About that:
That Senate hearing raised Twisted Sister’s profile and cemented their place in rock history; they weren’t “cancelled,” and neither was D&D:
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Yes, clearly the items you mentioned were successfully “cancelled” and no longer exist.
That’s just it, they’re welcome to believe it, but if I find out my neighbour wants to eats babies, I’m sure as shit not required to invite them to my party, and I’m also sure a shit able to tell my other neighbours about it, too. That’s how the whole free speech thing works, you see. You’re asking other people to restrict their free speech here just so that abhorrent people can continue unopposed.
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Speaking of things that are telling about the meta discussion around this letter…
People who like to lie about being a victim because they suffered consequences for their shitty behavior are really seeing themselves in this message. I wonder why.
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@anon50609448 didn’t say that at all. Saying that someone is wealthy and out-of-touch is not the same as calling them Nazis.
But then, you can’t tell the difference between bigots pushing an agenda of hate based on thoroughly discredited ideas on the one hand, and RPG publishers and musicians using their products to seriously proselytise on behalf of Satan on the other; the former exist, the latter never did. If you can’t tell the difference, my bet is that you’ve never had to worry about being victimised by the former. Unexamined privilege is a helluva drug, as evinced by the signatories of this highly flawed letter (and also by white male edgelords of the sort who endorse bullying).
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Strawman? Several of those signatories have been specifically called out and criticized for having anti-Trans views, and this is what they’re saying is “cancellation”. That’s hardly a strawman, it’s the reality.
Saying “I am not going to listen to this” is speech. Saying “I will not read this book” is speech. A business saying “there is no market for this book, therefore we are changing publication” is speech. In a marketplace of ideaa, it is literally saying “I do not buy this.”
I have a challenge for you: go down to your local grocery store and set up a booth in their aisles without asking and try to hawk some wares. You might get some sales before being thrown out, but the market will literally tell you that you can’t sell there. So when a platform says “we will not host this”, it’s the same principle. When people walk past your booth and don’t give you their money? Same as people telling any of these people off for being wrong. Someone tells you to get out of the way because you’re blocking the canned peaches? They’re saying they want different goods and to move somewhere else.
“Cancel culture” is the marketplace of ideas, it’s just become a buyer’s market and we’re saying we aren’t going to buy your bullshit.
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This is a fundamental reality of this “cancel culture” bullshit. None of those suggesting it be “abolished” ever provide an alternative, because what’s actually happening here is that people are deciding not to do things of their own free will. All of the “remedies” for “cancel culture” thus far are for either censorship - that is, restrict people from expressing their opinions on a matter, or forced activities - such as being forced to publish a book or forced to print a letter in a newspaper.
The literal response as a remedy to being “cancelled” is to relinquish control of free speech and freedom of choice.
Even the Harper’s letter itself is notable for not suggesting action, it’s bascially a “please, please self-censor yourselves and don’t make editorial decisions on the content you disagree with”. It’s telling that in asking for the right to freedom of speech, the very folks asking want it to be done at the cost of everyone else’s right to freedom of speech or freedom of choice.
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She was incredibly lucky. Probably applies to many of the signatories. It’s not as if Malcolm Gladwell’s reputation is built on the most solid of foundations.
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This sort of thing is why I’ve lost respect for noted skeptic Michael Shermer. Over the last four years, with all that’s been going on, his primary focus has been how awful the “regressive left” is, especially on college campuses, with all the protests, safe spaces, cancel culture, etc. The more I read of his, the more I was convinced that his arguments are less a defense of free speech and more an out-of-touch, privileged “get off my lawn” rant at today’s youth, who he seems incapable of understanding or feeling empathy for. On Trump’s reality bending, or really any issue that’s actually important, he’s remained very quiet.
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Funny, though, that D&D players, metal bands, hip hop artists never had the power. They were always on the receiving end of cancel culture. They coincide 1:1 with trans folk, Black people, and others who are often the ones being accused of “cancelling.” You’d have to be blind not to see that the authors and signatories of this letter are the “cancellers” in this story, not the ones being cancelled.
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I also have to remind people that trans people were among the first victims of the Nazis, just like we were among the first victims of ISIS.
On 6 May 1933, while Hirschfeld was in Ascona, Switzerland, the Deutsche Studentenschaft made an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later, the Institute’s library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz. Around 20,000 books and journals, and 5,000 images, were destroyed. Also seized were the Institute’s extensive lists of names and addresses. In the midst of the burning, Joseph Goebbels gave a political speech to a crowd of around 40,000 people. The leaders of the Deutsche Studentenschaft also proclaimed their own Feuersprüche (fire decrees). Also books by Jewish writers, and pacifists such as Erich Maria Remarque, were removed from local public libraries and the Humboldt University, and were burned.[9]
We are the canaries in the mines, and the atmosphere is getting toxic again.
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Transgender is the new D&D, metal and hip hop? We’re in good company then.
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Well, one of the fundamental premises of the “marketplace of ideas” is equal footing; that all of the actors are rational (ha!) and start with no power imbalance. The fact that we’re talking about a shitty letter that was nonetheless published in Harper’s tosses that idea of a level playing field out on it’s ass.
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And here’s more whining to continue the circle…
I accept that other people can believe things I find abhorrent. It doesn’t make their beliefs correct. It doesn’t mean I have to listen to them. And it doesn’t mean I have to give them a platform.
