[motorcycleman9]

I think the exercise of considering which historical atrocities you would passively comply with is a good exercise for understanding the banality of evil. PG did little to argue his moral superiority from this perspective, rather highlighted how different people conform to the norm, regardless of the virtue (or lack thereof) of the norm itself. The many anti-slavery individuals of the past still largely did nothing for hundreds of years until popular opinion and material conditions changed tides.

You point out that he did have an axe to grind regarding cancel culture, and highlight that it's not particularly heroic. But in doing so it makes it even more apparent that the anti-cancel-culture crowd is passive and ineffective, making his point clearer.

He could have made the same point regarding conformity by citing the Stanford prison experiment if he wanted to. I'd be willing to bet a dollar that there are personality psychology studies that even correlate 5-factor personality traits to moral conformity. Unfortunately popular culture is bit too much of the opinion that there are no underlying personality traits that predict future behavior nowadays.

[oisdk]

> different people conform to the norm, regardless of the virtue (or lack thereof) of the norm itself.

But this is exactly what I'm disagreeing with: there was widespread and popular opposition to slavery from its invention. To act like "everyone was doing it, everyone thought it was ok" is absolutely just not true.

The people in favour of slavery were largely the wealthy, powerful minority who benefited from slavery.

> The many anti-slavery individuals of the past still largely did nothing for hundreds of years until popular opinion and material conditions changed tides.

This is such a strange statement. "anti-slavery individuals did nothing"? Who do you think achieved abolition?! You seem to think that abolition was some passive force which happened as a result of "changing tides": I, on the other hand, seem to remember that there was a war fought about it (in the US at least).

Furthermore, slavery didn't begin and end in the united states: abolition was achieved in many other places before it go to the US, in fact the US was something of a holdout for slavery in the west. There were countless slave rebellions, some quite successful, and political action absolutely achieved progress towards abolition in many places around the world.

> But in doing so it makes it even more apparent that the anti-cancel-culture crowd is passive and ineffective, making his point clearer.

The "anti-cancel-culture" crowd, by my estimation, makes up the vast majority of positions of power in the US. For god's sake the president routinely decries cancel culture and a large part of his appeal is the fact that he's "un-PC".

> He could have made the same point regarding conformity by citing the Stanford prison experiment if he wanted to

The Stanford prison experiment was a complete fabrication and research fraud. (honestly: you should look up modern information on it. I had kind of thought it was common knowledge that it was bunk, but I suppose it did have a large cultural impact)

> I'd be willing to bet a dollar that there are personality psychology studies that even correlate 5-factor personality traits to moral conformity.

I don't know, but my point is that Graham has clearly picked superficial personality traits that flatter him by associating his idea of himself with his idea of abolitionists. Regardless of whether the idea of "personality types" is valid or not, it's clear that what Graham is doing here isn't.

> Unfortunately popular culture is bit too much of the opinion that there are no underlying personality traits that predict future behavior nowadays.

Again, I would completely disagree. I don't know what the psychological consensus is, but from laypeople it seems clear that "personality traits are important" is an extremely mainstream view.

[motorcycleman9]

To clarify my point on the slavery example-

Slavery was present for hundreds or thousands of years. It was also obviously morally wrong for the entirety of it's existence. It's decline in the western world was relatively quick compared to the duration of it's existence. This decline came about as the western world became rich enough that eliminating the suffering of slaves was worth the inconvenience of replacing their labor. This change of material conditions gave enough cultural leeway for passive conformists to embrace legislative change.

It is not obvious that the Stanford prison experiment is a complete fraud. Even with it's flaws it suggests that people are much much more likely to engage in immoral behavior when an authority figure endorses it. Historical atrocities confirm this.

I don't think there's a productive way to argue about the cancel culture point. Data supporting which side is "winning" the cancel culture war is too cherry-pickable. The only ground I can stand on is that people such as Stephen Pinker getting cancelled is obviously ridiculous.

I do not think that the personality traits discussed are superficial. Other posters have provided more evidence, especially regarding openness and conscientiousness, that I speculated on earlier. I do not think that the purpose of PG's essay is to flatter himself.

[oisdk]

> This decline came about as the western world became rich enough that eliminating the suffering of slaves was worth the inconvenience of replacing their labor.

This is just not true, and certainly not the view of most historians. This is an important claim, and you have not backed it up with evidence.

> It is not obvious that the Stanford prison experiment is a complete fraud.

I'm sorry, but this is quite a strange statement to me. Let me put it this way: if I cited the Stanford prison experiment in a university paper, the paper would be failed. The experiment is widely criticised, outright fraud has been found in a number of cases, and its results have not been replicated.

> The only ground I can stand on is that people such as Stephen Pinker getting cancelled is obviously ridiculous.

Again, Stephen Pinker is an extremely powerful individual. He's a multi-millionaire, a Harvard professor, I don't think I could come up with a better example of someone with a large platform. If he's been "cancelled" then he's an example of how insignificant and ineffectual "cancel culture" really is.

(of course people looking into his association with Jeffrey Epstein is quite another thing, I certainly don't think that's a "cancelling")