"Does our culture need a Woke Index?" https://theweek.com/articles/971288/does-culture-need-woke-index 15 hours ago Does our culture need a Woke Index? by Noah Millman Is anyone actually in favor of "cancel culture?" Nearly the entire conversation about the topic operates at least one level of meta away from the phenomenon itself. An institution somewhere fires an employee, or changes the name of a building, or stops selling a book, and the outrage fest is on. Is such and such an instance of "cancel culture"? If it is, should we be worried? Did this particular person or work deserve to be "canceled?" What can we do about it anyway? I've read far too many words taking all sides of this debate except one: I've almost never heard a defense of "cancel culture" as such, by which I mean an argument that the best way to police expression is in a completely decentralized manner, with masses of self-appointed critics and a variety of institutions maneuvering to avoid their disfavor. I wonder if that's because it's not really defensible — on practical rather than moral grounds. If you want to make sure the culture is well-policed, surely you wouldn't assign the task to random people on Twitter — nor even to the authorities at institutions who know what havoc random people on Twitter can wreak. Those who believe — sincerely — in the importance of policing expression really ought to start talking about whether there's a better way. What prompts this rumination is a Chicago public library's decision to stop circulating six books written by Dr. Seuss. This is an instructive instance because it crosses a clear rubicon. We're not talking about a store exercising its freedom not to sell a given product, or a corporation engaging in brand-management by culling certain unfavored lines. This is a library, so the issue is reduced to the thing itself: Should certain works not be read? Which, I hasten to add, is a legitimate question! Few people think hard-core p*rnography or neo-Nazi literature should be on display on library shelves. Nor are everyone's concerns confined to those extremes; Plato wanted the poets banished for describing the gods' immoral behavior, after all. And I do not presume that the Seuss books are completely harmless; the most objectionable illustration in "If I Ran the Zoo" really is pretty awful, and I take seriously those who find racism and anti-Blackness more deeply rooted in his work, even to the point of being grateful to have grown up in a household where Seuss was "canceled." We vary in how liberal we are and where we draw the lines, but nearly all of us want lines drawn somewhere. How did the Dr. Seuss books wind up even being discussed for removal from circulation, though, and at this one library? Presumably because they were in the news. It's possible the library is undergoing a thorough review of its collection to decide which works are unworthy of being read, and that we will shortly get reports that Babar is fine but Peter Pan is no longer available. It seems much more likely, though, that when the Seuss estate took the books out of print for making wrong and hurtful representations, the library took that as a moral judgment they had to respect, at least by default and pending review. That's a problem, because the Seuss estate has no particular authority to pronounce on such matters. They are manifestly conflicted (since they're in the business of maximizing Seuss-related revenue, not curating American culture), and they have no reason to consider Seuss' work in any kind of comparative context (If Seuss' illustrations are unworthy of being seen, what other works should properly be veiled?). In current conditions, though, with no widely-respected authority or set of standards to consult, nobody can be sure what is acceptable and what isn't. So institutions are exposed simply for exercising judgment and they try to limit that exposure any way they can. Maybe what we need is precisely such an authority. Maybe we need a Woke Index. I can imagine several benefits. For one, there would now be an address where people could lodge complaints. If the Index permitted something you found appalling — or if it rejected something you found unobjectionable — you would know who to yell at. And the yelling would be expected to come from both sides, enabling it to, over time, find an equilibrium. If the promulgators of said Index didn't want to lose credibility — and with it market power — they would have to hold a line that, even if it didn't represent a broad social consensus, would have to represent something like a consensus within its own censorious sphere. They couldn't simply say no to everything; they'd have to stop being critics and start being judges. They'd have to develop standards, and make those standards public. Being public would have other benefits as well. Consider the insidious effects of the American military's or the Chinese government's partnerships with Hollywood, and imagine how you would feel if you knew, up-front, which films participated in such a partnership and which refused. I'm sure there are people who would appreciate the opportunity to only attend films with a woke seal of approval. I'm sure there are other people who would appreciate the opportunity to seek out films that advertised that they had never sought such a seal. We already treat sex and violence this way; why shouldn't these issues be any different? I'm engaging in deliberate hyperbole here, along with a certain amount of Swiftian modest-proposal-ism, so let me be clear. I think government censorship would be a terrible thing, and when I've had influence over private institutions I've tried to nudge them towards inclusivity and against self-censorship at one and the same time, because I see no contradiction between the two. I think our society would be much better off if there were an across-the-board consensus around that view. But there isn't one. And given that fact, I wonder whether we wouldn't benefit from a widely credible private organization comparable to the old Legion of Decency but for the identitarian left, that would pronounce on the acceptability of cultural products. People who really did care about such things could look to it for guidance. And institutions that honestly didn't care about such things could still look to it for posterior-covering. Of course, such a thing isn't going to happen. Nobody wants the job of chief censor, and it's not clear that anyone could herd the necessary cats to make such a job effective. But if that's the case, we should ask ourselves what that implies, about us and what we are really up to. Leave aside the question of whether the focus on policing culture is strategically misplaced, and whether we wouldn't all be better off focusing on material conditions. Is anyone even interested in policing culture effectively? If not, then what exactly are we doing? Maybe, if none of us actually want an accountable authority deciding what is acceptable, we should stop acting like we're yearning for one, and just go back to being liberals.
