On "Cancel Culture"

Why did you use it?
As an example of hate speech. I detest the word. I hate it even more when others use it.

Sorry?

Cosby was convicted of multiple rapes. There's no question of "cancelling" him. It's obvious that's not what I'm talking about.

I don't know all about Louis CK's history, and I'm not really that interested to find out. I know that I won't be paying any money to attend one of his shows. I'm not sure what you'd want me to ask him.

This is the first time I've heard about the Daniel Tosh thing. I don't think I've ever watched a thing that guy has done. I think that what he did was totally inappropriate. I also think that his belated "apology" doesn't seem to indicate that he really understands why that would be the case. On the other hand, I didn't see his whole show. I don't know what led up to his comment (not that anything would excuse the comment itself). I don't know what he has done, if anything, to try and make amends since 2012. I'm not sure what you'd want me to ask him.
Well it is a figure of speech, as you well know.

Regardless of what led up to his comment, the comment itself was not acceptable. Joking about his heckler being gang raped, after she told him his rape jokes were not funny, is not appropriate. In fact, it is pretty shit, for lack of a better term. And people spoke out against it.

Now, consider, do you think it was cancel culture?

Here we have someone who was told it wasn't appropriate. And he responded by discussing he being gang raped.

His show was cancelled, but he went elsewhere.

Were people correct in speaking out and "cancelling"?
 
Tiassa said:
1) Infraction for this or that word: See #3616722↗.
It's kind of ironic that you're complaining about my asterisking out of the word "n****r" in reported post, given the exchange I've just had with Bells.

I don't know what your complaint is about that, exactly. Something about inconsistency, I think it was. Apparently, while I'm busy asterisking out racist and sexist words and handing out a warning for inappropriate language, I'm actually "covering" for racism and sexism simultaneously. Go figure.
2) Going out of your way to cover for white supremacism: I discussed that post; you were glad I provided the link↗.
Already discussed.

3) Striking dictionary definitions: I'll provide that for you in the back room, and then you can apologize, publicly, for lying. What was that you said↗ to someone, recently, James? Oh, right: You shouldn't tell lies.
Well, I guess we'll see what's in the back room. Please be aware that I'm responding to this first, without having seen whatever it is you're bringing back there.

I think both of those go to the back room, as well.
Ditto.

1) Manipulating the language to have after a member you don't like for the sake of your antireligious supremacism: We've been through that one, before, James. You treated S.A.M. like shit.
Remind me. What year did that happen - this issue with my "antireligious supremacism" and my "shit" treatment of that member who chose to no longer post here at some point? Why is this suddenly a live issue for you again?

A right-winger made up a bogus complaint, and when he received an infraction for disrupting multiple threads, you cited S.A.M. according to his complaint in order to be fair, and when she told you that wasn't fair, you gave her a day to apologize to you or else face an extended suspension, and when she didn't, you did.
I'm confident there was a bit more to it than that, and that you're spinning this yarn to suit yourself.

Mostly, this seems to come back to a 8 month-old debate we had, after which I ended up moderating somebody. You remind me of somebody else who recently dragged up a six-month old thread, unable to let it lie (you jumped on that guy's bandwagon, too). This one wasn't about you, either.

Well, I referred it to you (#4396), observing conflict of interest, advising that you should issue the infraction for trolling. You initially objected, then went to the thread↗, ...
And we discussed it, both in the Moderators forum and in the public forum, and I decided in the end to issue a warning, which read as follows:

[Member's name] has been warned for trolling, aggravated by its racist tone.
Having considered the replies above and the opinions of other moderators, I think that, in the end, whether he is consciously racist or just racist because he chooses to keep himself ignorant is really beside the point.

In this thread, [member] has effectively ignored information that has been presented to him regarding the reality of racism and its effects in the United States, only to repeat his own ill-informed opinions on the matter. At various points in the discussion he has tried to divert attention away from the topic by complaining about other issues, including such things as "radical feminism". He has tried on numerous occasions to change the subject. He has avoided responding to many direct questions about his position, and has made little, if any, attempt to try to present a fact-based argument to support his opinions. He has also made a habit of insulting other people in the thread who have provided facts, which in itself is a breach of our site rules.​

I don't think you and I ended up agreeing on the matter of "advocacy" of "white supremacism" in that particular case, but it didn't make a practical difference to the outcome, from the perspective of issuing an appropriate warning.

