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Cancel culture IRL

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d4m10n said:
Let's go through them one by one.

  1. Were the people burning Rowling books encouraging others to withdraw support from Rowling and her publisher?
  2. Was Trump encouraging NFL owners to fire players who dared to protest?
  3. Were people critical of the Catholic Church encouraging parishioners to withdraw support from the organization?
  4. Were the people condemning Nike encouraging customers to stop buying their merch?
I'm pretty sure the answer to all of these is "yes" though there were probably protestors who wanted the last two organizations to rapidly alter how they treat vulnerable people, rather than agitating for them to dissolve entirely.

I'd say so, and (IMO) it's not even a close call.

(Left off the fictional example, since I've not read it in a few decades.)
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Ok, if you believe that the phrase "cancel culture" has this broad meaning, of all public withdrawal of support similar to these instances. Then "cancel culture" is a thing that has existed for a very long time.

These particular situations in the past are of some historical and cultural interest. There is somewhat regular discussion of these sorts of events in the past. If "Cancel culture" is a newish term to refer to this timeless phenomena, you would expect people to be using the term to describe these past events (outside of the context of arguments about what cancel culture is).

I haven't seen that. Have you?

And while you do correctly note the term didn't seem to originate on the conservative side of politics, I don't see it much recently used to describe conservative actions except in the context of a rebuttal to conservative alaramism about "cancel culture".

I'm not seeing people on the left or people in the center use the term to describe actions from conservatives without it being a rebuttal in that way.

I'm also not seeing it used by conservatives to describe actions by other conservatives.

I'm also not seeing the words used much in a positive way or applied to pressure on issues that people accross the aisle agree on.

Now, the internet is a big place, so I wouldn't be shocked if some finite number of examples of this existed. But it doesn't seem widespread enough to be the norm. But if you're seeing it used extensively or prominently in these ways, I'd be open to correction.

Where I'm seeing the term used right now in 2021 is pretty much to describe a much more particular set of situations.

  • They're modern incidents, with an implication that the "culture" is a shift from past cultural values.
  • They're all viewed by the speaker as coming from the left, and enforcing something in the realm of political correctness or social justice.
  • They're framed as an attack on speech.
  • They're framed as a negative.
 
johnny karate said:
Great, what about the alleged “pressure to remove her” as opposed to Disney deciding of their own volition to no longer work with her?

Any evidence for that assertion?
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#FireGinaCarano. Feel free to not research it and deny that Disney was watching it.
 
Cavemonster said:
Ok, if you believe that the phrase "cancel culture" has this broad meaning, of all public withdrawal of support similar to these instances. Then "cancel culture" is a thing that has existed for a very long time.

These particular situations in the past are of some historical and cultural interest. There is somewhat regular discussion of these sorts of events in the past. If "Cancel culture" is a newish term to refer to this timeless phenomena, you would expect people to be using the term to describe these past events (outside of the context of arguments about what cancel culture is).

I haven't seen that. Have you?

And while you do correctly note the term didn't seem to originate on the conservative side of politics, I don't see it much recently used to describe conservative actions except in the context of a rebuttal to conservative alaramism about "cancel culture".

I'm not seeing people on the left or people in the center use the term to describe actions from conservatives without it being a rebuttal in that way.

I'm also not seeing it used by conservatives to describe actions by other conservatives.

I'm also not seeing the words used much in a positive way or applied to pressure on issues that people accross the aisle agree on.

Now, the internet is a big place, so I wouldn't be shocked if some finite number of examples of this existed. But it doesn't seem widespread enough to be the norm. But if you're seeing it used extensively or prominently in these ways, I'd be open to correction.

Where I'm seeing the term used right now in 2021 is pretty much to describe a much more particular set of situations.

  • They're modern incidents, with an implication that the "culture" is a shift from past cultural values.
  • They're all viewed by the speaker as coming from the left, and enforcing something in the realm of political correctness or social justice.
  • They're framed as an attack on speech.
  • They're framed as a negative.
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Can't disagree with any of that and yes, cancel culture is most often used to describe progressives behaving badly. Take the case of the OP. going after an essential front line worker for failing to forcibly eject a combative anti-masker is a douchbag move. Had the complaint been leveled at the corporation for failing to enforce their own policy and local mask laws, rather than the employee directly, chances are we never would have heard anything about this being an example of cancel culture.
 
