I was just rhetoric, I don't even know her. The point I was making was that given some arbitrary recipient of modern 'incivility' (here I just randomly chose Rowling), I'd might find myself in disagreement with them, but to the minor extent that I'd not want them in my social group, wouldn't want to spend time with them, not to the extent that I'd want to petrol bomb their yacht.

It may well be that I agree with everything JK Rowling has to say and we'd have a delightful evening, I don't know. That wasn't really the point. I used her name only as a stand-in for someone with whom I might disagree but whose 'harms' I don't really care about.

The point is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with JK Rowling on trans issues. It doesn't matter if her comments are causing great distress among the trans population. First-world neuroses are of near zero import compared to child labour, debt slavery, millions dying from hunger, abject poverty in all its disgusting reality; and (from my limited perspective) I'm not seeing the same rage directed against those actions as I am against the minor transgressions of a few slow to adapt conservatives.

It's like if you have a friend who goes ballistic every time you put a cup down without a coaster, you just become immune to it; you're going to take little notice next time he explodes even if, this time, its over something really important.

Perhaps we could put it this way (although I'm not sure if this isn't more suited to the Cancel Culture thread...

In terms of harm done to the poor, the seriously disempowered, I'd happily throw my support behind a plan to petrol bomb Jeff Bezos's new yacht, or the Goldman Sachs offices; whereas JK Rowling...well, I'd probably try to avoid being seated next to her at a dinner party....but that's about it.

Yet what we find is a hue and cry barely stopping short of calls to petrol bomb JK Rowling's yacht (should she have one), yet those same people consider buying from Amazon to be nothing more than a bit of guilty pleasure, of little consequence, and would probably see nothing more than a selfie opportunity at being seated next to David Solomon at a dinner party if they even knew who he was.

Does this not make you even a little queasy about the integrity with which incivility is being used these days? Or am I falsely seeing two groups as one, too out of touch to understand the movements?

Basically, the power of incivility is only because of it's contrast with civility. Its power is the severity of the label thereby applied to its target because its reserved for a high threshold of unacceptable behaviour. The moment it becomes nothing more than the standard response to disagreement, then it becomes de rigueur. Why would David Solomon baulk at being be treated with incivility if he and his colleagues, friends, staff, pizza-chefs and dog-walkers are subjected to it daily in any case for each minor transgression?

You can find lots of people who will say anything and don't mean what they say almost anywhere else on the internet. — Cuthbert

Well yes, that's kind of the point. From the comfort of a 'say anything' environment without any physical commitment being acceded we should expect nothing but a resounding cheer for the prospect. Anything short is more suspicious here than it would be in real life where mere cowardice might be a diagnosis for the hesitation.

But to be honest it was a throwaway comment. Of all the things I've said, I wasn't expecting that to be the part to receive such a thoroughgoing exegesis.

Who's not up for punching a Nazi! — Isaac


The vast majority of people, it turns out. Anyone who's witnessed a schoolyard bully terrorize an entire playground knows this. — Aaron R

Ah yes, but we're in the comfort of our virtual lounge talking about it. If we can't even muster a virtual cheer for the virtual punching of a virtual Nazi then we've no hope...

Aye, you may be right. I don't really have my finger on the pulse of protest movements anymore so I'm looking at all this from a distance. It seems there's two conflicting (or perhaps just contrasting) issues. Like you, I'm way more concerned about the faux aegis response to the Jan 6 debacle than I was about the out-of-control stag do itself, likewise 'Trumpism' and I'm inclined to agree about the role 'civility' is playing in that narrative. I suspect, though darn't get into it, that my list of topics on which civility is being weaponised may even be longer than yours...however...

There's barely a handful of people willing to be uncivil on the serious issues (or at least the ones I'm concerned about - poverty, disempowerment), and that's a problem as far as I see it. Can that handful ever kick, scream and shout loud enough to get done what we need to get done? My gut feeling is no. And that makes the number one problem recruitment.

If incivility presents a problem for recruitment then we need to look at places it can be reduced without harm. Off-topic here, but same goes for many of the other issues I have with the modern left. There's one issue to fight (class warfare) and one problem fighting it (garnering sufficient numbers willing to fight) everything else is windowdressing, as far as I'm concerned, and if we do have to hold our tounges in some areas to surmount that problem then so be it.

...but, I'm not exactly fully sold on the idea that we do have to hold our tounges at all, only that I'm not going to rule it out on principle.

I mean the idea that there are those whose views do not deserve respect; that there are those whose exclusion and shunning from the public sphere is a good thing; that there are those for whom ridicule and shame is not only appropriate, but a virtuous reaction against. That there are people who should be talked-over, and down-to. And yes, punch Nazis when you get the chance, and make them feel unsafe and scared for their health and safety in public. There are cases in which all of these are good things, and should be celebrated. They should be occasions of mirth and community. — StreetlightX

I agree, but I don't think many wouldn't. Who's not up for punching a Nazi!

