Let me rephrase, cancelling as political correctness gone rogue, doesn't exist. I prefer public accountability instead. — Benkei

Political correctness can go rogue. There is always a tendency to push things to extremes.

Rowling .... replied to a comment asking if the [death] threat related to her previous comments about single-sex bathrooms, saying: "Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I’ve realised that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever." — yahoo news

So much for the persuasiveness of violence. And so wittily put.

Political correctness could, but then this isn't about that, is it?

We need to assess independently whether what the mob wants is something agree with and if so join them. — Benkei

A mob acts without regard to whether what they want and what they do is something we agree with.

Political correctness could, but then this isn't about that, is it? — Benkei

You lost me here. You said:

Let me rephrase, cancelling as political correctness gone rogue, doesn't exist. — Benkei

The framing of "cancel culture" is political correctness gone rogue. While examples of political correctness goen rogue do exist, the "culture" or "phenomenon" isn't about that, that's in fact about public accountability of companies, celebrities and politicians.

Yeah, I'm not playing this game where you allude to that letter (again) without actually forming an argument. You tried that skit with Baden before. Make an argument, you know premisses and conclusions and all that. — Benkei

You asserted that cancel culture is rightist fiction. I handed you a well-known protest against cancel culture from a very well respected group of social critics, none of which leans toward the right.

I gave you a heads up. Do with it what you will.

Let me rephrase, cancelling as political correctness gone rogue, doesn't exist. I prefer public accountability instead. — Benkei

You're just trying to cancel cancel culture.

The right's position is that the left bullies them into silence through public shame, personal condemnation, and ostracism if they don't adopt the left's ideology. From the left, I can see why you don't care what consequences befall the wicked, but it does seem the best such a tactic will do is silence them from your ears. What that means is that they won't change their mind and will just move their conversations to the privacy of their own homes. Every now and then you'll hear their mutterings and you'll call them out again, which will just either make them more careful later or they'll start telling you to fuck off and they'll find themselves a leader.

And then we get Trump.

I do think the right has marketed their position well with the "cancel culture" designation, and I do understand why you'd like to erase that from the vocabulary by declaring it non-existent. The problem is that it works, and it works because trying to stomp someone's views out, regardless of how morally repugnant you find them, doesn't work that well against 10s of millions of people.

I'm much more positive about this whole thing than you by the way. The miles and miles and miles we have traveled in the correct direction can't be overlooked. Gay people get married in Alabama today. That was unfathomable when I was a young adult. Trans people are getting elected to public office. Conservatives conserve, they protect the status quo, they drag their feet, but there's value in that too, but they do come around when right is right.

All in good time.

Still not an argument. And that letter was shit.

I do think the right has marketed their position well with the "cancel culture" designation, and I do understand why you'd like to erase that from the vocabulary by declaring it non-existent. The problem is that it works, and it works because trying to stomp someone's views out, regardless of how morally repugnant you find them, doesn't work that well against 10s of millions of people. — Hanover

Except nobody is stomping anyone's views out, they are brought out in the light in all their stupidity and found lacking.

Still not an argument. And that letter was shit — Benkei

In the immortal words of BitterCrank, "oh dear..."

Still not an argument. You're really shit at this. You know that right?

It’s bigotry, it’s censorship, and it’s cruel. The punishment is disproportionate to the supposed crime, which is often no crime at all, not even an act that warrants much attention.

Those who try to gather a mob and go after another’s job and livelihood because they do not like what was said are a far greater threat to the public than anyone who may say something inappropriate.

The following is alarming but no examples are offered and it is therefore hard to take seriously.

Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study

ok

reddit.com/antiwork — Benkei

To quote an expert

Make an argument, you know premisses and conclusions and all that. — Benkei

...all you've given me is a reddit group. Who have they 'cancelled'? How does any of that activity link up with trans rights? How does cancelling someone like Kathleen Stock help the plight of the poor?

You're being incredibly occult. If you have a clear point to make about the woke movement linking up with class struggles it should not be this painful to try and extract it.

The OP states:

Cancel culture is a right wing lie ... — Benkei — Fooloso4

Yes, I see. The OP was started as a response to my comment, so I took that to be the starting point, not the OP itself.

