4 ms·

I think a lot of the unspoken debate on "cancel culture" is how much of a culture it actually is. If you spend all of your time on Twitter it can seem like the

• throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >but in reality I think the majority of people have better things to do than call on strangers to be fired. But if the majority of people are forced to behave super conservatively in order to hedge against cancel culture does it really matter how small that vocal minority really is? I see the phenomenon to be similiar to people being worried about frivolous lawsuits or being worried about Karen calling the police because their kids are playing outside unsupervised. These events are rare but fear of them shapes all of society's behavior in a bad way.
  • Ekaros 6y ago
    Even more worryingly the behaviour deemed acceptable seems to be sliding window. So in a few years you can't even be sure any more what is acceptable to people calling for firings and what isn't. Also all past transgressions will count at any later time. So something said today what might be fine is not fine in a few years. And someone might just dig up this thing and rally up lynch mob to act upon it. There has been already cases of this happening. I do really see that some protections are needed. Either by preventing companies taking actions or making the people calling for losing job liable for damages.
  • paulgb 6y ago
    Right, the problem is that a small mob of people can have outsized control by putting pressure on individual employees. To that employee, it doesn't matter how big the mob is. But in terms of ending cancel culture, if a small mob is all it takes, how effective can anything but employment law be? People calling on someone to be fired, after all, have free speech rights themselves; the best the law can do is limit the consequences of that speech.
    • pjc50 6y ago
      > People calling on someone to be fired, after all, have free speech rights themselves Somehow the "everything is free speech and nobody should ever be censored" arguers forget this.
      • loopz 6y ago
        Free speech is not a positive in isolation, but need to be channeled constructively according to democratic principles. Most people are not educated to wield that power.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
        • anthonygd 6y ago
          Did you just say most people are not educated enough to have free speech?
          • scruple 6y ago
            What a wild ride we're on.
          • loopz 6y ago
            Yes indeed. Of the kind social media optimize on, most people are NOT educated enough for, or rather, society have not enough controls for; fringe outrage growing into trends and mob. Beware empty belief in general principles.
            • perfunctory 6y ago
              > most people are NOT educated enough for That was a rather fringe outrageous thing to say.
              • loopz 6y ago
• pjc50 6y ago
  See this thread: https://twitter.com/js_rubin/status/1283493690741268482 https://twitter.com/js_rubin/status/1283493690741268482 13/ Ironically, then, dismissing cancelling as a “culture” allows critics to not engage with the actual substance of calls for accountability. If it’s a culture, there cannot possibly be reasons behind their desire to hold people accountable. 14/ Side note: Look how often critics of #CancelCulture label their opponents as being a “mob” rather than a movement. A “mob” works off passions and emotion, whereas a movement is an organized effort to change society. 15/ And, by labeling calls for accountability as “culture,” critics draw the same kind of civilizational contrast as early anthropologists. They (often BIPOC) are governed by reflexive culture whereas we (often white) uphold the principles of free speech and rational debate.
  • anthonygd 6y ago
    Using labels to short circuit debate works both ways equally well. 13. The blanket term "accountability" implies some sort of clear, reasoned collection of guidelines. The reality is that there is little consensus on public standards. If there were a real level of consensus this wouldn't be a topic. 14. Calling your mob a movement doesn't change it's nature. Movement is every bit as loaded of a term as culture. 15. That looks a lot like "If you disagree it's because you're a Victorian racist". From what I've seen, the vocals sides of this are both affluent whites claiming to have the moral high road.
• ponker 6y ago
  It doesn't really matter to the person getting fired how many people it took to make it happen.