Lying Away Cancel Culture

[Physics Guy]

Technicality: associate professors normally have tenure, and can expect to be promoted to professor, with the pay raise that goes with the title change, if they keep up their performance for another six or eight years or so. Assistant professors normally don’t have tenure but can expect to get it, and be promoted to associate professor, if they keep up the performance that got them hired for six years or so.

The problem rank for North American academia is Adjunct Professor. In Law or Medicine these people are usually just successful lawyers or doctors who are also doing some teaching, but in most disciplines they don’t have any shot at tenure, teach a lot, and get paid by the course.

To put bread on the table at their pay rate, adjuncts usually have to teach too much to have any time for the research and publication they would need to get a tenure-track job, so it’s a professional trap. Sometimes it can be not so bad all round, with fair pay and good support from the department, and good teaching delivered. Sometimes it can be a sad joke. Overall, it’s a worrisome trend that more university teaching is being done by adjuncts.

The North American system is not universal. In other countries there are different ranks and different procedures for tenure. In Germany for instance most academic jobs at any rank, like most jobs of any kind, come with job security.

[Kishkumen]

Wasn’t this you upthread?

As it is now, one gets the creeping feeling of the approach of another Cultural Revolution in which one day you are a teacher in the classroom, and the next day you are a thought criminal being dragged by your students to the town square and spat upon, ultimately to end your life in a labor camp somewhere being reeducated to believe truly in your heart that the latest assertion of the left (or right) is the unquestionable truth of reality.

Didn’t the Cultural Revolution happen in Communist China? Not really a straw man when it’s an accurate description of your own hyperbole.

In fairness, one could quote the whole thing and take careful note of the meaning of the words:

As it is now, one gets the creeping feeling of the approach of another Cultural Revolution in which one day you are a teacher in the classroom, and the next day you are a thought criminal being dragged by your students to the town square and spat upon, ultimately to end your life in a labor camp somewhere being reeducated to believe truly in your heart that the latest assertion of the left (or right) is the unquestionable truth of reality.

Doubtless this is many years away--knock on wood--but both of the far ends of the ideological spectrum increasingly act like they would enjoy nothing more than to be empowered to go on a cleansing spree to rid the world of people who have resisted gentle efforts to persuade them, such gentle efforts as getting them fired, canceling their show, and publicly humiliating them.

That is quite a bit different from what you have made it out to be. “Many years away” is not right now (“The sky is falling!”), and it is not really hyperbole. Political hysteria can lead to mass murder, especially political hysteria fueled by an extreme ideology. What we see now is not close to a Cultural Revolution, but it is not impossible to think that there could be something like that in the future (history may not repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes), if we are not careful. My use of Cultural Revolution is not to say that anything happening along these lines would be an exact replica of China’s Cultural Revolution. Rather, it would be a violent event that targeted ideological enemies. And I find it odd that you think, in an environment where we have seen white nationalists and Antifa fighting in the streets, and followers of Trump stormed the Capitol to nullify an election, that I am engaging in silly hyperbole.

And I really don’t agree with you when you split The Old Vic 12 from the illiberal left. They are part of the illiberal left, RI. It simply is the case that people who cancel a guy for saying Dave Chapelle is a brilliant comedian are being illiberal in doing so. Maybe we won’t see them dressed in makeshift body armor smacking Nazis and shutting down college lectures, but this is all part of the same phenomenon. You are just inclined not to see the connection, it seems, because there was a polite business agreement to send Gilliam packing.

Finally, I really don’t care whether you sympathize with Gilliam or not. Gilliam is not the point, and neither is Chapelle. The point is that we have people who are so intolerant of people who think differently from themselves that rather than turning the channel or simply telling their friends they didn’t find Chapelle anything but offensive, they are going out to get Chapelle shut out from Netflix vel sim. The reason these guys are paid to produce plays and do standup is because millions of people think they are talented and funny. So, it really is not the case that it is the unpopularity of these fellows driving these business decisions. Rather, it is companies who are afraid of losing just enough business that they decide it is safer to punt them.

Gilliam, Chapelle, and Netflix are not the problem. A culture in which one seeks to silence others is the problem.

