Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

[Dr. Keith]

As good an example of cancel culture as you can get. Soon to be dismissed by the usual subjects.

How is this an example of hoards of people uncritically rallying via social media for disproportionate damage to be done to a person/organization based on a limited view of the issues at hand?

Not all critique that you disagree with is cancel culture.

 

[EaglePuncher]

nvm

 

[Lithrael]

I’ll wander near defending this to say that the criticism presented doesn’t look unexamined as it has been described as here. It looks like they have objections based on what is actually in the peice and not ‘what they think it is about.’ Agreeing with the objections or not, they are considered and genuine objections and not just ‘a white lady wrote it and that’s bad!’

It sounds like the main thing grinding gears here is that the story’s focus and POV character is a (fictional) white lady who feels bad about it. I can understand wanting to tell that story and I can also understand being frustrated with that focus around such events. It’d be like doing a movie called ‘the murder of Alonso Brooks’ where you mainly focus on his white friends who drove him to and left him at the party where he was murdered. Like yes that would be a compelling angle but also I can see the bad taste it would leave in some peoples’ mouths. And in this opera there isn’t even a real white friend, just a fictional character standing in for the ‘nice white lady’ experience.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

from the composer's point of view

"Yes, the opera has a fictional white character — but it isn't about her," composer Mary D. Watkins said in a statement to Playbill. "It is a true story that happened in our American history that could be told by anyone." from The Insider article previously linked.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Without addressing the virtue of the criticism, what makes this critique Cancel Culture rather than just criticism?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The actual main character

"The main character in the opera is not the white teacher, in fact, but Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother, whose courageous decision to have an open casket funeral helped to publicize the gruesome reality of Jim Crow terror...The politics of the racialists, who focus their anger on “white” collaborators, is antithetical to the conceptions that inspired millions to take part in the mass struggles to build industrial trade unions and to tear down the barriers of segregation in the three decades from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s." WSWS. The whole article is worth reading.

 

[Dr. Keith]

"The main character in the opera is not the white teacher, in fact, but Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother, whose courageous decision to have an open casket funeral helped to publicize the gruesome reality of Jim Crow terror...The politics of the racialists, who focus their anger on “white” collaborators, is antithetical to the conceptions that inspired millions to take part in the mass struggles to build industrial trade unions and to tear down the barriers of segregation in the three decades from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s." WSWS. The whole article is worth reading.

None of that helps if you are trying to make a case that this is somehow related to cancel culture. Twitter quotes would, though.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

"The main character in the opera is not the white teacher, in fact, but Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother, whose courageous decision to have an open casket funeral helped to publicize the gruesome reality of Jim Crow terror...The politics of the racialists, who focus their anger on “white” collaborators, is antithetical to the conceptions that inspired millions to take part in the mass struggles to build industrial trade unions and to tear down the barriers of segregation in the three decades from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s." WSWS. The whole article is worth reading.

I'm going to go ahead and doubt how much cultural influence a Trotskyite newspaper has in the wider world.

I'm still trying to figure out the cancel part of this. Original reporting stated that tickets are sold out. Some people have leveled criticisms.

How is this meaningfully different than people complaining that the new Disney movies use too much greenscreen? People like to complain, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for dumb reasons.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Censorious fascists going 3/3 on losing lawsuits angainst Antifa super soldier Chad Loder:

The last right-wing extremist who tried to sue me lost badly in court, he was reprimanded by the judge, and now owes me several thousand dollars in legal fees. I'm now 3-for-3 winning these ridiculous, attention-seeking stunts. **** around and find out.

https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1507151921273995285?cxt=HHwWqoCsof2rveopAAAA

Of course, no legal finding can make up for the deluge of death threats that came after Andy Ngo publicized that Loder had been disarmed as a result of the frivolous protection orders. Ngo's fanbase are notoriously violent, including one who is currently facing a murder charge and 4 attempted murder charges for opening fire into an unarmed protest crowd. Andy Ngo is now reporting that a close associate of the three previous frivolous litigants is now filing a defamation claim against Loder. Non-stop frivolous lawsuit attempts to silence a critic. Fortunately California has an aggressive SLAPP law that will likely mean this lawsuit ends the same as others, with fascists owing Loder money.

Pearl clutching "cancel culture" pundits don't seem too interested in the attempts of violent fascists to threaten their critics into silence, but in fact regularly hold up Ngo as some victim of cancel culture himself.

 

[Lithrael]

”The main character in the opera is not the white teacher, in fact, but Mamie Till, Emmett’s mother(…)”

Ah OK so the critics just don’t like any fictional white focus and pov character included in this story even if it’s not the main focus. “If we are going to tell the story of Emmett Till, it should only be from a Black perspective, a Black writer, and [with] permission and approval from Till’s family(…)”

Again without taking a side in that argument, it’s how some people feel and they made a petition about it. Is that not appropriate?

