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There’s a fundamental aporia in discussion of cancel culture: every group—including those represented in the Harper’s letter—has things you can’t say.
No meta-principle can allow for direct, rational discussion of those things in a way the group will find acceptable.
No meta-principle can allow for direct, rational discussion of those things in a way the group will find acceptable.
People sometimes don’t believe this. I think it’s because they’re only ever been “in” one group—some of the Harper’s signatories are obviously in this position. They literally both know, and don’t know, the unsayable for themselves.
In order to make progress on the unsayable, one has to leave the group or, at the very least, carve out an interior freedom from it.
But once cancel culture is phrased as political (I.e., as a non-philosophical problem, a matter of groups), there’s complete stalemate.
But once cancel culture is phrased as political (I.e., as a non-philosophical problem, a matter of groups), there’s complete stalemate.
I think this explains why half of the cancel culture debate is everyone explaining why cancel culture doesn’t exist (for them). And why, at the same time, everyone knows it does.
And why discussion of cancel culture in any instance is itself so volatile—it requires (at the very least) gesturing towards what the group finds unsayable.
I’m reminded of the literal blindspot in the visual field. Your brain constantly paints in a reconstructed scene to conceal the very fact it’s hidden. Only subtle attention and reasoning can reveal it.
But even then, it doesn’t go away. The unsayable is like that, but for political discourse itself. Speaking as frankly and authentically as possible, a political actor (e.g., a signatory to an open letter) can’t address what’s unsayable for him.
This is why, by the way, the animadversions to anti-racism in these kinds of letters (for the Harper’s group) are the least convincing and rhetorically compelling. It’s the painter hastily sketching in what he can’t see.
This is completely false! And you know that when you’re not taking a political stance on behalf of your group. I don’t intend to be offensive here. Is there no belief you hold you’d hesitate to share with them? (Old @paulg question.) https://twitter.com/LucioMM1/status/1283395719030878209?s=20
I think a major problem is intraelite competition. Some segment of the elite has only ever identified with a single group. So never experienced the gap between the philosophical and political. https://twitter.com/Adnane_Osmane/status/1283395161809133568?s=20
Patrick you Quaker! https://twitter.com/Plato4Now/status/1283399468445052929?s=20
Yes. I think the problem is thumos: necessary for politics, impossible for philosophy. https://twitter.com/wesbuc/status/1283398536462311424?s=20
This is my take on cancel culture and it’s very relaxing to have one, finally. One last thought, which is the fantasy of replacing politics by economics (e.g., prediction markets)...
When you leave the fantasy garden of libertarianism (mostly tended by professors who have never made money trading), you see thumos everywhere in the market. @nntaleb talks about this at great and vivid length.
Talking to traders with skin in the game is the closest I’ve ever come to personalities otherwise only encountered in the Platonic dialogues.
Completely disagree! (Productively.) A social network analysis of the signatories would be pretty hilarious evidence that this is, indeed, a truly autopoetic group. https://twitter.com/dustroytroly/status/1283404301713448960?s=20
Yes. Or, crossing classes, or reading, for a time, as a different race or caste. https://twitter.com/the_happyproton/status/1283405145678721027?s=20
Yes! To me it’s pretty clear that most of them hinge on sex/gender/feminism. https://twitter.com/RealtimeAI/status/1283403489180254212?s=20
e.g., this is a wonderfully revealing post from SSC. The gap between what Scott says the things he links to are saying, and what they’re actually saying, is enormous. https://web.archive.org/web/20200113023414/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/
