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On February 07 2022 07:42 Elroi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 04:08 JimmiC wrote:On February 07 2022 03:33 Doc.Rivers wrote:
As for CRT I'm not too educated on it, but I understand there are some efforts to legislatively ban it in schools. I'm not sure how school curricula are usually determined, but if they are usually mandated by legislation, I can see an argument for government control over what kids are taught. Certainly the government has broader leeway to regulate speech in schools. The whole principle of a free exchange of ideas more so applies to adults.
Maybe the better practice though is to permit CRT but mandate that counterarguments to it be taught whenever CRT is taught. You fit with most in not knowing what CRT is. The whole complaining about it and wanting to ban it crowd also have no clue what it is. It is a university class not taught in schools where people are complaining about it and wanting it to be banned. The problem, fundamentally, isn't that people don't understand or aren't knowledgeable about CRT. When people try to discuss or criticize CRT one of two things usually happen: either the CRT crowd hides in the ivory tower of cultural theory and claim that you simply can't understand anyway so there is no reason to engage in dialogue. Or, they claim that the people who criticize them don't have the right skin color/gender/disability to understand anyway so there is no point in engaging in dialogue. Ironically, if you set out to defend their worldview you can literally get anything through their "rigorous" peer review systems (as has been showed by the Sokal squared hoax). So while you're never knowledgeable enough to criticize, on the one hand, you're never too dumb to participate, on the other. Wanting to ban CRT from schools is, in my view at least, as logical as banning creationism. It has nothing to do with cancelling. You just don't want to teach CRT instead of proper social science in the same way that you don't want to teach traditional Chinese medicine instead of biology.
How is CRT not proper social science?
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Didn't most of the fearmongering about Critical Race Theory come from that first initial Tucker Carlson interview where the dumbass warned us about teachers teaching "whiteness" and "oppressors" etc. none of which is in CRT at the actual academic level.
The main misconception is that CRT is about systems in place, not the individual, which is what Conservatives have switched. Like actual CRT seems really boring and tame from what I've seen. Even I bought on some of the false rhetoric because Ibram Kendi sounded like a grifter, (to me). But he is just one guy... you can have one bad academic or even a few, but that doesn't undermine the theory / subject. If Conservatives actually wanted to beat CRT, they should do so at the academic level, through you know, academic discussion and peer review, but its much easier to have uniformed jackass parents yell at school board meetings.
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On February 06 2022 00:39 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2022 10:45 Introvert wrote:On February 03 2022 16:36 Acrofales wrote:On February 03 2022 10:27 Introvert wrote:
"Cancel culture" is more tricky to identify with major public figures like Rogan, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that when Joe Schmoe who works at the starbucks in the middle of nowhere has an old tweet and people mob his employer to get him fire that such a thing could reasonably be defined as "cancel culture."
Do you have any actual examples of this? I mean, I know cyber bullying is a problem but I don't think we should conflate the two things. Cancelling is used so widely that without talking about actual examples, I don't see how we advance here. Let me kick it off by saying there's legitimate reasons for firing people based on what you found on the internet. Would you want either of the two girls waiting a table in your restaurant, even if they left their cup at home? Would this be cancelling them over having taboo sex of their own free will? Or would they be legitimately fired for omitting working in a viral fetish porn video on their resume? E: just to be clear, I don't think I'd personally mind, nor do I think these two women should be shunned from society for their unfortunate choice to eat and play with each other's poop and vomit. However, I don't think it's crazy that past actions exclude you from some jobs. And being a "star" in one of the grossest things most people have ever seen obviously counts as a past action. Not off the top of my head, sorry. I think we've all heard stories of people getting doxxed for example, right? From what I can tell doxxing is often done with the intent of "canceling." I guess maybe the one I remember recently is a game dev who who basically got bullied out of developing his games... think it was Five Nights at Freddy's, though I could be remember the story wrong. Which is another aspect of it... when do we, say, kick out an athlete who expresses certain views that don't have to do with the game? Kapernick with the pig socks or Lebron (and the NBA) taking a hard stance on supposed American injustices while seemingly acting a coward on China both come to mind. The instinct to jump on people is too easy to follow through on nowadays... Or at least, as I said before, it's easy to make it appear to be a pile on that could force a company to fire someone when in actuality that's not required. Maybe there's a peer pressure aspect too. People may say/do things to appease a mob because they seek the approval of the mob. They don't act out of fear of a loss of market share but a loss of social standing. It's not about the cash, it's about the looks you get. I don't think we can call doxxing cancelling. For starters, doxxing, if not illegal, it should be: it's about as close to a lynching that we get in the age of the internet. I think most people here agree doxxing is a pretty terrible practice, Regarding the developer of FNAF, I am guessing you mean this: https://www.ign.com/articles/five-nights-at-freddys-creator-retires-scott-cawthon-political-controversyI don't really see how that constitutes cancelling? The guy developed games with a big fanbase among the LGBTQ community, and then he turned out to be donating to Trump, who is not a friend of the LGBTQ community. The community got upset and some presumably decided they might not buy the next FNAF game. E ven so, I doubt that would actually have affected the commercial success of another game in the series if he had stayed on. He also seems like hte boss at that company, so it's not like he got fired for donating to Trump, he just decided dealing wit that shit was not worth the stress, and he'd rather spend time with his family than being in charge of a game development studio. Regarding Kaepernick, I guess you might say he s cancelled. The way I interpret this article about it (I had to read up because I know he got down on his knees out of protest, but not much more than that about it): https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/is-colin-kaepernick-really-a-victim-of-cancel-culture it seems like he would have kept on playing football if he hadn't "protested the flag". I'm still not sure what to think about that: I mean, maybe, but it's not as if Kaepernick can't make a living because of how he voiced his opinion. He still got a very lucrative contract with Nike. Lebron clearly wasn't cancelled either. Regarding Lebron, I'm not quite sure how he fits into any of this. That said, I do think you have a point about how easy it is to get the whole outrage machine going. Whether that is drumming up hate posts on Reddit, or a bunch of talking heads piling onto someone for saying something stupid. I don't really think it's something *new* to have people pile on the hate for someone saying something they disagree with, but the reach and speed of how fast it can grow is definitely a new(ish) phenomenon. This ties into the doxxing thing at the start, as it's all different aspects of the whole "modern lynching" thing. But "cancelling" still doesn't seem like something new, or getting worse in any way. People have been getting ostracized from their social circles since the dawn of time... being free from the consequences of your speech is not the same as being free to speak. I would, for instance, be free to insult jews, but if my main business was selling kippahs, that would be really stupid. And I guess i could moan about getting cancelled if my clientele started going to a different shop, but would that really be justified?
