You have to EARN it
There’s a problem though.
See the problem? Of course – it’s obvious. Who ARE these people and why should I assume they know better than I do? Why should anyone assume that?
It’s not as if angry pile-ons never get anything wrong. It’s not as if the cancellations never get anything wrong. There’s no reason for anyone to just assume that if you see a cancellation, it must be for a very good, in fact a flawless reason.
What if “the thing that got you cancelled in the first place” is not cruelty or racism or persecution or bullying, but an opinion you think to be true? You can “own up to it” but maybe you will then add “and so what?”
Phillipa Soo is just assuming that everyone who cancels a Suspect Person is right about everything, and that no mistakes ever happen.
Why would anyone assume that? Based on what? Twitter is a big thing with a lot of people using it; they’re not all going to subscribe to the list of Correct Things that Philippa Soo (or anyone else) subscribes to.
It reminds me of PZ that summer 5 years ago, when he begged me privately not to leave, but then did a post saying I had to “own up” to my sins. But I didn’t think they were sins. I had told the truth as I saw it, and gone on telling it, so how was I supposed to “own up” to having gotten things horribly wrong when I didn’t believe I had?
Same with Philippa Soo’s instructions on how to grovel to a bunch of callow inquisitors who don’t know much about anything.
The idea that anybody who actually lives by principles would CARE about having the “respect” and approval of these moppets is half hilarious and half mind-boggling.
BTW, PZ is not getting any better — he uses that Silicon Valley racist guy as an example of what the brave Woke Stasi are right to cancel and then segues into taking a cheap shot at JK Rowling because what that guy did and what she is doing is The Exact Same Thing! So sad that guys like him claim to represent reason, atheism and decency now when they don’t know the meaning of any of those things.
A reply to that tweet:
Oh, yes, of course there’s a difference:
When it’s me and my team doing it, it’s justified and noble.
When it’s you and your team doing it, it’s mob mentality.
(But also: “removing problematic people from a space”? Yikes.)
Well but problematic. I mean to say.
B@2,
Right, but how do you avoid relying on some version of that?
That’s what I’m still waiting for. If we aren’t able to draw distinctions based on the “goodness” or “badness” of the original speaker, then what are the neutral rules that everybody should be following? No consequences ever for speech? All consequences are fair game?
I have yet to hear anyone articulate a content-neutral set of criteria for what is ‘”fair game” in battles over speech, with the exception of some untenable absolutist positions.
So, Ken White has written an extended thread on Cancel Culture and free speech, with an obvious 1A approach as you would expect from him.
Funnily enough for White, he did fall into one of his own traps yesterday. Specifically he was bagging JKR for threatening defamation action against the person who accused her of being a danger to children, on the basis that the statement was one of opinion, not fact. true in American law, but not so in either Canada or the UK where the two parties reside. White may or may not be right about the merits of the various jurisdictions laws and free speech protections, but he was absolutely arguing what the law should be in his opinion, not what the law is.
Rob,
I’m not sure what the “gotcha” is here. Also not sure when this became the Popehat Discussion Group, but since you’ve brought it up, I don’t think he has ever said there’s anything wrong with arguing for what you think the law should be. He has criticized certain law professors who pretend they’re describing what the law is when they’re actually describing what they think the law should be, but you haven’t provided any evidence that he did that, and having read the tweets I think you’re referencing, I doubt you can. He’s entirely within his rights to call JKR a bully for threatening to use the legal system to shut down speech, even if the UK system would allow it.
Incidentally, I’m not so sure you’re right about UK and Canadian law. Pretty sure they do recognize a fact/opinion distinction, though doctrinally it may get analyzed under “fair comment” or some other rubric. But I’m pretty confident you can’t sue someone in those jurisdictions for calling you ugly.
Screechy @ 4 – I of course don’t have any magic bullet, but there are things like trying to think carefully, slowing down a little (not something I do much, I should say), not treating minor incidents like incipient holocausts, considering probabilities, not going full-on CANCEL THAT WITCH over a reasonable difference of opinion; that kind of thing.