...misrepresented the issue ("There's a bit of a debate going on among the moderators as to whether [member] should be subject to some kind of moderation sanction for advancing 'supremacist' views in this thread")...
I don't believe I misrepresented anything, there. Right now, you're complaining that I "covered" for "white supremacy" there, while at the same time you're complaining that I misrepresented that the debate was about whether the member concerned was, in fact, advocating white supremacy. Go figure.

..., but the paragraph about advocacy—

Is [member[ advocating for white supremacy? (I'm inclined to say no, but maybe I'm wrong.) Is he saying racism in the United States is good or preferable? I'm not seeing that explicitly, although I can understand how some might take that as the implicit message of [member's] posts. I'm seeing ignorance, mainly. [member] obviously has no clue about what he's talking about when it comes to racial inequality, and apparently doesn't want to learn anything either. But neither of those things automatically make him a troll or a supremacist, as far as I can tell.

—is you sympathizing with know-nothing, slow-learner white supremacism.
No. We were not in agreement that we were dealing with a white supremacist there, at that time. That is clear from the text you quote here, from me, too.

Your assumption that he was/is a white supremacist was not my assumption; it was yours. Your conclusion that I was/am "sympathizing" with white supremacist views is just plain wrong. I guess that's just something you want to believe, for some reason best known to yourself, and in spite of my long record of speaking out against it.

Not only should I not be handing out that infraction, myself, since I'm one of the people he's trolling, the fact that you defend that
kind of speech would give more weight to the point about trolling.
I didn't defend his trolling, his evasion, his lies - none of that. On the contrary, I took him to task in that thread precisely on those grounds before the moderation issues was even raised, and later issued him with a formal warning.[/quote][/quote]
 
Last edited:
(continued...)

As I said to you in the wake of this stunt, it shouldn't take two and a half days to get a deliberately insufficient answer to a straightforward question; the point was to disrupt the primary discussion; I even showed you how it stretcehd out over the course of forty posts in the discussion. And like I said, that's it's own distraction about principle, policy, and consistency. (Hint: It's in the part about how the trolling is hardly some some confusion you need to pretend on behalf of someone who isn't really so confused.)

At any rate, your gloss—"Is [member] advocating for white supremacy? (I'm inclined to say no, but maybe I'm wrong.)"—didn't go over well, so after a few days, you changed course and issued an infraction for racist trolling.
I was convinced there was a good reason to issue a formal warning for trolling. No doubt, you were among the people who convinced me.

I don't understand why this is still a live issue for you, 8 months down the track.
Not when you follow it immediately with, "(I'm inclined to say no, but maybe I'm wrong.)"
You don't like honesty? I gave my honest view as it stood at that time, but expressed a willingness to change my mind.

Kindly point to an occasion when you actually made sense.
I always make sense. Well, almost always.

"Suppose we ban all discussion of it"? Why would we?
It would be one way to solve the problem of anything with a whiff of white supremacism appearing on this forum. A blunt instrument, sure, but a solution. Not one I advocate.

Seriously, this is a problem:

Tiassa: But that's the thing: Some arguments really are harder to justify rationally than others. White supremacism, for instance, isn't absolutely verboten; it just needs to be a properly scientific argument ....

James R: It seems to me that what you really want to ban is advocacy of white supremacism.​
You were serious about wanting "proper scientific arguments" for white supremacism, then? I assumed that was you being sarcastic.

What the hell is wrong with you?
What the hell is wrong with you?

Meanwhile, if the result of obliging white supremacist argument to get a clue looks like a ban on advocacy of white supremacism until they find a rational, good-faith argument, then so be it. Until then all you're protecting is the recycling of bullshit and bad faith.
I'm not even sure what you're saying.

No, really, James, what the hell is wrong with you?

Tiassa: I don't give a damn specifically about the theists any more than anyone else. Their religion is a problem to me when it is a problem to me. Around here they're generally annoying, but nobody says we have to keep them around if they're utterly full of shite. Well, okay, maybe you do.

James R: Ah yes. You want to "cancel" atheists on sciforums ....​

Why can you not fail to misrepresent the record?
Anybody can go and read the discussion you linked - the one where you were at pains to make the point that the atheists on this forum are all a bunch on know-nothings who don't give the poor theists on this forum a fair go. Once again, I don't think I've misrepresented your complaint in that thread.

