• Benkei
    7.2k
    In reply to another post to not derail that thread:

    The issue seems to be about whether we 'cancel' on the basis of intent to harm or mere disagreement. The moment we set the criteria to mere disagreement (from a left wing agenda), we put in place social structures to do exactly that same thing (from a right wing agenda) depending entirely on who has most social capital at the time. I think that's a dangerous place to be.Isaac

    There's a difference between taking grievances serious and taking lies seriously. Cancel culture is a right wing lie that doesn't deserve the amount of air time it gets - it should be ignored especially now that it has been politicized. In fact, I think "cancel culture" is about public accountability.

    Also, I think on many subjects we're way past let's talk about our "disagreements". Racism needs to stop. Employee exploitation just needs to stop. Talking shit about transgenders, gays, lesbians, transsexuals etc. just has to stop. Joking about disabled people has to stop.

    People fought wars over justice to get it. Slavery was abolished thanks to violence. Segregation was ended by government force. Sometimes talking things over is just over. The fact societies are moving in that direction is because the wealth inequality, the abuse, the racism is getting to a point where common people no longer accept it. I don't even think that's really a left vs. right wing thing; that's just a lot of people trying to maintain the status quo because they cannot envisage anything better.


    Here's a perfectly good reason not to visit StarBucks and to let your grievances known by spamming them. If enough people will join, media will call it "cancel culture" again. But really, fuck Starbucks. I don't need to listen to them explain away their corporate greed, we need them to stop this and have them pay their employees a living wage.
  • frank
    14.6k
    Cancel culture is a right wing lie that doesn't deserve the amount of air time it gets - it should be ignored especially now that it has been politicizedBenkei

    I think Margaret Atwood's warnings about the dangers of cancel culture are legit. It's not a lie.
  • Cuthbert
    1.1k
    Sometimes talking things over is just over.Benkei

    But how much better than the alternative.

    Slavery was abolished thanks to violence.Benkei

    Very true. There was no other way. But we are not slaves and not being treated as slaves. So we don't need to use violence. The time for talking is here.

    I get scared when I see someone pick up a sword. But when they are convinced it's the sword of rigtheousness I am bloody terrified. Then nothing will stop them.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    :rofl: Not being treated like slaves. No, not in the traditional sense but wage slavery is a thing. Especially in the US.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    Cancel culture is a right wing lieBenkei

    Cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". The expression "cancel culture" has mostly negative connotations and is used in debates on free speech and censorship.

    Cancel culture - Wikipedia

    Obviously, the term can be misused for political reasons, but that doesn't mean that the culture, trend, or phenomenon itself does not exist.

    But I tend to agree on Starbucks .... :wink:
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    Perhaps you care to reproduce those "warnings". If you're just going to allude to it, it's not interesting as a reply.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    There's a difference between taking grievances serious and taking lies seriously.Benkei

    There is indeed. That doesn't mean anything you think are lies count as lies. That way no discourse can ever take place. You have to have space for something you think is a lie, but might not be, otherwise you're just a dogmatist. So the point is not the existence of a threshold beyond which we don't 'debate', the point is it's location.

    Case in point follows...

    Talking shit about transgenders, gays, lesbians, transsexuals etc. just has to stop. Joking about disabled people has to stop.

    People fought wars over justice to get it.
    Benkei

    No they didn't. It's one of those 'undisputed facts' we like so much that absolutely no-one ever fought a war over "transgenders, gays, lesbians, transsexuals". They fought wars (or serious violent protest) over slavery, racial segregation, female emancipation... The fact that you've piggybacked off those conflicts to add your campaign de jour is exactly what I'm talking about. You can't just say that because some matters are beyond reasonable discussion, any matter you care to raise can be put into that pot. If we want to get along, rather than just break into permanently warring factions, we have to hold to some reasonably well-agreed upon common ground.

    The point is not whether we should always debate and never fight, I'm with you on that one, there's a time for fighting, there's a time to stop talking and just kick people out of polite society...

    ...the question I'm raising is how we decide when that time is, not whether it exists at all.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    Obviously, the term can be misused for political reasons, but that doesn't mean that the culture, trend, or phenomenon itself does not exist.