Screechy, no gotcha as such. Take that as clumsy juxtaposition on my part. Ken’s posts are separate facets of the discussion that I agree slide past each other rather than directly conflict. I’m certainly not an expert on the law (NZ, UK, Can or USA), but demotion laws in Commonwealth countries are certainly more plaintiff friendly than the USA. I can think of several defamation cases in NZ recently that have hinged on what a lay person would reasonably describe as opinion. Some of those cases won and some didn’t, so clearly the Court’s here are able to distinguish a line somewhere/how.
Apologies if I’ve raised White’s opinions too often recently. I thought they were largely on topic and whether I agree with him or not, they are usually well thought through opinions. If no-one finds them worthwhile, or worse they’re an irrelevant disruption, I’ll stop.
I’m confused about so much of this. Is it hypocritical to believe these two things?
1) People shouldn’t be bullied or forced out of town on a rail for stating, liking, retweeting the “wrong” things, and
2) People shouldn’t make harmful and untrue accusations about me (or about other specific, named individuals).
If someone accused me of something horrible and hateful (and untrue), and if they wouldn’t retract it, what should I do? If I think free speech is super, should I just shrug and be happy about them accusing me of whatever they wanted?
(Is “biological sex is real” the same kind of thing as “John Doe is a murderer”?)
Rob – No don’t stop, I’m interested.
Re ‘educate yourself’, I think I’m losing the idea of what this actually means. Someone on Spinster posted the other day that she gets told to ‘educate herself’ about ‘intersex’ a lot, and she is an actual MD PhD with expertise in genetic disorders, what more ‘education’ does she need in order to understand this situation? It does seem as if the ‘educate yourself’ cohorts typically say this to people who are in fact a lot more educated, and often in the relevant fields, than they are.
Guest
I think “educate yourself” roughly translates as:
“There are irrefutable arguments in favor of my position that are out there on the internet somewhere. I’m not telling you what they are, but I’m still going to blame you for not dealing with them. If you had made a serious effort to educate yourself, you would know why I’m right, so the fact that you still don’t agree with me proves that you still haven’t made the effort. Now go on google and keep reading and studying forever or until you agree with me.”
This, by the way, is also a favorite strategy of religious apologists who try to portray atheists as philosophical philistines for failing to consider the strongest arguments for Gods existence that theologians and religious philosophers have to offer. It is, of course, an airtight strategy. Even if you did nothing but study theology for the rest of your life, you would die of old age before even making it through 1% of everything that’s ever been written on the subject, and apologists would still be able to claim that the strongest arguments are in the subset you haven’t looked into yet. In fact, part of the definition of “sophisticated theology” seems to be that you haven’t dealt with it yet. Once you deal with it, it instantly becomes another example of atheists attacking strawmen and shooting down easy targets, thus proving yet again what an intellectual lightweight you are.
Thank you for that insight–you’re right, it does sound like the kind of thing a theist would say to an atheist.
And of course the atheist could reply ‘I HAVE read the Bible, that’s why I’m an atheist.’
But you have to know the “right way” to read the Bible. You must put your own interpretation on (it stinks, it is internally inconsistent, it promotes hatred), but rather you must accept the received wisdom of whichever faction you are dealing with.
You see, The Bible isn’t just a book *anyone* can read and understand, you have to be guided in HOW to read and understand it, otherwise you might think for yourself … oh, and here I am.
Those Christians who emphasize the Bible* are usually not the “philosophically sophisticated” kind though. Indeed I have been told by the latter kind that the former kind weren’t “real Christians” at all, that the beliefs of the former had nothing to do with “real Christianity” and that by criticizing said beliefs, I was attacking a strawman of Christianity. My response was that I can only react to those arguments that have indeed been presented to me (the Argument from Design, The Kalam Cosmological Argument etc.), whether representative of “real Christianity” or not. At least the Bible-thumping, fundamentalist Christians give you something to argue meaningfully for or against while the claims of the philosophically sophisticated ones fall into the “not even wrong” category. From what I have gathered, the only things that can consistently be said about the whatever it is the elusive “real Christians” call “God” are:
1. It’s called “God”
2. It has nothing to do with whatever it is you are arguing against, therefore everything you say can be dismissed as strawmanning.