We never sought to silence Mopologists here at MDB, did we? Why not? One could argue that they do a lot of damage and contribute to the suffering of families torn apart by their bad scholarship and hateful tactics. So why did we not refuse to allow them to post here? Likewise the Mopologists never really sought to silence us either (except in tight moderation of their own fora). They think we are engaged in evil, destroying forever families, and so forth, and yet, as much as they sought to lampoon us or misrepresent us, they never really sought to stop us from doing what we do.

That is at least partly because, in my humble opinion, we understand that engaging in a discussion is better than seeking to silence others. The reason Mopologists generally do not come here is because they find the place really unpleasant, not because we make it structurally difficult for them to participate, unless allowing unfettered discussion is what counts for making things structurally difficult for them to participate. In my view, that is only structurally difficult because their bad arguments usually do not prevail in an open discussion.

To be a little more accurate, it was usually the LDS Church and its minions that were only allowing certain conversations. That’s not the model I aspire to recreate. It is not a healthy one. I got out of that for a reason, and I am not going to turn around and embrace someone else’s version of excluding ideas, discussions, and the people who don’t agree with me. Nor am I going to applaud those who do it, be they The Old Vic 12 or Fox News.

[huckelberry]

Past few days I watched a tv series, The Chair, who is the head of an English dept in a somewhat fancy liberal arts college. The dept characters are amusing and convincing. The story is long on farce much of which is driven by rabid student cancel culture. A comic image of a prof wearing a Nazi style military had making a Nazi salute, causes all the students to demand his ouster, no Nazis on campus, no Nazis on campus.

Previous things like video of attacks on Jordan Peterson have made me wonder if cancel culture has gone mad on some campuses.

Perhaps it is the general problem of social media creating mob mentality. I am curious to better understand what is going on. It has been a long time since I was participating on a college campus.

[Res Ipsa]

Past few days I watched a tv series, The Chair, who is the head of an English dept in a somewhat fancy liberal arts college. The dept characters are amusing and convincing. The story is long on farce much of which is driven by rabid student cancel culture. A comic image of a prof wearing a Nazi style military had making a Nazi salute, causes all the students to demand his ouster, no Nazis on campus, no Nazis on campus.

Previous things like video of attacks on Jordan Peterson have made me wonder if cancel culture has gone mad on some campuses.

Perhaps it is the general problem of social media creating mob mentality. I am curious to better understand what is going on. It has been a long time since I was participating on a college campus.

I'm not sure whether social media creates mob mentality, but I do think it enables and amplifies it.

The first time I observed what we now call cancel culture was in law school in the early 1980s. A group of students from an indigenous population invited a speaker representing a different indigenous population to speak on campus. Another group of students representing a non-indigenous population mobbed the location and shouted down the speaker, completely shutting down the event.

You want more detail?

The sponsoring group was the Native American Law Students Association. The group that shouted down the speaker was the Jewish Law Students Association. And the speaker was from the Palestinian Liberation Organization, considered by the U.S. to be a terrorist organization.

[Res Ipsa]

Wasn’t this you upthread?



Didn’t the Cultural Revolution happen in Communist China? Not really a straw man when it’s an accurate description of your own hyperbole.

In fairness, one could quote the whole thing and take careful note of the meaning of the words:

As it is now, one gets the creeping feeling of the approach of another Cultural Revolution in which one day you are a teacher in the classroom, and the next day you are a thought criminal being dragged by your students to the town square and spat upon, ultimately to end your life in a labor camp somewhere being reeducated to believe truly in your heart that the latest assertion of the left (or right) is the unquestionable truth of reality.

Doubtless this is many years away--knock on wood--but both of the far ends of the ideological spectrum increasingly act like they would enjoy nothing more than to be empowered to go on a cleansing spree to rid the world of people who have resisted gentle efforts to persuade them, such gentle efforts as getting them fired, canceling their show, and publicly humiliating them.

That is quite a bit different from what you have made it out to be. “Many years away” is not right now (“The sky is falling!”), and it is not really hyperbole. Political hysteria can lead to mass murder, especially political hysteria fueled by an extreme ideology. What we see now is not close to a Cultural Revolution, but it is not impossible to think that there could be something like that in the future (history may not repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes), if we are not careful. My use of Cultural Revolution is not to say that anything happening along these lines would be an exact replica of China’s Cultural Revolution. Rather, it would be a violent event that targeted ideological enemies. And I find it odd that you think, in an environment where we have seen white nationalists and Antifa fighting in the streets, and followers of Trump stormed the Capitol to nullify an election, that I am engaging in silly hyperbole.

