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Cancel culture* is not new. If you say you are a cannibal and eat human flesh, you're out of a job, same thing 100 years ago I assume. The thing that is slowly
by juliushuijnk 6y ago
Cancel culture* is not new. If you say you are a cannibal and eat human flesh, you're out of a job, same thing 100 years ago I assume. The thing that is slowly shifting is what is morally acceptable, or perhaps that more voices are part of the discussion of what is morally acceptable.
Shame has its function. Personally, I'm more worried about people who are proud to not use morals and are not hypocritical about it, than the do-gooders who put the bar higher than they can live up to.
Yes, they are more often hypocrites. That's great, you can point to that and expect some kind of feedback loop to have effect.
People without shame, who apply no morals to their deeds, are not to be applauded. I hope you agree when it comes to things like child beating. Now the questions is where to draw the line for cancel culture. Not if cancel culture is a 'bad thing'.
* Probably people load the word 'cancel culture' differently. I see it as pointing out morally bad behavior, and asking other people to also notice it, hoping there will be repercussions.
- wizzwizz4 6y agoA lot of people refer to cancel culture this way, because they're bigots who don't like people pointing out that they're bigots (or fans of bigots who they don't like being called out as bigots). However, there is another problem: a “dark side” of people being willing to call others out on their shit. Clickbait. It's surprisingly easy to make it seem like arbitrary person X is an evil evil person, regardless of whether they actually are. If you're familiar with person X, you might be able to spot a lie… but being universally sceptical will protect you from legitimate call-outs as well as fake ones. The average person has no real way of knowing, even if it's occurred to them that they might need to check. So, yeah: overall, I think this is probably a good thing. But it's set back the lives of some good people. (There's a rather simple way to turn this around: remove guilt by association. It should be okay to defend cancelled people. Defending bad actions doesn't need to be okay, but if it's costless to lie / “bend the truth” for social media clicks and costly to rebut them… calling people out on their shit becomes a much less useful force for good.)
- juliushuijnk 6y ago100% agree. Media and companies should not 'cancel' just because a group of people is demanding it, but it could be reason to look into something and then make up their own mind. Wanted to rant on about lots more, but I'll let it go :)
- wizzwizz4 6y agoThe media and companies aren't really concerns; they've got libel and stuff to worry about. It's public opinion that worries me.