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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> What "illiberal left" benefits from this

Banning terms from general and academic use originated, in modern America, from the illiberal left’s cancel culture.

I’m not saying they caused this—it’s not novel that illiberalism leads to censorship. But the tactics both groups use when they get their hands on power are remarkably similar.

> the nonstop equivocation

You probably mean false equation. I don’t believe I am, because the illiberal left never came into power. At least not federally. Liberals on the left successfully checked our radicals in a way the right did not.

(If you want policy fusion between the illiberal left and right, it’s in RFK Jr. Marin County sees eye to eye with MAGA on e.g. vaccines.)

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before cancel culture it was satanic panic from the right. This is not a new phenomenon, and I don't think it has much to do with the shift towards right wing extremism

cancel culture from the left came from grassroot movements - kids at uni get offended and they ban certain words and heckle certain speakers.

cancel culture from the right is coming from POTUS.

can you tell me if you think there's any difference at all between the two?

> cancel culture from the right is coming from POTUS

Not really. Trump is channeling something that probably came from the book-banning religious conservative crowd.

"the buck stops here". he controls the most powerful army in history. I don't care whose arm is reaching up his colon to move his lips - he's responsible. it's his signature on the orders.

He clearly has dementia on top of raging NPD and I'd honestly be surprised if he knows what day it is.

Nobody is arguing with you on that. You said cancel culture was grassroots while this is not. My point is they both started grassroots. This one just reached higher.

The origin is not the point, the power differential is. Hence why this is an equivocation.

Cancel culture was systematically supported and promoted by the most powerful people in our society.

give five examples?

If we’re talking about banned words or terms, one of our Supreme Court justices wouldn’t define the term “woman.”

The Biden administration directed ICE to use the term “undocumented noncitizen” instead of “illegal alien.” They also pressured social media sites to censor certain content.

There was also the whole Al Franken thing.

is any of this comparable to banning any acknowledgement of the existence of trans and intersex people in anything connected to the federal government?

in fact refusing to define a term doesn't sound like banning at all. to ban is to forbid somebody else from doing something. to refuse to do something personally isn't banning.

Being unable to describe a woman would be pretty similar to banning trans acknowledgement. They're basically 2 sides of the same coin; the mismatch between reality and the categories we use. There are different opinions about which part of the mental model has to give. Ie, the concept of man/woman is too imprecise for political discourse - do politicians abandon the word woman or do they abandon the parts of reality that don't fit into a man/woman model?

The obvious solution is the third option of letting a few more genders in, but that would still require being able to articulate what a woman is.

again, one of them is refusing to do something, but the other is forbidding the doing of something. there's a huge difference.

The gender one is more consequential; if we accept that they exist there are a lot of women who get involved in the legal system because of their gender. Eg, say there is a case that involves gender discrimination - a judge that can't identify what a woman is will struggle to come up with reasonable rulings.

In fairness we don't have the words the judge used in front of us so maybe there was some hedging involved. But they do have to be able to come up with a working definition.

if the ruling is unsatisfactory, you can appeal. you can bring in expert witnesses. she's a professional, and she'll make her decisions based on the facts of the case, and hopefully not based on prejudice. if it's the supreme court, she won't be alone.

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