When I referred to going straight to, I meant going straight to the extreme in your post, not the time you think it would take to get there. I see it as similar to crying "Nazi" every time Trump did something that smacked of authoritarianism. I don't think we should let the slippery slope prevent us from addressing problems without treating them as harbingers of the apocalypse.

And I really don’t agree with you when you split The Old Vic 12 from the illiberal left. They are part of the illiberal left, RI. It simply is the case that people who cancel a guy for saying Dave Chapelle is a brilliant comedian are being illiberal in doing so. Maybe we won’t see them dressed in makeshift body armor smacking Nazis and shutting down college lectures, but this is all part of the same phenomenon. You are just inclined not to see the connection, it seems, because there was a polite business agreement to send Gilliam packing.

If that's what I said, I don't agree with me either. I meant to convey that there are actions of the illiberal left that I think represent serious problems that we should address. I just don't put the Gilliam situation in the "serious problem" category. I see a struggle over conflicting notions about freedom of expression that collide in all sorts of ways, some of which grab media and our attention, and some of which do not.

For example, I get to decide which books to read and or purchase, and I'm guessing that we'd agree that is a good thing. Suppose I decide not to buy or read J.K. Rowling's books because I think her public comments on transgender folks are disgusting. Does that somehow change my good thing freedom to decide what to read or buy into a bad thing? Do I have any sort of moral obligation to put Euros into Ms. Rowling's pockets?

Now, suppose I'm talking with my neighbor about books and she expresses her love for Ms. Rowling's books. I would call it a good thing that she is free to communicate what she thinks and feels about the books. Suppose part of why she reads Ms. Rowling's books is that she respects the fact that she was ale to write the Harry Potter books while a single mother. Is it politically correct for her to base her decision to read and purchase Ms. Rowling's books based on her opinion of Ms. Rowling as person? Is it politically correct for me to tell her the reason why I do not read or buy Ms. Rowling's books? Is it politically correct for either of us to try and persuade the other to adopt out respective points of view?

To what extent should we take into account the fact that the demand for books is not infinite and that an extremely popular author may crowd less popular authors out of the public eye? Or, to what extent should we consider that Ms. Rowling's high-profile demonization of transwomen may result in the targets of her speech, who have far less financial resources or a public platform, being silenced? If the targets of her speech exercise their rights of free speech and assembly to try and counter her speech in a peaceful demonstration (not shouting her down), are they an illiberal "woke mob" worthy of condemnation yet?

You and I I think would agree that shouting down Ms. Rowling at a speaking opportunity would be over the line. But exactly how should we think about the moral ramifications of a wealthy celebrity who uses her public platform to harm others? When is it morally reprehensible for her relatively powerless individual targets to join together and amplify their voices in a way that puts them on a more even footing?

And how should we factor in the recognition by our Supreme Court that all speech is not created equally. Harmful speech gets no protection under our constitution at all. Commercial speech gets less protection than political or religious speech. Should we take those distinctions into consideration when we judge the way that others use their speech? Can we separate the commercial aspect of Quidditch Through the Ages with the speech aspect?

I think it's terribly complicated.

And, as you have recognized, I'm inclined to start with what I think are easier cases so as to more clearly demonstrate what I'm talking about. Now, let's talk about the Old Vic. The Old Vic is a theater owned by a registered UK Charity, the Old Vic 2000 Trust. Wikipedia has an interesting history of the theater, which has had many different owners over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Vic The Trust receives no government funding, but operates as a non profit governed by 13 volunteer trustees. https://register-of-charities.charityco ... y-overview

The Old Vic has an extensive statement of its culture and commitment to a particular workplace environment. https://oldvic-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ ... l_2021.pdf https://cdn.oldvictheatre.com/uploads/2 ... POLICY.pdf I think it's fair to say that these statements were heavily influenced by the fallout from Kevin Spacey's tenure as artistic director from 2004-2015. The allegations were made by 20 different men, including three that went to the police and several others that were advised to go to the police. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-42009596. Reforms made by the Old Vic include the creation of a Guardians program – a group of trained senior staff that exists to advise employees on a confidential basis concerning workplace issues outside of the regular channel of reporting. They have promoted similar programs to other arts groups, and there is now a network of these programs in around 50 different organizations.

