[Closed] What is ‘cancel culture’?

This is quite a good article about it -

https://unherd.com/2020/07/the-historical-narcissism-of-culture-warriors/

Its basically snowflakes searching through years of comments or quotes for something to get offended by, then demanding that the victim have their livelihood removed immediately.

As I understand it, cancel culture is bullying people whose views you disagree with, to deny them freedom of expression, rather than arguing your case against theirs.

I can understand why people don't want to give a platform to racists and promoters of genocide, but we should be able to have a genuine debate about things like, for example, the right of people to express the gender they choose versus the right of vulnerable women to be protected from predatory men.

to deny them freedom of expression,

Nope. Freedom of expression means that you won't be put in jail for spouting whatever drivel comes into your head.

It doesn't mean there won't be consequences or that a business is required by law to give you a platform.

I'm not even going to bother responding to your trans-phobic shite.

In a nutshell:

"you do not fit into my subset of values, opinions and beliefs - based on that you need to lose your job and be vilified all over the internet"

It's 2020, adult conversation and debate is dead, you must only demand everyone agree with you or else

It's quite a broad subject. There are some quite obvious recent examples - take JK Rowling. So cancel culture in that context is people clamouring to denigrate her work and prevent her from operating in the public sphere because of her views on gender.

So unless you're a public figure you probably won't directly experience being cancelled. So if you believe or engage in this your hope is that people won't say or do certain things that you disagree with.

The harm that we all suffer is that people are less likely to engage in the public sphere. So the next time a prominent public person or intellectual feels like saying something about gender / race / religion / science etc. they just won't. This is obviously useful to some but not so good for the rest of.

We can all find a space where "cancel culture" aligns with our beliefs and feels OK, but that doesn't make it right. So Laurence Fox had very little interesting to say and I couldn't really care if I never saw him work again, but you can also find religious nutters using the same approach to recreate the blasphemy laws and they can really gtf. But I would still kind of prefer he wasn't hounded for being a bit of a walloper.

It's a pattern of behaviour that lies somewhere on a scale from 'I disagree with you, here's why...' to absolute knee-jerk mob-mentality bullying that would rightly be decried if the victim was one of your own 'group'.

Some people are used to having a platform to address many people because of their own success (in what ever field), but social media in particular, and society more generally, are no longer one way, top down… if you address loads of people, of many different viewpoints, many will, can, and do, speak back. This does causes genuine problems, but can also descend into “I can say what I want, and you little people can’t challenge me”.

Everyone should read the Jon Ronson book about this - So You've Been Publically Shamed'

I don't really agree with Twitter mob justice but a lot of the moaning about cancel culture seems to be a false right wing victim complex created by over privileged people who don't like being criticised.

Hearing/reading this phrase a lot these days. Is it just the latest flavour of internet BS or is it affecting our lives in every way?

^ I read that back and it makes it sound as if internet BS could not affect our lives in every way. Big mistake! please insert ‘and/or’.

I think claiming it's a "false right wing victim complex" speak more to your owns views than the the issue at hand.

You would be as likely to be cancelled to the max for espousing the virtues of Marx as you would for claiming Schmitt was on to something. Granted you would have different twitter mobs after you, and you would be cancelled in different places but the overall effect would be similar.

I think claiming it’s a “false right wing victim complex” speak more to your owns views than the the issue at hand.

You would be as likely to be cancelled to the max for espousing the virtues of Marx as you would for claiming Schmitt was on to something. Granted you would have different twitter mobs after you, and you would be cancelled in different places but the overall effect would be similar.

Twitter mobs are available to suit all tastes, but I think the phrase "cancel culture" itself is a product of right wing attempts to demean people who want to rethink how we address prejudice in our society.

The people moaning about cancel culture are almost all on the right, IME.

Statement:

I don’t really agree with Twitter mob justice but a lot of the moaning about cancel culture seems to be a false right wing victim complex

Response:

I think claiming it’s a “false right wing victim complex” speak more to your owns views than the the issue at hand.

ISWYDT

I think that responding to a (balanced?) comment such as the first, in such a way as to make it seem like a notably biased comment...speaks more to your own views than the issue at hand?*

*Not calling you ‘notably biased’ not least because I may not have understood why you seem to have painted a (to me clearly balanced) comment as a notably ‘biased’ one? But is *seems* as if you just (inadvertently) accused someone of doing what you yourself just did?

Edit: changed ‘bigoted’ to ‘biased’

If cancel culture doesn't exist, why does the hashtag #cancel(insert name here) trend every time someone steps out of line?

