152 Prominent Artists & Scholars Pen Letter Warning of the Dangers of Cancel Culture (1 Viewer)

[NoPartyMike]

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.

censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.

But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.

I have to agree with them. Something seems off about the latest heavy handed approach to everything. I kind of liken it to the beating of children to get them to behave or act accordingly. Ultimately, it can have the opposite of the desired effect, and bring forth additional negativities.

 

[NoPartyMike]

That whole thing was a convoluted mess to make sense of. I still have no idea what it was explicitly about vs implicitly about.

And I study this stuff for a living.

It makes me wonder if it was intentionally confounding, to generate more signatures, or maybe so ones could claim deniability later on. Whatever the reason, if the Professors can't get it, then how can the Gilligans. At that juncture, I wonder why even release the project.

 

[Ayo]

Notice how fox news called it "liberal cancel culture" vs just "cancel culture?

And I didn’t see “cancel culture” anywhere in the letter

 

[Ayo]

It makes me wonder if it was intentionally confounding, to generate more signatures, or maybe so ones could claim deniability later on. Whatever the reason, if the Professors can't get it, then how can the Gilligans. At that juncture, I wonder why even release the project.

I have no idea, honestly. It’s just... weird. I haven’t made my mind up on it yet. And weird is the best way I can describe it.

 

[bdb13]

Were there people on the right defending Kathy Griffin back when the severed Trump head thing happenef?

My opinion is that both sides participate in this, but by nature it is probably perpetuated (much?) more often by those more to the left... But both sides like to silence the other when handed the opportunity and it would be difficult to convince me otherwise.

 

[BobE]

Were there people on the right defending Kathy Griffin back when the severed Trump head thing happenef?

Shockingly yes there was a few. Not a big gaggle mind you but a few.

 

[bdb13]

Shockingly yes there was a few. Not a big gaggle mind you but a few.

That was a dumb way for me to phrase that lol, because of course there are exceptions. Thanks.

 

[BobE]

That was a dumb way for me to phrase that lol, because of course there are exceptions. Thanks.

Nah I got what you were saying and meant. Hell it was a shock even to me that some did.

 

[MT15]

I thought this was a good example of how the right also does cancel culture. It just seems that the right has decided to call out the left as sinister when they do it (Tucker Carlson ranting about “they will come for you”) but the left just accepts it, or makes fun of the right when they do it. Now that’s my own perspective.

 

[samiam5211]

I feel like those 152 people should be cancelled.

Most of them have only been in reruns for years.

 

[Farb]

Here is an example of the radical left cancel culture. I think the left does it on a much grander scale, maybe because of their reach with the media and the culture, but then again, I am extremely biased. I am also personally not buying certain products so the right definitely does it.

 

[Ayo]

How is she being “cancelled”? What does that mean?

I still think cancel culture is a useless term that has no real definition and isn’t really applied consistently across examples so that a solid definition is even possible.

So what’s the point?

 

[TheRealTruth]

How is she being “cancelled”? What does that mean?

I still think cancel culture is a useless term that has no real definition and isn’t really applied consistently across examples so that a solid definition is even possible.

So what’s the point?

A pretty quick search yielded this from dictionary.com.

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.

I think the key word is shaming. People tend to use social media platforms to shame a person/group/company for views they have expressed that are in opposition to a movement or group. If this instance(farb's post), the LGBTQ+ movement shaming JK Rowling for being a terf.

 

[Farb]

So what’s the point?

I guess to get people fired if they have a different view point? That seems to be the main objective.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...posting-hashtag-stand-JK-Rowling-Twitter.html

 

[Ayo]

A pretty quick search yielded this from dictionary.com.

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.

I'm familiar with the conventional use, I promise. I've done more than just a 'pretty quick search' and I still think the definition above is not really specific enough to be useful.

You cited the word shaming, and I think that might be more useful. But my brother sent me an example of "cancel culture" that was "cancelling a student's reputation by making it disappear" as his school. No, it wasn't. It was online bullying.

