Would it be nearly impossible to make their work lives intolerable?

Depends on what someone considers intolerable. Losing the respect of many of the people you work with and/or students is certainly a reasonable outcome for making public speech. Nobody is entitled to the respect of their peers.

How about death threats, campus-wide calls for removal, and your own union throwing you under the bus instead of defending academic freedom?

Not if the speech is true, or even arguably true. Philosophers are expected to explore such things from all available angles.

ETA: Where are you sourcing the bit about tenure from? I've made a good faith effort to find her tenure status, to no avail.

There isn't academic tenure in the UK. Thatcher got rid of it. There is a distinction between permanent and temporary contracts, where the former is more difficult to obtain and provides reasonable job security. Academic freedom is protected under various laws such as Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and s.43 of the Education Act.

The second person you cited, Leslie Neal-Boylan, was tenured faculty and was offered continued employment before she resigned.

Death threats are illegal and exactly as problematic in situations like this as they are in numerous other situations where they occur and for which you express no concern.

The other two examples are expressions of free speech, which I thought you supported.

The death threats are the only illegal and fully inappropriate part of that response.

“Cancel culture” is an inevitable and immediate consequence of living in a society that has both free speech and capitalism. It is literally one aspect (exclusively the stick, rather than the carrot) of the “invisible hand of the market.” The only things new about it is applying the term “cancel culture” and then framing it as a scapegoat for the economic consequences of one’s free speech instead of addressing the content of the criticism.

You need to distinguish here between two types of support.

1) Supporting the legalization of a message (e.g. Nazis holding a rally in Marquette Park in Chicago)

2) Supporting the message itself

One can say "Nazis ought not rally in Marquette Park," without affirming that they ought to be legally sanctioned for doing so.

Similarly, one can say that it was wrong to pursue #StockOut (since Dr. Stock did nothing wrong) while affirming the legal right of students to protest in that manner.

The more logically incoherent a belief system, the greater the need to smear and intimidate critics and suppress debate.

That would be true if males were trans women and females trans men at the same rate, which doesn't appear to be the case. Whether from outside factors (such as cultural) or a quirk of biology that doesn't seem to be true (there is some speculation that fetal development stages lead the apparent disparate rates).

Forgive me if I'm not seeing data in the link that actually address that directly. I'm going on a few smaller research findings that of course suffer from all the problems of studying a very small population that is repressed by threats of violence and accusations their existence is the same as blackface, an inherent transgression against women specifically even from people claiming to be funny allies. The overwhelming reason for 'de-transitioning' given is after all the violence and lack of acceptance from the surrounding community, but that kind of cancellation is fine if people 'don't understand' this human trait.

A news story from Canada on how school boards are looking into how to get rid of books claimed to be "...harmful to staff and students."



https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-...raries-4551859


At the end of the article it mentions that Margaret Atwoods 'The Handmaids Tale' is one of these books.


This has now led to calls for oversight of the process.



https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-...-books-4702502

Big ups to Atwood for making this banned books list and the one mentioned over here as well.

Historically, yes, which is why there are currently more trans women than trans men. One of the articles I linked above indicated that transition rates have equalized in the last 20 years (I think, I don't recall the exact time frame). Unless those rates change again, we should expect there to be more trans men in absolute numbers because there is a slightly higher proportion of females in the US population.

Oh thanks for the reference, I'll have to go back and look. If so it would lend evidence to my suspicion that the differences were do to other pressures (and because it helps confirm my biases, it must be true :p ).

Assuming that rates will stay the same as in any given timeframe is a quick way to extrapolate incorrectly. It reminds me of a 'concern' that happens when suppression of any given trait is reduced. 'People are jumping onto a trend, and the increasing numbers of people who have claim to have it proves it!' It was the 'trans trender' claim, that current numbers increasing beyond the numbers from the recent past prove that people are just choosing to be that way. The same as the claim 'autism didn't exist in my day' and blaming vaccines for 'increasing autism'. The same as the increase in people identifying as homosexual, then bisexual. The same as the increases of people identifying as left handed.

