The Canceling of the American Mind, by FIRE's Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott

I just read and much enjoyed this new book, and highly recommend it: It's readable, factually detailed, and thoughtful in its analysis and recommendations. For a taste of the argument, see this Substack post. And here are a few of the jacket blurbs from others:

This riveting book presents compelling stories about Cancel Culture and its devastating impact on a wide range of Americans. It draws upon detailed databases to refute persistent attempts to minimize the problem and shows that discourse-destroying cancellations are perpetrated by people all across the ideological spectrum. Most importantly it lays out steps that all of us can take to supplant Cancel Culture with Free Speech Culture. It should be a game-changer in the Culture Wars.
—Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU

To many, the proper takes on Cancel Culture are either that it's a blip sensationalized by certain contrarians or just bad people being duly dismissed. Um, no. Read this book and find out what a scourge Cancel Culture has been, and what we can do to get past it.
—John McWhorter, Columbia University linguistics professor and New York Times columnist

The growing regime of censorship, slander, and punishment against anyone who questions establishment orthodoxy is locking us into error and corroding the credibility of our institutions. No one has documented the facts and causes of this alarming trend more thoroughly than Greg Lukianoff, joined here by a collaborator, Rikki Schlott, who belies the accusation that the younger generation has been hijacked by authoritarians.
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University and bestselling author of Enlightenment Now and Rationality.

Cancel Culture has long resisted serious analysis in part because the phenomenon's adherents protect it from inquiry by coding it as fictional or a right-wing fantasy. But Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott get under its surface and at the deeper problem: the extraordinarily rapid erosion of America's once-thriving free speech culture. The authors argue that censoring is humankind's natural inclination. After a brief flirtation with Enlightenment values, is the world regressing to a mean? There's no more important or scary political subject today, and we owe Lukianoff and Schlott a huge debt for tackling the subject head on.
—Matt Taibbi, award-winning author and investigative reporter

Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott do Americans an invaluable service by putting to bed the idiotic myth that "Cancel Culture doesn't exist." Cancel Culture is very real and very dangerous—and this book is the most comprehensive look at the rot threatening our institutions and freedoms.
—Ben Shapiro, founder of The Daily Wire

John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, warned that social coercion can be an even bigger threat to free thought than government censorship. He didn't use the phrase "Cancel Culture," but that's what he was talking about. In The Canceling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott have updated Mill's classic for our time. With startling stories and a wealth of data, they show how intolerant activists impose a gag order on the rest of us—and how the rest of us can lift it.
—Jonathan Rauch, Brookings Institute senior fellow and author of The Constitution of Knowledge

Not since the McCarthy era have so many people been so afraid to express their opinions on crucial issues. Today, the situation is arguably worse, as it's no longer the government that is the primary enforcer of ideological conformity, but private citizens and institutions. In The Canceling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott ably diagnose the threat this atmosphere of dogmatism poses to a free society and offer solutions as to how we can replace a harsh and unforgiving Cancel Culture with a generous and constructive free speech culture.
—James Kirchick, bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington

Note that I've consulted for FIRE (which Lukianoff runs) before, but I wasn't involved in the creation of the book.

Comments

[Krychek_2]

The thing is, cancel culture (in some cases far worse than what we see now) goes back to the founding of the American republic. Who is doing the cancelling changes over time, but we’ve always cancelled.

From the Tories that were forced out of the country after the Revolutionary War, to those criminally prosecuted by the Adams administration under the Alien and Sedition Act, to the people who went to prison for speaking out against World War I, to the loyalty oaths teachers and other public employees were forced to swear during the Cold War, to the White Citizens Councils formed all over the South during the civil rights era to punish those who supported civil rights, cancelling people with unpopular views is just what Americans do.

I don’t like it either. But it’s a mistake to blame one side or other other. Whichever side happens to be the majority opinion at the time has always done it.

[bernard11]

This is important.

Cancel culture is not a new phenomenon at all, and those who condemn it need to do so without being so selective as to who or what they complain about.

Unfortunately, most critics use it as a political cudgel, not as a matter of principle, to the point of ignoring it when their side does it.

