Scientists must resist cancel culture
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
There may be a way to thoughtfully discuss this issue, but this article is a poor attempt at it.
1: https://cen.acs.org/research-integrity/ethics/Essay-criticiz...
But the left has decided to join in recently. The left invented something new, a kind of distributed authoritarianism, with MeToo and woke/cancel culture, which gives every person of a "blessed" identity the absolute power of a tyrant over anyone within earshot who is of a corresponding "cursed" identity. I speak as someone on the receiving end of this, in family court. It's a shift in power that leaves straight white liberal men abandoned and demoralized. We are dehumanized, treated to precisely those iniquities that we've fought hard against for so long. Our expressions of pain and worry are ignored and demeaned by our erstwhile friends, and if we complain about that then we are attacked further as being manipulative and dishonest. It is a perfect little trap, that can apparently only be escaped by donning a certain red trucker hat.
As another poster said, society has developed a resistance to right-wing censorship over time. But the left-wing censorship is a new innovation, and it's much harder to combat. I truly worry about my 2-year-old son growing up endlessly hearing about his toxic masculinity, his inherently oppressive identity, and always being at the mercy of other people's feelings, while his own are ignored or demeaned. The left is, if anything, more dangerous today in terms of censorship, forcing speakers to be silent, everywhere, lest they risk hurting someone's feeling, and thereby have their entire lives destroyed.
Banning "hate-speech" and "false information" is a very noble goal, but who is the arbiter of what is false or hate? It is not a binary decision and generally just like the justice system is designed to let some guilty people go to protect the innocent, free speech restrictions have always had the high burden of that the speech must cause immediate harm.
You seem to be worried about a strawman: what you call the "far left" has really little power beyond symbolism of preventing an actual fascist of organizing a meeting. The actual power, political and economic, resides in the far-right who's very well established in society and has been relentlessly campaigning and organizing. And i can tell you their campaigns are otherwise more violent than those of the so-called far left.
As i'm witnessing the new rise of fascism here in France, i can tell you the overall ambience both in the streets and on campuses was much more pleasant twenty years ago when declaring sympathies for Hitler or Le Pen would have gotten you socially excluded from the group (except in a few fascist-friendly universities in the bourgeois neighborhoods).
The fascists are rising again: when you see dozens/hundreds of neo-fascist militiamen charging alongside riot cops (who are famously pro-FN for the vast majority of them) to beat down and send to the hospital anti-racist demonstrators (such as happened during the first Zemmour speech a few months back), it's time to choose which side you wanna be on.
In regards to the rise of the far right, it seems conceivable it's a reaction to the extremes of the far left. It's political polarization and I'd tend to lay blame on the dogmatists on both sides. I find them equally absurd, but I'm more disappointed in the left. That was my original point.
> Accordingly, instruction on the topics enumerated in this section and supporting materials must be consistent with the following principles of individual freedom: [...] An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.
[1]: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/148/?Tab=BillText
Why would something that supposedly doesn't assign collective blame based on skin color make all white students uncomfortable?
I wonder what Ibram X. Kendi, the most well known proponent of CRT, would have to say about the subject: "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
Yeah, CRT is racist. Anybody who supports it is racist.
The factual history of slavery and discrimination in the US (as promulgated against minorities by non-minorities) could cause white students discomfort on the basis of their race, and would thereby be illegal under Florida's bill.
> CRT
Actual critical race theory is irrelevant in this discussion. The legislation being pushed here has nothing to do with it, beyond using it as a convenient negative label for literally anything relating to historical and modern racism.
See, this is the crux of the issue with CRT. You have assigned blame to "non-minorities" collectively, and absolved minorities (again, collectively).
The reality is very different. Not only were there many black slave owners[1], but of course many of the most successful abolitionists were white (or non-minority as you say). So assigning blame not to individuals, but rather to race, is in fact racist. This is what CRT teaches, and is why it's a problem.
There is a reason that CRT uses a collectivist framework too, which as they say, is the quiet part we aren't supposed to say out loud...
[1] https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/12/emblack_sla...
The mulattos in this case were often offspring of a white slave owner, and they shared power in the racist system because, quoting it again:
> Free blacks and mulattos, the privileged offspring of white masters and slaves, had an interest in preserving slavery, while poor, free blacks and most rural slaves, who knew slavery’s cruelty, were determined to gain control over their own destinies. The free black elite regarded slave ownership as a privilege and status symbol and valued their ties to the white community. Many lived in white neighborhoods, attended white-dominated churches and shunned the slave community.
