This is not a thoughtful conversation. You cherry-pick your examples and then mis-characterize those you have selected. For example, you claim the Dixie Chicks were cancelled for criticizing the president. First, they weren't truly cancelled because the right just does not have that power, and second, it wasn't because they criticized the president, it was because they went to a foreign country and told an audience they were ashamed of being from Texas which is a very different thing.
Then you avoid addressing examples of truly egregious behavior by the left such as the treatment of Coleman Hughes by TED, or the firing of a NY Times editor because of the absurd claim by staff that the opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton put them in danger, or worst of all, the treatment by the University of Tennessee of poor Mimi Groves. Look it up.
- Nobody gives a damn about podcasts or podcasters. Don't waste people's time.
- Medical genderism is a predatory & barbaric practice that was begun with zero evidence for benefit and continues on (in America) with zero evidence for benefit while European countries move to ban the practice (because there's zero evidence for benefit).
- The sooner you get your head out of the trashbag on the subject, the more chance you have of maintaining a career after the temple walls fall in. (Not long now.)
- Bye to this windy, tepid, & completely unoriginal "publication." You have said literally nothing new and pushed back literally zero against anything on your side of the partisan spectrum. Hacks or cowards?
The fact that you're bringing up "medical genderism" in response to a podcast discussion about free speech indicates that you're a news consumer unable to handle commentary that doesn't flawlessly reflect your narrow set of pet obsessions, and when those don't get addressed in any given post, you resort to lashing out like a child.
Has it ever occurred to you that this isn't about hating "trans" people, but, rather, about challenging an entire conceptual vocabulary -- the very use of terms (i.e., the language) by which some people (claim to) define themselves? It's not as if right-wingers instigated this particular epistemic break.
Must any assertion that a "pregnant person" is male, or that a person with a penis is actually female, be accepted without question, exempt from criticism and immune to dissent? Can't one question whether such people are what they crack themselves up to be (i.e., their own "narrow pet obsessions"), without that being considered tantamount to "hate"?
FWIW, I believe that a person with a brain/body disconnect or mismatch (due to a hormonal or neurological anomaly) is entitled to the same degree of decency (and if need be, medical intervention) as anyone else with a disability. Notwithstanding such occurrences, concepts like "masculine" and "feminine" (along with the very notion of "gender identity") are a social fiction -- i.e., like drag itself, merely a form of method acting or cosplay.
As a gay male (attracted to other biological males), I repudiate the entire notion of "gender identity." Conversely, "trans" people repudiate biological sex. So much for "LGBTQIA+." (I don't let my adversaries define the boundaries or parameters of my so-called "community" -- and I only pull the ladder up behind me when someone [usually running a political protection racket] is clutching at my heels, trying to drag me back down.) I'll watch my own back, thank you very much!
Much of Ken Flowers' comment might be gratuitously nasty, or even over-the-top -- but I could well imagine his remarks about "medical genderism," in particular, coming from Andrew Sullivan or J.K. Rowling or Bari Weiss -- in a discussion of free speech.
So who gets to be called a "jerk" or a "bigot"? Carried to its conclusion, this isn't merely about reciprocal free speech (or "civility"); it's about what's considered anathema, and ultimately (according to the rules of the Oppression Olympics) about demands for dissenting voices to be silenced or shut down.
How does this comment section continually attract these folks? For such a reasonable publications it has a constant stream of lunacy in its comments in the form of critics.
Well I, for one, don't think The UnPopulist is necessarily reasonable. I initially thought this project was a good idea, pushing back against some sectors of the libertarian milieu turning toward MAGA. (That the Mises Caucus can fuck right off a point of agreement I have with the UnPop folks.) However, this project has simply degenerated into apologism for the worst parts of the progressive left and its censorious instincts and aiming vitriol at anybody who's too critical of progressivism. Shikha Dalmia and company's unhinged attacks on The Fifth Column come to mind right away. So pushback against the kind of pseudo-liberalism this site is pushing is good, actually, in my estimation.
It's not exactly pseudo-liberalism. It's about a chip on the shoulder regarding populism (implicit in the site's very title).
In that context, what I find all-too-often on this site are liberals flirting with progressivism (and vice-versa) in a fan-dance of coy vacillation. When it comes down to straightforward good faith and integrity (especially where identity politics is concerned), I'd rather be reading Yascha Mounk.
