"A Letter on Justice and Open Debate"

[Petey Pate]

Odd list of signatories who you wouldn't necessarily expect to be bedfellows.  I'm not sure why Wynton Marsalis is there, who outside of his own music career is probably best known for hating all jazz created after 1960 and his Bill Cosby-esque opinions on hip hop.

Another one of the signatories is Cary Nelson, who defended his university when they blocked a professor from receiving tenure because of his activity on Twitter.

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/08/08/essay-defends-university-illinois-decision-not-hire-steven-salaita

[JaDanketies]

Starkey just got a fairly thorough doing, albeit also thoroughly deserved, without having touched anyone's privates...

Yeah that was like a week ago though. I bet he's still on the telly this year, spouting off about something or other on Question Time next to Melanie Phillips. Kramer's career is dead. A bit of Twitter criticism isn't really 'cancelling' someone.

edit: good point earlier about MPs getting shitcanned for saying something bad about Israel

[Funcrusher]

Why didn't Bernie, with his superior ideas and policies, win the Democratic nomination then?

Because the considerable power of the Democratic establishment was used to defeat him. Smashing your opponent using power, influence and money can certainly work more effectively than good arguments.

[JaDanketies]

Lots of people saying on twitter 'Yes, when you see the torrent of abuse JK Rowling receives for saying these things about trans people, I agree with this letter 100% We need to discuss these things like adults!!!'

P.S. MARGARET ATWOOD AND STEPHEN KING YOU ARE A TOTAL CUNT

[RenegadeScrew]

...although of course Chomsky also stood up for a Holocaust denier and got proto-cancelled for it over thirty years ago.

Except he didn't.

[chveik]

True, but people are getting sacked for antisemitism, due to their retweeting of articles with references to Israel.

RLB wasn't sacked by a angry twitter mob, but by the etablishment speaking through Keir's mouth. if the letter was talking about leftists being ostracized by the msm for telling the truth  I could get behind it, but it's not the case here.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Lots of people saying on twitter 'Yes, when you see the torrent of abuse JK Rowling receives for saying these things about trans people, I agree with this letter 100% We need to discuss these things like adults!!!'

Haha yes let's all sit around and discuss whether all trans people are predators, or just some of them are. Like adults.

I love how they cite examples of people being cancelled for "mistakes" without going into specifics. Which works of literature? What topics? What controversial pieces? What peer-reviewed study? It all reeks of centrist bullshit that ignores how far the Overton window has moved to the right. No comprehension of why it's utterly fucked for a newspaper to run an op-ed by a senator saying "send the army in to control protesters". Stick it up your arse Harper's.

[Retinend]

Except he didn't.

Huh? He definitely defended Faurrison's free speech and called him a "liberal."

[Buelligan]

Social media platforms have a financial incentive to encourage bad actors to stoke division because it drives traffic. You can't expose, argue with or persuade bad actors because they have countless tools at their disposal to keep gaming the algorithm.

The winning argument is no longer the correct one, it's the one that generates the most revenue.

This.  We're in a debate (not just on social media) where people with more money have far louder voices, but that's not the Market stifling debate, is it?

I mean, why is it even appropriate for a self-selecting group of powerful people to shout themselves a platform (no matter how well-meaning some of them may be)?  I'm all for open debate, bring it on but what we have is not that.  Not by a fucking million miles.

Oh, I forgot to add a blue tick, can you hear me?

[Zetetic]

Huh? He definitely defended Faurrison's free speech and called him a "liberal."

I think the argument is that he wasn't meaningfully "proto-cancelled" for it.

[Thomas]

I have heard some really interesting opinions on 'cancel culture' - like this one from Ayishat Akanbi - but it strikes me as a phenomenon mostly confined to Twitter. Which I don't have. When I encounter anything resembling 'cancel culture' in real life, it manifests like this:

PERSON #1: I think THIS.
PERSON #2: Interesting. I don't think that.
PERSON #1: Stop trying to censor me! The left are always trying to censor me!
PERSON #2: No, I was just giving you my opposing opinion.
PERSON #1: You're doing it again!

It often appears to spring from a deeply insecure, reactionary right-wingedness - at least in the angriest Freeze Peachers I know. The Disagreed-With seem to mistake even polite disagreement for censorship.

[Cuellar]

Also, what does this refer to

books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity

What's an 'inauthentic' book?

[Thomas]

Also, what does this refer to

What's an 'inauthentic' book?

One of those fake cardboard ones in IKEA.

[chveik]

Also, what does this refer to

What's an 'inauthentic' book?

plagiarism maybe. there are a lot of academics signing that letter after all.

[Zetetic]

Possibly writing of an experience, or drawing on an experience, conceived of as peculiar to a particular group without have experienced in directly - possibly without being clear enough about your actual relationship to the experience and the extent to which you've taken dramatic license in representing it.

[Petey Pate]

Also, what does this refer to

What's an 'inauthentic' book?

One written by Milo Yiannopoulos.

I think the reference to 'editors being fired for running controversial pieces' is explicitly about the NY Times publishing that opinion piece arguing that the military be used against BLM protesters, or are there other examples of this?

