Colin Wright on Cancel Culture

@teinosuke said
I'd add - this situation is not only problematic because people don't feel able to express what they actually think, nor even because it encourages everyone to reduce their thoughts and arguments to bumper sticker simplicity.

It's problematic in addition because it creates over-confidence among those who happen to share the views predominantly "approved" on social media; ...[text shortened]... them in private at the ballot box. I suspect that's how the populist right keeps winning elections.

Spot on, if you ask me.

@kazetnagorra said
I see you don't agree with Popper's paradox of tolerance.

Well, actually, I think I do agree with it, but only in the most extreme of circumstances.

@Teinosuke
Isn't the end result exactly that, extreme? Like maximus backlash?

@sonhouse said
@Teinosuke
Isn't the end result exactly that, extreme? Like maximus backlash?

Well, I know I'm violating Godwin's Law... but I don't shed too many tears that it's illegal to buy Mein Kampf in Germany.

@teinosuke said
Of course the way we conceptualise our sexuality is socially constructed to a degree.

However, I find it difficult to believe that the Persian with same-sex attraction has a completely different experience of it from the experience I have as a gay Western man. He may have similar desires without having the same name for them.

The reasons he gets married may include a) ...[text shortened]... gay" is a term that describes desire, rather than the practice which often follows from that desire.

Very interestign take.

I am also somewhat limited in how I can respond because I do not experience same sex attraction much and do not particularly desire an interaciton with another man. However, I have spent time in prolonged isolation with the same gender and understand how these circumstances can lead to an arbitrary view of the interaction and mak epeople willing to act in ways that they normally wouldn't...

I can also understand that, in a society where all taboo is removed and it is viewed as inconsequential, it may be the case that occasionally engaging in it for an express end-goal could be normalized enough.

I think what we are seeing now is plenty of people in general do not even see marraige or romantic love as necessarily a goal or as fulfilling, and that many people are naturally happy in their single state... Thus, romantic love is perhaps a construct, and so I can imagine Persian men viewing their marriage with another as a contract. Particularly if the society is unequal in how they view gender, men may not even view women as sources of profound connection...

What love they are interested in might just come from their relationship as father with their children; their sexual interactions with their wife could be perfunctory and professional, for an express goal, and their interactions with men could be what they really desire and are interested in, but again... they do not look to either set of relationships for emotional fulfillment, and isntead get it from other places.

But that is a lot to think about it and has made me reflect more about how complicated sexual orientation can be. For it is not easy to say that the behavior parses to a strict correspondence to homosexuality or even heterosexuality as we know it.

Kind of a meandering rant to such a great response and I apologize for that!

@teinosuke said
I'd add - this situation is not only problematic because people don't feel able to express what they actually think, nor even because it encourages everyone to reduce their thoughts and arguments to bumper sticker simplicity.

It's problematic in addition because it creates over-confidence among those who happen to share the views predominantly "approved" on social media; ...[text shortened]... them in private at the ballot box. I suspect that's how the populist right keeps winning elections.

This is an incredibly important post...

What people do not realize is that never elucidating your beliefs and just appealing to Sacred Cows and authority is literally anti-persuasive. Anti-authoritarian personalities will naturally now be more attracted to the people who are on the receiving end of these non-arguments.

Everyone is naturally suspicious of people who try to shut down debate.

No, that does not mean that the average person will embrace a radical populist position, of course, but it does mean that people will be revolted by the answers that are being put forward by the liberal establishment.

As a Christian in America, I saw many Americans put off by it because of these attitudes of the church/Bible is unquestionable, and many people were put off by church lady behavior. In Korea, this problem didn't exist twenty years ago (and still exists less so here than in America), and so it is surprisingly easy to win converts or at least to be actively respected. Indeed, I am friends with people who are actually involved in anti-clerical campaigns who are practically apologetic to me when they explain their positions. Being this polite and non-confrontational might just be part of Korean culture, but there seems to be a real concern for recognizing nuance... (And this trend does not persist in topics related to feminism and the likes).

I would suggest that the post here is 100% right, and that, in the long-run, far more damage is being done to liberal positions for not desiring to actively engage with the narrative.

They make it so that we not only are martyred, but so we are the only ones even trying to explain ahlf of these phenomena.

@teinosuke said
Well, I know I'm violating Godwin's Law... but I don't shed too many tears that it's illegal to buy Mein Kampf in Germany.

This is another important point...

