I found it enlightening to read Thomas Chatterton's (one of the letter-writers) Interview in The New Yorker to better understand the intent of this letter, regardless of what some might feel is inadequate phrasing.
I get the point about rich and famous people acting as if they should be insulated from criticism. Of course that’s bs, but it's not the issue being discussed — although they're inextricably linked in this criticism. If you have a problem with the fact that we prop up the speech of people who are famous/wealthy (but who I might add are respected intellectuals in this case,) that’s another issue entirely. This is a bit off topic, but I will add that in a culture that holds up consumption as a core freedom, it's no wonder why we put our thought leaders on pedestals just to kill them off as if they're our products that we don't think are good enough anymore when they become three-dimensional. Then we bemoan inauthenticity in the public sphere—womp, womp.
Thomas Chatterton doesn’t claim that his speech has been restricted. In fact, he emphasizes the effects on regular people and academics—and speaks more broadly, of a sociological concern. I think that people jumping all over this to knee-jerk refute it have actually proved the letter’s points. They weren’t actually interested in acknowledging the problematic nature of the psychology that’s happening—what comes before the cancel—and how that mindset is too defensive to engage in critical debate about not-yet established norms or science. Yet this behavior instills a fear of breaching subjects which are still up for debate in order to prop up the resulting lack of dissent as false precedent/evidence of righteousness. Now where this gets mixed up with so-called elites is that when the person who is being attacked is famous, these behaviors and knowledge of their consequences is heightened. Obviously it’s much harder to make an example of someone who is unknown.
To be clear, earlier when I use the term three-dimensional I don’t use it as some short-hand allowance for being a POS, I mean not getting it right all the time or for having a few unpopular perspectives on not-yet established norms or science. The argument that people who signed this are just looking to get away with being lazy a-holes is utterly absurd mind-reading and a cynical oversimplification of the criticisms of cancel culture. As he states in the interview “being fired for bad performance or for having an alter ego that posts incredibly racist stuff is not cancel culture,” so it's frustrating to hear this letter's aims being conflated with vile speech or incompetence. And the undue consequences conflating and over-simplifying issues is the crux of what this letter is really talking about, isn't it?
We are so easily willing to see the humanity of people who we ideologically agree with, and we’re so willing to minimize the humanity of people we don’t. The thing that comes to mind for me in this debate is that woman who was fired for flipping off trump’s motor-cade. Sure, what she did violated the norms of civil society (and was bad-a**) but I thought it was BS that she was fired for behavior unrelated to her job.You can't call the consequences part of discourse when there's no recourse. The debate is then over. When we all feel secure in our attacks of calling up the old chestnuts of identity, appearance, etc., impoverishing people socially and financially, or threatening people with violence in place of discourse, we’re failing to transgress our past societal ills.
I’m guilty of buying into cancel culture too, so I’m trying to be mindful of the fact that what feels good and cathartic to me about some a-hole getting PWNed online isn’t always just, nor is it productive. And I really want to underscore the last part—how has any of this been productive? It seems we're inclined to impulsively engage in horizontal oppression rather than doing the harder work of having constructive dialogue that makes real change possible. To me, thats what the letter was trying to get at. I concede that the writing sucked at getting the points across, though I shudder to think of the committee editing it went through.
I think the reaction to this that just wants to shout it down by pointing at the writers and signers as hypocritical / entitled / whiny bitches while glossing over the points being made about society, ultimately proves writer's point that “we’re engaging each other in ways that contribute to the fortification of identity epistemology, and […] that is impoverishing if what you actually care about is knowledge and ideas and making a kind of multi-ethnic society work.”
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Sadly, Ya'll Are Missing The Larger Points of the Letter
I found it enlightening to read Thomas Chatterton's (one of the letter-writers) Interview in The New Yorker to better understand the intent of this letter, regardless of what some might feel is inadequate phrasing.
I get the point about rich and famous people acting as if they should be insulated from criticism. Of course that’s bs, but it's not the issue being discussed — although they're inextricably linked in this criticism. If you have a problem with the fact that we prop up the speech of people who are famous/wealthy (but who I might add are respected intellectuals in this case,) that’s another issue entirely. This is a bit off topic, but I will add that in a culture that holds up consumption as a core freedom, it's no wonder why we put our thought leaders on pedestals just to kill them off as if they're our products that we don't think are good enough anymore when they become three-dimensional. Then we bemoan inauthenticity in the public sphere—womp, womp.
Thomas Chatterton doesn’t claim that his speech has been restricted. In fact, he emphasizes the effects on regular people and academics—and speaks more broadly, of a sociological concern. I think that people jumping all over this to knee-jerk refute it have actually proved the letter’s points. They weren’t actually interested in acknowledging the problematic nature of the psychology that’s happening—what comes before the cancel—and how that mindset is too defensive to engage in critical debate about not-yet established norms or science. Yet this behavior instills a fear of breaching subjects which are still up for debate in order to prop up the resulting lack of dissent as false precedent/evidence of righteousness. Now where this gets mixed up with so-called elites is that when the person who is being attacked is famous, these behaviors and knowledge of their consequences is heightened. Obviously it’s much harder to make an example of someone who is unknown.
To be clear, earlier when I use the term three-dimensional I don’t use it as some short-hand allowance for being a POS, I mean not getting it right all the time or for having a few unpopular perspectives on not-yet established norms or science. The argument that people who signed this are just looking to get away with being lazy a-holes is utterly absurd mind-reading and a cynical oversimplification of the criticisms of cancel culture. As he states in the interview “being fired for bad performance or for having an alter ego that posts incredibly racist stuff is not cancel culture,” so it's frustrating to hear this letter's aims being conflated with vile speech or incompetence. And the undue consequences conflating and over-simplifying issues is the crux of what this letter is really talking about, isn't it?
We are so easily willing to see the humanity of people who we ideologically agree with, and we’re so willing to minimize the humanity of people we don’t. The thing that comes to mind for me in this debate is that woman who was fired for flipping off trump’s motor-cade. Sure, what she did violated the norms of civil society (and was bad-a**) but I thought it was BS that she was fired for behavior unrelated to her job.You can't call the consequences part of discourse when there's no recourse. The debate is then over. When we all feel secure in our attacks of calling up the old chestnuts of identity, appearance, etc., impoverishing people socially and financially, or threatening people with violence in place of discourse, we’re failing to transgress our past societal ills.
I’m guilty of buying into cancel culture too, so I’m trying to be mindful of the fact that what feels good and cathartic to me about some a-hole getting PWNed online isn’t always just, nor is it productive. And I really want to underscore the last part—how has any of this been productive? It seems we're inclined to impulsively engage in horizontal oppression rather than doing the harder work of having constructive dialogue that makes real change possible. To me, thats what the letter was trying to get at. I concede that the writing sucked at getting the points across, though I shudder to think of the committee editing it went through.
I think the reaction to this that just wants to shout it down by pointing at the writers and signers as hypocritical / entitled / whiny bitches while glossing over the points being made about society, ultimately proves writer's point that “we’re engaging each other in ways that contribute to the fortification of identity epistemology, and […] that is impoverishing if what you actually care about is knowledge and ideas and making a kind of multi-ethnic society work.”
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