[Nige]

Cancel culture is derived from the term 'cancelled' which black people would use when they found out someone was racist. It's been adopted so that basically black people, and anyone who doesn't like racists, get the bulk of the responsibility for a type of behaviour that is not only far from excclusive to them, they're also, generally, the least powerful and effective in its implementation. Like 'woke,' reactionaries will monster anything black people use, however casually, to express themselves in realtion to racism.

[Frank Drackman]

all the Black-Bots hate Nige-Bot but won't tell him to his Robot face.

[Commenter_XY]

You and Krychek_2 made a great point: This is nothing new.

[Life of Brian]

Cancel culture is not a new phenomenon at all

However old, the last couple of decades of always-on, global megaphone communications have severely reduced both the number of people and the amount of time it takes for cancel culture to take hold. In this day and age, Prof. Harold Hill wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes in River City before being ridden out on a rail.

[Drewski]

While "Um, no," is certainly a compelling argument, I'll wait for a book written by a grownup.

[M L]

That was a jacket blurb. Try again.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott get under its surface and at the deeper problem: the extraordinarily rapid erosion of America's once-thriving free speech culture. The authors argue that censoring is humankind's natural inclination. After a brief flirtation with Enlightenment values, is the world regressing to a mean?

Yeah. Enlightenment values like editing stuff before you decide to publish it world-wide. Opponents of cancel culture have yet to notice that it came as a nearly-immediate response to the demise of private editing enabled by passage of Section 230. If you indeed believe that censoring is humankind's natural inclination, then at least notice that unedited publishing invites, abets, and rewards that inclination's fullest expression.

And by the way, the, "deeper problem," is not how can we get back to the free speech fundamentalism that thrived pre-internet. Today's deeper problem is how to educate internet utopians to trim their expectations for unlimited personal publishing power. Each of them demands power to publish world-wide, anonymously, at no cost, anything at all, without prior editing, and with no post-publication takedowns, or liability for defamation. No one on earth ever enjoyed expressive liberty that unfettered. Probably, no one ever can. The power to deliver it has not been invented yet.

[David Nieporent]

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." -- Winston Churchill, on Stephen Lathrop.

[David Welker]

Lathrop, if you want, please describe what you think would happen if section 230 were repealed.

[Ridgeway]

Editors of local newspapers in Idaho will once again garner the respect that was so cruelly snatched from them in the 1990s.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

A lot of lawyers would be very happy.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Today, the situation is arguably worse, as it's no longer the government that is the primary enforcer of ideological conformity, but private citizens and institutions.

That could not be more backward. As a general thing, you get one government per nation. In this nation, anyway, you enjoy a myriad of private institutions, and everyone can get into the game. It ought to be self-evident that one government, with government power, is a much greater threat to expressive liberty than private profusion and diversity shared among rival publishers in competition for every expressive niche capable to sustain a publication.

What has changed, because of Section 230, is that a former diverse and numerous assortment of institutional publishers has shrunk to mainly a few giants. Except the giants themselves, nobody is happy about that. The answer would be public policy to encourage decentralization of internet publishing power. That would begin with repeal of Section 230, which is what enabled the giantism in the first place.

[apedad]

"Today, the situation is arguably worse, as it's no longer the government that is the primary enforcer of ideological conformity, but private citizens and institutions."

And . . . what's wrong with that?

Happens at The Volokh Conspiracy too.

[Jacob Grimes]

Private citizens and institutions are not bound by the First Amendment and the victims of retaliation by mobs and institutions rarely have any recourse, unlike government actions that can be challenged in court. That's what's wrong with it.

Normal, non-sociopathic people who believe that free discourse is a good thing recognize that ruining people's careers or getting them fired for expressing the wrong opinions is bad and has absolutely no benefit besides satisfying the primal urge of treating people like shit in the name of righteousness. Like Somin aptly observed in his post yesterday, such cancellations are only rarely justified by legitimate, non-punitive interests.

And before you reply with the tired "it's legal" trope, watching an infant drown in a shallow pond and doing nothing is legal, too, but it still makes you a wretched piece of garbage.

[Krychek_2]

Jacob makes a very important point.

With free speech, as with guns, there is a group of absolutists for whom any restrictions at all are intolerable. They simply shrug their shoulders at the harm that speech and guns sometimes do, and essentially tell the victims to just suck it up because that's the cost of living in a free society.

