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I believe the main point of the person you're replying to is that it's a relatively small, vocal minority of people on Twitter who care about this stuff, and th

I believe the main point of the person you're replying to is that it's a relatively small, vocal minority of people on Twitter who care about this stuff, and the media snowballs it into a big ugly controversy for clicks. As far as I know, this is true also of the following examples of "the right" "cancelling" stuff: * Colin Kaepernick and kneelgate * calls to boycott Starbucks for celebrating an inclusive holiday season, rather than Christmas in particular * republican voters "cancelling" Mitt Romney and other republicans for being vocally anti-Trump, even though their political principles have not changed I can think of at least one more serious example that goes beyond just a vocal minority: The long, ongoing fight to teach children about LGBTQ issues in public schools. Teachers can be fired for simply revealing to their students that they have a same-sex partner. Not long ago, too, was it career-ending for a Hollywood actor to come out publicly as LGBTQ. Ellen comes to mind as an example.

waheoo 6y ago
You're misinformed if you think this is a minority.
- benrbray 6y ago
  Am I? I personally haven't met a single left-leaning adult who doesn't think Twitter's "cancel culture" has gotten out of hand. However, I've never lived in the bay area, where I understand things may be different. Can you say anything to demonstrate to me that it really is more than just a vocal minority of people? Perhaps we have different definitions of "cancel culture"? I don't consider the fall of e.g. Louis C.K. to be an example of cancel culture, but rather a clear-cut case of someone in a position of authority abusing their power, and rightfully losing public support for it. I do think the master vs main issue is silly, though. I'm not sure where you draw draw the line between "cancel culture" and "social consequences for toxic / abusive behavior in public".
  - spacemanmatt 6y ago
    People on the right participate in cancel culture all the time. It is truly deafening to hear them complain about things they do from their pulpits at FOX, Congress, and Senate.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      Anyone who watched TV in the late 90s and early 2000s should be very familiar with how right-wing[0] cancel culture works thanks to organizations like the AFA. [0] Religious-right, anyway
      - spacemanmatt 6y ago
        It wasn't such a partisan thing in the 90s. Democrats let their right-leaning members get away with it all the time. Remember Tipper Gore?
      - throwaways885 6y ago
        The religious right barely exists anymore.
  - jessah 6y ago
    Hi. I'm a single left-leaning adult who doesn't even think "cancel culture" exists. It's a right wing propaganda word. Please realize that "I haven't met a single..." is not a good assessor for anything. I for example haven't met a single person that doesn't think the vocal minority in this case is the twitter mob that tries to brainwash themself into the believe that there is a left wing mob with an united agenda. I am not convinced that I can conclude from that that I am in the majority.
    - benrbray 6y ago
      The argument "I haven't met a single..." is equally as strong as an unqualified "You are misinformed.", which I was responding to. Note that I asked for clarification :) Since I have you here, would you mind elaborating a bit more about your stance on "cancel culture"? I'll also elaborate a bit more on my stance. I think most people would agree that mobs by definition have no united agenda. It's a bunch of disorganized people with their own goals and motivations who all briefly get fired up about the same topic. Twitter mobs are a tornado of confirmation bias, where people in echo chambers spin up hot takes of current events to confirm their own worldview. The amount of meaningful debate that can be had in 280-character chunks is negligible. When people talk about "cancel culture", my impression is not that they think there is any sort of coordinated attack on right-leaning figures by prominent left-leaning figures -- only fringe conspiracy theorists believe that George Soros is sending out weekly lists of names that should be "cancelled" this week. It's that they believe Twitter is a place which has developed a culture of criticizing and ridiculing other users, public figures especially. I think it's undeniable