Cavemonster said:
I'm not seeing people on the left or people in the center use the term to describe actions from conservatives without it being a rebuttal in that way.
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It's not particularly difficult to come up with examples of those sort of rebuttals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...oves-cancel-culture-more-than-republicans-do/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/30/cancel-culture-trump-mcenany/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...l-confront-its-history-not-its-donors/618217/

https://www.themarysue.com/conservative-cancel-culture-dr-seuss/

https://areomagazine.com/2020/11/27...dition-perspectives-on-american-conservatism/

https://level.medium.com/white-conservatives-invented-cancel-culture-da69c0beaf3

I suppose we could resign ourselves to the idea that the phrase belongs to conservatives now, but I'd argue against such concession on anti-hypocrisy grounds alone, even if I didn't think cancellations are often conducted unskeptically and with undue haste.

I'd like to see more left and center writers reclaiming the phrase back from the right-wing, or at least coming up with a similarly concise way to refer to the far-right tendency to deplatform and otherwise sanction authors and performers whom they find deeply offensive.
 
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Stout said:
#FireGinaCarano. Feel free to not research it and deny that Disney was watching it.
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That doesn’t substantiate the claim that Disney made their decision as a result of “public pressure”.

Disney gets threats of boycotts all the time for various reasons. Rarely do they allow those threats to dictate policy to them.

What was special about this time?

What’s the magic formula to get Disney to capitulate?

And if it’s so easy, why don’t the legions of Gina Carano fans use it to get her back on “The Mandalorian”?
 
d4m10n said:
It's not particularly difficult to come up with examples of those sort of rebuttals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...oves-cancel-culture-more-than-republicans-do/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/30/cancel-culture-trump-mcenany/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...l-confront-its-history-not-its-donors/618217/

https://www.themarysue.com/conservative-cancel-culture-dr-seuss/

https://areomagazine.com/2020/11/27...dition-perspectives-on-american-conservatism/

https://level.medium.com/white-conservatives-invented-cancel-culture-da69c0beaf3

I suppose we could resign ourselves to the idea that the phrase belongs to conservatives now, but I'd argue against such concession on anti-hypocrisy grounds alone, even if I didn't think cancellations are often conducted unskeptically and with undue haste.

I'd like to see more left and center writers reclaiming the phrase back from the right-wing, or at least coming up with a similarly concise way to refer to the far-right tendency to deplatform and otherwise sanction authors and performers whom they find deeply offensive.
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That sounds more aspirational than descriptive.

You say "reclaim" but it was never used as broadly as you suggest it might be. Even when it was used BY people on the left, it was still pretty much hitting all my bullet points above. The only thing that's shifted is an internal critique has moved to an external one.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
You didn't prove anything about the underlying motives of a single person who participated.

I'm going to have to provisionally assign your claim: hogwash.
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It's an opinion based on the reasonable analysis of the information available. Do you have anything information to suggest otherwise?
 
Cavemonster said:
You say "reclaim" but it was never used as broadly as you suggest it might be. Even when it was used BY people on the left, it was still pretty much hitting all my bullet points above. The only thing that's shifted is an internal critique has moved to an external one.
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I'm not entirely sure that's true, but the few critiques which I linked from 2017 did look like people on the left talking about a phenomenon of the left, so I'm willing to concede what you say here is true or at least likely.

That said, if the phrase may be used to critique specific behaviours on the left from the left, and to critique specific behaviours on the left from the right, I see no reason to foreclose the use of the same phrase to critique the same kinds of behaviours coming from the left, right, or center.

If anything, it seems to me that the right has much less of a leg to stand on when they perform their attempts at cancellation. Many right-wing cancellations are moral stands against imaginary harms (e.g. deplatforming blasphemy) or even positive goods (e.g. protesting police brutality).
 
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johnny karate said:
That doesn’t substantiate the claim that Disney made their decision as a result of “public pressure”.

Disney gets threats of boycotts all the time for various reasons. Rarely do they allow those threats to dictate policy to them.

What was special about this time?

What’s the magic formula to get Disney to capitulate?

And if it’s so easy, why don’t the legions of Gina Carano fans use it to get her back on “The Mandalorian”?
Click to expand...

A couple of clicks and we have ourselves a Forbes article.

Is Gina Carano A Victim Of Social Media Cancel Culture

And a quote from that article.

For months there had been a strong movement on social media that called for Carano's firing, and it was last week that Lucasfilm and its parent company Disney finally responded.
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Sure looks like social media played a large part in her firing.