Although the terminology is new, it has always existed in one form or another. — Fooloso4

Really? Maybe I've been living in a shell until recently. I can't think of a single example from before 2000, yet can reel off a dozen or so just off the top of my head from the last few years. Can you think of examples from before 2000?

the question was whether it was a dangerous tool to encourage the use of. — Isaac


That is too vague and general to be of much use. — Fooloso4

True, but to be fair the actual question was more nuanced than my quick paraphrasing. what I actually asked was whether the criteria we use to judge when to suppress speech and when not to were changing and if those changes had negative effects.

I'm pretty confident that by-and-large what is happening is for the good. — Benkei

Good. I admire your confidence. So some big wins for the world's poorest are...?

I'll just quote some of the stuff that has already been said before on this site as well: — Benkei

Interesting, but quoting @Maw on anything is about as useful as quoting one of those action man dolls with the pull cord on the back, and the other is yourself. I'm not sure what use vitriolic polemics are here.

We need to assess independently whether what the mob wants is something agree with and if so join them. — Benkei

Isn't that pretty much 'being wary' as advises?

While examples of political correctness goen rogue do exist, the "culture" or "phenomenon" isn't about that, that's in fact about public accountability of companies, celebrities and politicians. — Benkei

But you've yet to furnish us with any examples to back up this assertion, let alone sufficient examples to justify a claim that it's what the whole phenomena is "about". Notwithstanding that failure, it's not even the point. Let's agree fro the sake of argument, that the main thrust of 'cancel culture' is about holding to account companies, celebrities and politicians such that they can no longer get away with statements and actions that we all agree are egregious. What is the correct response to the example I raised? Are they acceptable collateral damage from a social tool which is doing so much good? Is there any level of collateral damage you wouldn't be prepared to accept for the social gains you see the "phenomena" resulting in?

Except nobody is stomping anyone's views out, they are brought out in the light in all their stupidity and found lacking. — Benkei

This is clearly contradictory. You want, on the one hand to say that the movement is positive and on the other to say it doesn't successfully silence anyone. then what are its positives exactly. Either it successfully stops people form saying the things it finds offensive or it doesn't work and so the collateral damage is unjustified.

Editors are fired for running controversial pieces

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/07/new-york-times-opinion-editor-out-after-publishing-controversial-tom-cotton-piece/

books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/07/dr-seuss-books-product-recall-cancel-culture

professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/15/white-professor-investigated-quoting-james-baldwin-use-of-n-word-laurie-sheck

researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech

less than five minutes on Google.

Cancel Culture exists, on both right and left wing side, and it's awful. Not because it brings to light foul things someone might have done ignorantly or purposefully in the past, but because it tries to use these past events to attempt to deplatform the opposition. It uses the misdeed at face value as justification to censor the opposition, which takes away from the misdeed itself. No one benefits from this, and the fact that you want to argue that it doesn't exist is confusing. Either you decide to turn a blind eye to it or you are truly ignorant to it entirely. It's not like this is a new phenomenon either, defaming opposition has been a tactic since the Roman republic.

I was thinking: how does `Tom Cotton-NYT` not pop in your mind when someone mentions an editor being squashed for publishing a controversial opinion?

Don't know.

I was thinking: how does `Tom Cotton-NYT` not pop in your mind when someone mentions an editor being squashed for publishing a controversial opinion? — frank

Yes, these are hardly examples which are buried out of the public eye, but I suspect the overwhelming temptation to dismiss the concerns creates something of cognitive block. No doubt we'll hear soon that the journalists reporting these incidents were prompted to do so by Russian infiltrators.

Yes, these are hardly examples which are buried out of the public eye, but I suspect the overwhelming temptation to dismiss the concerns creates something of cognitive block — Isaac

Could be. I think the desire to censor comes from fear. People who don’t even see censorship might be fearful about where things are headed.

It takes some confidence in your fellow humans to say, "Stop being a big baby and grow the ability to listen to opposing views without fear that we'll slide into a holocaust if you let other people have their say."

That said, I can't abide racist talk. So it can be tricky I guess.

