Comment by entropyneur
6 years ago
It's irrelevant whether one thing can lead to the other. What's important is how often it does. If there's significantly less violence, it's a win.
I guess it could be a bit difficult to see from the US where you had the first amendment forever. But the rest of the world is not like that.
The claim that cancel cultures appearance is single handedly responsible for a drop in violence that was entirely the fault of a more permissive attitude towards open debate seems quite a stretch to put it as politely as possible.
Are you implying it's a claim I've made? Because it isn't.
On the contrary, my claim is that if you take the world as a whole there has never been more permissive attitude towards open debate than today. But even in the so-called free world... Compare the treatment of JK Rowling got to the treatment MLK got.
> But I think the shift to use of shame for society regulation is a positive development
> If there's significantly less violence, it's a win.
Don't try and back away from your claims once you've made them.
And taking this debate from the point of view of the world as a whole is disingenuous, don't try to latch the damage done by one onto the overall good done by others and claim a net good for the first who caused the damage.
Also we aren't comparing now to the 1960s; yes now looks fabulous compared to then as does it compared to the purges in the USSR but we arent comparing those; we're discussing the recent devolution in free expression as pointed out in the blog this post is about.
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