The question isn't "staying in good graces". While people should have friends with whom they disagree, the topic here is heresy. Heresy leads to punishment that goes beyond social consequences.
At this point, it's hard for me to know how to respond to people who remain skeptical of the thesis here. The NYT editorial board has acknowledged the problem. If you're still a holdout, you're probably part of it.
Potayto potahto. I was talking about the same thing that the article called "heresy".
My claim isn't that shunning and social pressure doesn't exist or isn't a problem. I'm just a bit skeptical that it's a lot worse now than in the past, and I'm a lot skeptical that it's only a problem on one side of the political aisle. I don't even think it's really a thing with a political valence, I think it's just a human thing.
The essay does claim things are worse than 10 years ago. But 70 years ago? Things are better now than during McCarthyism.
> I don't even think it's really a thing with a political valence, I think it's just a human thing.
It's definitely a human thing. However, like I said, if you deny the political valence that currently exists, you're either not a clear-eyed observer of the present or you're part of it. And of course no one is saying "in 2022, the right never cancels anyone" just that present day punishments for heresy in the US are clearly politically-valenced.
So anecdotal evidence to your point. If any of the deplatformed people has had a worst experience, I'd love to hear it.
I haven't seen any examples of those specific ones in the news and I don't have examples I'm personally familiar with. But the "Parental Rights in Education" bill is a handy example of the same phenomenon coming from the right; teachers will certainly lose their jobs or be forced to resign due to having the wrong beliefs in the wrong profession in the wrong state (and other states will almost certainly pass similar laws soon). Maybe that is an isolated incident, but I'm skeptical.
Frankly, I would really like to see someone try to gather and present data on this. It's really hard because the definition of what you're even looking for is wishy washy and most of the information is private; there isn't a public database of reasons why people didn't get, were forced to resign, or were fired from jobs.
Anyway, after 30 seconds of googling: https://www.canceledpeople.com/about
I'm not demanding empiricism, what I'm saying is that I find this whole debate to be overly influenced by high profile anecdotes, which people cherry pick to tell their preferred narrative.
That project is a definite step in the right direction, and if people start citing analyses of it when writing articles like and OP, instead of just throwing out definitive statements as unsupported premises, then I'll be much happier with those articles than I was with the OP.
One interesting thing to note is that that project has an explicit list of heresies that are beyond the pale (section 3 under "what is not included"). I think that's intriguing!
- the fact that it's heresy takes priority over the question of truth or falsity
- it outweighs everything else the speaker has done (I would add that the implication of that is "disproportionate punishment").
By this definition, yes, getting excluded from your family for stating some opinion is proof that said subject is taboo/ said opinion is "heresy" in your family. But, all kinds of families are broken in all kinds of different ways; surely you can find fascist families in USA - that doesn't make the USA society fascist. You can find atheist families too! (and nobody would claim the US is atheist). The question is: is the concept of "heresy" making a come-back at the level of the entire society?
> the "Parental Rights in Education" bill
Didn't know about it (I'm not a US citizen), and yes it's a dumb and wrong law by the sound of it. Even so I think it falls a bit short of fitting the definition of "legal enforcement of heresy" unless it extends outside the classroom (to opinions stated - privately or publicly - by teachers in their spare time).
(btw, I am not claiming heresy is only enforced by the US left. However, this fact only makes things worse, not better - it's sad that this practice is excused by "the others are worse" mantra. Even if/when it's true, and "the others" really are worse.).
To the rest: I agree that the definition used in the article was broader than just people getting fired. You asked me for examples of that specifically, which made me think you thought the definition being used was that more narrow one.
I'm not aware of any such bill. What's its name? And why is it not dead on arrival due to the Equal Protection Clause?
It's not dead due to work by the Roberts Court to gut the voting rights act, which was the law that prevented this kind of shenanigans.
And now the "plausible deniability games" begin in earnest. It is entirely possible to write a law that is ostensibly race neutral while making it apply discriminatorily. For a non-racial example, consider preferring tall candidates or military veterans as a proxy for men.
Similarly, things like requiring a drivers license or travel to an in-person voting location prevent working class people who don't own a vehicle and who work 9-5 from being able to vote without sacrificing wages (or perhaps at all!)
I agree it's possible, just not that this bill does so.
> requiring a drivers license or travel to an in-person voting location
But the bill you linked to doesn't require either of those things. There are explicit provisions for people without driver's licenses in it, and it didn't ban absentee voting.
Right, it just makes it significantly more difficult, which means more people are required to vote in person.
> There are explicit provisions for people without driver's licenses in it,
Right, which you need to be familiar with and be able to assert your rights about.
Here's three questions:
1. All else equal, will this law decrease turnout by predominantly black working class voters?
2. Did the bills drafters intend this?
Three answers to both of those are "yes". Which brings up the third question: why isn't that discriminatory?
Being allowed to vote without an ID isn't good enough, because some people might not know it's allowed? And why would you need to "assert" your rights? If this bill were to pass, wouldn't pollworkers be aware of the new set of rules?
> 1. All else equal, will this law decrease turnout by predominantly black working class voters?
> 2. Did the bills drafters intend this?
> Three answers to both of those are "yes". Which brings up the third question: why isn't that discriminatory?
If the answer to both of those questions were actually yes, then I'd agree that the bill were discriminatory. But you've just asserted the answer is yes without providing evidence, and I don't agree with your assertion.
That depends on your race. The fun thing about arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions like this is that they can be enforced only against some people, something that the VRA explicitly prevented at the policy level until it was gutted.
The answer to the first is yes, policies like these result in voter suppression that has to be countered by additional gotv efforts for equivalent turnout (among predominantly black, working class, democrat voters).
The answer to the second is also yes. The Republican legislators aren't dumb. The theory that the election was "stolen" by the Dems, which led to this law is functionally that too many Democrats voted. And the point of this law is to prevent that, under the guise of blocking "illegitimate" (working class black democratic) voters.
Differently put: everyone knows what these bills are except people who are in denial of institutionalized racism. You've used an argument structure that is reminiscent of that used by people who are in denial of institutionalized racism. Therefore, it is assumed that you are in denial of institutionalized racism, and thus, there's no point telling you about the bills because you're just going to be in denial about them anyway.
Meanwhile, anyone who is not in denial can just use any random search engine and find articles like this one:
Will a lifelong religious devotee be dissuaded of his faith by one argument with me on hacker news?
I think the lot of you are naive, and unaware of what really motivates your views (its not logic).
Bills that restrict voting rights in America along racial lines are all over the news, even outside of America. That leaves only two possibilities. Either your range of media isn't as wide as you think, or you are in denial. You've already dismissed another commenter’s response, so I'm leaning towards the latter.
If you're getting news from strongly opinionated talking-heads, then that might explain the disconnect.
This is an (aggressively?) conventional idea that I have an (I guess) heretical opinion about. I'm somewhat persuaded that there is a recent outbreak of intolerance for differing ideas and ideals (though I suspect every generation expresses a version of this opinion as they get older and become out of step with cultural evolution), but I don't think it has any particular political valence. I have to watch my tongue just as much around "aggressive conventionalists" on either side, they just have different conventions. It's just as disqualifying as the x-isms from the left, if you care about staying in the good graces of convention on the right, to express opinions like "immigrants are good", "the 2020 US presidential election ran smoothly and had a clear victor who was duly inaugurated", "gender is a social construct", "people who are attracted to others of the same sex are normal and should have the same rights as anyone else", etc. etc.
Honestly I think this whole thing is as simple as, people just have different views and lots of people of all stripes don't want to agree to disagree with the people they spend most of their time with.