Doesn't the fact that his continued work on the game would probably have not hampered its success (maybe even improved it, if he made it a better game) kind of support my point? I like this example more and more because I think, while I'm sure the dude somewhat qualifies as a public figure, he's not a Joe Rogan or someone with a massive platform who makes controversial statements. He makes games, and apparently his games don't have any hint of an anti-LGBT tone. Yet, he was still bullied out. I like it as well because I am very uncomfortable with saying that donating to any of the people listed is really something we should be canceling for. Donating to Cory Gardner? In the words of Joe Biden, come on man.
I don't think canceling is new, or always wrong. If people are out there advocating for pedophilia, I think we ought to consider "banishing" that person from the public square. But to me the line is being moved in too far, and more over I'm concerned the people most intoxicated with this are doing not out a concern for what is good for the culture but just to get rid of people who disagree with them. To me it seems too prevalent. I remember when Bill Maher (who really is an ass to be sure, but leave that aside) had his commencement speech at Berkeley canceled after student outrage. A school that prides itself (or did) on free speech... and I think that was the thing he was going to talk about. Yet people claim some sort of emotional damage. Seems manipulative.
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Just as an aside, obviously states and more local entities set school curriculum. It's not anti-free speech to teach some things or even ban the teaching of other things. States make decisions with curriculum all the time. You can debate what should be included or excluded, but I see no hypocrisy as a matter of principle with the idea that CRT should be forbidden below the college level, certainly.
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Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
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On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:
Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I really like your post here and think it will generate good discussion. I only have time to add to point 3.
If a system delivers systematically worse results for a certain subset of people, it's objectively not fair. For instance, if you design a game where only kids abive a certain height can win (say touch a dot with your foot and another with a hand that is very far away) and then you give prizes to the winners, you'd say the game was unfair. I don't think this is debatable.
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On February 07 2022 17:44 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:
Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I really like your post here and think it will generate good discussion. I only have time to add to point 3. If a system delivers systematically worse results for a certain subset of people, it's objectively not fair. For instance, if you design a game where only kids abive a certain height can win (say touch a dot with your foot and another with a hand that is very far away) and then you give prizes to the winners, you'd say the game was unfair. I don't think this is debatable.
I don't think a game of "whoever has the farthest reach wins" would ever exist because everyone would think it's boring. Can you give a real world example of something that is objectively unfair toward a certain subset of people?
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On February 07 2022 17:44 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:
Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I really like your post here and think it will generate good discussion. I only have time to add to point 3. If a system delivers systematically worse results for a certain subset of people, it's objectively not fair. For instance, if you design a game where only kids abive a certain height can win (say touch a dot with your foot and another with a hand that is very far away) and then you give prizes to the winners, you'd say the game was unfair. I don't think this is debatable.
I also like the post. But the next question to me is: are these people disadvantaged because of their race or because they statistically have a worse socio-economic status (which of course can be caused by past racism toward their family)? Because I think that should inform the response.
What I am wondering is if this kind of stuff is not part of the general curriculum in related subjects. I am sure if we had this kind of history here we would implement it accordingly in politics, history and other school subjects instead of creating a new one. Like it is done for WWII. Extensively.
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On February 07 2022 19:56 justanothertownie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 17:44 EnDeR_ wrote:On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:
Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I really like your post here and think it will generate good discussion. I only have time to add to point 3. If a system delivers systematically worse results for a certain subset of people, it's objectively not fair. For instance, if you design a game where only kids abive a certain height can win (say touch a dot with your foot and another with a hand that is very far away) and then you give prizes to the winners, you'd say the game was unfair. I don't think this is debatable. I also like the post. But the next question to me is: are these people disadvantaged because of their race or because they statistically have a worse socio-economic status (which of course can be caused by past racism toward their family)? Because I think that should inform the response. What I am wondering is if this kind of stuff is not part of the general curriculum in related subjects. I am sure if we had this kind of history here we would implement it accordingly in politics, history and other school subjects instead of creating a new one. Like it is done for WWII. Extensively.
It could be both, as well. There could certainly be systemic issues that make having less money lead to disadvantages, regardless of race, and there could also be systemic issues that make being a certain race (e.g., Black) lead to disadvantages, regardless of socioeconomic status.
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On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent. 4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white. + Show Spoiler +
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I agree with much of what you wrote and wanted to give my thoughts on 3) and 4).
So for 3), this obviously does not only apply to black people, but a whole bunch of other groups. I think it is understandable though that something like CRT is being researched, especially in the context of black people, given the more than problematic history the US have in these regards. However, it is a disadvantage that applies to most individuals, who happen to be in groups that are statistically poorer than the average person.
I hope CRT focuses on that enough because what it all boils down to for me is, that many problems could be addressed, by rethinking our concept of inheritance and then fixing estate taxes. I totally get the idea to work your ass of, in order to provide your offspring with the best possible starting position, but it just gives birth to so many problems.
Coming to 4), I see the point that it generally feels insulting. However, in my experience, reminding someone of their privileges would have been a very appropriate response for so many people I’ve talked to.
Again, I would like decouple this a bit from the racial discussion, because as a German, I am too far removed from the racial aspect, but still think I can relate to the general issue from a societal standpoint. To be more precise, I think basically all people are privileged to some degree. Hence, it is important for us to be very aware of these privileges. What I experienced though, is a wide-spread mindset that people in good positions have accomplished this completely on their own through hard work. Surely, this is a complex topic, but I think admitting that you whatever situation you are in, is not solely your own achievement is quite reasonable. The lack of critical thinking in adults in this regard is rather troublesome to me.
As an example, when it comes to income taxes, most people think every cent they have to pay in taxes, is them being robbed by the state. Sure, they went out of their way to become good at something, but they tend to ignore that they only could get this far, because they largely profited from the existing infrastructure (schools, university, companies and so much more) they were born into. This is not to say, that the state was directly responsible for said infrastructure, but it certainly is the foundation for it and the privilege all citizens (with access to it) benefit from.
Completing the circle to white privilege: If you are born into the US you already have some privilege, regardless of skin color. If you are born white, it is less likely that you were born into severe poverty. If you don’t have black skin, you encounter considerably less prejudice against you on the base of your appearance. The list goes on. I don’t say one should feel guilty for being born the way you are, but you should always remember that you did, in fact, achieve nothing completely on your own. Note, that this applies to black people as well: Them being aware of their (restricted) privileges would be helpful for debates. Unfortunately, I perceive this humility in little to no people.
Sorry for this wall of text. I guess too many thoughts have accumulated over a good period of time.
TL;DR: Humans should be more humble about how “self made” they really are.
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On February 07 2022 17:44 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:
Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I really like your post here and think it will generate good discussion. I only have time to add to point 3. If a system delivers systematically worse results for a certain subset of people, it's objectively not fair. For instance, if you design a game where only kids abive a certain height can win (say touch a dot with your foot and another with a hand that is very far away) and then you give prizes to the winners, you'd say the game was unfair. I don't think this is debatable.
Do you consider professional basketball to be unfair?
