If someone is convinced that black people are inferior to white people, I want them to be afraid to express that. I don't care about hearing evidence on certain subjects, and I want there to be societal repercussions for disagreeing about things like that.
While I do agree "cancel culture" in the way of "someone misspeaks once, so the twitter mob digs up their entire past and puts them on trial for every shitty thing they've ever said" is toxic and unhelpful, I'm perfectly in agreement that deplatforming bigots is actually helpful. As a concrete example, I'm very happy Kanye West has lost essentially all of his contracts and a lot of his supporters; he thinks "Jews secretly control the world" is true and wasn't afraid to say it, maybe others will be now and will self-censor.
The problem, as usual is that "bigot" is just another word in the long list of words used to silence people. To quote Paul Graham:
<<In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. "Blasphemy", "sacrilege", and "heresy" were such labels for a good part of western history, as in more recent times "indecent", "improper", and "unamerican" have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they're mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force.
The word "defeatist", for example, has no particular political connotations now. But in Germany in 1917 it was a weapon, used by Ludendorff in a purge of those who favored a negotiated peace. At the start of World War II it was used extensively by Churchill and his supporters to silence their opponents. In 1940, any argument against Churchill's aggressive policy was "defeatist". Was it right or wrong? Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that.
We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention.>>
Coming from an ex-communist country, where the word: "reactionary" is still useless after being used as a weapon for so long, I find it really scary that it is now, again, used unironically in the west and appears to be regaining its power.
My grandmother lost her job because she was part of the anti-communist, democratic opposition, and the reason given to her was that she was "divisive, and anti-worker".
So you suggest that everyone can express any opinion, no matter how inflammatory, without any repercussions? To be honest I find an absolute stance on that ridiculous. The questions I would ask are:
- what kinds of speech are unacceptable?
- what reaction does society take when someone crosses the line?
To continue on the Kanye example: essentially he lost his job, and I think that's perfectly acceptable. His employers/contractors found his speech disgusting, and fired him/ended his contracts. You can compare that to what happened with your grandma, and the only reason I think it's wrong is because I think pro-capitalism should be an "allowed" opinion, even though I disagree with it. To me the difference is that her opinion was a matter of political opinion, Kanye's directly targets jews, a marginalized group (note: in your grandma's case, "anti-worker" is no targeting a marginalized group since in a communist country the workers are definitionally not marginalized).
Every country I'm aware of (even the United States, for instance bomb threats are illegal) agrees that some speech should be prohibited. Where they disagree is what is prohibited and what the punishment is. In Germany, you can be jailed for denying the holocaust. Is that just? I don't really know but most of the Germans I've met agree with the law in this case.
Yes, you've gotten exactly to the heart of what I was trying to say. Of course there are people who get unfairly maligned for saying the "wrong" thing (or when the things they say have been taken out of context).
But people pushing back on what someone says is a normal, healthy part of discourse and it absolutely should scale with the power and influence of the person voicing that opinion (Kanye is the perfect example).
>If someone is convinced that black people are inferior to white people, I want them to be afraid to express that.
Elaborate on how and why exactly you think they should be afraid.
Should they be afraid for their physical safety because you want violence against them to not be punishable (or the state to have to enact such violence by law)?
Should they be afraid for their freedom because you want hate speech laws instituted that would land them in jail?
Nobody is afraid to voice their opinion because of the disapproval of leftists and "liberals" so it should be one of the 2 above or something similar.
No. Communists are not nazis. Communists do not advocate for the extermination of any marginalized group. I made it very clear that the opinion being expressed matters here, so I'm not sure why you'd think this is inconsistent?
As a person from an ex-communist country, whose family was killed by the communist government for being farmers I would disagree with that. So my question would be - why jail nazis but not communists?
Oh wow, you are talking about my grandfather who was killed because he owned 2 acres of land and his family was sent to Siberia.
At least now I know why you have such blind spot re. communists, as you do sound like a tankie alright.
Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN or use it for ideological battle. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Please also omit name-calling and swipes and personal attacks from your comments here. Believe me, I know how intense it can get when other people's points land on old wounds, but we're all responsible for managing our reactions.
> racists should find it hard to make friends and find employment.
It may surprise you but any form of social ostracism that is not government sanctioned will not achieve any of that regarding regular people. It will affect only celebrities and a segment of the public intellectuals. (But there will be a different segment that will benefit)
Regarding kanye west, his biggest problem was that a significant chunk of his "sponsors" (=board members of companies) and business partners were actually jewish. Had he said the same thing about Australian Aboriginals (or the same thing about jews but if his main market was East Asia), he'd be completely fine after the initial outrage subsided. So I don't think you actually understand anything about your example at all.
While I do agree "cancel culture" in the way of "someone misspeaks once, so the twitter mob digs up their entire past and puts them on trial for every shitty thing they've ever said" is toxic and unhelpful, I'm perfectly in agreement that deplatforming bigots is actually helpful. As a concrete example, I'm very happy Kanye West has lost essentially all of his contracts and a lot of his supporters; he thinks "Jews secretly control the world" is true and wasn't afraid to say it, maybe others will be now and will self-censor.