This is very much in line with the CRT views of how power structures were set up to maintain white supremacy.
Oh, and of those 'many' black slave owners, "Often, free blacks purchased enslaved kinfolk to buy their freedom." Do you count them as supporting slavery?
> the most successful abolitionists
How many black slaves do you think were abolitionists, but without the power to influence anyone? Millions? Why do you think they weren't as successful those white abolitionists?
If you don't like the sociological terms "majority" and "minority", and view them as "collectivist", then how would you describe the laws that prohibited Blacks from immigrating to Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa, or the ones which prevented Blacks from living in Sundown towns? Why did those white politicians decide to pass those laws? Can we assign blame to them without being called racist? Or do you want to absolve them of blame?
Who is them? White people, right? Not the individuals who did a thing, but everyone who shares a similar amount of melanin to anyone who did a thing. So Croatian-Americans who came to the country in the 1980's? Italians, Irish and Jews from the early 1900's? Arabs and Hispanics who are considered white?
So yeah, that's racist. In fact it's the exact same logic the Stormfront crowd uses to blame all black people for the elevated violent crime rates, which are perpetrated by a tiny fraction of the black community. It is racist in both cases, don't make assumptions about people based on their skin color. This should be easy.
The antecedent to "them" is in the previous sentence: the white politicians who passed the laws that prevented black people from immigrating to those states, and the white politicians who passed laws preventing black people from living in so-called Sundown towns.
Those are specific people, with specific names, if you wanted to look up the legislative record.
This certainly is NOT "white people".
This is a question about history. In US history, Mexicans, as an example of "Hispanics", WERE NOT CONSIDERED WHITE. Had you read the Wikipedia example of Sundown towns you would have seen "No Mexicans After Night".
Had you read the Wikipedia page on CRT you would have seen LatCRT as a subfield of CRT, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Latino_cr... .
Since you don't seem to understand the history, don't seem to track down relevant references, and since I can't seem to make myself understood, I see no point in continuing this discussion
That is very much not what critical race theory is. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-sta...
And let's not forget the words of the foremost expert on critical race theory, Ibram X Kendi: "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
The above is a direct quote from Ibram X Kendi, the face of the CRT movement. You can find it doing a Google search and source it from whatever domain makes you feel better. But he did say it and does believe. He has defended it numerous times. But it is racist and we should call it what it is. CRT is a cancer.
A different example. We're playing monopoly. I have a house rule that every time you make money, it goes to me. Every time you acquire property, I get it. Then the house rule changes and you can acquire money and property… but I still own everything of yours I've taken until now. Is it wrong to discriminate against me by redistributing my resources to you?
Here's some more context to that quote, by the way:
> Someone reproducing inequity through permanently assisting an overrepresented racial group into wealth and power is entirely different than someone challenging that inequity by temporarily assisting an underrepresented racial group into relative wealth and power until equity is reached.
> The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination. As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/june/ibram-x-kendi-d...
You can not get away from the reality that CRT by definition assigns blame collectively based on race, regardless of actual culpability.
That is racist.
It's never not racist to blame people for the actions of others who have a similar amount of melanin.
Walmart - https://trendingpolitics.com/walmart-training-white-people-h...
AT&T - https://www.nationalreview.com/news/att-employee-training-pr...
Coca-Cola - https://www.newsweek.com/coca-cola-facing-backlash-says-less...
Under Armour - https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/report-under-armour-forc...
Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin - https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/dow_chemical_an...
etc etc
Speaking of "good faith", do I need to continue? Were you legitimately unaware of this, or is this where you try to excuse it as something other than what it is - racism.
> The document suggests that employees reflect on the diversity of their personal and professional networks. Employees should also consider how other dimensions of their identities "give (or do not give) you access and advantage." Furthermore, workers are encouraged to "work through feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness to understand what is beneath them and what needs to be healed."
> Part of the challenge involves completing a "white privilege checklist." The checklist asks if a person has ever experienced racist slurs, discrimination for their skin color, threats due to their gender or sexual orientation, bullying or conditions of poverty.
Nowhere in the article are the words “blame” or “responsible” or “accountable”. None of this can reasonably be construed as “blaming” people. As the article tells it, the goal of the training is to help people understand their racial privilege.
