I share your “ fear returning to a culture which empowers mob rule and makes people very vulnerable to whatever moral orthodoxy holds sway at any time.” From opinion polls, it is clear that we are moving in that direction.
Is not true, however, that shared social taboos are a key bulwark against this culture? Is it not true that Liberal institutions rely on those shared social taboos more than it relies on law enforcement to avoid moving towards that culture?
These issues are obviously complicated, but I think it is reasonable for individuals to police a strong taboo against public celebrations of the murder of a law-abiding citizen, particularly one who loved by a significant portion of society. If we do not want law enforcement to get involved then we need to count on individuals to punish transgressors of that important taboo.
Social media algorithms are clearly amplifying and giving positive feedback to those who violate this important taboo. Why should there not be a balancing force that does not include law enforcement?
I am afraid if we just ignore or hand-wave away tens of thousands of public celebrations of murder on social media, then we are increasing the chances of “ returning to a culture which empowers mob rule and makes people very vulnerable to whatever moral orthodoxy holds sway at any time.”
Liberal societies do not just rely on Liberal institutions to work. It may also require more than citizens who respect free speech.
We have different level of tolerance versus censorship (legally or socially).
Maximum censorship includes punishment to express any critique and disagreement. (as for Galileo). Maximum level of tolerance is Stuart Mill maximize freedom of expression in any case is not a precise manifesto or plan preceding physical violence.
Middle grey positions can distinguishes between jokes or critique versus defamation or incitement depending on the context.
But.
For me the most important golden rule is: whatever you fu**ing establish as a rule, is fine for me IF and ONLY IF it is forced on everybody, including presidents and immigrants, students and teachers, jailed people and police officers, bishops and psychopaths.
I have a quibble and a question about an edge case...
Quibble:
If "Cancel Culture" is the ancient human institution, what do we call this new thing where a minority punches above its weight to render norms unacceptable and people in authority cave to it and the rules keep changing retroactively?
Edge Case:
What if you though an employer really *should* fire somebody for obvious safeguarding reasons, but the employer took the tack "lalala we're diverse I can't hear you"?
It's a variation on the same thing for the purposes of authoritarianism and an attempt to impose a common good on everybody. It's happened before because only a small number of people are authoritarian activists but the culture believes it is good or fears being seen as mad if they don't comply with it. We saw this during the Reformation where people were being Catholic, Protestant and then Catholic again and published retrospectively. And this was part of Maoism. That said, it doesn't do to flatten all distinctions. The 'woke' phenomenon needs to be addressed as its own thing and on its own terms.
Yes, quite possibly. People called wokeism cancel culture, because we'd had a nice lull where people could have a range of views without being socially policed and penalised for them. It's certainly all the same thing from a liberal perspective and fair to point out the illiberal right that trying to get people fired for horrible views is something they opposed for good reason very recently.
Three quick thoughts: 1. People can have opinions about anything and everything. 2. People most of the time should not express these positions publicly (your spouse and that friend you tell the best jokes are the obvious exceptions). 3. All social media should come with a time delay where you are asked, after 30 minutes, "Do you really want to post that?"
In the near future there will be an AI feature on social media that will just tell you "this tweet will get your ass fired".
I am not sure if this is a criticism of Helen or just a general statement, but if is a criticism of Helen- it is a remarkably strange one. She has spent goodness knows how many hours of her life criticising the censuriousness of the left. She even wrote a book about it.
Here is a related post worth reading: https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewdoyle/p/the-oxford-union-and-the-free-speech?r=23ix4k&utm_medium=ios
I share your “ fear returning to a culture which empowers mob rule and makes people very vulnerable to whatever moral orthodoxy holds sway at any time.” From opinion polls, it is clear that we are moving in that direction.
Is not true, however, that shared social taboos are a key bulwark against this culture? Is it not true that Liberal institutions rely on those shared social taboos more than it relies on law enforcement to avoid moving towards that culture?
These issues are obviously complicated, but I think it is reasonable for individuals to police a strong taboo against public celebrations of the murder of a law-abiding citizen, particularly one who loved by a significant portion of society. If we do not want law enforcement to get involved then we need to count on individuals to punish transgressors of that important taboo.
Social media algorithms are clearly amplifying and giving positive feedback to those who violate this important taboo. Why should there not be a balancing force that does not include law enforcement?
I am afraid if we just ignore or hand-wave away tens of thousands of public celebrations of murder on social media, then we are increasing the chances of “ returning to a culture which empowers mob rule and makes people very vulnerable to whatever moral orthodoxy holds sway at any time.”
Liberal societies do not just rely on Liberal institutions to work. It may also require more than citizens who respect free speech.
We have different level of tolerance versus censorship (legally or socially).
Maximum censorship includes punishment to express any critique and disagreement. (as for Galileo). Maximum level of tolerance is Stuart Mill maximize freedom of expression in any case is not a precise manifesto or plan preceding physical violence.
Middle grey positions can distinguishes between jokes or critique versus defamation or incitement depending on the context.
But.
For me the most important golden rule is: whatever you fu**ing establish as a rule, is fine for me IF and ONLY IF it is forced on everybody, including presidents and immigrants, students and teachers, jailed people and police officers, bishops and psychopaths.
I have a quibble and a question about an edge case...
Quibble:
If "Cancel Culture" is the ancient human institution, what do we call this new thing where a minority punches above its weight to render norms unacceptable and people in authority cave to it and the rules keep changing retroactively?
Edge Case:
What if you though an employer really *should* fire somebody for obvious safeguarding reasons, but the employer took the tack "lalala we're diverse I can't hear you"?
It's a variation on the same thing for the purposes of authoritarianism and an attempt to impose a common good on everybody. It's happened before because only a small number of people are authoritarian activists but the culture believes it is good or fears being seen as mad if they don't comply with it. We saw this during the Reformation where people were being Catholic, Protestant and then Catholic again and published retrospectively. And this was part of Maoism. That said, it doesn't do to flatten all distinctions. The 'woke' phenomenon needs to be addressed as its own thing and on its own terms.
Then we can object for good reason.
So if I've got this right...? (Sorry, editted)
There's "Shunning".
Then there's "Cancelling" where people - often a majority - force other people to shun the victim.
Then "Cancel Culture" is where zealots go proactively looking for reasons to cancel somebody, and the rules may be subject to retroactive change.
Finally, "Woke Cancel Culture", when the ideology is wokeism.
I still think we need a generic term for when the cancellers are punching above their weight.
Yes, quite possibly. People called wokeism cancel culture, because we'd had a nice lull where people could have a range of views without being socially policed and penalised for them. It's certainly all the same thing from a liberal perspective and fair to point out the illiberal right that trying to get people fired for horrible views is something they opposed for good reason very recently.
Hence the term "Woke Right".
Is it possible that liberalism has been used to cloak, hide and conceal other nefarious isms?
Three quick thoughts: 1. People can have opinions about anything and everything. 2. People most of the time should not express these positions publicly (your spouse and that friend you tell the best jokes are the obvious exceptions). 3. All social media should come with a time delay where you are asked, after 30 minutes, "Do you really want to post that?"
In the near future there will be an AI feature on social media that will just tell you "this tweet will get your ass fired".
Hey there why you call X a hellsite I am still there and my feelings might hurt
I am not sure if this is a criticism of Helen or just a general statement, but if is a criticism of Helen- it is a remarkably strange one. She has spent goodness knows how many hours of her life criticising the censuriousness of the left. She even wrote a book about it.
More general, you are correct and she has been. Took it down.
Fair play. She is getting a lot of incredibly unwarranted criticism at the minute. I probably responded in a slightly hair trigger manner. Apologies.