Not Rowan Atkinson, too?
In an interview with the Radio Times, the multi-hyphenated British star blamed social media platforms for increased levels of polarization, which he said makes him fearful for the future of freedom of speech.
“The problem we have online is that an algorithm decides what we want to see, which ends up creating a simplistic, binary view of society. It becomes a case of either you’re with us or against us. And if you’re against us, you deserve to be ‘cancelled’,” Atkinson said.
“It’s important that we’re exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. So it is scary for anyone who’s a victim of that mob and it fills me with fear about the future.”
Tell me, who has been cancelled? It seems to me that what this paranoia is all about is that some people who are dependent entirely on their personal popularity with the citizenry are pleased to have a label to tag on the phenomenon of losing that popularity. It’s not their fault — whether it’s just that their 15 minutes are up, or that their creepiness is publicly exposed, or that someone finds out they are a racist or a pedophile — no, none of that. It’s entirely due to a wicked external force, “Cancel Culture”, that is targeting them for destruction for arbitrary and unfair reasons. So Louis CK might have been exposing himself and masturbating in front of women, but nobody would have known that if Cancel Culture hadn’t revealed that. Milo Yiannopoulos might have been frolicking with Nazis and babbling about how molesting children is OK, but the only way you knew that was because Cancel Culture was picking on him.
It’s as if they’re only now noticing that popular opinion is fickle, and yes, people will decide whether they like you on your personal opinions and behavior. This is the human condition. And if your entire career rests completely on your popularity, there will be ups and downs, and you can thoroughly trash your own reputation without any external agent doing any conspiratorial work against you.
It’s also nothing new. Was Fatty Arbuckle a victim of Cancel Culture? I’ll concede that Julius Caesar definitely was, but if you haven’t been stabbed, you can stop complaining. Critics can be obnoxious, but they’re not Culture Assassins.
It’s a ridiculous invention, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Go ahead, tell me that Louis CK and Milo were victims of “Cancel Culture” — it won’t make a bit of difference in my opinion of them. I don’t like what they did or said, and I can choose not to support them. The fact that I might not like you does not mean that I have a “simplistic, binary view of society” — I can be looking at you with all kinds of nuance, recognizing that you’ve done some good work, that you’re kind to dogs, that your mother loves you, but if you’re also a misogynist I can still decide that, on balance, I’d rather not associate with you. I’ve enjoyed Rowan Atkinson’s comedy, but at the same time I can think he’s being a bit of a dumbass right now. Do these whiners about an imaginary Cancel Culture hiding under their bed want to take my choice away from me?
Thanks! I’ve been saying that for a while now. It’s like the Conservatives complaining about being singled out for flagging on social media. It’s not because you are Conservative. It’s because you are being an ass, and that’s what y’all do far more than Liberals.
Hmm…I preferred Mr. Bean as he was predominately nonverbal. Never got too deep into Black Adder. Seemed pretty good.
Anyway isn’t so-called cancel culture really just the outcome of a marketplace of ideas? People say or do offputting things as tastes and sensibilities…errr…progress (culture stuff) and the invisible hand back slaps em. Even Adam Smith was keen on the morality preceding the market. Oh where did it go?
BTW I’m reading Axel Honneth tear into Foucault’s analysis of discourse in The Critique of Power and so far nothing about deplatforming speakers. Really dry semiology vs objective referents stuff. Yawn. Haven’t gotten to where he critiques Habermas yet. Maybe that’s where the Critical Theory wokeism banner gets unfurled. Or catblogger guy is clueless. Oh the arcanity.
Honneth retired from being Mastermind of Critical Theory Agenda a couple years ago. In case anyone cared 😜
But there is good reason to counter the misrepresentation coming from IDW types.
I really ought to change my name to “Cassandra”…
Okay, so “cancelled” means nothing to you. Then read the rest of his quote, not only that word in isolation, and tell me what you’re complaining about which does mean something to you.
1) Our tech overlords and their algorithms are manipulating our culture online — just a well-documented fact, as I hope you agree.
