Let's simplify everything by noting that basically everyone committed to liberal values agrees that some claims and topics fall outside the bounds of socially acceptable opinion and debate, but we disagree about what's in and out of bounds and about appropriate social penalties.

We should just directly debate what claims ought to be unutterable by decent, liberal people and what's fair to do to people who utter them anyway.

I have opinions I rarely share because I fear social blowback. I think these opinions ought to be in-bounds & deserve no serious social or professional penalty. But the fact that others disagree doesn't automatically make me think they're fair weather friends of free expression.

It makes me think that others think that important values and norms (often liberal ones) are preserved by maintaining a taboo on the expression of certain opinion of mine. It's very frustrating to feel stymied when you disagree, but all you can do is try to change the norm.

This is an uphill battle, of course, because it's hard to say that an opinion ought to be in-bounds without confessing that you hold an out-of-bounds opinion. But this problem is precisely what keeps opinions that REALLY ought to be out-of-bounds out-of-bounds.

Now, I think a lot of the "cancel culture" hullaballoo we've been going through is mainly a function of three things: (1) Social media; (2) an upsurge of overtly bigoted populist politics; (3) Increasing representation and cultural power of previously more marginalized groups.

I think (1) and (2) are related. Social media has been a powerful engine for the normalization of white nationalism, "red pill" misogyny, and other forms of bigotry. The bounds around acceptable opinions and debate have been blasted apart.

Taboos around these opinions were protecting liberal values of equal social standing, equal citizenship, and equal rights. Their weakening has had real political and human consequences, and directly threatens the equal freedom and welfare of marginalized and vulnerable people.

Yet our society has also made great strides in equality and inclusion. Women, Black Americans, LGBTQ Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, etc. have more cultural, professional, and economic heft than ever before.

But the renormalization and political empowerment of bigotry threatens them most. So of course they and their more privileged allies want to put the fence around acceptable opinion and debate back up. They have more heft than ever to do it, and social media amplifies it.

People from less powerful and well-represented have always thought too much bigotry was considered in-bounds. And it's now easier than it was to see how truly illiberal bigots exploit edge cases and the rhetoric of "free speech" to make space for the renormalization of hierarchy.

So, naturally, the folks who want to put the fence back up want to leave stuff that used to be in-bounds out-of-bounds. And they're suspicious of glib liberal rhetoric around free expression, which is exploited by illiberal people to maintain cultural and political power.

It's very easy for me to understand how the drive to restore taboos, and to create new ones, around opinions that undermine the equal standing and rights of less privileged classes of people can appear to some as illiberal attacks on free expression, debate, and inquiry.

But I think they're wrong to see it this way -- even when I agree that activists are being overzealous, trying to rule reasonable disagreements out of bounds, and seek to exact social penalties that are undeserved.

I tend to see it as reasonable disagreement about the proper application of our shared liberals. People trying to protect the equal dignity and standing of others have undertaken a fundamentally liberal task, even if they're doing it wrong.

Disagreement about where to draw the boundaries, where to build the fence, isn't a disagreement about the value of free expression, inquiry, and debate. It's a disagreement about the cultural conditions required for a truly liberal society of equal citizens.

Casting those on the other side of a debate about where to draw the line as an illiberal threat to freedom, simply because they want to draw the line at a place that puts something you believe out of bounds, assumes what needs to be shown and commits the sin it condemns.

That's all for now. Cancel away!

Sorry for all the typos. Just needed to quickly jam out some of these ideas, lest they become hazy again.