...but there's not that many Nazis around any more. There's anti-abortionists, pro-police (blue lives matter, man!), anti-vaxxers, pro-military neocons... The issue is about which of these people deserve to treated like Nazis and which don't.

What worries me is that the successful use of incivility is threatened from both sides (both over and under use). I entirely sympathise with your concern that talk about 'civility' is used as a metonym for the maintenance of privilege, but look at where that talk increasingly gains its wind from. More and more it's from the uses of incivility in cases where support for it is marginal. Not so much punching Nazis as punching members of the young conservatives. Fun, but with less widespread support.

Just to be clear at this point, I think it's important to distinguish incivility as a tactic from incivility as a response. I'm a privileged academic who's never faced a moment of oppression in my life. All my incivility is either tactical (I think it will work best), or moral (I'm cross and don't care to be civil). None of it is just the natural response to being oppressed, which, let's be clear, is not something we're in the least bit morally qualified to pass judgment on, I think we'd agree. Anyone expecting an oppressed population to be civil needs to get their head out of their arse.

But for the rest of us, the use of incivility needs a higher level of general support than the use of discourse if it's not to backfire. Personally I see an increasing number of privileged wannabes jumping on the bandwagon of incivility to push the latest quasi-religious cult de jour and I don't think it does the legitimacy of (tactical) incivility any favours.

But you aren't trapped in a burning building with the walls crushing down on you. Australia isn't on the verge of collapse. You're just spending your time debating issues with strangers that likely are on another continent. — ssu

This is what's really weird about debates like this. I don't think anyone disagrees that there's a time to give up talking and reach for something stronger, not a single person.

We all think certain voices should be silenced (incitement to violence being the usual line we agree on). We all think that violent assault need be met with more than just words. And none are above attending the odd protest.

Nor, on the other hand, would any say that we should settle our differences about, say, the route of the new bypass by having a shoot out.

So the crux of the conversation is, as you highlight, the fact of the matter regarding where we are on these scales, and how we decide where 'too far' is. Yet that's exactly the conversation that's avoided in lieu of one about either how all protestors are fascists-in-waiting, or how anyone questioning the use of violence is automatically some kind of Vichy-style collaborator.

I think people want to avoid discussion about where this line-in-the-sand is simply because they don't want to be ideologically tied to it if they sense a change in the wind of popular zeitgeist.

don't put words in my mouth — jorndoe

Well, let's make it simple. Do you think that the suppressing of dissenting scientific opinion was justified or not? If you do, on what ground?

Wittgenstein also takes care to treat truth as belonging to propositions, but certainty and belief and knowledge as relations between people and propositions. — Banno

Does he? I defer to your greater knowledge here, but your assertion really surprises me as it upturns a huge portions of my understanding of Wittgenstein's approach to truth (not to mention making a hash of Cheryl Misak's lecture).

Here's where I'm getting my understanding from, see if you can say where I'm going wrong.

Firstly in OC...

The big reveal for me is at 607, which I took to be a complete agreement with Ramsey's deflationary/pragmatist approach

A judge might even say "That is the truth - so far as a human being can know it." But what would this rider [Zusatz] achieve? ("beyond all reasonable doubt"). — 607

He seems, to me, to be quite clearly saying that 'so far as a human being can know it' adds nothing to 'truth', that the term already implies the limit of human ability, the asymptote to which our investigatory endeavours approach.

Then there's

The truth of certain empirical propositions belongs to our frame of reference.

Again, placing truth relatively, not absolutely. Same with...

It is the truth only inasmuch as it is an unmoving foundation of his language-games

At 108, Wittgenstein answers a question about the objective truth of a proposition with a measure of our certainty about it.

"But is there then no objective truth? Isn't it true, or false, that someone has been on the moon?" If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the moon. — 108

Then at 200, he seems abundantly clear (perhaps clearest of all)

Really "The proposition is either true or false" only means that it must be possible to decide for or against it. But this does not say what the ground for such a decision is like. — 200

You said earlier that Wittgenstein was clear in PI that neither idealism nor realism were quite right, and yet you seem adamant that 'creeping anti-reslism' be kept out of Wittgensteinean exegesis. If we know Wittgenstein wasn't for full throated realism, then wouldn't 'creeping anti-realism' be exactly what we'd be looking for in finding his meaning?

I also don't find an obvious disagreement here. — ssu

Cool.

We is euphemistically anyone operating bona fides. Aren't you? (Like concern for each other?) — jorndoe

You used the term in response to mask mandates. Masks were mandated by a specific group of people, so referring to them in that way is a judgment on those specific people, not just some euphemistic group. I'm attacking that judgment.

Not sure why anyone would call that pathetic — jorndoe

Because it was so obviously partisan. You just chucked as many pro-mask studies as you could find. The existence of a pro-mask position among scientists is not in doubt so there's nothing contributed by them.

