Do you happen to have a citation for those numbers handy? Our World in Data gives a very different statistic on that, and I am not sure where the difference is coming from.
They have the US at just under 10% single parent household with kids. It looks like 40% of children in the US are born to unmarried mothers now, although that is probably multiple children per mother not 40% of individual mothers. I am a bit confused still about where the "The USA is approaching 2/3 with only one parent." part is coming from. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/number-of-children-living-only-with-their-mothers-has-doubled-in-past-50-years.html puts it in a similar ballpark of the majority in the US being two parent families.
Hi. I received 4 different emails from Substack with your reply (replies) to my query below about the Zeihan video; but for some reason they don't appear here. They also contained the same initial sentences with an added or changed comment at the end?
Anyway, appreciate the feedback, even if your answer is not one I wanted to hear :-(
I was going to input this as an off-topic request, but since you mentioned Australia, it now becomes sort of related. :-) [Helen, isn't that how the rules of evidence works?]
I was wondering what Helen, Lorenzo, or other citizens of Australia thought about this (7 minute video) assessment by Peter Zeihan of the Australian situation as the US (supposedly) withdraws from the world stage as part of a reduction in overall globalization:
Has one useful outcome ever happened because of a Change.org petition? Any online petition? Why should anyone - using their damn brain - pay any attention whatsoever to that foolishness?
My first encounter with duelling petitions involved student politicians, and occurred in 1990. I was 18. Clearly some people get something out of them.
Validation and group reinforcement - absolutely. Feelings and ego stroking. Online, that comes far too cheap to be worth even that. That is why I had the caveat about brains.
When I was younger I thought that yelling about something might change the world. Learned later that it was only because from my vantage point not being able to change things was why I was yelling.
If petitions started with their actual objectives: "This document will be used to cancel those that disagree", at least there would be a little honesty.
No one (of importance to a conflict in question) cares about what we think - the role of Western public opinion is greatly inflated IMHO. But it makes some feel their lives have a greater meaning.
We are prosocial animals. Shaming and shunning have been effective social controls since forever. Being forced to leave the protection of your in-group due to expressing heresy might end up being a death sentence if more supportive alternatives could not be found. This is perhaps most effective in a society of relatively high interdependence, rather than one with (sort of) self sufficiency.
Riffing on Thomas Jefferson's ideas about the liberty loving, independent and "self-sufficient" yeoman farmer, the ideal situation being his not having to really care about what his neighbors or most of his (limited) government agents thought or believed. I think TJ later modified his views to accept the wisdom of increasing domestic manufacturing capability as a national good. In any case, the farmer was not totally self sufficient, still requiring infrastructure and technology from his time, along with a suitable market for his produce.
In today's world, very few of us have the skills and capabilities demanded by the market to such a level that we can tell naysayers to go pound sand (GPS). [Think of name brand actors or entrepreneurs or selected medical professionals and in-demand management for large organizations, etc. Helen fits the mold as well.] But enough of us (them) do have enough value and clout in the market (physical or ideational) to offer examples of resistance to MAC that can encourage and bolster the rest of us.
Starting a solid savings and investment program early also helps provide for financial independence sooner rather than later. There are no absolute guarantees of "security" but having a decent cushion or reserves* is certainly helpful. At some point you can more confidently take the posture of a consultant offering his/her valued services to their employer (as a "client") than someone still dependent and living paycheck to paycheck. Just how brash you wish to be about it may depend on local circumstances. :-)
The growing cohort of retirees with some form of (semi) independent income can also play a role, not being subject to the same forces as employed people (aka wage slaves!) too often are. Maybe we need some form of secret handshake or something for this silent majority to secretly let the world know they disapprove of some cancellation direction, or some worse Leftist perfidy.
You’re onto something about financial independence. Bill Ackman specifically mentioned he could discuss the Claudine Gay saga freely because he had financial freedom.
The comments about petitions put me in mind of a broader pathology...one probably intrinsic to mass-mediated mass society.....how it is inherently skewed towards particular kinds of personality....mouthy kinds, angry kinds, busy-body kinds. The kind of people who would sign a petition are not likely to be a cross-section of opinion.....just the kind who want to sign things - especially when put in front of them.
And something else: this skewed aspect will hugely compromise all social science/opinion research. For example here's an opinion survey question:...."Are you the kind of person who would take part in an opinion survey?"
And then there's the kind who become 'Activists'....but I'll leave it there....!
