Cancel Culture. Really Charlie, that's all you got. What a waste of bandwidth. I wonder what the people of Ukraine think about this all important issue. Phffft.
Please talk to JVL about this, Charlie. He seems to think there is no such thing as cancel culture and that it is just moral panic and if there is such a thing as cancel culture it is only being taught in graduate level courses art art school. Or at least that's what he says. I love the diversity of opinion at the Bulwark but hope it can also be an opportunity for civil conversation about techy topics.
The question "who started it" is beside the point. It's nothing but a variation on "what about ...?", in other words, an attempt to change the subject. My all-time favorite was the contribution of some participant in a panel on a question of the U.S. intervening in some current humanitarian disaster or another (Myanmar and the Rohingas?): "What about the U.S. overthrow of the native Hawaiian monarchy?" What is really weird is that you need a couple years of law school or a Jesuit education to understand some cancellations. It took me some time to figure out why JK Rowling was cancelled for suggesting that the word "women" (two syllables) was an acceptable substitute for the awkward phrase "people who menstruate" (six syllables). Strunk and White would certainly approve, but I finally got it. Men who believe they are really, spiritually women must be considered as identical to and interchangeable with those conventionally considered as women. Since such individuals, erroneously assigned male identity at birth on the basis of objective and reliable evidence, don't menstruate, Rowling's suggestion must be regarded with contempt as showing a less than approving view if not hatred of a contestant in the Victim Olympics with a very high intersectionality score.
The problem with political discourse these days is that too few are willing to give too many the benefit of the doubt for questionable but noncriminal conduct or good faith.
I'm quite happy I was in college way before smartphones with cameras. Also that I ceased putting on Halloween costumes at 14. Maybe sad what that implies about my social life, but so be it.
There really is nothing new here. People have always enjoyed throwing stones. Two thousand years ago Jesus had to admonish people not to do it, so we have that as some form of record. Back in the fifties one big stone tossed was to be labeled a Communist. That affected a fair number of livelihoods. At other times and locations it was terms like Tory or Abolitionist. Now we have new stones, Critical Race Theory and Cultural Appropriation and others. We also have the advanced launch system of social media, so the stones are coming fast and furious. Are the people throwing the stones really hurt? For the most part probably not. It's just fun to get incensed and throw stones. And honestly the collective consciousness now is at about the development of a grade school child. We saw it with mask mandates, along the lines of "You can't make me. It's a free country." I imagine the vast majority of those same people follow traffic laws but still the thinking is somewhere around fifth grade. As is the idea of "canceling" someone.
But here's where I think this is headed, nowhere. This snake will eat its tail. When someone on the left gets to the absurd point that they can't cook Italian food anymore because that's cultural appropriation or someone on the right is told their child can't read Tom Sawyer because, along with Maus, that had to be removed from the library shelf. Or maybe there's a shortage of teachers because no one is willing to chance it. This will wind down when everyone is a little bloodied by the very stone they tossed straight up in the air that came back down on their heads. It's a dark, confusing time no doubt but it's a time of deep transition and those are always dark and confusing.
I’d be a lot more worried about “cancel culture”—from either direction—if about 98% of the cases weren’t an incident of the “victim” breaking the “Don’t be an as*hole” rule and instead deciding “No, it essential that I show the entire world my as*!”, only o immediately bemoan the consequences of that decision. Everyone loves reaping, but gets awfully touchy when it comes time to sow.
I'm a Left-liberal, and I will certainly acknowledge that Cancel Culture is a real and growing problem on the Progressive Left, which it must be said has its own Authoritarian temptations. I'll maintain that the threat to Liberalism that Progressive hard-liners pose is just a shadow compared to the real and present danger posed by the new American Fascist Party that is succeeding the GOP; but still it is in principle and in spirit against Liberal ideals. The Weimar Socialists did serve as a very convenient foil for the German Fascists, and we on the Left would do well to learn from history, here.
I am voicing my agreement with Eleanor Kitzman: if Ukraine is asking for MiGs (repeatedly), then facilitate giving them MiGs if it is within our power. What I hear from Pentagon reporting is that Ukraine doesn't need them, which sounds paternalistic and arrogant, given that we are not there facing bombs and bullets. We were wrong about how long Ukraine would be in this fight. Can we be so assuredly right about their needs now? Ukraine must defeat Putin's evil. It is time for us to be honest about how we can help, not obfuscate how we do not.
