4 ms·

Cancel culture are witch hunts organized over social media. There is a good comparison to be made with McCarthyism. Other than the political identities of tho

by btilly 6y ago

Cancel culture are witch hunts organized over social media. There is a good comparison to be made with McCarthyism. Other than the political identities of those wielding the tools and those targeted, what is happening today is the same. In the end Arthur Miller stopped McCarthy with a play about the Salem witch trials. That play introduced the phrase "witch hunt", and McCarthy was defanged by the transition from fear to mockery. We need a new Arthur Miller.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
> We need a new Arthur Miller. 100% I'm convinced the only way to effectively fight it is through comedy. It was noticeable and bad when I went through college around 2010. But now it's been intensified as the same people I saw in college (those storming university offices until speakers they found "dangerous" withdrew) begin moving into the urbane, bien-pensant, privileged stations at media institutions, etc. This recent Ryan Long video really hit the right tone I think. Laugh at the tyrants and they're disarmed. https://twitter.com/ryanlongcomedy/status/1285208497517473793?s=20 https://twitter.com/ryanlongcomedy/status/128520849751747379...
uniqueid 6y ago
> Cancel culture are witch hunts organized > over social media. I can't take the teeth-gnashing over the "culture" aspect of "cancel culture" seriously, though plenty of people I respect do (eg: Yascha Mounk, Matt Taibbi, Noam Chomsky). The actual problem is social media, much more than culture. Social media flattens all the world's events, without regard to their relevance. Does it alarm me if a professor or police officer loses their job because they say the "wrong" thing? You know, not really, in the vast majority of cases. And I'm glad that such a culture results in, for example, Twitter "mobs" reliably doxxing right-wing extremists. Where I see an actual problem is in the scope. There's a difference between someone losing their job over an isolated incident of poor judgement, and someone losing their job and being hounded by outraged people from all corners of the globe, and gaining a life-long bad reputation. On an ideally-designed internet, "cancel culture" would exist, but not be a problem, because its reach would scale according to the behaviour, and the importance of the person. Some random person in a tiny town does not merit as much scrutiny as an elected official, but currently, they may get it anyhow. The problem is the design of social media.

by btilly 6y ago

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

> We need a new Arthur Miller. 100% I'm convinced the only way to effectively fight it is through comedy. It was noticeable and bad when I went through college around 2010. But now it's been intensified as the same people I saw in college (those storming university offices until speakers they found "dangerous" withdrew) begin moving into the urbane, bien-pensant, privileged stations at media institutions, etc. This recent Ryan Long video really hit the right tone I think. Laugh at the tyrants and they're disarmed. https://twitter.com/ryanlongcomedy/status/1285208497517473793?s=20 https://twitter.com/ryanlongcomedy/status/128520849751747379...

uniqueid 6y ago

> Cancel culture are witch hunts organized > over social media. I can't take the teeth-gnashing over the "culture" aspect of "cancel culture" seriously, though plenty of people I respect do (eg: Yascha Mounk, Matt Taibbi, Noam Chomsky). The actual problem is social media, much more than culture. Social media flattens all the world's events, without regard to their relevance. Does it alarm me if a professor or police officer loses their job because they say the "wrong" thing? You know, not really, in the vast majority of cases. And I'm glad that such a culture results in, for example, Twitter "mobs" reliably doxxing right-wing extremists. Where I see an actual problem is in the scope. There's a difference between someone losing their job over an isolated incident of poor judgement, and someone losing their job and being hounded by outraged people from all corners of the globe, and gaining a life-long bad reputation. On an ideally-designed internet, "cancel culture" would exist, but not be a problem, because its reach would scale according to the behaviour, and the importance of the person. Some random person in a tiny town does not merit as much scrutiny as an elected official, but currently, they may get it anyhow. The problem is the design of social media.