Cancel Culture… can we talk about it (isn’t it just boycotts)?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Fundamentally “cancel culture” is people choosing to put their money where they want to put their money.  People choosing to associate themselves with whom they want to associate.  It is about boycotts.

Boycotts are groups of individuals choosing to act.  I cannot see any systematic way of controlling boycotts unless you are comfortable with the State directing individuals to purchase product X, support individual Y, or associate with individual Z. I’m certainly not comfortable with the State ever doing things like that.

Folks objecting to “cancel culture” point out it is a mob acting on suspicion with little or no direct information.  How is that different from… every human culture ever?  Social approbation sucks.  But it has happened from time immemorial.  It is a feature of human culture.  I don’t see it stopping simply because it happens much more quickly than it could formerly due to the existence of on-line communication.

Discuss.

[A wilding]

You are making a category mistake Scot. Your reasoning is pretty well unassailable, but that is not what "cancel culture" is about. It is an air horn. Use of the phrase by the alt-right and their fellow travellers means that they have automatically won the argument and do not have to bother to listen to whatever you say next.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, A wilding said:

You are making a category mistake Scot. Your reasoning is pretty well unassailable, but that is not what "cancel culture" is about. It is an air horn. Use of the phrase by the alt-right and their fellow travellers means that they have automatically won the argument and do not have to bother to listen to whatever you say next.

I get that it is an air horn and a “boogeyman” designed to get people angry and worked up.  My point is that it’s just boycotts.  

Like the targets, dislike the targets, it is simply a boycott.  Humans shun other humans they dislike rationally or irrationally.  How can this be addressed by any sort of public policy?

I submit this inability to control or contain boycotts is an illustration of how much bullshit the complaints about “cancel culture” really are.

 

 

[A wilding]

I guess that from one perspective they can be considered an example of the amplification of direct democracy enabled by the internet. There are issues with that amplification that society has not yet come to terms with yet, obviously.

But there are more serious symptoms of that, such as bot farms, relentless online attacks on women, etc.

[Week]

Accountability culture. Fuck around and find out culture. One might even say it can be capitalism at work -- I want to put my dollars towards good companies, causes, or products and not petro-dollars, GQP supporting companies (which yes, is most, so you make your choices), etc. That said, we're all trying to be people and it's nigh impossible to perfectly allocate your dollars and eyeballs without supporting/finding something you are opposed to - so you make trade offs.

Anyhow, nobody is cancelled, it doesn't make any fuck sense as a term and anybody using it is has a grave misunderstanding or bad faith reason for it.

[Heartofice]

We definitely needed another thread about Cancel Culture. It always works out well.

[baxus]

From where I stand, there's a difference between a boycott and "cancel culture" (I don't like the term either, but since we're already using it I'll go with that one).

Boycott is not using a certain product or a service due to the manufacturer/provider doing something that clashes with your views on morality or some of your principles etc. and it's great. No one (or should) can force you to spend your money on something you don't want to spend it on, at least not without breaking the law.

On the other hand, what is now known as "cancel culture" is not really same as that, is it? It's more along the lines of wanting some external force to make that which you disagree with stop existing.

For example, if I don' like what you say in your messages, boycott would be blocking your messages from my feed and "cancel culture" would be me going to Ran asking to delete your account and ban you indefinitely.

At least that's how I see it. Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, though...

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Fundamentally “cancel culture” is people choosing to put their money where they want to put their money.  People choosing to associate themselves with whom they want to associate.  It is about boycotts.

Ok I'll bite but these threads are generally unproductive and nobody ever agrees on the definition or whether it even exists, and everyone will talk past each other. 

Fundamentally I disagree with your definition though, I don't think its enough to say 'cancel' culture' about what people are buying or boycotting. That is far too small a focus. 