If not, what do you see as the substantive difference?
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On February 07 2022 11:17 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 07:12 BlackJack wrote:On February 07 2022 04:21 ChristianS wrote:On February 06 2022 06:34 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 06 2022 06:19 ChristianS wrote:On February 06 2022 03:37 farvacola wrote:On February 06 2022 03:23 ChristianS wrote:
@Biff: Harriet Beecher Stowe was “cancelled” in like 1870 for accusing Lord Byron of having an affair with his sister. Obviously the specific dynamics have changed a lot in 150 years - no Notes app apologies in 1870 - but some of this is just dynamics of public discourse and celebrity that have existed basically as long as there’s been public discourse and celebrity.
This is part of the problem with “cancel culture” as a concept: it encompasses way too broad a set of phenomena, some objectionable, some not, some new, some very old. The most obviously objectionable version (some random regular person having their life destroyed over some minor perceived offense by millions of internet users) doesn’t happen all that often but it’s certainly awful. The least objectionable version (famous people, especially politicians, being criticized for their opinions) is by far the most frequent situation in which cancel culture is invoked.
Side note: who actually got disappeared from public spaces? I know individual episodes of some tv shows got taken off streaming platforms, but you can still watch, like, Kevin Spacey movies or Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you want, no one’s stopping you. If anything, the type of cancellation that comes closest to that described by Biff was the kind practiced by the Church with respect to folks like Galileo. In more recent memory I think a lot of Red Scare stuff had similar dynamics. Or even more recent, the Dixie Chicks. I mean, there are clearly some bad social dynamics in some of these cases - scapegoating, herd mentality, etc. It does feel like the typical internet experience promotes a sort of drive-by judgmentalism that makes this sort of thing more common. I could almost imagine finding rare common ground with conservatives about the evils of “cancel culture,” except their ideas about it are so incoherent. Most of the supposed “cancellations” are just someone being criticized, maybe becoming the Twitter main character for a day. When people have faced actual consequences, often they’re either a result of voluntary resignations or their employer following legal avenues to cut ties because they want to avoid bad PR. What exactly do conservatives think should have happened instead? Who are we even supposed to be mad at? The answer usually seems to be “the amorphous mob of people who are criticizing them,” which reduces to a conception of tolerance in which no one is allowed to criticize anyone. Even more incoherent, the same people yelling about “cancel culture” are frequently the ones trying to get principals and school administrators fired for “CRT,” the definition of which is infinitely malleable but frequently means little more than “they gave a public statement in 2020 vaguely endorsing racial equity.” This, too, follows a lot of the same social dynamics. If that principal tweeted a Notes app apology it would not feel out of place. So even if conservatives were just promoting a vague idea of ideological tolerance or “don’t try to get people fired because you’re mad at them,” they either don’t realize the inconsistencies with their other positions, or don’t care. It can be problematic to treat conservatives as a monolith and isolate particular segments saying contradictory things and then say, "conservatives are incoherent and so I dismiss their views on this subject." There are good faith and valid points that are worth considering and potentially finding common ground on. Personally I don't think that online mobs should act with the intent of suppressing particular ideas by removing the speaker from digital platforms, even when the speaker is a public figure. Several years back on this very forum I think I nicknamed this phenomenon the “ambiguous they” - i.e., if you say “they hate cancel culture” and “they love firing people for CRT” there’s potentially a difference in who is saying these things, so you haven’t necessarily caught anyone in a contradiction. That said, can you honestly say with a straight face you think there’s a schism in the modern right wing between the Cancel Culture folks and the Critical Race Theory folks? Anecdotally I haven’t met a conservative who says “I think cancel culture is bad, and that’s why I can’t support what my fellow Republicans are doing over CRT” or, alternatively, “CRT is destroying our society and that’s why I don’t think cancel culture is actually bad.” I’ve met several who would probably agree with both “cancel culture is proof the left hates free speech” and “CRT is a threat to our children and its promoters must be stopped.” Pick any run-of-the-mill right-wing commentator and I bet you can find, within the last 5 years, demands to punish Kaepernick, an article or two decrying cancel culture, and fearmongering over CRT in that same person’s body of work. But I’ll consider an interesting argument from anyone. Let’s discuss this: Personally I don't think that online mobs should act with the intent of suppressing particular ideas by removing the speaker from digital platforms, even when the speaker is a public figure. To be clear, this is not incoherent, and I think has (at least some) answers to my questions. Who should we be yelling at? The internet mobs. What do we think should happen differently? They shouldn’t act with the intent of getting somebody banned. It’s interesting, though, that you jumped to thinking of an internet moderation question. That certainly comes up in “cancel culture” conversations, but of the underserved consequences cancel culture could inflict on you, I have to think “banned from Twitter” is pretty minor. People are getting fired. They’re getting doxxed and spammed with death threats. In some cases people are calling CPS or animal abuse hotlines trying to get someone’s kids or pets taken away. Next to that, who cares they can’t post memes any more? But okay, let’s talk about banning people. Internet moderation has taken a weird path in the last few years; to me the most straightforward summary is that every major platform had an aggressively lassez-faire policy, motivated by some John Stuart Mill “marketplace of ideas”-type conceptions, and all of them absolutely bent over backwards to defend inaction even as it was clear people like Trump would push that line as far as they could. In fact there was a huge carve out for “public figures.” Then Trump incited a mob to try to overthrow the government most of those tech companies live under, and it was like the rubber band broke. There was a wave of heavier moderation across the internet - right here on TL, Danglars got banned in that same wave! Like, do you have a particular example of ideas you think are being unfairly banned? I tend to think that snap back was a bit of an over-correction, but at the same time, whenever I hear conservatives yelling about this their examples are the most egregiously banworthy shit, and their “solutions” are truly unhinged (e.g. kill section 230 and put the government in charge of who can and can’t be banned). This post is already way too long so I’ll shut up now, but I hope you can see: I’m earnestly in favor of finding common ground, building bridges, etc. But I think that process has to start with an honest evaluation of just how wide and deep a chasm we’re bridging. I agree there's significant overlap between the people that decry cancel culture and the people that rant about CRT in school. I don't necessarily agree that this is some kind of hypocrisy. I'm someone that is "against cancel culture" and would defend people like Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan. But if Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle were speaking their ideas in front of a classroom of children then I would join in calling for their termination. However, I wouldn't conflate that with "cancel culture." Just like earlier when people tried to call ousting an incumbent politician as "canceling" them, I don't think this is a good example. You've already provided a good example if you want to demonstrate right-wing hypocrisy on cancel culture: The Dixie Chicks. I also think it's unfair to frame being deplatformed from Twitter/Social Media sites as "being unable to post memes anymore." These sites are the public forum of our times. A sort of digital town square. A small group of people in silicon valley determining who should and shouldn't be silenced from the public forum is