Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
He focuses on the right wing as the cause. He suggests that it is okay to respond to ideas with cancel culture because the right is acting in bad faith. That’s a perverse notion. When someone argues in bad faith, you reply by pointing that out, not creating a media culture in which the non-woke are deplatformed.
|
I think you are misreading him. He says,
Quote:
|
It's easy-and therefore very proper!-to point out cases in which people and things and ideas have been 'cancelled' when they clearly should have been tolerated/debated. Not easy to articulate a stable norm about this, even a rule-of-thumb. One of the main obstacles is the discourse ethics of partisanship. Partisanship is not bad faith, but partisanship is, to some degree, a thing that should be damped in debate. The whole point of arguing is to consider changing your mind, via trying to change others' minds. So, ideally, partisans should-not disarm, that isn't it-but observe exacting dueling protocols when entering the debate arena. But this is hard to articulate and enforce.
|
That first sentence is agreeing with you ("very proper!") that it's a problem that "people and things and ideas have been 'canceled' when the clearly should have been tolerated/debated." The rest of the paragraph is saying it's a hard problem to solve with norms.
Quote:
|
The Harper’s writers said “No more cancellation.” He says we should allow some cancellation.
|
No. Stop being a lawyer for a second. It's not a piece about what is "allowed."
Quote:
|
The world is imperfect, so the imperfect act of cancellation is okay.
|
Not okay, but it's not clear what is a better solution.
Quote:
|
I see the logic. But it’s not persuasive where the easier argument is what the left is doing to dishonest people on the right already: Calling out their bullshit.
|
Well, go back and re-read his first paragraph:
Quote:
|
The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other." ... This maxim is patently, grossly inadequate for governing a blog comment box... let alone a social media platform, let alone Public Reason and a Public Sphere. Ideally, we would live in a world in which this would be an ideal rule to follow. Ideally, the world contains no trolls, bots, bad faith actors—or few enough they can be dealt with retail not wholesale in the Marketplace of Ideas. In a world in which everyone were exchanging more or less in open-faced good faith, this rule would be good. In our actual world, however, it is not good. No, not really, sadly.
|
Quote:
|
There can be no defense of blind orthodoxy. And that’s what Harper’s was challenging.
|
The Harper's letter can be understand as the expression of a liberal orthodoxy ('the best antidote to speech you don't like is more speech') that increasingly blind to what is going on all around us. To borrow from Public Enemy, You're blind, baby / You're blind from the facts on who you are / Cause you're watching that garbage.