that any time a public figure missteps, a vocal minority of people (e.g. angsty teenagers) on Twitter calls for the person to be fired or otherwise deplatformed, even before they have a chance to respond. Some people also receive death threats. So, I don't think it's unreasonable to label that sort of behavior as "cancel culture". To me, it clearly exists, but there is room for debate about how prevalent it is, as well as how good vs bad it is. I think we agree that "cancel culture" is not as prevalent as Fox / MSNBC would have their viewers believe. Twitter magnifies the opinions of their angry users to drive engagement, and then news organizations pick it up to serve one political narrative or the other. Personally, I have seen many positive examples of public figures being called out for toxic or abusive behavior, and I'm all in favor. Louis CK was "cancelled" for extremely-scummy-but-not-necessarily-illegal behavior. Heck, #metoo is all about cancelling rapists, and that's a good thing! I also think that the JK Rowling controversy was for good cause, and led to both productive [1,2] and unproductive public discussion. However, to me, the whole master vs main debate is silly. I don't see it as a driver of positive change. [1] Contrapoints, "JK Rowling" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us) [2] Contrapoints, "Cancelling" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8)
  - ZeroGravitas 6y ago
    edit: I've re-read your comment, and I'm no longer sure which "side" of this you fall on, I think my point stands alone anyway, so I'll leave it: You've not met me, but I'm a left-leaning individual who thinks the drama about "cancel culture" is mostly invented. There's lots of people doing crappy thing on the internet generally and on twitter in particular. In a world where you can get anonymous death threats for pretty much any reason, I've not seen any evidence that "the left" or "cancel culture" is an actual problem in this regard beyond the baseline of people being nasty when anonymous. I have seen people, often on both sides of the same issue, point to unpleasant people on the other side and make some kind of argument that "those people" are all crazy. Some of the individual stories are horrifying but I've never found any of them convincing at the level of settling the argument (whichever argument it is invoke in). It's just used as a way to circle the wagons against the other side.
    - BeetleB 6y ago
      > You've not met me, but I'm a left-leaning individual who thinks the drama about "cancel culture" is mostly invented. Your position is the same as the ones he's met. That was his point.
      - benrbray 6y ago
        Indeed. My point is that "cancel culture" is a problem on Twitter, since Twitter intentionally amplifies the voices of the people who participate. So, "cancel culture" on Twitter is not representative of how real people on "the left" (or "the right") feel about current events. For instance the vast majority of working professionals I know don't get themselves regularly involved in political arguments on Twitter, since they see it as unproductive. So it is simultaneously true that: * cancel culture is "a thing" on Twitter, in the sense that it's easy to find examples * cancel culture "doesn't exist", in the sense that no one you are likely to encounter in real life is ok with cancelling people for tweets they made as a teenager
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    “cancel culture” isn't an actual thing, it's just the new term the Right has come up with for replace “political correctness” to make, almost word for word, the exact same complaints they've been making since the 1980s about the left doing...exactly the same thing the right has always done as much as it can get away with to everyone who publicly disagrees with them.
    - tremon 6y ago
      How many people since the 1980s have lost their jobs because a mob decided that they weren't politically correct enough?
      - benrbray 6y ago
        How many?
        tremon 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Yes, large portions of the company I work for fall into this category. 4 out of 7 in our team fit the description. > I don't consider the fall of e.g. Louis C.K. to be an example of cancel culture, but rather a clear-cut case of someone in a position of authority abusing their power, and rightfully losing public support for it. That is cancel culture.. its just not an example of cancel culture run amuck which is what the problem has always been, not cancel culture itself which is widely accepted by most people for the most egregious behaviors.