2) Simplistic, binary thinking is a problem. Also a fact. And sure, before you say, it obviously has been so for as long as there have been people. However, it may be that some social/technological changes make things worse rather than better. So you shouldn’t dismiss it all just by pointing at other historical examples. You might instead want to use them to better understand what we’re dealing with now. That is at least an option which makes some sense.
3) It is important to be exposed a wide spectrum of opinion. Even if it’s only to know our enemies, so we can find ways to live with them peacefully and deal with them reasonably, it’s still important.
4) It can be scary to be confronted by lots of deranged, fanatical people (online or offline). That’s just how he and others feel sometimes, and you don’t actually get to tell him otherwise. You could try to understand it. But it’s probably not helpful to respond with “hey, don’t complain, at least you weren’t assassinated” (by a bunch of fucking patricians, like Julius Caesar was). That’s setting the bar for our behavior rather low, isn’t it? Couldn’t we do a bit better than that?
For a comedian, he seems to be making some fairly decent points. It’s at least not unintelligible, and it says a lot more than the very simplistic “cancelled” which somehow grabbed every ounce of your attention.
When cancel culture is good its good. When its bad they become a bunch of Karens who figured out how to he a Karen with little pushback. They resort to gamergate style harrasments. Their treatment of ContraPoints and Philosophytube is example of that.
Dude is British. We don’t have “free speech” constitutional bs here, at least not in the same way the USA does. And even if we did, hate speech isn’t protected speech. So one only has to worry about their “free speech” if one has something shitty to say.
Or maybe these white dudes fear cancel culture (even though I’m unsure they really know the mechanics of it) because now they have to finally be careful about what they say, like every other fecker on the planet.
(Also it kinda sucks. Without spoiling it, the ending of blackadder 4 was the first time a TV show made me cry. I don’t really cry easily, so…)
“You need to be exposed to a wide variety of opinions” is a very roundabout way of saying “your opinion is wrong and my opinion is right.”
That said, Atkinson is right about social media algorithms curating content to users in a way that encourage people to adopt binary views. And I agree that we need to be exposed to a diversity of opinion. But, diversity of opinion does not, under any circumstances, need to include opinions such as “women lie about being raped all the time” or “the Jews are conspiring to dominate and enslave the rest of humanity” or “black people are just not as intelligent as white people.” You can be exposed to a wide spectrum of opinions without being exposed to those that express pure hatred.
Neither of those two things that Atkinson points out lead to the conclusion about threats to free speech or expression he seems to be drawing. It’s quite the leap in logic, albeit one that we see many people make in conversations about so-called “cancel culture.”
“Tell me, who has been cancelled?”
One of the first obvious cases was Salman Rushdie.
However, anyone who has been invited to speak at a University, who had their invitation rescinded because another group didn’t want them to speak on campus is an example of that. Do I really need to provide you a list? I know you don’t like Dave Rubin, but he was invited to speak, had to move venues because of protesters, and then the protesters disrupted his talk at the new venue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knv7ZwIBmvs&t=2470s If you understand how free speech works, then you should recognize that this is a violation of it.
For further reading: https://reason.com/2020/11/01/how-to-tell-if-youre-being-canceled/
@8
No matter how hard I try, I can’t draw that conclusion from that quote.
Opinions are like assholes – everyone has one and they’re usually full of shit.
@8 the good points he may be making are irrelevant. He’s trying (as all of them try) to distract not persuade. The goal is to prevent any close examination of valueless ideas and keep the discussion from ever reaching a conclusion.
Maybe he’s doing it innocently, maybe he’s another person caught up in the subversion of social justice language by the right. But, he’s still doing it.
The problem is, as usual, a slimy individual embracing a known problem, then attempting to leverage that problem in order to rehabilitate themselves.
Can an algorithm that parses human language misfire, occasionally to comedic effect to the programmer’s eyes? Absolutely, got bit a couple of times with my own filters, some being RegEx based and rather complex. Debugging taking quite some time on occasion, but most usually needing a few more subfilters to clean up.
Nothing Cancel about that, just another case of On Error goto Human.
But, when one frequently trips such filtering, something is far more often wrong with the one triggering said filters.