not the kind of small potatoes of not being able to post memes anymore. The ACLU has been around forever and has defended the free speech rights of Nazis/KKK/pedophiles, etc. Just in the last few years they have started to turn woke and now are becoming less inclined to defend the speech of people they don't agree with. The ACLU has probably done more than any other organization to defend free speech in the United States and I think it's very bad if they start to drift towards the idea of "We're going to defend free speech as long it doesn't offend anyone or isn't controversial or doesn't disagree with our values." Although it's probably 'worse' when some Joe Schmoe gets doxxed, I don't think it's any less objectionable when a celebrity gets cancelled just because they have millions of dollars to fall back on. In a way I think it's worse for society because of how much we idolize celebrities, it's likely to cause reverberations onto broader society of people practicing self-censorship because they are scared to speak their mind. I think a good example is what's in the news right now regarding the transgender swimmer from UPENN. It's obvious she has an unfair biological advantage over her teammates from living the vast majority of her life as a male but her teammates refuse to say it publicly. Instead, 16 of them wrote anonymously to the University and the Ivy League about the unfairness of it. It's a really sad state of affairs when they are afraid to publicly say something that is completely reasonable because they don't want to be labeled a bigot. They have to pretend they are so happy to be dominated by someone with an unfair advantage over them while privately they write a letter anonymously to ask the rules to be changed. Big quote chains on this forum have a tendency to devolve into multiple parallel disagreements rather than focusing on the larger point. For instance, I have a temptation to split up this reply in a section arguing CRT frequently does resemble cancel culture, a section arguing "free speech" as the ACLU has historically defended it has very little to do with questions of internet moderation, etc. I'll mostly skip those conversations because I think this chain will rapidly become unreadable – I will, at least, say that I think a case like James Whitfield's firing in Texas has all the characteristics a typical "cancel culture" case has, and if you have time to research it, I'd be very interested to hear if you feel differently and why. (The link is to a This American Life story on it, feel free to find alternate sources if you hate Ira Glass or something) Instead I'll argue something I think is frequently missed (especially by conservatives, but often liberals, too), which is that I think fundamentally, "cancel culture" is a systemic issue. Since "systemic" is a word used very differently in a lot of different contexts without much explanation, I'll try to clarify my usage: some societal problems are individual problems, meaning that there is an individual or group of individuals who are misbehaving. If you imagine a "contract" + Show Spoiler [diction] +using that word makes me sound like some free market economist who thinks of society as a collection of contracts between homines economici, but I don't have a better word to use between those individuals and society, by which they are expected to act in certain ways and they get various benefits in return, those individuals aren't meeting the terms of the contract. Littering, for example, is an individual problem: there are specific people who are misbehaving, and if we convince those people to stop misbehaving, the problem will go away. Systemic problems occur when an individual person is meeting the terms of their contract, but they're not getting the benefits they're entitled to. That is, if we consider the contract between, on the one side, the individual person and, on the other, a theoretical entity or "system" representing the mental aggregation of all the people on the other side of that contract, the "system" isn't treating them fairly. The hard part, though, is that if you change your focus to any of the individuals that make up that "system," they're all more or less meeting their contracts, too. The fault doesn't exist in the people, it exists, somehow, in the spaces between them. Consider one component of "cancel culture," online harassment (we can leave out actions from authorities, like being banned from Twitter, fired from their job, etc. for now). An individual says or does something that at least minorly offends "the internet." They become the main character on Twitter or something. That individual will now find that any time they open Twitter, they're bombarded with (at least) thousands of notifications of various strangers on the internet dragging them in various ways. That's already a miserable experience, sometimes traumatizing. Suddenly millions of strangers know their name, and are competing with each other to curse it in varyingly clever ways. And in all likelihood, if we examine the individual's "offense" for which they're receiving this "punishment" we'll think it's extremely minor, if it's an offense at all. They'll probably feel like they've been dealt with pretty unfairly. But whose fault is it? All those millions of strangers aren't really doing anything wrong, per se. Some of them are probably being at least uncivil, and in a real world case a few might be sending mean DMs, doxxing, sending death threats, etc., which are malicious acts. But even if nobody crossed a line like that (and since this is my hypothetical, I can just say nobody did), the individual will still (reasonably, I think) say this isn't fair. And if some people do start doing obviously malicious things, I don't think it's sufficient to say "this is an individual problem of a few bad actors sending mean DMs, etc., and the solution is just for nobody to do that." The system has offered up this individual's actions to the drive-by judgment of millions of people, and handed every one of those millions of people a button they can push to do a malicious act in response; even if only .001% of them choose to push that button, it will still be thousands of people's malicious acts piled on that one individual. That the problem is systemic should not diminish any of your sense of injustice about it. But it does help to understand why it's so difficult to solve. I think conservatives tend to attribute "cancel culture" as a problem caused by "the left's censorious attitudes" or some such, which is a sufficiently diffuse culprit that they can feel righteously indignant without having to offer much in the way of solutions besides, I don't know, winning the culture war and forcing all the leftists to hide in holes. But if their concerns about "cancel culture" were sincere they would find, even if they won the culture war, that the problem hadn't been solved, or even really ameliorated, because the problem was never localized to those leftists in the first place; it's an emergent property of the sorts of associations people are forming with each other, and the rules by which those associations proceed.
I listened to that This American Life episode on the way home from work. It's kind of scant on the details. At one point they mention the school board gave a list of reasons they decided not to renew the principals contract but unfortunately they chose not to relay what they were and only declared that they were laughably bad. I tried googling it but the few articles I read were basically all the same: racist school district fires black principal over email he wrote over a year ago. None of them really drew a straight line to the email and his termination. None of them provided the list of reasons the school board used to justify not renewing his contract or even an explanation for why a racist school district would hire a black principal in the first place. Ever since my 5th grade teacher got me to agree to ban dihydrogen monoxide I've tried to withhold judgement on things until I've heard both sides of the story fully so I won't say much more. Although I don't doubt that there are plenty of conservative racists that attend these school board meetings to rant about CRT and it's certainly very possible the principal was wrongfully terminated.
I think your other point is eloquent, but this component of cancel culture where individuals draw the ire of million of random internet strangers doesn't really concern me that much. In fact, sometimes I am right along side with them. Did you see that investment banker guy that threw that smoothie at those girls a couple weeks ago and then got arrested and lost his job? Fuck that guy. Maybe the punishment is too harsh for these people but the alternative is often that these people would go unpunished entirely for their shitty behavior.