When I see the term, it's usually some insipid attempt to play politics and position someone as a victim in a less effective way than if they were to simply talk about what it is. Not trying to force it into a category that's become ubiquitous online.

 

[LA - L.A.]

A pretty quick search yielded this from dictionary.com.

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.

I think the key word is shaming. People tend to use social media platforms to shame a person/group/company for views they have expressed that are in opposition to a movement or group. If this instance(farb's post), the LGBTQ+ movement shaming JK Rowling for being a terf.

By that definition, shaming others on social media for shaming others on social media is by definition, "cancel culture." By that definition, if you're shaming the "right" or the "left" for "cancelling" others, then you're also "cancelling" others and engaging in "cancel culture."

 

[Ayo]

I guess to get people fired if they have a different view point? That seems to be the main objective.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...posting-hashtag-stand-JK-Rowling-Twitter.html

but see, here's the problem I was (I suppose inartfully) getting at.

You used Rowling as a great example of this cancel culture.

So, I asked - specifically - how is she being cancelled? What does it mean?

You said it means "getting people fired" but even that is preceded with "I guess...."

I think that is problematic for two reasons. First, you cite a clear example but when asked for a definition, it's just a "guess."

Secondly, you "guess" the definition is getting someone fired.

Who is firing JK Rowling? What is she being fired from? Who is firing her? I don't see any of that happening to her. So, the definition that you propose doesn't fit the great example that you single out - which is exactly the problem I am trying to illustrate.

 

[Ayo]

By that definition, shaming others on social media for shaming others on social media is by definition, "cancel culture." By that definition, if you're shaming the "right" or the "left" for "cancelling" others, then you're also "cancelling" others and engaging in "cancel culture."

Yea. I'm not trying to be difficult - seriously.

I am *staunchly* anti-censorship. I've battled colleagues and parents and site and district administration over things I was teaching.

So I am generally sympathetic to this notion of shaming into silence.

But I'm being 100% serious when I say I have no idea how to have the conversation, because the core phrase and definition is such a moving target.

In my experience, this is not a signal to actual discussion about a problem, but rather just a decontextualized talking point that becomes nothing more than an umbrella term to consolidate exaggerated victimization.

 

[Ayo]

I think the left does it on a much grander scale, maybe because of their reach with the media and the culture

I also think this isn't entirely correct. I mean, you have the President of the United States talking openly about left bias in news channels and speculating about closing them down. He's talking about withholding funds from schools if they don't open - literally, cancelling school.

the right controls Facebook and the hive of right writers/bloggers gaming the algorithm for hate and violence (Daily Wire, Pool, Molyneaux, JPW, Walsh, Shapiro, Ngo, Miles Cheong, Dice, etc) and gets more views than all of the left FB ads/'news' put together

FOX News, Tucker Carlson mentioned earlier, storm the airwaves with their hate and propaganda, slamming the left.

I really don't see the right being overshadowed by the left here. I am not sure how you'd even go about quantifying it (a definition becomes relevant here, obviously) to compare, but I don't think there's some gulf between the two.

I keep seeing people on the right talking about how the 'left' has taken over the 'culture' - but they also never explain that. What culture? Shapiro believes it's Western and white, as do most of the rest of the Daily Wire alarmists. And how do you tell? It seems to me that there's a fringe on either side, with a lot of people in the middle trying to get by.

So "reach with the culture" is a phrase I don't fully get, and from what I understand, I definitely don't buy it.

I spent way more time on right twitter than I do on left, to try and see what the 'other side' thinks and says and is popular. And that point keeps coming up - this cultural lament.

It's never explained. It's never defended. It's just taken for granted and it's almost *always* used as a preface to a point about 'taking it back' which is divisive intolerance with no context.

It's another phrase I don't put much stock into because it becomes a shorthand phrase to signal oppression or victimization without actually having to explain it.