What the article was opposing was the narrative. Discussion of masks being inadequate were banned, actually banned. People espousing the idea were labelled paranoid, conspiracy theorists. (Same happened with the lab leak theory - not a one off). That's not a matter that's resolved by saying "well, some scientists believed masks were helpful". It's got a really serious impact on the way science is conducted.

It's a social thing. I'm not aware of many masking up when on their own. You honestly think you live in a different world, however it works doesn't apply to you? — jorndoe

No, but in a situation of uncertainty, its not appropriate for one group to simply impose their favoured strategy over another, and certainly not to lie about certainty in order to do so.

(Maybe go back to covering the scandals?) — jorndoe

This is the scandal. Discussion of legitimate scientific dissent was actually banned. You don't think that's scandalous?

(Thanks for sorting that markdown for me, it was an interesting read)

Thanks. My reading of Wittgenstein is limited to PI and OC plus a few random papers, I acquired the impression I outlined to @Seppo only from a single lecture given by Cheryl Misak (placing Wittgenstein amongst the Cambridge pragmatists), so I didn't have a lot of textual support. I appreciate the guidance.

No, its the deflationary view of truth — Seppo

Oh, that's not my understanding of the deflationary position at all (which, for me, is admittedly mostly from reading Ramsey). Do you have to hand any sources you use for yours? For me deflationary positions on truth cannot include the expression ""x" is true iff..." in any sense at all because 'true' cannot be a property of a proposition in a deflationary understanding. Truth not being properly a property of anything.

this is to miss the point in any case: the point is that not only are these claims/beliefs truth-apt, they are true, for all but the rarest cases (the handful of people who actually have been to the moon, and the people who don't have two hands, for whatever reason). — Seppo

Well, it is if that's the position on truth that Wittgenstein held, yes. As I say, I'm not sufficiently expert in his works to gainsay your assertion, but I always thought he took a more Ramseyan attitude to truth, which would impinge directly on the point of whether hinge propositions are 'true' as Wittgenstein understood the term. That's all I was saying.

If Wittgenstein did indeed understand 'true' to mean something such that ""I've never been to the moon" is true iff I've never been to the moon", then you're right, but I've never read anything to that effect so I'd be grateful for a pointer in the right direction.

People ‘exaggerate’ when doing so benefits them in some way — praxis

Exaggeration is one thing, making something up entirely another. I don't believe the letter mentions numbers. Let's say, then, that the entirety of 'cancel culture' consists of nothing more than the dozen or so events we can verify, or even just a single event.

Take Kathleen Stock being hounded out of her job. Are you suggesting that the students at Sussex are an aberration (believe me, I've taught at Sussex, this would not be an unreasonable claim!), or was there something in the water that day. What convinces you that the event, this one event we can totally verify happened, was not indicative of a trend?

Well, you may be right. What I considered myself to be addressing was the issue of...

if kind of artificially adding diversity is a thing we do, isn't that making an assumption of the courts being politically biased — TiredThinker

...the answer being, no. It's nothing to do with re-balancing the court and everything to do with picking an easy token gesture to fill a front page with something which sounds like it's tackling systemic racism whilst being nothing more than papering over the cracks.

The ugly frontline of systematic racism is not an imbalance of skin tone in a few privileged institutions, it the systematic oppression of the poor (a massively disproportionate number of whom are people of color). Anything which is not directly tackling that issue is therefore deeply suspect in intent and at best an unhelpful distraction.

But maybe I should have taken the presumptions of the OP (that the selection was done out of a desire to re-balance the make up of the court) unchallenged and answered within the framework they set. You might have a point there. In that case, though, I've nothing to say.

If not to comment on its role as a distraction, who in their right mind could possibly raise a concern? They're all qualified, right? If we assume honorable intent on Biden's part, and If we assume other more serious actions against systematic racism were never on the cards, then I don't see a problem, but those two 'ifs' seem like the real issue to me.

Simply then, is it your position that POTUS should not appoint a well-qualified Black woman jurist to SCOTUS? — 180 Proof

No, that would be perverse. I'm talking about what he should have done. Passing commentary on his actions, as us without the power to influence decisions are wont to do.

What he should do from now is probably go ahead and appoint one of the preselected candidates, anything else would be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Next time, if he wants to tick something off his "tackle systemic racism" to do list, perhaps he could stop American companies using child labour in Africa, write off their crippling debt, lower the unfair trade sanctions that hobble African farmers in the world markets...

...and just keep doing that until it's an ugly blot in our history books.

Then, maybe then, he could look back and check if black women are still underrepresented in the supreme court. My guess is he'll find they're not.

You stretch the notion of "political expedience" so far to include campaigning when it usually refers to governing that you've rendered it meaningless. — 180 Proof

I get...

Expediency means doing what is convenient rather than what is morally right.
[formal]
Political expediency, rather than economic need, will determine who gains from the conflict.
This was a matter less of morals than of expediency.

...which is the sense in which I meant it. Making such a promise being aimed at maintaining the status quo (appearing to address reparation for systematic racism whilst avoiding taking the necessary steps), ie "...doing what is convenient rather than what is morally right"

You ducked the question of who's being harmed. — 180 Proof

No, I addressed that...

