
A Famous Harvard Professor Became a Target over His Tweets - crazygringo
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/steven-pinker-harvard.html
======
melling
I’m not sure how we got to the Cancel Culture in America, but it’s pretty far
from Chomsky.

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't
believe in it at all.” Noam Chomsky

~~~
pavel_lishin
People are welcome to express themselves, and other people are welcome to
express themselves as well as a reaction.

If you don't believe in freedom of expression for those participating in what
you call Cancel Culture, you don't believe in it at all.

~~~
mc32
That’s a miscategorization. Cancel culture isn’t about being free to criticize
others (that’s fair), but that’s not what they want. They want to control
other people by means of intimidation (force people out for having a
difference in opinion) via economic peer pressure.

It’s not about being able to say “eating meat is cruel, so since you don’t
denounce eating meat you are cruel” it’s you don’t denounce meat eating
therefore you are evil and your peers and employers should ostracize you else
the are complicit in your cruel behavior too, we demand they see it fit to
remove your means of perpetuating that cruelty”.

~~~
time4hn
>you don’t denounce meat eating therefore you are evil and your peers and
employers should ostracize you (...)

This seems like a valid position to me. It’s extreme, I don’t agree with it,
and I think people with such positions should be encouraged to be more
tolerant, but it’s a valid position to hold in the public space nonetheless.

I don’t think the problem is people holding these positions - outrage will
always exist if you allow crowds to converse freely, which is easy on the
internet - but that institutions like universities instead see the outrage as
an excuse to fire people. The institutions ultimately make the choices that
alter people’s careers, not the crowd. Universities and companies should do
more to stand up for tolerance of opinions. If the crowds themselves are
viewed as the problem, then I fear for the future of free communication on the
internet.

~~~
rumanator
> This seems like a valid position to me.

I don't. It makes no sense to intimidate and threaten anyone just because that
person happens to not agree with you on a position you singled out as being
relevant.

~~~
erentz
It doesn’t make sense and is wrong. Kind of like the Westboro Baptist church
protesting funerals is wrong.

Not sure there’s anything to really do about it in a free society though. All
the talk about cancel culture doesn’t seem to propose any solution.

~~~
rumanator
There's a world of difference between expressing an opinion on how you feel
something is wrong, and demanding that anyone who doesn't show enough
enthusiasm for your personal cause should be punished and persecuted out of
existence or relevance.

~~~
erentz
You don’t propose a solution but you seem to imply, given the context of what
I said, that you want to prevent people from being able to say things, and
maybe given the context of this case prevent people sending letters asking for
honorary titles to be withdrawn from members of their society as in this case.
Is that right?

~~~
rumanator
> but you seem to imply, given the context of what I said, that you want to
> prevent people from being able to say things,

Please don't put your words on anyone else's mouth. If you didn't understood
what someone said then try do get information instead of trying to attribute
to others the absurd and entirely baseless statements that you're fabricating.

~~~
erentz
Let me adjust it: You don’t propose a solution but I infer, given the context
of what I said, that you want to prevent people from being able to say things,
and maybe given the context of this case prevent people sending letters asking
for honorary titles to be withdrawn from members of their society as in this
case. Is that right?

------
quantified
This is a fever which may kill or cripple the organism, but will probably pass
eventually.

Meanwhile, the tweets being criticized are such small potatoes that the lot of
signatories seem ridiculous to me. Removing the police is definitely
dangerous. I grew up in a high-crime area, mugged 4 times before out of high
school, and I definitely needed the police around. Berkeley is considering
eliminating real traffic law enforcement. I do not look forward to the deaths
that will occur when people speed through streets and stoplights just because
they can. We have more than enough people in the Bay Area who will push any
envelope that presents itself.

I’ll explore the article with the idea that the disproportionate death rate is
caused by disproportionate engagement rate. Intuitively and from personal
experience it’s not the entire story but it may have explanatory power. Actual
statistics (as opposed to regular lies and damn lies) are really useful and
yet are going to anger someone whose worldview becomes endangered, whoever
that is. A real scientist follows the data, not the fashion.

Getting police that pay attention to the right things and avoid the wrong
things is what we need.

~~~
Gibbon1
You could always hand traffic enforcement over to the meter maids. No real
reason you need armed police for that.

------
troughway
Having seen first hand how HN cast judgement on anyone speaking out against
Elizabeth Holmes, and really any 1) woman or 2) minority, and seeing people
going so far to feign outrage with comments like "What the fuck? I can't
believe this is tolerated on Hacker News", I'm partial to this whole thing.

On one hand, we should be standing up and saying "Hold on, regardless of what
trifle thing triggered you today, that person might have a point"; on the
other hand, if an institution, community, or website cannot defend themselves
against this pithy nonsense, then I don't see a reason to bother with it at
all. On HN in particular, the voting system is dumb and allows for imbecile
mobbing, but never mind that.

>Reached at his home on Cape Cod, Professor Pinker, 65, noted that as a
tenured faculty member and established author, he could weather the campaign
against him. But he said it could chill junior faculty who hold views counter
to prevailing intellectual currents.

I guess a third option exists which is the one that Mr. Pinker has chosen to
pursue, which is to simply not give a fuck.