The only thing I’ve seen I’ll dish on is a commenter justifying the accusation that it’s really just black tragedy packaged as white entertainment by saying that an opera can’t really be for black people because black people don’t like opera. I don’t think this person has actually examined the question of who likes opera.

 

[Checkmite]

The most puzzling aspect of the whole hullabaloo about "cancel culture" is that, as it's normally defined (or suggested to be defined) by those who decry it, it's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over something that nothing can be done about. Even if one agrees that cancel culture "is a thing", and even concedes that it is a specifically bad thing, in the end, it's still just speech.

As an individual, I am free to listen to someone speak and say "that is the stupidest and most reprehensible thing I've ever heard and I never want anything to do with this individual or those who willingly associate with them, to include employers", Maybe that is an unduly harsh opinion, or an overreaction; maybe someone would call never visiting the Burger King or hardware store that person happens to work at a disproportionate response to their personal opinion about gay marriage or whatever. Maybe my opinion is based on being a complete misreading of his comment or my own being misinformed about the topic in general. But ultimately, none of that actually matters; it's my statement to make and I'm free to make it, whether you feel it's justified or not. Both saying the statement publicly and carrying out the act described (i.e, not going to that store anymore) are protected acts of speech.

"Cancel culture" seems to be the thing that happens after I make my statement if enough people end up agreeing with me that all of our individual acts of speech in the aggregate create a market force that compels business decisions which end up negatively impacting the person I'm unhappy with. Okay, well that's definitely bad for that person...so, what? It's an unpreventable consequence of free speech.

Certainly you can't just make it illegal for me to say I don't want to patronize a business as long as a certain person works there, however you personally feel about that statement. And if you can't make it illegal for me to say it, neither can you make it illegal for anyone to agree with me and say so. So stopping or preventing "cancel culture" on the speech side is a non-starter.

So...regulation, then? Make it illegal to base business decisions on public opinion? That doesn't seem very likely does it; some entire sectors of industry's business models revolve around public opinion and reacting to it. Try to drill down maybe - make it illegal specifically to fire or demote an individual based on public opinion? Now service sector businesses are stuck with rude, incompetent, or poorly-performing employees, that employers can only know about due to customer complaints.

And that's just getting into cases of "cancel culture" where an individual is actually fired from, say, a job. How are you supposed to prevent a small business from going under because the business owner has been "cancelled"? How are you supposed to prevent a situation where nobody invites a "cancelled" person to participate or contribute to events? How are you supposed to prevent an internet "influencer" from failing at making an internet-based living because no sponsors want to pay for ads on their channel(s)?

It's a lot of hand-wringing over something about which, in the practical sense, nothing can really be done.

 

[tyr_13]

[SNIP]
"Cancel culture" seems to be the thing that happens after I make my statement if enough people end up agreeing with me that all of our individual acts of speech in the aggregate create a market force that compels business decisions which end up negatively impacting the person I'm unhappy with.

The thing suggested 'be done' is to interrupt this step. That is to say, to create cultural mores that the threshold for withholding money or other support is much higher than it currently is for these subjects. This extends a quasi 'protected status' based not on law, but custom. Use speech to convince people this should be done.

The obvious problem that should disabuse anyone not doing their best Sea Lion of the value of doing this is that the specific things that tend to get people 'canceled' are things where that 'grace by custom' are absolutely not reciprocal, and them not being that are often the very reason people find support for them is wrong. And there is no chance of the common targets of 'cancel culture' starting to do that. If one could convince them to do so, they wouldn't even be canceled in the first place!

For example, if person or business A is canceled for seeming racism, getting people to not hold their racism against it will do nothing to stop A from holding race against others. It will in fact protect it and allow A to continue. It leads to more people being 'canceled' but canceled in a way that critics of 'cancel culture' don't recognize as such. Getting fired for being black isn't 'cancel culture' but not patronizing a business the public suspects of firing people for being black is.

The idea increases injustice. This is obvious unless one is of the intellectually bankrupt belief that majority groups are subject to more injustice than traditionally oppressed groups. It isn't chance that critics of 'cancel culture' tend to cite examples of a group they belong to being held to some kind of account.

 

[gnome]

I think the best we can do is sort of what we ostensibly promote here by such mission as there is in skepticism: promote becoming informed before reacting. Are the details that are making people the most angry accurate? Maybe yes. But it's good all around if people take a minute to try and find out.

 

[tyr_13]

I think the best we can do is sort of what we ostensibly promote here by such mission as there is in skepticism: promote becoming informed before reacting. Are the details that are making people the most angry accurate? Maybe yes. But it's good all around if people take a minute to try and find out.