Pretty much everybody else recognizes that total freedom or total tyranny are not the only two options. It is possible to recognize that other people have interests too, and in a society as complex as ours, sometimes those interests have to be balanced, even if it means that nobody is going to get everything they want. Oh, and that private coercive power can be just as brutal as governmental coercive power, and that economic coercion is also a form of coercion.

I live for the day that moderates -- those who really can see both sides of an issue -- take charge and tell the extremists on both sides to go to hell.

[David Welker]

Krychek:

You seem to think that “balancing” is a gift from the gods. But it isn’t. Instead it is based on the biases of the human being or human beings doing the balancing.

In even the most repressive societies, there is balancing. In Communist China not ALL speech will get you “disappeared.” So, there is a balance.

Obviously, what you are trying to say is you want a “good” balance instead of a bad one. But what you fail to fully appreciate is that there is no one who can be trusted with this power. If you tell someone to decide a case by balancing the interests, there is no limit to what they might do.

Your view also implicitly rejects the concept of equality, as in a society where a class of people is empowered to tell you to shut up, the people with that power are, in fact, made to be superior.

[Krychek_2]

David, policy making is hard work, and even the best people sometimes get things wrong. But unless you're a true anarchist who believes in no governance at all, it's work that needs to be done. You can't just say "we can't have laws against X because it might led to laws against Y." Otherwise there could be no laws against anything, including murder. I mean, if you tell the 9/11 hijackers that they can't fly hijacked planes into buildings, then what other intrusions on religious freedom will that lead to? Doesn't that just open the door to persecuting unpopular religions?

And the short, sweet answer is that reasonable people can understand the difference between criminalizing what happened on 9/11 on the one hand, and criminalizing a sect because the majority thinks it is wrong in how it practices baptism. Those two things are not the same.

So what one does is to start with a presumption of freedom -- both speech and guns are presumed protected. You then look to draw the line in both cases at a point at which it allows maximum freedom for those who aren't hurting anybody else while at the same time making it more difficult for people who are hurting others. And that's always going to be the standard: Is it hurting anyone else? If so, how much can it be regulated consistent with living in a free society?

And no, fallible humans won't always get it right. But it's the best we can do.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Strict scrutiny...

[Sarcastr0]

What kinds of laws do you want to see restraining people and institutions in the name of freedom?

[Jacob Grimes]

I didn't say I wanted specific laws. I only described the nature of the problem, which people apparently do not consider to be a problem.

Volokh has frequently highlighted laws that restrict the ability of employers to terminate or otherwise punish employees for their off-duty, non-work-related speech:
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/07/24/laws-protecting-private-employees-speech-and-political-activity-against-employer-retaliation-cross-cutting-questions/
I think those laws are a step in the right direction.

My point is that private citizens and institutions are equally capable of destroying free discourse by ostracizing people who don't follow the current orthodoxy. That ostracization is almost always motivated by naked cruelty and is almost always counter-productive as a means of persuasion.

[Sarcastr0]

If you're saying that private actions can do bad things to people's rights, that's absolutely true and has been since rights were a thing. But the cure is often worse than the disease, since as was noted earlier on this blog: 'https://reason.com/volokh/2023/10/15/some-cancellations-are-justified/'

I'm all for some worker protections myself, but it's not really the usual libertarian bag.

[David Welker]

Sarcastr0,

Can you think of something that more fundamentally creates inequality between people than the concept of 1) x can say whatever x likes but, 2) if y says something x dislikes, x will severely punish y?

[Randal]

Are you serious? How about 3) many many instances of t dislike x’s font and punish him for it. Then t whines and cries and complains about being cancelled when y calls him out.

[Ed Grinberg]

I'll stick with "the usual libertarian bag." Let's not set up new "laws ... restraining people and institutions in the name of freedom." Let private actors "cancel" away. (Of course, those who disagree with a particular "cancellation," or who generally disapprove of "cancel culture," are free to criticize, denounce, etc. "Cancel" the "cancellers"!)
As for public institutions, I'd start by shutting down all public colleges & universities (not a proper task of government). Failing that, since it's the taxpayers that are footing the bill, they -- through their elected representatives and executive officers -- get to decide who gets "cancelled."