And while checking for this I saw the label "abnormal psychology" as a category, implying that there are a set of us who actually exhibit "normal" psychology. Have you ever found such a person ?? :-)
Corollary to this, the anonymous Biden administration staffers who bravely circulated a letter demanding of Biden a less friendly to Israel stance. The cowardice is appalling - where is your sense of conviction? Not wanting to risk that over a paycheck and the social status of being a political flunkee?
A great point Graham. I agree with everything on that petition but didn’t sign it either. My opinions on the matter are available on my own Substack. I didn’t feel I wanted to simply subsume my identity into a broader, ‘Big Name’ led gang. Even if I usually admire the work done by the leaders of that gang, Laura and Toby.
“You are not winning hearts and minds. You’re mistaking the chilling effect for agreement or changed beliefs.”
Maybe the chilling effect is all they’re after. Winning hearts and minds takes effort; intimidation is easy. And intimidation is often enough to allow a determined, militant minority to win.
That depends on the other side not returning fire. They have started returning fire, and at least in the US, I expect the university humanities and social sciences to be eviscerated.
I seriously doubt that eviscerating university humanities and social sciences will turn violent. Instead, I expect that parents and students will realize that these university departments have become corrupt and are indoctrinating rather than educating. Donors, coming to the same conclusion, will stop writing checks. The departments will go out with a whimper and not with a bang.
This seems right, although you are likely to be left with a lot of overreducated people who are quite likely to be borderline unemployable as well as in a lot of debt. That hasn't been a good thing historically.
Not if students stop majoring in degrees made toxic by professors and administrators who have dishonored their profession and abdicated their responsibilities.
And here I thought evisceration was only allowed in the biology department and maybe med school. Although I gather it is in literature that we learn about "My head is bloody, but unbowed." [Don't ask me how I even know about that phrase! Not much formal study, for sure. Maybe just social osmosis. ]
Speaking of returning fire, the first time I saw the word "lethality" in the context of seeking to improve the effectiveness of explosives, I felt it as a splash of cold water on the face. Another instance of reality poking its nose under the tent of childhood innocence.
I certainly hope you're right, that this can be abated with only intellectual and rhetorical fire. I've thought about your article on the English monasteries, and the collegiate endowments could be eviscerated with a simple tax law change - removing the tax exempt status.
Yes, I saw Arndt's piece. Bettina has herself been on the receiving end of a speech-based cancellation, but has drawn different lessons from the process than I did.
I wrote directly to Screen Investment NSW to suggest they reconcile Ford’s statements with their own published values. The reason I did this is fear of impotence; what else can I do? Hrrrumph on online forums ? Complain to my partner (again)?
But reading Helen’s article reminds me of a quote (I think by Jordan Peterson). Paraphrasing...”everyone believes that there should be a limit to hate speech until they find out who will decide what is hate speech”
There are ethical complexities when something is largely government funded, something reflected (albeit imperfectly) in US law. However, the sharp US distinction between public and private speech doesn't exist in the UK or Australia. People in those places (especially the latter) either have free speech or they don't; whether the employer is private or public doesn't matter. Australia's Fair Work Act machinery will then gear up to protect someone sacked for their views (Ridd, Folau, and, I suspect, the ABC journalist mentioned in my piece).
And Jordan Peterson's quip (if it's his) is correct. My argument for freedom of speech isn't based on "the marketplace of ideas" or "the truth will out". It's based on my belief that no-one can be trusted to tell other people what they can or can't say: not governments, not companies, not tech platforms, not employers, not NGOs, not universities.
"... the sharp US distinction between public and private speech doesn't exist in the UK or Australia." This is something that we (in the US) need to better appreciate, and note it is a distinct difference across the "same Anglophone" culture. It makes "free" speech especially tricky to sort out when and where it can or "should" be allowed, and to what extent.
With my US bias, I still want "the marketplace of ideas" and "the truth will out" criteria to be part of the answer. But I also accept that "just who do you think you are?!" to tell me what to think, etc. is part of this "natural right".
In turn, it can bump up against property rights, which are also not universal and are sometimes constrained/ restricted "for the public good". An employee saying something counter to or offensive to his employer may be infringing on the employer's property in some cases, and not in others. Today even the employer's right to "his" job (which is not the employee's job), that he is the one paying for, is no longer as absolute as some of us might think it should or could be.