How about let private businesses make their own decisions on what media to display and publish based on the market? Genuine Libertarians, thoughts?
Yes. We also need an outrage index, a faux outrage index, a fake news index, a real news index, a liberal index, a conservative index, and so on. This is about taking away the need for your agency, your ability to decide for yourself what you think, whether it’s about Dr. Suess or a presidential election.
When Titanic came out, I remember a scene that caused a ruckus because it was a PG-13 movie and Mormons couldn't handle Kate Winslet's t*tties being painted on canvas. Utah scrubbed that film, then washed themselves and their now besotten named undies ten times over. They even created a website for ALL movies that judged which scene was offensive but different categories. I'm not sure if Utah libraries have the uncut Titanic DVDs. Maybe the pendulum has shifted unto the left with Their Standards and Practices. "But it's so disappointing!" "It's illiberal!" Yeah. That's the flip. We all grew up being told what was right and what was just. We learned as the elders did...Not what they peached. But I guess you turned out alright despite that. There are definitely bigger fish to fry in terms of raising and educating values: Like fighting against cowardice, fighting against rampant lying and spreading lies with fake authenticity, you don't always get what you deserve...and what you deserve don't always come ready or bigly, improving trust on a daily basis, or trying not to rat people out on the internet rather than resolving issues face to face PLUS accepting that you don't always get the outcome you're expecting in those confrontations. Plenty of other things...
Multi-national corporations aren't people. Also there is a difference between publishers and platforms. You can't be both. Genuine libertarians don't exist btw. They can't agree on anything. There are just different sub-categories that everyone latches onto to throw out reductive arguments while labeling it the true libertarian.
"Amazon Won’t Sell Books Framing LGBTQ+ Identities as Mental Illnesses": https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon...mental-illnesses-11615511380?mod=hp_lead_pos3 Amazon Won’t Sell Books Framing LGBTQ+ Identities as Mental Illnesses Company states policy in response to inquiry by several Republican senators over recent removal of book by conservative author By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg Updated March 11, 2021 8:14 pm ET Amazon. AMZN 1.83% com Inc. said it recently removed a three-year-old book about transgender issues from its platforms because it decided not to sell books that frame transgender and other sexual identities as mental illnesses. The company explained its decision in a letter Thursday to Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The senators had written last month to Chief Executive Jeff Bezos requesting an explanation of why “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” was no longer available on Amazon nor on its Kindle and Audible platforms. “As to your specific question about When Harry Became Sally, we have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” Amazon said in the letter, which was signed by Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, referring to sexual identities that include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, among others. “When Harry Became Sally,” written by the conservative scholar Ryan T. Anderson, was published in February 2018. The book focuses on a variety of issues including gender identity. “Everyone agrees that gender dysphoria is a serious condition that causes great suffering,” said Mr. Anderson and Roger Kimball, the publisher of Encounter Books, the New York-based nonprofit that published the book, in a statement Thursday in response to Amazon’s letter. “There is a debate, however, which Amazon is seeking to shut down, about how best to treat patients who experience gender dysphoria,” they added, calling their book “an important contribution” to that conversation. “Amazon is using its massive power to distort the marketplace of ideas and is deceiving its own customers in the process,” they said. Amazon’s decision comes as the nation’s largest tech platforms are under increased scrutiny regarding the decisions they make over which content is acceptable. The senators, in their letter dated Feb. 24, characterized Amazon’s decision to remove the book as a signal “to conservative Americans that their views are not welcome on its platforms.” The four senators couldn’t be reached for comment late Thursday afternoon. The senators in their letter had also asked Mr. Bezos whether Amazon had changed its content guidelines since 2018. In Thursday’s response, the company said it had indeed changed its guidelines since that year, without providing further details. Amazon said it provides its customers “with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable.” “That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content,” Amazon’s Mr. Huseman wrote. “All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer, as do we.” Amazon is the country’s dominant book retailer, accounting for 53% of all books sold in the U.S. and 80% of all ebooks, according to recent 30-day sales data from Codex Group LLC, a book audience research firm. Removing a title from Amazon’s platform can have a significant impact on its performance. Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Appeared in the March 12, 2021, print edition as 'Amazon Bars Books Viewing LGBTQ+ as Illness.'