[JesseAz]

Right now those institutions are funded and regulated by governments who influence the decisions of those institutions.

An easy law would be respecting free speech if being funded by any form of government hand outs. Easier law is disallowing communication of the state to influence or attach conditions to any money given such as is happening with the 5th circuit lawsuit.

[Nige]

'who don’t follow the current orthodoxy.'

Now there's a fraught and tangled term that's carrying a lot of weight.

[Nige]

If a person shows themselves to be a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, an anti-semite, or, to wrap it all up in one, an actual Nazi, how can it be acceptable for such a person to have authority over others in a workplace or to deal with members of the public or to make decisions that affect the lives of others? Clearly if you're a straight white male, you have nothing much to worry about, unless they decide you're one of them evil liberals, everyone else just has to accept it?

[Jacob Grimes]

It's acceptable because the personal beliefs I express outside of work and unrelated to work will often have absolutely no bearing on how I do my job. Most people do not work in positions that require them to be liked by others, to reflect any set of values through their conduct, or advance specific causes.

So while the expressed beliefs and opinions of police officers or CEOs or spokespersons can arguably interfere with their work by undermining public confidence or leading to resentment of a brand, the same beliefs of janitors, fast-food workers, accountants, or plumbers, do not.

[Nige]

'It’s acceptable because the personal beliefs I express outside of work and unrelated to work will often have absolutely no bearing on how I do my job.'

Big assumption. Or rather, the personal beliefs that might affect that are unlikely to be hostile to you.

[Commenter_XY]

One problem: That team member who expressed those views outside of work could destroy work team cohesion and performance. Not sure how to address that one. It is not as simple as saying, "Too bad. Employee A gets to say what they want outside of work and you have to just sit there mute like a dummy and not react"

People leave. Replacing them is a tremendous resource and time-suck.

[GKHoff]

"how can it be acceptable for such a person to have authority over others in a workplace" Maybe he owns the business. Nobody has to work there who doesn't want to.

[Nige]

No-one has to employ a racist, either.

'Maybe he owns the business.'

So, what's cancellation in this context? The guy is racist, everyone shuns his business because they hate racists?

[GKHoff]

Not about cancellation. Only an answer to your question.

[Nige]

And I was tying it in to the main subject.

[Nige]

How is attacking people's responses to speech also not an attack on freedom of speech? This is banging the table and playing the refs.

[Doug Heffernan]

Most complaints about "cancel culture" are about the actions of non-governmental actors. Forcing these private actors to not "cancel" is restraining their speech and freedom of association. This is not like math where two instances of cancelling effectively cancel each other out. It is just more cancelling.

This book probably mostly has a lot of focus around college campuses, which are ostensibly government actors. Here I'd agree that such places should have a lot of debate, even if uncomfortable. Poor arguments should die of their own weight, not from being excluded or shouted down with repetitive chants.

New college students coming from a safe home-schooling environment expect college to be safe just like home. It should be physically safe, but not safe from debate.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

If the thrust of the book is with regard to the constitutional law aspects of cancel culture involving agents of the state then the private vs government distinction clearly matters. But if it's about the impact of cancel culture and whether or not such practices are good/bad policy in general then that distinction is of little-to-no importance.

[Nige]

Most of college campus cancellations are bunches of students being loud and unruly, not exactly big players in the power structures of various institutions. At a higher level, firing people who make an institution look bad is a tale as old as time and why everyone should unionise.

[M L]

Pretty sure the book and the topic in general is about, you know, culture. Not government restrictions on canceling.

[Kleppe]

It is gratifying reading these comments and seeing the same folks who have long denied that Cancel Culture exists now uniformly admitting that OF COURSE it's real, and always has been.

[Bob from Ohio]

Cancel culture really only affects those in arts and entertainment, media, academia and tech.

Those are leftist groups so it will mostly bite lefties. The rest of us should encourage it.

[Savagely Average]

Other than the part about encouraging it I agree with you.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Even if that were true (think Mike Lindell, Tucker Carlson, Goya Foods, pretty much all of the Founding Fathers, prominent figures from the South during the Civil War, et al), your position strikes me as a fundamentally unprincipled one, Bob. That is, unless your principle is, "Doing unjust things is OK so long as they're done to people I don't like."

