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Notes -
It's Different When We Do It
I'm against Libs of TikTok cancelling random poor workers for not knowing when to shut up. But this article makes a case for it.
First, the author makes a case that "Normie Bloodlust" is common and never punished. Think of people expressing hope that a rapist is raped in prison. I don't think the author believes that this behavior is good, per se, just common and usually unpunished.
He then goes on to say that "there’s nothing unfair, and certainly nothing unconstitutional, about facing social opprobrium for unpopular speech and behavior." He seems to support that sort of cancellation, whichever side of the aisle it is coming from.
But then he argues that the Right has been facing a different, unfair type of cancellation:
The last interesting point he makes is that:
I think he makes some good points though I disagree with the conclusion that it is fine and dandy for the Right to cancel struggling zero-influence people for saying things that were normal to say two weeks ago.
Yeah, I can understand the sentiment of "I am not getting in the way of this mob, after what you've done (/not done) to me" but actively whipping the mob into a frenzy is another story.
On an individual level, anger is a good deterrent. You do stupid, irresponsible things when really angry, potentially seriously harming yourself and your future prospects just to hurt the target of your ire. It's not that doing so is rational--it's that in some ways being an angry person, and in a sense precommitting to being irrational when angry, can be a good strategy. This is the case for revenge more generally. It's not particularly in America's interests to nuke whatever country has sent nukes flying America's way, but doing so is a good deterrent, so credibly precommitting to nuclear war is ironically possibly the best way to avoid nuclear war.
I see the mob the same way. It's not that cancellations etc. are good per se, but the existence of repercussions for voicing seriously delusional takes creates a chilling effect and prevents many of those takes from being voiced in the first place. Being a bit unnecessarily cruel towards people who cross major lines is a generally pretty good way to prevent those lines from being crossed at all.
That's the thing though - I don't care about people voicing delusional takes, I care about people being fired for their takes (whether they are delusional or not). You can still frame it in some "if you go after us, we'll go after you" game-theory way, but in that case, go after the actual cancellers, not a rando cashier.
I think it depends. For a political opinion, unless that opinion in some way affects your ability to do your actual job or you’re the public face of your company, I think not only should it not get you fired but it should be protected with the same sort of rules that religion gets — you shouldn’t be able to fire liberals or conservatives for simply stating something you disagree with, much like you can’t fire a Muslim for being a Muslim. If it’s an opinion like “woman can’t do X” and people who do X are direct reports, you hire people to do X, or serve clients who do X, that’s a different thing, it’s affecting your ability to do your job. Likewise if you’re doing marketing for a company or are in some public facing role for the company, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to protect its image by firing a person who’s going to make them look bad.
Having said all that “too bad the shooter missed” isn’t political, it’s condoning violence. I don’t think she’d get the same response if she’d have just said “I don’t like Trump.” That’s not why she got fired. She wanted Trump dead, that’s why she got fired. It’s a different opinion.
Seems like this principle could be stretched arbitrarily far. "I support Israel and hope they are able to achieve their military objectives in Gaza in a timely fashion" is also condoning violence.
Reciprocal violence is still violence.
Of course, my point is that no one here thinks that someone should lose their job because of tweeting something like that, even though it violates the "condoning violence" clause outlined above.
No probably not.
I suspect some may draw a distinction between condoning or advocating for specific political violence domestically and general or specific military violence by a foreign state against their forever conflict opponent.
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