I think it's fair to say that the allegations against Spacey were not things like jokes in poor taste or inappropriate comments. The trustees felt that they had permitted real harm to come to their employees and put strong measure in place to prevent similar harm in the future. And I think it's important to note that Spacey left his position in the Old Vic six years before the Gilliam incident, so I don't think it's reasonable to portray folks as itching to take revenge on Gilliam as some sort of proxy for Spacey.

Which brings us to the Old Vic 12. Who are they? Well, the Old Vic has outreach programs to bring young talent into the structure of an established theater to help them develop their skills. They include an artist in residence type program for a young director and assistant directors. They also include the Old Vic 12:

The Old Vic 12 is a group of developing artists ready to take the next step in their careers. The scheme provides access and insights into top-level theatre-making, mentoring from industry experts, opportunities to deliver masterclasses to emerging artists and paid opportunities to collaborate with each other to create brand new work.

This group, which is selected every two years, is not connected in any way with governance of the trust that owns and operates the Old Vic theater. They are more like recipients of a two-year fellowship to assist them in developing their careers within the theater arts. Note that the current Old Vic 12 was selected in 2019. None of the current Old Vic 12 had that status during Spacey's tenure. Indeed, the program was started by the current artistic director.

My radical suggestion here is that neither you nor I have a clear picture of exactly what led the Old Vic and the Production Company to part ways. Media reports imply that both senior staff members (which I think means members of the Guardian's Program) and the Old Vic 12 (which has nothing to do with the business end of the Old Vic), were responsible, which indicates to me that the reporters are, at best, guessing as to the cause. Just as neither you nor I are likely to ever know the details of the complaints against Spacey, we are not going to know exactly what led the Trustees and/or Artistic Director and the for-profit Production Company to decide that they had irreconcilable differences and that the best option was to part ways. My own experience at getting to look at how business relationships come to ugly endings tells me that people don't behave in real life like the one-dimensional caricature's you applied to the Old Vic 12. In other words, there is more that went on than a handful of tweets. My career has been spent interacting with people who are 100% sure that someone else was acting unreasonably out of bad motives. And they are nearly always dead wrong. People are not one-dimensional characters, and the story is always more complex than appears to an outsider.

Finally, I really don’t care whether you sympathize with Gilliam or not. Gilliam is not the point, and neither is Chapelle. The point is that we have people who are so intolerant of people who think differently from themselves that rather than turning the channel or simply telling their friends they didn’t find Chapelle anything but offensive, they are going out to get Chapelle shut out from Netflix vel sim. The reason these guys are paid to produce plays and do standup is because millions of people think they are talented and funny. So, it really is not the case that it is the unpopularity of these fellows driving these business decisions. Rather, it is companies who are afraid of losing just enough business that they decide it is safer to punt them.

Gilliam, Chapelle, and Netflix are not the problem. A culture in which one seeks to silence others is the problem.

I don't care whether I sympathize with Gilliam or Chapelle either. In the specific case of Gilliam, I see a collision of an organization with a perfectly understandable culture and code of conduct with a celebrity who is kind of an entitled asshole who disagrees with that culture and code of conduct. I don't believe for one second that the events were: Gilliam tweets ----> show canceled. The fact that issues had been raised months before, that both directors met with someone from the Old Vic and the code and culture were discussed, and that an apology for prior behavior had at least been discussed but not provided for weeks or months, all indicate to me a long, perhaps festering, conflict between Gilliam and the culture and code at the Old Vic. And, as the Old Vic and the Production Company both presented the decision as mutual, it seems unrealistic to me to assume that no one ever talked to Gilliam about the tweet before the decision was reached.