[Krychek_2]

You must be new here. Bob’s central principle has always been that doing unjust things is fine so long as it’s done to people he doesn’t like.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Well, that and the old-timey bigotry . . . And the bitter disaffectedness . . . And the disdain for modern America, reason,Rogers’s, inclusiveness, and education . . . And the white grievance . . . and . . .

[Ed Grinberg]

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/10/11/may-private-employers-fire-or-refuse-to-hire-employees-because-of-their-praise-of-hamas-or-praise-of-israel/
Do you think this (Winston & Strawn rescinding the law student's offer of employment) is "unjust"? I don't.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/02/harvard-graduate-sobs-fired-dream-job-threatening-stab-lives-matter-supporters-12934921/
Again -- not "unjust" AFAIC.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://nypost.com/2023/10/17/nyu-student-that-ripped-down-israeli-hostage-posters-is-former-adl-intern/
Doxxing! Cancel culture! Super-"unjust," right? Well, not in my book.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Do you think this (Winston & Strawn rescinding the law student’s offer of employment) is “unjust”?

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

[Jacob Grimes]

Having not been a lefty and been bitten by it (never argue politics on Facebook), I can tell you it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

[Commenter_XY]

Unusual take, but has possibilities = Those are leftist groups so it will mostly bite lefties. The rest of us should encourage it.

They would go wild.

[Ben_]

Every grownup knows that ganging up on someone to bully them is bad behavior.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/10/15/some-cancellations-are-justified/?comments=true#comment-10276867

[Nige]

Remember how proud you all were for going ballistic over a beer company sending some beer to a trans person for a forty second tiktok video? You all boasted about damaging the beer company, but the trans person got a whole lot of stick, too. For drinking beer.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't recall going ballistic, and I certainly didn't damage them, as I don't drink beer, (Maybe an occasional shandy in the summer.) but I did find it hilariously self-destructive of them.

Kind of a virtue signaling potlatch, where the management prove their virtue to ideological allies by destroying the company's brand with the actual customers.

[Nige]

‘but I did find it hilariously self-destructive of them.’

So you cheered on the guys who did go ballistic.

Your formulation is actually just another form of going ballistic - to use that kind of hyperbole, victim-blaming and massive sense of entitlement for, again I reiterate, a 40 second tiktok video. Don’t tell me you aren’t both bigoted and ridiculous. Then again all bigotry seems ridiculous until it’s passing laws.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Every grownup knows that ganging up on someone to bully them is bad behavior.

Kicking bigots around is a noble endeavor and fine sport. Racists, misogynists, white nationalists, immigrant-haters, Christian nationalists, antisemites, gay-bashers, Islamophobes and other conservative bigots deserve to be scorned, shunned, and mocked.

[Roger S]

Glad to see libertarians supporting free speech. But where is the legal commentary on the gag order against Donald Trump?

[Randal]

It's a pretty unremarkable gag order. Gag orders are a little bit controversial but not in any serious way.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It's a remarkable gag order in that it gives some slack to the defendant because he's running for President. Think about that -- you get a break in the criminal justice system if you're running for office. I don't remember that being part of the analysis before.

I know the judge did that to insulate herself on appeal, but still.

[Frank Drackman]

"Slack"?? in that someone merely accused of a crime (a bullshit one at that) loses his First Amendment Rights? And you wonder why peoples brought a (Prop, you couldn't have hung Pencil Neck Adam Shitt with it) Gallows to the Capitol.

Frank

[Randal]

Funny, I don't remember you complaining about the First Amendment implications of gag orders before now.

[Roger S]

Unremarkable? Trump is on trial for saying the election was stolen, and now he is ordered not to give a campaign speech criticizing the testimony against him. No libertarian, or even anyone believing in democracy, could agree with this order. But whether I am right or wrong, I would like to see some analysis from the free speech law professors.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Trump's campaign speeches, by definition, seek to inflame public opinion. Which is exactly when gag orders are required. See, e.g., discussion in Central South Carolina v. U.S. District Court, 551 F.2d 559 (4th Cir. 1977).

And no, he’s not on trial for saying the election was stolen.

[Roger S]

If that is the law, maybe every future President will issue gag orders against any rival giving speeches that inflame public opinion. I do not think the US Supreme Court will ever go along with such gag orders.