One of the unstated assumptions behind free speech is that everyone will have (in the final analysis) some venue where it can be exercised and not restricted. It may end up being a soap box* on a public street corner, rather than a newspaper, book, blog comment, or guest speakership. I guess this is part of the bias in the US that is less restrictive than in the UK and Australia? In those places a policeman might come along and take you and your soap box away? [setting aside calls for incitement, etc.]
"... that no-one can be trusted to tell other people ..." I believe I understand the flavor in which you say this, and yet we also recognize we have to trust what other people say in some contexts. I trust Helen to be truthful about legal, political, and literary issues to the best of her ability. She has already indicated I am justified in being more skeptical about something she might say related to IT. I trusted my teachers and professors in school/ college to convey their honest perception of the knowledge they were paid to convey. We treat many sources of information with various levels of trust and mistrust, but could not function without belief in some of what we are told.
Helen, thank you once again for this Substack opportunity to comment about meaningful ideas and learn from you and others herein. Amazing where even a topic of feminism and cancellation can lead us.
I’m like everyone else that is not in the pit with the dogs fighting to the death. Wondering if the eroding ground around the pit is about to give way. What if you’re like me. I’ve just now begun to think, with a partner and some friends, about creating content. But I don’t want to subject our families to that kind of hell since I know that there are only two sexes. That alone is enough to get me cancelled and then set on fire. So what? Do we just keep our ideas to ourselves and hope to live in some kind of rough peace? I don’t think the world is going to allow it. We’re all going to have burns.
First things first. The second link is behind a paywall so unless you have access to that, you didn’t read the article. Speaking of which, did you even read the information in the links that you sent? In the first link, the very first words specifically say male and female. Two sexes. As does every other article that you linked to. If you read the information in the reply that you sent the issue they’re talking about is cellular size not cellular function. To wit, there are only two sexes reproduced by the incarnation of the two sexes to produce offspring that is one of two sexes. All the supposed objections were that you alluded too were a not very well thought out smokescreen.
The first point is not immaterial since it’s quoted and used as an argument. Used this way it’s merely click bait, not an informed premise leading to an accurate conclusion. Second, again. Your point is incorrect. If the subject under question is human that subject is one of two sexes and the material that you’ve presented implicitly says so. I think that your own bias’ are getting in the way or you’re trying to use technobabble language to confuse an issue. Either way your arguments are non sequitur. Let me be clear. If you’re a human you’re--necessarily--one of two sexes. Many other species share this trait but human are only so.
Steersman: If you don't get off your weird, spergy hobbyhorse, you will be perma-banned from this blog. We have done this issue to death already; it won't be raised again.
Except the errors are not hers. You’ve argued a contrarian, and frankly useless point, the is not on point but apparently your the only one that can’t see it. Just because you say it over and over still doesn’t make it right. Or even make sense but that’s your loss. I’ve just gotten Weiners book that you reference. He’s a genius and contributed so much to science. But he did it intelligently but your mimicking pseudo technobabble to prove a non point. I realize this is probably going to fall on deaf ears but think about the arguments that you present. If your subject is esoteric and uses subject specific language then it might be best if you become an expert in the field and explain it to an audience better. Richard Feynman’s rule was, that if you can’t explain it, you don’t know it.
I’ve never had to debate (and then argue) in such a weird way. The premise didn’t even make sense! I try to read everything that I can about a wide range of subjects so that I can be cognizant of the world around me but I’ve never encountered anything quite like this. 😜Anyway. Thanks for your articles and work here. Looking forward to the rest of the year!
I'm curious as to what happened to Stephen Fry. I didn't hear anything about it (granted I'm in the US, so it would not necessarily make the news here). I can't find anything about him getting shitcanned. It looks like someone who took exception to his Christmas message was shown the door. Or am I missing something.
(Also, I watched the video and had to chuckle when he talked about people being "Jew-ish". After the 2022 elections and George Santos's Walter Mitty-esque (as told by the Coen Bros.) life story started to unravel, he was accused of falsely claiming he was Jewish. His response was that he never claimed he was Jewish, but that he was "Jew-ish".
The Fry stuff was mainly online, and didn't migrate offline (unlike the Rowling and Linehan incidents, which did). I've taken to including online monstering in my assessment of cancellation for the simple reason that it so often migrates offline these days.
I think my confusion comes from the fact in the US, shitcanned is a euphemism for someone who has been terminated from a job. So that's what I thought you meant.
Helen; The old answer would have been The Dominant Culture or Group- The Australians in this case- would inform the troublemakers that this isn’t their land to bring their war or quarrels into, and knock it off or be seen off, quite possibly penniless for causing trouble (as most immigrants to Western nations come for the money, this is just and effective).
