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> the cancel culture in the West is destroying people from speaking freely All of the pundits complaining about “cancel culture” are themselves constantly dema

> the cancel culture in the West is destroying people from speaking freely All of the pundits complaining about “cancel culture” are themselves constantly demanding that various things be “canceled” (fired, taken off the air, defunded, boycotted, deported, imprisoned, ...). Not in every case, but as a general rule, “cancel culture has gone too far” is a hypocritical euphemism for “I don’t like it when people call out my bigotry”.

notahacker 6y ago
Yep. The desire to 'cancel' sentiments and people they don't like, or at least not grant them particular platforms is the societal default, not some kind of modern exception. Transpeople have been 'cancelled' from all sorts of opportunities since time immemorial without a single person outraged at Zuby's short term Twitter suspension being prepared to defend them to the death...
- account42 6y ago
  A yes, the good old "other people have been treated worse in the past so it's ok to treat that person badly now" argument.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    No it's the good old "if you're arguing that modern Western 'cancel culture' where accusations of insulting certain minorities might get you 'cancelled' from certain private platforms is more chilling to free speech than any other form of 'cancel culture' including those where being certain minorities got you blackballed from everything or even imprisoned or killed, you're not channelling Evelyn Hall so much as expressing which forms of freedom of expression you are most concerned with protecting' argument. Especially in the case of the many pundits on the cancel culture complaint bandwagon who are quite open about which people and forms of expression they wish to silence instead.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    As an example from today, wouldn’t ejecting people opposed to Trump from the CA GOP be a clear-cut example of “cancel culture”? https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-22/california-gop-anti-trump-republicans-biden-lincoln-project https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-22/california... Except I promise you that you’ll never hear one of these pro-bigot pundits oh-so-worried about creeping cancelism complaining about that. Because again, they have no problem with things being “canceled” for political disagreement, and indeed are themselves constantly demanding various “cancellations”. It’s only ever a problem when someone calls out bigotry. “Canceling” someone as part of a defense of bigotry is considered by these pundits to be perfectly fine.

notahacker 6y ago

Yep. The desire to 'cancel' sentiments and people they don't like, or at least not grant them particular platforms is the societal default, not some kind of modern exception. Transpeople have been 'cancelled' from all sorts of opportunities since time immemorial without a single person outraged at Zuby's short term Twitter suspension being prepared to defend them to the death...

account42 6y ago
A yes, the good old "other people have been treated worse in the past so it's ok to treat that person badly now" argument.
- notahacker 6y ago
  No it's the good old "if you're arguing that modern Western 'cancel culture' where accusations of insulting certain minorities might get you 'cancelled' from certain private platforms is more chilling to free speech than any other form of 'cancel culture' including those where being certain minorities got you blackballed from everything or even imprisoned or killed, you're not channelling Evelyn Hall so much as expressing which forms of freedom of expression you are most concerned with protecting' argument. Especially in the case of the many pundits on the cancel culture complaint bandwagon who are quite open about which people and forms of expression they wish to silence instead.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  As an example from today, wouldn’t ejecting people opposed to Trump from the CA GOP be a clear-cut example of “cancel culture”? https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-22/california-gop-anti-trump-republicans-biden-lincoln-project https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-07-22/california... Except I promise you that you’ll never hear one of these pro-bigot pundits oh-so-worried about creeping cancelism complaining about that. Because again, they have no problem with things being “canceled” for political disagreement, and indeed are themselves constantly demanding various “cancellations”. It’s only ever a problem when someone calls out bigotry. “Canceling” someone as part of a defense of bigotry is considered by these pundits to be perfectly fine.