Yeah, that's the point I'm at too. I don't have any objection to 'cancelling' people for saying hateful things, or telling lies (especially dangerous ones). This seems normal and has been the way we conduct society for decades.

A journal will effectively 'cancel' a paper if the author is shown to be insufficiently qualified or the work shown to be flawed.

A newspaper will 'cancel' a journalist if they makes stuff up, carry out vendettas, spew hatred of some particular group...

It's all a normal part of running a civilised society. The problem I'm seeing is the co-option of these tools to cancel views which are merely outside of the mainstream narrative. Saying that there are issues with not distinguishing trans women from biological women is not an act of hatred, it's just an unpopular view. It might hurt trans women, but that fact alone isn't sufficient to warrant excluding the view from the public sphere. People disagree about some pretty important stuff and it's going to hurt to have someone deny something that you think is fundamental to your identity, that's not sufficient ground to have that person hounded out of their job, we'd have very few people left.

I'm not sure it is all that tricky though...

There's plenty of well-respected methods we used to use. For example, if the view is held by a qualified expert in the field without any clear conflict of interest, then it's difficult to see how silencing it could be justified. In all my years in academia, I don't think I've ever come across the sort of behaviour Kathleen Stock has had to endure, makes me ashamed to be associated with Sussex.

Can you think of examples from before 2000? — Isaac

Miscegenation

Indecency clauses

Lenny Bruce

Refusing to say the pledge of allegiance.

Except nobody is stomping anyone's views out, they are brought out in the light in all their stupidity and found lacking. — Benkei

Not always. If we look at animal behavior, for example, there is a tendency to dominate others in the struggle for resources. Bird chicks that are loudest and push their siblings out of the way get rewarded by the parents by being given more food and attention, etc.

Similarly, humans have an innate tendency to impose their views on others. As part of this process, they routinely call others names, etc. This starts in kindergarten age and continues throughout adult life, as can be observed on the social media including discussion forums.

Thanks to the same social media and communication technologies even innocent people can be, and often are, pigeonholed, labeled, and "earmarked" for subjection "to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles" as per the Wikipedia definition.

When this becomes permissible or is even encouraged by sections of society for political or other reasons, then it becomes a social trend or culture.

Cancel culture was regnant in McCarthyism and Anti-communism, I would say.

Editors are fired for running controversial pieces

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/06/07/new-york-times-opinion-editor-out-after-publishing-controversial-tom-cotton-piece/ — Isaac

Giving a platform to the idea of using the military against civilians is not good, to say the least, particularly at a time when the fucking president is trying to sell the idea.

books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/07/dr-seuss-books-product-recall-cancel-culture — Isaac

I do so like Green Eggs and Ham. I would read it in a car. I would read it in a bar. I would read it here or there. I would read it anywhere.

professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/15/white-professor-investigated-quoting-james-baldwin-use-of-n-word-laurie-sheck — Isaac

Investigation is not cancelation.

researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech — Isaac

This one looks like a good example. Apparently fired for a tweet that any reasonable person would regard as an innocuous study.

less than five minutes on Google. — Isaac

It shows.

We have found something we agree on.

Giving a platform to the idea of using the military against civilians is not good, to say the least, particularly at a time when the fucking president is trying to sell the idea. — praxis

Wouldn't you rather have it out in the open instead of hidden?

"Democracy dies in darkness"

What do you mean by hidden? He’s a senator. Also, the direction towards militarization of law enforcement is nothing new, unfortunately.

What do you mean by hidden? — praxis

Eliminated from the public conversation? I'm asking for your perspective.

think people are more and more actually organising. Unions, activism etc. And we can look at separate cases and find fault with some of them but I'm pretty confident that by-and-large what is happening is for the good. — Benkei

I don't know. What I see is a lot of folks getting a kick out of behaving all judgmental on others, and doing so in a mindless mob-like manner. What I miss is a sense of charity.

Granted that there are millions of assholes out there. Granted that it's a market of ideas and that we consume what we want to. I 'cancel' a lot of people myself that way: I don't watch movies with Steven Seagal, I don't listen to Beyonce, I don't read Naipaul or Heidegger, etc. They are dorks in my book. But I don't go around campaigning against them. I am not wearing my canceled list on my sleeve as a badge of honor.