[Dan Schiavetta]

1) A President can't issue a gag order. It's issued by the judge in a criminal matter.
2) And it would apply to candidates only if they have been hit with criminal charges (issued by a grand jury) and are headed for trial.

[Roger S]

Yes, technically Jack Smith works for Garland, who works for Biden. The US DoJ can indict anyone they want. The DC judges grant the orders requested, more or less. And the jury pool voted 90% against Trump. There is no crime, but Biden can pursue this political vendetta until the Nov. 2024 election, at least.

[Dan Schiavetta]

No matter how much free speech is honored, it tends to be honored only in the breach if one viewpoint becomes excessively dominant. These days it's conservatives who are getting canceled in academic settings because the academy has itself become so left-wing.

It's become left wing because for a long time now conservatives as a whole have disdained learning and expertise. You can joke that you'd rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, but if you change it from a joke to a real conviction, it has consequences. Conservatives haven't been driven out so much as they've driven themselves out. I don't see that trend reversing any time soon so I think this is a problem we'll be stuck with for a while.

[Frank Drackman]

Are you kidding? I wouldn't trust any Hah-vud faculty to pour piss out of a boot with written instructions engraved on the heel. Guarantee you there's a higher % of Ham-ass supporters there than in the Bah-stun population as a whole.

Frank

[Randal]

Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All -- But There Is a Solution

I assume it's to stop being a pack of whiny crybabies and snowflakes.

[Frank Drackman]

When you Ass-ume you make an ass out of yourself

[Archibald Tuttle]

What scares me most is the coincidence in time between cancel culture, and "alignment" of generative AI. We could be locking another generation into indoctrination. Purveyors of cancel culture, may be the same people dictating the values of AI alignment.

"AI Alignment is required to ensure AI systems do what we intend them to do without any consequences. It is a field of ongoing research that ensures AI meets its goals and objectives ethically without endangering the consumers of its applications. It’s a foregone conclusion that AI is expected to be more powerful in the coming years. With such rapid progress on the horizon, the big question is, “Does AI align with human values and norms without causing societal and ethical issues?”

[Randal]

Well, too bad I guess that conservatives decided to abdicate all interest in science and progress, or you could be the ones designing the AIs (and teaching the kids and producing the art & culture and doing all the important things).

[Frank Drackman]

Keep guessing Smegma Breath, I’m a “Conservative” and I’ll put my Science Boner Fides up against yours any day of the week, (well except on the Sabbath, I’m also a “Conservative” Jew)

Frank “I’ll take factors affecting myocardial contractility for $1,000 Alex”

[NvEric]

A difference these days is the over-availability of "information" and means of communication. It has less to do with any other factor except the increase in intolerance by the under 60 crowd. Most visible has been the open nastiness of some in Congress who have no sense of restraint.

Thought-time ( the time to think before an output is needed or is ready ) is vastly reduced, while exposure has been vastly increased.

[Randal]

Intolerance of bigotry you mean. Intolerance on the whole is way down within the under 60 crowd (minorities, gays, thems, women, non-Christians, et al).

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Intolerance of bigotry you mean. Intolerance on the whole is way down within the under 60 crowd (minorities, gays, thems, women, non-Christians, et al).

I will admit that with age I've become far less tolerant of gross stupidity and dishonesty...of the sort you routinely spew, for instance.

[Frank Drackman]

Are you Parkinsonian Joe Biden? the Ham-Ass Terrorists who murdered 2,000 Israelis were part of your "Under 60" crowd. Well I'm over 60, and try that shit with me and you'll get a 357 caliber lobotomy.

Frank

[Randal]

I think it's great that people are embarrassed to express their racist and homophobic views in public. Finally.

[Frank Drackman]

Keep thinking that when a Ham-Ass "refugee" from Gaza cuts your fucking throat. All of us Jewish doctors in the world won't be able to save you,

[GKHoff]

It will be even greater when people are embarrassed to express their anti-racist (as Kendi proposes) views in public. Or are those really racist views?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

People should be entitled to express various forms of bigotry.

Better people should be entitled to mock, shun, and belittle the bigots and their stale, ugly perceptions.

