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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 in

>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.)

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.)