Rights come with responsibility, remember rule 1. People seem to think freedom of speech gives them the right to a platform to spout hateful and ignorant nonsense regardless of the consequences. Crying cancel culture because of snowflakes then getting upset because people don't want to give support is pure arrogance, childishness, and entitlement. It's not discussion that's being shut down, it's formed bigoted opinions that are being dismissed. Words and ideas can have a wide audience and the impact can be devastating for the victims, it's not enough to just ignore it if those words haunt you daily.
Like when Danny Baker equated Harry and Megan's kid to a monkey, it was just a bit of banter but my kids (9 & 11) were called monkey and physically beaten with weapons several times in the weeks after.

I think if you're trying to paint it as a left / right issue you're missing the point.

Many of the recent examples feature people with right wing views but many do not. Many of the issues themselves are not obviously split left / right.

JK Rowling was a well known labour supporter for example.

Rights come with responsibility, remember rule 1. People seem to think freedom of speech gives them the right to a platform to spout hateful and ignorant nonsense regardless of the consequences

The problem is who gets to choose what is acceptable or not. Actually free speech does give the right for people to say what they like includeing hate speech. But the responsibility is them on others to take those opinions on head on and tackle them, expose them and win the debate. If you de platform people then these views don’t disappear. They grow and fester.

Also the people being de-platformed and cancelled are not spouting hate speech. They are just spouting views that certain elements don’t agree with and rather than tackling them head on in debate just attempt to take them out of the equation. It’s also the number 1 tactic hitler employed and all the other murderous dictators in history on their rise to power.

Like when Danny Baker equated Harry and Megan’s kid to a monkey, it was just a bit of banter but my kids (9 & 11) were called monkey and physically beaten with weapons several times in the weeks after.

That is horrendous. Where do you live if you don’t mind me asking? Just seems like something that would happen somewhere with a very rough estate in close proximity, kind of place I grew up on and where some utter contemptuous ****s take great pride in being thick as ****

We can't allow things to get to the point where nobody can open their mouth for fear of retribution or losing their job. That does not make for a good society. Views should definitely be challenged but people should not be persecuted.

We need to exhibit a small degree of 'ignore-culture'. One possibly misguided opinion does not make a persons views or contribution to society completely irrelevant.

It's just another way of people saying 'it's PC gone mad' when someone gets called out for saying offensive stuff

A lot of the people who've been 'cancelled' still seem to have a platform to spout their crap

Rights come with responsibility, remember rule 1.

Absolutely, freedom of speech is not a free ticket to a platform.

Equally, challenging a person's views needn't be a case of shutting them down. Nobody ever had their mind changed by someone attacking them, in fact you are more likely to entrench their views.

We all have a lot of growing up to do.

It’s also the number 1 tactic hitler employed and all the other murderous dictators in history on their rise to power.

This, and it worries me a great deal.

Some people spout some horrendous views, but they will gather momentum and grow if driven underground. Once those views take hold and do grow then they'll be hard to stop and there will be a backlash. The growth of the Nazi's was a prime example of a distasteful group that grew under those conditions, McCarthyism in early 1950's USA (now Trump's 'fake news' idiocy), the witch hunting years in this country is another. When to be accused equals being guilty, society is in trouble.

Debate is not perfect, but it's better than the puritanical attitudes that are on the up now.

The harm that we all suffer is that people are less likely to engage in the public sphere.

Judging by everyone's Twitter feed, the chances of that happening seem remote, if I'm honest.

Debate is not perfect, but it’s better than the puritanical attitudes that are on the up now.

It may be the echo chamber I live in, but I'm not seeing a "puritanical" attitude become more pervasive. I see idiots saying idiotic things and being called out for it, and very occasionally you see the odd difficult question being raised, and being shouted down by ignorance, but I don't think that our public discourse is being overly harmed...It's as robust, loud and obnoxious, funny, scary, trite as it's always been That both the snowflakes and the gammon complain bitterly equally loudly seems to me to be a marker that it's about balanced.

Sorry OP but your choice to bring up such a distasteful subject matter and display such ignorance, means that I have no option other than to report you to the Mods and have your account removed.

I am not prepared to debate this standpoint.

^ Well i laughed.....

We can’t allow things to get to the point where nobody can open their mouth for fear of retribution or losing their job. That does not make for a good society. Views should definitely be challenged but people should not be persecuted.

Yes but we are nowhere near this point.