NCAC statement on the amazon decision https://ncac.org/news/amazon-book-removal STATEMENT ON AMAZON’S REMOVAL OF WHEN HARRY BECAME SALLY Previous Next The National Coalition Against Censorship is deeply concerned by Amazon’s sudden decision to remove from sale a book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson. Amazon had been selling this controversial title for the last three years. While the book’s arguments anger many people, they are part of the public debate over gender identity. Amazon’s decision to stop selling it threatens the marketplace of ideas. Amazon has a First Amendment right to sell whatever books it wants. However, from its earliest days, it has committed itself to selling an unprecedentedly wide range of books. Its website states, “As a bookseller, we believe that providing access to the written word is important, including content that may be considered objectionable.” Though Amazon’s content policy reserves the right to exclude “hate speech…or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive,” the company has not defined what it considers hateful or offensive content. Amazon is not like other booksellers. It sells more than half of all print books and a significant share of e-books and audio books in the United States. This gives the company an outsized role in shaping opinion and discourse. When Amazon decides to remove a book, it matters not only to the author and their publisher, but to the entire public sphere. Related Posts Amazon removes GLBT books from search, some books back in online store The twittersphere has been, well, a-twitter (sorry!) about a story this weekend of Amazon pulling… High school student sues Amazon for deleting 1984 from Kindle Amazon.com is facing a class-action lawsuit for remotely deleting two George Orwell titles, 1984 and… Texas Library Cancels Event with Trans Author City officials in Leander, Texas abruptly cancelled an appearance by renowned graphic novelist Lilah Sturges… 'Anti-Bullying' Book with Transgender Themes Pulled From 1st Grade Lesson Plan The book, Jacob’s New Dress, was pulled after Republican lawmakers complained. For several month a… Louisiana Library Removes LGBTQ Children's Books From Shelves A Louisiana library removed LGBTQ books from the children's section after receiving several complaints. National Groups Condemn Attacks on LGBTQ Stories Books featuring LGBTQ characters and themes are under attack in schools and libraries across the… UPDATE: LGBTQ Books Under Threat in Loudoun County, Virginia, School Libraries NCAC is calling on Loudoun County Public Schools to avoid viewpoint discrimination and uphold kids'… LGBTQ Children's Book Removed from Library Shelves in West Virginia NCAC urges Upshur County library officials to uphold their own policies and the First Amendment… LGBTQ Stories Top Banned Books List ALA's Most Challenged Books list for 2018 is dominated by LGBTQ stories and characters, reflecting… Defend LGBTQ Stories: A Resource Publishers Under Pressure Following a walkout by members of its staff, Hachette announced that it has canceled the… Statement on the Publication of Books by Trump Administration Members Publishers serve a critical role in our democracy by disseminating the books that inspire public… Zoom, Facebook and YouTube Threaten Academic Freedom NCAC is deeply concerned by Zoom, Facebook and YouTube's recent censorship of an academic forum… NCAC's statement on the removal of sculpture from public university exhibit Statement from the National Coalition Against Censorship Regarding the Recent Removal of an Artwork from… New Signers to Tucson Statement We're happy to welcome two new national organizations to our joint statement against the censorship… AJC Spearheads Statement in Opposition to Academic Boycott Nearly 300 University presidents have signed a statement denouncing the decision by the union representing… By NCAC|March 4th, 2021|News
They also aren't government institutions that must abide by some sort of equal opputuinity distributer. Also I don't think you really understand what "platform vs publisher" is. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-it-doesnt-matter
It seems to me like a lot of people are in favor of “cancel culture”, as long as it doesn’t effect people they care about. They just prefer not to call it what it is.
