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Because we have people pretending it's new so they can drum up outrage and gain power. Because we have people playing the victim after being fired for being int

Because we have people pretending it's new so they can drum up outrage and gain power. Because we have people playing the victim after being fired for being intolerable to work with. Most importantly, we have politicians adopting authoritarian attitudes as a reaction to it. Private companies have a right to "cancel" whomever they want, whether that takes the form of banning someone from a website or of canceling a contract. Yet certain politicians want to interfere in private websites or publishers by limiting their ability to exercise editorial control. I don't know the situation across the pond. I'm writing from an American perspective, where the term "cancel culture" has been entirely co-opted by cynical politicians.

tryonenow 6y ago
>Because we have people pretending it's new so they can drum up outrage and gain power. Because we have people playing the victim after being fired for being intolerable to work with This is the mindset at fault. This idea that intolerance is objective, when clearly it isn't. This idea that certain ideas, regardless of their merit, are simply intolerant and must be met with collective, unilateral intolerance, which typically aligns with progressive politics. >Most importantly, we have politicians adopting authoritarian attitudes as a reaction to it This is an ironic take, considering the entire premise behind cancel culture is a collective authoritarianism. >Private companies have a right to "cancel" whomever they want, whether that takes the form of banning someone from a website or of canceling a contract. And this is perhaps the most misleading part of the comment. This isn't strictly about private companies cancelling people (although that's also a problem when incentives are aligned to effectively remove cancelees from the public square). This is about rabid, authoritarian mobs attacking individuals for dissent, and the fact that loud minorities are dictating corporate action with a specific political slant. People were complaining about cancel culture long before politicians. And possibly the most pressing issue is the fact that it isn't that these ideas themselves are intolerant, or even factually incorrect, it's the fear of some of their implications that is responsible for this conditioned suppression of their discourse, and unpersoning of anyone daring enough to ask certain questions. It's like banning research on fission because it could be used to create nuclear weapons. It's egregious anti-intellectualism to forbid certain questions or discussions strictly because of their worst implications.
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
  The US constitution gives an absolute right for private individuals to say whatever they want, whether this takes the form of "collective authoritarianism" or "rabid, authoritarian mobs attacking individuals for dissent" or "loud minorities dictating corporate action with a specific political slant." The government cannot make decisions based on the content of speech. Period. Couching massive censorship that would require undoing the foundations of the country as support of freedom of speech is ironic indeed. You can complain about cancel culture as much as you want. I would probably agree with you on a lot of it. However, when Ted Cruz talks about cancel culture in an attempt to coerce websites into changing their moderation policies, that is a different matter entirely. (I am writing, again, from an entirely American perspective.)
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
You aren't paying attention if you think people are complaining about being fired because they're hard to work with. This (Mexican-American) guy was fired for a photo that for a brief moment showed his hand making an OK sign out the window of a truck because for a few months the mainstream media tried to convince everyone that the OK sign is a white supremacist symbol: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
  Here's a general principle: if people repeatedly bring up the same small handful of examples to convince you something is a broad trend, that means it probably isn't a broad trend. Those examples are famous because they are exceptional. That story made it into the papers not because it is representative but because it is not representative. When something is actually widespread, I usually can't usually rattle off a half-dozen examples because they aren't salient. I don't doubt there have been a few dramatic examples of people being fired for innocuous actions. I don't even doubt that there's a widespread trend. What I do doubt is that this is a new thing, that it is perpetrated by one side of the aisle against the other, that most people who are "canceled" are innocent, and that we are in a crisis. >because for a few months the mainstream media tried to convince everyone that the OK sign is a white supremacist symbol No, because white supremacists tried to convince everyone that the OK sign is a white supremacist symbol. They started it as a joke: "Hey, what if we tricked the idiots in the MSM that white supremacists are using the OK symbol?" Somehow they missed the fact that trying to pull such a hoax instantly makes the association real. The mainstream media was well aware it was intended as a hoax. They are not completely clueless about how the internet works. I guarantee you there are people from big news outlets reading /pol/ as we speak. See this article from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/ok-sign-white-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/ok-sign-white-power.ht...

tryonenow 6y ago

>Because we have people pretending it's new so they can drum up outrage and gain power. Because we have people playing the victim after being fired for being intolerable to work with This is the mindset at fault. This idea that intolerance is objective, when clearly it isn't. This idea that certain ideas, regardless of their merit, are simply intolerant and must be met with collective, unilateral intolerance, which typically aligns with progressive politics. >Most importantly, we have politicians adopting authoritarian attitudes as a reaction to it This is an ironic take, considering the entire premise behind cancel culture is a collective authoritarianism. >Private companies have a right to "cancel" whomever they want, whether that takes the form of banning someone from a website or of canceling a contract. And this is perhaps the most misleading part of the comment. This isn't strictly about private companies cancelling people (although that's also a problem when incentives are aligned to effectively remove cancelees from the public square). This is about rabid, authoritarian mobs attacking individuals for dissent, and the fact that loud minorities are dictating corporate action with a specific political slant. People were complaining about cancel culture long before politicians. And possibly the most pressing issue is the fact that it isn't that these ideas themselves are intolerant, or even factually incorrect, it's the fear of some of their implications that is responsible for this conditioned suppression of their discourse, and unpersoning of anyone daring enough to ask certain questions. It's like banning research on fission because it could be used to create nuclear weapons. It's egregious anti-intellectualism to forbid certain questions or discussions strictly because of their worst implications.

xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
The US constitution gives an absolute right for private individuals to say whatever they want, whether this takes the form of "collective authoritarianism" or "rabid, authoritarian mobs attacking individuals for dissent" or "loud minorities dictating corporate action with a specific political slant." The government cannot make decisions based on the content of speech. Period. Couching massive censorship that would require undoing the foundations of the country as support of freedom of speech is ironic indeed. You can complain about cancel culture as much as you want. I would probably agree with you on a lot of it. However, when Ted Cruz talks about cancel culture in an attempt to coerce websites into changing their moderation policies, that is a different matter entirely. (I am writing, again, from an entirely American perspective.)

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

You aren't paying attention if you think people are complaining about being fired because they're hard to work with. This (Mexican-American) guy was fired for a photo that for a brief moment showed his hand making an OK sign out the window of a truck because for a few months the mainstream media tried to convince everyone that the OK sign is a white supremacist symbol: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...

xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
Here's a general principle: if people repeatedly bring up the same small handful of examples to convince you something is a broad trend, that means it probably isn't a broad trend. Those examples are famous because they are exceptional. That story made it into the papers not because it is representative but because it is not representative. When something is actually widespread, I usually can't usually rattle off a half-dozen examples because they aren't salient. I don't doubt there have been a few dramatic examples of people being fired for innocuous actions. I don't even doubt that there's a widespread trend. What I do doubt is that this is a new thing, that it is perpetrated by one side of the aisle against the other, that most people who are "canceled" are innocent, and that we are in a crisis. >because for a few months the mainstream media tried to convince everyone that the OK sign is a white supremacist symbol No, because white supremacists tried to convince everyone that the OK sign is a white supremacist symbol. They started it as a joke: "Hey, what if we tricked the idiots in the MSM that white supremacists are using the OK symbol?" Somehow they missed the fact that trying to pull such a hoax instantly makes the association real. The mainstream media was well aware it was intended as a hoax. They are not completely clueless about how the internet works. I guarantee you there are people from big news outlets reading /pol/ as we speak. See this article from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/ok-sign-white-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/ok-sign-white-power.ht...