Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

[TurkeysGhost]

"It is not nearly as widespread or distressing as many dubiously (even entirely false) presented examples would lead one to believe."

"It doesn't exist."

I'm confused, are you for or against misleading summarization of an issue?


You found one point of disagreement and cast away the entire article and disparage the author.

I'm confused, are you for or against rigorous ideological purity?

Oh, Colin is fine.

He's managing editor of a publication, has a podcast, gets speaking gigs...

Yeah, he's "ruined."

You're literally doing what the article described.

ETA: he's found an income stream from telling people how he can't get work. Nice gig if you can get it?

I'm curious what this guy's tenure prospects were like before he got "cancelled".

Academia is a notoriously competitive environment. Getting a tenure track job after getting a Ph.D. is often very unlikely unless you're coming from an elite program with an extremely impressive resume.

Someone who realizes that their prospects were dim might see getting "cancelled" as a savvy career move.

 

[Cain]

What is the problem?

Someone elsewhere remarked that the problem with the current landscape is that anyone who disagrees with trans epistemology is immediately branded a bigot who does not believe trans people have a right to exist.

I do not understand trans epistemology. Maybe someone can explain it to me. These sort of politics have traditionally appealed to a blank slate version of human nature, but what's being espoused sounds weirdly biologically essentialist. (Which is not unprecedented: Left-wingers who temperamentally favored nurture over nature went all-in on a gay gene.)

What about the traditional distinction between sex (biology) and gender (social construction)? Is that no longer thing?

A person can be male/female/neither/other/etc. If I identify as a male, then I'm a male because I say so? And I say so because I'm a male? A year from now, or five minutes from now, I could sincerely identify as female, in which case I'm female...? But was I always female?

 

[d4m10n]

*ETA: it is not still true. By the numbers, there should be more Hispanic transgender people, than white.

Are we looking at the same chart?

 

[dirtywick]

Someone elsewhere remarked that the problem with the current landscape is that anyone who disagrees with trans epistemology is immediately branded a bigot who does not believe trans people have a right to exist.

Ok, but again so what?

Dave Chapelle just unapologetically said everything you wrote in a much funnier way even though he had already been disagreed with and labeled a bigot, for the second time, got collectively paid $40M to do it, and everyone loved it.

The current landscape seems fine.

 

[angrysoba]

Someone elsewhere remarked that the problem with the current landscape is that anyone who disagrees with trans epistemology is immediately branded a bigot who does not believe trans people have a right to exist.

I do not understand trans epistemology. Maybe someone can explain it to me. These sort of politics have traditionally appealed to a blank slate version of human nature, but what's being espoused sounds weirdly biologically essentialist. (Which is not unprecedented: Left-wingers who temperamentally favored nurture over nature went all-in on a gay gene.)

What about the traditional distinction between sex (biology) and gender (social construction)? Is that no longer thing?

A person can be male/female/neither/other/etc. If I identify as a male, then I'm a male because I say so? And I say so because I'm a male? A year from now, or five minutes from now, I could sincerely identify as female, in which case I'm female...? But was I always female?

Okay, I can understand that there is a fundamental illogicality or coherence to trans epistemology - or at least the versions that you describe.

However my question relates to cancel culture itself. Specifically what should be permitted as a legitimate criticism of something someone says, what should be accepted as academic freedom, what should be grounds for losing one’s job etc…?

Has there been any legal or government shifting of the needle or are we talking about a sort of epiphenomenon of social media in which the ability to reach a bigger audience has been democratized to some extent?

 

[smartcooky]

Not addressed to me, but I was curious.

According to this, white people are less likely to be transgender. It doesn’t say this, but I assume there are still more of them due to the majority of US being white. (Is that still true?*)

According to this, the rate of MTF transitions are about equal to FTM transitions.

I couldn’t find anything on current numbers, exactly.

I don’t think that this supports EC’s claim that there is a “vast majority” in the community, let alone that they are one thing or another.


*ETA: it is not still true. By the numbers, there should be more Hispanic transgender people, than white.

ETA2: Actually, if these trends remain consistent, we should expect the majority of transgenders to be Hispanic trans men over time.

So to summarize, EC's "whopper of a claim" was actually just a "whopper" with utterly no basis in fact.

Who's have guessed?

 

[Upchurch]

Are we looking at the same chart?

Oh, damn. My color blindness got me. I thought the top line was the total population. My mistake.

 

[Graham2001]

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education on a right-wing cancellation that's ended in a lawsuit.

MCKINNEY, Texas, Oct. 26, 2021 — Collin College has sent a chilling message to its faculty: Shut up or you’re fired. Today, a former faculty member is sending a message back: See you in court.

Former history professor Lora Burnett filed a lawsuit today against Collin College, its president, H. Neil Matkin, and other university officials for firing her for speaking out on important public issues. Represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Burnett seeks to vindicate her First Amendment right to speak out as a private citizen on matters of public concern.