In the case of Chapelle, he never "spoke" to me. I watched his TV show once or twice at the prompting of a buddy of mine. But he's earned a position of wealth and a public platform based on his popularity with the public. If he has millions of fans who love him, he'll do fine. A few big ratios on Twitter aren't going to take bread out of his mouth. And he's not silenced. Either is Gilliam. Both are using their platforms as celebrities to speak. And while both have a right to speak, nobody has a right to a Netflix special or a production at a specific theater. Into the Night found a new home fairly quickly, and if the critics and public love it, it will probably outlive Gilliam. Chappelle has been so silenced that he's performing New Year's Eve at a large venue in the Communist People's Republic of Seattle: "Climate Pledge Arena is the most progressive, responsible, and sustainable arena in the world." Yeah, the most "progressive" and "responsible" arena in the WORLD. I can only dream about being so silenced, and for so much money.[/quote]

We never sought to silence Mopologists here at MDB, did we? Why not? One could argue that they do a lot of damage and contribute to the suffering of families torn apart by their bad scholarship and hateful tactics. So why did we not refuse to allow them to post here? Likewise the Mopologists never really sought to silence us either (except in tight moderation of their own fora). They think we are engaged in evil, destroying forever families, and so forth, and yet, as much as they sought to lampoon us or misrepresent us, they never really sought to stop us from doing what we do.

Well, some did. Didn't some folks here try to cause Mopologists actual, real life harm in retaliation for speaking here. And didn't some Mopologists at least try to return the favor to certain critics? And haven't we just gone through a huge kerfuffle about gangs of posters here silencing unpopular individuals by ganging up on them? And if we're so tolerant here, exactly why is it that we have so few faithful LDS members?

That is at least partly because, in my humble opinion, we understand that engaging in a discussion is better than seeking to silence others. The reason Mopologists generally do not come here is because they find the place really unpleasant, not because we make it structurally difficult for them to participate, unless allowing unfettered discussion is what counts for making things structurally difficult for them to participate. In my view, that is only structurally difficult because their bad arguments usually do not prevail in an open discussion.

To be a little more accurate, it was usually the LDS Church and its minions that were only allowing certain conversations. That’s not the model I aspire to recreate. It is not a healthy one. I got out of that for a reason, and I am not going to turn around and embrace someone else’s version of excluding ideas, discussions, and the people who don’t agree with me. Nor am I going to applaud those who do it, be they The Old Vic 12 or Fox News.

I'm not asking you to applaud anyone. But I am suggesting that your over the top demonization of the Old Vic 12 and people who clapped back at Chapelle is both misguided ultra alarmist. The Old Vic cannot host an infinite amount of plays or musicals or concerts or ballets. It gets to decide what it will host. And every time it gives any artistic endeavor a home, it "silences" all the others it could have given a platform to. And you have no idea how and why those decisions were made. Again, you happened to see this one decision because of media attention. Netflix cannot show an infinite amount of programs. It has to pick and choose. And those that are not chosen are "silenced" just as effectively as Chapelle was "canceled." In my humble opinion, you are confusing the right to speak and express ideas with the right to have someone else host, promote, and broadcast your speech or ideas to a national or international audience in exchange for boatloads of $$$. If what we're talking about is really some fundamental right to speak, why is it that the Old Vic won't let me direct a play or Netflix won't give me a 90 minute special?

But, if Chapelle and Gilliam are silenced everywhere else, at least they can be comforted in knowing that they can come to DiscussMormonism.com where we all have the same right to speak and share ideas.

[Physics Guy]

I can understand Jewish law students wanting to shout down a PLO speaker, but I can also understand why Native American law students would want to hear from a Palestinian. If this case were up to me I would come down on the side of letting the PLO person speak in a university auditorium—and be heard.

The issue wouldn't be decided for me just on a blanket principle of letting absolutely anyone speak for absolutely anything, though. I wouldn't give Nazis or pedophiles access to any rostrum that I controlled. So in letting a PLO person speak I'd be weighing PLO terrorism against Israeli occupation, and trying to take into account that occupation is a different issue for Native Americans than for immigrants, and deciding, in kind of the way a grand jury decides whether a case should be tried, that there was at least enough of a case to be tried.

What I wouldn't do, though, is try to compel Jewish law students to host the PLO speaker in their own auditorium, if they had one. I wouldn't try to compel anyone to pay for the event, or attend it. I wouldn't be outraged if any other students or groups put up posters condemning the PLO, or held their own rallies to complain about the PLO person speaking on campus.

The right of freedom of speech is not a right to a platform, let alone to an audience.