Anything which is politically expedient does harm by allowing a token gesture to take heat off any real-world reparation for the harms systematic racism has caused. — Isaac

Then, in effect, you accuse POTUS, an old White Man, of "identity politics" when his candidacy and Administration is a repudiation of White Identity Politics. — 180 Proof

I didn't accuse him of identity politics, I accused him of taking advantage of identity politics to avoid having to give reparation to those who actually suffer.

It's really not that complicated. There's only one front page, only one policy headliner, only one top slot in the political briefing agenda, only one keynote in the town hall speech, only one top question at the press conference...at any one time.

One of those slots can be given at any one time to reparation for systematic racism. The more slots taken up with meaningless token gestures, the fewer are taken up with advocating real change.

When kids are no longer working up to their waists in our fucking shit to pay for your next fucking iPhone, then I'll start giving a shit about which individuals in a group of extremely privileged individuals are slightly less privileged than some of the others.

Since when is it a matter of mere "political expedience" for a duely elected politician to keep a campaign promise to the greater share of his or her constituents? — 180 Proof

The nature of the promise is the political expedience, not the keeping of it.

Political context matters. Ahistorical, decontextualized, hypothetical objections to POTUS keeping this particular campaign promise are vacuous exercises in rationalizing the status quo (aka "White grievence identity politics"). :mask: — 180 Proof

Agreed. Now show that what I've said is such a thing. Otherwise your comment is, to use some buzzwords I've recently learnt, decontextualized and hypothetical.

those notoriously powerful mass media or the "unrivalled lobbying power of the largest organisations" aren't so insuperable as you portray them.

It's not them, it is up to yourself to make up your mind! — ssu

Right. So you'd agree with me, on this topic, then, that the presentation of data from the CDC, FDA, journals, experts etc. should not be presented as if it were gospel truth, but rather as contributions to be critiqued like any other (within the bounds of our prior knowledge)?

Because it seems you've been arguing the opposite in the past, though I may have misinterpreted.

If so, then we find ourselves in agreement.

The reason why there's so little representation of black women on the supreme court is centuries of removal of opportunity at each step necessary to get there (school, college, network, selection), redressing it requires both the equitable return of those opportunities and reparation for the damage caused by the years over which they were absent.

The first is in progress. Discrimination in theory is illegal, discrimination in practice is lessening. It's the second that positive discrimination seeks to address, the idea that the lack of back women on the supreme court is a harm resulting from prior (and to a lesser extent, continued) inequality.

So to whom has this harm accrued? Is it, by and large, black women who find themselves sufficiently qualified and experienced to be in the running for a supreme court placement? I can't see how. If she's got so far as to be considered, then the one barrier remaining is Biden's choice. Unless were making a claim that Biden is racist, then there seems, self evidently, to be no substantial harm having accrued to this particular person. Thus offering her a benefit by way of reparation is unnecessary.

The people who need benefits by way of reparation for the effects of past (and present) wrongs are, by definition, those suffering the specified harms. In terms of supreme court nomination, it would be those who, for example, couldn't even get a place at college because of systematicaly racist income inequality. That, by definition, is not any current supreme court nominee.

I don't think the accusation of political expediency is therefore misplaced. Nor do I agree that it "does no harm". Anything which is politically expedient does harm by allowing a token gesture to take heat off any real-world reparation for the harms systematic racism has caused.

As seems de rigueur these days for identity politics, some beneficiary is found who already belongs to the class of beneficiaries capitalism allows (the already privileged), and attention is drawn away from the class who actually suffer.

I honestly didn’t know that it would upset you — praxis

What 'upset me' if you want to put it that way, is that you thought it reasonable, on a debating platform, to dismiss @frank's contribution with a dismissive (and, it transpires, disingenuous) "hard to take seriously" rather than any kind of charitable inclusion of those concerns in the discussion.

If you seriously thought that there wasn't any evidence for the claims in the letter (an already fairly absurd position given the general academic standing in which some of the signatories are held), then at the very least we might have expected a "...really! Are you sure those things happened", not an assumption that they probably didn't and concomitant smearing of the author's intentions as non-serious.

The entire and sole counterargument in this thread has been some variation of "some right-wing people also complain about it so it must be nonsense", yours simply misses off even the pretence of justification and rests on "...it must be nonsense" alone.

The assertion "I've never been to the moon" is true iff I've never been to the moon, and the assertion "I have two hands" is true iff I have two hands. — Seppo

But this is more or less a correspondence view of truth, if the aim is to understand what Wittgenstein was getting at in OC, what do you think using such a non-Wittgensteinean definition of truth brings to that project? Aren't you liable to end up with no less an incoherence, just from a different angle?

If we're expecting Wittgenstein to be consistent (which, with an unfinished work is not by any means a given) then surely we'd be best at least fitting the important concepts to Wittgenstein's own understanding of them.