James, given the point that this part of your tantrum...
My tantrum? You're the one doing all the whining here on this.

... is constructed around you missing the point, I'll just remind that I've told you before it's difficult to discuss pretty much anything with you.
Correct me if I'm wrong. The crux of your complaint appears to be that that you believe I "coddle, nurture, protect and encourage" white supremacy and "anti-religious supremacism" on this forum, by preferentially refusing to moderate those who propagate such opinions while simultaneously moderating their opponents in an unfair way.

Did I understand your point?
 
Last edited:
(continued...)

Tiassa said:
How many years do you want me to reach back to you resisting group discussions of behavioral issues?
I don't believe I have ever "resisted" such discussions, whenever any substantive issues have been raised.

I haven't always agreed with you in such discussions. Lately, most of your "discussions" seem to be more about trying to attack me that to make any useful improvements to the way we moderate this forum, and I'm not particular interested in wasting a lot of my time correcting your spin.
 
As an example of hate speech. I detest the word. I hate it even more when others use it.
I started with the asterisked version.

Regardless of what led up to his comment, the comment itself was not acceptable. Joking about his heckler being gang raped, after she told him his rape jokes were not funny, is not appropriate. In fact, it is pretty shit, for lack of a better term.
I agree, of course.

And people spoke out against it.

Now, consider, do you think it was cancel culture?
No, not in the sense I've been trying to discuss. I think in that case it was a perfectly reasonable response to a wildly inappropriate comment.

Here we have someone who was told it wasn't appropriate. And he responded by discussing he being gang raped.

His show was cancelled, but he went elsewhere.

Were people correct in speaking out and "cancelling"?
Yes. I think he got what he deserved.
 

Repeat Offenders: Detail of cartoon by Niccolo Pizarro, 29 August 2019

Seth Simons↱, for The New Republic:

The recent comedy boom is popularly understood as an era in which new forms of media, like podcasts and streaming video, created massive new audiences for comedy, which in turn created massive new revenue streams for comedians. At the same time, the artificial intimacy of these platforms allowed fans to feel a level of connection with their favorite performers—and with each other—that could verge on the cultish. This was not simply an era of glorious bounty, in which little-known comedians could land massive Netflix paydays or leapfrog from UCB Comedy to College Humor to lucrative sitcom writing gigs. It was also the era of walled-off subcultures, like onaforums.net, which could transform into real, violent political factions, especially at a time when comedy was increasingly pitted against the forces of political correctness—the very forces that also fueled the grievances of Donald Trump's supporters and the revanchist right, whose credo of "owning the libs" reads a lot like the traditional comedian's defense of his right to insult and offend.

The mobs that descended on Washington, D.C., last month have intellectual roots in many places, going back to the bloody beginnings of this country. But they also have roots in specific areas of modern culture, including Facebook, BuzzFeed, and the increasingly online world of comedy. All the forces that incubated the rioters are still there, unchanged, chugging along as normal. The rot goes much deeper than you might expect.

If the far right's origins in comedy are ill-appreciated, they were never particularly secret. By his own account, Gavin McInnes created the Proud Boys on Compound Media, a subscriber-based digital network where he hosted a talk show from 2015 to 2017. Originally called the Anthony Cumia Network, Compound Media was created in 2014 by Cumia—the "Anthony" half of Opie & Anthony—after his firing from SiriusXM over a series of racist tweets.

The Gavin McInnes Show, like many other programs on the self-styled "free speech network," was not shy about its politics. Over the show's 407 episodes, McInnes spoke glowingly of right-wing violence, proudly declared himself a racist, and regularly used the n-word, among other slurs. When a caller questioned his interracial marriage in 2016, McInnes responded that he had children with a woman of color because he's "cleaning up the races." The pretense of irony hung over everything he said, but pretense is all it ever was. Compound Media was where telling jokes gave way to saying what you meant, jokingly.

It's one thing if McInness pretended to worry about how Nazi elements might affect his brand, as such, but he "didn't hesitate to associate with them", Simons observes, noting the "guests were a who's who of the contemporary far right: Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer … Jason Kessler, "Crying Nazi" Christopher Cantwell, Mike Cernovich, Sal Cipolla, Faith Goldy, Roosh V, even … David Duke." Comedian Luis Gomez once explained, "The reason I love Gavin is because he has said n----r and faggot so much that that's not even a big deal". More directly, as Simons has it:

In retrospect, The Gavin McInnes Show's function was not just to introduce the comedy world to the Nazi world but to let one legitimize the other ....

