Cancel Culture and the Harper's Letter

All five in one group? More like

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I agree with all this but a bunch of the left tried to cancel Bernie for promoting an endorsement from Rogan, who as far as I’m aware has just said that he doesn’t think trans women should be able to play professional women’s sport, which is why I used that as the example. Bringing up trans bathroom rights is just changing the subject. Conflating all possible heterodox opinions on trans people is the usual rhetorical tactic, in fact the Human Rights Campaign president said of Rogan at the time:

In 2019, 25 transgender and gender non-confirming people were killed because of the type of transphobia that Rogan stokes.

That’s another way you can tell this stuff is unmoored from anything actually happening in the real world. On policy issues like healthcare there are a range of acceptable opinions, like M4A proponents might accept a coalition with people who want a subsidized public option or whatever, but an entirely private healthcare system with poors dying in the streets is not OK. But with trans rights and other social issues like it, even the slightest deviation from orthodoxy is a five-alarm emergency that is morally equivalent to murdering trans people. It’s all just motivated by personal disgust.

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Simplicitus gets dragged here all the time. Why it’s almost as if getting cancelled isn’t all that bad?

Getting back to your main argument, your idea is that if the left just abandoned trans issues and “identity politics” and focused all their capital on M4A then we’d get M4A passed. Does it not seem odd to you that the people who hate M4A also want the left to abandon trans issues?

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This is just false. There are tons of policy demands made by people who advocate for trans rights. Here are a few:

  • The inclusion of trans people in laws that prohibit discrimination in things like employment and housing,

  • the ability of trans people to serve in the military,

  • coverage of hormone therapy and gender affirming surgery in public and private insurance,

-the ability to change gender designations on government issued identification

  • proper assignments in prisons

Just because the trans debate too often focuses on whether Ricky Gervais can make a joke about Caitlyn Jenner doesn’t mean that there aren’t real thorny issues that have to be wrestled with.

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Are you kidding? Like the right, the conservatives, would love the Democrats to never talk about health care and only talk about trans issues.

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People lose their jobs. More to the point, the culture around this stuff has consequences beyond the individual. At stake is whether the Democratic party is the party of minorities plus educated elites or whether the parties are split more along class lines.

I was in the middle of writing a reply which began with “Huh?”. I also have no idea what you’re talking about here.

But no distinction is ever drawn between disagreement with that stuff and more minor disagreements. I’m not saying that trans political issues don’t exist. I’m saying that the connection between real issues and the way cancel culture operates is nearly nonexistent.

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https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1281309576982196224?s=20

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I really think a big part of the problem is that corporations and universities are full of MBA/lawyer cowards. Look how hard it is to cancel someone like Biden. Bernie was not cancelled. The Rogan thing was barely a blip. Trolly is right about how simplicitus just rolled by with what was far far worse than people who just signed that letter. Some people are fired for good reason. Some people are fired or asked to resign for not very good reasons because the people in charge are greedy cowards.

the host herein makes that point

The DNC and Joseph Biden can worry about coalitions. Regular people should just speak their mind. We all know there are only two levers in the booth.

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OK, so you do actually understand how concern trolling works?

Sorta. I am an old. I’m thinking you are the one with the misunderstanding though.

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Ok, but most of the trans folks [and most of the genuine allies] who want JK Rowling or Joe Rogan to be “canceled” aren’t doing so for the sake of getting them cancelled. I don’t think that is their ultimate end goal. Their belief is that the opinions being expressed by Rowling and Rogan make it harder for the bigger political goals to be achieved.

I get the point that it is easier to get the elites to cave on things like language than it is to get them to cough up real money and power, but I also believe that language shapes the way we think about issues and what we see as politically possible. If two men getting married is a killer punchline in a mainstream sitcom, marriage equality is probably not happening in that society. Similarly, if you are living in a world where misgendering a trans individual is good for laughs or a “sick burn”, I’m guessing that that world is probably going to measure pretty poorly on more concrete measures of equality.

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Having a weakness for consistency of thought is a weakness.

The same questions are being asked of NFL players who shat their jockey straps over Drew Brees, but who are silent wrt DeSean Jackson

OK but take Rogan. Most people would, I think, find his views on transgender women in women’s sports pretty reasonable. They are pretty reasonable. But the transgender advocates seem to respond not by actually responding to his arguments with arguments of their own but smearing him with a broad brush: Joe Rogan is a bigot, Joe Rogan is a transphobic piece of shit, Joe Rogan’s bigotry is killing trans people. Not here’s why Joe Rogan is wrong about transgender women in sports.

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Not just this. I, as an ally, want them to CHANGE. Yeah, it may be a pipe dream, but I want to educate people and have them re-examine their views.

And I’ll tell you something right now: a person who gets canceled ain’t changing their views. They’re gonna dig in their heels and fight. This is my real issue with cancel culture. It doesn’t give people room to grow, change, or expand their viewpoint.

Not only that, in cases of people like simp, who don’t actively “care” about certain issues, it might actually do harm to cancel them…causing them to become radicalized against you.

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I’ll lay it out like this: the left is not ever compromising on things like LGBQT rights. Anyone who tells you we need to stop advocating hard for LGBQT rights in order to pass M4A is concern trolling you. That’s just how solidarity works, no one gets tossed under the bus.

Joe Biden, the politician who famously said he was okay with gay marriage back when the Democratic Party was against it. Who endorsed Danica Roem. Yeah, maybe it’s all a long con, but maybe he does actually give a shit?

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Right. That Kansas State student who achieved overnight notoriety because of a tweet about George Floyd.

The tweet was a tree falling in the woods until Kansas State football players with actual relevant platforms in Manhattan, Kansas began tweeting that the university must take action against McNeil. The tweets of the football players condemning McNeil extended the reach of McNeil’s tweet, caught the attention of the media and eventually turned McNeil into a cause celebre and martyr for free-speech advocates and critics of the Black Lives Matter movement.