The cancel culture debate seems to ping-pong between people who argue that facing any social sanctions for your speech is censorship, and people pretending to believe in some kind of absolute freedom of association. This essay is my attempt to create a useful framework for thinking about the impact of association and disassociation on speech. Chiefly inspired by the work of Jacob Levy.
Rationalism, Pluralism, and Fear in the Speech Debate
There is no coherent formulation of rights which renders “cancel culture” illiberal. But there are coherent characterizations of the social system as a whole which can.
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