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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36912 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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What short memories people have. This event has made me think I am doomed to live in a world of never-ending reprisals. How silly of me to once think that only the middle east was locked in the hell hole that is endlessly escalating conflict and revenge.

The language used by the right is very much exactly the same damn language the left was using a decade ago.

Scott wrote some impassioned pleas back then for the left to not go down this path. I give him lots of kudos for being consistent. I give everyone here who has called for lots of revenge zero kudos.

The right already had its fun being the purgers. Was no one else alive and remembering what the 2000-2010 decade was like? The slightest lack of extreme patriotism was enough for "cancellation". It was not hard to find stories of small towns and chruches treating gay people terribly. And about a decade of that treatment led the left to feeling quite a bit of bloodlust. So when power dynamics had shifted enough by the early 2010s there were a bunch of bloodthirsty leftists that were happy to live by the sword.

I made my position clear last week:

https://www.themotte.org/post/1077/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/230501?context=8#context

I suppose when it comes down to it I just want a maximum punishment for the spoken word. And cancellations often go way beyond my nebulous line for what a maximum punishment should be. People should suffer social embarrassment for a day, maybe a week for really bad things. And then it should be let go. The written word can maybe receive twice as harsh of punishments. If they are some form of sociopath that isn't really punished by social embarrassment then we can work something else out as a punishment that is about equally as harsh.

Humans aren't perfect, and sometimes they slip up and say dumb things without realizing they have crossed a line. I don't know if you think you've lived a perfect life and never said anything wrong before, but I know I've certainly said things I shouldn't have. I would like to not lose my livelihood over saying those things. I specifically remember one of the earliest instances of me saying a wrong thing, I was bullied by a kid in Elementary school, in middle school that kid committed suicide, in Highschool I made an edgy joke to a friend about being glad he wasn't around to torment me anymore, the friend winced and didn't laugh. I felt mild social embarrassment, and learned not to joke about that. That is an easy one to describe that I feel safe sharing because I can say I was an idiot in highschool, but I've made dumber and worse speech decisions in my adult life that I'd absolutely not feel safe sharing.

Humans also sometimes hold views that are not socially acceptable or within the Overton window. We are specifically on a forum that has been chased out of a larger social media site, because we want to allow people to say things outside of the Overton window. I am very uncomfortable with social rules that make it impossible to state anything outside of the Overton window. My own Dad often says things that are not acceptable on wider social media. He has been temp-banned on Facebook a few times for things he has said. He isn't really willing to not say some of his thoughts. Banning him from social media doesn't really remove him as a person, he is still out there thinking those forbidden thoughts. "Jokes" are one way to tease out the limits of the Overton window. The attempt to use humor, even if the attempt fails, shows that the person in question cares about social conventions. This is a sign that you don't need to punish them as harshly.

To all those about to say something like "its not fair that they got to be mean! I want to be mean back to them!" Don't worry. In a decade when the right has once again gone too far and the power dynamics switch back I will once again say that we shouldn't be "cancelling" people. But it will be the Left that is not listening. All will become fair over time, and meanwhile I won't be pouring gasoline on the house fire.

Was no one else alive and remembering what the 2000-2010 decade was like?

If you go by my comments on the topic you'll see I'm pro-truce, but this is insane. I was very much alive back then, and on the side that was supposedly getting cancelled, and it was not in any way comparable. "Muh Dixie Chicks" is the best people can come up with from that era. Show me someone who got fired for cracking their knuckles, then we'll talk.

Ward Churchill comes to mind. He was fired for research misconduct in the same way Al Capone was arrested for tax fraud.

There was widespread low level harassment of gays, arabs, and anti-war people. If the dixie chiks is all you remember then I don't think you really remember. Even as late as 2007 people were freaking out that Ron Paul could say something like "they don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for our interventions in the middle east", the failure to cancel him was a turning point as well as the general 2008 financial and housing crisis. Bill Mahr got kicked off a TV show for saying that people who committed suicidal terror attacks probably weren't "cowards". Comedians were mostly immune to being cancelled back then, but they loved to be "edgy" by picking at the fanaticism of the right.

Social media wasn't a thing so cancellations weren't as visible and weren't as easily documented. But anyone who grew up in a small town and paid enough attention probably has stories.

If the dixie chiks is all you remember then I don't think you really remember.

It's not all I remember, it's the most egregious example of what I remember, and you haven't brought up anything worse, while I can bring up several worse instances for any one you mention.

Social media wasn't a thing so cancellations weren't as visible and weren't as easily documented. But anyone who grew up in a small town and paid enough attention probably has stories.

Yeah, and on top of the things that are public, people now also have stories that never make it to the media.

Only other egregious example I can think of is Rage Against the Machine essentially being blacklisted by any radio stations owned by Clear Channel. But yeah that's nothing compared to a lot of the crap the left has done in the last 14 years or so.

My experience in both cancellation waves was only to be booted off a few forums that I didn't like much anyways. I'm not gonna claim I know which one was worse. I find it plausible that one cancellation waves could have been ten times worse than the other one and we wouldn't really be able to notice.

I am only certain that there was a cancellation wave, not how bad it was.

If there has been massive escalation by one side that is only an additional reason for me to worry.

Yeah, fair enough. I do agree with your broader point, I was just unreasonably outraged at the idea it's all the same, and to be fair I'm not exactly an impartial observer.

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