Oh yeah the "unhinged" attacks on the fifth column lol. One way to phrase that. I would call it measured and well informed critique of their content that led to totally outsized and unhinged attack from the fifth column guys and more so their fan base. That was actually how I found the unpopulist. I subscribed to the fifth, but their treatment of the fall of Minneapolis was driving me insane and when they started their unhinged retaliation of the unpopulist and went over here and read them and promptly subscribed. They were right on with their critiques and I lossed a ton of respect for fifth column with how they handled the whole thing. I can still listen to them on occasion, but they have major blind spots and sometimes it is just too much for me. And especially they way have become way to comfortable attacking other journalists on their show in what I think is unwarranted ways. Mostly moynihan in that respect
Well, all I can say is I had close to the opposite reaction. I do think that Radley Balko's critique of Coleman Hughes endorsement of "Fall of Minneapolis" was right on the money, and they were right to say that far too many centrist sources ran with that story uncritically. That said, I don't think the Fifth were ever uncritical of FoM and they basically have nothing to apologize for. Nevertheless, Shikha Dalmia issued a rant basically demanding an apology from the Fifth crew and using them as an illustration of everything that was wrong with libertarians that refuse to prostrate before the progressive left. She's clearly bought into a kind of left-of-center neo-McCarthyism that's as unhinged as anything I hear coming from the Rufo crowd on the right.
Couple that with Aaron Ross Paul's largely uncritical stance toward even the most violent people on the far left (his soft-pitch interview with Shane Burley over at "Reimaging Liberty" was utterly appalling), and the entire thrust of this project completely loses me. It looks to me like a kind of libertarian version of The Lincoln Project and I don't think it will turn out any better.
And as for the Fifth's criticism of other journalists, I think it is warranted and in fact, I think there needs to be more voices outside the MAGA right that are critical of the mainstream media and its biases.
It drives me crazy how people don’t understand the concepts of censorship and how the first amendment works. We desperately need better civic education in schools, but I don’t see it happening right now because the right wing will immediately start screaming “indoctrination!” unless it’s a MAGA written course, i.e., totally ahistorical fiction.
You're overlooking one very important fecet on cancel culture in your Netflix (et al) example.
There is quite commonly a tyranny of the minority. The comedian's audience loves their material. It's not for the Netflix staff to decide what is or isn't appropriate. Netflix can gauge how offensive the material is based on how well the special does. Just because a few thousand angry Twitter users make noise about it doesn't actually inform how the general public feels about it.
So, you wind up with a completely skewed impression of how offensive the material is.
At the end of the day everything is potentially offensive to someone... comedy in particular can't worry about that. Some material is more niche than other but Netflix's staff can't be the final word on what Netflix releases... they're not a good proxy for Netflix's consumers and even if they were it would still be a terrible way to gauge what is or isn't appropriate to stream.
'It's not for the Netflix staff to decide what is or isn't appropriate.'
No, it's on Netflix. And if Netflix decide to listen to their staff on this, to operate on a tyranny of the minority, to make their staff effective the final word, that's their right. And equally if they decide to ignore their staff as well. In neither case are free speech rights violated. That's the entire point of the article.
Yes I didn't mean to imply that Netflix has any obligation at the corporate level to anyone other than to their shareholders. I was simply addressing the lack of attention by the two individuals in the conversation to the notion that while in a more organic sense certain subjects and expressions take on an air of offense due to a genuine popular and majority position on those subjects.
But in the example provided regarding a Netflix comedian social media winds up playing an outsized role in The feedback as to what is or isn't appropriate even as the participants in that social media are a tiny and frequently highly unrepresentative minority of the comedians actual audience and fans.
So if Netflix decides to shelve a series on the basis of that impression they are quite possibly aggravating and upsetting a larger percentage of the population which includes their customer base in the name of appeasing the loud cranky minority.
A good example of this may be the shelving of Kevin Spacey in the last season of House of cards.
obviously I don't have the data on this but it would not at all surprise me to learn that Kevin spacey's fans would have much preferred to have him be fully engaged in that season and were not particularly upset or disgusted by whatever the accusations were regarding his personal misdeeds.
Spacey's "cancelling" was not based on any scientific findings related to the general populace's position on his ongoing worthiness as an actor. It was just a defensive reaction... a better safe than sorry decision. in an ideal world where everyone weighs in on everything one could imagine some mechanism by which we could derive a more accurate rolling sentiment and provide that information to the entities in whose hands these people's careers are held.