​​Collin College declined to renew Burnett’s contract on Feb. 25 after she publicly criticized former Vice President Mike Pence and the college president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.thefire.org/lawsuit-fir...ory-professor-sues-to-protect-faculty-rights/


And and online article discussing how both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of 'It offends, make it go away' actions:

Not a day goes by, it seems, without another “cancel culture” story: the backlash against Dave Chapelle’s new Netflix standup special from transgender activists; the witch-hunt against a distinguished University of Michigan professor of composition who showed his class the 1965 film Othello with Laurence Olivier in blackface; MIT’s cancellation of a scientific lecture by a geophysicist who had criticized race-based affirmative action. The “new puritanism” of the progressive left was recently the subject of a long essay by Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic, discussing numerous cases in which people found themselves not only unemployed but shunned after being accused of misconduct or simply running afoul of new and rapidly evolving social norms. Applebaum’s piece received a lot of attention but also, predictably, a fair amount of pushback from the left. Some have mocked it as yet another tired complaint about “cancel culture” based on one-sided and unverified reports; others, such as Adam Gurri in Liberal Currents and Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times, have acknowledged that Applebaum has valid concerns while contending that she vastly exaggerates the problem.


...


There is, of course, nothing particularly new about people across the political spectrum using public pressure to “deplatform,” silence, or punish speech or expression they find distasteful, often while lamenting “censorship” by the other side. The title of the 1992 book by the great civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee, remains evergreen.

https://www.thebulwark.com/what-cancel-culture-is-and-isnt/

 

[ponderingturtle]

Someone elsewhere remarked that the problem with the current landscape is that anyone who disagrees with trans epistemology is immediately branded a bigot who does not believe trans people have a right to exist.

The framework tends to be that trans people have a right to exist they just don't actually exist.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Ok, but again so what?

Dave Chapelle just unapologetically said everything you wrote in a much funnier way even though he had already been disagreed with and labeled a bigot, for the second time, got collectively paid $40M to do it, and everyone loved it.

The current landscape seems fine.

I do wonder if he had picked say asians or jews for his other minority group getting rights and acceptance faster than blacks what people would have thought of it.

 

[Upchurch]

The framework tends to be that trans people have a right to exist they just don't actually exist.

Similar to how being gay is a lifestyle choice rather than being an inherent quality of the person themselves?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Similar to how being gay is a lifestyle choice rather than being an inherent quality of the person themselves?

Exactly, being trans gets expressed as just a facet of postmodern gender theory instead of any actual trait people fundamentally posses.

 

[Samson]

Goal post shift. I never said they were excluded



Disclosure: "this program is not available in your country"

Orange is the New Black: "this program is not available in your country"

Q-Theory: "this program is not available in your country"

Danish Girl: "this program is not available in your country"

Sabrina is a program for teenagers... I've never seen that

Just checking in here,
Orange is the New Black is live in NZ on Netflix so I must be missing the meaning of your post..

 

[Graham2001]

On the Dorian Abbot affair:

As CEO and President of the US Free Speech Union, I write not to rehearse the criticism with which you are already amply familiar regarding the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences’ (EAPS) cancelation of Dorian Abbot’s John H. Carlson Lecture. Rather, I write to express my consternation regarding the public statements you have made in your efforts to defend or contextualize that decision. Those statements misconstrue and mischaracterize the meaning and purpose of academic freedom and of the scholarly public lecture. They reveal an unawareness of a host of historical topics with which academic leaders should be conversant. And, in some instances, they are so recklessly misleading that they approach calumny. In short, in a situation that demands clarity, rigor, and honesty, your statements contort scholarly principles.

https://theusfreespeechunion.substack.com/p/a-portrait-of-dorian-abbot

 

[Cain]

Ok, but again so what?

Dave Chapelle just unapologetically said everything you wrote in a much funnier way even though he had already been disagreed with and labeled a bigot, for the second time, got collectively paid $40M to do it, and everyone loved it.

The current landscape seems fine.

It sucks that you can't, like, read. I was not really writing a polemic. I was asking questions. Also, Dave Chappelle getting pre-paid tens of millions does not translate into anything for the typical person -- and, as a matter of fact, not everyone loved it.

Critics of the Chappelle-critics say that the protests and outrage weren't so much about this pre-paid special, but about anyone who wants to make the next special. I think it's a little silly to read such far-sighted motives into the mob, but they could be right that this is the (intended or unintended) effect. Also, as a matter of fact, some people can get with a lot more than others (as fired Trump supporters discovered). I remember comics marveling that pre-scandal Louis CK was able to say the n-word and indulge a lot of bits nobody would dare say. In some respects this is earned. Chappelle is at the top of his profession.