Therein lies his failure. Because, save under very rare and specific conditions, when one hears hoof beats, one expects horses, not zebras to come running by.
I think the main issue is that a person/celebrity’s reputation now is far more sensitive than it used to be–sensitivity in the sense that it changes drastically and rapidly in response to current events. Perception of a celebrities often have a positive feedback loop due to social media bubbles, so for example when Chris Pratt revealed he was associated with a homophobic church, within minutes the entire country was barraged with information about it, and public opinion swayed immediately.
Tied with that is the fact that many “celebrities” that complain about cancel culture are social media influencers whose reputation directly determines their income–number of subscribers, number of views, etc. So, when you live in a world in which the currency is your reputation, and your reputation can change very quickly (especially if you’re an asshole), it’s easy to complain that life isn’t being fair to you.
#4: Fine. Then the grandest example of Cancel Culture Warriors are people like the Proud Boys and right wing gun nuts. Somehow, the phrase is always applied only to the left side. And I agree that most of what he says is correct, but what does he propose to do about it?
#9: Yes, I’ve been invited to speak at universities, and have encountered protesters, and have had venues cancelled. It’s fine. My response in those situations has always been to talk to the protesters, not whine endlessly about being “cancelled”. I don’t think I have a right to an audience.
PZ, if you were invited, then you have an audience. If it was cancelled due to lack of interest, then fair enough. If it wasn’t cancelled, and you are prevented from talking, then your freedom of speech was infringed. Those who wanted to hear you also suffered. In the video, Dave also tried to talk to the protesters, and most of them refused to engage and just continued chanting or rattling jars of coins, etc. You don’t have to attend a talk if you dislike the speaker, or what they have to say, but you shouldn’t be preventing a speaker from talking to those who do want to listen, or debate.
Wow, Salman Rushdie having a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Komeini over 30 years ago is the best example of this supposed terrible scourge of cancel culture.
The attempt to paint any critique of the neoliberal whinging factions as equivalent to being issued a death warrant by an Islamic fascist is telling.
Having free speech doesn’t mean anyone is obliged to listen, give you a platform, or allow their platform to be used to broadcast bigotry and propaganda. It also means other people may choose to drown out any hateful free speech with their right to free speech.
@10
It’s in the fuller context of the topic that I draw that conclusion from that one particular common element that gets trotted out all the time when the conversation is about cancel culture or censorship or freedom of speech or whatever. I was being blithe, although I maybe wasn’t as clear about that as I should’ve been. It’s just become a feature of these conversations that someone who holds a repugnant view eventually retreats into “difference of opinion” defense. It’s right up there with the “just asking questions” as a meaningless rhetorical gambit that ultimately is used to protect contemptible views rather than to protect free speech or anything else of actual value.
@11
I completely agree. That’s why I ended my comment with saying it’s a big leap in logic to go from where he started to the conclusions he drew. There’s no clear path from “social media sucks for this reason” and “exposure to different opinions can be good” to “we should fear cancel culture and mob rule.”
@16 Nice of you to strawman my post. I never said it was the best example. PZ asked for an example, so I provided two, the second of which you ignored for some reason. Here are a few others: J. K. Rowling, James Damore,Heather Mac Donald, Charles Murray, Abigail Schrier, James Abbott, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Brett Weinstein, but I don’t have the time to discuss each one.
You obviously ignored my comments preceding Dave Rubin, and my response to PZ #15. If you were invited to speak at a University, you have been given a platform. You can choose not to attend the talk, and no one if forcing you to go. However if you force the invitation to be rescinded, prevent the speaker from speaking, or disrupt the talk so others can’t listen or debate, then you are infringing on the free speech of others. You are welcome to debate, but the speaker was given a platform, you weren’t, so if you think you can “drown out any hateful free speech with their right to free speech” then you don’t understand what free speech is or how the law works.
@BACONSQAUDgaming 15
PZ is still speaking.
A difference is that in such a situation this is where the rest of society can take sides on if this is really bad or not. In such a situation where the government is prevented from checking it out for myself (the rhetorical fuel for calling public criticism a “free speech” problem) I can see if deplatforming (private institutions role-modeling social criticism of the bad thing) is warrented, or rejection of an op-ed, or…
@BACONSQAUDgaming 18
Those people can still speak.
