Even if you don’t share my view that what people are doing with the ‘cancel culture’ claim is just a reheated serving of the anti-political-correctness nonsense Limbaugh has been selling for decades, it’s still a mistake to think that ‘cancel culture’ is a real, substantial problem about which someone ought to do something.
Popehat makes the argument here better than I can:
This is particularly good:
/6 That’s because of the fundamental deal behind First Amendment values: you can’t use the government to punish speech because the marketplace of ideas, the private sector, society’s “more speech” is the best way to address “bad speech,” not government action.
/7 So. What if your emphasis in supporting First Amendment values is attacking “more speech” as illegitimate?
People: Censor this speech!
Defenders: No, counter it with more speech.
People: okay, [more speech]
Defenders: No, not like that.
Once you start down the path that you must regulate ‘cancel culture’ away, you’re regulating away free speech. If you think that e.g. businesses are too quick to fire people caught acting out online, then try to convince businesses not to be that way. Don’t argue that people can’t or shouldn’t complain about public bad acts by employees of those companies, because that is an argument designed to suppress their speech.
Yeah, I’ve definitely thought many times over the years that Ken’s focus on college campuses as targets of his ire was woefully misplaced emphasis, but I have always tended to agree with his relentless advocacy for the First Amendment, and having fought that battle for a decade or more in public, he’s generally one of the best at articulating it well and defining where the lines sit.
I remain convinced that because journalists are notable people who live on Twitter are thus often the targets of social media disapprobation, harassment, and threats and live in constant fear of it, they see a culture-wide problem where none really exists. And the propaganda machine of the right is only too happy to capitalize on that fear to stoke up intra-faction resentment between elites and activists in the left.
Yeah, let’s also keep in mind that the people primarily railing against “cancel culture” are also the ones who yell the loudest about the free market being the solution for everything.
Except, I guess, if that free market turns against you, someone you agree with, or a business you like. Then it’s SJW WOKE CANCEL CULTURE SOCIALISM MARXIST or whatever.
100% with you that this isn’t something to be regulated away—the label may already have too much baggage but for what it’s worth we’re talking about “cancel culture”, not “cancellation [by the] government”. It’s the businesses and organizations and people that are “cancelling” people (whether you believe those instances could be counted on one hand or are a problem growing out of control), and I agree that the response should not be to legally restrict or punish them.
One response to the Cancel Culture hullabaloo has been: “Ok, stronger Unions then. If we don’t want people being fired at a whim by skittish and risk-averse companies, we need stronger unions so that each worker isn’t this atomized and protectionless singleton, but rather has a group of people at their back and supporting them”.
Jeong was the target of right-wing trolls gleefully and utterly disingenuously appropriating the bugaboo of cancel culture for their own ends. And the New York Times’s response to the episode was to… not fire her.
True, but I think we can also agree that outcome is less likely if she is some random nameless copy editor or something. Jeong writes for NYT because she has a name, platform, and position and her unique qualities brought her that job. Its the ‘superstar’ situation, the more power and leverage you personally bring, the more slack you get.
My fervent hope actually is that Twitter becomes a reputational minefield that no one wants to approach and dies a much and long deserved death as a platform. We need to go back to blogs.
True, but doesn’t invalidate my point. The eye of Sauron may be random and capricious. It may be exceedingly unlikely for some random person to catch that heat, but it also doesn’t make it less uncomfortable or easier if they do.
See random misidentified biker dude recently.
Edit: @Matt_W all the better if it takes Facebook with it. Zuckerberg needs to pay a heavy price for aiding and abetting the destruction of civilization.
Yeah, bad shit definitely happens. I tend to think calls for firings are both ubiquitous and among the least of social media’s ills, but there are definitely ills. Not everyone–even everyone who agrees with me–is on the side of the angels all the time. There are liberal assholes out there and liberal people who flex and preen. But the general cultural sense of disapproval of bald racism and sexism–which is what people are talking about when they talk about “cancel culture”–is not a bad thing.
I think doxxing is bad no matter who does it and who it’s done to, but it’s not confined to the so-called paragons of cancel culture. In fact, I’d wager that it’s used far more often by alt-righters. Fuck yes, we shouldn’t put people’s safety at risk. That’s odious. (And often illegal! It’s already restricted speech in many cases!)
It would nice if on the few occasions that someone was unfairly cancelled, that the cancellers would try to make amends for their error and spread the word as enthusiastically as their condemnation. Instead progressives tend to ignore or minimize these incidents, much like on this thread.
Compare the tremendous initial level of support for Heard and harassment of Depp, with how little of the reverse occurred once the truth came out. Combined with a lack of contrition or self-reflection from the harassers.
Damn right I will ignore such incidents. Or perhaps I should shed a tear for a multimillionaire world famous playboy? Nope! Depp is just one actor among tens of thousands, he became rich and famous mostly by chance, we made him so it’s only fair we cancel him. Also, his wrong “cancellation” (debatable) is a price I’m willing to pay because it’s a rare occurance, similar to the mistakes of any justice system.