In every case the increase was right after suppression of these traits was reduced. Interestingly some recent research showed that some increased at the same rates before leveling off as each other (left handedness and homosexual iirc).

It is not at all surprising that people with these traits being cancelled less because of them is always framed with the same bad arguments including the claim that others are being 'cancelled' for not being allowed to cancel others for the reasons they used to.

EDIT: 'As more people realize my behavior was wrong and harmful, they put up with it less. Poor persecuted me! They won't let me be wrong and hurt people in peace!'

I wonder what would account for those shifting rates.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Data is hard to find online. My uninformed rando internet guy guess is that the social acceptability of Tom boys historically has acted as a “good enough” half-measure for folks in the FTM trans closet, where MTF had no such option. There is no similar “Jane girl” option that would not have gotten someone beaten up or killed.

I’m glad you acknowledge that protest and criticism count as free speech.

Now you need to explain what makes these expressions of free speech problematic in the specific situations you referenced.

Again? You just quoted my explanation.

Hey just try having a basic conversation about the blacks or jews and what they deserve and you will find it rather difficult. I mean look at Mel Gibson how he was canceled for a few statements about the jews.

You really think Chapelle could have done that same bit about asians or jews?

How about something truly wrong and outrageous, Eddie Murphy apologizing for hit joke about gay people in the 80's.

https://www.essence.com/celebrity/ed...tent-ignorant/

Gay stereotypes are just funny like black stereotypes, but you do a good old fashion minstrel show to prove that and suddenly you get canceled for no reason.

"Voluntarily" is technically true. But when retaining their position requires them to hire security guards to protect them from people who are threatening them with harm, and the university seems unable to ensure the basic safety of their professors with tenure... one has to wonder what exactly "voluntarily" means these days.

The university didn't cancel Stock, but the slavering rabid mob sure as hell did.

Yeah, I disagree. This is way, way beyond "invisible hand of the market" and all the way into denying a person the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's denying a person the ability to live their lives without threat of harm and harassment.

:rolleyes: WCGW?

Are you aware that over the past few years, the rate of young females self-identifying as transgender, with no historical expressions of dysphoria or even gender nonconformity, has skyrocketed?

The number of young males identifying as transgender, has risen, but by a much lower margin. The number of middle-aged males identifying as transgender has risen by a material amount.

Why on earth would you expect a behavioral pattern that has historically been overwhelmingly male to equalize in the first place?

Uh, because of that study I linked to and those reasons I've stated?

What's your source?

ETA: wait, aren't you saying that they are approaching the same rate?

Well, it wouldn't be the first time you misunderstood something based on bad assumptions and just made claims without support.

Apparently there is a new biography of Anthony Comstock, the behaviours he exhibited in his quest to avoid being triggered into acts of 'self abuse' make an eerie parallel to much of what is now termed 'Cancel Culture.



(Emphasis mine)



https://www.thefire.org/the-mind-of-...hony-comstock/

Death threats? Meh

Cancel culture ninnies should try being a politician, especially a progressive or a liberal. They receive hundreds of death threats every week. Politicians such as AOC spend the first part of every morning reviewing photos of the people who have made death threats against her.

Yup! Nailed it perfectly... 100% agree!

Is this an aspect of our culture which you would like to see changed?

Yes, but not in the way you have deliberately misrepresented it.

I would like to see consequences... REAL consequences for people who make death threats! People who threaten a person's life should not be afforded the protection of free speech laws.

Hard to see how that's relevant. Comstock wielded state power, where most of the complaints around "cancel culture" seem mostly to be rooted in indignation that the unwashed masses might hold strong negative opinions of people who are their betters.

We can also see that any state sanctioned cancelling appears to be coming from the right - Texas laws etc…:

Which what? My answer would be “people who make death threats”. What’s the other option?

18 U.S.C. § 115 hasn't been struck down on 1st Amendment grounds, so I think it's safe to say that death threats aren't protected speech in the United States.

