Questions for Anderson + Response to Kara's Blog Post on Cancel Culture - Zac

 In preparation for our guest speaker I wanted to ask some questions that arose when reading and in tutorial, and explain some context/thoughts behind the questions.


How can one have perfect negative positive and republican freedom?

Anderson's account gives several answers on how you can have any 2 while completely lacking the 3rd freedom. 

In these examples there appears to be tradeoffs between freedoms, and how do we decide between those freedoms/tradeoffs, and justify those decisions?


Is trading some freedoms for economic efficiency desirable? On what grounds is economic efficiency desirable (perhaps through appealing to positive freedom?)

This question emerges in my confusion at Anderson's rejection of an anarchist work model where laborers are all independent contractors owning their own work due to its lowered economic efficiency relative to a hierarchical/managerial model. If it guarantees more republican freedom, I'm unsure why lower economic efficiency is a larger concern for Anderson's account.


While the state as public government is understandably a step in the right direction over the firm in accountability to workers, generously it appears not perfectly accountable to citizens and workers. Would a model such as a worker owned coop as public government be a better step in the right direction (complete accountability to workers/workers owning the means of production)?


On Cancel Culture:

An interesting thing to think about on cancel culture is that limiting cancel culture may harm freedom of speech rather then the traditionally assumed opposite.

If a person directly supports Nazi beliefs on social media, a viewer telling other people about that person's bad beliefs and recommend they do not support that person would be a cancellation. It would also be an expression of free speech of the other individuals, and most would deem it justifiable. It's a classic example of free speech does not mean free from consequences of other peoples reactions.

Therefore, I'm unsure if there is a way to limit cancel culture without limiting freedom of speech/the ability to freely react.

Another note on cancel culture. I've noticed an interesting element where 99% of people seem to say they hate cancel culture, but then also engage in it/are okay with people being cancelled in some sense, but how that occurs and what for differ.

In my opinion, people should be cancelled for atrocious behaviors i.e. pedophilia, sexual crimes etc. That can include social media movements speaking out against them, lose of professional support i.e. firing, confinement following trial, etc.  I don't think this is an unpopular opinion. The issue is people have very different bars for atrocious behaviors i.e. white nationalists will not see usage of racial slurs as cancel worthy, leftists will not see M&M's wearing stilettos as cancel worthy/a decline in cultural values that warrant a boycott. 
But I'm not sure if people having different bars is a bad thing? Isn't that precisely the result of different viewpoints and freedom of speech?


Comments

  1. Nicole JonassenMarch 9, 2022 at 7:15 PM

    You bring up something interesting about cancel culture: some actions merit being canceled. Another point I want to raise, though, is that people have started to use the terminology of "I've been canceled for ..." to mean "I faced consequences for..." and there is a substantial difference between being canceled in the realm of public opinion and facing legitimate, institutionalized consequences for an action. For example, Former Governor Cuomo from the great state of New York (we don't claim him) gave a speech at a church in Brooklyn this week about how he is a victim of cancel culture. To be very clear, Governor Cuomo was not just admonished in the court of public opinion. Rather, he was formally investigated for claims of sexual harassment. You say in your blog post that atrocious behaviors like sexual crimes merit canceling and public shame, and I agree with you. However, I think the use of the word "canceling" to describe the consequences of actions like sexual harassment actually makes the consequences of that action seem less legitimate, and that's dangerous. Trevor Noah did a great video on this, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVQlXdb5_QM (start at 4:56)

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  2. Zac DavisMarch 9, 2022 at 7:38 PM

    I 100% agree with you that sexual harassment and violence should merit consequences beyond cancelling in the social media sense. I think we are ultimately probably on the same page, part of your language seems to directly agree that these are cancelations:
    I'm not sure if I understand how these two sentences go together "You say in your blog post that atrocious behaviors like sexual crimes merit canceling and public shame, and I agree with you. However, I think the use of the word "canceling" to describe the consequences of actions like sexual harassment" (emphasis on atrocious "behaviors like sexual crimes merit canceling" and "However, I think the use of the word "canceling"")
    I think its how you are defining cancellation shifting between 2 definitions (which Cuomo is trying to use the less serious one to mask serious infractions), and I don't think saying people are cancelled for commiting certain crimes disrespects the crimes committed see below:
    Watched the video, I think there's a difference between what Noah's criticizing and my psuedo-definition.
    I think its a mix of two factors, eitheir A. cancelation should be taken with more weight and gravity such that it wouldn't be a watered down joke term, and it could be applied to serious crimes without demeaning them, in which case I think including things such as firing and imprisonments as cancellations would have a similar meaning to them being karma or being brought to justice.
    This seems impossible given the terms already watered down nature so theres B. which is the sense I'm using it, which is things such as imprisonment and firing are not cancellations (which seem to have to happen in the realm of public image/typically on social media) but calling for them are elements of cancelation, hence I don't think calling "social media movements speaking out against..." which call for firings etc. demean the gravity of the violations whatsoever, in fact usually I think they seek to magnify and describe it, i.e. BLM protests social media presence and the "cancellations" of police officers/police departments for various decisions.

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    Replies
    1. Zac DavisMarch 9, 2022 at 7:41 PM

      Forgot to sum up the end.
      Basically it seems cancellations by definition care about and attempt to magnify the gravity of crimes (by attempting to vigilante punish them with public image deterioration) the only reason cancelation would be seen as demeaning the crimes is if you have a concept of cancelations as minor/non serious, in which case you wouldn't consider things like firing or imprisonment as cancelations, nor would you see those punishments or crimes as less serious.

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