Ack. #19 should indicate that the government is prevented from preventing me from checking it out for myself. The repetitive part threw me.
I really don’t get the bit where not getting to make a university speech equates with having one’s rights taken away. The university can choose who gets to make a given speech, and whether the audience wants to hear it is necessarily a major element that contributes to the choice (hence the proliferation of speakers about interesting matters such as modern politics and the scarcity of speakers about boring matters such as chartered accountancy). If they tentatively select a speaker in terms that allow them to later change their mind, and in fact later do change their mind, that is not oppression- or, if it is, it is no more oppression than the fact that colleges have continually declined to offer me a speech making opportunity in the first place. That professional celebrities find their audiences moving on to other things for reasons not directly related to the celebrities’ work is also neither oppression nor actually news. Comparing this to Rushdie being threatened with death for his writing strikes me as highlighting the weakness of the claim of oppression rather than contributing to its strength.
The fact that the Times decided not to publish my letter to the editor doesn’t mean that they are suppressing my right to express myself; it means that, if I want to be heard, I will have to distribute pamphlets myself or (in extremis) rant on street corners.
And? I’m missing your argument that this is always wrong. Suppose the speaker intends to call for those who disagree with them, or members of some minority, to be lynched, or that they are subhuman – and we know this because they have done so before? Or that they intend to “dox” people who would then be in danger – as Milo Scumbag did? Are you saying they should still be allowed to speak?
In any case this would not be “canceling”, which implies that someone is deprived of any opportunity to express their views – which clearly, disrupting a single talk, or even every talk does not do, in the age of the internet.
I am unable to copy paste the relevant paragraph from bacons last reply @ 18.
As others are attempting to explain, your right to free speech only extends to protecting you from any government attempts to limit your speech. It doesn’t extend to being exempt from other people taking issue with said speech, and exercising their right to protest or use their free speech against you.
All of your examples seem to be freely speaking, including Mr Rushdie. Nowhere in the right to free speech does it guarantee that an invitation to speak cannot be rescinded.
as most people whining about cancel culture are right wing assholes compaining about left wing twitter you obviously tend to like cancel culture, but Rowan Atkinson is not whining he was cancelled, he sees some trends in behavior he doesn’t like and he is right.
Most of his points would be liked by you if he didn’t use the phrase cancel culture.
The problem with cancel culture for me is that it is mob mentality fuelled character assasination – even if it 99% of the time hit people that deserved it and if people who don’t deserve it usually survive, most of the attack doesn’t come from the people who examined someone’s views and opinions in context, they just seen third person characterization of the target and joined the mob.
Atkinson talks about what makes cancel culture possible and that worries him. Maybe US would have now president elect Bernie Sanders if he didn’t have to face all the time lies and misconceptions spread about him by corporate media. Most people who hate him doesn’t even know what are his position. But that required years of sowing division in the public and a lot of resources.
We already have a society organized around us vs them mentality. Social media allow hate campaigns to self organize without resources of corporation behind that. Social media train people to react emotionally and join instead of looking for sources and analyze the information. And big tech showed us enough time, they are willing to do anything to keep your eyeball on the screen no matter the cost for others.
Cancel culture is one offshoot of this rotten roots and even if you like it, if you approve it’s targets, it is not the only one.
The most annoying argument used by fans of cancel culture is that all those people are not completely cancelled. Of course you name those who cancel culture failed to cancel. But people who agreed with those cancelled (even partially or temporarily) often felt the same zeal directed towards them or at least saw how people they identify with are getting attacked. And what did they do? Change their minds?
No, they just went further into the rabbit hole, they stopped sharing their honest opinions in social media, they started lying to polsters.
Rowan Atkinson is right. Even if you love cancelling scumbags, social and technological factors that made cancel culture possible are the same ones that make social media a threat for society and democracy.
@Gorzki 25
Can I see 3 examples of cancel culture?