I'd certainly hope someone who is uncancellable will say unpopular things. We had a similar thread topic some time ago where I observed Jews can be especially effective opponents of Israeli colonialism.

In any case, it's rather stupid to say Chappelle got paid for criticizing transpeople. He got paid for being Dave Chappelle: An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. The special was not peek Chappelle wit, but he got paid top dollar. As with Louis, or many Oscar winners, it's a body of work dynamic.

The trans topic in particular is not just a matter of losing employment, but having a basic conversation. I see people, and know people, who say they're happy to talk politics with friends about all issues except this one, which harkens back to the idea that freedom of speech is related to freedom of thought.

 

[d4m10n]

Quick question for Chappelle critics

What ought to happen to his offensive material, now?

 

[ahhell]

Not addressed to me, but I was curious.

According to this, white people are less likely to be transgender. It doesn’t say this, but I assume there are still more of them due to the majority of US being white. (Is that still true?*)

According to this, the rate of MTF transitions are about equal to FTM transitions.

I couldn’t find anything on current numbers, exactly.

I don’t think that this supports EC’s claim that there is a “vast majority” in the community, let alone that they are one thing or another.


*ETA: it is not still true. By the numbers, there should be more Hispanic transgender people, than white.

ETA2: Actually, if these trends remain consistent, we should expect the majority of transgenders to be Hispanic trans men over time.

So to summarize, EC's "whopper of a claim" was actually just a "whopper" with utterly no basis in fact.

Who's have guessed?

So, unless EC was talking about the population of the entire world instead of just the US or just the Western world, the only thing debatable in the claim is "vast".

 

[tyr_13]

So, unless EC was talking about the population of the entire world instead of just the US or just the Western world, the only thing debatable in the claim is "vast".

Only if you also ignore non-binary and trans men, as EC does because they aren't a challenge to her privileges. (Yes trans women are 2-3 times as common as trans men and while it seems afab enbies are more common that could be a product of amab not having ways to express that in our culture, but also putting in 'white' and 'middle class' makes her claim not just a whopper, but a really silly one.)

 

[Upchurch]

Only if you also ignore non-binary and trans men, as EC does because they aren't a challenge to her privileges. (Yes trans women are 2-3 times as common as trans men and while it seems afab enbies are more common that could be a product of amab not having ways to express that in our culture, but also putting in 'white' and 'middle class' makes her claim not just a whopper, but a really silly one.)

My inability to correctly read colored lines on a graph aside, that appears to not be the case, or it is decreasingly so. Given the higher number of females to males in the US population, there are probably more trans men than trans women or, again, there will be.

 

[dirtywick]

It sucks that you can't, like, read. I was not really writing a polemic. I was asking questions. Also, Dave Chappelle getting pre-paid tens of millions does not translate into anything for the typical person -- and, as a matter of fact, not everyone loved it.

Critics of the Chappelle-critics say that the protests and outrage weren't so much about this pre-paid special, but about anyone who wants to make the next special. I think it's a little silly to read such far-sighted motives into the mob, but they could be right that this is the (intended or unintended) effect. Also, as a matter of fact, some people can get with a lot more than others (as fired Trump supporters discovered). I remember comics marveling that pre-scandal Louis CK was able to say the n-word and indulge a lot of bits nobody would dare say. In some respects this is earned. Chappelle is at the top of his profession.

I'd certainly hope someone who is uncancellable will say unpopular things. We had a similar thread topic some time ago where I observed Jews can be especially effective opponents of Israeli colonialism.

In any case, it's rather stupid to say Chappelle got paid for criticizing transpeople. He got paid for being Dave Chappelle: An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. The special was not peek Chappelle wit, but he got paid top dollar. As with Louis, or many Oscar winners, it's a body of work dynamic.

The trans topic in particular is not just a matter of losing employment, but having a basic conversation. I see people, and know people, who say they're happy to talk politics with friends about all issues except this one, which harkens back to the idea that freedom of speech is related to freedom of thought.

I read it, seemed most of your questions had little to do with cancel culture and I felt were probably best answers elsewhere by someone with a greater interest in them.

It is stupid to say he got paid to criticize trans people. He got paid to produce a comedy special. In that special he criticized trans people. He also did that a few years ago, so all this worry about not being able to criticize trans people publicly in the next special seems over blown, since this was the next special. Unless the critics-critics are worried about the next-next special. In which case, the 95% rotten tomatoes score, because everyone loved the special, is a good indication he’ll probably be back again. Unless we’re worried about the next-next-next special, which admittedly, who knows. The nebulous unnamed Chapelle critics cancel culture mob and the dozens of trans rights protesters with tambourines might have gotten their way.

Maybe that’ll make the fired Trump supporters, who undoubtedly also dislike trans people, and the people who know who will literally talk about any other topic but this one, feel better. Dave Chapelle has their back.