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On February 07 2022 20:27 smille wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent. 4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white. + Show Spoiler +
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I agree with much of what you wrote and wanted to give my thoughts on 3) and 4). So for 3), this obviously does not only apply to black people, but a whole bunch of other groups. I think it is understandable though that something like CRT is being researched, especially in the context of black people, given the more than problematic history the US have in these regards. However, it is a disadvantage that applies to most individuals, who happen to be in groups that are statistically poorer than the average person. I hope CRT focuses on that enough because what it all boils down to for me is, that many problems could be addressed, by rethinking our concept of inheritance and then fixing estate taxes. I totally get the idea to work your ass of, in order to provide your offspring with the best possible starting position, but it just gives birth to so many problems. Coming to 4), I see the point that it generally feels insulting. However, in my experience, reminding someone of their privileges would have been a very appropriate response for so many people I’ve talked to. Again, I would like decouple this a bit from the racial discussion, because as a German, I am too far removed from the racial aspect, but still think I can relate to the general issue from a societal standpoint. To be more precise, I think basically all people are privileged to some degree. Hence, it is important for us to be very aware of these privileges. What I experienced though, is a wide-spread mindset that people in good positions have accomplished this completely on their own through hard work. Surely, this is a complex topic, but I think admitting that you whatever situation you are in, is not solely your own achievement is quite reasonable. The lack of critical thinking in adults in this regard is rather troublesome to me. As an example, when it comes to income taxes, most people think every cent they have to pay in taxes, is them being robbed by the state. Sure, they went out of their way to become good at something, but they tend to ignore that they only could get this far, because they largely profited from the existing infrastructure (schools, university, companies and so much more) they were born into. This is not to say, that the state was directly responsible for said infrastructure, but it certainly is the foundation for it and the privilege all citizens (with access to it) benefit from. Completing the circle to white privilege: If you are born into the US you already have some privilege, regardless of skin color. If you are born white, it is less likely that you were born into severe poverty. If you don’t have black skin, you encounter considerably less prejudice against you on the base of your appearance. The list goes on. I don’t say one should feel guilty for being born the way you are, but you should always remember that you did, in fact, achieve nothing completely on your own. Note, that this applies to black people as well: Them being aware of their (restricted) privileges would be helpful for debates. Unfortunately, I perceive this humility in little to no people.Sorry for this wall of text. I guess too many thoughts have accumulated over a good period of time. TL;DR: Humans should be more humble about how “self made” they really are.
I think this is a really important distinction, especially since being offended or insulted isn't the same as not having privilege. Perhaps the facts could be delivered in a more easily digestible, tactful manner to those who would get upset learning that they don't face as many prejudices as others, and it should surely be noted that having white privilege isn't the same as assuming that white people face no hardships or difficulties in life, but at the end of the day, privilege truly is a thing.
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Norway28674 Posts
On February 07 2022 17:44 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 14:59 gobbledydook wrote:
Critical Race Theory is a theory that examines the effect of policies and systems on race, and how policies and systems with no explicit race discrimination can nevertheless favour the majority White race over other races.
There are a few points of contention right now, which are often conflated and result in meaningless arguments.
1) Is the academic CRT theory being taught in schools? Clearly the answer is no.
2) Are white people, overall, achieving better outcomes than black people in the current systems? Clearly the answer is yes.
3) Does the fact that white people achieve better outcomes than black people on average mean the system is unfair? This is something that can be debated. I am inclined to believe that it is indeed harder for black people to excel, given equal talent.
4) Are white people inherently privileged because of that? I find it difficult to argue that this is valid on an individual level and I find it insulting when someone gets told to 'check their white privilege' because they are white.
5) Should it be taught in schools that white people are privileged because of their race? Some school districts were trying to put elements of this concept in their curriculum. I think this is a clear no. I think this is also what most parents that are against CRT are really against, but for lack of a better term blame CRT. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that the conclusion of CRT theory is that white people are privileged.
6) Should standards be lowered for 'non-privileged' races? This is the core concept behind affirmative action, particularly in college admissions and in race quotas. This can be debated, but I think it should be no, and the equity problem described in 3) should be solved by improving the resource allocation earlier in life so black children have the same opportunities as white children, instead of lowering the standards after the fact.
I really like your post here and think it will generate good discussion. I only have time to add to point 3. If a system delivers systematically worse results for a certain subset of people, it's objectively not fair. For instance, if you design a game where only kids abive a certain height can win (say touch a dot with your foot and another with a hand that is very far away) and then you give prizes to the winners, you'd say the game was unfair. I don't think this is debatable.
I mean, you can state that black, white and asian children perform differently in schools based on a) inherent ability or b) parents/their surrounding culture and think this is not part of 'the system' - there is a logically sound argument to be made here.
a) is explicitly racist, and imo, can be entirely dismissed (it being logically sound does not make it factually sound). It's still an argument you'll see floating around though, but normally people are a bit cautious about making it. However, people insisting on having debates around 'iq of different races' and 'iq is primarily inherited' are often actually trying to make this precise point: There's no point in attempting to fix the system to reduce inequalities between races (or 'different subsets of people') because they are inherently different and with different inherent abilities.
b) is trickier, because you most certainly see different performances for different subsets of people based on their socioeconomical background, education level of their parents, etc. 'How many books does your family own' is (or at least used to be), on a group level, a reasonable way of assessing your school performance. In Norway, there have been studies showing that people with 'lower class names' are significantly more likely to end up in jail and with lower income and educational levels than people with names associated with wealth, are - the difference in 'societal performance' between guys named 'Ronny' compared with guys named 'Preben Andrè' are staggering.
And then it's possible to make the argument that 'asians perform better in school because their parents to a greater degree push academic performance as a goal' - which, from my outsidery perspective, has some truth to it. However, it does not address 'what are the reasons behind the socioeconomical backgrounds of african american youth on average being less conductive for future great academic performance' - and then you end up with more systemic reasoning - when several generations experience that they might be tortured to death for showing an ability to read, and we know that children tend to be offspring of their parents, there's no real surprise that there might still exist a cultural difference in terms of how cherished of an activity reading is. Add to it stuff like more single parents (pew) working double jobs, and you're left with less real opportunity to give children help with homework, and you can have many factors that influence academic performance without 'the school system' actively discriminating.
Then, there ARE real systemic reasons too (I understand that public schools in the US tend to be funded by housing taxes of the surrounding region?), meaning that the wealth disparities - which have reproduced themselves during and since slavery (and while I'm no expert on the matter, I understand in the US you've had some housing acts/policies that gave white people free/inexpensive property that black people did not have access to) also reproduce themselves in terms of 'quality of education given to different subsets of people' (which again, as future job earning is influenced by quality of education, adds to the reproduction of wealth disparity, which again contributes to differently funded schools, etc).
But this stuff is genuinely difficult to grasp for a lot of people, who see 'well slavery was 170 years ago' and 'civil rights act was 60 years ago' and 'it's illegal to systemically discriminate these days, what are they complaining about'. While people who fall into the 'a)' section of the initial part of my post are largely irredeemable racists, for people who to various degrees find themselves in the b) section, where there's some truth mixed with some conjecture and prejudice mixed with fairly complex historical and sociological mechanisms, creating an understanding of how these mixes actually constitute 'the system' is no easy task - probably not one most teachers are really equipped to handle.