@23 Nice of you to keep moving the goalposts. Again your understanding of free speech is underwhelming. Speech is protected unless it calls for immediate violence, so yes, if someone is calling for someone to be lynched then that is illegal. However if you want to call me subhuman, then you are perfectly within your rights to do so – expressing your opinion is not illegal…except in the eyes of the cancel culture. Perhaps you’ve heard of the old nursery rhyme, Sticks & stones…? Before replying to this message, please watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMoDt3nSHs
@BACONSQAUDgaming 27
Read it again. They did not say you were subhuman.
And you should be able to reproduce the contents of the video if you believe in the message.
Bacon @ 27
Free speech is freedom from government interference in your right to a platform. Nothing more. If those platforms choose to withdraw their services from you that is so very much not an infringement of free speech. You seem to be one of those daft absolutists who feels everyone has the right to use any platform of their choice.
I’m not inclined to watch your YouTube dump. Care to summarise it?
@BACONSQUADgaming
Those protestors are using their very own free speech to voice their own concerns about the speakers you mentioned. The organizations agreed to take their speech seriously and made a descision. Wouldnt all these opponents of cancel culture also using their speech to silemce the cancelers? Isnt that what you are doing right now?
Seroously your position is imherently hypocritical. Is using free speech is detrimental to freedom of speech then either you need to rethink your argument or all of this is bullshit.
I have my own issues with cancelculture. I see you have gaming as part of your username. Some of these cancelculture people act like gamergaters and harrass people. Thats my beef. And its the only legit one i see.
Oh and as for the old nursery rhyme it needs updating:
“Sticks and stone can break my bones but words can convince someone to shoot up a church”
Doesnt rhyme…im working on it. Its pretty clear the proponents of violemce and fascism are also a fan of anti PC rhetoric.
Others have pointed out that Rowan has a good point about algorithms and so forth, but, ummmm, did anyone notice how that complicated analysis that would require considering lots of stakeholders and technology was basically in a single sentence while blaming people for having opinions took most of it? This is the kind of shallow discourse we are supposed to pay attention to for freeze peachers. Rowan didn’t bother to consider if Twitter and Facebook should be viewed as complicit let alone actively dangerous, or if there are reasons activists may take the tacks that they do given the environment that has been created, or if society as a whole failed in some way by not producing authentic communities of sincere discussion and allowing polarization to emerge by, say, growing class divides, segregation and so forth. No point in drawing any of that out and thinking about it. It’s all an individual problem: Activists on Twitter need to let people speak, no matter the incentives that are at play that would make that unilateral disarmament. He doesn’t even address the reality that maybe the people who get “cancelled” themselves have some personal responsibility to also not fall into the algorithm.
@15: That does not fucking follow. All an invitation to speak means is that some people THINK it is worth you attending, which USUALLY means they THINK you have an audience. It does not mean that you do.
That basic logic error aside, by your reasoning, is everyone who never got an invitation in the first place canceled too? You and I have never been invited for a standup show filmed by HBO: Why are our voices being silenced? If we’re going to say that being denied a platform you initially had access to is censorship, then there is no logical reason to say that being denied a platform at all is censorship.That means everyone, everywhere, should have 100% of everyone’s time. That is, of course, absurd, but it is the actual outcome of your position. If people with a platform cannot decide who they want to bring on and make choices as to what would be appropriate, then that’s the only alternative.
Guess what? Having people like Milo or Ann Coulter show up is the right thing to do. People like Milo will openly out and antagonize individual students. That’s not any more acceptable behind the pulpit than in front of it; it’s less so, actually. They don’t have anything original to say: We’ve heard the right-wing bull. Their arguments are false and without merit, so letting them speak propagates ideas that are both untrue and harmful. And they are so inflammatory with their rhetoric that they will cause polarization rather than discussion. They’re talking heads appropriate for dishonest TV channels, not a university stage.
And every one of them who gets invited means some local speaker, some Professor with an interesting idea who may not normally get a spotlight or an activist doing good and quiet work or an artist, doesn’t get attention. You are bemoaning the fate of popular people because they are popular. This is a maxim that will end up insuring that those who already have audiences always expand them and no one else will. Why is that acceptable?
