> By the same token, you’re definitely allowed to say that there are differences between men and women.
What about Damore? His manifesto was pretty accurate. What he said wasn't actually controversial - surely only a tiny minority of people actually believes that interest in STEM is as common for women as it is for men.
If I were to get a job at Google, do you think I'd be safe to post that there are differences between men and women on their intranet? Or even just on the internet? This comment alone probably would get me rejected as a candidate if they read it.
While I agree with the overall message of this take, I do think Matt is underestimating the impact of cancel culture on discourse in the progressive circles, with voices from the moderates effectively silenced. The only argument a moderate democrat member of congress, for example, summon on a policy issue is that based on pragmatism; e.g. defund the police is a bad idea because we will alienate independents without whom we cannot win swing districts, and therefore win majorities in the congress. However, many moderates sincerely believe that defund the police is a really bad idea, but don't lead with that argument for obvious reasons. Defund the police might be an extreme example, but there are several others, illegal immigration south of the border being one. So, it is not the right that is silenced by the cancel culture, but the more moderate progressives; these folks, once cancelled, disappear into the void as they cannot got to right wing establishments as easily.
The right, on the other hand, is exploiting the phenomena of the cancel culture to play the victim and benefit from the outrage and anger that cancel culture often evokes amongst centrist voters.
"The question is whether those sharp critiques create a spirit of dialogue or a climate of fear. The answer hinges in part on how the people involved respond, but also on what lessons actors in wider society draw from these episodes." THANK YOU. To the point, perfect. Focus on dialogue, increase credibility, recall that conflict is two-sided.
The specific point regarding the prison-related empirical studies really emphasizes how self-destructive the climate of fear is. This type of study could be utilized as the perfect material to support and guide a restorative overhaul to punitive justice systems. That they were instead interpreted as material to strengthen punitive measures really shows that fear colored the response, not the material itself and certainly not a lens of change or equity. It's okay to be afraid of course, but making others afraid because you're afraid is not something that should be done lightly & out of respect for others, should be reserved for emergencies only.
Naturally, I also highly appreciate the calm refocus of rhetoric around gender. That one's a difficult topic to discuss easily, as the folks that are experiencing sudden changes to healthcare or even prosecution are genuinely in a state of emergency, which snowballs the climate of fear. Trying to find equilibrium mid-emergency is not a small feat & effort to do so in any direction should be appreciated.
Ok. While I agree with the broader point that cancellations are rare, I don’t find the examples you site of people for whom things turned out alright very convincing. You, bari Weiss, and Rogan landed on your feet? Great! But one critique is that those are exceptional cases, not applicable to bob in accounting who doesn’t think he should to have to put pronouns in his slack bio, and for whom the danger of losing income because of a cancellation is very real.
Is the heart of the issue that we on the Left should talk less about witch hunts because the few of us who talk about them - spitting into the ocean of wall to wall right wingers exaggerating them (and papering over their own) - will make an appreciable difference in how much people fear them?
When there’s no movie or tv plot that showcases a woke witch hunt, but hundreds that showcase the mirror image? (I’m thinking of Ted Lasso.)
If we’re worried about concerns being overhyped, we shouldn’t Exaggerate the prevalence. Just like we shouldn’t exaggerate the potential harms of medical gender transition, or the number of detransitioners, but our ceasing to talk about them is going to make barely a dent in the wall to wall converge they get from the right.
But I’m more compelled by the idea that when liberals are mute on issues inconvenient to our own side, we leave a vacuum Much Less Nuanced and Thoughtful People will happily fill.
I feel the energy dedicated to people who got attacked by the mob for voicing heterodox opinions or facts and Survived should be devoted in part to exploring and learning from what they had going for them, which was almost always an HR department that didn’t cower under pressure, but instead used due process.
If we want people with mainstream and non-bigoted, but “problematic” (by the definitions of a tiny minority of twitter activists) viewpoints to stop fearing witch hunts, the answer isn’t to talk about cancel mobs less. It’s to talk about how they go away when the employers don’t cower, more.