[JaDanketies]

It often appears to spring from a deeply insecure, reactionary right-wingedness - at least in the angriest Freeze Peachers I know. The Disagreed-With seem to mistake even polite disagreement for censorship.

Yep. Even if I say 'this is a disgusting racist thing to say and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. There is no justification for saying something like that, what a horrible specimen of humanity you are...' that's still something I should be 'free' to say. Free speech doesn't mean I've gotta be polite about disagreeing with you. Just because racist is a bad word doesn't mean I'm censoring you when I call you racist.

On the subject of free speech, an argument which established itself in my head, made by someone else, is "free speech is the absolute worst justification for saying anything. If your defence of saying something is 'free speech', you have already ceded all other arguments."

"Yeah, well done, free speech, you can't get arrested for saying what you just said, that is correct. This doesn't mean saying it has any merit whatsoever."

I think a lot of people get trapped into this 'free speech is virtuous' mindset, and that encourages them to espouse beliefs that they might not otherwise espouse. "People don't like it when I criticise gay marriage / all Muslims / espouse race-realism, etc, so that means it's a good thing I do it, because free speech is a good thing."

[idunnosomename]

bang what a rape threat
terf diddly terf terf terf te tum
stick in the Cyrus

album

[Cuellar]

Possibly writing of an experience, or drawing on an experience, conceived of as peculiar to a particular group without have experienced in directly - possibly without being clear enough about your actual relationship to the experience and the extent to which you've taken dramatic license in representing it.

I suppose it's no surprise Martin 'Lionel Asbo' Amis signed the letter then.

[Buelligan]

Well I think it's great that all these rich people are getting together to guard their incomes and power bases against any future shit they may perpetrate. 

Looking forward to seeing Rowling protecting the rights of trans people to live in the world and speak their brains.

[Cuellar]

JK Rowling: We need to be able to discuss things openly
Child: I think I might be trans
JK Rowling: No. And the place where you can go and discuss it should be closed down.

[JaDanketies]

JK Rowling fans: "I support scientists researching what they want to research without censure."
Scientists: "The available research shows that affirmation therapy is associated with the best outcomes when used to treat people with gender dysphoria."
JK Rowling fans: "Pedo! I'm writing to your boss."

[Thomas]

This letter is identical to that celebrity 'Imagine' singalong, except it's in a posh magazine instead of on YouTube.

[DistressedArea]

Possibly writing of an experience, or drawing on an experience, conceived of as peculiar to a particular group without have experienced in directly - possibly without being clear enough about your actual relationship to the experience and the extent to which you've taken dramatic license in representing it.

Like in Watership Down?

[greenman]

Yep. Even if I say 'this is a disgusting racist thing to say and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. There is no justification for saying something like that, what a horrible specimen of humanity you are...' that's still something I should be 'free' to say. Free speech doesn't mean I've gotta be polite about disagreeing with you. Just because racist is a bad word doesn't mean I'm censoring you when I call you racist.

On the subject of free speech, an argument which established itself in my head, made by someone else, is "free speech is the absolute worst justification for saying anything. If your defence of saying something is 'free speech', you have already ceded all other arguments."

"Yeah, well done, free speech, you can't get arrested for saying what you just said, that is correct. This doesn't mean saying it has any merit whatsoever."

I think a lot of people get trapped into this 'free speech is virtuous' mindset, and that encourages them to espouse beliefs that they might not otherwise espouse. "People don't like it when I criticise gay marriage / all Muslims / espouse race-realism, etc, so that means it's a good thing I do it, because free speech is a good thing."

I would say the issue as well is that on the right or the centre its much easier to cocoon yourself from facing real criticism of your viewpoint, that's not really possible on the left.

[Pdine]

I think the argument is that he wasn't meaningfully "proto-cancelled" for it.

He definitely continues to have that incident wheeled out as an example of his iniquity by people who disagree with other things he's said. It's not exactly cancellation but it's an 'Isn't he a Nazi?' gambit/slur which is an ur-form of the practice, I'd argue.

[Buelligan]

What's the alternative?  That people should wash their minds of memory each day (but rich people retain their wealth for perpetuity, of course)?  Isn't it part of free speech, that we're free to remember what's been said and act upon it?

Even when that hurts our own.

[idunnosomename]

ah, the leftist mob

https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1280671415478505472

[Buelligan]

That's part of it, isn't it?  Celebrities (or whatevs) get asked to sign these apparently well-meaning Innocent product announcements and do it.  They know their voices are amplified, by celebrity, money, power, the Market, and yet they toss off these things without much thought at all.  A weighty stentorian announcement from a hollow vessel, louder than, drowning out, common voices.  Is that free speech?

[BlodwynPig]

This.  We're in a debate (not just on social media) where people with more money have far louder voices, but that's not the Market stifling debate, is it?

I mean, why is it even appropriate for a self-selecting group of powerful people to shout themselves a platform (no matter how well-meaning some of them may be)?  I'm all for open debate, bring it on but what we have is not that.  Not by a fucking million miles.

Oh, I forgot to add a blue tick, can you hear me?

parler non?