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reading the Canceling of the American Mind and the intro outlines how both the political left + right have built rhetorical defenses that avoid actual debate.
the left’s: complex, layering personal attacks to block any criticism
the right’s: simpler, dismissing experts, journalists and Trump critics
both rely on what the authors dub "The Great Untruth of Ad Hominem,” which is that “bad people only have bad opinions.”
we see this happening across the board with the H1B debate: calling someone a billionaire, big tech, indian, white, MAGA, second generation, etc. to refute their points.
society as a whole argues for power and status using identity politics. seemingly everyone is guilty. 11 replies
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Bad employers overreacting to some perceived PR threat doesn't seem the same as activists making sure Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, etc are unable to keep working.
The accusations of bad behavior are important, and the follow up investigation is important as well. People who are improperly accused of misbehavior might face some short term negative consequences, but it seems like it usually gets sorted pretty quickly. I guess to me a true "cancellation" means a long term negative impact.
Yes, there are bad actors making accusations, and bad actors who fail to properly investigate accusations, but if anything I think there's still a massive accountability gap. There are a number of high profile individuals with known records of sexual assault or other criminal activity, and no one seems to care.
Focusing on the false positives while ignoring the false negatives seems like it just empowers predators.
I'll check out the book though, thanks for the recommendation 😄 1 reply
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