I think that my initial impulse to comment on this by piling on the “pro-cancelation” crowd in and of itself demonstrates the phenomenon Matt is talking about. His mention of Bari Weiss likewise reminds me about how much money there is to be made - as Weiss and others do - convincing an audience that they are being unjustly made to self-censor (before he went on his crypto kick, Will Wilkinson had a great piece on this same topic).
As an academic I'm very worried about the effect of this pressure on our knowledge. I think the best response is simply to make sure you don't avoid saying controversial things. Most people are reasonable, so if those reasonable people just commit to saying (even when controversial) what they think is true it makes it very hard to bully people because they aren't signaled out.
If you are in academia this is what tenure is for and it's your duty to say when the activists get it wrong not be quite so no one calls you names. Screaming about the danger of cancel culture probably isn't that helpful but making sure you don't avoid saying things you believe because you fear being yelled at is.
- you are misleading when you say het academy has conservatives. it has hardly any. lots of moderates, some libertarians, and probably the majority are center left (tbf, there are few conservatives in large swaths of the academy, especially humanities and social sciences where het academy focuses)
- you make a good point that ppl like you JD etc. are flourishing. but the other aspect is who you don't see who have been more obscurely silenced/canceled driven out of professions.
I encounter something like this. You'd constantly hear stories about Brexiters being ostracised in the public sector over here in the UK. But as a Brexiter working in universities and then hospitals, I've never had an issue with it. Obviously you're aware that you're in the minority, and you get some jokes come you're way, but as long as you approach things in a robust and good natured way, its no big deal. Indeed the shame and angst caused by trying to keep thing secret is probably what causes people to exaggerate how much of an isolated minority they are.
If organizations are perceived to be less credible when they are overtly partisan, even by people who are ideologically aligned, then shouldn’t Fox News be considered non-credible by its own viewers?
Just as a single party state, Republican, Democratic, or any other flavor, meanders into sclerosis and contempt for any criticism, I think that other institutions, even universities, are driven by the same human inclination to xenophobia for the other. It is ever so easy to sneer and demonize the other than to thoughtfully address criticism.
Grateful to Matt for adding the final paragraph, for perspective on this whole "climate of fear" narrative.
I think an even better, and starker, comparison would be what's going on in red-state higher education, particularly in the big states of Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. There are legislative efforts underway there--almost certainly which will be successful--to end faculty tenure or make it subject to the sole control of political appointees.
That impending hammer is effectively silencing free inquiry and free discourse far more effectively than all this folk-wisdom hyperventilating that Matt describes. And worse, its advocates would likely deny its existence, characterize it as "what goes around comes around", or describe it, up-is-down style, as "pro-free-speech".
(Such is the ironic, and maddening, reflex of many to use the flag of the First Amendment as a banner to laud those deeply committed to its suppression. Tim Urban, unfortunately, is turning into an excellent example of that.)
For what it's worth, I would recommend faculty under threat in these states do what Matt recommends and stand up for their rights and the rights of higher education, if nothing else out of principle. Though I don't entirely blame them if those with the means leave for states where "freedom" is more than an Orwellian joke. :/
I'm late to the party due to work today and most of what I would have said has already been written, but I'll just add (given the choice of header picture for this post) that I'm mildly shocked by the sheer number of Narcan ads I've seen on-line just over the weekend, particularly when I don't think I've clicked anything prior to this post that was particularly related to the subject recently. While I support both the decriminalization of opioids and making Narcan available on an OTC basis on libertarian grounds, I can't help but think that, while this will presumably reduce overdose death rates, it's probably going to increase every other social pathology associated with opioid use since users will now be able to have much longer average "lifespans" of addiction.
The question is not what will happen to Joe Rogan or Matt Yglesias. What if J Random corporate employee or an employed professional has some mildly spicy takes about incarceration or gender issues on social media? Aren't they much more vulnerable to HR or DEI than Rogan, Yglesias or Chapelle?
