by zahlman | 2025-07-30 22:34:48+00:00
> This is the key point of this argument and it boils down to the idea that freedom of association is somehow less meaningful or more able to be limited than freedom of speech.

When I look up explanations of the concept of "freedom of association", I don't see anything about employers' rights to "disassociate with" employees by firing them. Rather, I see abundant discussion of employees' rights to unionize. Here's what my government has to say about it (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec...):

> Freedom of association is intended to recognize the profoundly social nature of human endeavours and to protect individuals from state-enforced isolation in the pursuit of their ends (Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada, [2015] 1 S.C.R. 3 (“MPAO”) at paragraph 54). It protects the collective action of individuals in pursuit of their common goals (Lavigne v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, [1991] 2 S.C.R. 211 at page 253). It functions to protect individuals against more powerful entities, thus empowering vulnerable groups and helping them work to right imbalances in society (MPAO, supra at paragraph 58). It allows the achievement of individual potential through interpersonal relationships and collective action (Dunmore v. Ontario (Attorney General), [2001] 3 S.C.R. 1016 at paragraph 17).

An employer is a "more powerful entity" than an employee, inherently.

Cancel culture is used to pressure employers to fire their employees, for reasons that the employer doesn't even inherently care about but that would create a perceived risk to the business' bottom line, due to those applying the pressure. It is businesses receiving phone calls demanding that they shun the bad person, without any expectation that the business actually investigate the claim.

But the concept of freedom of association, too, extends beyond law. If you unjustly vilify me, that inhibits my ability to associate with those would would otherwise associate with me but for whatever it is you've convinced them of. (And vice versa, of course.)

> The thing is, speech matters. You can't arbitrarily separate the world into "speech" and "actions". The nursery rhyme about sticks and stones is incredibly untrue. Speech is the predecessor of actions and it tells you both what someone intends to do and what they want you to do.

This applies equally to those doing the cancelling.

> Because people don't want to work with them.

I am using my speech to explain why I consider it morally wrong to not want to work with them: because they haven't done anything that justifies that reaction.

> The thing that gets frequently glossed over is that all of these situations where people are "cancelled" are merely reversions to a neutral position.

Under capitalism, being unemployed is not a "neutral position".

> Gamergate is especially ironic since it was essentially an attempt to cancel someone that started all of it, it just turned out to be based on a ton of false accusations and then escalated into frankly criminal behaviour.

I already explained what is wrong with your understanding of the event in my previous comment.

> There are people in this world who absolutely deserve to be "cancelled".

There are people who deserve comparable repercussions for their actions. That is why the justice system exists.

> The whole purpose behind the "cancel culture" meme is an attempt to prevent people from reacting to speech.

No, this is not the purpose. I say this as someone who uses the phrase. Please do not try to explain my own intentions to me.

There is clearly no further discussion to be had here.