Also notable is that the comment in question wasn’t even Fang’s opinion. It was the opinion of a black man he was interviewing.
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There’s no evidence of what you suggest. But the burden of proof to disprove your theory is on me?
But there is a bunch of evidence that he got into trouble with his employer in large part due to some takes that his co-workers didn’t like.
So much this. The right desperately NEEDS cancel culture, antifa, and the whole narrative that the left is out of control.
Moderate Republicans can see how batshit crazy the far right of their party is right now. Right wing media needs to sell them a story that the left is just as out of control - which they will eagerly gobble up of course. Reverse cargo cult.
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Seems like just yesterday they were arguing that the Civil Rights Act didn’t even need to exist because we would just cancel their ass if being racist.
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And then Jerry Seinfeld decided to become a comedian.
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You are right but it doesnt matter if antifa and cancel culture were never a thing, the right would be talking about two other things in the same way. They’ll find something.
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I looked at the list of signatories and was a little surprised to see Matt Yglesias on it. Then I did some more investigating, and am I fucking hot right now.
Emily VanDerWerff, who is a critic at Vox and transgender, wrote a letter to Vox which she shared on Twitter, where she expressed her disappointment with Yglesias signing the letter and how she felt he made the workplace a little less safe by doing it. Which, fair enough, JK Rowling is on that list, as well as several other anti-trans people, all of whom benefit from their transphobic views being free from consequence.
https://twitter.com/emilyvdw/status/1280580388495097856?s=21
And, of course, the right-wing mob saw weakness and pounced. All the usual suspects wrote bad-faith pieces “defending” Yglesias and suggesting VanDerWerff wanted him fired (she didn’t). Fox News. National Review. Daily Caller. Then came the Twitter assholes with the rape threats, the death threats, and all manner of garbage. Trying to deplatform her and cost her her job.
So much for decrying cancel culture. It’s Gamergate all over again (did it ever really end?). These shitstains make me sick.
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Seems like there’s even more power in narrowing the sphere of acceptable debate and creating an atmosphere where people are scared of disproportionate consequences if they express a controversial view. There’s a sinister power in being a free speech advocate only if you value the power of being able to silence and punish the speech that you don’t like.
Obviously I won’t defend the surely awful abuse she received on Twitter, but that has nothing to do with that letter and certainly nothing to do with Yglesias signing it. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in that letter that even hints at anti-trans views. What are these anti-trans dogwhistles that she’s talking about? The only link to anti-trans views is that Rowling and Singal signed it, and the only way you could link Yglesias to those views is if you ascribe to the ludicrous view that by endorsing that letter you’re endorsing every view of every person who signed the letter. A mindset that reinforces the very point of the letter.
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There is also a lot of power in being able to issue a fatwa to kill someone. I know that there are a lot of shades of gray that folks are trying to work out, but I’m almost certain that Rushdie was a hero who stood on the side of Truth, Beauty and Justice, and that Ayatollah Khomeini was a sack of shit. So maybe folks oughtn’t make generalizations like this:
I don’t know what dog whistles or coded language Martin Amis or Sean Wilentz or Noam Chomsky (I’m aware I’m dating myself) are guilty of, but I know they’ve pissed people off. I figured they were just zealous defenders of free speech.
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1280958975920558090?s=19
And the chaser:
https://twitter.com/laurenwilliams/status/1280985280615514113?s=19
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Yeah, left out of the “Klein had to clarify that he wasn’t subtweeting Yglesias” was that he had to clarify it BECAUSE YGLESIAS THOUGHT HE WAS! And, you know, because he was.
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“Clarify”
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No one is saying that no one ought ever to be fired for expressing bad views. A newspaper columnist is ostensibly employed for his capacity to have and express good and interesting views, if he just starts spouting off racist garbage in his columns then of course he can justifiably be fired. But that letter was saying not that there should never be consequences for vile speech, but rather we should foster a culture of thoughtfulness and understanding and free debate and discourse. And that the first impulse when we encounter a view we don’t agree with shouldn’t be to angrily try to get that person fired, but rather should be to debate and challenge the view.
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Cancel culture sucks because:
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The left is using the cancel as a scalpel to make increasingly nitty cuts on each other at a time when unity would be absurdly helpful to crush right wing gaslighting, whataboutism, false equivalence, etc.
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The right is using the cancel as a cudgel to lather up their base through their never-ending gaslighting, whataboutism, false equivalence, etc.
ETA: It seems to be a very effective boogeyman to counter-troll right wing trolls, however.
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I tend to be on your side in this argument, and I think that a lot of people are ignoring that while the past few years have been mostly examples of public outcry leading to what the left would consider good outcomes, the prior 50 years have basically been the exact opposite.
But, I don’t think you’re accurately characterizing the letter. This is from the conclusion:
“The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.”
That very much sounds to me like they’re saying there should not be consequences for publishing speech, no matter how vile. Otherwise you’re invariably hurting the powerless in society. And really, in addition to the list of likely fake examples they gave, this is where they lost me in the letter.
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I think the letter is stupid.
I also think attacking Yglesias for signing the letter is stupid.
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I would put them more in the category of people that are likely to get trapped by those that are asking to have their positions rebutted with good faith arguments but that do not intend to argue in good faith.
Are you ok with angrily trying to get the person fired if they show no sincere effort to engage in debate and keep contradicting themselves and moving goal posts to avoid acknowledging that their views are deplorable?