I think the obsession with public shaming of ordinary people is a public disgrace frankly. The people who have nothing better to do with their day but tear some person's unfortunate tweet to death are often more worthy of ridicule than the offending person. It's an elaborate game of schadenfreude and generally people make fools of themselves of themselves doing it. However, the weaponinzation of the charge of cancel culture is also insane. The number of performative outrages about cancel culture is at this point is nearly beyond counting - in those cases, absolutely no one is being canceled. In fact, they are weaponizing "being canceled" to grow their own fame and power.
Cancel Culture. New name, same old game, around for as long as humans have been organizing themselves into groups or communities of one kind or another and looking for ways to regulate and control what happens within those entities. The difference today mostly has to do with the amplifying effect of the digital age, the internet and the ability for near-instant mass-media communication with anyone, anytime, anywhere. Instead of cold shoulders, shunning and outright ostracizing on a local community and inter-personal level for what's seen as bad speech / behavior, we have internet mobs and cable news posses acting on a national level in conjunction with the local and national self-appointed or elected culture police. Not much point in pointing fingers about who started it, or whose fault it is. Plenty of blame to go around, and it can be assigned pretty much in all quarters of our society, from Capitol Hill right down to the sleepiest of sleepy neighborhood streets or country backroads.
After reading Charlie's piece today, I read a few comments. I decided as sort of a thought experiment to read every one having to do with this subject. More on that in a moment. Having now done so, I can say for sure that...my head hurts. I can also say that I encountered everything from emotionally flavored and somewhat heated offerings, to calm, thoughtful takes, to blended mixtures of both. Quite a varied menu. One which, when I was done, had a line of illuminated red hearts from top to bottom of the scroll. The point of my little experiment, you see, was to find out whether or not there was something I agreed with in each comment, whether or not I agreed with the point of the entire comment itself. And if I did, to hit the like button in acknowledgement of that. The final result: no unilluminated icons on anything said about this subject. How many did I agree with overall? Well, that wasn't the point at all. The point was that, although I had to make the effort to re-read a few things and put more effort into thinking about them than I might otherwise do, I couldn't find a single instance where I could say honestly that I thought everything the commenter was saying was wrong. So, if you notice my "like" in your inbox, you can take that for whatever it may or may not be worth to you. But I want to say, I was as honest as I could be with myself before hitting that button.
So, what's this got to do with Cancel Culture? This, I believe. We have become a society too anxious to talk and too hesitant to listen. We don't want to make the effort to think about anything anyone has to say that doesn't strike us as "right" right off the bat. We've done this because we've allowed ourselves to change the way we see and identify ourselves from butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who happen to be Republicans, Democrats and Independents, to R's, D's and I's who happen to be b's, b's and c's. (Sorry, Libertarians and any others not included here. No offense intended.) I'm not sure why this is, but it isn't good. It limits our perspective and lessens our desire for understanding.
I have very few problems with "free speech". Now, I'm not going to defend those who promulgate hate in any form, or who walk the razor edge of the line or actually step over it when it comes to inciting violence, or who knowingly traffic in lies. But beyond that...well, if we started looking at ourselves a little differently, we may see a little more of ourselves in others. And we might listen a little more critically, and hear more clearly what's actually being said. And we might speak a bit more thoughtfully ourselves in return. This definitely will not lead to our all joining hands and singing Kumbaya. But it may lead to a lessening of our desire to cancel each other when we don't agree about something, and perhaps a realization that this current version of Cancel Culture needs to be canceled like a bad sitcom. Not sure exactly how to do that. But we should probably start somewhere, so why not here?
BTW...I expect a few more comments may have come in since I conducted my little experiment and started writing this. Can't speak to those as it relates to what I wrote. Gotta' draw the line somewhere...