AdrianB1 6y ago
Voters don't cancel their representative, they select the one they think will represent their wishes. Even removing someone from the office when the voters believe they no longer represent their interests is not cancellation, it is how democracy works. You don't cancel your lawyer if he misrepresent you, you fire him.
- benrbray 6y ago
  To clarify, I think you're right, and that all the disagreement about cancel culture really boils down to semantic arguments about what the word "cancel" means and whether it is subjectively fair or unfair in a given situation. I would argue that voting someone out of office is a democratic way of literally cancelling them.
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    I think that the most widely accepted definition of "cancelling culture" is suppressing someone that has opinions different than yours. For example you can cancel a comic that has different political views. Opposing to that, when you have someone representing you, either a voted politician or hired attorney, it is not cancel culture if you disagree and want to be represented by someone else.
    - benrbray 6y ago
      What if a comedian loses his audience because views of his come to light that his audience doesn't support? It's no longer profitable for him to go on tour, or for studios to offer him roles on tv, etc.. Is that cancel culture or not? I'd argue that it's cancelling, but not the "bad" kind. If you say it's not cancel culture when a majority of people change their mind about someone, then you're saying that almost by definition cancelling is when a small minority of people have the power to deplatform someone who missteps. So, it's not accurate to say that "the left is ok with cancel culture" (for instance) since only a small group of people are going it who are not representative of the larger population.
      - 6y ago
_-david-_ 6y ago
People on the right don't have the power to really cancel anything anymore. Some on the right may attempt to cancel stuff, but it is mostly not effective. >Colin Kaepernick and kneelgate Kaepernick wasn't canceled by the right. He just wasn't the best player out there and didn't get onto another team. He now is making millions from Nike and other deals all without playing the game. If this is what be canceled is like I would gladly sign up. >calls to boycott Starbucks for celebrating an inclusive holiday season, rather than Christmas in particular There was an attempt but nothing happened. As far as I know Starbucks' revenue didn't even drop (but I haven't really looked into it). Again a complete failure of a cancellation. >republican voters "cancelling" Mitt Romney and other republicans for being vocally anti-Trump, even though their political principles have not changed Romney still has his senate seat and is still on all of the committees he was original on. There is no cancelling here, unless you mean voting out a politician is canceling. >The long, ongoing fight to teach children about LGBTQ issues in public schools. This is a bit more complicated. Some people believe it is more than just an objective teaching that LGBTQ people exist and you should treat them as any other person but more of encouraging people to engaging in such behavior. Some people also accuse the schools of focusing on random LGBTQ people or assuming people's sexuality when they weren't married in history class instead of focusing on more important people or just the facts. I don't think I was in school when this was going on so I can't really comment on what it is like. > Teachers can be fired for simply revealing to their students that they have a same-sex partner. I have only seen this in private religious schools. In theses cases the teacher agreed to publicly follow the church's teachings and they failed to follow their employment contract. You shouldn't work for a church if you disagree with the church's teachings. >Ellen comes to mind as an example. Are you saying Ellen was canceled for being LGBTQ? I am pretty sure she is being attack for being abusive to people who work / worked for her.
- scdp 6y ago
  They successfully got the NFL to ban kneeling, you might remember someone saying "Get that son of a bitch off the field". Liz Cheney, Murkowski, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy have successfully been censured by the GOP, and motions are in progress against the rest that defected from the Trump cult.

