Comment by dnissley
5 years ago
Some bright spots I've noticed in the past month or so in this area, for those who care both about justice and open debate:
- John Carmack signal boosting[1] Sarah Downey's article "This PC witch-hunt is killing free speech, and we have to fight it"[2]
- The critical comments on the obligatory "BLM" post in r/askscience[3]
- Glenn Loury's response[4] to Brown University's letter to faculty/alumni about racial justice.
- The failure[5] of a group of folks to cancel Steven Pinker over accusations of racial insensitivity.
[1] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1279105937404579841
[2] https://medium.com/@sarahadowney/this-politically-correct-wi...
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gvc7k9/black_li...
[4] https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism
[5] https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/12799365902367907...
Carmack's comment on the Cultural Revolution was strange. The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder. McCarthyism or something might have been a better historical analog to what is happening, but it would have been pretty tricky to jujitsu that example into a slam against the left, or the kids today, or whatever was being attempted there.
The article he linked to was a little peculiar. As someone who's inclined to agree with the author about the First Amendment, the poorly thought out paragraph about racism - using a link to hate crime statistics to demonstrate the low numbers of "actual racists," but then making a remark like The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being, which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message.
> but then making a remark like The statement “black lives matter” is easy to agree with if you’re a decent human being, which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message.
The objection that most have to the phrase "black lives matter" is exactly the same objection that most have to "all lives matter". That is, essentially no-one objects to the sentiment expressed in the words in and of themselves, but they are suspicious of the political motivations of those who use the slogan.
There is a relative minority of people that engage in what is called "vice-signaling". That is, they claim to object to a commonly held moral sentiment that they feel has been co-opted for a partisan political cause. I think it's probably a counter-productive strategy, but I think those people can be reasoned with if you can separate the moral sentiment from the political platform.
>The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder.
I'm not sure that's true. Stipulating that it was "the greatest problem", how could it be the defining characteristic considering all the other historical instances of mass murder?
Was my meaning actually unclear to you? There have been plenty of times of censorship and social strife in history. Choosing one that involved the murder of tens of thousands of people makes for an especially poor analogy to what's happening today.
The Cultural Revolution is a poor analog in other ways as well (I mean, upon examination the comparison to our current moment doesn't hold up at all and it's boring to discuss) but the large number of dead people seems like an especially important indicator that perhaps what's happening today is not as serious as all that, and that the author is engaging in some pretty extreme hyperbole. (which is their right of course, blah blah)
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You should be sure.
Violence and extreme social distress, public humiliation sessions, public beatings were meted out rather liberally. A specifically pernicious aspect of Mao's strategam was turning generation against generation. These are the defining characteristics of Chinese Communist Party's Cultural Revolution.
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All historical instances of mass murder were wrong. It's a key delineation. BLM is a response to mass incarceration and disproportionate killings by the legal system. Notably, they don't seem interested in crossing the line into mass killings; they want less killings. Thus, the jump to Maoism from Marxism is overwrought.
In the case of "black lives matter", part of the point some people are missing is why it's necessary to force people to say something that's as obvious as the nose on our faces. We're being forced to chant a slogan. An empty slogan because of course, black lives matter. No one has ever said differently.
Did the police officers who killed George Floyd think black lives matter? Do the people changing 'blue lives matter' think that black lives matter?
They don't. Our at least, not as much as other lives.
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As far as I know, the protests did not start after the officers were charged with murder. This seems like a crucial distinction if you're going to split hairs. People need to stop saying of course we always agreed on everything, because saying it nicely doesn't soften the message that one person can define reality for another.
What is “the overall message?” Is it just the plain meaning of the words? Is the idea that we need to reform the police so they stop murdering Black people?
Or is it the New York Times’ claim that “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery?” https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/116140196616729805....
Or is it that we need to “disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” as BLM’s website claims? https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/
Or is it that “institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism” are all equivalent evils that must be “abolished,” as BLM’s DC chapter proclaims? https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no-an...
Or is it—as the 1619 project claims and which is now being taught in schools—the supposed historical fact that capitalism is an outgrowth of plantation slavery? https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory
Or is it applied Marxism?