related, new paper just out: "The Gender Wars, Academic Freedom and Education": https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9752.12549 abstract and excerpt, full paper seems to be available online: The Gender Wars, Academic Freedom and Education JUDITH SUISSA ALICE SULLIVAN First published: 10 March 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12549 SECTIONS PDF TOOLS SHARE Abstract Philosophical arguments regarding academic freedom can sometimes appear removed from the real conflicts playing out in contemporary universities. This paper focusses on a set of issues at the front line of these conflicts, namely, questions regarding sex, gender and gender identity. We document the ways in which the work of academics has been affected by political activism around these questions and, drawing on our respective disciplinary expertise as a sociologist and a philosopher, elucidate the costs of curtailing discussion on fundamental demographic and conceptual categories. We discuss some philosophical work that addresses the conceptual distinction between academic freedom and free speech and explore how these notions are intertwined in significant ways in universities. Our discussion elucidates and emphasises the educational costs of curtailing academic freedom. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. (Arendt, 1973, p. 474) INTRODUCTION Philosophical arguments regarding academic freedom can sometimes appear removed from the real conflicts playing out in contemporary universities. This paper focusses on a set of issues at the front line of these conflicts, namely, questions regarding sex, gender and gender identity. As a philosopher and a sociologist, we aim to elucidate the costs of curtailing discussion on fundamental demographic and conceptual categories. We argue that these costs are educational in the broadest sense: constricting the possibility of shared learning and knowledge production, which in turn are vital to a functioning democracy. We will argue that current conflicts around sex and gender are not about trans rights per se, which we fully support, and which are already protected under current UK legislation,1 but about the imposition of ontological claims underlying a particular ideological position. Often associated with the intellectual traditions of postmodernism and queer theory, this position entails denying the material reality and political salience of sex as a category, and rejecting the rights of women as a sex class (Jones and Mackenzie, 2020). Disallowing discussion on these points is a feature of and, as we will argue, fundamental to a prominent strand of activism associated with this position, which we will refer to here as the gender identity ideology and movement. Following this introduction, section two explains why the core position of gender identity ideology is fundamentally opposed to the expression of a range of views on sex and gender, and the role of the definition of ‘transphobia’ in creating unspeakable truths. Section three describes the forms that breaches of academic freedom to discuss sex and gender have taken. Section four outlines our argument in favour of academic freedom, with particular reference to sex and gender, based on (a) the importance of engagement with others and of sharing ideas and evidence for a community of scholars and students and (b) the importance of knowledge as a public good in a democracy. Section five discusses the boundaries between academic freedom and acceptable speech, and considers a recent argument in defence of no‐platforming and related practices by Simpson and Srinivasan (2018). We consider this paper in some detail as an exemplar of contemporary arguments that academic freedom is not under threat in any meaningful sense. We conclude by affirming our shared responsibility to uphold academic freedom as an academic community, and suggesting steps we might take to address this. Discussion of the related ideas of academic freedom and free speech is a thread which runs through the paper, as, while these notions are conceptually distinct, they are also intertwined in significant ways in universities. In exploring this particular issue, we hope to contribute to discussions about how these ideas are conceptualised, how their complex interdependence plays out in practice and why they matter. more at the link
conclusion from above: CONCLUSION: WHAT CAN UNIVERSITIES DO? The defence of academic freedom is the collective responsibility of the academic community. Current challenges to upholding this value include a marketised system in which students are seen by university leaders primarily as customers rather than learners (Jones and Cunliffe, 2020), encouraging an instrumentalism at odds with educational traditions which strive to teach how to think rather than what to think. Increasing precarity among academic staff makes the exercise of academic freedom, both in teaching and research, too risky for many colleagues to contemplate. The trend for university administrators to police the boundaries of academic freedom within the parameters of ‘risk assessments’ and ‘reputational damage’, rather than seeing academic freedom as a matter for the academic community, is central to the problem. Social media creates the conditions where small numbers of academic staff and students can loudly demand the censure of others, but it does not force universities, publishers or scholarly bodies to acquiesce to these demands. In rejecting the ‘anything‐goes’ permissiveness of free speech and defending the view that academic standards of intellectual rigour can and should be used to make decisions on who gets to speak on campus, Simpson (2020, p. 31) proposes that the way for universities to vet speakers ‘calls upon the intellectual expertise and judgement of the