Cancel culture IRL

[d4m10n]

"The internet is not the real world and vice versa" is where of lot squaring the circle happens in regard to this topic.

Whom are you quoting?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Whom are you quoting?

Dude stop it. Quotation marks don't mean I'm literally quoting someone verbatim. You know this, stop trolling.

 

[Darat]

"Cancel Culture" "Virtue Signaling" yeah we are just hitting all the "I want to demonize actually having standards" buzzwords here.

It’s political correctness* gone mad!



*I’m old, not used to these new fangled things, in my day if you wanted to cancel someone you boycotted the organisation they worked for, you protested outside their place of employment, none of this easy “liking” or sharing a hashtag whatever those are!

 

[Dr. Keith]

It’s political correctness* gone mad!



*I’m old, not used to these new fangled things, in my day if you wanted to cancel someone you boycotted the organisation they worked for, you protested outside their place of employment, none of this easy “liking” or sharing a hashtag whatever those are!

#DaratTooOld
#DaratShakesFistAtClouds
#CancelISFModeratorDaratButNotTheGoodModerators
#IsDaratActuallyThatOldOrIsHeJustGrumpyLikeJoeMorgue

(It's harder than it looks to type without spaces.)

 

[johnny karate]

What is the controversy, exactly? They broke the law, they should be prosecuted.

It’s an ongoing problem, not an isolated incident. And the controversy lies in the schism it has created in our political system. Not everyone seems to be on board with your cut and dry assessment.

I don't think anyone has reached ethical nirvana just yet.

Sounds like you’re reading from a fortune cookie and has all the usefulness that implies.

 

[johnny karate]

That's such an idiotic rejoinder I hardly know where to begin.

Clearly, you are just fine with sex slavery, and have no problem with it.

By the standards you’ve been applying, it would appear so.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I wasn't aware a rule had been put into place that you needed to have standards in regards to "controversial" opinions.

"I'm not saying Hitler was bad because everyone agrees, so me saying it would just be virtue signaling" is a... bold new territory for the Proudly Wrong to stake claim to.

 

[johnny karate]

Well hell, just go ahead and zap me back a couple of hundred years so I can tell the witch hunters that I have a problem with what they're doing too. That's a reasonable thing to expect, right?

I don’t know. You’re the one who brought up witch burnings. I’m just as confused about it as you now appear to be.

 

[tyr_13]

What is your argument that conservative news sources reflect common usage, but other sources (e.g. those who originally popularized the phrase, or left-of-center commentators) do not?

Been trying to track down a definition of "cancel culture" from a relatively unbiased and non-polemical source. So far, I've only found a couple.

The Wikipedia page for cancel culture^WP is a good one, IMO.

Here is another one, from Morning Consult polling:

I personally prefer this one, it seems to capture most of what I've been getting at.

I respectfully disagree; the definitions from Wikipedia and Morning Consult show that there's no need to load the dice.

ETA: Here's a third one→ https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/cancel-culture/

Not sure what this word is supposed to mean in this context.

Again, does this focus on the origins of the phrase mean you've conceded the negative connotations that are inherent in the common usage? You have, yet again, posted links that support that.

It is important to know if you're actually paying attention to what you're arguing before putting any more time into showing the overwhelming negative usage was made mainstream by conservative media.

Which again, is the least important element of the entire disagreement we're having. Are you just focusing on it because all the other elements have been proven?

 

[JoeMorgue]

At a certain point we just have to accept that a lot of this is just standard kneejerk contrarianism.

They don't even know what they are really arguing, they just know there's some new popular buzzword that they want to argue against so everyone knows that "Don't nobody get to tell me what to think."

This argument becomes a lot clearer when you realize the two sides aren't having the same argument.

 

[johnny karate]

Are you seriously requiring virtue signaling here?

No, just consistency.

 

[Emily's Cat]

By the standards you’ve been applying, it would appear so.

No, that's YOUR standard, not mine.

 

[d4m10n]

Quotation marks don't mean I'm literally quoting someone verbatim.

Except when they do, right?

At any rate, whom are you (badly) paraphrasing?

They don't even know what they are really arguing, they just know there's some new popular buzzword that they want to argue against so everyone knows that "Don't nobody get to tell me what to think."

I'm arguing for the utility of the "new popular buzzword" since it captures a phenomenon that I keep seeing on my screen. I'm not arguing that every cancellation is unwarranted, though.

 

[johnny karate]

No, that's YOUR standard, not mine.

This you?