.... The network as a whole straddles the same worlds as TGMS: On one side, it is a breeding ground for far-right ideology, on the other a regular old gig for pretty much every club comic in New York City.

Simons works his way through his own story, which involved doxxing and harassment having to do with a talent firm and comedy club, which leads to a particular reflection:

T.J. Miller, the comedian who has been thoroughly disgraced by allegations of sexual assault and transphobia but is somehow still at it, recently made an apt observation about how power works in mass culture. "Standups understand this: If you empower your audience, they're much more likely to pay you again to support you," he told comedian Bobby Lee. "The audience wants to be empowered." … The power they give you in return is their trust, their loyalty, their willingness to fight for you. The relationship between an entertainer and his audience isn't all that different from the one between a political leader and his movement.

It's easy to lose sight of a simple truth: Things are the way they are because people made them so. The far right did not come into being by chance. People shaped it. They went where they thought they could win people over, and they won people over. They offered permission to revel in racism and sexism, in homophobia and transphobia, and they earned devoted followings in return. They couldn't do this alone, though. They had to be let in.

Empowerment, as such, is not↗ a new↗ idea↗, around here, not even in this thread↗. And inasmuch as function matters, and we might look to see what empowerment people pursue, or give aid and comfort, it is true that most bullying belligerence is its own sort of search for empowerment, but it only finds that validation and effectuation because people made it so, shaped it, offered permission, and let it in.

Sure, people made excuses for it, but we can rest assured they had their reasons for doing so.
____________________

Note:

Pizarro, Niccolo. "Repeat Offenders". The Nib. 30 August 2019. TheNib.com. 9 February 2021. http://bit.ly/3cWC0Lc

Simons, Seth. "The Comedy Industry Has a Big Alt-Right Problem". The New Republic. 9 February 2021. NewRepublic.com. 9 February 2021. http://bit.ly/3cWC0Lc
 
CBS News↱ reports:

Trump impeachment attorney David Schoen says "every civil officer who has served is at risk of impeachment" if House members decide their service "now deserves to be canceled"

We now face the proposition that public officials being held accountable for their role in a crime has been declared "cancel culture".

Then again, we probably shouldn't be surprised.
____________________

Notes:

@CBSNews. "Trump impeachment attorney David Schoen says 'every civil officer who has served is at risk of impeachment' if House members decide their service 'now deserves to be canceled'". Twitter. 9 February 2021. Twitter.com. 10 February 2021. https://bit.ly/3p2PQhC
 
I thank it woud be best to just cancel the term cancel-culture.!!!

It's not like certain dangers don't exist; it's just that examples are rarely as simple or simplistic as the lament against cancel culture pretends. It's like watching a particular debacle going on at a major newspaper; it's apparently not simply about one word, and there are questions of how what is interpreted, but the executive editor seems to have gone out of his way to make a complete and utter mess of it all, which, sadly, very nearly makes sense in its moment and context and manner.
 
I hesitate to jump in this discussion but here goes, my thoughts on "cancel culture". It seems to me (and I'm just a BigOleDummy) that most if not all of the crying about "cancel culture" comes from the right. Ok.... now if what you are saying/doing/acting is offensive to me or something I do not believe in then its my duty/right to call you on it. So many of the politically right of us just cannot come to grips that the majority, the vast majority, of the rest of us just do not think as they do. We do not think its ok to blow the dog whistles or make blatant racist/misogynist/homophobic comments or actions. So yes, we complain.... sometimes quite loudly. As for the social media bans and suspensions ..... well, I don't even know how to put this lol. Everyone who has an account on social media operate under the same rules. If you break those rules then you face the music. Yes, Trump, Alex Jones and those Qanon idiots were banned from facebook and Twitter. They weren't canceled for spreading joy and happiness.

The brouhaha about "Cancel culture" is just the rightists whining about the fact that their beliefs , and actions, are abhorrent to the majority of us and they can't stand that fact.
 