This is not a thoughtful conversation. You cherry-pick your examples and then mis-characterize those you have selected. For example, you claim the Dixie Chicks were cancelled for criticizing the president. First, they weren't truly cancelled because the right just does not have that power, and second, it wasn't because they criticized the president, it was because they went to a foreign country and told an audience they were ashamed of being from Texas which is a very different thing.
Then you avoid addressing examples of truly egregious behavior by the left such as the treatment of Coleman Hughes by TED, or the firing of a NY Times editor because of the absurd claim by staff that the opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton put them in danger, or worst of all, the treatment by the University of Tennessee of poor Mimi Groves. Look it up.
- Nobody gives a damn about podcasts or podcasters. Don't waste people's time.
- Medical genderism is a predatory & barbaric practice that was begun with zero evidence for benefit and continues on (in America) with zero evidence for benefit while European countries move to ban the practice (because there's zero evidence for benefit).
- The sooner you get your head out of the trashbag on the subject, the more chance you have of maintaining a career after the temple walls fall in. (Not long now.)
- Bye to this windy, tepid, & completely unoriginal "publication." You have said literally nothing new and pushed back literally zero against anything on your side of the partisan spectrum. Hacks or cowards?
The fact that you're bringing up "medical genderism" in response to a podcast discussion about free speech indicates that you're a news consumer unable to handle commentary that doesn't flawlessly reflect your narrow set of pet obsessions, and when those don't get addressed in any given post, you resort to lashing out like a child.
Whose "narrow pet obsessions"?
Has it ever occurred to you that this isn't about hating "trans" people, but, rather, about challenging an entire conceptual vocabulary -- the very use of terms (i.e., the language) by which some people (claim to) define themselves? It's not as if right-wingers instigated this particular epistemic break.
Must any assertion that a "pregnant person" is male, or that a person with a penis is actually female, be accepted without question, exempt from criticism and immune to dissent? Can't one question whether such people are what they crack themselves up to be (i.e., their own "narrow pet obsessions"), without that being considered tantamount to "hate"?
FWIW, I believe that a person with a brain/body disconnect or mismatch (due to a hormonal or neurological anomaly) is entitled to the same degree of decency (and if need be, medical intervention) as anyone else with a disability. Notwithstanding such occurrences, concepts like "masculine" and "feminine" (along with the very notion of "gender identity") are a social fiction -- i.e., like drag itself, merely a form of method acting or cosplay.
As a gay male (attracted to other biological males), I repudiate the entire notion of "gender identity." Conversely, "trans" people repudiate biological sex. So much for "LGBTQIA+." (I don't let my adversaries define the boundaries or parameters of my so-called "community" -- and I only pull the ladder up behind me when someone [usually running a political protection racket] is clutching at my heels, trying to drag me back down.) I'll watch my own back, thank you very much!
Much of Ken Flowers' comment might be gratuitously nasty, or even over-the-top -- but I could well imagine his remarks about "medical genderism," in particular, coming from Andrew Sullivan or J.K. Rowling or Bari Weiss -- in a discussion of free speech.
So who gets to be called a "jerk" or a "bigot"? Carried to its conclusion, this isn't merely about reciprocal free speech (or "civility"); it's about what's considered anathema, and ultimately (according to the rules of the Oppression Olympics) about demands for dissenting voices to be silenced or shut down.
How does this comment section continually attract these folks? For such a reasonable publications it has a constant stream of lunacy in its comments in the form of critics.
Well I, for one, don't think The UnPopulist is necessarily reasonable. I initially thought this project was a good idea, pushing back against some sectors of the libertarian milieu turning toward MAGA. (That the Mises Caucus can fuck right off a point of agreement I have with the UnPop folks.) However, this project has simply degenerated into apologism for the worst parts of the progressive left and its censorious instincts and aiming vitriol at anybody who's too critical of progressivism. Shikha Dalmia and company's unhinged attacks on The Fifth Column come to mind right away. So pushback against the kind of pseudo-liberalism this site is pushing is good, actually, in my estimation.
It's not exactly pseudo-liberalism. It's about a chip on the shoulder regarding populism (implicit in the site's very title).
In that context, what I find all-too-often on this site are liberals flirting with progressivism (and vice-versa) in a fan-dance of coy vacillation. When it comes down to straightforward good faith and integrity (especially where identity politics is concerned), I'd rather be reading Yascha Mounk.