3. Whatever it might be, it’s vitally important that you call it “God” rather than, say, “Ogd”, “Dog” etc.
In fact, I once defined “sophisticated theology” as “the art of saying ‘It doesn’t matter what you believe in as long as you call it God’ in as many words as possible”. Because then “theism” is right and “atheism” is wrong, and from there it’s a free-for-all. Other believers can easily interpret a supernatural creator of the universe into whatever sounds are coming out of your mouth, but atheists can’t find anything specific to argue meaningfully against, and any attempt at doing so can easily be dismissed as strawmanning.
Which brings us to another parallel between religious apologists and gender apologists (see what I did there?). From what I have gathered, the only things that can consistently be said about the whatever it is that gender ideologues call “women” are:
1. They’re called “women”
2. They have nothing to do with anything you are talking about, therefore everything you say can be dismissed as strawmanning.
3. Whatever they might be, it’s vitally important that you call them “women” rather than say “wemon”, “nowem” etc.
Once again other other gender ideologues can easily interpret whatever sexist stereotypes and male jerk-off fantasies they want into whatever sounds are coming out of your mouth, but gender-critical feminists can’t find anything specific to argue meaningfully against, and any attempt at doing so can easily be dismissed as strawmanning.
* I did in fact read the Bible back in my militant atheist days, which was an eye-opener indeed. The “Good Book”, my ass! I can’t honestly say that I would believe in a god – whether the biblical Yaweh or any of the competing gods of other religions – if not for all the stupidity and evil in the Bible though.
You’re overthinking ‘educate yourself’. It simply means you’re wrong. Go away and come back when you agree with me.
Re. ““educate yourself” as explained by Bjarte,
Didn’t somebody somewhen claim to have invented a Proper Name for exactly this sort of rhetorical tactic? “The Courtesan’s Response”, or something similar…
Rob — I was pre-emptively excusing my own off-topicness as much as anything. Certainly U.S. defamation law is less plaintiff-friendly than most (all?) other jurisdictions, which is part of why Congress passed the SPEECH Act to limit the enforceability of foreign defamation judgments. Anyway, I think one can certainly criticize JKR or anyone else for bringing a libel suit against a non-rich person even if that country’s courts would allow such a thing. As the saying goes, sometimes the scandal is what’s legal. It’s legal (though that may be starting to change) for people like Trump to demand everybody they deal with sign an NDA, and then threaten to ruin that person if they ever say an unkind word; doesn’t make it morally ok. I have mixed feelings about Rowlings’ threat: I generally don’t think threats of lawsuits are a good way to handle internet arguments, I don’t like rich people threatening to sue over minor disputes, but I can understand the frustration at the nasty tactics being used against her and wanting to throw a brushback pitch.
Bjarte, in my experience, the “sophisticated theology” argument gets trotted out by the fundamentalists as soon as you are able to defeat their less sophisticated arguments. Or, when an atheist writes a book, they usually deal with either theology or with the lay experience; either way, they can trot out the other argument. Yes, but they didn’t consider the ‘sophisticated theology’. On the other hand, if they do consider the sophisticated theology, it is yes, but they didn’t deal with god the way ‘real people experience him’. Since it is unlikely that any book trying to deal with all the possible manifestations of the god argument would be readable if ever written, most books deal with one or the other. Like Dan Barker says, it’s like trying to nail soup to a wall.
The gender ideologists are the same. I was talking with one not long ago about the dismissal of Dolezal, and how is that different? Well, you have to educate yourself. Okay, I’ve read quite a bit about it, says I. “I will send you an article” says they. “I’ve read a lot of articles”, says I. “Oh, but those are all just hogwash. This one makes sense of the entire thing.” And when you receive said article, it is identical to all the others you’ve read (this one was one I had already in fact read). I’ve stopped trying to nail soup to the wall. All it does is make holes in my wall. Now I just bang my head agasint the wall instead…at least the holes are bigger, and I can paint smiley faces in them for decoration.
I rarely laugh or even smile while reading (or watching, for that matter). This may be a symptom of something troublesome, but in any case, this
This made me chortle.