Maybe there's more to the burrito shop story than is presented here, but all that I get from this description is that many people felt (reasonably or unreasonably) that the owners were improperly profiting from culinary knowledge they had gleaned from contact with indigenous people, so they refused to patronize the shop, and consequently the shop went out of business. If that's what happened, then you'd best leave that one out of the parade of cancellation horribles because that's not really cancellation, it's simply experiencing the business consequences of too many people not wanting to patronize your business, so including it in your list undercuts your argument that cancellation from the left is real.
And while I'm at it, maybe Tim Miller should move tf out of Oakland - literally one of the most "woke" white liberal areas in the world instead of talking constantly about it like it's standard issue for Dem run school boards. I can promise you none of that shit happens in Scranton, even though it's Dem run. In short, The Bulwark is Not Helping, Actively Hurting because it's editorial board chooses to bitch about the insanely liberal places THEY CHOOSE TO LIVE IN.
Does anyone else remember Charlie poo-pooing the liberals for being "hair on fire" about Maus being banned by "one Tennessee school board" and then going on to complain about the SF schoolboard members WHO WERE RECALLED for every single episode the same week?
The film and TV blacklists of the 50' and 60's. The Smothers Brothers cancelled for making fun of the President in 1969. Bill Maher's show "Politically Incorrect" in 2001 for not backing the Bush WH spin on 9/11. "Ellen" dropped by advertisers under pressure from anti-LGBTQ organizations. Kathy Griffin 2017 for a picture SHE never released to the public.
The major difference today is the plus factor of the antisocial media platforms which have empowered the forces hostile to free speech with outsize influence.
If you stand outside of the social media battlefield you won't know who is being cancelled at all. As long as there is public opinion there will be some form of cancel culture--- right now the Yale Business School is trying to cancel businesses that can't or won't disengage from Russia. The Bulwark supports that kind of cancel culture.
In the Amazon series "Upload" the evil corporation gives their staff coffee mugs that say "Don't Be Evil. Obviously". That is the warning that cancel culture really sends.
The most compelling argument that I have heard for the existence of “cancel culture” is that there is a chilling effect in everyday conversations. Which, I think is true. People are being robbed of the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and stumbles. This lack of grace can prevent people from growing.
Cancel Culture. Really Charlie, that's all you got. What a waste of bandwidth. I wonder what the people of Ukraine think about this all important issue. Phffft.
Please talk to JVL about this, Charlie. He seems to think there is no such thing as cancel culture and that it is just moral panic and if there is such a thing as cancel culture it is only being taught in graduate level courses art art school. Or at least that's what he says. I love the diversity of opinion at the Bulwark but hope it can also be an opportunity for civil conversation about techy topics.
The question "who started it" is beside the point. It's nothing but a variation on "what about ...?", in other words, an attempt to change the subject. My all-time favorite was the contribution of some participant in a panel on a question of the U.S. intervening in some current humanitarian disaster or another (Myanmar and the Rohingas?): "What about the U.S. overthrow of the native Hawaiian monarchy?" What is really weird is that you need a couple years of law school or a Jesuit education to understand some cancellations. It took me some time to figure out why JK Rowling was cancelled for suggesting that the word "women" (two syllables) was an acceptable substitute for the awkward phrase "people who menstruate" (six syllables). Strunk and White would certainly approve, but I finally got it. Men who believe they are really, spiritually women must be considered as identical to and interchangeable with those conventionally considered as women. Since such individuals, erroneously assigned male identity at birth on the basis of objective and reliable evidence, don't menstruate, Rowling's suggestion must be regarded with contempt as showing a less than approving view if not hatred of a contestant in the Victim Olympics with a very high intersectionality score.
Inapproriation of culture, then. Typical.
The problem with political discourse these days is that too few are willing to give too many the benefit of the doubt for questionable but noncriminal conduct or good faith.
I'm quite happy I was in college way before smartphones with cameras. Also that I ceased putting on Halloween costumes at 14. Maybe sad what that implies about my social life, but so be it.