Oh yeah the "unhinged" attacks on the fifth column lol. One way to phrase that. I would call it measured and well informed critique of their content that led to totally outsized and unhinged attack from the fifth column guys and more so their fan base. That was actually how I found the unpopulist. I subscribed to the fifth, but their treatment of the fall of Minneapolis was driving me insane and when they started their unhinged retaliation of the unpopulist and went over here and read them and promptly subscribed. They were right on with their critiques and I lossed a ton of respect for fifth column with how they handled the whole thing. I can still listen to them on occasion, but they have major blind spots and sometimes it is just too much for me. And especially they way have become way to comfortable attacking other journalists on their show in what I think is unwarranted ways. Mostly moynihan in that respect
Well, all I can say is I had close to the opposite reaction. I do think that Radley Balko's critique of Coleman Hughes endorsement of "Fall of Minneapolis" was right on the money, and they were right to say that far too many centrist sources ran with that story uncritically. That said, I don't think the Fifth were ever uncritical of FoM and they basically have nothing to apologize for. Nevertheless, Shikha Dalmia issued a rant basically demanding an apology from the Fifth crew and using them as an illustration of everything that was wrong with libertarians that refuse to prostrate before the progressive left. She's clearly bought into a kind of left-of-center neo-McCarthyism that's as unhinged as anything I hear coming from the Rufo crowd on the right.
Couple that with Aaron Ross Paul's largely uncritical stance toward even the most violent people on the far left (his soft-pitch interview with Shane Burley over at "Reimaging Liberty" was utterly appalling), and the entire thrust of this project completely loses me. It looks to me like a kind of libertarian version of The Lincoln Project and I don't think it will turn out any better.
And as for the Fifth's criticism of other journalists, I think it is warranted and in fact, I think there needs to be more voices outside the MAGA right that are critical of the mainstream media and its biases.
It drives me crazy how people don’t understand the concepts of censorship and how the first amendment works. We desperately need better civic education in schools, but I don’t see it happening right now because the right wing will immediately start screaming “indoctrination!” unless it’s a MAGA written course, i.e., totally ahistorical fiction.
You're overlooking one very important fecet on cancel culture in your Netflix (et al) example.
There is quite commonly a tyranny of the minority. The comedian's audience loves their material. It's not for the Netflix staff to decide what is or isn't appropriate. Netflix can gauge how offensive the material is based on how well the special does. Just because a few thousand angry Twitter users make noise about it doesn't actually inform how the general public feels about it.
So, you wind up with a completely skewed impression of how offensive the material is.
At the end of the day everything is potentially offensive to someone... comedy in particular can't worry about that. Some material is more niche than other but Netflix's staff can't be the final word on what Netflix releases... they're not a good proxy for Netflix's consumers and even if they were it would still be a terrible way to gauge what is or isn't appropriate to stream.
'It's not for the Netflix staff to decide what is or isn't appropriate.'
No, it's on Netflix. And if Netflix decide to listen to their staff on this, to operate on a tyranny of the minority, to make their staff effective the final word, that's their right. And equally if they decide to ignore their staff as well. In neither case are free speech rights violated. That's the entire point of the article.
...and so, either way -- as we pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege" -- the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank.
Yes I didn't mean to imply that Netflix has any obligation at the corporate level to anyone other than to their shareholders. I was simply addressing the lack of attention by the two individuals in the conversation to the notion that while in a more organic sense certain subjects and expressions take on an air of offense due to a genuine popular and majority position on those subjects.
But in the example provided regarding a Netflix comedian social media winds up playing an outsized role in The feedback as to what is or isn't appropriate even as the participants in that social media are a tiny and frequently highly unrepresentative minority of the comedians actual audience and fans.
So if Netflix decides to shelve a series on the basis of that impression they are quite possibly aggravating and upsetting a larger percentage of the population which includes their customer base in the name of appeasing the loud cranky minority.
A good example of this may be the shelving of Kevin Spacey in the last season of House of cards.
obviously I don't have the data on this but it would not at all surprise me to learn that Kevin spacey's fans would have much preferred to have him be fully engaged in that season and were not particularly upset or disgusted by whatever the accusations were regarding his personal misdeeds.
Spacey's "cancelling" was not based on any scientific findings related to the general populace's position on his ongoing worthiness as an actor. It was just a defensive reaction... a better safe than sorry decision. in an ideal world where everyone weighs in on everything one could imagine some mechanism by which we could derive a more accurate rolling sentiment and provide that information to the entities in whose hands these people's careers are held.