If you don't believe in freedom of expression for those participating in what you call Cancel Culture, you don't believe in it at all.
It’s not about being able to say “eating meat is cruel, so since you don’t denounce eating meat you are cruel” it’s you don’t denounce meat eating therefore you are evil and your peers and employers should ostracize you else the are complicit in your cruel behavior too, we demand they see it fit to remove your means of perpetuating that cruelty”.
This seems like a valid position to me. It’s extreme, I don’t agree with it, and I think people with such positions should be encouraged to be more tolerant, but it’s a valid position to hold in the public space nonetheless.
I don’t think the problem is people holding these positions - outrage will always exist if you allow crowds to converse freely, which is easy on the internet - but that institutions like universities instead see the outrage as an excuse to fire people. The institutions ultimately make the choices that alter people’s careers, not the crowd. Universities and companies should do more to stand up for tolerance of opinions. If the crowds themselves are viewed as the problem, then I fear for the future of free communication on the internet.
In the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s universities allowed people to espouse things which were then outside the norm, contrarian and subversive. We could construct philosophies to either support or impune (the whole somewhat discredited moral relativism which had garnered popularity) but at the end of the day universities allowed people to say foul things or upset large populations of people without resorting to firing or censuring or shaming them.
I don't. It makes no sense to intimidate and threaten anyone just because that person happens to not agree with you on a position you singled out as being relevant.
To me, I think it’s valid for a group of people to organize and write a letter criticizing someone, and then to send that letter to the person’s peer group. They can also criticize the employer of that person. That’s part of what of what being in a free speech society entails.
I don’t agree with the positions, but I think the complainers should have a space too, even if it’s outside of the relevant institution.
I also don’t like that universities threaten people’s jobs over this such complaints. I agree with mc32 in that such places should tolerate unpopular or contrarian opinions. And that’s where I view the problem appearing: it’s not the angry internet mob, it’s the university giving in to them. It’s up to the university to show thought leadership in their own spaces, and to ignore such ridiculous controversies. If signatories on my imagined letter threatened to stop working with the institution if not have their requests met, it might be best to cut ties with them, not the allegedly problematic peer. The university has to show that leadership.
(edit: grammar)
Not sure there’s anything to really do about it in a free society though. All the talk about cancel culture doesn’t seem to propose any solution.
Please don't put your words on anyone else's mouth. If you didn't understood what someone said then try do get information instead of trying to attribute to others the absurd and entirely baseless statements that you're fabricating.
I would argue that the nebulous they want people to face consequences for the things they say.
Pressing companies to fire people for their political views should be a crime. The judicial system is meant for punishing people, not a pile-on of twitter users.
Over here in The Netherlands it is illegal to fire employees for their political views. Although that law is increasingly ineffective because of the huge (biggest in EU) growth of contract workers.
I think the conventional answer used to be that mainstream politically moderate people believe that criminals should be able to work, that the government should take steps to encourage people to hire those with criminal records, but that there are legitimate concerns for specific jobs. But we can and do pass laws that say the discrimination must directly relate to logically necessary aspects of the job.
It seems to me like this standard could be applied to behavior people think is abhorrent (but not technically criminal yet) basically the same way. Being able to work is a human right, but having a specific high status, high trust job is not.
1. Are felons entitled to have jobs?
To which my response would be: are you entitled to decide?
2. We have existing ethical standards
Where my response would be: who is 'we'? Do you think society is one group, that has the same ethical standards? Because in fact there are many groups, with different values, that's why democracy was invented.
Summarizing you may be unaware you are speaking from a position of privilege here.
I wasn't suggesting that you or I get to decide. Obviously we don't. My point was that collectively, people have decided, and extrapolating from that would be logical. I'm not advocating any specific policy, I'm concerned that people are debating stuff while losing track of or just being ignorant what their fellow citizens and the establishment considers normal and reasonable. I'm not expressing an opinion of my own, but trying to provide what I think is an appropriate frame for discussion.
Did you know that it's possible to lose constitutional rights according to law without being accused, arrested or convicted of a crime? That too is a feature of our society and its laws. Have you ever thought about that? Should it be abolished?
If you are, I can only repeat what I said earlier: we have the judicial system for punishing people, not the twitterverse. Cancelculture itself is morally wrong.
I was highlighting that there are existing norms, laws, balancing acts, for people who are stigmatized for past actions, because I feel like these discussions often seem like they are in a vacuum without context.
Rightly or wrongly, it's normal and always has been, that people get punished in many ways beyond the specific penalty that results from being convicted of a crime. If you don't pay your bills or you sue people, there are consequences even if you don't lose a court case. If you have a health problem that is considered to cause risk to others, you can lose rights without any criminal issues. Despite ideas about criminals being rehabilitated, or exonerated, you don't necessarily get back 100% of everything you lost after being arrested or imprisoned, guilty or innocent.
Historically, there is no single answer to whether any particular consequences are ok and just. It evolves over time depending on what people think is right and struggle politically over.
Extremism makes more sense if you have somehow blocked out of your mind or are just ignorant of every moderate opinion, and my goal was just to rub peoples' noses in the conventional attitudes, not because I believe they are correct or the best, but because I think you have to be aware of everyday reality as a reference point for any reasonable debate.
We always have had people pushed out of high paying jobs for "morally reprehensible behavior" and always will, so injustice lies in the details. I can't advocate or be against it in general. If internet mobs make injustice more common, it certainly seems reasonable to have debates and political concerns about it, the conditions that lead to it, etc. But I think it's palpably absurd to say "we have the judicial system for punishing people" in an exclusive sense. It's never been limited to that and never will be.
Where the line ends is when they stop merely saying "we are against freedom of expression" and actually harm people expressing themselves. We've definitely crossed that.
The cancel culture people have a set of views on topics such as race. They further believe that every institution should have an elaborate, harshly enforced set of rules that forbids and punishes anyone who expresses contrary views.
My question to you is, do you believe it would be good for institutions to have such a set of rules?