I am a center-left person with strong pro-civil liberties priors and studied economics in college. I am getting really tired of getting called "conservative" by my friends for a) endorsing standard left of center positions or standard liberal views, b) acknowledging stuff like trade-offs or perverse incentives can exist, and c) pushing back on doomer narratives.
I am probably more exposed to more extreme progressive positions because I attended Dartmouth, and I still follow a lot of these people on social media / am friends with them IRL.
I know this really isn't about cancel culture per se, I have just been called a "right-wing" too many times for failing to agree with stuff like prison abolition.
From one center-leftie to another, it IS a problem when optimism - optimism! - becomes coded as right-wing. That seems to be a reversal from most of the past couple of centuries, when can-do optimism was a hallmark of progressive movements. I have noticed it in some very left-leaning spaces - you must be dour and pessimistic or you are an uncaring, heartless corporatist who does not give a fig for Our Preshus Chyldrun and Our Fyoocher.
I think if you're on the hardcore part of either left or right, optimism is often coded as enemy rhetoric no matter which of the two sides of the aisle you're on.
To compare, we liberals often don't realize how incredibly doom-laden and apocalyptic things have gotten over on MAGA radio, let alone MAGA social media. I force myself to tune into that charnel house every once in a few months and count my blessings I only get yelled at by college activists (at least they tend to not believe in the literal hell MAGAheads think the country's going to after the Rapture).
Frankly, I don't think either the American far left or far right, outside of Trump's presidency, were ever happy about anything. Or really want to be. I accept that syndrome as part of human nature, and simply vow to never let people like that have any real power again.
The difficulty of condensing it also comes with the fact that this piece is simultaneously anti-cancel-culture _and_ anti-anti-cancel-culture. I’ve always liked Matt’s formulation “[politically salient phenomenon] requires more chill.”
Scott Alexander's "CAN THINGS BE BOTH POPULAR AND SILENCED?" https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/ seems relevant.
> By the same token, you’re definitely allowed to say that there are differences between men and women.
What about Damore? His manifesto was pretty accurate. What he said wasn't actually controversial - surely only a tiny minority of people actually believes that interest in STEM is as common for women as it is for men.
If I were to get a job at Google, do you think I'd be safe to post that there are differences between men and women on their intranet? Or even just on the internet? This comment alone probably would get me rejected as a candidate if they read it.
While I agree with the overall message of this take, I do think Matt is underestimating the impact of cancel culture on discourse in the progressive circles, with voices from the moderates effectively silenced. The only argument a moderate democrat member of congress, for example, summon on a policy issue is that based on pragmatism; e.g. defund the police is a bad idea because we will alienate independents without whom we cannot win swing districts, and therefore win majorities in the congress. However, many moderates sincerely believe that defund the police is a really bad idea, but don't lead with that argument for obvious reasons. Defund the police might be an extreme example, but there are several others, illegal immigration south of the border being one. So, it is not the right that is silenced by the cancel culture, but the more moderate progressives; these folks, once cancelled, disappear into the void as they cannot got to right wing establishments as easily.
The right, on the other hand, is exploiting the phenomena of the cancel culture to play the victim and benefit from the outrage and anger that cancel culture often evokes amongst centrist voters.
"The question is whether those sharp critiques create a spirit of dialogue or a climate of fear. The answer hinges in part on how the people involved respond, but also on what lessons actors in wider society draw from these episodes." THANK YOU. To the point, perfect. Focus on dialogue, increase credibility, recall that conflict is two-sided.
The specific point regarding the prison-related empirical studies really emphasizes how self-destructive the climate of fear is. This type of study could be utilized as the perfect material to support and guide a restorative overhaul to punitive justice systems. That they were instead interpreted as material to strengthen punitive measures really shows that fear colored the response, not the material itself and certainly not a lens of change or equity. It's okay to be afraid of course, but making others afraid because you're afraid is not something that should be done lightly & out of respect for others, should be reserved for emergencies only.