Expecting Wittgenstein's view of certainty to be explicable in terms of, say, Davidson's understanding of truth seems quite a tall order.

Yet the discourse has been framed unhelpfully as a meaningless oversimplification: “masks work” versus “masks don’t work.” — Russell and Patterson


Should be something like: masks can help (when used right). — jorndoe

Yep. So why isn't it?

The point being made is that if masks only help when used right, why mandate them in situations when you know they're not going to be used right (primary age schoolchildren, reluctant Republicans, dottering retired hedge-fund managers who've never lifted a finger to help others in their life...)?

What is the public health benefit of a policy which you know isn't going to work?

We do our best to figure things out bona fides, like the truth of the matter for example :ghasp:, and take it from there. — jorndoe

Are you seriously that partisan? Who's 'we' here? 'We' the good people of 'science' unaffected by bias, bribery, lobbying, zeitgeist, peer pressure, careerism, ideology...the saints standing above the rest of humanity mired in those things. Do you realise how arrogant that sounds?

And this 'citation bombshell' tactic is pathetic...

• How efficient are facial masks against COVID-19? Evaluating the mask use of various communities one year into the pandemic (Jul 21, 2021) — jorndoe

Specifically states...

Studies suggest the use of masks mainly in the healthcare facilities...Optimum use of face masks with additional precautions has been found to be useful controlling the spread of the respiratory viruses

...which supports the argument in the piece.

• Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows (Sep 1, 2021) — jorndoe

This is the Bangladesh RCT. It showed that "cloth masks did not offer a statistically significant rate reduction (cloth mask: 0.74%, control: 0.76%, P=0.540)"

• (meta) Do face masks work? Here are 49 scientific studies that explain why they do (Sep 17, 2021) — jorndoe

I can't access this site in Europe

• Why We Need to Upgrade Our Face Masks—and Where to Get Them (Sep 30, 2021) — jorndoe

Actually supports the argument that cloth face masking doesn't work. As does...

• What’s the best MASK to protect me from the Delta variant? (Oct 6, 2021) — jorndoe

...not sure what you're trying to say with these. Perhaps embed your citations within the context of an actual argument rather than just spew them all up at the end?

• An Ocean Away, I Found Some Common Sense on Mask Wearing (Oct 12, 2021) — jorndoe

Is an opinion piece. I already have your opinion, citing someone else's opinion is not evidence of anything other than that someone else also thinks that way. Just padding out your citations with puff pieces doesn't help your credibility.

• How well masks protect (Dec 2, 2021) — jorndoe

The trial referenced was still a mechanistic trial not an RCT and it didn't measure the endpoint (reduction in infection) only mechanism of particle filtration. Even then the reduction from surgical to cloth masks shows "decreasing from ~78% at 0.3 micron size to ~5% at the 10 micron size" that cloth masking will be rendered ineffective in reducing the clinical endpoint after a few hours.

• Face mask fit modifications that improve source control performance (Dec 15, 2021) — jorndoe

Another mechanistic trial. These tell us nothing.

Let's say the shedding of viral particles is reduced by 11% (the figure from your most recent mechanistic trial), that means that one of two things can bring the number of viral particles up to a level where infection is likely...

1) taking off your mask
2) spending ~11% more time in that environment

So either masking is pointless in environments you're spending little time in (they were safe anyway, low chance of encountering sufficient viral particles), or masks are useless in environments you spend hours in (like school) because even at 11% reduction the air is going to fill with viable particles within a matter of hours and you're screwed.

• N95, KN95 Or Cloth Masks? What To Wear To Best Protect Against Omicron (Jan 10, 2022) — jorndoe

This one actually states “Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There's no place for them in light of Omicron,” - Do you even read these first?

• What Do Masks Do to Kids? (Feb 7, 2022) — jorndoe

From the study itself

the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; just because there is no research showing something exists doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And there are few long-term studies on masks and development because we’ve only been wearing them widely in the United States for two years or so

Since when did public health policy become - "we'll mandate something and if anyone happens to turn up some data that it's harmful we'll stop". what on earth happened to 'Do No Harm'?

Are you seriously advocating the enaction of health policy on the basis that there's no trial out there on the matter so we can do what we like?

• Children and COVID-19: State-Level Data Report — jorndoe

I don't know what this one's supposed to show other than that children are at virtually zero risk from this and are more likely to be run over on the way to mask store than they are to die from the disease it's supposed to offer an miniscule amount of protection from, if they're worn right (which they're not).

___

Besides which, none of this is the point.

You've got trials showing masks are effective but they've got some issues (reliance on mechanism rather than RCT, no clinical endpoint measures, low rates of reduction problematic in long-term exposure environments...)

I've got some trials which show masking is ineffective - mentioned in the article, but here's a good summary too.

That's the makings of a discussion. You know...where people talk about the pros and cons, look at the evidence, hold different opinions. The point of the article I posted was that this is not what we have.

