The nebulous fear so many have seems rooted either in not thinking through the problem of so-called "cancel culture", or in people thinking they shouldn't suffer the consequences of their decisions.
The phrase communicates lack of flexibility, because if they're "beliefs" they're firmly held, and if you're "proud" you won't have an open mind ready to change those beliefs in face of new evidence.
In fact I very often see beliefs and pride be exploited to push propaganda where you get to defend someone else's interests without even realizing it.
You are also correct as I am inflexible in this belief, as they are foundational ethical beliefs for which there can be no new evidence for me to change my mind over
It's funny how people just invent shallow concepts like this and it always end up doing nothing but protecting - and extending - the privileges of the wealthy. It's just a predetermined outcome looking for a theory to justify it.
This rent is the only ethical tax[2] one can use to publicly finance a government. Taxes on labor, voluntary transaction, etc are all unethical theft of a persons labor
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
[2] https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/04/the-geoliberta...
What does it mean "created from your own labor" for example? We apply labor to existing things and we transform them as a continuous process. We don't manifest them in one step out of vacuum. So "create with labor" is a fuzzy concept at best. You don't create anything. At what precise point does this property that "belongs to all" become your property? You draw sharp divide between those two categories, so surely there's a sharp divide in terms of time and action that causes said property to shift those categories.
I see a wild tree, I cut it off. Is it mine now? Not yet, so I chop it up, is it mine? No? So I take a chunk and make it into an owl figure. Which precise stroke of my instruments turned this tree from shared property into my own property? Or am I being given imaginary shares of this property as I work on it, so it's 10% mine, then 11% mine, then 15% mine...
The rest of these definitions are similarly meaningless if you explore them at depth.
It doesn't mean that as a system they're bad. As long as you have objective proof they work in reality (not just in our imagination). But you need to realize in terms of "correctness" they're arbitrary. In fact, there's no such thing as objective ethics. So to declare things are ethical or unethical in a universal way is non-sequitur.
A concept is only as useful as how applicable it is for achieving certain goals. If it's just a self-referencing system that feels good, but no one has realized it, or even worse, many have tried and keep failing at it... then you have nothing.
On other things, I simply haven't spent a lot of energy thinking about it, and as a result am more than happy to apologize if I'm even slightly in the wrong. Generally, I'm quick to apologize if someone's made a good reason for me to, as I don't regard the need to apologize necessarily with me being a worse person.
As with many things, that worked until people forgot why the argument (or indeed why it is called a gentleman) was created in the first place and so tore it up for political points.
One of the largest popular phenomenons in the new millenium is a musical based on a politician being shot by another politician. Fist fights have been a regular occurrence by members of congress since our inception. We show pictures to every schoolchild in the US of violence used during the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
I'd also wonder, how the concept of "cancel culture" impacts that at all. Not once have I seen someone getting "cancelled"(which itself is nebulous enough that more than half of those it is perpetrated against have better careers after than before) remove any inability for public discourse to continue about what they did.
Even the article from yesterday, about a man who experienced harassment for admitting to a problem he'd supposedly fixed long ago, largely became a conversation about the issue at hand.
Essentially, I'm wondering why so many are convinced that someone else's use of their free speech so negatively impacts their own.
as to "Suffer the consequences", when a single tweet results in your complete ostracization from society, your lively hood terminated, your safety put in danger, etc well I think the punishment does not fit the crime. I dont care how offensive that tweet was. Doubly for those that have had this happen for comments made 10, 20, or even 30 years in the past.
Neither proportionality of punishment nor forgiveness seem to be concepts that are entertained in cancel culture.
As I was told many times growing up, Sticks and Stones can break my bones but words can never harm me. It seems today we have replaced that valid and correct axiom with "Words are violence" which is a most dangerous precedent indeed. Further here lately I have begun to see an even more dangerous one that is being put forth "Silence is Violence"..
The common "leftist" perspective is that "cancelling" is a rare occurrence, mainly targets the rich and is not particularly effective in the grand scheme of things given that politically incorrect speakers routinely reach hundreds of millions of people. They would also argue that it can be tricky to tell whether someone is "cancelled" because primarily because of their views, or because they are insufferable and people were already looking for excuses to get rid of them. In other words, they don't think it's a big deal.
Now, if the leftist is correct (I'm not saying they are), then your post ironically becomes a textbook example of victim culture: you're blowing up a relatively minor phenomenon out of proportion, painting yourself as being oppressed. The only reason you don't see it that way is because you think you're right and that the problem you see is truly serious. But obviously the people you think indulge in a "victim culture" also believe that the problem they see is serious. You should be more understanding of their mindset. Otherwise, all I'm seeing here are victims screaming past each other.
First and for most the left absolutely believes cancelling in effective, infact they believe it is very effective and have used it to great effect, their problem is that for a few perculiarly popular indivuals, the one you kinda of highlight in your comment about "reaching millions" are insulated from the lefts ability to cancel them simply because they have more social power than the groups on the left
However that has not stopped the left from canceling in the 100's, 1000's or more from de-platforming on the popular social platforms of people with little to no following, small youtube channels, to getting people fired from their mundane jobs due to a twitter they did not like.
To deny the real world impact cancel culture has had to more or less irreverent people, people that do not have millions of followers, it is to deny reality itself
Sure for those creators, pundits, personalities that have a fan base in the millions "cancelling" may be ineffective, but I am not talking about those select few people.
I am talking about the school teacher that happened to support Trump in 2016, or 2020. I am talking about the marketing person they may have a controversial political view on immigration or abortion has dares to say so on twitter. I am talking about sub 100,000 subscriber you tube channel that may have said "hey that lab leak theory may have some merit" before the "authoritative sources" approved saying that, I am talking about a facebook user that happened to quote Ben Shapiro...
The examples are endless, real, and provable.
There is nothing valid and correct in the saying "words can never harm me". Repeated insults and threats can lead to psychological harm (even if they are never followed up with physical violence) and a concerted effort to misinform someone can cause them to make physically harmful decisions.
This should be particularly obvious in the case of children, and as you mention, the saying is generally used to influence that group in particular (which is ironic, given the harm the saying ends up doing).
The more pertinent debate isn't whether words can harm, but whether censorship is likely to do more harm than the words it would prevent being spoken.
To give children the tools to deal with harmful words and not break down.
I think that is worthily en devour which I am sure is very controversial in the age of Safe Spaces, and participation trophies where by we weaken not strengthen the emotional foundation of children to be able to handle real world situations. The Coddling of the American Mind is setting Up a generation for failure
That is a noble purpose, but I don't think it's a particularly powerful tool to tell a child "Well, at least they only insulted and threatened you, they haven't actually broken any of your bones yet."
I agree that children need better tools for dealing with verbal aggression, and maybe modern societies are relying on simplistic approaches that don't build resilient minds; I just think that teaching kids that they are in the wrong for feeling hurt when they're insulted is letting them down too.
Also round the concept is a respect for free expression, to teach that someone may say something you dislike or you feel is offensive / harmful and you need to be able deal with that. As a culture in America anyway we used to place free expression, even "harmful expression" above all else, this is something I absolutely agree with. Nations, and culture that attempt to regulated "acceptable speech" with so called "hate speech" law is not something I can ever support or understand.
Perhaps the saying just needs to be updated a little, to add some clarity. Here is an attempt:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, and words may try to hurt me, but I'm the bigger person"