The brouhaha about "Cancel culture" is just the rightists whining about the fact that their beliefs , and actions, are abhorrent to the majority of us and they can't stand that fact.

what i see is
the alt-right attempting to create another conspiracy to use as a weapon against public democratic will of civility
so they use reverse logic to label cancel culture as a alt-liberal left concept of political re-education
then label it socialist

its very very dirty stuff

they are effectively attempting to radicalize society & start a civil war to promote their own tyrannical extremist desires.

"Cancel culture" was originally the general public responding to corporates who financially supported slavery racism & torture etc.

i expect "cancel culture" as a right wing propaganda Q-anon piece was started by a marketing company working for a right wing corporate

vile disgusting people attempting to interfere with normal global civil morality

note for clarification
this is purely my own opinion & i have and seek no facts or evidence to back it up

corporate sociopaths & narcissists get upset at customer feed back reducing their control & profits
they decide they need to destroy the entire moral core & integrity of customer feed back & customer demand for product & business ethics.
so they get together and spin extremist conspiracy free speech tin-foil hatters orgs to believe cancel culture is a leftist socialist re-education camp process
they then liberate that as a legitimate ideology amongst hard line right wingers who self define as moderates.

wham !
virtual political customer civil war created
in the intent to undermine & destroy customer feed back as a response to immoral & illegal business practices via customer control of social media.

Remember USA culture is driven by the need to acquire cash
how does that relate to cancel culture ?


fringe media channels using click revenue to monetize their extremist conspiracy content

remember when youtube started de-monetizing channels ?

so you have 2 extremephiles
1 the hedge fund short selling man who will sell their own grandmother

2 the political & ideological extremist who needs to generate black currency to maintain their anarchistic position in the money driven reality
3 ignorant xenophobic reactionist them or us American urbanites
... the rest is history
remember this is my opinion
 
Last edited:
RealBigOleDummy:

First, welcome to sciforums.

That's an interesting perspective, and I think one that some others here would share. I think it's a little more complicated than that, though.

I'm not sure, but I think that the term "cancel culture" was probably invented by people on the political left, not the right, who were concerned about increasing calls from people the left - traditionally strong supporters of free speech - to punish people for saying certain things, especially in cases where little effort was made to determine the speaker's intent or to look at the context. In other words, the issue of "cancel culture" was not about condoning hateful utterances or whatever, but more a concern about overreach - about jumping to conclusions and about disproportionate punishments.

The problem is that the political right are now doing their best - and apparently succeeding - to muddy the waters. When you hear people on the right talk about "cancel culture", they are almost invariably complaining about being called out, rightly, for hate speech and the like. That is quite different from the concerns of the original leftists who I believe invented the term.

It seems to me that the right is winning the battle to "own" the definition of "cancel culture", probably because the original concept was nuanced, whereas the right's cynical parody version of it is easy to understand. I see a lot of people on the left who are quite willing to jump on the rightist bandwagon on this, in terms of accepting the simplistic definition they offer. It then becomes a simplistic fight in which rightists argue that hate speech should be "free", while leftists argue that those who use it deserve to be "cancelled". In the process, the original leftist complaint about "cancel culture" is completely lost.
 
Define it what you will
some outlier attempt to destroy the potential monopolization of moral control of consumers in a democratic moral & ethical demand of corporate America
or some ill gotten political tool to create a new under class of extremophiles to spin your own anti mainstream propaganda weapons

the main battle is over
it has become self propagating and the extremophile fringe groups with loud voices are now influencing the majority moderate customer access & control.

so the political power of the majority moderate has been wiped off the board
with roughly 12 to 18 months work
probably worth a few hundred million

thats skills !
 
First, welcome to sciforums.

That's an interesting perspective, and I think one that some others here would share. I think it's a little more complicated than that, though.

Thank you for the welcome :D

Yes, I think pretty much as you about the origins of the term "cancel culture" and yes the rightists are doing a very good job of winning the battle of defining it. In doing so though I believe they are losing that "war". Rightists have had a bedrock ideal of accountability and personal responsibility for actions/words etc. for ages. They throw that out the window for the chance to paint the more left leaning of us as hypocrites and/or abandoning OUR ideals of "free speech". Now free speech for us in the U.S. has always ALWAYS had limits , no yelling fire in a theater is the best known example. They throw their accountability AND personal responsibility arguments under the bus when they complain about being banned for hate speech or for blatant lies. Then wrap themselves in the mantle of martyrdom and complain their free speech has been infringed. MY free speech doesn't matter to them as long as they have theirs. I think that fact is becoming more apparent to the average citizen too.
 

