if made public policy might make some people "unsafe"?

2. If you are going to restrict speech on the grounds that its violent or unsafe, then you better give a clear rule about when speech crosses the line. Too many on the left want to play Calvin ball with the rules, declaring everything they don't like as being "violent" or making them feel "unsafe". If you don't restrain the concepts, than the "violence" and the "safety" exceptions can swallow the entire concept of free speech. 

3.  And your observation that free speech isn't an absolute right is essentially worthless, unless you are going to be quite clear about the rules that govern free speech. Hopefully, you have put some thought into the rules so you don't end up restraining legitimate speech.

4. In the US, threats are not protected. You can't call somebody and say, "I'm going to kill you" and then seek the protection of the 1st Amendment. The reason of course is that a threat advances no idea or viewpoint.

5. In the US, we have been traditionally very leery about regulating the subject matter of speech. For very good reasons. If you are going to allow viewpoint discrimination by the government (and we do allow this to some extent in "restricted environments") you better make sure the government is quite constrained in the viewpoints it can punish.

[Clueless Northman]

When Noam Chomsky and Margaret Atwood think things are going too far, maybe it's time to sit back and consider what's going on.

Just my opinion of course.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

Whose views are being suppressed?  People can hold any view they want.  Speaking out on said views may have consequences.

It isn't about right or left, it's about trying your best to consider right and wrong.  The truth is that if an ideal is righteous it will almost certainly fall under the umbrella of 'the left'. 

In all honesty I don't care much about that letter. 

This thread reminds me of argument I had with a coworker about Roseanne Barr.

So, do you disagree with McCarthy and his supporters methods... or... do you disagree with who McCarthy and his supporters targeted?

The Hollywood black lists were not required by law.  Studios simply refused to employ people who were blacklisted.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

When Noam Chomsky and Margaret Atwood think things are going too far, maybe it's time to sit back and consider what's going on.

Just my opinion of course.

Is that really the case though?  If they're just agreeing that the nonspecific things listed in the letter (the part inquired a few posts ago) are bad, that's one thing.  But are those things happening?  From the link @Darth Richard IIII posted on the second page:

Quote

“Cancel culture” has the same characteristics as previous episodes of pearl-clutchery. Nearly every example cited by the Harper’s letter turns out, upon scrutiny, to be something else entirely.

Take the letter’s ominous warning that “editors are fired for running controversial pieces.” This is almost certainly a reference to James Bennet, the opinion editor of The New York Times who resigned last month after printing an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) calling for the military suppression of Black Lives Matter protests.

While the op-ed did inspire widespread criticism, Bennet’s resignation is not a case of social-media censorship. The Times’ itself admitted that the piece “fell short of our standards” and represented a “breakdown” in the paper’s editorial process. Bennet eventually admitted that he hadn’t even read it before publishing it.

And beyond Bennet’s incompetence, there is the simple question of accountability. Even before the Cotton op-ed, Bennet hired climate change deniers, neglected fact-checking and printed “pro-mercenary” articles by private military contractors. Are the signatories to the Harper’s letter really saying that Times readers and employees should not have expressed their frustration with these obvious breaches of ethics?

And then there's the matter of professors being investigated:

Quote

The Harper’s letter also says, in its oblique way, that in today’s America, “professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class.” This is, in a purely literal sense, true: Last month, a professor named W. Ajax Peris was investigated by UCLA for reading Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” aloud in class.

That’s not why Peris was investigated, though. He was investigated because he read excerpts of the letter containing the N-word without warning his students first. He also showed graphic footage of lynchings in his class without content warnings. When students complained, he insisted that he should be allowed to use the slur. 

Even if you think the complaint against Peris was overly sensitive, he was not “canceled” in any meaningful sense. The UCLA investigation was resolved with a critical letter from his department head. He was not subject to widespread calls for termination and will be teaching classes in the fall.

Is this an attack or even an encroachment on free speech?  Maybe that's not the case the open letter refers to.  So what does it refer to?  Can we have some examples of the left attacking free speech?  Because I don't think the examples that, and I am admittedly assuming, and so is everyone else criticizing the letter as to what those examples are (since they weren't provided!), I don't think these examples are things that are suppression of speech.  

The letter is a straw man, in my opinion.

[Larry of the Lawn]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, do you disagree with McCarthy and his supporters methods... or... do you disagree with who McCarthy and his supporters targeted?

The Hollywood black lists were not required by law.  Studios simply refused to employ people who were blacklisted.

Were these blacklists generated by the state or by private individuals and organizations?  They don't have to be required by law if the government is the one applying the pressure.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

Were these blacklists generated by the state or by private individuals and organizations?  They don't have to be required by law if the government is the one applying the pressure.  

The “blacklists” were generated and kept by “The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals”.  Do you support their methods?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Alliance_for_the_Preservation_of_American_Ideals

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The “blacklists” were generated and kept by “The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals”.  Do you support their methods?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Alliance_for_the_Preservation_of_American_Ideals

From your link:

Quote

When the organization was formed in 1944,[3] the initial, immediate purpose was to assemble a group of well-known show business figures willing to attest, under oath, before Congress to the supposed presence of Communists in their industry.[4] When the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated the motion picture industry, the vast majority of "friendly witnesses" were supplied by the Alliance.[4][5][6

This is a bit different than say, a twitter mob ripping JK Rowland.  They aren't reporting her to a political speech policing arm of the governenment.

[TrueMetis]

I know two things about this letter that leads me to believe it's bullshit, 1) a bunch of the signatories have tried to get, or gotten, people fired for things they've written, both personal opinion and stuff they've published.

2) Most of the "being cancelled" for these people is literally meaningless. JK is "cancelled," here meaning she still a billionaire, she's still got a massive following, but people are criticizing her for being trans-phobic trash. I'm less than worried about JK's "cancellation" I am however worried about the harassment she's caused by highlighting small accounts on twitter that criticize her.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

From your link:

This is a bit different than say, a twitter mob ripping JK Rowland.  They aren't reporting her to a political speech policing arm of the governenment.

Do you support the Studio’s choice to refuse to employ people with whom they disagreed politically?  

And for clarities sake there is nothing illegal about the choice to “exclude” or “de-platform”.  I’d just like you to admit it is the same tactic used by the blacklisters from the second “Red Scare”.

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Do you support the Studio’s choice to refuse to employ people with whom they disagreed politically?  

I don't support it personally, but I support their right to do it.  I also think it sucks to blacklist or fire someone for views not expressed publicly, especially when those views have nothing to do with carrying out their job.  I'm more sympathetic to company firing an HR person for being a white supremacist than to a studio blacklisting a communist.  So I do support, reluctantly, a group's right to limit their hiring based on political preferences.  I also think it would happen anyway even with protections against it, it's sort of difficult to prove. 

What I do not support is their decision to report these blacklisted individuals to a fascist arm of the state for political ideas.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

What I so not support is their decision to report these blacklisted individuals to a fascist arm of the state for political ideas.

Nor do I.  

But the choice to employ or not employ is a form of “de-platforming”.

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Do you support the Studio’s choice to refuse to employ people with whom they disagreed politically?  

And for clarities sake there is nothing illegal about the choice to “exclude” or “de-platform”.  I’d just like you to admit it is the same tactic used by the blacklisters from the second “Red Scare”.

Scot, can you come up with a modern example that the open letter could potentially be referring to?  Like from this century instead of Roy Cohn and McCarthy sucking the government on socialsts?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Scot, can you come up with a modern example that the open letter could potentially be referring to?  Like from this century instead of Roy Cohn and McCarthy sucking the government on socialsts?

James Gunn, for about 8 months?