Of course, it depends on what you view as harmful, and who's opinions you agree with. There is no obvious right answer. Pretending we can say "so this should never happen" is absurd in my view, it implies people have to give their money to people that will use that money to fund harm.
The core of free speech is that even abhorrent views should not face censorship by the government, because democracy requires it. If this is true, surely the right to not support people who's views you disagree with is just as necessary? (If not, is every Republican cancelling the Democratic party by not donating to them?) The answer, as with democracy and freedom of speech, is to make the better argument, get people to agree with you, and then use that to support the things you think are right.
We don't have a better answer than that.
I think there are obvious cases we can personally make better choices: seek context and clarity, don't jump to conclusions and pile on just because others say something without checking it is valid and proportionate, but again, that's never the "anti-cancel culture" argument.
> The answer, as with democracy and freedom of speech, is to make the better argument, get people to agree with you, and then use that to support the things you think are right.
I find this difficult to agree with but not because of the sentiment but because of the environment. If a bad faith actor wants to smear even totally reasoned speech by spouting complete fabrications, so long as they have the bigger platform/microphone on social media no amount of making a correct argument will resolve the problem. I agree in a perfect world without these sorts of algorithmic effects, this would be the ideal solution— but if you simply aren’t favored by the algorithm how can being reasonable save you from someone who is spewing lies?
Yeah, of course that's a problem, having a bigger platform gives you more political power.
This... isn't new. Money is the classic way to attain platform, and the US has repeatedly doubled down on the freedom to spend as much money as you want politically, as a core freedom.
Fox News is constantly broadcasting what I would classify as complete fabrications to their bigger platform, should the government be stepping in to stop that?
I agree these things are a problem, but that's the cost of free speech, the two choices are the government deciding who's speech is right, or individuals deciding who's speech is right.
Please note I never advocated for censorship. I’m only saying the ideal solution won’t work. I don’t want censorship either, but also I don’t believe simply more speech is the solution. I don’t know what the solution is.
If you define anything other than "simply more speech" as censorship, as many seem to nowadays, then a solution either cannot exist or must involve censorship.
> If this is true, surely the right to not support people who's views you disagree with is just as necessary?
Totally agree, but I think one of the nuances here is that what "support" means can be pretty narrow or very broad.
For example, if you don't like someone's message and they're speaking at your college, you can show your disapproval by choosing a point on a spectrum of refusals. You can start light by going to hear them speak but refusing to agree with them, and get a little more intense by attending and listening and then rebutting their arguments (i.e. refusing to approve the message). Sliding further along the scale, you might refuse to go to the talk at all. Further, you might refuse to attend the college that allows them to speak. Further, you might refuse to use any social media that allows them to post. And so on.
The further you go on that spectrum, the more your actions cause other people not to be able to support the speaker (or even hear them without supporting them), even if they want to. Not attending the speech yourself may cause the speaker not to be invited back if there is low enough attendance, which is just about the most minor form of that. Further along the spectrum, refusing to use social media that gives them a platform could get them banned if enough people do it, which is a more intense form of denying others access.
That's really long-winded but I hope my point is clear. I think "cancel culture" isn't so much about retaining the individual's choice to not support something, but rather denying that choice to other people. And it's not even about supporting really; the ACLU that defended Nazis because they realized that if Nazis' rights can be taken away then so can any minorities' be taken away might not exist any more. Certainly they didn't support Nazism, but they felt that they didn't have to in order to defend them in a court of law.
I think someone once said something like "it's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it" and I feel like at a certain level you have to trust people to do that if you want to live in a democracy. My interpretation of opponents of cancel culture is that they don't want other people to keep them from entertaining ideas just because accepting them would be bad. You have to be able to entertain an idea to destroy it as well. The more you know about racist beliefs, for example, the more easily they're destroyed. The less you know, the more appealing they are. Best to bring them out in the light and let them be destroyed by the truth (would be their argument I believe).
I guess it's a difference in world view. Some think you can put people on the right track by focusing on providing them with the right information, and others think you can put them on the right track by keeping them from harmful information. The latter might be the way you can instruct a child, but for adults, the former is the only way it can work healthily (they would say).
Not sure whether any of that makes any sense, I could be completely wrong, would like to hear your opinion.
People have a right to expression, but not a right to a platform. Not everyone can go on TV every day to talk about what they believe, so it must be curated, and that curation is an expression in and of itself.
Should we try and be proportional and fair in our responses to people personally? Of course. Should we as a society try to limit people's responses? No.
There used to be literal lynching, and clearly active violence is over the line, but we allowed racists and other bigots to boycott places that employed people they didn't like and express their views like that.
Now that the bigots face being denied employment because of their bigotry, suddenly it's wrong to boycott and deny them their jobs.
Is it wrong to refuse to spend money at somewhere that employs (and therefore uses the money I spend there) someone who seeks to deny human rights to someone I love? It may get them fired if enough people take that stand. Does it hurt others if they can't access that bigot's speech? You can argue it denies them an opportunity, but then the fact I can't go to their boss and make my point is denying that person an opportunity to.
The reality is you are talking about pitting two pieces of expression against each other, and just because one came first and the other is a response to it seems entirely meaningless to me, neither should be restricted.
What do you think of the argument that the nature of boycotting has changed? In your example, people might boycott a restaurant they didn't like, but there were a ton of small restaurants, no one restaurant was very big. Now, we have a handful of websites that like 90% of all written human communication goes through, and people aren't boycotting a Twitter handle, they're boycotting Twitter itself (so to speak) to force it to deplatform someone.
I guess it's somewhat related to the other argument of proportionality of punishment. Is it right to boycott someone to an unlimited extent if they're bigoted? What is the limit? would be the questions along that line.
This seems like an argument to have better "public squares" and better regulations against monopolies, rather than enforcing private entities to platform others.
The core of free speech is that even abhorrent views should not face censorship by the government, because democracy requires it. If this is true, surely the right to not support people who's views you disagree with is just as necessary? (If not, is every Republican cancelling the Democratic party by not donating to them?) The answer, as with democracy and freedom of speech, is to make the better argument, get people to agree with you, and then use that to support the things you think are right.
We don't have a better answer than that.
I think there are obvious cases we can personally make better choices: seek context and clarity, don't jump to conclusions and pile on just because others say something without checking it is valid and proportionate, but again, that's never the "anti-cancel culture" argument.