What I find so frustrating about attitudes like yours is that you are discussing the positive right to speech. Not just being censored by force, but having other people proactively listen to you, and suspend judgment on your ideas, and do so in perpetuity, so intent are we to make sure a diversity of opinions is heard. But I have absolutely zero belief that you care about any other limitation on speech. Poor education limits speech, so let’s invest billions into improving education and giving everyone free college, right? Certainly factors like pollutants, limited transportation, and lack of food also limit our ability to effectively express ourselves: Let’s spend billions on the general welfare. And if you own a massive megaphone (the actual problem Rowan could identify), you can shout me down. Let’s tax the affluent and redistribute wealth.
No. Of course not. The only thing we are supposed to do to make sure that every idea is heard is for people in the supposed marketplace of ideas to always let everyone else use their megaphone (or, in reality, to always let conservatives talk, in perpetuity, because I have never seen this defense extended to antifa activists or New Black Panthers members or leftists all over the Internet who constantly get death threats and DDOSes and harassment – was Anita Sarkeesian “cancelled”?) and never make a judgment on an idea. In other words, we are never supposed to have a favorite brand in a marketplace. That is a contradiction in fucking terms. Even in science, folks like Sean Carroll make clear that you don’t have a right to grant money or to publish crank publications in peer-reviewed journals. There’s finite time and space, and some ideas (like those that deny the Big Bang) are not worth investigating. Objectively.
Conservatism is the same. It is not worth investigating. Objectively. No amount of verbiage changes that.
Typo: I meant that having people like Milo and Ann not show up is the right thing to do.
Hey defender of freeze peach the presidents twitter has been blocked now. Did he get canceled?
@logicalcat: You know, Wynn and Thorn could considerably reduce their grief if they abstained from A) namesearching themselves (on their alt-accounts in order to circumvent blocks)*, B) indulging in deliberately inflamatory “Look at me!”- party pieces ( then going all “Who, me?” when sh!t inevitably hits the fan) and C) treating their f#*k-ups as fodder for the memory hole, never to be acknowledged or apologized for.
They are, of course, not going to to so, because every bit of manufactured controversy supplies them with more attention, fan loyalty and patreon bucks. I used to be a massive fan of both of them, but their descent into increasing egomania and manipulative disingenuousness has lead me to cease my support for them.
*= I genuinely feel bad for them, as they are basically engaging in a form of self-harm.
snark33sian@35:
I have absolutely no idea to what you refer; the only Wynn and Thorn I know are ƿ and þ.
Frederic:
This is a very, very silly argument.
(Should I elaborate?)
ok guys, why do you whine about Rowan Atkinson?
Bunch of Tweeter mobs bashing every public figure for not adhering to their ever changing standards causes comic who has not been bashed himself yet (because he was considered ok so far) to say he is afraid of being bashed, so he will be so careful next time he will not do anything controversial even if he will not do anything at all.
He will auto-censor himself.
You won.
You should celebrate.
Or is it not enough he is scared of you, he should also love you and enthusiastically embrace your views?
That sounds creepy familiar.
OK, this confuses me.
“the multi-hyphenated British star”
In what sense is he multi-hyphenated?
Gorzki:
Pretty clearly, for the same reason you whine about people supposedly whining about Rowan Atkinson.
Duh. Basically, because sometimes people like to express their opinion.
(I know, I know… I’m “whining” about you whining about others whining.
Your turn to whine about me “whining” about you whining about others whining, I think)
So has he already made an anti-trans statement or is he just planning it (preemptive whining)?
@Gorzki 38
I noticed that you did not provide an example of whining, and there are more then guys here. Yes I know what you mean but you are still treating us as a mass.
@Gorzki 38
Seriously, look at this.
“He will auto-censor himself.
You won.
You should celebrate.
Or is it not enough he is scared of you, he should also love you and enthusiastically embrace your views?
That sounds creepy familiar.”
All that feeling and you haven’t tied it to any specific people. 3 examples please.
@35
Yea ive seen this before. “If Anita Sarkessian didnt want that abuse she shouldnt have made herself a target by doing x, y, and z ” Nice name btw.