waheoo 6y ago

You're misinformed if you think this is a minority.

benrbray 6y ago
Am I? I personally haven't met a single left-leaning adult who doesn't think Twitter's "cancel culture" has gotten out of hand. However, I've never lived in the bay area, where I understand things may be different. Can you say anything to demonstrate to me that it really is more than just a vocal minority of people? Perhaps we have different definitions of "cancel culture"? I don't consider the fall of e.g. Louis C.K. to be an example of cancel culture, but rather a clear-cut case of someone in a position of authority abusing their power, and rightfully losing public support for it. I do think the master vs main issue is silly, though. I'm not sure where you draw draw the line between "cancel culture" and "social consequences for toxic / abusive behavior in public".
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  People on the right participate in cancel culture all the time. It is truly deafening to hear them complain about things they do from their pulpits at FOX, Congress, and Senate.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Anyone who watched TV in the late 90s and early 2000s should be very familiar with how right-wing[0] cancel culture works thanks to organizations like the AFA. [0] Religious-right, anyway
    - spacemanmatt 6y ago
      It wasn't such a partisan thing in the 90s. Democrats let their right-leaning members get away with it all the time. Remember Tipper Gore?
    - throwaways885 6y ago
      The religious right barely exists anymore.
- jessah 6y ago
  Hi. I'm a single left-leaning adult who doesn't even think "cancel culture" exists. It's a right wing propaganda word. Please realize that "I haven't met a single..." is not a good assessor for anything. I for example haven't met a single person that doesn't think the vocal minority in this case is the twitter mob that tries to brainwash themself into the believe that there is a left wing mob with an united agenda. I am not convinced that I can conclude from that that I am in the majority.
  - benrbray 6y ago
    The argument "I haven't met a single..." is equally as strong as an unqualified "You are misinformed.", which I was responding to. Note that I asked for clarification :) Since I have you here, would you mind elaborating a bit more about your stance on "cancel culture"? I'll also elaborate a bit more on my stance. I think most people would agree that mobs by definition have no united agenda. It's a bunch of disorganized people with their own goals and motivations who all briefly get fired up about the same topic. Twitter mobs are a tornado of confirmation bias, where people in echo chambers spin up hot takes of current events to confirm their own worldview. The amount of meaningful debate that can be had in 280-character chunks is negligible. When people talk about "cancel culture", my impression is not that they think there is any sort of coordinated attack on right-leaning figures by prominent left-leaning figures -- only fringe conspiracy theorists believe that George Soros is sending out weekly lists of names that should be "cancelled" this week. It's that they believe Twitter is a place which has developed a culture of criticizing and ridiculing other users, public figures especially. I think it's undeniable that any time a public figure missteps, a vocal minority of people (e.g. angsty teenagers) on Twitter calls for the person to be fired or otherwise deplatformed, even before they have a chance to respond. Some people also receive death threats. So, I don't think it's unreasonable to label that sort of behavior as "cancel culture". To me, it clearly exists, but there is room for debate about how prevalent it is, as well as how good vs bad it is. I think we agree that "cancel culture" is not as prevalent as Fox / MSNBC would have their viewers believe. Twitter magnifies the opinions of their angry users to drive engagement, and then news organizations pick it up to serve one political narrative or the other. Personally, I have seen many positive examples of public figures being called out for toxic or abusive behavior, and I'm all in favor. Louis CK was "cancelled" for extremely-scummy-but-not-necessarily-illegal behavior. Heck, #metoo is all about cancelling rapists, and that's a good thing! I also think that the JK Rowling controversy was for good cause, and led to both productive [1,2] and unproductive public discussion. However, to me, the whole master vs main debate is silly. I don't see it as a driver of positive change. [1] Contrapoints, "JK Rowling" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us) [2] Contrapoints, "Cancelling" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8)
- ZeroGravitas 6y ago
  edit: I've re-read your comment, and I'm no longer sure which "side" of this you fall on, I think my point stands alone anyway, so I'll leave it: You've not met me, but I'm a left-leaning individual who thinks the drama about "cancel culture" is mostly invented. There's lots of people doing crappy thing on the internet generally and on twitter in particular. In a world where you can get anonymous death threats for pretty much any reason, I've not seen any evidence that "the left" or "cancel culture" is an actual problem in this regard beyond the baseline of people being nasty when anonymous. I have seen people, often on both sides of the same issue, point to unpleasant people on the other side and make some kind of argument that "those people" are all crazy. Some of the individual stories are horrifying but I've never found any of them convincing at the level of settling the argument (whichever argument it is invoke in). It's just used as a way to circle the wagons against the other side.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    > You've not met me, but I'm a left-leaning individual who thinks the drama about "cancel culture" is mostly invented. Your position is the same as the ones he's met. That was his point.
    - benrbray 6y ago
      Indeed. My point is that "cancel culture" is a problem on Twitter, since Twitter intentionally amplifies the voices of the people who participate. So, "cancel culture" on Twitter is not representative of how real people on "the left" (or "the right") feel about current events. For instance the vast majority of working professionals I know don't get themselves regularly involved in political arguments on Twitter, since they see it as unproductive. So it is simultaneously true that: * cancel culture is "a thing" on Twitter, in the sense that it's easy to find examples * cancel culture "doesn't exist", in the sense that no one you are likely to encounter in real life is ok with cancelling people for tweets they made as a teenager
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  “cancel culture” isn't an actual thing, it's just the new term the Right has come up with for replace “political correctness” to make, almost word for word, the exact same complaints they've been making since the 1980s about the left doing...exactly the same thing the right has always done as much as it can get away with to everyone who publicly disagrees with them.
  - tremon 6y ago
    How many people since the 1980s have lost their jobs because a mob decided that they weren't politically correct enough?
    - benrbray 6y ago
      How many?
      - tremon 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
- waheoo 6y ago
  Yes, large portions of the company I work for fall into this category. 4 out of 7 in our team fit the description. > I don't consider the fall of e.g. Louis C.K. to be an example of cancel culture, but rather a clear-cut case of someone in a position of authority abusing their power, and rightfully losing public support for it. That is cancel culture.. its just not an example of cancel culture run amuck which is what the problem has always been, not cancel culture itself which is widely accepted by most people for the most egregious behaviors.