Also, they all reference the CRT framework, so call them "poorly implemented" is silly. These are companies that spend millions on legal fees, their implementation is only as bad as CRT itself is.
I prefer a simpler, less racist framework. One that treats people the same regardless of skin color, and makes no assumptions about an individual based on their skin color.
Here's more of what Kendi says in the context of what you quoted, at https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/june/ibram-x-kendi-d... :
> As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.” As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in 1978, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”
> ... The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a “race-neutral” one. The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans toward equity is “reverse discrimination.
> That is how racist power can call affirmative action policies that succeed in reducing racial inequities “race conscious” and standardized tests that produce racial inequities “race neutral.” That is how they can blame the behavior of entire racial groups for the inequities between different racial groups and still say their ideas are “not racist.” But there is no such thing as a not-racist idea, only racist ideas and antiracist ideas.
I take it you would have been against reparations for the Japanese and Japanese-Americans interned during the war, justified on racist reasons. I take it you are against any sort of reparations for those people still alive today whose lives were directly harmed by racist laws?
After all, both of those are remedies for past discrimination which require(d) future discrimination.
That last part is key. CRT makes no difference between abolitionist and slaveowner, it simply judges based on skin color. That is racist.
Jim Crow laws weren't abolished until the 1960s. People alive today suffered from those laws. Do you think they should get reparations, and if not, why not?
The Japanese-Americans were in internment camps because of mid-20th century views on race. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which legislated reparation explicitly names "race prejudice" as one of the factors. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/442 .
I've read a decent amount now about CRT, from the people who have developed the concept over the last few decades. It does not do what you say it does. What I have seen is how the popular nay-sayers use it as bogeyman term used to reject or diminish any examination of systemic racism.
That said, EVEN IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME, do you think reparations for living people based on harms caused by historical race prejudice is itself racist?
It seems that if you do, then you think the internment reparations of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was racist. And if you do not think it's racist, then you agree with Kendi, LBP, and Justice Blackmun.
Here's a more specific example. In 1924 the city seized the beach resort own by the Bruce family. The owners were Black, and it was one of the few places in California where Black could get into the water. Quoting https://www.npr.org/2021/10/10/1043821492/black-americans-la...:
> White residents set up barricades to keep Black beachgoers from getting to the ocean, and the Ku Klux Klan, active along the California coast, reportedly planned attacks against the Bruce's resort.
> "They slashed tires, they burned mattresses under the porch of the resort, they tried to blow up a gas meter of one of the residents here," Shepard says. "They had 24/7 phone campaigns and made threats against Willa and her family."
This made the news because the California legislature passed a law to return the land to the family, long after the owners were dead.
Is this law a form of reparation? Is this law racist? Personally, I see it as a form of reparation, and not racist, but rather trying to right an historic wrong based on race prejudice. What do you think?
There is no non-racist way to blame people for something they had no part in simply based on the color of their skin.
CRT is very clear to point out how historical racist structures can persist even if no one is racist. Why do you think Oregon has so few Black people?
CRT does not assign collective blame based on skin color. You have provided not one whit of evidence for this. Instead you've totally misunderstood a quote from Kendi, which I've tried to explain here.
We are all, collectively, Americans. We, collectively, still live with the effects of deliberate collective racial discrimination[1]. Some alive today were explicitly targeted by racist Jim Crow laws, with actual experiences. It is our American responsibility to right this historical wrong as best we can.
Is paying reparations to those living people racist? Is paying reparations to the living children of those people racist? Are non-monetary reparations in the name of those people also racist?
If you agree with any sort of reparations for racial injustice, including the interned Japanese-Americans, then you agree with Kendi's quote.
I repeat: You don't stick a knife in a man's back then pull it out and say that that treating his wounds would be discriminate against those who had never been knifed.
The promissory note is long overdue. Let's pay it now.
[1] As a white person, even I am affected, because of the deliberately constructed lies about American race history taught to me in school, including lies of omission.
How does that work, in your mind. Who pays? If you say "taxpayers" then you are saying the victims need to pay reparations as well. That seems logical to you?
Also, how do you prove direct harm? In the Japanese internment example it's easy to say "I was sent to an internment camp by FDR". Ok cool, easy enough. But then there is "my dad was sent to an internment camp by FDR, and as a result my parents became risk averse and potentially never earned as much as they could, which may have indirectly impacted my opportunities". And then there is "My mom was raised by someone who's parents were sent to an internment camp" and that has somehow trickled down to impact me in some undefined way."