Society tolerates natural boundaries.

Nobody feels upset that literal Nazis with swastika decor are banned from YouTube.

However, people feel bad that Stefan Molyneux is banned. I am not saying that anyone has to agree with him, I am not even saying that people have to ever listen to anything that he has to say... I am simply saying that not allowing a bald, 50-year old man to state his opinions on the heritability of IQ without hatred or anger can piss off even people who do not agree with him at all because, ultimately, people want to have difficult discussions, even if it is so that they can actively oppose the people advancing these ideas.

@philokalia said
(1) Well, yes, it was around forever.

Very famous people in history were openly gay.

King James I, of the King James Bible fame, was famous for his homosexuality, and his favorite lover, a page named Robert Carr that he eventually elevated to Knighthood, then to a Lordship, and even arranged for the forced divorce of another guy to give this guy the wife of his dre ...[text shortened]... Muslims and gays were the ones on the other end of the stick.

Why not equal protection for all?

i don't you could have been more offtopic and incoherent if you picked random words from a hat.

Not going to address the homosexuality bit because i don't give a rat's ass about your homophobia and it has nothing to do with the topic.

The second has as much relevance to the topic as does the color of a car to how fast it can go. First of all, you can censor yourself to not speak racist and bigoted things. You cannot and should not change your religion/gender/race/sexual orientation. And before you repeat the hateful notion that your religion requires you to be a hateful bigot and thus it would be trampling on your religious rights to fire you for being hateful towards a coworker who is gay, bear in mind that plenty of religious people go through life without being hateful bigots. Try following their example.

"Perhaps some people would suggest that political thoughts should also be protected just as religious thoughts are protected. "
Some people would be dumb to suggest that.


"Something tells me that you would not have this opinion if Muslims and gays were the ones on the other end of the stick. "
What stick. Exactly what are you talking about? Are you saying i would be ignoring muslims or gays expressing hateful opinions about whoever? Or that i would be outraged if conservatives decided not to buy falafel?

Or are you whining that conservatives just can't do boycotts as effectively as leftists and that corporations are starting to realize they would be better served catering to the whims of the left than the right?

@teinosuke said
All very well, but there's an increasingly prominent discourse judging us for not expressing our views. The slogan "Silence is violence" is, precisely, an assertion that it is not enough to keep your views to yourself. You are expected to repeat the approved views, whether or not you actually agree with them. You can be chastised for diverting from the approved script by qu ...[text shortened]... eties people traditionally responded with robust debate, if they disagreed, rather than by shunning.

What proof do you have that people are "shunned " for expressing minor disagreements. On what do you base that statement.

"for instance, if you don't think that positive discrimination is the most productive way of dealing with an agreed problem."
Who has ever been shunned/tarred and feathered/scolded/whatever for this.

"The obvious consequence is lots of people publicly parroting views that they don't actually believe."
Not that obvious. I at least have no idea what exactly you're talking about.

"In free societies people traditionally responded with robust debate, if they disagreed, rather than by shunning."
And so do today. Some people calling each other trolls or racists or whatever over twitter doesn't mean "robust debate" is dead.

@philokalia said
This is another important point...

Society tolerates natural boundaries.

Nobody feels upset that literal Nazis with swastika decor are banned from YouTube.

However, people feel bad that Stefan Molyneux is banned. I am not saying that anyone has to agree with him, I am not even saying that people have to ever listen to anything that he has to say... I am s ...[text shortened]... ficult discussions, even if it is so that they can actively oppose the people advancing these ideas.

Sure, I can see where people would be angry IF a site didn't want to post stuff like this:

".the Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led Communism. And Jewish-led Communism had wiped out tens of millions of white Christians in Russia and they were afraid of the same thing. And there was this wild overreaction and all this kind of stuff.”

"“If we could just get people to be nice to their babies for five years straight, that would be it for war, drug abuse, addiction, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases. Almost all would be completely eliminated, because they all arise from dysfunctional early childhood experiences, which are all run by women.”

Here's a portion of one of his many online chats with Jared Taylor of American Renaissance:

" the fomenting of anti-white hatred is extremely strong and very toxic and very dangerous, "

"people have this idea that human groups somehow live in harmony together...but the sum total of human history is endless warfare between competing groups, two subspecies don’t inhabit the same geographical area for long, one will always displace the other, and this idea [diversity], it’s a complete naive reading of history…”

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/stefan-molyneux

Yeah, it must be really upsetting to the average person that Facebook and Twitter don't want someone using and even profiting from their service while espousing Nazi apologia, misogyny, racism (he apparently believes humans have separate "species" with you know who being inferior) and implying race war would be a solution to our "problems" with "inferiors".