AdrianB1 6y ago

Voters don't cancel their representative, they select the one they think will represent their wishes. Even removing someone from the office when the voters believe they no longer represent their interests is not cancellation, it is how democracy works. You don't cancel your lawyer if he misrepresent you, you fire him.

benrbray 6y ago
To clarify, I think you're right, and that all the disagreement about cancel culture really boils down to semantic arguments about what the word "cancel" means and whether it is subjectively fair or unfair in a given situation. I would argue that voting someone out of office is a democratic way of literally cancelling them.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  I think that the most widely accepted definition of "cancelling culture" is suppressing someone that has opinions different than yours. For example you can cancel a comic that has different political views. Opposing to that, when you have someone representing you, either a voted politician or hired attorney, it is not cancel culture if you disagree and want to be represented by someone else.
  - benrbray 6y ago
    What if a comedian loses his audience because views of his come to light that his audience doesn't support? It's no longer profitable for him to go on tour, or for studios to offer him roles on tv, etc.. Is that cancel culture or not? I'd argue that it's cancelling, but not the "bad" kind. If you say it's not cancel culture when a majority of people change their mind about someone, then you're saying that almost by definition cancelling is when a small minority of people have the power to deplatform someone who missteps. So, it's not accurate to say that "the left is ok with cancel culture" (for instance) since only a small group of people are going it who are not representative of the larger population.
    - 6y ago

_-david-_ 6y ago

People on the right don't have the power to really cancel anything anymore. Some on the right may attempt to cancel stuff, but it is mostly not effective. >Colin Kaepernick and kneelgate Kaepernick wasn't canceled by the right. He just wasn't the best player out there and didn't get onto another team. He now is making millions from Nike and other deals all without playing the game. If this is what be canceled is like I would gladly sign up. >calls to boycott Starbucks for celebrating an inclusive holiday season, rather than Christmas in particular There was an attempt but nothing happened. As far as I know Starbucks' revenue didn't even drop (but I haven't really looked into it). Again a complete failure of a cancellation. >republican voters "cancelling" Mitt Romney and other republicans for being vocally anti-Trump, even though their political principles have not changed Romney still has his senate seat and is still on all of the committees he was original on. There is no cancelling here, unless you mean voting out a politician is canceling. >The long, ongoing fight to teach children about LGBTQ issues in public schools. This is a bit more complicated. Some people believe it is more than just an objective teaching that LGBTQ people exist and you should treat them as any other person but more of encouraging people to engaging in such behavior. Some people also accuse the schools of focusing on random LGBTQ people or assuming people's sexuality when they weren't married in history class instead of focusing on more important people or just the facts. I don't think I was in school when this was going on so I can't really comment on what it is like. > Teachers can be fired for simply revealing to their students that they have a same-sex partner. I have only seen this in private religious schools. In theses cases the teacher agreed to publicly follow the church's teachings and they failed to follow their employment contract. You shouldn't work for a church if you disagree with the church's teachings. >Ellen comes to mind as an example. Are you saying Ellen was canceled for being LGBTQ? I am pretty sure she is being attack for being abusive to people who work / worked for her.

scdp 6y ago
They successfully got the NFL to ban kneeling, you might remember someone saying "Get that son of a bitch off the field". Liz Cheney, Murkowski, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy have successfully been censured by the GOP, and motions are in progress against the rest that defected from the Trump cult.