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Yes, the current system is heavily weighted towards those that have more money with an additional handicap based on ethnicity/gender/etc. It is unfair for all the reasons you've mentioned.
Since blackjack didn't like my reaching analogy, here's a more 'real-world example'. Take a rowing challenge.
Kid A has wealthy parents and they've spent $1M in their kid's equipment, it's an ultra-light, ultra-low profile, and low-water resistance boat, with paddles made from some super strong, super light material that add some springiness and hence some additional power.
Kid B picked up a bathtub from a dump, plugged the hole with some tape and glued on supports for their paddles, which are just two shovels their dad found lying around in between his two shifts at the restaurant.
They compete and kid A blows kid B out of the water and wins a scholarship to Harvard for their efforts.
Would you call that a fair race?
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Whether white people are privileged or not in the US, I hope we can all agree how wrong it is to censor and erase the actual history of race-based injustices in this country. I think it is very similar and equally bad to schools teaching creationism in their science classes.
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On February 07 2022 20:50 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2022 11:17 ChristianS wrote:On February 07 2022 07:12 BlackJack wrote:On February 07 2022 04:21 ChristianS wrote:On February 06 2022 06:34 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 06 2022 06:19 ChristianS wrote:On February 06 2022 03:37 farvacola wrote:On February 06 2022 03:23 ChristianS wrote:
@Biff: Harriet Beecher Stowe was “cancelled” in like 1870 for accusing Lord Byron of having an affair with his sister. Obviously the specific dynamics have changed a lot in 150 years - no Notes app apologies in 1870 - but some of this is just dynamics of public discourse and celebrity that have existed basically as long as there’s been public discourse and celebrity.
This is part of the problem with “cancel culture” as a concept: it encompasses way too broad a set of phenomena, some objectionable, some not, some new, some very old. The most obviously objectionable version (some random regular person having their life destroyed over some minor perceived offense by millions of internet users) doesn’t happen all that often but it’s certainly awful. The least objectionable version (famous people, especially politicians, being criticized for their opinions) is by far the most frequent situation in which cancel culture is invoked.
Side note: who actually got disappeared from public spaces? I know individual episodes of some tv shows got taken off streaming platforms, but you can still watch, like, Kevin Spacey movies or Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you want, no one’s stopping you. If anything, the type of cancellation that comes closest to that described by Biff was the kind practiced by the Church with respect to folks like Galileo. In more recent memory I think a lot of Red Scare stuff had similar dynamics. Or even more recent, the Dixie Chicks. I mean, there are clearly some bad social dynamics in some of these cases - scapegoating, herd mentality, etc. It does feel like the typical internet experience promotes a sort of drive-by judgmentalism that makes this sort of thing more common. I could almost imagine finding rare common ground with conservatives about the evils of “cancel culture,” except their ideas about it are so incoherent. Most of the supposed “cancellations” are just someone being criticized, maybe becoming the Twitter main character for a day. When people have faced actual consequences, often they’re either a result of voluntary resignations or their employer following legal avenues to cut ties because they want to avoid bad PR. What exactly do conservatives think should have happened instead? Who are we even supposed to be mad at? The answer usually seems to be “the amorphous mob of people who are criticizing them,” which reduces to a conception of tolerance in which no one is allowed to criticize anyone. Even more incoherent, the same people yelling about “cancel culture” are frequently the ones trying to get principals and school administrators fired for “CRT,” the definition of which is infinitely malleable but frequently means little more than “they gave a public statement in 2020 vaguely endorsing racial equity.” This, too, follows a lot of the same social dynamics. If that principal tweeted a Notes app apology it would not feel out of place. So even if conservatives were just promoting a vague idea of ideological tolerance or “don’t try to get people fired because you’re mad at them,” they either don’t realize the inconsistencies with their other positions, or don’t care. It can be problematic to treat conservatives as a monolith and isolate particular segments saying contradictory things and then say, "conservatives are incoherent and so I dismiss their views on this subject." There are good faith and valid points that are worth considering and potentially finding common ground on. Personally I don't think that online mobs should act with the intent of suppressing particular ideas by removing the speaker from digital platforms, even when the speaker is a public figure. Several years back on this very forum I think I nicknamed this phenomenon the “ambiguous they” - i.e., if you say “they hate cancel culture” and “they love firing people for CRT” there’s potentially a difference in who is saying these things, so you haven’t necessarily caught anyone in a contradiction. That said, can you honestly say with a straight face you think there’s a schism in the modern right wing between the Cancel Culture folks and the Critical Race Theory folks? Anecdotally I haven’t met a conservative who says “I think cancel culture is bad, and that’s why I can’t support what my fellow Republicans are doing over CRT” or, alternatively, “CRT is destroying our society and that’s why I don’t think cancel culture is actually bad.” I’ve met several who would probably agree with both “cancel culture is proof the left hates free speech” and “CRT is a threat to our children and its promoters must be stopped.” Pick any run-of-the-mill right-wing commentator and I bet you can find, within the last 5 years, demands to punish Kaepernick, an article or two decrying cancel culture, and fearmongering over CRT in that same person’s body of work. But I’ll consider an interesting argument from anyone. Let’s discuss this: Personally I don't think that online mobs should act with the intent of suppressing particular ideas by removing the speaker from digital platforms, even when the speaker is a public figure. To be clear, this is not incoherent, and I think has (at least some) answers to my questions. Who should we be yelling at? The internet mobs. What do we think should happen differently? They shouldn’t act with the intent of getting somebody banned. It’s interesting, though, that you jumped to thinking of an internet moderation question. That certainly comes up in “cancel culture” conversations, but of the underserved consequences cancel culture could inflict on you, I have to think “banned from Twitter” is pretty minor. People are getting fired. They’re getting doxxed and spammed with death threats. In some cases people are calling CPS or animal abuse hotlines trying to get someone’s kids or pets taken away. Next to that, who cares they can’t post memes any more? But okay, let’s talk about banning people. Internet moderation has taken a weird path in the last few years; to me the most straightforward summary is that every major platform had an aggressively lassez-faire policy, motivated by some John Stuart Mill “marketplace of ideas”-type conceptions, and all of them absolutely bent over backwards to defend inaction even as it was clear people like Trump would push that line as far as they could. In fact there was a huge carve out for “public figures.” Then Trump incited a mob to try to overthrow the government most of those tech companies live under, and it was like the rubber band broke. There was a wave of heavier moderation across the internet - right here on TL, Danglars got banned in that same wave! Like, do you have a particular example of ideas you think are being unfairly banned? I tend to think that snap back was a bit of an over-correction, but at the same time, whenever I hear conservatives yelling about this their examples are the most egregiously banworthy shit, and their “solutions” are truly unhinged (e.g. kill section 230 and put the government in charge of who can and can’t be banned). This post is already way too long so I’ll shut up now, but I hope you can see: I’m earnestly in favor of finding common ground, building bridges, etc. But I think that process has to start with an honest evaluation of just how wide and deep a chasm we’re bridging. I agree there's significant overlap between the people that decry cancel culture and the people that rant about CRT in school. I don't necessarily agree that this is some kind of hypocrisy. I'm someone that is "against cancel culture" and would defend people like Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan. But if Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle were speaking their ideas in front of a classroom of children then I would join in calling for their