But since it’s EVIL for any group to say this is our land, our house, leave your troubles elsewhere or be off , and we’re all equal and everything is relative; you can’t.
Australians can’t.
And the Germans can’t.
Nor the Swedes, French, Irish nor the Americans. Nor the wretched British.
Equality means no one’s in charge, law means we all sue each other, in America the 2d Amendment’s hour is nearly at hand... academia means we all plagiarize or cancel each other...
So no one’s in charge.
Until that changes chaos spreads.
It may be noted that in Israel and certainly Palestine and these various pastoral paradises most assuredly someone is in charge, and they are taking advantage of our good nature but wouldn’t chance that at “home.”
And Helen lawyers can’t run things, look at America...
Now Take Australia or watch it be torn to pieces because you wouldn’t defend it, Australians.
You aren’t equal with the others, you’re a settler nation that conquered a rather hostile place at odds, your ancestors paid the blood price, the newbies must give way and give place (equality is not a concept understood outside the West, this confuses them and they naturally push to the front and try to take charge).
As for free speech, and equality- you’ll notice that went away instantly the foreigners got any purchase. Bad faith needs to be punished or expelled, not reasoned with...
Take Australia, oh Australians.
It’s yours.
Be certain outsiders can’t run it, even if they want to...
This would include the simultaneously overextended and imploding at home American Ruling Reptiles, whom you need to see off - as we are about to in America.
No need for you to wait.
Yes all these dysfunctional behaviors are quite familiar to we Americans, why you are adopting our leperous skins even as we 🇺🇸 shed them escapes me... other than money I suppose.
See all the foreign off Australia, including and above all the 🇺🇸 elements I can sense from here.
It’s an arms race. And if you have a slingshot but your opponent has a fighter jet, you lose. Similarly, you can’t fight a junkyard dog with a poodle and a copy of the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules.
So yes this cancel culture came from the Left.
People on the right have to defend their ground. It doesn’t have to be by using the same weapon, but they have to have some type of effective weapon and an appetite for conflict when the issue really matters. Because reality demonstrates that the Marxists are relentless and persevere. So if you don’t engage and protect your ideas, they will just grind you down any way they can. It’s an ugly business, but the only way to set the terms of the conflict is to be in control of the battle field.
This seemed like an everyday tale of cancellation, however the general points you draw are interesting especially your last paragraph. It made me think of the Soviet Union. Everyone was a real good Commie, until suddenly they weren’t. It gives me hope🙂
CF was never in any danger of being cancelled because she represents the approved position. Nothing she says is outside the dominant left narrative, she just says the quiet parts out loud. I take your point though. It’s hypocritical to start calling for people to be silenced, putting pressure on publishers and creating petitions. AGB saying it should be illegal to write certain things is disappointing, esp considering the bonkers things she has written. The whole thing was very entertaining and there should be more public disagreement with ideas. I’ve always found CF cringe and wonder why she’s got such a public profile for her half formed ideas. It’s weird. When she was a tomboy and speaking from the heart, she had a nose for bullshit and a good sense of injustice and, if often inarticulate, you got the feeling she’d mature into a more nuanced voice, but it’s like she went off track somewhere. There’s a performative element to it all now. She’s bordering on a caricature of ‘Clementine Ford’. No doubt she was deeply hurt by the separation and has channeled it into her ‘feminism’. She comes across as a lady who doth protest too much.
Do you happen to have a citation for those numbers handy? Our World in Data gives a very different statistic on that, and I am not sure where the difference is coming from.
You might want to check out Our World in Data's figures here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-single-parent-families
They have the US at just under 10% single parent household with kids. It looks like 40% of children in the US are born to unmarried mothers now, although that is probably multiple children per mother not 40% of individual mothers. I am a bit confused still about where the "The USA is approaching 2/3 with only one parent." part is coming from. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/number-of-children-living-only-with-their-mothers-has-doubled-in-past-50-years.html puts it in a similar ballpark of the majority in the US being two parent families.
Hi. I received 4 different emails from Substack with your reply (replies) to my query below about the Zeihan video; but for some reason they don't appear here. They also contained the same initial sentences with an added or changed comment at the end?
Anyway, appreciate the feedback, even if your answer is not one I wanted to hear :-(
I was going to input this as an off-topic request, but since you mentioned Australia, it now becomes sort of related. :-) [Helen, isn't that how the rules of evidence works?]