Carry on, bigoted clingers. We'll let you know just how far and how long, as has become customarily in modern America.

[Jacob Grimes]

People have been murdering each other since the founding as well. Waah.

[Krayt]

I feel a warm glowth when I see my ideas promulgate. It feels less like blowing into the wind.

[Savagely Average]

It’s comforting for liberals to imagine that ‘cancel culture’ is limited to Richard Spencer drones getting their just deserts. It’s not.

I haven’t parsed the statistics, but I’m confident that a majority of the 1000 academics the authors identify as being targeted for cancellation are liberals, not conservatives.

For one thing, about 1/3 of the cancellations the authors identify are from the right.

Beyond that, it’s anecdotal but most of the high-profile academic cancellations I can think of were of politically liberal academics. Albeit these were mainly liberals who expressed views deemed insufficiently left-wing; e.g., opposing racial preferences in higher education – which is a view that about half of all democrats hold.

It also stands to reason that the folks most vulnerable to professional cancelling from the left will be employed by liberal institutions – thus, they will be likely to be liberals themselves.

[Krayt]

And the evils of giant corporations getting so dominant they wield distorting power used to be, checks notes, progressivism!

Anyway, these are not truly private concerns if they labor under the section 230 sword of damoclese.

[Nige]

'I haven’t parsed the statistics,'

Yes, because the actual statistics show that women and people of colour in academia are far more at risk of adverse consequences for things they say and do than any other groups, and that's because they are usually targeted by the people on the right, quite relentlessly. There was a whole post about this here a few months ago.

[Brett Bellmore]

This is consistent with polling;

Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share

Note that first graph: The only group where a majority aren't afraid to express their opinions are "Strong liberals".

Liberals Are Divided on Political Expression

Strong liberals stand out, however, as the only political group who feel they can express themselves. Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) of staunch liberals feel they can say what they believe. However, centrist liberals feel differently. A slim majority (52%) of liberals feel they have to self‐​censor, as do 64% of moderates, and 77% of conservatives. This demonstrates that political expression is an issue that divides the Democratic coalition between centrist Democrats and their left flank.

What’s changed? In 2017 most centrist liberals felt confident (54%) they could express their views. However today, slightly less than half (48%) feel the same. The share who feel they cannot be open increased 7 points from 45% in 2017 to 52% today. In fact, there have been shifts across the board, where more people among all political groups feel they are walking on eggshells."

The only group not significantly more afraid to express their opinions than in the earlier poll were "strong conservatives"; Because such a large percentage of them were already afraid, there wasn't much room for it to get worse!

Further, the only group with majority support for firing people on the basis of their politics were "strong liberals'.

The bottom line is that everybody but the most left-wing are terrified... of the left wing!

[Nige]

That's not only inaccurate, it weirdly supposes corporations give a shit about anyone else's free speech.

[Randal]

This is exactly Queen's point. If you'd done the same survey in the 80s, liberals would've been the ones afraid to express their opinions, while conservatives were out & proud.

[Nige]

What are they afraid of? That people will look at them funny? That people will disagree with them? That people will think less of them? Nowhere does it say they’re terrified of the left, they could just as easily be terrified of each other in case they’re not toeing the party line. It isn’t as if we don’t have an example right here of someone who brands anyone not 100% on board with his somewhat idiosyncratic definition of Republicanism a RINO, and that includes most actual Republican politicians.

Or hey, maybe liberals just have more courage than conservatives.

[Savagely Average]

Yeah, I think I remember that post - IIRC the statistics were that men and whites were just as likely to be investigated but women and minorities were more likely to be fired for similar conduct. However, if we're talking about academics I'd surprised if the adverse consequences at universities were primarily due to "relentless targeting from the right" - though as the authors state that is a real phenomenon. If you've got backup I'm open to persuasion, though.

In any event, your point about disproportionate targeting of women and people of color is an important one. And it equally undercuts QA's incorrect assertion that talk of 'cancel culture' is just a bunch of racist white dudes whining about facing reasonable consequences.

[NvEric]

It would depend on where one lived, because of the norms accepted or not. The 80s were a gasp in several areas, such as corporate restructuring to squeeze more profits at the expense of future health, and the furthest fluffing of hair.

[Savagely Average]

I think Brett's point is the opposite of QA's.