Digging deeper into that article, we come across a link to an active petition to rehire Carano.
 
Stout said:
Why are you sure this is different and "not at all cancel culture" ?
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It's only wrong when Liberals do it.

Conservatives will happily 'cancel' whatever they can, whenever they can, know they are 'right'.

After all, being an outspoken Conservative is just like being a Jew in Nazi Germany!
 
d4m10n said:
I'm not entirely sure that's true, but the few critiques which I linked from 2017 did look like people on the left talking about a phenomenon of the left, so I'm willing to concede what you say here is true or at least likely.

That said, if the phrase may be used to critique specific behaviours on the left from the left, and to critique specific behaviours on the left from the right, I see no reason to foreclose the use of the same phrase to critique the same kinds of behaviours coming from the left, right, or center.

If anything, it seems to me that the right has much less of a leg to stand on when they perform their attempts at cancellation. Many right-wing cancellations are moral stands against imaginary harms (e.g. deplatforming blasphemy) or even positive goods (e.g. protesting police brutality).
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But again, that's all an aspirational meaning, something you think the term could or should mean.

So you probably want to withdraw your arguments that paint that as the current meaning of the phrase. I guess there's no law against treating a term as what you want it to mean. But it's more conducive to clear communication to center discussion around a meaning based on actual use.

Stop trying to make "fetch" happen.
 
Cavemonster said:
So you probably want to withdraw your arguments that paint that as the current meaning of the phrase.
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If dictionary.com isn't going to put that particular limitation into the definition, then why should we?

Is there good reason to have a phrase which only calls out behaviors when they are engaged in by the left?

Did the authors of the rebuttal articles linked above seem content to keep meaning of the phrase narrowly focused?
 
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Stout said:
A couple of clicks and we have ourselves a Forbes article.

Is Gina Carano A Victim Of Social Media Cancel Culture

And a quote from that article.



Sure looks like social media played a large part in her firing.

Digging deeper into that article, we come across a link to an active petition to rehire Carano.
Click to expand...

No one is denying that people wanted Carano fired and expressed that opinion.

What is in question is whether or not those people somehow forced Disney to fire her. You’re claiming they did, and the only evidence you’ve provided to support that claim is a lack of understanding of the difference between correlation and causation.

And again, if this is such a successful strategy, then why doesn’t it work more often? Why hasn’t Disney capitulated to the “public pressure” to rehire her?
 
Shalamar said:
It's only wrong when Liberals do it.

Conservatives will happily 'cancel' whatever they can, whenever they can, know they are 'right'.
Click to expand...

Who says it's only "wrong" when liberals do it ? Like I said a thousand times before, it's something both the left and right participate in.

After all, being an outspoken Conservative is just like being a Jew in Nazi Germany!
Click to expand...

Well now, that's just plain stupid, isn't it ?
 
HoverBoarder said:
It's an opinion based on the reasonable analysis of the information available. Do you have anything information to suggest otherwise?
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Your original claim was to suggest that Disney was coerced into firing Carano. No evidence of that claim has been presented. Do you stand by it?
 
d4m10n said:
If dictionary.com isn't going to put that particular limitation into the definition, then why should we?
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I think you've been here long enough to understand why Argumentum ad dictionarium is not a fruitful road.

Is there good reason to have a phrase which only calls out behaviors when they are engaged in by the left?
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When you meet a bad phrase, you don't have a duty to transform it into a better one. You can just leave it by the side of the road where you found it.

Did the authors of the rebuttal articles linked above seem content to keep meaning of the phrase narrowly focused?
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The rebuttal uses exist to chastize conservatives for their hipocracy in attempting to spread the use of the phrase, not to expand and solidify the use.

You can find the same thing around the idea of "Who's the real snowflake" it's a use that really only exists as a response.
 
johnny karate said:
No one is denying that people wanted Carano fired and expressed that opinion.

What is in question is whether or not those people somehow forced Disney to fire her. You’re claiming they did, and the only evidence you’ve provided to support that claim is a lack of understanding of the difference between correlation and causation.

And again, if this is such a successful strategy, then why doesn’t it work more often? Why hasn’t Disney capitulated to the “public pressure” to rehire her?
Click to expand...

I'm not claiming that people "forced" Disney into cancelling Carano, I'm saying that, based on available evidence, that pressure had a lot to do with it.

You really need to get in touch with Disney execs and ask them directly to get the answers to your other questions.
 
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