I was wondering what Helen, Lorenzo, or other citizens of Australia thought about this (7 minute video) assessment by Peter Zeihan of the Australian situation as the US (supposedly) withdraws from the world stage as part of a reduction in overall globalization:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hSYixFjZWM&pp=ygUkIFplaWhhbiBvbiBHZW9wb2xpdGljcyBhbmQgYXVzdHJhbGlh
Has one useful outcome ever happened because of a Change.org petition? Any online petition? Why should anyone - using their damn brain - pay any attention whatsoever to that foolishness?
My first encounter with duelling petitions involved student politicians, and occurred in 1990. I was 18. Clearly some people get something out of them.
Validation and group reinforcement - absolutely. Feelings and ego stroking. Online, that comes far too cheap to be worth even that. That is why I had the caveat about brains.
Helen
Always enjoy your posts.
This post recalls advice from the most famous sermon ever given . . .
“You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
(Yep - hate your enemy. We’re there)
However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you,
(What’s the reason?)
so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens,
(Who wants to please God anymore?)
since he makes his Sunday rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.
(Impartial)
For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have?’’
(Only recognize your own group.)
Human nature doesn’t change.
Wisdom is calling out.
Who listens?
Thanks
When I was younger I thought that yelling about something might change the world. Learned later that it was only because from my vantage point not being able to change things was why I was yelling.
If petitions started with their actual objectives: "This document will be used to cancel those that disagree", at least there would be a little honesty.
No one (of importance to a conflict in question) cares about what we think - the role of Western public opinion is greatly inflated IMHO. But it makes some feel their lives have a greater meaning.
We are prosocial animals. Shaming and shunning have been effective social controls since forever. Being forced to leave the protection of your in-group due to expressing heresy might end up being a death sentence if more supportive alternatives could not be found. This is perhaps most effective in a society of relatively high interdependence, rather than one with (sort of) self sufficiency.
Riffing on Thomas Jefferson's ideas about the liberty loving, independent and "self-sufficient" yeoman farmer, the ideal situation being his not having to really care about what his neighbors or most of his (limited) government agents thought or believed. I think TJ later modified his views to accept the wisdom of increasing domestic manufacturing capability as a national good. In any case, the farmer was not totally self sufficient, still requiring infrastructure and technology from his time, along with a suitable market for his produce.
In today's world, very few of us have the skills and capabilities demanded by the market to such a level that we can tell naysayers to go pound sand (GPS). [Think of name brand actors or entrepreneurs or selected medical professionals and in-demand management for large organizations, etc. Helen fits the mold as well.] But enough of us (them) do have enough value and clout in the market (physical or ideational) to offer examples of resistance to MAC that can encourage and bolster the rest of us.
Starting a solid savings and investment program early also helps provide for financial independence sooner rather than later. There are no absolute guarantees of "security" but having a decent cushion or reserves* is certainly helpful. At some point you can more confidently take the posture of a consultant offering his/her valued services to their employer (as a "client") than someone still dependent and living paycheck to paycheck. Just how brash you wish to be about it may depend on local circumstances. :-)
The growing cohort of retirees with some form of (semi) independent income can also play a role, not being subject to the same forces as employed people (aka wage slaves!) too often are. Maybe we need some form of secret handshake or something for this silent majority to secretly let the world know they disapprove of some cancellation direction, or some worse Leftist perfidy.
You’re onto something about financial independence. Bill Ackman specifically mentioned he could discuss the Claudine Gay saga freely because he had financial freedom.
I hate it when someone can more succinctly state something in 23 words than I can convey in 150+ !! :-)
The comments about petitions put me in mind of a broader pathology...one probably intrinsic to mass-mediated mass society.....how it is inherently skewed towards particular kinds of personality....mouthy kinds, angry kinds, busy-body kinds. The kind of people who would sign a petition are not likely to be a cross-section of opinion.....just the kind who want to sign things - especially when put in front of them.
And something else: this skewed aspect will hugely compromise all social science/opinion research. For example here's an opinion survey question:...."Are you the kind of person who would take part in an opinion survey?"
And then there's the kind who become 'Activists'....but I'll leave it there....!
Why leave it there? There is a whole book on mental disorders: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dsm Actually maybe 7 or 8 different books?
And while checking for this I saw the label "abnormal psychology" as a category, implying that there are a set of us who actually exhibit "normal" psychology. Have you ever found such a person ?? :-)
Corollary to this, the anonymous Biden administration staffers who bravely circulated a letter demanding of Biden a less friendly to Israel stance. The cowardice is appalling - where is your sense of conviction? Not wanting to risk that over a paycheck and the social status of being a political flunkee?
