Whatever Happened to Just Letting People Be Wrong?
Back in the 1990s I remember seeing a website that claimed that Stephen King was John Lennon's killer, rather than Mark David Chapman. There was no campaign to convince the site's hosting company to take the website down, or for DNS providers to de-list it. The operator could just be wrong, and that was perfectly acceptable. Now, however, there's a trend to sanitize thought from public view, rather than just making a personal judgement on its veracity and moving on.
Doesn't backing someone into a corner, removing the means by which they express themselves, risk pushing people into more and more enclaves and encouraging an emboldened position as someone who's being persecuted? That’s not how you'd convince anyone that they're wrong. Also, what a luxury it must be to have this as an option - I have to get along with people that disagree with me, on a huge variety of issues on all sides of the political spectrum.
I think of the black man who befriended Klansmen to convince them they were wrong, who now has a closet full of the robes of those who gave up the Klan. Would they have changed their minds if this man had convinced their landlords to evict them, or electric companies to stop servicing them?
I've seen the phrase 'threat to democracy' thrown around this week to justify silencing voices. If you're afraid of what someone who thinks differently will vote for, then maybe democracy itself is the problem.
If the goal of those calling to silence others isn't to change hearts and minds, or to heal divisions (because it won't), then what is the goal?
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ranjur
20 points · 1 hour ago
My suggestion would be to let voices be heard, even if you disagree, and counter bad ideas with good ideas (which is all relative of course). A mob of cancellers upturning every stone, every webhost, to try and silence people they disagree with will likely result in more problems than it solves, given enough time.
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