    But I tend to agree on Starbucks .... :wink:
    Apollodorus

    That's one of many definitions of the phenomenon out there where we're allowing framing to distort what is happening. What is happening is holding companies and people publicly accountable.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    By and large, so-called cancel culture only concerns people with a significant social media exposure, who tend to care for their online or public profile, who gamble on twitter. If you don't care too much for these things it does not affect you. It's perfectly possible to cancel the cancelers. That's what Woody Allen has done for years.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    It's one of those 'undisputed facts' we like so much that absolutely no-one ever fought a war over "transgenders, gays, lesbians, transsexuals".Isaac

    Not what I said. I said people will fight wars for justice. And I think this particular subject is exemplar for the general issue of disrespect of human dignity by politicians and corporations and the shills that keep defending it. I mentioned those probably because this was lifted from a discussion in the changing sex thread but the problem is broader and the anger is widespread. Just look at the US hiring crisis, the very public unionizing going on in the US to combat all the shit average US citizens have to deal with just to make a living wage. The downright injustice of elites thinking they have earned their millions over the backs of workers.

    The fact that you've piggybacked off those conflicts to add your campaign de jour is exactly what I'm talking about. You can't just say that because some matters are beyond reasonable discussion, any matter you care to raise can be put into that pot.Isaac

    I don't think it's piggybacking and has a very clear link. Oppression and repression, it all looks the same regardless of who is on the receiving end. But it's always about ensuring the powerless cannot do what they want to do.

    ...the question I'm raising is how we decide when that time is, not whether it exists at all.Isaac

    Almost all of these issues are about human dignity and class warfare and it looks like a powderkeg ready to explode to me. Does some of the flaming appear retaliatory? Well, no shit, it's poor people finding a voice to call out the Karens after they've been shit upon by Karens half of their lives. The local mom & pop store can't hire anybody anymore because they exploited their employees? Yes, that is personal. That's not cancel culture that's justice where you know you're not going to get it from the courts, politicians or companies you're working for.
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    Cancel culture is a right wing lieBenkei

    Cancel culture is one of many right wing attempts to win what they regard as the culture war that threatens their way of life. The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of examples of right wing cancel culture, as a google search shows.

    A helpful rule of thumb: look at what the right accuses the left of to find out what the right is doing.
  • Isaac
    10.3k


    You talk about elites and the powerless, yet every issue at stake in 'cancel culture' avoids class like the plague.

    Are there no rich black people, no rich homosexuals, no rich transgender, no rich transsexuals?

    Are there no black CEOs, no homosexual CEOs, no transgender CEOs, no transsexuals CEOs?

    I'll tell you what there isn't. There's no working class rich people. There's no working class CEOs.

    You want to turn the woke agenda into a class agenda when class is the one thing it avoids mentioning at all costs.
  • Hanover
    12.1k
    Here's a perfectly good reason not to visit StarBucks and to let your grievances known by spamming them. If enough people will join, media will call it "cancel culture" again. But really, fuck Starbucks. I don't need to listen to them explain away their corporate greed, we need them to stop this and have them pay their employees a living wage.Benkei

    In your OP, you gave examples of (near) universal agreement. Slavery, for example, is something we can all condemn. I'm willing to boycott those who enslave.

    I'm entirely unoffended by how much a purveyor of luxury items (your mocha latte or whatever you coffee drinkers drink) pays its CEO though. If you boycott, I don't think that's cancel culture. I just think you're fighting a distinctly first world fight, a bourgeoisie revolution of sorts.

    I find cancel culture offensive in instances where people are discarded instead of tolerated in the hopes of reforming, from Rogan to Whoopi. Perfection isn't a human quality. It's just all so sanctimonious, casting stones, as if we're not all in glass houses.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    That's one of many definitions of the phenomenon out there where we're allowing framing to distort what is happening. What is happening is holding companies and people publicly accountable.Benkei

    Well, I've got nothing against anyone being held publicly accountable if they've done something that is legally or morally wrong. In fact, I'm all for it.