> No doubt, the organization itself was quite radical from the very beginning. Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists” in a recently resurfaced video from 2015.
Look at how much the debate has transformed within the last month. It started out with universal condemnation of a murder committed by the police in Minnesota. Now, we are talking about tearing town statues of Abraham Lincoln: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw-... (“Students in the UW-Madison's Black student union are calling on university officials to remove the statue of the nation's 16th president.”) My high school, named after Thomas Jefferson, is thinking of renaming itself. We are debating whether the Constitution as a “pro-slavery document.”
I am pro-BLM. To me, it’s a matter of my faith, as well as my personal experience living in places like Baltimore and Philadelphia and realizing that Black people just aren’t getting a fair shake. I think people of every stripe can do something to help finish the job of reconstruction. Libertarians can pitch in to help end police abuse of minorities. Conservatives can help push forward school choice, which the majority of Black people support. Middle of the road people can agree that we need to undo the pro-confederacy monument building that happened during the KKK era.
But I also believe that our country rests on mostly admirable principles and history, and that Marxism is a recipe for suffering while capitalism is uplifting billions of people before our very eyes. I can hardly blame people who are skeptical when they are forced to chant a slogan that was coined by self-avowed Marxists. You can’t blame people for being cautious in their support of a movement that has under the same roof a majority of well-meaning people who simply want to eliminate police brutality and inequality, and a vocal minority of people who view those problems as an indictment of our entire country and it’s institutions. The far left, in characteristic fashion, has taken something most people could agree on, and pushed it further and further until normal people are forced to push back to keep society from crumbling beneath their feet. And that’s a tragedy for everyone, especially people who care about the core concept of fixing policing in America.
Or is it that we need to “disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” as BLM’s website claims? https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/
Why is this problematic for you? They're not saying children don't need caregivers, or that families are bad. They're saying the American nuclear family has downsides compared to other models, notably the extended family model common in African and Asian cultures. What makes a nuclear family "nuclear" is that it's self-contained; it's practically by definition not intergenerational, the way many effective non-American families are. It's an especially resonant point given the amount of effort American culture put into making sure black nuclear families couldn't succeed.
I feel like criticism of the American nuclear family has been pretty much fair game for decades; it's not like BLM invented that concern.
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It started out with universal condemnation of a murder committed by the police in Minnesota.
And it's become a distraction from that. The US has a serious problem with police brutality and quality control. US cops killed 1,112 people in 2019. That's over 10x the rate for EU countries. The odds are worse if you're black, but more whites are killed by cops than blacks.
That's the problem. Statues don't kill. Flags don't kill. Cops kill.
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>that has under the same roof a majority of well-meaning people who simply want to eliminate police brutality and inequality, and a vocal minority of people who view those problems as an indictment of our entire country and it’s institutions
I think that's a false dichotomy; there's plenty of amazing Marxist literature, academic journals, etc. from well-meaning people. It's one thing to say that Marxists are misguided, but it's another thing to describe them in a situation as if they're against well-meaning moderates. It's possible for everyone to be well-meaning, and rather than assuming malice, perhaps it's a better idea to examine their point of view and arguments. I know I've taken the time to do that with right-libertarians and right-wingers online a few times.
Why do these intelligent people (tenured philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, even economists) think Marxism isn't a recipe for suffering? What do they have to say about capitalism, its advantages, and disadvantages? It's worth asking them and reading their modern point of views, which in the past fifteen years have changed a great deal already.
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> What is “the overall message?” Is it just the plain meaning of the words? Is the idea that we need to reform the police so they stop murdering Black people?
The overall message (the theme, if you prefer) of Sarah Downey's article that Carmack linked to was a defense of freedom of speech. I thought the stuff she wrote about racism was flawed enough - to be charitable, perhaps it was flawed because it wasn't the main topic of the piece and it wasn't getting sufficient space - that it took away from a potentially strong defense of freedom of speech.
> The far left, in characteristic fashion, has taken something most people could agree on, and pushed it further and further until normal people are forced to push back to keep society from crumbling beneath their feet.
