Cancel culture IRL

[Leftus]

While I can even somewhat sympathize with the position, and I've even said it myself before, I'll also have to agree with Joe: people are still free to want to associate with you or not. As long as they're not crossing some legal boundaries themselves, like assaulting you or defacing your property, you can't really tell them they have to interact with you. It may be for the right or the wrong reasons, but they still have the basic human right to do as they please.

I'm not saying anyone needs to associate with anyone else, but what I find a bit disturbing is what is happening to Chris Pratt. Every drop of "evidence" is fabricated, it's all based on lies. Did that stop it? Nope. And while he hasn't been cancelled yet, someone without his profile might be.

The question if Ray Rice should be allowed to play football (which was what I was addressing), should have been answered by the legal system. I'm sorry, but we can't release the inmate on work release.

At some point in time, we have to get rid of this scarlet letter thinking.

 

[Leftus]

But... he wasn't fired. He still works at Skidmore College to this day.

This is what I'm talking about. We present actual reality as it actually happened and we're countered with things that either could have happened but didn't or straight-up alternative universe fanfiction.

And when you have the entire scope of creation to cherry pick examples from and the best you can come up with is something that almost happened...

Bret Weinstein.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Bret Weinstein.

And?

 

[Darat]

Bret Weinstein.

A name - is it meant to mean something, express a point or what?

 

[JoeMorgue]

We're not going to sit here and playing trolling 20 question to get to a point.

Nobody has said that "cancelling" people is always correct or that there's no honest discourse to be had about any one individual example of it.

Just that as a concept it's not a problem, nor as it getting worse.

People have not liked other people since the dawn of time. Acting like it's suddenly some now, major type of problem because the disadvantaged people no longer are hampered by the previous restrictions is dishonest.

 

[Sherkeu]

A name - is it meant to mean something, express a point or what?

I believe he is speaking of the Evergreen College "Lord of the Flies" student fiasco in Washington State. Bret and his wife were fired. (both tenured)

The reason was him not agreeing with a "white students" stay off campus day.

 

[Emily's Cat]

of course i can discern the difference, i've been pointing it out for quite some time myself to what it seems like is no avail. cancel culture is, in it's essence, a large number of people each making individual decisions to not buy a product and/or let a company know why. i've been saying people are absolutely allowed to make these decisions not only for professional conduct or job relevant behavior, but for any reason they want.

if the NFL hires skip bayless, who is notorious for saying all kinds of ridiculous nonsense, to do play by play I can stop buying tickets and turning on their events because i just plain don't like the guy. i can start a twitter campaign to try and let as many people know my opinion and convince them they also shouldn't like the guy, and i can let the NFL know directly, and if enough people feel the same way skip bayless can be "cancelled" because i like the product better without him

there's not a single step of that process that i feel is wrong or unjustified

cancel culture isn't just a series of death threats. those are unfortunate and should be handled accordingly as well as any other unlawful behavior. if you want to throw the baby out with the bath water over it, i don't think you've made a very convincing argument as to why. let alone even tried to address how.

I condemn the doxxing, threatening, and coercing - that is what I consider cancel culture.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And this is what I mean by Proudly Wrong.

We say something.

They say something that is demonstrably not true and the proof they will present that the world is out to get them is that they aren't being treated the same.

And they get angrier and angrier, more and more hostile, as people try to pull them back to "No this is reality, this is what happened, no we don't have to account for things that are only happening in your head."

I'll reiterate:

I seriously do not know how to interact with someone who takes the view that "hey, those people got hounded out of their jobs, received hate mail and death threats, were vilified and attacked by anonymous people, and spent months to years being traumatized by the events... but they eventually managed to find a job, so they're okay, no big deal, cancel culture is harmless!!!!"

Do you even understand the concept of principles?

 

[Emily's Cat]

But... he wasn't fired. He still works at Skidmore College to this day.

This is what I'm talking about. We present actual reality as it actually happened and we're countered with things that either could have happened but didn't or straight-up alternative universe fanfiction.

And when you have the entire scope of creation to cherry pick examples from and the best you can come up with is something that almost happened...

No, in the end he wasn't fired.

But he was harassed, he was painted as being a DANGER to his students, and as being HATEFUL and a racist. He was subjected to boycott because he WATCHED a rally to get a first hand look at what was going on. His MERE PRESENCE was framed as an act of HATE... Other students were threatened with being tarnished by such "bigotry" if they attended his classes WHICH HAD NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH BLM OR THE POLICE.

On a recent day, Peterson arrived at his classroom to find a notice taped to the door. "STOP," it demanded. "By entering this class you are crossing a campus-wide picket line and breaking the boycott against Professor David Peterson."

"This is not a safe environment for marginalized students," the notice also said, after vaguely accusing Peterson of past sexism and transphobia. "By continuing to take this course you are enabling bigoted behavior on this campus."

...

But a Skidmore student told me those who oppose the boycott of Peterson (or just find it insanely silly) are afraid to speak up. They're intimidated.

So no, he didn't get fired. But he was harassed, painted as a person who made school a literal danger to students, libeled as a bigot and a racist... and the other students in his class were intimidated for fear of being labeled and harassed as bigots if they didn't drop his class.