Naturally, I also highly appreciate the calm refocus of rhetoric around gender. That one's a difficult topic to discuss easily, as the folks that are experiencing sudden changes to healthcare or even prosecution are genuinely in a state of emergency, which snowballs the climate of fear. Trying to find equilibrium mid-emergency is not a small feat & effort to do so in any direction should be appreciated.
Ok. While I agree with the broader point that cancellations are rare, I don’t find the examples you site of people for whom things turned out alright very convincing. You, bari Weiss, and Rogan landed on your feet? Great! But one critique is that those are exceptional cases, not applicable to bob in accounting who doesn’t think he should to have to put pronouns in his slack bio, and for whom the danger of losing income because of a cancellation is very real.
Is the heart of the issue that we on the Left should talk less about witch hunts because the few of us who talk about them - spitting into the ocean of wall to wall right wingers exaggerating them (and papering over their own) - will make an appreciable difference in how much people fear them?
When there’s no movie or tv plot that showcases a woke witch hunt, but hundreds that showcase the mirror image? (I’m thinking of Ted Lasso.)
If we’re worried about concerns being overhyped, we shouldn’t Exaggerate the prevalence. Just like we shouldn’t exaggerate the potential harms of medical gender transition, or the number of detransitioners, but our ceasing to talk about them is going to make barely a dent in the wall to wall converge they get from the right.
But I’m more compelled by the idea that when liberals are mute on issues inconvenient to our own side, we leave a vacuum Much Less Nuanced and Thoughtful People will happily fill.
I feel the energy dedicated to people who got attacked by the mob for voicing heterodox opinions or facts and Survived should be devoted in part to exploring and learning from what they had going for them, which was almost always an HR department that didn’t cower under pressure, but instead used due process.
If we want people with mainstream and non-bigoted, but “problematic” (by the definitions of a tiny minority of twitter activists) viewpoints to stop fearing witch hunts, the answer isn’t to talk about cancel mobs less. It’s to talk about how they go away when the employers don’t cower, more.
Slow Boring at its best: Sanity, sobriety and moderation for all!
I think that my initial impulse to comment on this by piling on the “pro-cancelation” crowd in and of itself demonstrates the phenomenon Matt is talking about. His mention of Bari Weiss likewise reminds me about how much money there is to be made - as Weiss and others do - convincing an audience that they are being unjustly made to self-censor (before he went on his crypto kick, Will Wilkinson had a great piece on this same topic).
As an academic I'm very worried about the effect of this pressure on our knowledge. I think the best response is simply to make sure you don't avoid saying controversial things. Most people are reasonable, so if those reasonable people just commit to saying (even when controversial) what they think is true it makes it very hard to bully people because they aren't signaled out.
If you are in academia this is what tenure is for and it's your duty to say when the activists get it wrong not be quite so no one calls you names. Screaming about the danger of cancel culture probably isn't that helpful but making sure you don't avoid saying things you believe because you fear being yelled at is.
.
two points
- you are misleading when you say het academy has conservatives. it has hardly any. lots of moderates, some libertarians, and probably the majority are center left (tbf, there are few conservatives in large swaths of the academy, especially humanities and social sciences where het academy focuses)
- you make a good point that ppl like you JD etc. are flourishing. but the other aspect is who you don't see who have been more obscurely silenced/canceled driven out of professions.
I encounter something like this. You'd constantly hear stories about Brexiters being ostracised in the public sector over here in the UK. But as a Brexiter working in universities and then hospitals, I've never had an issue with it. Obviously you're aware that you're in the minority, and you get some jokes come you're way, but as long as you approach things in a robust and good natured way, its no big deal. Indeed the shame and angst caused by trying to keep thing secret is probably what causes people to exaggerate how much of an isolated minority they are.
If organizations are perceived to be less credible when they are overtly partisan, even by people who are ideologically aligned, then shouldn’t Fox News be considered non-credible by its own viewers?