    But the fact remains that people can be "cancelled", i.e. made to lose their jobs, or "disappeared", etc. in an attempt to silence them for political reasons. It usually happens in repressive societies, but it can also happen in liberal democracies. In which case, I wouldn't say it "doesn't exist" as a phenomenon.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    Are you now or have you ever been ... woke?

    McCarthy was probably not the originator, but surely the epitome of cancel culture.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    @Benkei

    For the removal of doubt. This is what I mean by cancel culture...

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock

    https://www.imore.com/spotify-overwhelmed-requests-cancel-following-joe-rogan-saga

    https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/05/21/why-is-peter-doshi-still-an-editor-at-the-bmj-rfk-jr-version/

    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jk-rowling-speaks-out-on-being-cancelled-084934390.html

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/25/blasphemy-is-now-a-sackable-offence-asda-islam-billy-connolly/

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/05/transphobia-has-no-place-in-the-whoniverse/

    https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/07/07/gillian-philip-publisher-sacked-warrior-cats-author-jk-rowling-harpercollins-uk-transphobia/

    Are you seriously trying to argue there's a class warfare thread running through those?

    I have absolutely no complaint about the many legitimate 'cancelations' of people who have turned out to be racist, homophobic, sexist, far-right sympathisers, holocaust deniers... These people intend harm (they might believe the harm is deserved, or for the best, but they actually intend harm of some kind to their victims).

    Disagreeing about the use of the term 'woman', or the best public health strategy, or the proper use of cultural terms might cause harm (depending on who's right), but it is not intended to harm. There's a huge difference
  • Philosophim
    2.2k
    "Cancel Culture" is a term invented by people who don't want society to ever give them negative consequences for saying or doing certain things. In this instance, it is from a group that likes being selfish and self-centered. You can't justify being selfish and self-centered, so the strategy is to make people feel bad for being against their selfishness and self-centeredness.

    One common thread through the history of philosophy will always reveal a trend for humanity to attempt to justify selfishness and self-centeredness in some way.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    You want to turn the woke agenda into a class agenda when class is the one thing it avoids mentioning at all costs.Isaac

    Your idea of woke and cancel culture is exactly how right wingers like to frame it, as "political correctness gone awry". If that's your take away then congratulations on being fooled by right wing framing.
  • Isaac
    10.3k


    Go on... I'm fooled because...

    Give me some examples of people being canceled because of their pro-wealth positions, or for supporting slave labour companies like Apple....

    Something to back up your claim that this is about oppression in general and not just about the kind of oppression that the rich can have a slice of too.

    Without a shadow of a doubt the most oppressed group on the planet are poor children working in near slavery to support Western consumerism. Explain to me how forcing Kathleen Stock out of her job helps them.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    You have your head way up your own ass if you think cancel culture doesnt exist. You simply can’t have looked into it in any depth.
    Congratulations on being fooled by left wing framing.
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    Some examples of right wing cancel culture:

    The Chicks
    Colin Kaepernick
    Nike
    Target
    NASCAR
    Keurig
    Gillette
    Samantha Bee
    Beyonce
    Ellen DeGeneres
    https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/conservatives-love-cancel-culture)

    Delta Airlines
    Major League Baseball
    (https://www.vox.com/22384308/cancel-culture-free-speech-accountability-debate)

    One of, if not the biggest promoters of cancel culture, is Donald Trump.
  • Isaac
    10.3k


    It's not clear what point you're making. Both right and left wing try to leverage this new social tool to suppress opposition. The question wasn't which political groups use it, the question was whether it was a dangerous tool to encourage the use of. Do you have a view on that?
  • frank
    14.6k
    Perhaps you care to reproduce those "warnings". If you're just going to allude to it, it's not interesting as a reply.Benkei

    Here

    It's you against J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Noam Chomsky, and others.

    Good luck with that.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    reddit.com/antiwork
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    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.

    I have no issue arguing with a bunch of writers. I'm not impressed. Chomsky would be fun. We'd probably end up finding common ground relatively quickly.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    I suppose the problem with throngs of folks angrily pursuing social justice over the interwebs is that things are often more complicated than most people think.