termination. However, I wouldn't conflate that with "cancel culture." Just like earlier when people tried to call ousting an incumbent politician as "canceling" them, I don't think this is a good example. You've already provided a good example if you want to demonstrate right-wing hypocrisy on cancel culture: The Dixie Chicks. I also think it's unfair to frame being deplatformed from Twitter/Social Media sites as "being unable to post memes anymore." These sites are the public forum of our times. A sort of digital town square. A small group of people in silicon valley determining who should and shouldn't be silenced from the public forum is not the kind of small potatoes of not being able to post memes anymore. The ACLU has been around forever and has defended the free speech rights of Nazis/KKK/pedophiles, etc. Just in the last few years they have started to turn woke and now are becoming less inclined to defend the speech of people they don't agree with. The ACLU has probably done more than any other organization to defend free speech in the United States and I think it's very bad if they start to drift towards the idea of "We're going to defend free speech as long it doesn't offend anyone or isn't controversial or doesn't disagree with our values." Although it's probably 'worse' when some Joe Schmoe gets doxxed, I don't think it's any less objectionable when a celebrity gets cancelled just because they have millions of dollars to fall back on. In a way I think it's worse for society because of how much we idolize celebrities, it's likely to cause reverberations onto broader society of people practicing self-censorship because they are scared to speak their mind. I think a good example is what's in the news right now regarding the transgender swimmer from UPENN. It's obvious she has an unfair biological advantage over her teammates from living the vast majority of her life as a male but her teammates refuse to say it publicly. Instead, 16 of them wrote anonymously to the University and the Ivy League about the unfairness of it. It's a really sad state of affairs when they are afraid to publicly say something that is completely reasonable because they don't want to be labeled a bigot. They have to pretend they are so happy to be dominated by someone with an unfair advantage over them while privately they write a letter anonymously to ask the rules to be changed. Big quote chains on this forum have a tendency to devolve into multiple parallel disagreements rather than focusing on the larger point. For instance, I have a temptation to split up this reply in a section arguing CRT frequently does resemble cancel culture, a section arguing "free speech" as the ACLU has historically defended it has very little to do with questions of internet moderation, etc. I'll mostly skip those conversations because I think this chain will rapidly become unreadable – I will, at least, say that I think a case like James Whitfield's firing in Texas has all the characteristics a typical "cancel culture" case has, and if you have time to research it, I'd be very interested to hear if you feel differently and why. (The link is to a This American Life story on it, feel free to find alternate sources if you hate Ira Glass or something) Instead I'll argue something I think is frequently missed (especially by conservatives, but often liberals, too), which is that I think fundamentally, "cancel culture" is a systemic issue. Since "systemic" is a word used very differently in a lot of different contexts without much explanation, I'll try to clarify my usage: some societal problems are individual problems, meaning that there is an individual or group of individuals who are misbehaving. If you imagine a "contract" + Show Spoiler [diction] +using that word makes me sound like some free market economist who thinks of society as a collection of contracts between homines economici, but I don't have a better word to use between those individuals and society, by which they are expected to act in certain ways and they get various benefits in return, those individuals aren't meeting the terms of the contract. Littering, for example, is an individual problem: there are specific people who are misbehaving, and if we convince those people to stop misbehaving, the problem will go away. Systemic problems occur when an individual person is meeting the terms of their contract, but they're not getting the benefits they're entitled to. That is, if we consider the contract between, on the one side, the individual person and, on the other, a theoretical entity or "system" representing the mental aggregation of all the people on the other side of that contract, the "system" isn't treating them fairly. The hard part, though, is that if you change your focus to any of the individuals that make up that "system," they're all more or less meeting their contracts, too. The fault doesn't exist in the people, it exists, somehow, in the spaces between them. Consider one component of "cancel culture," online harassment (we can leave out actions from authorities, like being banned from Twitter, fired from their job, etc. for now). An individual says or does something that at least minorly offends "the internet." They become the main character on Twitter or something. That individual will now find that any time they open Twitter, they're bombarded with (at least) thousands of notifications of various strangers on the internet dragging them in various ways. That's already a miserable experience, sometimes traumatizing. Suddenly millions of strangers know their name, and are competing with each other to curse it in varyingly clever ways. And in all likelihood, if we examine the individual's "offense" for which they're receiving this "punishment" we'll think it's extremely minor, if it's an offense at all. They'll probably feel like they've been dealt with pretty unfairly. But whose fault is it? All those millions of strangers aren't really doing anything wrong, per se. Some of them are probably being at least uncivil, and in a real world case a few might be sending mean DMs, doxxing, sending death threats, etc., which are malicious acts. But even if nobody crossed a line like that (and since this is my hypothetical, I can just say nobody did), the individual will still (reasonably, I think) say this isn't fair. And if some people do start doing obviously malicious things, I don't think it's sufficient to say "this is an individual problem of a few bad actors sending mean DMs, etc., and the solution is just for nobody to do that." The system has offered up this individual's actions to the drive-by judgment of millions of people, and handed every one of those millions of people a button they can push to do a malicious act in response; even if only .001% of them choose to push that button, it will still be thousands of people's malicious acts piled on that one individual. That the problem is systemic should not diminish any of your sense of injustice about it. But it does help to understand why it's so difficult to solve. I think conservatives tend to attribute "cancel culture" as a problem caused by "the left's censorious attitudes" or some such, which is a sufficiently diffuse culprit that they can feel righteously indignant without having to offer much in the way of solutions besides, I don't know, winning the culture war and forcing all the leftists to hide in holes. But if their concerns about "cancel culture" were sincere they would find, even if they won the culture war, that the problem hadn't been solved, or even really ameliorated, because the problem was never localized to those leftists in the first place; it's an emergent property of the sorts of associations people are forming with each other, and the rules by which those associations proceed. I listened to that This American Life episode on the way home from work. It's kind of scant on the details. At one point they mention the school board gave a list of reasons they decided not to renew the principals contract but unfortunately they chose not to relay what they were and only declared that they were laughably bad. I tried googling it but the few articles I read were basically all the same: racist school district fires black principal over email he wrote over a year ago. None of them really drew a straight line to the email and his termination. None of them provided the list of reasons the school board used to justify not renewing his contract or even an explanation for why a racist school district would hire a black principal in the first place. Ever since my 5th grade teacher got me to agree to ban dihydrogen monoxide I've tried to withhold judgement on things until I've heard both sides of the story fully so I won't say much more. Although I don't doubt that there are plenty of conservative racists that attend these school board meetings to rant about CRT and it's certainly very possible the principal was wrongfully terminated. I think your other point is eloquent, but this component of cancel culture where individuals draw the ire of million of random internet strangers doesn't really concern me that much. In fact, sometimes I am right along side with them. Did you see that investment banker guy that threw that smoothie at those girls a couple weeks ago and then got arrested and lost his job? Fuck that guy. Maybe the punishment is too harsh for these people but the alternative is often that these people would go unpunished entirely for their shitty behavior.