I quite like that.

------
erentz
Media sure seems to spend a lot of time navel gazing lately. Any random group
of five people or random bunch of twitter users criticizing an “intellectual”
or pointing out the hypocrisy of an opinion columnist now seems to rise to the
most important moral issue of our time.

In the past it was great because nobody really had a means to criticize or
point out problems with “the paper of record” or our “intellectuals”. So we
didn’t have to hear this constantly. Now they don’t know what to do with
themselves that people do and that criticism is everywhere.

~~~
rbecker
By 'criticizing' you of course mean trying to get them fired, and claiming
their presence makes them feel 'unsafe'? Lets not pretend 'cancel culture'
refers to pointing out flaws in arguments.

~~~
erentz
Did you read the letter? If not go read it. They’re essentially making a
complaint to the manager of their society. Their criticisms are there and
public. They’re within their right to do so. The society considered and
rejected the merits of the complaint or decided it didn’t rise to the level of
warranting removing Pinker’s honorary title.

The letter may have been entirely fabricated since its not even verified.
Which even leaves open the possibility this is a very small group of “cranks”
who wrote it and forged people’s names which then gets turned into “OMG CANCEL
CULTURE” level story.

What are the “get them fired” and “makes them feel unsafe” ones? Is that where
Bari Weiss tried to get the professors fired and suggest she was harassed at
work because she misrepresented things that went on inside NYT and a whole
bunch of other NYTers were like “uh, no that didn’t happen”, then she made a
big splash this week about the end of “centrism” leading to the past few days
of endless media navel gazing about cancel culture?

There are real cases of people trying to get others fired and plenty of real
cases of reporters being “cancelled” for having contrary opinions (such as on
Israel-Palestine) over the decades. But strangely those aren't the cases the
media are talking about.

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crazygringo
Link to the actual petition:

[https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/17ZqWl5grm_F5Kn_0OarY...](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/17ZqWl5grm_F5Kn_0OarY9Q2jlOnk200PvhM5e3isPvY/mobilebasic?urp=gmail_link)

~~~
aaplok
Tldnr: Pinker can publicly say whatever he wishes and participate in any
linguist society activities, but his public discourse is at odds with the
LSA's officially stated goals. Therefore he should not be given representative
powers for the society, which being a distinguished fellow grants him.

Agree with this sentiment or not, but TFA does not do a good job summarising
the issue.

~~~
rumanator
> but his public discourse is at odds with the LSA's officially stated goals.

It should be noted that the complain singles out LSA's stated goals of
"listening to and respecting [the experience of students of color] is
crucial", but their criticism of Pinker is that they feel he doesn't support
their pet cause enthusiastically enough.

And to substantiate their accusation, the persecuters cherry-pick a hand-full
of tweets dating way back from 2015, where he cited the New York Times showing
real-world statistics on police shootings.

So, I feel the article summarizes the problem pretty well. This is a good
example of how this Cancel Culture systematically resorts to persecutions and
chilling effects as weapons to punish and censor away anyone who doesn't
enthusiastically endorse their pet political cause.

~~~
aaplok
I didn't find their case to be well made either. But what they are asking is
for Pinker to not appear to speak in their name. They state explicitly that
they don't request that any of his public discourse to be removed or censored.

This doesn't seem to be an example of cancel culture to me, because it is not
an issue of freedom of speech or of opinion vs audience sensibilities. It is
an issue of representativity.

If the letter states explicitly that they don't question Pinker's right to
free speech, then in my view the article misrepresents the argument by talking
about an "outcry over free speech".

For what it's worth, I don't personally believe that the right solution is to
remove Pinker from that position, but rather to aim to increase diversity
among the fellows of that society. But then I'm not a member of the linguists'
society, nor even a linguist so I also believe that my personal opinion
shouldn't matter here.

~~~
rumanator
> But what they are asking is for Pinker to not appear to speak in their name.

No, they don't. The petitioners demand that Pinker should be taken out of the
distinguished lecturers list regardless of his academic merit, which no one
has any doubt it is well deserved.

The reason? Because the petitioners feel he doesn't show enough enthusiasm
supporting their own pet political views. The evidence? A pair of tweets
posted in 2014 and 2015. Therefore, he must be punished for his crimes and
made an example to everyone who dares not support their political pressure
group.

Make no mistake: this sort of fascist stunt to silence each and every
"reactionary", whether they oppose their political views or simply doesn't
further their agenda, poses a very dangerous threat to any democracy. They
might not color-coordinate their shirts yet, but they're running plays from
Italy's and Germany's inter-war period.

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mark_l_watson
Matt Taibbi, in his last email to subscribers, has a great write up on this.

Going after people like Steven Pinker is, I think, bat shit crazy.

It seems like here in the US that we have 5% of the far right who are crazy
and 5% of the far left who are crazy. I wish they would leave the other 90% of
us alone.

The Steven Pinker thing is evidence of the craziness on the far left. Evidence
for the craziness on the far right is self evident.

------
_bxg1
Paywalled. What were the tweets?

~~~
pmiller2
[https://archive.is/qhaMK](https://archive.is/qhaMK)