Freedom of speech does not mean I need to listen to anything someone says, nor not criticise if I disagree.

If I own a megaphone and you want to borrow it because you want to spread your ideas to a bunch of people that wouldn't hear you without the megaphone, then its perfectly legitimate for me to take the megaphone back if you use it to say stuff that I disagree with. Its not your megaphone.

With a few exceptions "cancel culture" is mainly people complaining they have received criticism for spouting bollocks. They often then claim censorship on the same platform they have been "censored" on.

Someone thinking Mike Ashley is a bit of an arse and not buying stuff from his shops is personal choice.

Someone standing outside his shop and berating other people for buying stuff is cancel culture

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with someone doing either of the above, but each case has to be judged on its' own merits. And obviously, it all descends in to awful, tit-for-tat farce online where every minor offence is magnified

If you de platform people then these views don’t disappear. They grow and fester.

I’ve heard this lots. But history suggests that when people are left to spread hate speech, and given platforms by the media of the day to do so, that is when hatred towards groups is allowed to “grow and fester”, not when the media refuses to give them a platform, or seeks to correct or challenge them when they do, or ensures others are given the space to challenge them.

Someone standing outside his shop and berating other people for buying stuff is cancel culture

Would stopping someone standing outside his shop and berating other people for buying stuff also be cancel culture?

I’m thinking more and more that it’s a dubious term. It’s almost meaningless.

Mob pile ons, both on Social Media and outside people’s homes etc is a problem though, if that’s what people are referring to.

'Cancel Culture' is the over inflated ego of the internet.

In the last couple of years it seemed to stem from US universities. Basically, an invited speaker would be uninvited (cancelled) because their topic of discussion was deemed offensive to some people in the audience.

At the time the examples were somewhat iffy, more on the scale of "it's my right not to be offended, therefore you should be cancelled". Now it's been appropriated by all manner of fringe nuts to say that they should be allowed to say what they want where they want it.

IMHO, I think they should, broadly. But they should then have to defend their position and, if it breaks rules on hate speech etc, bear the full consequences of that, including criminal charges as appropriate, as per whatsit white right wing bloke who used to be called Stephen something.

That Obama clip was good, "if all you're doing is casting stones...." sums up a lot of social media..

The example of university speakers is a good one. Surely the point of academic debate is being able to engage with those you fundamentally disagree with using facts and logic to defeat their arguments?

Someone standing outside his shop and berating other people for buying stuff is cancel culture

No, that’s someone standing outside a shop and berating people for buying from said shop. It’s not a ‘culture’ unless it can be shown standing outside of shops berating shoppers is somehow common enough and widespread enough to be considered a ‘culture’. Such would then surely be described as ‘shaming culture’ (or ‘berating culture’ to be more accurate)?

The problem is who gets to choose what is acceptable or not. Actually free speech does give the right for people to say what they like includeing hate speech. But the responsibility is them on others to take those opinions on head on and tackle them, expose them and win the debate. If you de platform people then these views don’t disappear. They grow and fester.

agree

Also the people being de-platformed and cancelled are not spouting hate speech.

Perhaps examples would be useful?

They are just spouting views that certain elements don’t agree with and rather than tackling them head on in debate just attempt to take them out of the equation.

Again, examples would be better here.

It’s also the number 1 tactic hitler employed and all the other murderous dictators in history on their rise to power.

Godwin‘s invoked, and we’re still on page 1!

It's a manifestation of identity politics hence resorting straight to the ad hominem with the latest acronym to bully someone. It's not a clear left-right continuum, witness that debate about trans, it was Germaine Greer who got shot down even though her book was a major contribution to feminist thinking.

I don't really see this as a left/right thing (although both sides will jump on the wagon when it suits them), but there is a class element at play.
There's always been a certain aspect of the middle class in western cultures establishing itself as the arbiter of how people should conduct themselves.
Be it Tipper Gore or Mary Whitehouse trying to control what the kids are listening to/watching or Jamie Oliver meddling in school dinners, there's a feeling this particular group just know better than the rest of us and have the God given right to tell us how to behave.
I think a lot of the current debate online about what can/can't be said stinks of this same borgeios impulse to try and Police the oiks.
It seems driven by the following logic, "if famous or influential people are allowed a platform to say stuff we don't like, all them scrotes following said people might all start saying stuff we don't like, so we need to control the platforms".