Perhaps that's not enough of a conclusion today. Perhaps it was fine when just getting a platform of any kind was the bottleneck, when being able to lift your voice in the market square without getting dragged away by palace guards was enough to ensure that your voice was actually heard by most of your fellow citizens. Perhaps today we do need to think about some kind of social solidarity in listening to people. If the whistleblower's whistle blasts fall only on ears that are covered by headphones, listening to their own bubbles' beats, then the palace guards don't need to do any dragging. They can rest on their arms, smiling in the knowledge that if the people can't hear that whistle then they certainly can't hear the screams from the dungeon.

So now that expression has become so easy that getting attention is hard, perhaps we do need to take up the converse of freedom of expression, and work on responsibility of attention. Perhaps an absolute individual right to hear only what one wants to hear is too dangerous to us all to allow.

If that principle's true, it must still have some limits, somewhere far short of reeducation camps. And if there is some responsibility of all citizens to pay attention to some things, which things those are is definitely up for debate. The things which have had a free pass to public attention until now—the big statues on pedestals in public places, the talking heads on TV—I don't think they've all earned their attention legitimately. A lot have just been grandfathered in, it seems to me, on the strength of old privilege. The public attention they get is a precious resource that we should be spending more wisely than that.

[Kishkumen]

When I referred to going straight to, I meant going straight to the extreme in your post, not the time you think it would take to get there.

Then I don't get the point of going to the extreme of my post, except perhaps to make me look like an alarmist.

I see it as similar to crying "Nazi" every time Trump did something that smacked of authoritarianism. I don't think we should let the slippery slope prevent us from addressing problems without treating them as harbingers of the apocalypse.

That's cool for you, and your opinion. Here's the thing about the apocalypse. It is a metaphor that represents something that most people believe has not happened. Nazis happened. So did the Cultural Revolution. And I stand by what I said regarding history. It does not repeat but it sure does rhyme. We very well could have something akin to a Cultural Revolution or a Nazi movement decades down the road. It would be our own version of that, and when it arrived I doubt we would be regretting having been prescient about it regardless of the fact that we were unable to predict exactly what it would be like.

If that's what I said, I don't agree with me either. I meant to convey that there are actions of the illiberal left that I think represent serious problems that we should address. I just don't put the Gilliam situation in the "serious problem" category. I see a struggle over conflicting notions about freedom of expression that collide in all sorts of ways, some of which grab media and our attention, and some of which do not.

So, there are lumpers and there are splitters. You are a splitter. I am a lumper. We could argue back and forth about this until the cows come home, and we would probably be the same people. I am thinking about the problem of illiberality as a whole. You are taking me to task for, as you see it, blowing out of proportion one instance of the larger problem. Yes, Gilliam is not in himself *the* flashpoint event that ushers in Gog and Magog. Maybe we can move on from this now.

For example, I get to decide which books to read and or purchase, and I'm guessing that we'd agree that is a good thing. Suppose I decide not to buy or read J.K. Rowling's books because I think her public comments on transgender folks are disgusting. Does that somehow change my good thing freedom to decide what to read or buy into a bad thing? Do I have any sort of moral obligation to put Euros into Ms. Rowling's pockets?

I would distinguish between not buying her books and trying to make sure other people did not have the option to the extent you are able. For example, you work in a bookstore and you decide that other people should not be able to buy her books at the bookstore where you work. I would have a problem with that as your fellow employee, not because I am a big supporter of Rowling's opinions on transgenderism, but because I do not reduce her as a person to her position on that issue alone, and I recognize that she does a lot of other cool things. Agitating to suppress her books on the basis of her opinions about transgenderism is simply a way to punish her so that she shuts up, in my opinion.

You and I I think would agree that shouting down Ms. Rowling at a speaking opportunity would be over the line. But exactly how should we think about the moral ramifications of a wealthy celebrity who uses her public platform to harm others? When is it morally reprehensible for her relatively powerless individual targets to join together and amplify their voices in a way that puts them on a more even footing?

I think there is a big difference between having an opinion on what defines gender and harming people. These days the extreme Left equates speech they don't like with violence, and I consider this to be a deleterious move. I do not agree that Rowling is harming people. She is expressing an opinion. It is one I don't agree with, but I think everyone is capable of dealing with a difference of opinion without claiming that they are harmed by it. I would hope that everyone could learn to ignore opinions they don't agree with without claiming that the person who holds the opinion and shares it has done them harm.