It was a simple yes or no question.

I'm struggling to find the eerie parallels there also.

Anthony Comstock was a singular politician who created an organization to monitor public morality, created and changed legislation to reflect his morality, and later abused his power to leverage the legal system to punish people he found obscene.

Cancel culture, if one could even agree on a definition of what it really is, is many people from a variety of backgrounds under no real organization mostly publicly shaming others online for a variety and even at times contradictory reasons.

And yet they have photos of people who have made these death threats, so presumably, they know wjo these people are. Why have they not been arrested and charged under 18 U.S.C. § 115 ?

That's because there aren't any. The two situations are not remotely alike - not even superficially.

I must have misread the question last night. Which aspect, specifically, are you referring to? I think creditable death threats should not be protected by free speech. I think euphemisms and analogies referring to the death of someone involved should be protected. I don’t think it is unreasonable for police to investigate the latter in order to determine the former if there is any ambiguity about which it is.

I also think none of this has to do with cancel culture. It’s death threats and harassment, which are already illegal and have a remedy. As I have said, cancel culture has existed forever in the intersection of free speech and capitalism. Arguably before that with public shaming and shunning. The only thing new here is the term applied to it and using it as an excuse to avoid accountability for one's unpopular words and actions.

I gave an example of a law which criminalizes specific threats at the federal level, but it likely doesn't apply in this particular case. Look to the relevant state criminal code.

When the cancel mob rears up and calls for someone to be deplatformed or disemployed, is it uncommon for some of them to go further and make threats against physical safety? Seems fairly routine to me.

I agree, if they are clearly intended as performance rather than calls to action, e.g. the bizarre case of Kathy Griffin.

Historically, it is very common. Pro-desegregation folks experienced all that and more. civil rights activists did, too. Anti-war activists. Neo-Nazis. Etc.

You guys are acting like this is anything new.

The only thing new—AFAIK—is the speed at which (dis)information can travel through social networks.

That's not really the case with Dave Chappelle or Donald Trump*, though.



* I mean, besides the disinformation that Trump himself propagates.

Agreed. Cancellations work best when the mob appears much larger than the countervailing fan base.

Because capitalism.


ETA: To expand, if the criticism exceeds a company's risk tolerance to their bottom line, they will remove the controversial material. If the material continues to drive profits, they will not remove the material. This is not cancel culture. This is, and always has been, the nature of capitalism. Earlier you mentioned (dis)information. Yes, there is some of that, but it, too, has always existed as either "marketing" or "public relations". The only difference with the speed of it is companies have a reduced time to react to changes in public opinion, thus forcing the decision to continue or cut material. But, it is all just ongoing capitalism.

Do you think those outraged by the first interracial kiss on TV between Kirk and Uhura weren't trying to get Star Trek cancelled?

Agreed [emoji106]

Notice, for example, that the "Fire Kathleen Stock" movement explicitly called out student fees.


I'd hope we can agree that it was unethical for them to do do. :)

I am not familiar.

When has capitalism ever concerned itself with being ethical?

Why on Earth would anyone feel constrained by capitalism when talking about ethics?

Who said we were talking about ethics? This thread is about cancel culture, i.e. the crossing point between capitalism and free speech.

I did, when I affirmed that it was unethical to try to cancel folks like Roddenberry, Fontana, and Coon for depicting interracial romance on the small screen, around 20 minutes ago.

I created this thread to discuss the ethics of one particular (attempted) cancellation while it was just getting off the ground. While I'm happy to see the topic broadened, I'll not have you narrowing it so as to exclude talk of ethics.

So you would admit that there's nothing novel about "cancel culture"?

Well, that was not at all clear. You asked if it made sense, not if it was right or ethical. I did a quick search and the references are vanishingly small.

I would argue that it is the same as all free speech. Free speech, itself, is neither ethical nor unethical. It is the nature of the free speech that is either ethical or unethical. Likewise, criticism of free speech is neither ethical nor unethical, but the nature of criticism that is ethical or unethical.