As I've said ad nauseam now I don't have any problem at all with you looking at your collection of evidence and concluding that, for you, masks are the best bet.

I have a problem with you insisting that unless I reach the same conclusion as you I'm somehow either mentally or morally deficient. It's just school-yard tribalism and it's downright irresponsible when there's a public health emergency that needs a serious clear-headed response.

I'm struggling to see your point...is it that two minutes of internet searching wasn't enough? Yes. Probably ten or more might have been better. I'm not sure why I'm doing your research for you. I've no interest in convincing you that these things happen. I'm just not willing to engage on that intellectual level. If you have an opinion on whether they're right or wrong, whether they're overkill, or have hit the balance just right, whether they're right-wing inspired or cross the political spectrum...I'd be interested to talk. But I'm not scouring the internet archives to prove that the phenomena even exists! If you're at that level you'll have to find someone else willing to hand-hold you through the history of the issue.

Books, documentaries, studies, seminars, lectures. — ssu

...are all forms of media.

Or are you seriously of the opinion that whilst the unrivalled lobbying power of the largest organisations the world's ever seen has dominated the notoriously powerful mass media, but they've somehow met their match at a handful of tweed-suited university deans and the barely functional management of the main academic journals?

now it's so easy to circumvent the journalist just by looking up the actual documents, listen to what the politicians actually have said, not the points that a journalist has selected to pick up and made an interpretation of his or her own about it. — ssu

So now we are to do our own research? So you'd disagree with the widespread proscriptions around pandemic about doing one's own research?

I completely agree with you here, but I think you're naïve if you want to suggest this approach applies to the "most people" my comment is about.

It was not a lack of specificity but a lack of supporting evidence — praxis

Alright then...

The point was entirely that you designated people's serious concerns as "hard to take seriously" on the grounds of a lack of specificity supporting evidence that two minutes of internet research could have settled for you. — Isaac

and it's still not settled for me. — praxis

Why not? You lamented the lack of examples, examples were given. Is there something else you're missing?

It's not new. The same phenomenon has existed as scapegoating for millennia. Scapegoating is apparently a psychological need. — baker

As I said to another poster making the same point, I don't think that it's particularly useful to over generalise. 'Cancel culture' can be robustly defined as it is, we needn't simply generalise it to 'all forms of social proscription'.

That said...

I once heard an interesting hypothesis about scapegoating: People resort to scapegoating when their own adherence to the values they profess reaches a critical low where even they cannot deny it anymore. Instead of admitting it and deliberately changing their ways, they metaphorically cast their own sins onto someone else and this way free themselves of the burden of a guilty conscience. This way, they clear the slate and can start fresh. — baker

Is an interesting perspective. So maybe I'm wrong about the unhelpfulness of such generalisation.

Neither your agreement nor your disagreement were the point. The point was entirely that you designated people's serious concerns as "hard to take seriously" on the grounds of a lack of specificity that two minutes of internet research could have settled for you.

I'm pretty sure agreeing with someone is allowed by the forum guidelines. — Seppo

Much to my disapprobation.

I never said any person in this thread did. But not having posted in this thread =/= imaginary. — Seppo

No, of course not, I was being agitative. The point was that since no one here is making those claims, opposing them doesn't progress the discussion. All it does (even if unintentionally) is polemicise an already pretty tribal topic. If there's an argument raised against 'cancel culture', it doesn't help reasonable discussion of it to say "racists and crestionists also complain about cancel culture", it's the equivalent of bringing up the fact that Hitler didn't eat meat in a debate about vegetarianism. Of course some groups are going to oppose cancel culture disingenuously that doesn't mean that all groups opposing it must be tarred with the same brush.

"cancel culture" isn't a neutral descriptive term, but a normative/value-laden one — Seppo

That is becoming more evident than I perhaps anticipated.

I was replying to praxis, who appears to be an actual person actually writing in this actual thread. — Seppo

You were just repeating what praxis said. I don't see how that helps, it's a discussion, not an opinion poll, but fair enough, it seems I should be talking to the owner, not the dog.

"Imaginary" :lol: — Seppo

So which actual person in this thread has made those claims? Or are we just going to wave our little flags so everyone is quite sure which gang we belong to ... Sure, here goes...

Don't you just hate Nazis, with their antisemitism and warmongering? Grrr!

Here's a good article from Jacob Hale Russell giving really good overview of how these narratives are built, here with cloth masking, but the same applies to any narrative.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/the-mask-debacle

Is he or she informed enough to notice what is true or not? — ssu

How? All of the information most people get is from media of some description, so using their prior 'knowledge' (from previous media reports) to discern bias in current media reports is just question-begging.

Or are you claiming that only newspapers are biased, that other forms of data dissemination are somehow immune?

You don't see the obvious illogicality in everything is a racket? — ssu

Well no. That's like me saying "You don't see the obvious illogicality in everything has a bias", or "everything has an ideological assumption", or "everything is limited by context"... The mere claim of universality is insufficient alone to warrant your concerns. Lots of things are universally the case.