Nobody’s coercing anybody to do anything. They are simply being shown the door.
If someone wants to “cancel” me because I think things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and white supremacy are a bad thing then why should I care? It’s not my fault they suck.
Why is it the only people who are truly concerned about “cancel culture” are the ones who have the worst opinions on things?
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I’m gonna own it. I think it’s a little bit fair to read some of the things I wrote and say I compared some of the signatories to Nazis. I think when someone says they don’t want trans women to take up spaces at women’s shelters they give money to they are taking a genocidal position. That might sound really, really harsh to a lot of people, but I’m not saying it to protect those people’s feelings. And if they want to debate me on that point then they can bring it on. But instead they want to declare me “hysterical” by fiat. Good job seeking out viewpoints that disagree with their own there.
The whole thing is so foolish. It’s the same as everyone in the thread has been saying over and over. If I decide that I don’t want to spend my money on something Rowling wrote because I think Rowling would line up ten people who need a place to hide from their murderous ex-spouse and say, “Number six, sorry, your life doesn’t matter as much.” then somehow I’m suppressing Rowling’s speech and being hysterical. I’m the one who should seek viewpoints that don’t agree with my own, even though I don’t have to because Harper’s publishes them.
But no one who has that point of view wants to seek my viewpoint, even though it radically disagrees with theirs, I offer novel arguments (unlike the tired ones that everyone has heard in favour of free speech and against cancel culture), and I have substantial empirical evidence that in the top 0.001% when it comes to logic. They aren’t like, “Tell me more, do you have a newsletter” they are like, “If that’s your opinion then I don’t need to hear from you.” They don’t seem capable of the introspection to notice that they are doing exactly what they are saying others are doing. I doubt they could even articulate a distinction, because they don’t feel the need to.
Not to mention that, as is normal, people who use the term “strawman” to try to shut other people down rarely know what a strawman argument is. Calling “strawman” is almost always itself a strawman - that is, it’s dismissing an easy to defeat argument (the one with the logical fallacy) rather than grappling with the actual substance of the best possible interpretation of the other person’s words. If a person who is supposedly arguing in favour of open discussion and learning from people we disagree with can’t be bothered to read what I (or anyone else here) wrote in the most charitable way possible, if they can’t find someone worthwhile in it, then they have no interest at all in open discussion or learning from people they disagree with.
Oh yeah, I was thinking of Dee Snider making an ass of Al Gore when I used them as an example.
I do think it’s because in many of these cases we basically know what’s right and what’s wrong and the people complaining about cancel culture are using the “deny until I die” strategy to avoid grappling with the pain of their wrongdoing. Like, imagine if instead of going on about women’s shelters and trans women J.K Rowling went and talked to a trans women who had been denied a place at a shelter, or to the loved ones of a trans woman who is dead because of being denied a place at a shelter. Imagine a rich or powerful person actually choosing to feel they hurt they’ve put out into the world. If someone doesn’t like me because I’m arguing against debate and the marketplace of ideas that doesn’t sting me one little bit.
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I lost a lot of respect for Dee Snider when he came out as a Trump supporter, but at least he’s since seemed to renege on that. He may be a Republican (which was no secret - he’s been pretty honest about his conservatism just like Alice Cooper) but at least he has demonstrated a moral compass.
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Just yet another example of how a person can be on ‘the right side of history’ on some issues and while completely failing on others.
If he’s seen the light about 45, good for him.
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When powerful people with massive platforms have abhorrent views, it can end in death and murder. I actually give a fuck about people who don’t have power being murdered for the crime of existing. Fuck that. As the late, great Stan Lee said, with great power comes great responsibility. If you have a major platform using it to erase the lives and realities of others is not only irresponsible, it’s dangerous and genocidal.
Fuck off for thinking that the people defending people who are regularly killed for the crime of existing are the “church ladies.” Those people are the ONES advocating for the silencing of voices of the oppressed and marginalized. You’re blind.
THIS. As long as women of color and transwomen and men are oppressed, I’m not free either.
This, too!
Gaming is a huge business and that’s in part thanks to D&D. Geek culture is mainstream now. And it’s in large part because it’s a white male past time, or at least is perceived to be so.
Except that all three are celebrated in our popular culture today…
Most especially this.
Yep. It never was.
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Exactly. Much like trial by combat as a method of settling legal disputes it just doesn’t really say anything about the merits of either case, just about who of the two opponents is better at an entirely unrelated pursuit.
And it’s not just that they might be the better rhetorician. They might also be more invested in the topic, read and think more about it and thus be more ready with statistics and answers to common challenges to their position. Even if these statistics are cherry picked and the answers don’t hold up their users appear to be quick on the draw and generally on top of things and therefore right to the casual debate watcher. Tricks like the gish gallop and sealioning depend on the disingenuous party being more invested in the topic than the debunker. Most often they are more invested and thus appear to be “winning” the debate (again: only to the casual observer and to those that want to believe).
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About sums it up:
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The problem is that the right wing is seeding ideas for “cancelation” that might be picked up by the left. For example, Charles Darwin. At one level his progressive credentials are solid: he was an abolitionist and a strong supporter of the Union across the sea (where there was a strong movement to recognize the Confederacy as mills in Manchester needed Southern cotton). On the other hand, as a 19th century guy he tended to refer to hunters and gatherers as “savages”. But of course the people goading the left into being anti-Darwin don’t really care about that; they are anti-evolution.
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