Anti-cancel culture cancel culture
So, I replied to Iona Italia’s “both sides” tweets, argumentatively but not rudely, and today I find that she’s blocked me. It’s her right to block me or anyone else, of course, but I can still point out some flaws in both her claims and her approach to disagreement.
What’s surprising about it, to me (perhaps I’m naive), is that she’s part of the anti-woke anti-feminist anti-cancel culture crowd, the Peter Boghossian-James Lindsay-Helen Pluckrose crowd, the let debate flow no matter what crowd. In short these are people you don’t expect to block you just for disputing them.
I think those are reasonable questions, and not abusive – and furthermore I really did (and do) want to know what her response is. She hasn’t given any, to me or anyone, all she’s done is complain about the volume of replies. Fair enough, a torrent of replies can be overwhelming, but does that make it reasonable to treat everyone who did reply as a wrongdoer? That’s the only real point of blocking now, because you can always just mute instead. It seems silly to say things on Twitter and then get indignant when people reply. That’s how Twitter works: you say things and sometimes people reply. Conversation may ensue.
Again: real question, to which I would have liked a real answer. I don’t understand her thinking, and given her allegiances and allies, I’m curious about it.
I’ll have to stay curious though.
Hazarding a guess:
It’s “extreme” to suggest in any way that a transwoman is not a woman. Everything else follows from that. Men can’t become women? Fine, because transwomen were actually women in the first place. Men can’t enter women’s spaces? Fine, because TWAW. The whole issue is strictly a matter of whether it’s OK to keep one set of women excluded from spaces and resources intended for women, for whatever reason, and there may be reasons to do that, but we can’t even begin the discussion if you don’t acknowledge they are women.
This morning I was looking over some excellent albeit polite material about transwomen athletes, and I was struck yet again by how the argument falls apart if it is simply phrased as whether males should be allowed to compete in the female divisions against females. The answer should obviously be no, and the answer doesn’t change if the males claim to be girls or women. If there is reason to have separate male and female divisions, those reasons apply to all males/females regardless of identity. But the trans activists don’t even want to consider that point. TWAW; anything else is extreme.
Wanting to argue about arguments being too extreme, then not being able to argue for it is pretty funny. :D
I guess she didn’t actually want to argue about it, just assert it and collect the “you are so right”s.
And block all dissent, oh the beauty of twitter. :P
Cancel cancel culture culture, I say.
I don’t understand the “blocking” thing, either. Over on FA people are regularly informing me that I’m going to be blocked because of my gender-critical comments, even though they don’t seem to have a problem with anything else (they say I’m not listening and learning on the trans stuff, which would I guess entail nodding and agreeing.) But why not just skip over what I write? It’s still too tempting to read? It lacks the grand gesture? I make a special point of reading people who disagree with me — especially if they’re especially vitriolic. Want to know what they’re up to.
I had the same problem when I was AOP (operator) for #atheism on IRC. Regulars were divided between those who loved debating Christians who came in the chat room and those who wanted a religion-free safe space. I suggested just ignoring what they didn’t want to read, since they were comfortable with the format and knew how to skip. Not good enough: that second group seemed to want to exercise the power to kick out Christians more than they wanted to respect how other atheists got their jollies.
Yes. These activists aren’t about changing things; they would be horrified if they got their way, because then they would blend into the background and not be special anymore. It’s narcissism all the way down. (I’d rather have turtles.)
Where have we heard that before? No third spaces! Women’s space or nothing!
But they don’t want to hear you asking about what the Emperor is wearing. They don’t want anyone else to hear
that, either. Disagreement is not affirming or validating. It is resistance, violence and genocide. Anything short of submission, centering and celebration will render you a right-wing, white feminist bigot.
Very well put. To destroy the “gender binary” would be to destroy the entire basis of their “identities.” They would be denying their own humanity. It would be self-genocide!
Some people in the anti-cancel culture crowd are there but because of principled philosophical commitments, but instead because they are social mean-seekers. This sort of person finds cancel culture inconvenient, because it limits their ability to gain social status by triangulation. They can’t be the adult in the room if they get cancelled.
Stupid phone. “… not because of principled …”
She’s tweeted to say she’s flattered by your blogpost though without any indication that she’s read it. https://twitter.com/IonaItalia/status/1382343910052204544
I thnk she may be out of her depth.
Seems like these let-debate-flow-at-all-costs types are often revealed to be of the “only when the debate is supporting my position” ilk.
Richard@11:
hehe, she’s retweeting Rich Sanderson, no less. Poor Rich is still quite clearly stinging after years of being intellectually outclassed.
James,
Yes, that’s hilarious. I know Richard hangs around here (hi Richard!) looking for things to bleat about and harass people with. He’s obsessed with Ophelia (and with me, for some reason) and is an awful, awful person. He’s certainly not someone I’d choose to quote or take any cues from. Nice work, Iona!
BTW Richard: this is not an invitation. I know you’ll @ me on Twitter within seconds of my hitting submit, but I’m only going to block you again when you do.
Richard Sanderson, that is, not Richard above.
Well Latsot, truth be told, I’m obsessed with you too. Or maybe just with Fortran!
It’s funny how Sanderson has always called Ophelia “Ofie”. I believe he thinks that he’s being disrespectful, as if she’d care. He never did figure out that to be injured by disrespect, one has to first respect the injuring party, and I don’t remember that ever being a component of the general feelings towards him and the rest of the sycophantic crew over at whatever-it-is they called themselves. I cannot remember its name at the moment.
OH! The “Slymepit”. Hah. Now I remember. Oh, those were the good old days. I still remember them accusing me of being a sock puppet of… myself. Not exactly intellectual powerhouses, that crew.
Well, who isn’t?
Yes, we were all sockpuppets of both each other and ourselves, IIRC.