What is absurd about it? — ssu

I explained, but you didn't answer.

What are these forces, you admit exist, doing on the days they don't interfere? Why do they chose not to interfere when you've admitted they're perfectly capable of doing so and it's to their benefit if they do?

To be clear - what's absurd is suggesting that forces which are both capable of, and stand to benefit from, manipulation of the mainstream narrative, simply don't do so for no reason at all.

So would I say that RT lies all the time? Of course not. — ssu

No one is suggesting the media always lie. But in your example its clear the objective is to favour Russia. That fact that the truth happened to do that on any given occasion is irrelevant to understanding the message the media deliver because had the crowd not been that way, the message would have been the same, all that would have changed would be the degree of manipulation required to get to it.

Is everything about it a lie? — ssu

As above, there's no reason not to assume some facts of reality might coincide with the agenda.

The point of all this, as I made clear to frank above is not to make a claim about what is the case.

I have never, and would never, make a truth-claim about the severity of the crisis nor the effectiveness of any if the interventions, my claim here has solely been that it is neither irrational, nor paranoid, nor conspiracy-theory not any of the other labels I've been given, to not trust the mainstream narrative on any of these matters. The mainstream narrative is manipulated by corporate and government powers at least some of the time, we all seem to agree on that, so concluding that this is one of those times is perfectly rational.

the right (i.e. the most vocal whiners about "cancel culture") is perfectly happy to e.g. talk hysterically about banning "critical race theory" in schools and trying to get people to lose their jobs if they criticize Israel, criticize Trump, criticize the police, or whatever, but then turn around and cry foul if someone gets publicly criticized or shamed for, say, doing or saying something racist. — Seppo

Right. Good catch. That's the hypocrisy of some imaginary interlocutors well and truly exposed, I'm sure we can all vividly imagine them scuttling back to their imaginary holes and keeping their imaginary opinions to their imaginary selves from now on. Well played.

If you're not too exhausted from fighting the good fight, I wonder if you've anything to say in response to the actual interlocutors who are actually writing posts on this actual thread?

Thanks for the article links. Some hilarious journalism, the Scientific American piece was brilliant...

several large mainstream publications, in complicity with politicians of both major political parties

...What? Complicity between government and media? Where have I heard that suggestion before?

The effect is the manufactured consent

...Come now, how could governments and media possibly 'manufacture' consent? This is starting to sound like some kind of 'paranoid conspiracy'.

News media are helping to shape public opinion

...No! Why have they started doing that all of a sudden, when their previous scaremongering and daily publication of case numbers obviously had no effect at all on public opinion. Those naughty journalists...

Two white men frame what they think is rational, deeming any questioning of their stand as irrational.

...Disgraceful, to think people could frame their own opinion as rational and all opposing opinion as irrational - where could they have gotten that idea from?

Oh, and I particularly liked...

the official death toll

...'official' as in produced by government agencies...the same governments you've just accused of colluding with media to mislead people. My, they are capricious aren't they? One minute the source of gospel truth, the next downright liars... It's no wonder we can't trust them (except when they advise things we agree with, of course, when it would be nothing but rampant paranoia to not trust them unquestioningly)

You have a very broad definition of 'cancel culture' which apparently encompasses all social proscription. I'm talking about the trend of small vocal groups calling for sanctions on people who expressed ideas they disagree with. I may be wrong, but I don't suspect the victims in the cases you give would have been surprised. If Kathleen Stock decided to write a paper advocating slavery I don't think she would have been surprised by the response. A key factor in the phenomena is the sense of walking on eggshells not knowing exactly what might trigger the mob next.

By your definition ant-libel laws are 'cancel culture' too.

That is too vague and general to be of much use. — Fooloso4

So first the letter's not to be taken seriously because there's no examples; then it's not to be taken seriously because the examples are one's where you'd agree with the cancellations...

Much more efficient that way, eh? Decide you're not going to take it seriously first, worry about why later...

If being against the "everything" part, but admitting that there are indeed rackets and obviously many want to influence the public discourse (and those with money have more ability to do it) is a bit too complicated, well, sorry. — ssu

No need to apologise, I just find the position absurd. You admit that "there are indeed rackets and obviously many want to influence the public discourse (and those with money have more ability to do it)", but then want to argue that sometimes they...just don't.

Were they having a collective day off? Did they suddenly find themselves in a Disney film and have a change of heart? Were they just about enact their plans to manipulate the media narrative in their favour when the junior secretary runs in and say "well, what luck, that all just happened anyway!"

Having admitted that extremely powerful forces are capable of manipulating government, media and other industries to act in ways that are favourable to their interests, it pretty much stands to reason that they will just continue to do so on every occasion until something prevents them. It stands out as an oddity when someone wants to make the claim that 'on this occasion they just didn't', certainly when presented without any evidence at all.

If they didn't, why not? even if things were going that way anyway, why not push them further?