Due to the behavior by the social justice karens I do not believe all of that bullshit. Their behavior and over reaction for incredibly mild offense is as irrational as your defense of their abuse. Like I said earlier. They act just like gamergaters. Same tactics. And they also harrassed Lindsey Ellis just for being her friend even though she has nothing to do with what happened. They tried to get their employers involved. Thats ridiculous. They also dismiss any defense of her as just her fans being stans. Might as well just call me a white knight at that point.
Like I said they are Karens. Most of them arent even trans. Even other trans or nb ppl think the behavior was unreasonable. The real ones anyways. They are privleged assholes who figured out a way to be Karens with no pushback. You dont get this from black or brown twitter. Or even feminist twitter. No. Its only this specific subsection and makes me think their offense is fake. They are a dishonest lot as well. Superimposing offense and malice where there isnt one.
A lot of times cancel culture is righteous in that its people using their freespeech to criticise someone for doing or saying something stupid. A lot of the times is people using their free speech to harrass and intimidate someone into silence for imaginary offenses. Wynn has put up with a lot of abuse from alt right nazis and yet this is the instance that hurt her the most. Thats saying something.
A lot of people here probaly know that I hate purity politics. Well this is it. Another example of it. The first time Wynn was canceled was when during a youtube event she was photographed for having dinner with some centrists. Aparently that was too much for the overly sensitive Karens.
Oh and btw the while circumventing blocks, if it even happened at all and its not another dishonest attack by these assholes, it defonitely happened after the whole pushback and the canceling. So scratch that dishonest bullshit right off. As for their presentations. They are entertainers and presented it in the way they entertain. Using that as an excuse or defense of rank harrassment is fucked up but expected by the cancel Karens.
Seriously, these “if you change the mind of the people that offered me a place to speak its denying my speech!”, people sound a lot like abusive boyfriends – “I don’t care that you changed your mind about going out with me, or having a key to your apartment, or… you name it. You promised we would be together forever!!!”
You have no more right to protest about someone telling you they changed their minds about you speaking at their venue than you have to whine that someone “ruined” your dating life, somehow, and its unfair your girlfriend is no longer talking to you (no matter how unfair it might actually be, assuming it was wrongful), and your refusal to accept it, and/or insistence that somehow this shouldn’t be allowed, is equally selfish, irrational, and, possibly, depending on your intended speech content, just as creepy.
Now, if you had a contract, and they broke the contract, then you have what ever legal rights, and recourse, that contract and contract law allows. You don’t, however, if “invited” some place, suddenly gain the extra special freaking right to show up, even if the people who invited you changed their minds, regardless of why, or how, they changed them, just because you HAD a platform. Because, guess what? It was legally withdrawn. Why the F, as other people have said here, right wingers can’t freaking comprehend this…
Milo was actually outing immigrant students and trans gendered omes putting their lives at risk. But oh noes its unfair to refuse him a platform. What about freeze peach?
Yes, I have. It’s a particularly stupid lie. There are numerous accounts from people who have been subjected to online hate campaigns – which may indeed be within legal bounds – testifying to the serious psychological pain and damage they inflict. Many people, particularly women, have been driven off social media by them. But I’m sure that’s just fine by you; in fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that you have participated in such campaigns yourself.
KG@47 I think when used in the playground, it is intended as “aspirational” rather than factual. I agree it’s insufficient to address serious harassment.
@PaulBC 48
Just is just one condition.
Sometimes they (bully, allies, people who don’t want “the boat rocked”…) want you to stop complaining about specific insults that are microagressions. Toughing up is for the people who don’t have to deal with the bigoted versions. That’s how out-groups are prevented from defending themselves socially.
Consider the response to “ok boomer” and the attempts to shame the elder shaming. I tell people trying to call “boomer” a slur that other generations get their fighting words too. We’ve left them a mess.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite@49 I get the difference between “I am tough.” and “You should be tough.” However, I developed many strategies against bullying while growing up, and I am proud of not letting other people set the terms of engagement, which is the intent of verbal bullying. Words obviously can hurt you. I am not dismissing this point, and I understand how its dismissal is part of the standard bullying arsenal.