We could more justifiably claim that the real harm being done is a tax regime that allows people to have ungodly amounts of wealth while their fellow citizens go without food and medical care. That would move the needle a lot more for me.

And how should we factor in the recognition by our Supreme Court that all speech is not created equally. Harmful speech gets no protection under our constitution at all. Commercial speech gets less protection than political or religious speech. Should we take those distinctions into consideration when we judge the way that others use their speech? Can we separate the commercial aspect of Quidditch Through the Ages with the speech aspect?

Yeah, I think yelling fire in a crowded theater is a problem, but I don't think Rowling is saying anything that comes anywhere close to that.

Which brings us to the Old Vic 12. Who are they? Well, the Old Vic has outreach programs to bring young talent into the structure of an established theater to help them develop their skills. They include an artist in residence type program for a young director and assistant directors. They also include the Old Vic 12:

The Old Vic 12 is a group of developing artists ready to take the next step in their careers. The scheme provides access and insights into top-level theatre-making, mentoring from industry experts, opportunities to deliver masterclasses to emerging artists and paid opportunities to collaborate with each other to create brand new work.

This group, which is selected every two years, is not connected in any way with governance of the trust that owns and operates the Old Vic theater. They are more like recipients of a two-year fellowship to assist them in developing their careers within the theater arts. Note that the current Old Vic 12 was selected in 2019. None of the current Old Vic 12 had that status during Spacey's tenure. Indeed, the program was started by the current artistic director.

OK, thanks. This is actually completely predictable. It is usually the young artists, just as it is the young graduate students I deal with, who are intolerant and extreme in their views and actions. I do appreciate you looking into their lack of connection with Spacey. I would agree that Spacey did not impact them personally. I do not agree that they would not have factored the Spacey incident into their actions. To the contrary, they would see the Spacey incident as an injustice that they decided to take on as their own moral imperative. When Gilliam got booted, they intimated that it was "too little, too late," which is exactly what I would expect from this type of group.

In the case of Chapelle, he never "spoke" to me.

I don't think this is relevant. Lots of people consider him a comic genius and one of the greatest standup comics of all time.

Well, some did. Didn't some folks here try to cause Mopologists actual, real life harm in retaliation for speaking here. And didn't some Mopologists at least try to return the favor to certain critics?

Yes, I have mentioned this here. What I am referring to is the predominant culture of free speech on the board, which has been cultivated and protected for a very long time. You can nitpick about it, but I stand by it as someone who has been here over a decade. We have a good record, despite the people who have taken it upon themselves to go too far. We usually call them out for going too far when they do.

And if we're so tolerant here, exactly why is it that we have so few faithful LDS members?

That's really kind of a dumb question. Sorry. I gave you a very reasonable explanation. People don't tend to hang out in places where they feel uncomfortable. It has nothing with them being moderated out of a voice. It has nothing to do with them being threatened. They don't like hanging out in a place where people don't share their views and even insult those views. That's fine. But that is also not a result of our collective intolerance, unless by intolerance you mean rudely making fun of others' beliefs. I am not a huge fan of the degree of insult some here engage in, but I don't consider that intolerance like "MG is harming me and he must be kicked off the board."

I'm not asking you to applaud anyone. But I am suggesting that your over the top demonization of the Old Vic 12 and people who clapped back at Chapelle is both misguided ultra alarmist.

LOL. Ultra-alarmist. Hilarious. Nice use of rhetoric.

Well, I continue to disagree, and nothing you have said has changed my mind. I have more reason than ever to see The Old Vic 12 as having behaved illiberally and to see their motivations as being like that of many well-meaning but misguided zealots these days. If Gilliam has some bad opinions, they reason, we will not allow him to produce Sondheim's Into the Woods in the theater where we are working for a short period.

Good grief. Talk about silly.

[Chap]

And if we're so tolerant here, exactly why is it that we have so few faithful LDS members?

That's really kind of a dumb question. Sorry. I gave you a very reasonable explanation. People don't tend to hang out in places where they feel uncomfortable. It has nothing with them being moderated out of a voice. It has nothing to do with them being threatened. They don't like hanging out in a place where people don't share their views and even insult those views. That's fine. But that is also not a result of our collective intolerance, unless by intolerance you mean rudely making fun of others' beliefs. I am not a huge fan of the degree of insult some here engage in, but I don't consider that intolerance like "MG is harming me and he must be kicked off the board."