Yeah, that's the point I'm at too. I don't have any objection to 'cancelling' people for saying hateful things, or telling lies (especially dangerous ones). This seems normal and has been the way we conduct society for decades.

A journal will effectively 'cancel' a paper if the author is shown to be insufficiently qualified or the work shown to be flawed.

A newspaper will 'cancel' a journalist if they makes stuff up, carry out vendettas, spew hatred of some particular group...

It's all a normal part of running a civilised society. The problem I'm seeing is the co-option of these tools to cancel views which are merely outside of the mainstream narrative. Saying that there are issues with not distinguishing trans women from biological women is not an act of hatred, it's just an unpopular view. It might hurt trans women, but that fact alone isn't sufficient to warrant excluding the view from the public sphere. People disagree about some pretty important stuff and it's going to hurt to have someone deny something that you think is fundamental to your identity, that's not sufficient ground to have that person hounded out of their job, we'd have very few people left.

I'm not sure it is all that tricky though...

There's plenty of well-respected methods we used to use. For example, if the view is held by a qualified expert in the field without any clear conflict of interest, then it's difficult to see how silencing it could be justified. In all my years in academia, I don't think I've ever come across the sort of behaviour Kathleen Stock has had to endure, makes me ashamed to be associated with Sussex.

I was thinking: how does `Tom Cotton-NYT` not pop in your mind when someone mentions an editor being squashed for publishing a controversial opinion? — frank

Yes, these are hardly examples which are buried out of the public eye, but I suspect the overwhelming temptation to dismiss the concerns creates something of cognitive block. No doubt we'll hear soon that the journalists reporting these incidents were prompted to do so by Russian infiltrators.

Editors are fired for running controversial pieces

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/07/new-york-times-opinion-editor-out-after-publishing-controversial-tom-cotton-piece/

books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/07/dr-seuss-books-product-recall-cancel-culture

professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/15/white-professor-investigated-quoting-james-baldwin-use-of-n-word-laurie-sheck

researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech

less than five minutes on Google.

reddit.com/antiwork — Benkei

To quote an expert

Make an argument, you know premisses and conclusions and all that. — Benkei

...all you've given me is a reddit group. Who have they 'cancelled'? How does any of that activity link up with trans rights? How does cancelling someone like Kathleen Stock help the plight of the poor?

You're being incredibly occult. If you have a clear point to make about the woke movement linking up with class struggles it should not be this painful to try and extract it.

The OP states:

Cancel culture is a right wing lie ... — Benkei — Fooloso4

Yes, I see. The OP was started as a response to my comment, so I took that to be the starting point, not the OP itself.

Although the terminology is new, it has always existed in one form or another. — Fooloso4

Really? Maybe I've been living in a shell until recently. I can't think of a single example from before 2000, yet can reel off a dozen or so just off the top of my head from the last few years. Can you think of examples from before 2000?

the question was whether it was a dangerous tool to encourage the use of. — Isaac


That is too vague and general to be of much use. — Fooloso4

True, but to be fair the actual question was more nuanced than my quick paraphrasing. what I actually asked was whether the criteria we use to judge when to suppress speech and when not to were changing and if those changes had negative effects.

I'm pretty confident that by-and-large what is happening is for the good. — Benkei

Good. I admire your confidence. So some big wins for the world's poorest are...?

I'll just quote some of the stuff that has already been said before on this site as well: — Benkei

Interesting, but quoting @Maw on anything is about as useful as quoting one of those action man dolls with the pull cord on the back, and the other is yourself. I'm not sure what use vitriolic polemics are here.

We need to assess independently whether what the mob wants is something agree with and if so join them. — Benkei

Isn't that pretty much 'being wary' as advises?

While examples of political correctness goen rogue do exist, the "culture" or "phenomenon" isn't about that, that's in fact about public accountability of companies, celebrities and politicians. — Benkei

But you've yet to furnish us with any examples to back up this assertion, let alone sufficient examples to justify a claim that it's what the whole phenomena is "about". Notwithstanding that failure, it's not even the point. Let's agree fro the sake of argument, that the main thrust of 'cancel culture' is about holding to account companies, celebrities and politicians such that they can no longer get away with statements and actions that we all agree are egregious. What is the correct response to the example I raised? Are they acceptable collateral damage from a social tool which is doing so much good? Is there any level of collateral damage you wouldn't be prepared to accept for the social gains you see the "phenomena" resulting in?

Except nobody is stomping anyone's views out, they are brought out in the light in all their stupidity and found lacking. — Benkei

This is clearly contradictory. You want, on the one hand to say that the movement is positive and on the other to say it doesn't successfully silence anyone. then what are its positives exactly. Either it successfully stops people form saying the things it finds offensive or it doesn't work and so the collateral damage is unjustified.

It's not clear what point you're making. Both right and left wing try to leverage this new social tool to suppress opposition. The question wasn't which political groups use it, the question was whether it was a dangerous tool to encourage the use of. Do you have a view on that?