The Self-Silencing Majority | Hacker News Reader

The Self-Silencing Majority

deseret.com

15 pointsundefined19 comments

Another tired diatribe about how "the left" is "forcing people to silence".

Seuss Foundation not printing some books? It's "the left". Saying something your employer doesn't like and you lose your job? Definitely not a problem with the culture at your place of work or your boss, it's "the left". Twitter tells you that you're violating the terms of service and mutes or bans you? Definitely not a business decision of Twitter's, but some insidious conspiracy where "the left" is pulling the levers of power in the shadows.

People say something unpopular with a group of people and they do it in a way that has never been more public (YouTube, Twitter, etc) and are upset when that group angrily shows up and interacts in a predictably angry way. If you want to engage in public discourse in an era where humans are more connected than ever you have to suck it up and accept that there might actually be a negative response.

I think that problem is that expressing SLIGHTLY different opinion, or sometimes even refusing to express opinion automatically causes angry reaction.

Source of tiredness is not, that "left" side is at fault or "right" side is at fault. It's level of polarization of almost every public discussion, that makes me not want to join them at all.

When certain things are mentioned, it seems to destroy any chance for civil discussion and usher in the 4 (or more) horsemen of idiotic flame wars: demonization, guilt by association, personal attacks, and insults.

Sadly the media have also been modeling these bad behaviors.

I appreciate HN's guidance to be kind, assume the best, address the strongest form of the opposing argument, attack the argument rather than the person, etc..

The fundamental issue is that just because someone prioritizes one issue over another doesn't mean they don't care about the other issue.

The reality is that this isn't much different than it was in the past. When Morton Downey Jr was on TV with a hostile audience tackling guests and subjects they opposed strongly one opinion on this was just another way of being a jerk in your own home. Now, it's seen as something new or changing when all that's changed is that we can speak more often online and see more opinions than we have in the past. But the same audience remains with the same basic opinions. Some things might be closer to the public consciousness but the ultimate truth of this matter is nothing that Bari Weiss said is entirely true. Sure, some people have lost jobs to do hecklers and harassers online but that would be no different than when gay people use to get outed in the past and lost friends, jobs, and family. If anyone wants to be honest and talk about cyberbullying and cyberstalking then call it that rather than lie and call it "Cancel Culture" to sell more clicks or books because we do have a problem there especially with respect to the laws governing such behavior. It's not been that long ago that an adult woman bullied a teenage girl into committing suicide online, so there's things to discuss, just not the nonsense that Bari Weiss is cooking up.

That's true. I'm living on the other side of the pond and we had the same problem 30 years ago(and probably earlier), just different topic (communists against "corrupted" west). After that there was some time where public figures and media at least tried to look civil and well behaved. Now it seems we're going back to full-on us/them mentality.

Honestly doesn't make it any better. Maybe even worse because of how fast lesson was forgotten.

"Cancel culture" is a term the rich and powerful spell what the rest of us know as "consequences".

Would that there were consequences for trafficking in brittle priggish & minatory social denunciation, for the purpose of demonstrating one's devotion to the zeitgeist.

Bari Weiss isn't being entirely honest. The fact of the matter is that many people are free to speak their minds but with the modern Internet many more are free to reply and their responses are just the same as there before that time. And I focus on the Internet here because most of Bari's tripe originated on Twitter. She wasn't very happy that Weird Twitter and company heckled her there, so she ran off to write hit pieces on "Cancel Culture" as if anyone with some understanding of how the Internet works wouldn't notice. The sad thing is that the media being accustomed to a passive/mute audience loves this narrative. It casts all hecklers as cartoon/melodrama villains that deserve to be forced into silence while the plucky hot-taker gets to spew whatever nonsense opinion free of comment on the unmoderated (relatively) Internet and other online social spaces.

The reality is that there isn't a massive change in how people speak their minds other than people are becoming aware of how permanent some things are when it comes to the Internet so they're being tighter lipped as employers, would be "lolcow milkers", and assorted jerks will always be on the look out to be outraged by something. Ironically, she feeds into this cycle with manufactured outrage at hecklers. It's like trying to cast Statler and Waldorf as murderers when all they do is poke fun at mishaps and nonsense. Simply put, Bari doesn't like being heckled and demands the Internet be a passive domain for content generators much like cable TV and print media. Too bad for her, that's not baked into the design.

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