And then we need to discuss how this impacts the offspring of mixed parentage, are they equally victim/beneficiary? How far down the rabbit hole do we go?
Exactly the same people who paid reparations for the Japanese internment camps -- something you support.
> That seems logical to you?
Yes, it's logical. Because that's what you agreed was appropriate for the Japanese internment camps.
> Also, how do you prove direct harm?
Which is why I gave an explicit example of direct harm, for the beach resort that was seized because of race prejudice.
Was returning that property racist? You still haven't answered.
> my dad was sent to an internment camp by FDR, and as a result
Which is why I started with asking about reparations for those people who are still alive.
Do you think a law providing for redress for Black people directly harmed by racist Jim Crows laws, and who are still alive, is itself racist?
Instead, you seem to say "it's complicated, so we can't do anything. Oh, and it's racist to think about doing anything."
Two specific examples:
- the "vel d'hiv" sweep is taught in schools, as an example of the nazi collaorators gathering in a stadium and deporting/murdering thousands of jews ; that the same stadium was reused for the same purpose in 1967 against algerian people is not taught in schools
- Jules Ferry is revered in french schools as father of the public school system; yet schools do not teach us that he was famously racist/supremacist, and that his public school system served as a tool to colonize many regions and practice cultural genocide against many ethnicities (including a dozen on the French soil)
Fortunately, we have some decent academics studying/teaching the history of racism in this country (ex: Bouamama, Ouassak, Rigouste, etc). Unfortunately, they're under relentless attacks (especially since 2015) to be shut down by the far right who accuse them of being anti-white racists and/or "islamo-leftists". If that last expression rings a bell, that's probably because "judeo-bolsheviks" was an expression used by the nazis: should it surprise us that debates about "islamo-leftism" have reached mainstream TV in a nation that's built on the blood of countless peoples?
And you say they have no hope to "deplatform" people, but hey what happened with the crackdowns on Riseup, Indymedia, Unicorn Riot, Wikileaks and other platforms? The fascists, due to having strong ties/networks within the institutions, have a bigger impact when talking about their own hurdles and we barely talk about anti-left censorship.
The authors are calling to fill in potholes on a bridge that’s about to collapse. It’s not whataboutism to point out that their priorities are out of whack.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/states-that...
In the 1970s cultural anthropology and genetics were both hotbeds of cancel culture. And the canceling attempts were vividly reciprocal. For a recent incident: see EO Wilson’s shameful post-modern “obituary” in Scientific American, or read Napoleon Changnon on the warfare among tribes of anthropologist.
The law should also bring back ostracizing and outlawing. Humane but more effective and just than prison. Joined ISIS? Get outlawed. Participated in mob robbery, riot or insurrection? Will pay for your ticket out of the state or country because you are now banned.
The comfort and protections of a civilized society do not belong to those who reject civilization.
Would have been even nicer if Nazis (and not just the scientists) were “cancelled” before WWII.
The other form of cancel culture that needs to be stopped is the taboo against asking uncomfortable questions. If you look around the world looking for admirable governments, do you see a pattern? If so, would you be cancelled for naming it? Is that okay? Are we so committed to egalitarinism that we want to forcefully ignore measuring differences between human populations, or even framing hypotheses that imply a difference?
> Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from. We should view this as a warning of the consequences of viewing group membership as more important than merit, and correct our course before it is too late.
https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16...
The stated goal of the programs he was opposing here is to increase diversity at universities. You can reasonably disagree that it will do that (and he does in the remainder of the article, some of the points are very good) without invoking Nazi Germany. It's incredibly disrespectful and unlikely to convince people who aren't already on your side. And if the consequence of this is that you can't give a lecture one time, well, I'm having a difficult time finding the Zylkon B cans nearby.
Actually he disagrees with the goal itself (diversity, or rather what kind of diversity is desiderable to pursue).
> And if the consequence of this is that you can't give a lecture one time, well, I'm having a difficult time finding the Zylkon B cans nearby.
Yep. That's no Nazi Germany. But it's disingenuous to say that the only consequence is he won't give a lecture one time. And canceling a lecture is a very worrying thing to do, especially for such a mild "offense". The quote attributed to Voltaire is very relevant in this context.
