(April 22, 2021 at 8:38 am)Reforged Wrote:(April 22, 2021 at 8:34 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: (my bold)
Where are the humanist gulags? I don't think anyone is forcing people to conform to anything here. The AHA making this determination is bound to start a discussion on the issue (which it has here and elsewhere). Stalinism was about ending discussions... or making them "disappear"...
I think we need to be realistic about the level of coercion going on here. Stalinism doesn't come to mind. I think the more defensible thesis is: there is a nonzero amount of coercion going on.
That's what I hate about the cancel culture debate. It's so overblown. There is no Orwellian empire pulling the strings here. It's a bunch of people running their mouths on the internet. If I were to dispense any bit of advice to cancel culture opponents, it'd be to stop taking it so seriously. It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Is it beyond reproach? Certainly not. So let's take the conversation from there...
There are degrees of force and different types. This is the use of social pressure to discredit.
Come on now, you know I wasn't implying gulags. The analogy was concerned solely with the use of truth as a malleable construct to be molded by those with power.
Not all power comes from the barrel of a gun.
"And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?"
--Kahlil Gibran
