That rolling conversation from last night is continuing somewhat today, and I want to drop a few things here so that they are recorded for my own convenience if nothing else.
Let’s recall, again, that this entire discussion was set off by Alan Jacobs saying the following.
For the ones doing the mobbing, ruining the lives of innocent people is not a bug in their program, it’s an essential feature. There can be no reign of terror when only the guilty are punished.
[…]
That is why, for those who want to effect social change by exposure and shaming, punishing the innocent is a feature of their system, not a bug.
This is what sent me scurrying to post that “nah” to my blog — Jacobs’ contention that this is effectively the way some undefined “mob” wants it; to wit: “cancel them all and let god sort them out”, and there’s simply no evidence of that. An anecdote here or there doesn’t qualify.
Nowhere have I argued that abuses don’t happen, and these abuses — both the wrongly purported and the actual — quite clearly are being adjudicated and debated publicly, illuminating courses for correction; the abuses aren’t happening in the dead of night with no chance for review.
If only true and actual racist behavior when called out was treated with this degree of furred brow pontification and concern.
In the scheme of things, giving precious and plaintive column inches to the wrongly accused (whether they were wrongly accused or not) just seems all out of proportion in a society where so much of the every day racism both large and small gets absolutely zero column inches when maybe it should be the actual story.