Meh. Death threats, harassment, no big deal. They came out of it okay. It's fine, we don't need to bother about trying to curb that kind of thing, it's fine.

It sucks when people imply you support something awful that you don’t, doesn’t it?

 

[d4m10n]

Again, does this focus on the origins of the phrase mean you've conceded the negative connotations that are inherent in the common usage?

I would say the phrase is used negatively more often than not, but (assuming the above-mentioned Morning Consult poll is trustworthy) not all that much more often. Can you think of a phrase that means roughly the same thing but without any connotative emotional valence?

It is important to know if you're actually paying attention to what you're arguing before putting any more time into showing the overwhelming negative usage was made mainstream by conservative media.

We may take it as read that the conservative media nearly always use the phrase to mean something bad done by liberals or progressives. Don't much care to pattern my own usage after theirs though.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don’t know. You’re the one who brought up witch burnings. I’m just as confused about it as you now appear to be.

Let's try to recap then.

Some of us take the position that "Cancel Culture" has some serious problems, is open to extreme abuse, is notoriously reactionary and allows anonymous people to punish perceived wrong-thinkers on the basis of incomplete or erroneous information, and has a high potential for crossing the line into outright extrajudicial persecution of belief. We essentially argue that, while not every single instance of "Cancel Culture" has bad outcomes, it has in many cases imposed serious hardship, suffering, and trauma on people and it allows for the "internet mob" to engage in death threats and harassment that are illegal but can't be pursued because the actors are anonymous.

Other people in this thread responded by noting that 1) "Cancel Culture" isn't new, it's been around forever and 2) Some people really deserve to be punished and have their lives ruined for transgressing social norms and 3) Some of those people came out of it okay at the end of the day so it's no big deal.

My response to 1) was to say that whether or not it's new is irrelevant, it's an activity that is wide open to abuse and presents a problem. It presented a problem when it was done in the past as well (cite McCarthyism, witch burnings, etc.). You responded with the very odd rejoinder of "well why are you suddenly worried about it now?". To which I responded that I wasn't alive when those prior things happened. It doesn't make sense for me to be "worried" about things that happened in the past and which I cannot affect in any way, whereas this is happening now, and I see in it the same patterns of behavior that have led to extremely bad outcomes in the past, so I am worried about what is happening now. This seems confusing to you, and I really don't know why.

My response to 2) is that the subjective determination that some people deserve it isn't enough. That same determination was believed to be sufficient by actors in the past who engaged in widespread persecution of belief and all sorts of atrocities. One's belief in their moral righteousness should not rationalize harassment of others who do not hold that same belief.

My response to 3) is that the eventual non-death outcome for some high-profile people doesn't offset the risk and the danger. We only get exposed to the high profile cases in the media, and many of those people can garner support and move on. But someone of lesser means might end up devastated. It's akin to arguing that because some children who were bullied managed to survive and become stronger for it, we shouldn't take a stand against bullying.

 

[Emily's Cat]

At a certain point we just have to accept that a lot of this is just standard kneejerk contrarianism.

They don't even know what they are really arguing, they just know there's some new popular buzzword that they want to argue against so everyone knows that "Don't nobody get to tell me what to think."

This argument becomes a lot clearer when you realize the two sides aren't having the same argument.

Sometimes I really think you don't read posts at all.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I'm arguing for the utility of the "new popular buzzword" since it captures a phenomenon that I keep seeing on my screen.

And you're failing at that. Badly.

"Cancel culture" has no utility as a term outside of demonizing basic human social interaction when the "wrong" people use it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This you?

Honestly, are you even keeping track of your own arguments here?

I don’t see you doing a lot of hand-wringing over racism, sexism, murder, or thievery. But for some reason “cancel culture” is a big problem for you.

How do you reconcile that?

You made a point of implying that somehow I'm okay with sexism, racism, murder, and thievery, because *you personally* somehow haven't seen me argue against those things. Even though on some of those topics I actively and frequently DO argue against them. You imply that I'm being selective, and somehow I'm okay with all of those things, and I only have a problem with cancel culture. That's the standard that YOU introduced, not me. YOU brought that into it.

So, by your own standard, you must be just fine with sex slavery, right? I mean, I haven't seen you doing any hand-wringing about that, so clearly YOUR standard implies that you've got no problem with sex-slavery.

It sucks when people imply you support something awful that you don’t, doesn’t it?

What are you even talking about here? You're not making any sense at all.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Sometimes I really think you don't read posts at all.

I'll factor that opinion in to the degree it is warranted.