But really guys, it's no big deal. It's fine. Not a problem at all. It's perfectly acceptable, right?

 

[Emily's Cat]

lol

i don't think so, but i'm not monitoring that

i brought it up because this whole thread is about rights, mostly freedom of expression but a couple of other ones.

you don't like discussing rights?

It's not about legal rights, for the most part. It's about social norms and mores that support and indulge behaviors that are destructive, vindictive, and exaggerated being treated as if they're exactly the same as a person simply deciding not to buy the book of someone they dislike...

It's the normalization and acceptance of anti-social witch-hunting behaviors that is the topic of discussion.

It's particularly disturbing when actual death threats and harassement - which are crimes, but can't be pursued because the perpetrators are anonymous - get brushed aside as no big deal because "well, in the end he didn't get fired"

 

[d4m10n]

you don't like discussing rights?

You don't need it to be passing a new law to be essentially trying to de factor limit your rights, or at the very least complain that you have them.

Okay, who is suggesting that the rights described above should be limited either de facto or otherwise?

I'm pretty sure these two statements are distinct:

1) Students ought not organize to get teachers sacked for merely attending or spectating at a legally protected protest/counterprotest

2) Students should be punished or sanctioned if they organize to get teachers sacked for merely attending or spectating at a legally protected protest/counterprotest

 

[Emily's Cat]

It can be stupid and a bit entitled in some cases, but it's nothing new. It's actually as old as old as the western civilization. Socrates got "cancelled" even harder, and it was actually for some of the things he was teaching, just over 2400 years ago.

This comes up again and again. Nobody is arguing that it's *new*. Some people are arguing that it's *unacceptable* while others are arguing that it's *no big deal*.

Seriously, sexism has been around for pretty much all of human history too. I don't see anybody arguing that sexism is no big deal because of that.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And?

A name - is it meant to mean something, express a point or what?

I do enjoy the "What, I've never heard of this, this is a mystery to me" position for an incident that was a pretty big deal, had its own thread on ISF, has been mentioned in several other threads that you've both taken part in, and was linked to in this very thread.

 

[Elaedith]

This comes up again and again. Nobody is arguing that it's *new*. Some people are arguing that it's *unacceptable* while others are arguing that it's *no big deal*.

Seriously, sexism has been around for pretty much all of human history too. I don't see anybody arguing that sexism is no big deal because of that.

Presumably none of the nastiest things humans are capable of are worth our concern as long as they aren't new.

 

[lobosrul5]

I believe he is speaking of the Evergreen College "Lord of the Flies" student fiasco in Washington State. Bret and his wife were fired. (both tenured)

The reason was him not agreeing with a "white students" stay off campus day.

According to wikipedia he was not fired. He sued the school for $3.8 million for not doing enough to protect him from students. He agreed to resign after both he and his wife received $250,000 settlements (a piece I think).

I've gone through Emily Cat's list and honestly the one guy who I truly feel has been screwed over is Emmanuel Cafferty.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

According to wikipedia he was not fired. He sued the school for $3.8 million for not doing enough to protect him from students. He agreed to resign after both he and his wife received $250,000 settlements (a piece I think).

I've gone through Emily Cat's list and honestly the one guy who I truly feel has been screwed over is Emmanuel Cafferty.

Yeah, I also looked him up and found that the story didn't match that description of it much at all.

 

[Darat]

I believe he is speaking of the Evergreen College "Lord of the Flies" student fiasco in Washington State. Bret and his wife were fired. (both tenured)

The reason was him not agreeing with a "white students" stay off campus day.

According to the Wikipedia entry he sued the university for $3.8, and they came to a settlement of paying him $250,000 and he resigned? Surely it was the suing part that resulted in him resigning?

 

[Darat]

I do enjoy the "What, I've never heard of this, this is a mystery to me" position for an incident that was a pretty big deal, had its own thread on ISF, has been mentioned in several other threads that you've both taken part in, and was linked to in this very thread.

Your straw men are now really nothing more than lies.

 

[Sherkeu]

According to the Wikipedia entry he sued the university for $3.8, and they came to a settlement of paying him $250,000 and he resigned? Surely it was the suing part that resulted in him resigning?

I am corrected.

I just recalled the basics from the documentary footage they put out that he could not go back.
Those kids were pretty darn awful to all of the staff there.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm not saying anyone needs to associate with anyone else, but what I find a bit disturbing is what is happening to Chris Pratt. Every drop of "evidence" is fabricated, it's all based on lies. Did that stop it? Nope. And while he hasn't been cancelled yet, someone without his profile might be.

Well, see, this is the problem I have with this thread in a nutshell. Virtually all of the horrible damage I'm supposed to be appalled by is at the stage of "might eventually happen", or it might be at the end of the most ridiculously hyperbole of a slippery slope, or such. And that is when it's not just simply made up, but let's ignore those for a while.

How about we worry about things that happened in reality, rather than what SF fanfic sequel to those events someone imagined in their head? I mean, you can imagine any sequence of events, when you're the author and control the story and the reactions of everyone involved. Reality tends to have more rigid constraints than that.