That is a humorous image and it is an accurate summary of some people's thinking, but I don't know quite what to say about it without giving it more credence than I believe it deserves. If we side with the Marxists in opposing the murder of innocent people we will be living in a Communist state by Thursday is not a train of thought I would have a lot of sympathy for, even if Marxism were a force in American politics.
"They're Marxists!". You couldn't make it up. "We want peace"-America will always go down this route it seems.
Haven't you seen the amount of people that are participating in these demonstrations? Of course you're gonna find self-described "Marxists" among them. Doesn't mean that the average protestor is some sort of Stalinist relic from the 1960ths. That's just absurd.
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>It started out with universal condemnation of a murder committed by the police in Minnesota
This is revisionist, though, isn't it? And in a way that specifically eliminates the meaning of the protests. The protests started before the officers were charged, I believe. And while it may not be reasonable to expect the arrests to happen instantly, it's also reasonable that people doubted it would happen at all.
Assuming you mean well and all, this specific wording could nevertheless be interpreted as a dog whistle. It triggers some peoples' political immune system.
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[flagged]
The article in question also linked to Scott Adams who recently said and I quote "If Biden is elected, there's a good chance you will be dead within the year. Republicans will be hunted." [1]
So it seems rather ironic to write an article about 'political witchhunts' using someone who is claiming that Republicans are going to be systematically hunted down and murdered. I don't think the article was written in good faith at all.
[1] https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/127830983545328435...
Is this the Scott Adams behind Dilbert? I doubt it.
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To follow up on [4], here's Ain terries with Glenn Loury in Vox from 2016: https://www.vox.com/2016/9/20/12915036/race-criminal-justice....
Also an interview done with him a few weeks ago: https://www.city-journal.org/racism-is-an-empty-thesis
The broadening circle of people willing to exercise their free speech to condemn Pinker's recurrent and insidious appeals to race-informed genetic determinism is a bright spot, as are the numerous people dunking on Pinker for cosigning an open letter that decries "ostracism and public shaming" as injuries to our culture of free expression, rather than expressions of that culture.
Ken White had some smart things to say about this today, with respect to "the problem of the preferred first speaker". Worth tracking down.
That's not to say there aren't dark spots; David Shor's firing certainly appears to be one of them. But I don't think any of those dark spots put Pinker, the T-1000 version of Charles Murray, above criticism. Which is, of course, what an open letter against "public shaming" purports to do.
It's disappointing to read this thread. Even tptacek, a prominent speaker on Hacker News, exhibits bizarre ignorance regarding this topic.
Generally speaking, it seems to me that much sloppy thinking in the current debate involves the mixture of the following basic errors:
1) Ignorance about biology. Evolutionary biology has been an exceptionally fertile section of science for the last decades, and provided deeper understandings on many biological phenomenon, including human behaviors. The accusers' understanding of biology (e.g. condemning it as "genetic determinism") is at least 50 years behind.
2) Poor understanding of the due process. Calling a random petition to condemn a person publicly is exactly a witch hunt. History proves that it's a very error-prone way to punish someone, and no civilized country accept it as a proper procedure anymore.
As to (2) I'd recommend everyone to read DJB's "The death of due process". It is very important, because it may be you (or your family) to be hung by lynch mobs next time.
https://blog.cr.yp.to/20160607-dueprocess.html
I guess I don't see the problem of the preferred first speaker in practice.
Let's take the examples in question: I've never seen either Murray or Pinker come out of the gates swinging with poorly framed appeals to genetic determinism (if they make reference to such things at all it's almost always in response to criticism, and it never seems to be more than very light handed considered speculation). I've also never seen them lob insults, outright support mob justice, or make a targeted cherry-picked attempt to discredit a particular individual (admittedly I'm only so plugged in so it's possible I'm missing something). Yet their critics seem frequently guilty of this.
In other words, I don't think I'm holding them to a lower standard for having spoken first. Am I misunderstanding the argument? Or am I actually doing this and I'm just not aware of it?
Edit: Perhaps it's also worth stating that I do hold these two people in high regard which definitely lowers my defenses when it comes to quickly evaluating their various claims. Mainly based on how they have engaged in good faith. That said, I disagree with both of them a lot. Recently I've put a lot of effort into identifying a group of folks that I disagree with but respect, since it seems like almost nobody does that and it seems like a big problem that people only respect those they agree with.