She's claiming that the only reason anyone is talking about 'cancel culture' is because white male conservatives now have to worry. He's arguing that based on statistics conservatives were already scared; the change in the last 10 or so years is that now folks who are liberal but 'not liberal enough' are also scared to express their views.

[Brett Bellmore]

" If you’d done the same survey in the 80s, liberals would’ve been the ones afraid to express their opinions, while conservatives were out & proud."

Let's see, that's 40 years ago.

William Ayers, Professor and left-wing terrorist. In the 60's and 70's he was bombing people, though the only actual fatalities were his own people. He avoided prison on a technicality. From Wikipedia:

"He began his career in primary education while an undergraduate, teaching at the Children's Community School (CCS), a project founded by a group of students and based on the Summerhill method of education. After leaving the underground, he earned an M.Ed from Bank Street College in Early Childhood Education (1984), an M.Ed from Teachers College, Columbia University in Early Childhood Education (1987) and an Ed.D from Teachers College, Columbia University in Curriculum and Instruction (1987)."

Yeah, really sounds like the right were waging a reign of terror against the left back in the 80's. Hell, I was in college in the early 80's, at a conservative engineering university. Distinct lack of reigns of terror.

Are you sure you didn't have the 50's in mind? By the 80's the left were already taking over academia, they just hadn't started purging everybody else.

[Nige]

But it is. The right targets university professors and constantly try to get them fired. I'll try to find the article I read on it and get back to you.

[Randal]

10 years isn't long enough.

[Savagely Average]

Thanks. Again, I’m sure what you describe is real; just skeptical that outside pressure from the right is driving disciplinary action against women and minorities in academia in a majority of cases. Alternative reasons I could think of include:

- Bias by administrators; conscious or unconscious. Conduct by women and minorities seen in more negative light than similar conduct by white men ('shrill,' 'angry,' 'hysterical', etc.)
- Non-tenured employees easier to fire; women and minorities less likely to have tenure?

[JesseAz]

University professors are overwhelmingly liberal. I'm sure the study you "find" will normalize against populations. Likewise im sure it accounts for hiring hoards canceling people from ever becoming professors.

[Randal]

It really didn’t depend all that much on where you lived…

https://www.270towin.com/1984_Election/interactive_map

Today’s orthodoxy is nothing compared to ’80s orthodoxy.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I work in a place where people "claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views". My career and the families I support are more important than the amusement value of seeing how exposing them to "other views" plays out first-hand.

[Randal]

Of course you didn't notice the "reign of terror," you were in the majority back then.

Also, most people don't live their lives in academia.

[Brett Bellmore]

Are you freaking kidding? I wasn't in the majority, I helped found a chapter of the Libertarian party at my university! You think legalizing heroin and prostitution was popular with conservatives?

There. Was. No. Right-wing. Reign. Of. Terror. In. The. 80's. You've got the wrong decade! Maybe in the 50's and 60's, while the right still had a large degree of control in academia. Not remotely by the 80's, when an actual left-wing TERRORIST could get a teaching gig.

By the 80's the left was already taking over. They just hadn't started the purge yet.

[Nige]

'Maybe in the 50’s and 60’s, while the right still had a large degree of control in academia.'

What does academia have to do with right wing reigns of terror, y'know, like the KKK.

From wikipedia

'During the 1980s, more than 75 right-wing extremists were prosecuted for acts of terrorism in the United States, they carried out six attacks.[80] In 1983, Gordon Kahl, a Posse Comitatus activist, killed two federal marshals and he was later killed by police. Also that year, the white nationalist revolutionary group The Order (also known as the Brüder Schweigen or the Silent Brotherhood) robbed banks and armored cars, as well as a sex shop,[81] bombed a theater and a synagogue and murdered radio talk show host Alan Berg.[82][83]'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism

As for Ayers, maybe the left or academia or whoever hired him just believes in rehabilitation, or to put in in Christian terms, forgiveness and redemption.

[Randal]

You keep talking about academia. Neither I, nor Queen (nor Nige) was talking about academia, we're talking about society at large.

It's like if I kept saying "I go to church every Sunday and no one there is afraid to say racist and homophobic things, so I don't know what progressive opprobrium you're even talking about."