True, but like skepticism in general it is ripe for hijacking by denialists. The extent 'reasonable skeptics' have gone in this thread to call things unjust cancellation when it's pretty clearly justified shows this nicely. 'Are we sure Disney should have not renewed a contract just because the person was being an unstable bigot?' doesn't speak well of the critics of 'cancel culture' following the evidence.

 

[Stout]

This is an interesting case more for the dynamic on display. It's a classic social media pile on based on what someone 'thinks' is true, rather than what is actually true.


In this case a 'White' librettist and a BIPOC composer wrote an opera about the Emmet Till lynching. Which is apparently enough to render it 'tainted' and unfit for hearing.

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion...0220322-emaddhbf7zcq7ogfswd3fwdr4q-story.html

Jesus Bloody Murphy! A progressive white composer wrote an opera to show at a progressive college and nobody thought to obtain crystal clear consent from the Black community? That should have been the very first thing done after the idea germinated. Then, once written the script should have been submitted to a sensitivity focus group to identify problematic elements,

Once those problematic elements had been discussed, a full dress rehearsal should have been preformed in front of a different sensitivity focus group and received written approval that the performance was safe for all.

I can'r believe that in 2022, white progressives still think it's OK to appropriate Black culture in this way. There's a lot of diversity training needing to be done here...a lot.

 

[Checkmite]

I think the best we can do is sort of what we ostensibly promote here by such mission as there is in skepticism: promote becoming informed before reacting. Are the details that are making people the most angry accurate? Maybe yes. But it's good all around if people take a minute to try and find out.

This is reasonably sound advice for forming an opinion in general. But it doesn't really address the problem of cancel culture, as in any given case the point of contention very rarely seems to be the fact of whether Bob said something racist, for instance, but rather whether Bob deserves to be ostracized for saying something racist.

 

[EaglePuncher]

Jesus Bloody Murphy! A progressive white composer wrote an opera to show at a progressive college and nobody thought to obtain crystal clear consent from the Black community? That should have been the very first thing done after the idea germinated. Then, once written the script should have been submitted to a sensitivity focus group to identify problematic elements,

Once those problematic elements had been discussed, a full dress rehearsal should have been preformed in front of a different sensitivity focus group and received written approval that the performance was safe for all.

I can'r believe that in 2022, white progressives still think it's OK to appropriate Black culture in this way. There's a lot of diversity training needing to be done here...a lot.

Yeah, **** those black people!

 

[Chris_Halkides]

there are not always Bright lines

This is reasonably sound advice for forming an opinion in general. But it doesn't really address the problem of cancel culture, as in any given case the point of contention very rarely seems to be the fact of whether Bob said something racist, for instance, but rather whether Bob deserves to be ostracized for saying something racist.

I would urge you to consider the cases of Jason Kilborn, Bright Sheng, or Clare Coss the librettist of the opera about Emmitt Till. The case of Mary DeVoto has been mentioned in passing but not discussed thoroughly, and it might or might not fit, depending upon what the exact meaning of "saying something racist" is versus being a racist. To the best of my recollection, most of the examples offered by Graham2001 in these threads are not in accord with your description. However, I do not entirely disagree with your comment, in that it might (with a little stretching) cover the case of the teacher who mixed up the names of two students.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

third party

Again without taking a side in that argument, it’s how some people feel and they made a petition about it. Is that not appropriate?

A portion of the petition reads, "Stand with me urging John Jay College to cancel this play from premiering on March 23rd and its encore performance on March 24th."

One commentator wrote, "Is this the right distinction between criticism, words and deeds taken against a party with whom one chooses not to associate, and cancel culture, words and deeds taken against another party to coerce them not to associate with whomever the mob decides they shouldn’t?" My reading of this essay is that the involvement of a third party (John Jay College in this instance) is being suggested as a way to distinguish criticism from cancel culture. I think that this is an idea worth exploring. I will add one more, that the results of a cancel-culture action affect a fourth group. The fourth group in the case of the opera is the audience who would have been denied a chance to experience the performance had the petition been successful.

 

[Darat]

A portion of the petition reads, "Stand with me urging John Jay College to cancel this play from premiering on March 23rd and its encore performance on March 24th."

One commentator wrote, "Is this the right distinction between criticism, words and deeds taken against a party with whom one chooses not to associate, and cancel culture, words and deeds taken against another party to coerce them not to associate with whomever the mob decides they shouldn’t?" My reading of this essay is that the involvement of a third party (John Jay College in this instance) is being suggested as a way to distinguish criticism from cancel culture. I think that this is an idea worth exploring. I will add one more, that the results of a cancel-culture action affect a fourth group. The fourth group in the case of the opera is the audience who would have been denied a chance to experience the performance had the petition been successful.

That avoids answering the rather simple question Lithrael asked.