@zahlanzi said
i don't you could have been more offtopic and incoherent if you picked random words from a hat.

Not going to address the homosexuality bit because i don't give a rat's ass about your homophobia and it has nothing to do with the topic.

The second has as much relevance to the topic as does the color of a car to how fast it can go. First of all, you can censor yourself t ...[text shortened]... re starting to realize they would be better served catering to the whims of the left than the right?

The second has as much relevance to the topic as does the color of a car to how fast it can go. First of all, you can censor yourself to not speak racist and bigoted things. You cannot and should not change your religion/gender/race/sexual orientation. And before you repeat the hateful notion that your religion requires you to be a hateful bigot and thus it would be trampling on your religious rights to fire you for being hateful towards a coworker who is gay, bear in mind that plenty of religious people go through life without being hateful bigots. Try following their example.

Who said anything about being hateful to a co-worker?

Anybody who is hateful to a coworker, whether if it is connected with politics or not, is obviously in the wrong and should be terminated.

You can't project onto us the strawman of people being hateful to justify cancel culture.

Colin Wright wrote nothing that was hateful, yet there has been a veritable campaign (honored by institutions) to ban him, and, likewise, people run the risk of being fired for having similar opinions.

Another important thing to bring up:

People share disparaging memes against Christainity and God every single day. They also make crude jokes about pedophile priests constantly. Yet, I am unaware of Catholics or other Christians demanding the firing of random people who have been active in atheist forums that are actively anti-Christian or for firing Richard Dawkins for referring to religion as a mind virus.

People have respected that some aspect of free speech is resepcting [i]even the inflammatory things that people say on their own free time, as long as it does not become an issue at work.

The issue that is grasped even by people on the left is that these standards are not reciprocal at all, and when there is a double standard, there inherently is injustice.

"Perhaps some people would suggest that political thoughts should also be protected just as religious thoughts are protected. "
Some people would be dumb to suggest that.

Since religion is a category of belief and thought that one can theoretically change, why is it wrong to suggest that other categories of belief do not receive the same privilege?

Indeed, atheists are being discriminated against because they have less protection for their beleifs about things that may not fall into a religious category.

"Something tells me that you would not have this opinion if Muslims and gays were the ones on the other end of the stick. "
What stick. Exactly what are you talking about? Are you saying i would be ignoring muslims or gays expressing hateful opinions about whoever? Or that i would be outraged if conservatives decided not to buy falafel?

Not at all -- that you would be wanting to see the creation of laws that protect the employment and rights of these people to live in peace without fear of being witch hunted by mobs & then forcibly ostracized.

Or are you whining that conservatives just can't do boycotts as effectively as leftists and that corporations are starting to realize they would be better served catering to the whims of the left than the right?

It's interestign that you phrase it so beautifully and agreeably to me:

[i}Catering to the whims of the left.[/i]

😆 😆 😆

I am not talking about one's right to boycott corporations at all -- this is actually a thread about cancel culture and employment.

@no1marauder said
Sure, I can see where people would be angry IF a site didn't want to post stuff like this:

".the Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led Communism. And Jewish-led Communism had wiped out tens of millions of white Christians in Russia and they were afraid of the same thing. And there was this wild overreaction and all this kind of ...[text shortened]... ow who being inferior) and implying race war would be a solution to our "problems" with "inferiors".

Wow, Marauder is joining us in this thread -- I would love to hear your opinion specifically on the situation of Colin Wright and cancel culture! Please let us know, Marauder!

(1) In comes the mandatory SPLC compilation of controversial opinions.

the Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led Communism. And Jewish-led Communism had wiped out tens of millions of white Christians in Russia and they were afraid of the same thing. And there was this wild overreaction and all this kind of stuff.”

Where's the lie?

The Germans did perceive Communism as being Jewish led. It does not even contend that it is Jewish led.

Communism also was wiping out tens of millions of white Christians in Russia -- by this time, I doubt that such a number had been reached because the large death tolls came largely from the persecution meted out to the Ukraine, but I do not know.

"“If we could just get people to be nice to their babies for five years straight, that would be it for war, drug abuse, addiction, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases. Almost all would be completely eliminated, because they all arise from dysfunctional early childhood experiences, which are all run by women.”