[...]

I was one of those who argued closely with serious Mopologists who posted in the Terrestrial Forum in past years, including DCP.

Based on my experience, whatever the claimed proximate cause of each individual exit from the board might have been, a major factor in their ceasing to post here was simply because they lost the argument. Over and over again. So they retreated to a safer place at MD&D, where the mods would intervene to silence, bridle, or queue an overly effective opponent who followed them.

[Kishkumen]

I was one of those who argued closely with serious Mopologists who posted in the Terrestrial Forum in past years, including DCP.

Based on my experience, whatever the claimed proximate cause of each individual exit from the board might have been, a major factor in their ceasing to post here was simply because they lost the argument. Over and over again. So they retreated to a safer place at MD&D, where the mods would intervene to silence, bridle, or queue an overly effective opponent who followed them.

Yeah, that sounds mostly true to me.

[Res Ipsa]

I can understand Jewish law students wanting to shout down a PLO speaker, but I can also understand why Native American law students would want to hear from a Palestinian. If this case were up to me I would come down on the side of letting the PLO person speak in a university auditorium—and be heard.

The issue wouldn't be decided for me just on a blanket principle of letting absolutely anyone speak for absolutely anything, though. I wouldn't give Nazis or pedophiles access to any rostrum that I controlled. So in letting a PLO person speak I'd be weighing PLO terrorism against Israeli occupation, and trying to take into account that occupation is a different issue for Native Americans than for immigrants, and deciding, in kind of the way a grand jury decides whether a case should be tried, that there was at least enough of a case to be tried.

That's about where I came down on the whole thing. Student groups invited speakers to speak all the time, and the Law School provided facilities for the speaker and audience.

What I wouldn't do, though, is try to compel Jewish law students to host the PLO speaker in their own auditorium, if they had one. I wouldn't try to compel anyone to pay for the event, or attend it. I wouldn't be outraged if any other students or groups put up posters condemning the PLO, or held their own rallies to complain about the PLO person speaking on campus.

None of the student groups owned their own facilities. And to the best of my recollection, the speech wasn't scheduled in the space used by the JLSA. I'd expected protests -- just not entry to the event itself and shouting down the speaker.

The right of freedom of speech is not a right to a platform, let alone to an audience.

I generally agree, with some caveats if government is providing the platform.

Perhaps that's not enough of a conclusion today. Perhaps it was fine when just getting a platform of any kind was the bottleneck, when being able to lift your voice in the market square without getting dragged away by palace guards was enough to ensure that your voice was actually heard by most of your fellow citizens. Perhaps today we do need to think about some kind of social solidarity in listening to people. If the whistleblower's whistle blasts fall only on ears that are covered by headphones, listening to their own bubbles' beats, then the palace guards don't need to do any dragging. They can rest on their arms, smiling in the knowledge that if the people can't hear that whistle then they certainly can't hear the screams from the dungeon.

So now that expression has become so easy that getting attention is hard, perhaps we do need to take up the converse of freedom of expression, and work on responsibility of attention. Perhaps an absolute individual right to hear only what one wants to hear is too dangerous to us all to allow.

Man, that sounds like the proverbial can of worms. I do think whistleblowers present a special case that weighs in favor of amplifying voices. And I wonder about so-called free speech zones, where protestors are confined to a location far from whatever it is they are protesting. That sounds more like playing favorites based on the content of speech as opposed to content neutral, reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. As far as control over what an individual hears, I'm a little skittish. Just as government shouldn't be able to make me speak, I don't think it should be able to compel me to listen. I think that may require us to sell a hyper-individualistic country on the virtues and benefits of citizenship and listening to and grappling with the thoughts and ideas of others.

If that principle's true, it must still have some limits, somewhere far short of reeducation camps. And if there is some responsibility of all citizens to pay attention to some things, which things those are is definitely up for debate. The things which have had a free pass to public attention until now—the big statues on pedestals in public places, the talking heads on TV—I don't think they've all earned their attention legitimately. A lot have just been grandfathered in, it seems to me, on the strength of old privilege. The public attention they get is a precious resource that we should be spending more wisely than that.

That's something I'll have to chew on. I'm not sure I can even imagine what it means to legitimately earn public attention. Sounds worth thinking about.