A great point Graham. I agree with everything on that petition but didn’t sign it either. My opinions on the matter are available on my own Substack. I didn’t feel I wanted to simply subsume my identity into a broader, ‘Big Name’ led gang. Even if I usually admire the work done by the leaders of that gang, Laura and Toby.
“You are not winning hearts and minds. You’re mistaking the chilling effect for agreement or changed beliefs.”
Maybe the chilling effect is all they’re after. Winning hearts and minds takes effort; intimidation is easy. And intimidation is often enough to allow a determined, militant minority to win.
That depends on the other side not returning fire. They have started returning fire, and at least in the US, I expect the university humanities and social sciences to be eviscerated.
We can only hope.
I seriously doubt that eviscerating university humanities and social sciences will turn violent. Instead, I expect that parents and students will realize that these university departments have become corrupt and are indoctrinating rather than educating. Donors, coming to the same conclusion, will stop writing checks. The departments will go out with a whimper and not with a bang.
The baby has already been thrown out. All that is left to do is to bury the body.
This seems right, although you are likely to be left with a lot of overreducated people who are quite likely to be borderline unemployable as well as in a lot of debt. That hasn't been a good thing historically.
Not if students stop majoring in degrees made toxic by professors and administrators who have dishonored their profession and abdicated their responsibilities.
And here I thought evisceration was only allowed in the biology department and maybe med school. Although I gather it is in literature that we learn about "My head is bloody, but unbowed." [Don't ask me how I even know about that phrase! Not much formal study, for sure. Maybe just social osmosis. ]
Speaking of returning fire, the first time I saw the word "lethality" in the context of seeking to improve the effectiveness of explosives, I felt it as a splash of cold water on the face. Another instance of reality poking its nose under the tent of childhood innocence.
I certainly hope you're right, that this can be abated with only intellectual and rhetorical fire. I've thought about your article on the English monasteries, and the collegiate endowments could be eviscerated with a simple tax law change - removing the tax exempt status.
Wow - bold Helen - to choose to defend the freedom of speech of perhaps the most hate filled person in Australia. Now we know what freedom speech means. https://bettinaarndt.substack.com/p/hateful-clementine-ford?publication_id=448263&post_id=140239031&isFreemail=true&r=qo1q
Yes, I saw Arndt's piece. Bettina has herself been on the receiving end of a speech-based cancellation, but has drawn different lessons from the process than I did.
I wrote directly to Screen Investment NSW to suggest they reconcile Ford’s statements with their own published values. The reason I did this is fear of impotence; what else can I do? Hrrrumph on online forums ? Complain to my partner (again)?
But reading Helen’s article reminds me of a quote (I think by Jordan Peterson). Paraphrasing...”everyone believes that there should be a limit to hate speech until they find out who will decide what is hate speech”
Perhaps I have become what I despise most?
There are ethical complexities when something is largely government funded, something reflected (albeit imperfectly) in US law. However, the sharp US distinction between public and private speech doesn't exist in the UK or Australia. People in those places (especially the latter) either have free speech or they don't; whether the employer is private or public doesn't matter. Australia's Fair Work Act machinery will then gear up to protect someone sacked for their views (Ridd, Folau, and, I suspect, the ABC journalist mentioned in my piece).
And Jordan Peterson's quip (if it's his) is correct. My argument for freedom of speech isn't based on "the marketplace of ideas" or "the truth will out". It's based on my belief that no-one can be trusted to tell other people what they can or can't say: not governments, not companies, not tech platforms, not employers, not NGOs, not universities.
"... the sharp US distinction between public and private speech doesn't exist in the UK or Australia." This is something that we (in the US) need to better appreciate, and note it is a distinct difference across the "same Anglophone" culture. It makes "free" speech especially tricky to sort out when and where it can or "should" be allowed, and to what extent.
With my US bias, I still want "the marketplace of ideas" and "the truth will out" criteria to be part of the answer. But I also accept that "just who do you think you are?!" to tell me what to think, etc. is part of this "natural right".
In turn, it can bump up against property rights, which are also not universal and are sometimes constrained/ restricted "for the public good". An employee saying something counter to or offensive to his employer may be infringing on the employer's property in some cases, and not in others. Today even the employer's right to "his" job (which is not the employee's job), that he is the one paying for, is no longer as absolute as some of us might think it should or could be.