There really is nothing new here. People have always enjoyed throwing stones. Two thousand years ago Jesus had to admonish people not to do it, so we have that as some form of record. Back in the fifties one big stone tossed was to be labeled a Communist. That affected a fair number of livelihoods. At other times and locations it was terms like Tory or Abolitionist. Now we have new stones, Critical Race Theory and Cultural Appropriation and others. We also have the advanced launch system of social media, so the stones are coming fast and furious. Are the people throwing the stones really hurt? For the most part probably not. It's just fun to get incensed and throw stones. And honestly the collective consciousness now is at about the development of a grade school child. We saw it with mask mandates, along the lines of "You can't make me. It's a free country." I imagine the vast majority of those same people follow traffic laws but still the thinking is somewhere around fifth grade. As is the idea of "canceling" someone.
But here's where I think this is headed, nowhere. This snake will eat its tail. When someone on the left gets to the absurd point that they can't cook Italian food anymore because that's cultural appropriation or someone on the right is told their child can't read Tom Sawyer because, along with Maus, that had to be removed from the library shelf. Or maybe there's a shortage of teachers because no one is willing to chance it. This will wind down when everyone is a little bloodied by the very stone they tossed straight up in the air that came back down on their heads. It's a dark, confusing time no doubt but it's a time of deep transition and those are always dark and confusing.
I’d be a lot more worried about “cancel culture”—from either direction—if about 98% of the cases weren’t an incident of the “victim” breaking the “Don’t be an as*hole” rule and instead deciding “No, it essential that I show the entire world my as*!”, only o immediately bemoan the consequences of that decision. Everyone loves reaping, but gets awfully touchy when it comes time to sow.
I'm a Left-liberal, and I will certainly acknowledge that Cancel Culture is a real and growing problem on the Progressive Left, which it must be said has its own Authoritarian temptations. I'll maintain that the threat to Liberalism that Progressive hard-liners pose is just a shadow compared to the real and present danger posed by the new American Fascist Party that is succeeding the GOP; but still it is in principle and in spirit against Liberal ideals. The Weimar Socialists did serve as a very convenient foil for the German Fascists, and we on the Left would do well to learn from history, here.
I am voicing my agreement with Eleanor Kitzman: if Ukraine is asking for MiGs (repeatedly), then facilitate giving them MiGs if it is within our power. What I hear from Pentagon reporting is that Ukraine doesn't need them, which sounds paternalistic and arrogant, given that we are not there facing bombs and bullets. We were wrong about how long Ukraine would be in this fight. Can we be so assuredly right about their needs now? Ukraine must defeat Putin's evil. It is time for us to be honest about how we can help, not obfuscate how we do not.
Judith in Colorado
I think the obsession with public shaming of ordinary people is a public disgrace frankly. The people who have nothing better to do with their day but tear some person's unfortunate tweet to death are often more worthy of ridicule than the offending person. It's an elaborate game of schadenfreude and generally people make fools of themselves of themselves doing it. However, the weaponinzation of the charge of cancel culture is also insane. The number of performative outrages about cancel culture is at this point is nearly beyond counting - in those cases, absolutely no one is being canceled. In fact, they are weaponizing "being canceled" to grow their own fame and power.
Cancel Culture. New name, same old game, around for as long as humans have been organizing themselves into groups or communities of one kind or another and looking for ways to regulate and control what happens within those entities. The difference today mostly has to do with the amplifying effect of the digital age, the internet and the ability for near-instant mass-media communication with anyone, anytime, anywhere. Instead of cold shoulders, shunning and outright ostracizing on a local community and inter-personal level for what's seen as bad speech / behavior, we have internet mobs and cable news posses acting on a national level in conjunction with the local and national self-appointed or elected culture police. Not much point in pointing fingers about who started it, or whose fault it is. Plenty of blame to go around, and it can be assigned pretty much in all quarters of our society, from Capitol Hill right down to the sleepiest of sleepy neighborhood streets or country backroads.
After reading Charlie's piece today, I read a few comments. I decided as sort of a thought experiment to read every one having to do with this subject. More on that in a moment. Having now done so, I can say for sure that...my head hurts. I can also say that I encountered everything from emotionally flavored and somewhat heated offerings, to calm, thoughtful takes, to blended mixtures of both. Quite a varied menu. One which, when I was done, had a line of illuminated red hearts from top to bottom of the scroll. The point of my little experiment, you see, was to find out whether or not there was something I agreed with in each comment, whether or not I agreed with the point of the entire comment itself. And if I did, to hit the like button in acknowledgement of that. The final result: no unilluminated icons on anything said about this subject. How many did I agree with overall? Well, that wasn't the point at all. The point was that, although I had to make the effort to re-read a few things and put more effort into thinking about them than I might otherwise do, I couldn't find a single instance where I could say honestly that I thought everything the commenter was saying was wrong. So, if you notice my "like" in your inbox, you can take that for whatever it may or may not be worth to you. But I want to say, I was as honest as I could be with myself before hitting that button.