    Take the curious case of the cancelation of Victor Arnautoff's murals at San Francisco's George Washington High School. The murals portray George Washington as a slave owner and a colonialist. They were made by a communist painter during the New Deal. They have historical, political and esthetic value. But the “Life of Washington” was hidden behind solid wood panels because it 'triggered' someone...
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    The question wasn't which political groups use itIsaac

    The OP states:

    Cancel culture is a right wing lie ...Benkei

    The issue is often framed in terms a left wing attempt to limit free speech. To the extent that this is true I agree with the OP that it is a right wing lie. But I don't agree that cancel culture does not exist. Although the terminology is new, it has always existed in one form or another.

    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. On the one hand, there is no agreed upon use of the term or the extent to which one might go to cancel someone or something. On the other, we need to consider what it is that prompts calls to cancel. Clearly it can be taken to extremes. It can be dangerous in so far as a tool in so far as it restricts communication and attempts to come to an agreement. It can also be dangerous in that it may cause harm incommensurate with what was said or done. But it can also be an effective means of righting wrongs. But, of course, some will think the wrongs right and righting them wrong.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    I suppose the problem with throngs of folks angrily pursuing social justice over the interwebs is that things are often more complicated than most people think.

    Take the curious case of the cancelation of Victor Arnautoff's murals at San Francisco's George Washington High School. The murals portray George Washington as a slave owner and a colonialist. They were made by a communist painter during the New Deal. They have historical, political and esthetic value. But the “Life of Washington” was hidden behind solid wood panels because it 'triggered' someone...
    Olivier5

    I 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. We need to be careful to say there's a problem with forcing public accountability because some turned out to be wrongful. That's kind of like saying not take complaints of rape seriously because some women make it up.

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

    The Harper's Letter was dumb as hell; a circle-jerk for the signatories, all of whom have immense platforms and each of whom can directly reach an audience that all of us combined are unlikely to ever experience. The letter was so pitiful that it couldn't even provide direct, unambiguous examples of people who have been "canceled" and the whole term, (which is extremely goofy, by the way) is primarily a concern for people of a certain class or occupation or politico-ideological beliefs that want to distract away from actual material concerns that a majority of people face. What's also exceptional to me, is that a number of signatories are prominent political scientists who are unable to grasp the fact that "cancel culture" is a fundamental component of liberal democracy, i.e., the ability to freely associate with a group of other individuals with a common identity (ideological, ethnic, class, etc.) and to defend/protect that collective identity, which will always be in tension with the freedom of speech insofar as the latter does or potentially harms the former, as is the case with say transrights (which signatories Jesse Singal and JK Rowling have done), or Black Americans (Haidt et. al. has defended race science), or Palestinians (Bari Weiss, who in fact become famous by trying to "cancel" i.e. fire a pro-Palestinian professor at Columbia). What the signers decry as a "force of illiberalism" is in actuality an element of liberalism, Freedom of Association, expressing itself.Maw

    For years, and even to this day, Marxist thought is all but banned in the US. They try to discredit BLM because a bunch of Marxists push a fucking conservative agenda (respect my rights and life!), totally ignoring what they stand for. Now a couple of rabid racists and their enablers are barred from a couple of shows, because - hello - racism is out of vogue (Fucking finally, right?!), and all of a sudden it's a problem. Those cancellations are profit driven and not ideological. It's not a culture war, it's marketing. Live goes on and the racists will retreat in their "cultural norms and values" code and how it's under threat from everything they don't like, which includes leftists and anything with pigment.Benkei
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    The issue is often framed in terms a left wing attempt to limit free speech. To the extent that this is true I agree with the OP that it is a right wing lie. But I don't agree that cancel culture does not exist. Although the terminology is new, it has always existed in one form or another.Fooloso4

    Let me rephrase, cancelling as political correctness gone rogue, doesn't exist. I prefer public accountability instead.
  • Fooloso4
    5.5k
    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

    We should be wary of a mob mentality.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    Not really. We need to assess independently whether what the mob wants is something agree with and if so join them.
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