I do not agree with the idea that they are all run by women. I do, however, agree that single parenthood is a massive problem, and parenting is disproprotionately done by single women.

Molyneux makes upwards of 5 hours of audio content a week -- you could ask him himself, he probably would say that the all was an off-the-cuff universalization of something that he does not believe is necessarily universal. This is nitpicking.

" the fomenting of anti-white hatred is extremely strong and very toxic and very dangerous, "

Where's the lie?

"people have this idea that human groups somehow live in harmony together...but the sum total of human history is endless warfare between competing groups, two subspecies don’t inhabit the same geographical area for long, one will always displace the other, and this idea [diversity], it’s a complete naive reading of history…”

They do not always displace each other, but they very often do.

Where's the lie?

Yeah, it must be really upsetting to the average person that Facebook and Twitter don't want someone using and even profiting from their service while espousing Nazi apologia, misogyny, racism (he apparently believes humans have separate "species" with you know who being inferior) and implying race war would be a solution to our "problems" with "inferiors".

(a) it's not hard to sound like an 'apologist' for Nazis when the left has such an extreme, visceral, and ahistorical take on the circumstances surrounding WWII. I would not call any of what was asid there a sort of apology.

(b) I tend to believe social media is and does function as a public service of sorts, and do not view it simply as a business.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are so large and so vital to public expression, and have likewise portrayed themselves as places for gathering and also for peopleto build audiences.

Thus, allowing people to post whatever they want is a vital part of their model -- something that used to be more apparent when everyone signed up -- and it would make sense for us to make these large social media platforms (which function more like carriers than publishers) to respect American laws and the right of free speech.

So much of this debate comes down to how we perceive corporations and how they interact with the public sphere.

WHy don't you tell us what you think of this.

@philokalia said
[quote]The second has as much relevance to the topic as does the color of a car to how fast it can go. First of all, you can censor yourself to not speak racist and bigoted things. You cannot and should not change your religion/gender/race/sexual orientation. And before you repeat the hateful notion that your religion requires you to be a hateful bigot and thus it would be ...[text shortened]... boycott corporations at all -- this is actually a thread about cancel culture and employment.

you are protected from being fired for reasons of gender/religion/race/and now, thanks to the supreme court, sexual orientation.

being a bigot is not a protected category. One can be fired for that. Do you understand now?

@philokalia said
Wow, Marauder is joining us in this thread -- I would love to hear your opinion specifically on the situation of Colin Wright and cancel culture! Please let us know, Marauder!

(1) In comes the mandatory SPLC compilation of controversial opinions.

[quote]the Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led Communism. And Jewish-led Comm ...[text shortened]... ions and how they interact with the public sphere.

WHy don't you tell us what you think of this.

you are allowed to post whatever you want. And if it's public i have the right to repost that to your place of work and say i will not buy their products if they keep employing you. I probably won't but i definitely have the right. And the company has the right to fire you.

Nobody's rights would be trampled

@zahlanzi said
you are protected from being fired for reasons of gender/religion/race/and now, thanks to the supreme court, sexual orientation.

being a bigot is not a protected category. One can be fired for that. Do you understand now?

Oh, I am sorry, but you are actually missing some really vital aspects to this debate, and without acknowledging these, your statements cannot hope to cover the complexity of the issue.

Here are two quotes that you did not reply to that would help us come to an idea of what you think, Zahl, and try to square that with the reality that we see, and figure out how we could protect the rights of all people...

Since religion is a category of belief and thought that one can theoretically change, why is it wrong to suggest that other categories of belief do not receive the same privilege?

Indeed, atheists are being discriminated against because they have less protection for their beleifs about things that may not fall into a religious category.

And also:

Another important thing to bring up:

People share disparaging memes against Christainity and God every single day. They also make crude jokes about pedophile priests constantly. Yet, I am unaware of Catholics or other Christians demanding the firing of random people who have been active in atheist forums that are actively anti-Christian or for firing Richard Dawkins for referring to religion as a mind virus.

People have respected that some aspect of free speech is resepcting even the inflammatory things that people say on their own free time, as long as it does not become an issue at work.

This is vital because it appears that there is a double standard -- one type of speech is not treated as rancorous or hostile, even though it transparently is, and it is respected... But another is enough to ruin the career of Colin Wright....

But [i]that isn't even what Colin Wright did because what he had said was measured and respectful at all times.