institution's own academic experts’. Yet, the above discussion shows not only that this is manifestly not occurring in universities at present, but that a central threat to academic freedom comes not primarily from the no‐platforming of invited speakers, but from the fear and intimidation that leads academics to suppress and self‐censor particular ideas and views due to a surrounding climate of political intolerance. Academic research undertaken in good faith and by experienced researchers can be, and regularly is, criticised for its methodology, for its underpinning assumptions and for what it does not say, as well as what it does say. But in an era of ‘post‐truth’ and ‘alternative facts’, when we are witnessing the incremental but unmistakable rise of forms of totalitarian political discourse, it seems imperative to be careful and accurate in distinguishing rigorous academic research from dogma and ideology. The language of harm and safety must be treated critically and seriously. While we should all be vigilant in addressing the disadvantage and discrimination faced by various minority groups, students and staff should be able to distinguish between the expression of dissenting views and actions and speech which constitute overt forms of harassment, intimidation and threats towards individuals. A commitment to free speech and academic freedom does not and should not constitute a defence of harassment or attempts to close down the speech of others (for some helpful recent work on the different meanings of ‘harm’ and ‘safety’ in this context, see Ben‐Porath, 2017; Callan, 2016). Universities must take appropriate disciplinary action against students and staff who engage in campaigns of harassment against other students and staff. Opponents of free speech and academic freedom in some sections of the Left increasingly assume that there is something Right wing about upholding these values (Wight, 2020), which they see as elitist (Chatterjee and Maira, 2014). Yet, this is both historically illiterate and grossly short‐sighted. It perversely ignores the power dynamics at play, and the fact that abandoning academic freedom as a value to be upheld by the academic community means ceding decisions about what can and cannot be said to administrators who may equally be swayed by government, financial donors or social media mobs. As this paper focusses on academic freedom, we have emphasised the case of academics and quasi‐academic workers, but there is also a complementary case for strengthening free speech as an employment right for all workers, given that the absence of such protection tends to expose organisations to policy capture, weakens democratic discourse and can only be detrimental to the ability of policymakers to know the views of the people they represent. Universities are not ivory towers, and our ability to defend academic freedom, and to deliver knowledge as a public good, is undermined by a wider climate of censorship. Institutions need to give serious consideration to whether some of the organisations they work with operate in a way which is incompatible with the core value of academic freedom. Lobby groups such as Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence provide training at many universities, yet these organisations promote a particular perspective on gender and face serious criticisms for their role in silencing debate. All university policies should be assessed to ensure their alignment with academic freedom. Universities are legally bound to protect both gender reassignment and sex as protected characteristics under the Equality Act, and it is not acceptable that they should impose an official ideological view on gender identity which erases sex (Biggs, 2018). ‘Policy capture’, where a small number of powerful lobbyists determine policy without proper scrutiny (Murray and Blackburn, 2019), has driven policy on sex and gender identity at our universities as it has at other institutions. Many academics have only recently become aware of the political project to deny the material reality of sex, and the restrictions it aims to place on the conceptual and empirical landscape. This paper has focussed on the threat to academic freedom in the case of sex and gender, not because it is a hard case, but because it is an easy one, with implications across the disciplines. If we cannot defend academic freedom in such a case, we cannot defend it at all.
If you say you are “woke”, you are just a tool who watches too much TV. It’s really nothing more than pop culture.
An index implies a spectrum, which maybe appropriate. Some things should be 'course corrected'; long overdue. Others are overreaction; and insult people's intelligence by even becoming news. I used to think most people (like in a belle curve), can agree what those boundaries are. That it is easy to see. And if it it's something that doesn't affect you personally, that people has the empathy to understand. Or if something is woke for the sake of being woke, people see right through it. Maybe it's social media or the click bait headlines, maybe it's this divisive culture, but now it seems like people can't and won't agree on what that line is.
I think for the most part people do agree but then you people amplifying things on twitter and the media which looks serious than what most people think. I think we are at the peak of cancel and outrage culture and like everything else it will not be as prevalent. At least I hope so.
There definitely is a problem of people getting to hung up on what some randos on twitter are b****ing about. It's making people create a false perception of the level of "outrage" for something which creates this never ending outrage loop.
Too woke and too much breaucracy. We don't need to be like China, but I wish this country is more practical..