One of the unstated assumptions behind free speech is that everyone will have (in the final analysis) some venue where it can be exercised and not restricted. It may end up being a soap box* on a public street corner, rather than a newspaper, book, blog comment, or guest speakership. I guess this is part of the bias in the US that is less restrictive than in the UK and Australia? In those places a policeman might come along and take you and your soap box away? [setting aside calls for incitement, etc.]
"... that no-one can be trusted to tell other people ..." I believe I understand the flavor in which you say this, and yet we also recognize we have to trust what other people say in some contexts. I trust Helen to be truthful about legal, political, and literary issues to the best of her ability. She has already indicated I am justified in being more skeptical about something she might say related to IT. I trusted my teachers and professors in school/ college to convey their honest perception of the knowledge they were paid to convey. We treat many sources of information with various levels of trust and mistrust, but could not function without belief in some of what we are told.
Helen, thank you once again for this Substack opportunity to comment about meaningful ideas and learn from you and others herein. Amazing where even a topic of feminism and cancellation can lead us.
I meant to add ... "even if I cannot seem to be very succinct about what I say".
And the footnote
*Hyde Park in London was famous for allowing nutters to spout off whatever they wanted. Is that still allowed? A safe space in London?
Nitpick: mutually assured destruction had actual deterrent effect. Nobody expects that with cancellation.
Your trench warfare analogy seems sounds from what my small knowledge can judge.
Cancellation deterred people from speaking very nicely. Until it didn't. And now we have this.
Yes. I think that's where your trench analogy works. It deters people from showing their heads.
But unlike nukes, the threat of retaliatory cancellation does not deter cancellations.
Claudine Gay and Liz Magill would probably disagree - but only now, with their weapons turned against them.
They found, to their suprise, that their heads were visible to the enemy and paid the price.
I’m like everyone else that is not in the pit with the dogs fighting to the death. Wondering if the eroding ground around the pit is about to give way. What if you’re like me. I’ve just now begun to think, with a partner and some friends, about creating content. But I don’t want to subject our families to that kind of hell since I know that there are only two sexes. That alone is enough to get me cancelled and then set on fire. So what? Do we just keep our ideas to ourselves and hope to live in some kind of rough peace? I don’t think the world is going to allow it. We’re all going to have burns.
First things first. The second link is behind a paywall so unless you have access to that, you didn’t read the article. Speaking of which, did you even read the information in the links that you sent? In the first link, the very first words specifically say male and female. Two sexes. As does every other article that you linked to. If you read the information in the reply that you sent the issue they’re talking about is cellular size not cellular function. To wit, there are only two sexes reproduced by the incarnation of the two sexes to produce offspring that is one of two sexes. All the supposed objections were that you alluded too were a not very well thought out smokescreen.
The first point is not immaterial since it’s quoted and used as an argument. Used this way it’s merely click bait, not an informed premise leading to an accurate conclusion. Second, again. Your point is incorrect. If the subject under question is human that subject is one of two sexes and the material that you’ve presented implicitly says so. I think that your own bias’ are getting in the way or you’re trying to use technobabble language to confuse an issue. Either way your arguments are non sequitur. Let me be clear. If you’re a human you’re--necessarily--one of two sexes. Many other species share this trait but human are only so.
Steersman: If you don't get off your weird, spergy hobbyhorse, you will be perma-banned from this blog. We have done this issue to death already; it won't be raised again.
Except the errors are not hers. You’ve argued a contrarian, and frankly useless point, the is not on point but apparently your the only one that can’t see it. Just because you say it over and over still doesn’t make it right. Or even make sense but that’s your loss. I’ve just gotten Weiners book that you reference. He’s a genius and contributed so much to science. But he did it intelligently but your mimicking pseudo technobabble to prove a non point. I realize this is probably going to fall on deaf ears but think about the arguments that you present. If your subject is esoteric and uses subject specific language then it might be best if you become an expert in the field and explain it to an audience better. Richard Feynman’s rule was, that if you can’t explain it, you don’t know it.
I’ve never had to debate (and then argue) in such a weird way. The premise didn’t even make sense! I try to read everything that I can about a wide range of subjects so that I can be cognizant of the world around me but I’ve never encountered anything quite like this. 😜Anyway. Thanks for your articles and work here. Looking forward to the rest of the year!
I'm curious as to what happened to Stephen Fry. I didn't hear anything about it (granted I'm in the US, so it would not necessarily make the news here). I can't find anything about him getting shitcanned. It looks like someone who took exception to his Christmas message was shown the door. Or am I missing something.
