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> Which people, and what speech?

I find very peculiar how the proponents of various version of Critical Theory and Cancel Culture simply argues that they do not exist when confronted with criticism; this reminds me of one of my college philosophy professor trying to confuse his students with "nothing really exist" instead of answering the critiques of his teachings.

To give a few high profile examples:

* People arguing that private companies should be able to do anything with their public platforms regarding politically motivated censorship

* Jordan Peterson getting warned by the University of Toronto's lawyers for making a video about how he wouldn't cooperate about being forced to use certain pronouns.

* Lindsay Shepherd got disciplined by Wilfrid Laurier University's staff for merely showing a video of Jordan Peterson.

* Brett Weinstein was confronted by a hostile mob for criticizing the College for asking White student to stay away from college this day.

* Gregg Patton from the University of Southern California was replaced for saying the very usual Chinese expression "ne ga"; while teaching a Chinese Mandarin course.

> I grew up in a smaller town (but not tiny), where teachers who were fired or otherwise quietly left town after coming out as gay.

It's almost as if things have changed.

There has been politically motivated academic censorship forever. See what happened to communist academics throughout the 20th century.

And?

The thesis of the top-most comment was:

>>> And I feel like in last 6-8 years, people have become far more intolerant regarding free speech

That's the proposition that this particular subthread is discussing.

Perhaps you don't care, but in that case I'm a bit confused about why you're commenting this far down-thread.

I was answering to "Which people, and what speech?"

Which I gave prominent examples of.

The reply of which was simply examples from the USSR era (as opposed to right now in the Western World) without any other argument other than what seems to be whataboutism.

But that's a valid argument! "Here are tons of other examples from before the past decade" is a perfect response to "I've noticed this new thing in the past decade".

Except I was responding to "Which people, and what speech?" which referred to current event and people.

It doesn't though. The point of that statement is exactly what I said, to point out that "people have become far more intolerant regarding free speech" is only true if you look at specific people and specific speech. If you look at all speech about everything, it probably isn't true.

Concretely, the far stronger social reaction to slurs against gay people go hand in hand with people now being able to say "I'm gay" without repercussions.

I was responding to:

> > I feel like in last 6-8 years, people have become far more intolerant regarding free speech.

> Which people, and what speech?

I responded with people and their speech that faced intolerance with total disregard for free speech. I doesn't even look like you are following the conversation anymore.

> Concretely, the far stronger social reaction to slurs against gay people go hand in hand with people now being able to say "I'm gay" without repercussions.

You are mixing up causation. People didn't accept homosexuality because certain words were banned, people stopped using words because they didn't like what they represented. And then it has gotten to another level where even statement of facts or simply making a point involving those words, in entirely different context causes outrage can cancellation.

The idea that words should get banned to make certain ideas or concept disappear à la 1984 is a very immature notion as other words can be forged.

> I was responding to:

Yes, I'm perfectly aware.

> I responded with people and their speech that faced intolerance with total disregard for free speech. I doesn't even look like you are following the conversation anymore.

Yes, I'm fully aware of how you responded. My point is that "people facing intolerance with total disregard for free speech" is not a new thing, as evidenced by the examples given from earlier times.

Breaking this down, you seem to think that giving examples of intolerance is enough to prove the initial claim, "people have become far more intolerant regarding free speech.", but it isn't. If someone else shows equal intolerance prior to the last 6-8 years, all your examples show is that the intolerance has not changed. You haven't shown that they've gotten worse, only that they haven't gotten better.

> You are mixing up causation.

You're once again misunderstanding my comment. I'm making the opposite causality argument than the one you appear to think I'm making.

As acceptance of gay people goes up, acceptance of slurs against gay people goes down. The question is, then, did we have "freer" speech when people faced criticism for saying "I am gay" as they did in the past, as compared to now where you face criticism for calling someone a slur?

I genuinely can't figure out what thought your first paragraph is trying to convey.

Other than an admittedly convincing demonstration that your Philosophy professor wasn't a great teacher, what is your point?

> proponents of... Cancel Culture

What in my blistering critique of 1980s Cancel Culture gave you that impression?

> proponents of... various version of Critical Theory

You have me there. I will fess up to a fondness for the elementary theory of dynamical systems. The identification of critical points is a particularly important piece of mathematics. I have no clue what my fondness of the theory of the identification of critical points in dynamical systems has to do with this thread, though.

>> I grew up in a smaller town (but not tiny), where teachers who were fired or otherwise quietly left town after coming out as gay.

> It's almost as if things have changed.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/scott-maxwell-commen...

> Which people, and what speech?

cAn U PrOv1d3 s0urc3 pLeAsE fOr YoUr AnEcDoTaL eV1DeNcE?

Well, yeah, sure, we can pretend that's what parent was saying, or maybe the top comment could just bother actually providing said anecdotal evidence. Saying you have anecdotal evidence is not the same thing as providing anecdotal evidence. Nothing is even communicated by just vaguely gesturing at all of the poor melty peaches except that you spend far too many hours on YouTube, and on one specific region of YouTube in particular. Nobody can interact with your anecdotal evidence if you haven't actually said what your anecdotal evidence is.

Edit: It's worth noting that when the commenter actually did name the examples they were thinking of, it was entirely related to right-wing YouTube personalities, so it looks like I was on to something there.

Right wing is a legit political stance. If you want to see what world would look like without people with political views differing yours, my woke comrade, move to North Korea or Eastern Europe circa 1948-1989. You'll see what an amazing world leftist-only ideologies create. Especially when you won't be able to study at university because one of your parents is not member of the Party and listens to Free Europe.

Forwards, left and not a step back! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLAAprIN6S4

Misinformation and calls to violence (we'll apply the 2nd amendment to them) is not a legitimate political stance. Politics is debating the merits of a progressive tax system, for example. Politics is not calling for violence toward your political opponents and their supporters or arguing that the world is flat or interfering with the function of the organs of government.

> Misinformation and calls to violence

Which is not limited to the right

> we'll apply the 2nd amendment to them

What does it have to do with anything? Radicals from the Left are very pro 2nd amendment too by the way.

> Politics is debating the merits of a progressive tax system, for example. Politics is not calling for violence toward your political opponents and their supporters or arguing that the world is flat or interfering with the function of the organs of government.

Politics are simply the way people govern or are governed for better or for worse. "Politics is not what I consider evil" is a great political slogan but also doesn't make sense outside your own personal values.

>Perhaps a few major metro areas enjoyed true liberalism re: speech in the 80s

The 80s and early 90s were the time of police riots in many cities and heavy gang activity. Neither of those indicates a good result if you said the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Well then, I guess his golden age of free speech never actually existed anywhere. Go figure.