You are as free to stick up for Pinker (and Murray) as I am to condemn them, which is the beauty of the system. Nobody is, or should be, immune to "public shaming". But those are the plain words the letter uses! It's a bit rich, coming as it does from people like JK Rowling, who have threatened to sue strangers for their Twitter opinions.
(I strongly disagree with your take on Pinker and Murray! But that's neither here nor there as far as my argument goes.)
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Of course people should be free to vehemently argue against Steven Pinker's ideas. The problem is that people are instead descending to personal attacks on him, including circulating a petition (with forged signatures, to boot) to get the Linguistic Society of America to strip him of his Fellow status.
People are free to circulate petitions, including those making demands about someone's Linguistic Society status. People are not required to express only opinions you approve of. Though, of course, you're free to circulate a counter-petition against them!
What's less free is threatening to use a billion dollar fortune to file a defamation lawsuit against someone for expressing an opinion on Twitter, which at least one of the signatories did.
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>- John Carmack signal boosting[1] Sarah Downey's article "This PC witch-hunt is killing free speech, and we have to fight it"[2]
Is this really a "bright spot"? Expressing a fear (without any reasoning or evidence shown as the basis for that fear) that one's opponents approve of an atrocious campaign orchestrated by a totalitarian regime?
There's a lot of room to criticize "cancel culture" and deplatforming. Comparisons with mass killings and state-orchestrated oppression is an odd choice, and (to take the other side of the fence here) with about the same amount of merit as saying that people critical of BLM have similar opinions of the Nazi regime.
There is a direct line of descent between Maoist agitation in Western countries throughout the late-1960s and 1970s and the current radical left. They have explicitly approved of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in the past - often enthusiastically so - and for all we know, they continue to do so. The M.O. is certainly comparable.
Maybe it's not direct yet. And that's what makes me a little nervous about where this all could head.
If people are willing to hunt and cancel people without giving the accused a chance to even defend themselves (leading to reputation, job loss, etc), physical harm seems like the next logical step.
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That's the kind of sweeping claim that really needs to be sourced.
Source?
There is a direct line of descent between the Nazi government in Germany and the current space efforts, too.
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>There is a direct line of descent between Maoist agitation in Western countries throughout the late-1960s and 1970s and the current radical left.
Do you have any sources I can read on this? If anything, it seems the radical left actually left Badiou and his ilk behind for the Frankfurt School, and even then, I'm doubtful as to what that intellectual heritage means to your average "radical leftist" today. This is all beside the point, however - is there a recent (from the past 20 years) poll or anything similar surveying the "radical left" (which, mind you, includes anti-statists and anarcho-Communists) on their opinion of the Cultural Revolution? One of the largest "radical leftist" groups in the West is Antifa, but from what I know, it's hard to see any Maoism (or Maoist ideas) present in its members[0]. The Sino-Soviet split and the ascension of Deng liberalizing China has practically deadened Maoist ideology in the West. You'd have a better (but still somewhat shaky) case to say the radical left today draws from Stalinism instead (as opposed to Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, etc.).
>They have approved of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in the past
To what degree? In what numbers? For example, I can't name a single leftist journal which the majority of contributors could be aligned with Maoist views, never mind views supporting the Cultural Revolution. Even the Maoists I know of with some influence (e.g. Badiou) are critical of the cultural revolution.
>and for all we know, they continue to do so
So it's a superstition?
>The M.O. is certainly similar.
Which mainstream leftist organizations (mainstream enough to guide the course of the modern "radical left") approve of state-sanctioned murder and imprisonment of intellectuals?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)#Ideolog...
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The last American 1970s Maoist I met (ca. 2005) was by then an investment manager. There are Marxists nostalgists out there, but not many. The left is much more into identity politics these days.
> Comparisons with mass killings and state-orchestrated oppression is an odd choice,
Coordinated attempts to ruin peoples ability to earn a living is pretty bad. It also strikes me that such economic terrorism could very well be the precursors to actual killing and state oppression. People who don't respect the right to liberty or property of others probably don't respect their right to life either.
> with about the same amount of merit as saying that people critical of BLM have similar opinions of the Nazi regime.