Alerting the possible bad outcome much later down the line, is not comparing the morality of these present-time signals to the bad future-time outcome that one could fear.
It's only with historical hindsight, that you're able to say that _of course_ these weak signals in Germany were early signs of a fatal spiral, and people should have known better. From the point of view of someone living at that time, it would have been much harder not to view these opinions as exaggeration.
I never said it did. I'm saying you're falling to split whatever hairs you were looking for with this argument.
Sure, and some haven't. So being able to imagine one means exactly nothing.
For example I could just ignore opposing opinions I don't agree with, but I won't be ignoring threats, bullying etc. which are so common nowadays. I remember the times where you could have your opinions and if you did not directly attacked somebody or didn't break the law in your country you could post nearly anything you want and these were the times of the freedom of speech.
You can't have your opposing opinion now in some of the topics because if you do, then you're risking getting cancelled, (shadow) banned, muted or at least having your opinion removed. Or as it's common you would get the badge of being left or right even if you're not. You won't find many people who could support your opinion or at least try to calm down the conflict/argue because most of the people don't care about the "wars" that are happening in the social media, they just want to have a nice and peaceful life.
So, my opinion at the end is that we shouldn't care who creator is or what he did, the only thing we should care about is or isn't his creation, whether it's valuable or invaluable for me, my relatives, society or the environment. And if somebody disagree with some opinion, then he should post his opinion/argument if it gives any value for future on-topic discussion or some unique view, but do not start a flame war or literally try to destroy somebody' life or day because of that. In the end you do you and i do me.
Also, just to clearly point that out, I'm not from the US and I'm neither so called far-left nor far-right as probably no one is.
Has anyone actually backed this with data? Threats are more common now? Really? How do you know? Just because some "free speech" media pundit says so doesn't make it true.
Is Krylov seriously asking us to consider this censorship? This is called politeness.
The citation for the list of innocuous terms to "censor" is another, very similar piece by Krylov, which cites this [0] memo from the University of Michigan's IT department. It lists no consequences for failing to use the alternate terms. Quote:
> Not all words on this list may be offensive to everyone. Regardless, if a colleague considers a word or phrase offensive, their lived experience should be acknowledged, and an alternative word or phrase should be used.
This is not "All who refuse to adopt our Newspeak must be re-educated", this is "If someone says a term is offensive, just be polite and go with it, and here are some alternative terms to help with that." It doesn't even tell you to stop using it in general, just when someone objects! Calling this "censorship" is ridiculous.
Let's look at the other two examples as well.
First, consider what happened to Tomáš Hudlický after he wrote the article.
> The journal removed the paper from its website. ... A planned special issue of Synthesis in his honour was cancelled, invitations to speak at conferences and to review papers ceased, citations to his papers were deleted, and collaborators were encouraged to dissociate themselves from him.
He wasn't fired, or demoted, or disciplined. Mainly, people just stopped wanting to associate with him. Was this proportionate? Let's now consider what the wider chemistry community thought about the article:
> Sixteen editorial board members resigned in protest of the publication. The journal ... issued an abject apology, suspended two editors, and began an internal investigation. Condemnation ensued in blogs, journals, and statements issued by chemical societies.
What happened to Hudlický seems like the straightforward consequence of holding a deeply controversial view. Lots of people won't like you for it. They don't owe you the things they were planning to give you before you wrote an article everyone hates. Saying all of them simultaneously "capitulated to the mob" is an entirely baseless framing (that's all too common in this type of writing).
As for Dorian Abbot, paraphrasing the article, "A group of activists initiated a social media campaign to uninvite him. MIT cancelled the event."
Again, unpopular people are not owed speaking appearances. Disinvitation is not punishment. The point of these talks is the prestige of having a respected expert make an appearance and share their views. If the audience doesn't like you, there's no reason for the university to invite you to speak. If this is all that happened to Abbot, I'm struggling to see why I ought to care about this.
In summary, an organization asked people to consider other peoples' feelings before publishing things, and some unpopular people were not allowed to give prestigious lectures. Going back to the top of the article and reading Krylov compare this to autocratic regimes and murder highlights just how dishonest and hyperbolic the framing is on all of these "cancel culture" articles. They're all like this.
[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/11a8cUt1SCfIxQRBZk_TnRYM5ltE...
[1] Further reading: https://michaelhobbes.substack.com/p/moral-panic-journalism