+ Show Spoiler [I really did mean this to be an aside] +I went on a bit of a Google hole on this Whitfield thing and found the Board of Trustees session where they have their reasons for non-renewal (dunno how to link timestamps but it starts ~4 hr 45 minute mark, and goes for ~15 minutes). They’re pretty explicit that they can’t discuss details of his personnel file so they can’t really tell us what the definite offenses are, but they still manage to talk for fifteen minutes in pure bureaucrat-ese, like Pursuant to Section 1.1 of the Texas Code of Professional Ethics with Regard to Teachers, Dr. Whitfield’s supervisor met with him on August 11th, and summarized the meeting in a memo dated August 16th. In that meeting… (Not an actual quote, but it’s more or less that type of thing. I’m not surprised they didn’t think they could put any of that in a ~20 minute radio piece) I’m not fluent in bureaucrat-ese but the best I can piece together, they think he doesn’t act very professional, and they’re mad he gave comment to the media about some stuff instead of following internal confidential district complaint procedures. FWIW Whitfield was put on administrative leave ~3 weeks after a public comment hearing in August where angry commenters were shouting that he was pushing CRT and should be fired, but they *insist* his firing has nothing to do with CRT, even though they mention “dividing the community by talking about racism and CRT” among the reasons for firing him. This is complicated, though, by a pre-existing and only tangentially-related “scandal” in which (as I understand it) he posted photographs of himself and his (white) wife on the beach together to his private Facebook. This made a lot of members of the community mad and precipitated a lot of the later controversy over CRT.
I’m not familiar with the story of the banker but I’m a bit surprised by your reaction to it. I suppose (and I’m only guessing here) for you the more important problem is not that people are being dealt with unfairly, but that people are unwilling to say what they really think for fear of reprisal. If we could eliminate the latter, the former wouldn’t bother you so much.
I don’t think you can really separate them, though, because the unfair dealing is the reprisal people fear. There’s a lot of factors that go into this, but to simplify, the only two things you need for cancellation are attention and outrage (and of the two, attention is by far more important). The exact nature of the offense doesn’t matter all that much, except insomuch as it determines how much attention and outrage it gets. If the banker had murdered the girls instead of throwing a smoothie at them it would modulate law enforcement’s response quite a bit, but I’m not sure the online mob would behave all that differently.
This is part of why so many cancellations are over apparently minor precipitating events, often paired with other more serious allegations which have been public for years with no public outcry. “Bean Dad”’s titular offense was (iirc) telling his young daughter to figure out how to open a can of beans herself instead of asking him to do it. Bad parenting? Arguably. Mortal sin? Almost certainly not, but anyone who raised an objection could be directed to his years of anti-Semitic troll posting and told to defend *that* or stfu. But that stuff had been public for years; it was the bean thing that did it.
The other thing that can’t be ignored is that all the attention can be pretty useful, too. If you really did have an interesting viewpoint people should consider, and you were getting canceled for it, you’d never have a better opportunity to spread that viewpoint to every corner of the Earth. There’s money in it, too. Some percent of the people who saw your thing will, for one reason or another, decide you’re their guy and be willing to subscribe to your substack or buy your merch or maybe just put money in your PayPal. James Whitfield will probably run for office or something. I haven’t checked, but I bet Bean Dad has a substack or something with 10,000 subscribers paying him $5 a month.
The grift of it is certainly one of the reasons people are dismissive of the issue of “cancel culture.” Everybody you’re supposed to be feeling sorry for seems to be getting fabulously wealthy off of it. But I think that’s one of the bigger reasons it’s a problem: I’d like our national (and international!) discourse to be influenced more by regular people with normal jobs and obligations and sensibilities, and less by narcissists whose brains have been broken by Online and 8-figure bank accounts and a deep, insatiable need to be on the minds and lips of millions of people at any given time.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 08 2022 02:22 Starlightsun wrote:
Whether white people are privileged or not in the US, I hope we can all agree how wrong it is to censor and erase the actual history of race-based injustices in this country. I think it is very similar and equally bad to schools teaching creationism in their science classes.
I hope that "censor and erase the actual history of race-based injustices in this country" is not being used as a proxy here for "opposing CRT." There might be some racism going on there - hard to tell since very few people properly engage the question of "what is & isn't CRT" and mostly just take a side - but much of the core concern is about kids getting indoctrinated with pseudo-social-science that makes some really dodgy propositions in the name of being anti-racist.
I still don't know if that New York initiative to remove gifted & talented programs "because of racism" is considered part of CRT - that was definitely debated for a while earlier in the thread. But I wouldn't call it "censoring and erasing the history of race-based injustices in the country" to be aggressively against that particular initiative, for example.
My bad if I read too much into it and this wasn't a defense of CRT; a lot of people defend it this way but it really could just be saying exactly what you said as well.
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On February 08 2022 02:40 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2022 02:22 Starlightsun wrote:
Whether white people are privileged or not in the US, I hope we can all agree how wrong it is to censor and erase the actual history of race-based injustices in this country. I think it is very similar and equally bad to schools teaching creationism in their science classes. I hope that "censor and erase the actual history of race-based injustices in this country" is not being used as a proxy here for "opposing CRT." There might be some racism going on there - hard to tell since very few people properly engage the question of "what is & isn't CRT" and mostly just take a side - but much of the core concern is about kids getting indoctrinated with pseudo-social-science that makes some really dodgy propositions in the name of being anti-racist. I still don't know if that New York initiative to remove gifted & talented programs "because of racism" is considered part of CRT - that was definitely debated for a while earlier in the thread. But I wouldn't call it "censoring and erasing the history of race-based injustices in the country" to be aggressively against that particular initiative, for example. My bad if I read too much into it and this wasn't a defense of CRT; a lot of people defend it this way but it really could just be saying exactly what you said as well.
Given how incredibly whitewashed curriculum has been for decades (centuries?), and seeing as how any sort of progressive academic movement is generally trying to move the needle just a tiny bit to merely acknowledging the existence of non-white experiences, I think that most anti-CRT / CRT-skeptic / CRT-worried individuals are generally stressed about non-existent, exaggerated caricatures of what tends to actually happen in the average "woke" classroom.
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