I agree with the point that our criticism needs to have some proportionality, but I don't think this particular comparison is entirely valid. In both the Cultural Revolution and the current Cancel Culture, the objective is the purging institutions of dissidents and the destruction of all artifacts of the old order (e.g. destruction of statues, including Frederick Douglass for some reason). Whatever the people participating in Cancel Culture believe, they are still following the Cultural Revolution template. Obviously the Cultural Revolution was far more violent, but I think that assuming such mass violence can't or won't happen here is mistaken.
On the other hand, there are plenty of critics of BLM who are quite ardently against abusive policing, but either don't think the racial component is as central to the problem of authoritarian policing as BLM claims, or object to some of the other principles of BLM that have nothing to do with race or policing.
> It also strikes me that such economic terrorism could very well be the precursors to actual killing and state oppression.
They could also not be. Even the phrasing of "economic terrorism" stretches both the terminology of economy and terrorism beyond what most people would consider by the terms.
> People who don't respect the right to liberty or property of others probably don't respect their right to life either.
Which of the 'cancel culture' advocates don't respect the right to liberty? I can understand they have arguments against the right to (private) property, but this seems far more abstract.
>the objective is the purging institutions of dissidents and the destruction of all artifacts of the old order
I have some recollection of Marcuse's argument that the qualitative, historical, and social differences between terrors and movements are increasingly being reduced to nothing by the popular consciousness who is only acquainted with them through one-off facts and cherry picking...
>Whatever the people participating in Cancel Culture believe, they are still following the Cultural Revolution template.
What is sufficient to constitute a 'template' here? Let me provide a concrete example; the anarchists of old frequently argued against the notion of human rights, the state, and property. Marx and his followers did the same. Who is following who's template here? As another commenter in this thread pointed out, when most people think of the cultural revolution, they're really not thinking about tearing down statues or call-outs on social media (or even newspapers!) from a mob only given power by association (and not, say, the state or weaponry).
The comparison is almost entirely bunk, and it's a little surprising that Mao's atrocities are being reduced to tearing down statues of slave traders. BLM actually more closely resembles (again, I'm ignoring many qualitative differences here, since it seems to be fair game to do so in this discussion) the systematic removal of Marx and Lenin statues in Europe and especially Lukacs' and Engels' statues being removed recently.
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So I didn't read all the links, but Glenn's letter is just absolute projection on his part. He claims the letter sent out to staff and students treated unestablished facts as established and then does nothing to say how they are unestablished. It might be cringey to post the requisite BLM statement, but its not inaccurate. I see a lot of comments on this thread claiming censorship with no evidence or introspection of why certain things are being called out. J.K. Rowling is a terf through and through. I am sorry, but claiming that a letter talks too much about race is one of the most fragile things I have ever seen. This is an uncomfortable moment for lots of white people, but we need to live with it instead of instantly buck against it and hide in "intellectual rigor."
The Sarah Downey article you mention is of really low quality.
She parrots tired cliches (you couldn't make Blazing Saddles today!) in a world where we're realizing that many beloved comedians are sexual predators as well.
She thinks JK Rowling did nothing wrong, she only followed the science! (no mention that she explicitly accuses transwomen of being a danger to ciswomen, she thinks trans rights are brainwashing teenagers into wanting to change their gender, and has a few other obviously transphobic and harmful calls to action).
She accuses the people calling for lockdowns and isolation for Covid19 of not caring about poor people, when the highest voices on this were also calling for relief funds and rent freezes.
She then accuses the BLM protesters of violence and looting, with not one word about the police escalation of violence, nor of white supremacist provocateurs.
And of course, she thinks wanting to join protests for social justice is hypocrisy if yesterday you were encouraging people not to go to clubs and restaurants to avoid the pandemic.
And finally, of course she will defend the right of Holocaust deniers to be heard, but calls for the most powerful celebrities to shut up or change their ways are harrasement and a sign that free speach is dead.
The whole article is a collection of these reactionary hot takes, peppered with self-defenses of how progressive the author is (she is Jewish! And has gay friends! And enjoys RuPaul's drag race!), meant to make it sound like she is one of the people who would support the causes she is actually attacking.