i was in a shared space roughly 2 weeks ago
& 2 men who appeared to be acting a bit macho(mid to late 30s 1 very white & UK genetic origin[looked like a sexual predator] the other tan skin possibly part Italian(looked like a genuine narcissist sociopath)
[both exhibiting homophobic body language)
they both seemed to be more interested in pretending to be doing what they were doing while watching others & talking loudly so others could hear them.
1 of them made the point of saying loud enough

"im sweating like a pedo"
(trying to make rape jokes in public to psychologically intimidate others because inside they are weak & insecure)

my instant desire was to see some scene out of kill bill where someone takes his head right off with the draw of a katana

if push comes to shove, i know a cctv camera would have him on profile view which would be able to read lips for what he said.
but i dont think any women heard him & i was the only male close enough to hear

i guess he has a tiny penis & felt intimidated by me
 
Last edited:
RainbowSingularity:

What does your anecdote have to do with the thread topic - cancel culture? Try to focus.

& 2 men who appeared to be acting a bit macho(mid to late 30s 1 very white & UK genetic origin[looked like a sexual predator]
I would be interested in how you have learned to identify sexual predators by sight. Maybe a topic for a separate thread. Such a skill would be very useful to law enforcement authorities.

the other tan skin possibly part Italian(looked like a genuine narcissist sociopath)
[both exhibiting homophobic body language)
Sounds a bit racist. Do you generally assume that Italians are genuine narcissist sociopaths?

Also, as above, I'm rather intrigued to find out what homphobic body language looks like. Another thread, once again.

1 of them made the point of saying loud enough

"im sweating like a pedo"
Looks and body language are one thing. Specific utterances are another. There is, of course, a problem with people who use that kind of language.

(trying to make rape jokes in public to psychologically intimidate others because inside they are weak & insecure)
How did you reach the conclusion that that was what he was doing, there?

my instant desire was to see some scene out of kill bill where someone takes his head right off with the draw of a katana
If you regularly have violent fantasies, you might need some professional help.

if push comes to shove, i know a cctv camera would have him on profile view which would be able to read lips for what he said.
What are you saying? That his words would justify some act of violence by you?

... but i dont think any women heard him & i was the only male close enough to hear
What is the relevance of women hearing him?

I guess he has a tiny penis & felt intimidated by me
Why do you guess he had a tiny penis? Can you tell penis size from body language and looks, too? How interesting.

Were you acting in an intimidating way? Flashing your katana at him, perhaps?
 
Reporter Michael Hobbes↱, observed, via Twitter, "Must be some mistake, I haven't seen any warnings about this from the anti-cancel culture crowd." Included are four images of headlines:

• "A teacher wore a Black Lives Matter pin to class. Now, he is banned from school" (Fresno Bee, 2016)

• "Lakeville schools' ban on Black Lives Matter signs prompts debate" (Star Tribune, 2020)

• "ACLU Demands Del Paso Manor Elementary School Stop Censoring Black Lives Matter" (ACLU, 2019; subheadline, "Teacher Disciplined Students and Threw Away Black Lives Matter Posters")

• "A Texas teacher who posted Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ posters in her virtual classroom was placed on leave after parents complained" (The Texas Tribune, 2020).​

Let us be clear: There is a reason why it goes this way. The contemporary complaint denouncing cancel culture is the latest in a long line originating among empowerment-majority voices lamenting that something untoward, which they largely have been getting away with, has been called out.

Toward which, we might revisit Hamburger on the point of political correctness and the so-called intellectual dark web (cf., #111↑), that the argument "ought not to be allowed to pretend that its ideas are, historically speaking, anything other than conservative". This is an important aspect. In my time, the argument undergone any number of iterations. Political correctness, thought police, shaming, silencing, cancel culture; what distinguishes these complaints from other discussions of censorship is found in what they protect or not, and why.
____________________

Notes:

@RottenInDenmark. "Must be some mistake, I haven't seen any warnings about this from the anti-cancel culture crowd." Twitter. 5 February 2021. Twitter.com. 14 February 2021. https://bit.ly/3q7GBhH

Hamburger, Jacob. "The 'Intellectual Dark Web' Is Nothing New". Los Angeles Review of Books. 18 July 2018. LAReviewOfBooks.org 14 February 2021. http://bit.ly/2zP6VXX
 