It’s not a clear left-right continuum,

Maybe not in them there high-falutin’ blogs or broadsheets written with edumacation as a consideration, etc...but in popular culture/the internets/social media - that boat sailed long ago

The Left = ‘cancel culture snowflakes, something something vaginas’

The Right = ‘freedom culture warriors, something something testicles’

^ Is broadly where we are at. A very (fiscally) profitable and hugely influential social-media business model has grown out of pushing this narrative, namely the ‘anti-SJW’ meme that became manifold talking heads ‘DESTROYING’ ‘The Left’.

Funkmasterp, I live in a predominantly middle class village in East Lothian, Scotland. Overt and violent racism has happened on multiple occasions, the police have been involved each time and we've had one prosecution for a hate crime. These instances flare up when racism is the media, like Danny Bakers monkey reference or if something has happened to someone in the media like Yaxley-Lennon or even Neil Oliver.
Similar has happened to people following what JK has said about transgender people. She's not been cancelled for asking questions or promoting discussion, it's her opinions which are denying other peoples identity that have been a problem and had real consequences for some.
There's a bit of a paradox appearing on the thread with some posters comparing my opinions to Nazism and me to Hitler in an attempt at silencing opinion that counters theirs and preventing discussion. I have in effect previously been cancelled myself for challenging bigoted banter over the internet, because the right to freedom of speech is greater than the responsibility not to promote hate. This is quite a common technique to win the freedom of speech argument and to be able to say what they want without without any responsibility or affording the right to reply. I've never actually reported anyone for the opinions or views expressed, even when I've been personally attacked and I have generally responded considerately, or at least in tone with the conversation.

The example of university speakers is a good one. Surely the point of academic debate is being able to engage with those you fundamentally disagree with using facts and logic to defeat their arguments?

In an ideal world i agree with you, but the problem is differentiating between events set up to allow for debate and events that are/were providing a pulpit for the speaker to pontificate their views. We've all seen enough politicians not answering the question presented to them and giving a tangentally related soundbite instead. I've seen that in Q&A's after academic presentations too.
Even events that are constituted around debate, e.g. the oxford union, result in soundbites and video clips of a guest speaker such as Farage making the rounds, and not the opposing argument delivered by the non-famous person.

To me there are two outcomes of cancel culture:

The loud mouthed idiots carry on regardless because to them any attention is good.

The only way you can argue or express an opinion and maintain ’the moral high ground’ is to define yourself as a victim. Victim groups become more and more tightly defined and smaller and smaller so anyone with power doesn’t have to listen and it becomes harder and harder to talk constructively to anyone outside that group (the feminism v trans argument is a case in point).

The outcome is that the people who really are doing us over don’t have to bother about divide and rule because we’ve saved them the job

It's when people protest against actual meaningful racism, and then some bellend takes down an episode of the Golden Girls for no reason, which nobody had asked for, and then other bellends say CANCEL CULTURE! ZOMG SNOWFLAKES! and carrying on being racist.

Re "deplatforming", the term itself is misleading and that's no coincidence because the people complaining about it, want you to think they have a right to the platform. You are entitled to free speech, you're not entitled to use someone else's platform to do it. Not being allowed on someone else's isn't "deplatforming", it's just nothing happening at all, it was never yours to be de'd it. If you were invited then deinvited, that's how being invited works sometimes, if you get invited to a party then the person remembers that time you shat in the laundry basket and uninvites you, your human rights are not being infringed.

Sometimes, you can give someone the platform and use it to show an arsehole up. But that's not easy to do and it's a stacked deck. Other times, you can have a genuine valuable debate and have the arguments stand and fall on their merits, which also is a positive thing, but that's less and less common- debates these days are so much about rhetoric tricks, ignoring the question, and lying, and generally winning with your loud voice and strong simple bullshit. And the sort of person that doesn't get invited, is more likely than not to be the sort of person that will shit on the board then walk around like they've won.

University debates are a perfect example of when it's often not a good idea. You get some 20 year old kid- the university's elected president, often, or their LGBTQ officer, or the head of a society- full of ideas and optimism, booked to go up against some professional beligerant like Jordan Peterson or Germaine Greer with years of experience in hostile "debates" and in making people look stupid in public while gaining publicity. Why is that a good idea? It doesn't lead to a good or productive debate.

The example of university speakers is a good one. Surely the point of academic debate is being able to engage with those you fundamentally disagree with using facts and logic to defeat their arguments?

Problem is debate style has moved on, in the old days if you were asked a question you answered it, then someone realised this was completely unnecessary and being asked a question is just an opportunity to repeat the same spiel. Politicians started this, ignore the Q, just say the party line and everyone has copied it since.