So, what's this got to do with Cancel Culture? This, I believe. We have become a society too anxious to talk and too hesitant to listen. We don't want to make the effort to think about anything anyone has to say that doesn't strike us as "right" right off the bat. We've done this because we've allowed ourselves to change the way we see and identify ourselves from butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who happen to be Republicans, Democrats and Independents, to R's, D's and I's who happen to be b's, b's and c's. (Sorry, Libertarians and any others not included here. No offense intended.) I'm not sure why this is, but it isn't good. It limits our perspective and lessens our desire for understanding.
I have very few problems with "free speech". Now, I'm not going to defend those who promulgate hate in any form, or who walk the razor edge of the line or actually step over it when it comes to inciting violence, or who knowingly traffic in lies. But beyond that...well, if we started looking at ourselves a little differently, we may see a little more of ourselves in others. And we might listen a little more critically, and hear more clearly what's actually being said. And we might speak a bit more thoughtfully ourselves in return. This definitely will not lead to our all joining hands and singing Kumbaya. But it may lead to a lessening of our desire to cancel each other when we don't agree about something, and perhaps a realization that this current version of Cancel Culture needs to be canceled like a bad sitcom. Not sure exactly how to do that. But we should probably start somewhere, so why not here?
BTW...I expect a few more comments may have come in since I conducted my little experiment and started writing this. Can't speak to those as it relates to what I wrote. Gotta' draw the line somewhere...
Maybe there's more to the burrito shop story than is presented here, but all that I get from this description is that many people felt (reasonably or unreasonably) that the owners were improperly profiting from culinary knowledge they had gleaned from contact with indigenous people, so they refused to patronize the shop, and consequently the shop went out of business. If that's what happened, then you'd best leave that one out of the parade of cancellation horribles because that's not really cancellation, it's simply experiencing the business consequences of too many people not wanting to patronize your business, so including it in your list undercuts your argument that cancellation from the left is real.
And while I'm at it, maybe Tim Miller should move tf out of Oakland - literally one of the most "woke" white liberal areas in the world instead of talking constantly about it like it's standard issue for Dem run school boards. I can promise you none of that shit happens in Scranton, even though it's Dem run. In short, The Bulwark is Not Helping, Actively Hurting because it's editorial board chooses to bitch about the insanely liberal places THEY CHOOSE TO LIVE IN.
Does anyone else remember Charlie poo-pooing the liberals for being "hair on fire" about Maus being banned by "one Tennessee school board" and then going on to complain about the SF schoolboard members WHO WERE RECALLED for every single episode the same week?
Yeah. Me too.
The film and TV blacklists of the 50' and 60's. The Smothers Brothers cancelled for making fun of the President in 1969. Bill Maher's show "Politically Incorrect" in 2001 for not backing the Bush WH spin on 9/11. "Ellen" dropped by advertisers under pressure from anti-LGBTQ organizations. Kathy Griffin 2017 for a picture SHE never released to the public.
The major difference today is the plus factor of the antisocial media platforms which have empowered the forces hostile to free speech with outsize influence.
If you stand outside of the social media battlefield you won't know who is being cancelled at all. As long as there is public opinion there will be some form of cancel culture--- right now the Yale Business School is trying to cancel businesses that can't or won't disengage from Russia. The Bulwark supports that kind of cancel culture.
In the Amazon series "Upload" the evil corporation gives their staff coffee mugs that say "Don't Be Evil. Obviously". That is the warning that cancel culture really sends.
The most compelling argument that I have heard for the existence of “cancel culture” is that there is a chilling effect in everyday conversations. Which, I think is true. People are being robbed of the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and stumbles. This lack of grace can prevent people from growing.