Reporter Michael Hobbes↱, observed, via Twitter, "Must be some mistake, I haven't seen any warnings about this from the anti-cancel culture crowd." Included are four images of headlines:

• "A teacher wore a Black Lives Matter pin to class. Now, he is banned from school" (Fresno Bee, 2016)

• "Lakeville schools' ban on Black Lives Matter signs prompts debate" (Star Tribune, 2020)

• "ACLU Demands Del Paso Manor Elementary School Stop Censoring Black Lives Matter" (ACLU, 2019; subheadline, "Teacher Disciplined Students and Threw Away Black Lives Matter Posters")

• "A Texas teacher who posted Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ posters in her virtual classroom was placed on leave after parents complained" (The Texas Tribune, 2020).​
It's strikes me as strange that the reporter Michael Hobbes (whoever he is) has not come across any statements from leftists condemning the actions mentioned in those headlines. Or maybe he believes that those people don't qualify as "anti-cancel culture crowd". It's hard to tell from a Twitter post what he is trying to say. Maybe there were extenuating circumstances which meant that leftists considered these actions of the school authorities to be reasonable, in the circumstances.

From my point of view, none of those headlines is an example of "cancel culture". Not in the way I have been talking about it. Rather, they appear, on the face of it, to be attempts to censor certain points of view, by punishing the people who are trying to promote them. I guess we'd probably need to drill down a bit, though. Maybe there's more to it. Did any of the school authorities involved also ban people for posting "All lives matter" posters, for example? Maybe their aims were something other than censorship, per se.

The contemporary complaint denouncing cancel culture is the latest in a long line originating among empowerment-majority voices lamenting that something untoward, which they largely have been getting away with, has been called out.
I think it can be different, depending on whether the denouncing is coming from the political Right or from the Left, although it's not really as simple as that, either, given that the right seem to have been largely successful in their attempts to subvert the original meaning of the term "cancel culture", even among those on the left.

In my time, the argument undergone any number of iterations. Political correctness, thought police, shaming, silencing, cancel culture; what distinguishes these complaints from other discussions of censorship is found in what they protect or not, and why.
I agree, completely. Those things are not all the same thing, by the way.
 
[1/2]

I'm not sure, but I think that the term "cancel culture" was probably invented by people on the political left, not the right, who were concerned about increasing calls from people the left - traditionally strong supporters of free speech - to punish people for saying certain things, especially in cases where little effort was made to determine the speaker's intent or to look at the context.

Oh, so ... you think ... probably?

You mean you've just been winging it?

To the one, we've had occasion in this thread to recall the history of this stuff; to the other, at this point you get around to, "I think that the term 'cancel culture' was probably invented by people on the political left, not the right, who were concerned about increasing calls from people the left".

So who are those people? Is this like prior questions↑ in this thread about examples? Should we, as then, wonder if maybe the examples don't live up to the description.

Still, here we are: Which "people on the political left, not the right" invented the complaint against cancel culture? Is this like when masculinists tried to blame a Canadian lesbian for incels?

I mean, we can talk, in this thread↑, and↗ others↗, about the conservative political connection to the history of arguments lamenting political correctness, thought police, shaming, silencing, driving people to the "intellectual dark web", and cancel culture, and here you are with the point that, while you can't address these aspects, you "think" something else happened or is going on. And since it's not utter crackpottery—(right?)—that means you have a clue what you're referring to. Compared to the record, what you fancy is still merely that.

In July, you didn't want to dig up specific examples↑ to tell the story of "the kind of cancel culture in which people on the extreme left target try to 'cancel' those on the less-extreme left", and maybe the problem, as mentioned, was your examples. And now you "think that the term 'cancel culture' was probably invented by people on the political left, not the right". It sounds like a fascinating story.