(Also, I watched the video and had to chuckle when he talked about people being "Jew-ish". After the 2022 elections and George Santos's Walter Mitty-esque (as told by the Coen Bros.) life story started to unravel, he was accused of falsely claiming he was Jewish. His response was that he never claimed he was Jewish, but that he was "Jew-ish".
The Fry stuff was mainly online, and didn't migrate offline (unlike the Rowling and Linehan incidents, which did). I've taken to including online monstering in my assessment of cancellation for the simple reason that it so often migrates offline these days.
I think my confusion comes from the fact in the US, shitcanned is a euphemism for someone who has been terminated from a job. So that's what I thought you meant.
Helen; The old answer would have been The Dominant Culture or Group- The Australians in this case- would inform the troublemakers that this isn’t their land to bring their war or quarrels into, and knock it off or be seen off, quite possibly penniless for causing trouble (as most immigrants to Western nations come for the money, this is just and effective).
But since it’s EVIL for any group to say this is our land, our house, leave your troubles elsewhere or be off , and we’re all equal and everything is relative; you can’t.
Australians can’t.
And the Germans can’t.
Nor the Swedes, French, Irish nor the Americans. Nor the wretched British.
Equality means no one’s in charge, law means we all sue each other, in America the 2d Amendment’s hour is nearly at hand... academia means we all plagiarize or cancel each other...
So no one’s in charge.
Until that changes chaos spreads.
It may be noted that in Israel and certainly Palestine and these various pastoral paradises most assuredly someone is in charge, and they are taking advantage of our good nature but wouldn’t chance that at “home.”
And Helen lawyers can’t run things, look at America...
Now Take Australia or watch it be torn to pieces because you wouldn’t defend it, Australians.
You aren’t equal with the others, you’re a settler nation that conquered a rather hostile place at odds, your ancestors paid the blood price, the newbies must give way and give place (equality is not a concept understood outside the West, this confuses them and they naturally push to the front and try to take charge).
As for free speech, and equality- you’ll notice that went away instantly the foreigners got any purchase. Bad faith needs to be punished or expelled, not reasoned with...
Take Australia, oh Australians.
It’s yours.
Be certain outsiders can’t run it, even if they want to...
This would include the simultaneously overextended and imploding at home American Ruling Reptiles, whom you need to see off - as we are about to in America.
No need for you to wait.
Yes all these dysfunctional behaviors are quite familiar to we Americans, why you are adopting our leperous skins even as we 🇺🇸 shed them escapes me... other than money I suppose.
See all the foreign off Australia, including and above all the 🇺🇸 elements I can sense from here.
Take Australia back.
Cheers!
It’s an arms race. And if you have a slingshot but your opponent has a fighter jet, you lose. Similarly, you can’t fight a junkyard dog with a poodle and a copy of the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules.
So yes this cancel culture came from the Left.
People on the right have to defend their ground. It doesn’t have to be by using the same weapon, but they have to have some type of effective weapon and an appetite for conflict when the issue really matters. Because reality demonstrates that the Marxists are relentless and persevere. So if you don’t engage and protect your ideas, they will just grind you down any way they can. It’s an ugly business, but the only way to set the terms of the conflict is to be in control of the battle field.
This seemed like an everyday tale of cancellation, however the general points you draw are interesting especially your last paragraph. It made me think of the Soviet Union. Everyone was a real good Commie, until suddenly they weren’t. It gives me hope🙂
It's all about ego. I'll be recommending this piece in connection with my own, publishing later today.
CF was never in any danger of being cancelled because she represents the approved position. Nothing she says is outside the dominant left narrative, she just says the quiet parts out loud. I take your point though. It’s hypocritical to start calling for people to be silenced, putting pressure on publishers and creating petitions. AGB saying it should be illegal to write certain things is disappointing, esp considering the bonkers things she has written. The whole thing was very entertaining and there should be more public disagreement with ideas. I’ve always found CF cringe and wonder why she’s got such a public profile for her half formed ideas. It’s weird. When she was a tomboy and speaking from the heart, she had a nose for bullshit and a good sense of injustice and, if often inarticulate, you got the feeling she’d mature into a more nuanced voice, but it’s like she went off track somewhere. There’s a performative element to it all now. She’s bordering on a caricature of ‘Clementine Ford’. No doubt she was deeply hurt by the separation and has channeled it into her ‘feminism’. She comes across as a lady who doth protest too much.