Just as a single party state, Republican, Democratic, or any other flavor, meanders into sclerosis and contempt for any criticism, I think that other institutions, even universities, are driven by the same human inclination to xenophobia for the other. It is ever so easy to sneer and demonize the other than to thoughtfully address criticism.
Grateful to Matt for adding the final paragraph, for perspective on this whole "climate of fear" narrative.
I think an even better, and starker, comparison would be what's going on in red-state higher education, particularly in the big states of Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. There are legislative efforts underway there--almost certainly which will be successful--to end faculty tenure or make it subject to the sole control of political appointees.
That impending hammer is effectively silencing free inquiry and free discourse far more effectively than all this folk-wisdom hyperventilating that Matt describes. And worse, its advocates would likely deny its existence, characterize it as "what goes around comes around", or describe it, up-is-down style, as "pro-free-speech".
(Such is the ironic, and maddening, reflex of many to use the flag of the First Amendment as a banner to laud those deeply committed to its suppression. Tim Urban, unfortunately, is turning into an excellent example of that.)
For what it's worth, I would recommend faculty under threat in these states do what Matt recommends and stand up for their rights and the rights of higher education, if nothing else out of principle. Though I don't entirely blame them if those with the means leave for states where "freedom" is more than an Orwellian joke. :/
I'm late to the party due to work today and most of what I would have said has already been written, but I'll just add (given the choice of header picture for this post) that I'm mildly shocked by the sheer number of Narcan ads I've seen on-line just over the weekend, particularly when I don't think I've clicked anything prior to this post that was particularly related to the subject recently. While I support both the decriminalization of opioids and making Narcan available on an OTC basis on libertarian grounds, I can't help but think that, while this will presumably reduce overdose death rates, it's probably going to increase every other social pathology associated with opioid use since users will now be able to have much longer average "lifespans" of addiction.
The question is not what will happen to Joe Rogan or Matt Yglesias. What if J Random corporate employee or an employed professional has some mildly spicy takes about incarceration or gender issues on social media? Aren't they much more vulnerable to HR or DEI than Rogan, Yglesias or Chapelle?
I am a center-left person with strong pro-civil liberties priors and studied economics in college. I am getting really tired of getting called "conservative" by my friends for a) endorsing standard left of center positions or standard liberal views, b) acknowledging stuff like trade-offs or perverse incentives can exist, and c) pushing back on doomer narratives.
I am probably more exposed to more extreme progressive positions because I attended Dartmouth, and I still follow a lot of these people on social media / am friends with them IRL.
I know this really isn't about cancel culture per se, I have just been called a "right-wing" too many times for failing to agree with stuff like prison abolition.
From one center-leftie to another, it IS a problem when optimism - optimism! - becomes coded as right-wing. That seems to be a reversal from most of the past couple of centuries, when can-do optimism was a hallmark of progressive movements. I have noticed it in some very left-leaning spaces - you must be dour and pessimistic or you are an uncaring, heartless corporatist who does not give a fig for Our Preshus Chyldrun and Our Fyoocher.
I think if you're on the hardcore part of either left or right, optimism is often coded as enemy rhetoric no matter which of the two sides of the aisle you're on.
To compare, we liberals often don't realize how incredibly doom-laden and apocalyptic things have gotten over on MAGA radio, let alone MAGA social media. I force myself to tune into that charnel house every once in a few months and count my blessings I only get yelled at by college activists (at least they tend to not believe in the literal hell MAGAheads think the country's going to after the Rapture).
Frankly, I don't think either the American far left or far right, outside of Trump's presidency, were ever happy about anything. Or really want to be. I accept that syndrome as part of human nature, and simply vow to never let people like that have any real power again.
This is a great take. The problem is, the people I want to share it with will never read through a Matt-length article (or endure his writing style).
We need this article to be condensed, ironically, into a marketing-friendly slogan that can become a new anti-cancel-culture mind virus.
The difficulty of condensing it also comes with the fact that this piece is simultaneously anti-cancel-culture _and_ anti-anti-cancel-culture. I’ve always liked Matt’s formulation “[politically salient phenomenon] requires more chill.”