(Note aside: There was a moment in the Friday impeachment session↱ worth observing. The question to Trump's lawyers had to do with the timeline of what could be established, compared to President Trump's actions, and inquired whether this showed that he "was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence". The attorney disputed "the premise" of the asserted facts, questioned the integrity of a Republican U.S. Senator, complained that he had no idea and "nobody from the House has given us any opportunity to have any idea", whatever that means, "But Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence have had a very good relationship for a long time, and I'm sure Mr. Trump very much is concerned and was concerned for the safety and wellbeing of Mr. Pence and everybody else that was there." And it just stands out that Trump's attorney doesn't have any idea about his client, Trump, because the House hasn't told him enough, but, hey, "I'm sure," he tells us, Trump was concerned for Pence's safety. Because Trump is just this client, y'know, so how would a lawyer actually know if the accusers haven't told him enough about his client, but, nonetheless, the attorney will reassure us on the basis of his word that his client very much was concerned, because, apparently, the attorney's word is the only word we available for us to take. The tale of the president's concern for Mr. Pence's condition and circumstance is probably a very fascinating story.)​

And while I get that you think there is a story, here, what is it? Consider the question of who tells the tale and what perspective goes into it. I'm watching two high-profile cancel questions play out, at present, because for these few days it's almost impossible to avoid. One of them actually arrived to me as a "one word" argument, which in turn persists, but it was more than one word, though in this case it's more important, in my opinion, to observe that the executive editor of the newspaper has made a complete mess of everything about the episode, though making a mess of things is what this particular exec ed does, and, moreover, that particular executive editorial office has a history of screwing up. Moreover, in an old question of liberal media conspiracy, the newspaper itself is an iconic example of what is wrong with the trope. Inasmuch as a canceling clusterdiddle is in effect, this doesn't really match the description↑ of "the kind of cancel culture in which people on the extreme left target try to 'cancel' those on the less-extreme left".

(Note aside: As I was refilling my coffee cup, one of Trump's attorneys was complaining about how people have always tried to shame and silence Trump's political voice, but the attorney's framework includes complaining, as such lamentations do, that people disputed and disdained Trump's racist crackpottery. ¡Pobre Donald! He wasn't silenced. And, sure, there is possible argument that raising someone to the presidency is shaming them, but I'd rather hear it from the Trump attorneys.)​

I guess, considering an invocation of cancellation about Trump's impeachment trial, that would be three. But the other I referred to is a weird question about being fired or for one's political views, but I don't think that expression of the problem appreciates the nuance. In this case, one of the arguments put forward compares being conservative to being Jewish under the Nazis, but part of what that point referred to involves actual American Nazis, such that the question becomes a comparison of how is rejecting American Nazis any different from what Nazis in Germany did to Jewish people. And let us please be clear: I am not the one who needs that to be part of American conservatism; it isn't some leftist, progressive, or liberal, who needs that to be part of American conservatism. It is American conservatives who need that sympathetic, even common ground with American Nazis and other supremacists.

The thing about the complaint against cancel culture is that it tends toward infamous dysfunction. Were it merely an eye for an eye and a view for a view, except it never really is. Ceteris paribus is not necessarily in effect. That's always been the fallacy, for instance, of comparing #BlackLivesMatter to white nationalist rightism, something that reaches back well before the season of George Floyd, and also echoes in the defense of Donald Trump. Functionally, it's kind of like the Gay Fray and religious supremacism: If the supremacists could not exclude the disdained, then the supremacists were excluded; the underlying logic was always dysfunctional, just like demands about excluding books from public libraries. If we consider, historically, those who would disrupt a private business from selling a musical record, and those who demand the right to decide exclude others from buying a damn cake, the hypocrisy is evident in the traditionalist overlap.

It seems to me that the right is winning the battle to "own" the definition of "cancel culture", probably because the original concept was nuanced, whereas the right's cynical parody version of it is easy to understand.

That seems an indictment of the audience, so to speak. The complaint against cancel culture, in this context, is the voice of what American jurisprudence describes as a suicide pact. It's one thing if idiocy verging on noncompetency is easy to understand, but quite another to sympathize with it or show it cameraderie. It is one thing, for instance, to understand certain ideas of segregationism; I think Christians, and especially white Christians, fail to think through the implications when insisting on segregation, but most segregationists expect to somehow win by segregating. Still, if among American Christianists there are some who are fine with competing bakeries that banish graven images or simply declare themselves religion-free zones including the display of symbols, because the Christianist expects to win some sort of political-economic competition, yes, actually it is easy to understand why they might think that. It's a completely different thing, though, to want to open a bakery just to spite religious people. And, yes, that last might seem obvious to some, but the nature of the complaint againt cancel culture has a strange relationship with censorship, exclusion, and cancellation.
 
Back
Top