I'd say its about a political culture that breeds a level of fear in people that they cannot express their opinions, which is controlled by what appears to be a small minority of very vocal groups and people, because they worry they will lose their jobs or be harassed and threatened. This is tied into a breaking of what different groups find acceptable, and a rapidly changing landscape of acceptability and outrage that many find difficult to keep up with. 

That doesn't mean its not being abused and hyped by many groups, mainly right wing, but it also doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It also definitely isn't 'accountability culture' and anyone saying it is, is really just planting their flag in the ground for the 'my opinions are the only ones that matter' level of debate, and are probably part of the problem. 

[A wilding]

52 minutes ago, baxus said:

For example, if I don' like what you say in your messages, boycott would be blocking your messages from my feed and "cancel culture" would be me going to Ran asking to delete your account and ban you indefinitely.

I am not sure that there is a real distinction there though.

This is not a publicly funded forum, so hypothetically Ran is free to ban as he chooses. Hypothetically were he to choose to do so then people who disagreed with his decision are likely to move on to another forum. Equally, if he didn't ban then a different set of people might move on. It is still all about people deciding to boycott, though I suppose also an illustration of how the internet can devolve into echo chambers.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Ok I'll bite but these threads are generally unproductive and nobody ever agrees on the definition or whether it even exists, and everyone will talk past each other. 

Fundamentally I disagree with your definition though, I don't think its enough to say 'cancel' culture' about what people are buying or boycotting. That is far too small a focus. 

I'd say its about a political culture that breeds a level of fear in people that they cannot express their opinions, which is controlled by what appears to be a small minority of very vocal groups and people, because they worry they will lose their jobs or be harassed and threatened. This is tied into a breaking of what different groups find acceptable, and a rapidly changing landscape of acceptability and outrage that many find difficult to keep up with. 

That doesn't mean its not being abused and hyped by many groups, mainly right wing, but it also doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It also definitely isn't 'accountability culture' and anyone saying it is, is really just planting their flag in the ground for the 'my opinions are the only ones that matter' level of debate, and are probably part of the problem. 

HoI,

How can what you object to be curtailed or controlled?  In all sincerity.  Isn’t this what human communities have done for millennia?  Rationally or irrationally?

“Bob is bad he will not kiss the sacred rock.  I will not associate with Bob or those who associate with Bob because the kissing the sacred rock is important to me.”

Isn’t that choice to disassociate and the negative consequences that flow from it what you are objecting to?

[A wilding]

I don't really think that that is what HoI is saying Scot. I think he is talking about the sort of scenario you get sometimes after a successful revolution, where the ideal that the revolution espouses gets steadily more extreme and faction after faction are judged to have failed to meet it and are expelled (and usually executed). Of course history shows that this never ends well.

However, I personally don't think that "cancel culture" has anywhere near approaching that sort of state. Whenever I have looked into individual cases it generally turns out that the "cancelled" person had views (and often performed actions) that the cancellees had every justification in not wanting to put up with. And cases that were anywhere near marginal seldom came out well for the cancellees.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, A wilding said:

I don't really think that that is what HoI is saying Scot. I think he is talking about the sort of scenario you get sometimes after a successful revolution, where the ideal that the revolution espouses gets steadily more extreme and faction after faction are judged to have failed to meet it and are expelled (and usually executed). Of course history shows that this never ends well.

However, I personally don't think that "cancel culture" has anywhere near approaching that sort of state. Whenever I have looked into individual cases it generally turns out that the "cancelled" person had views (and often performed actions) that the cancellees had every justification in not wanting to put up with. And cases that were anywhere near marginal seldom came out well for the cancellees.

I get it.  I have to ask… how can that circumstance be prevented?  “La terreur” was the dark result of the French Revolution.  The Revolution was a good thing La terreur was not.

[Heartofice]

17 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How can what you object to be curtailed or controlled?  In all sincerity.  Isn’t this what human communities have done for millennia?  Rationally or irrationally?

Yeah for sure this is part of human nature, I’m sure it’s a phenomenon we’ve seen many many times before , with religion for example. 
 

I don’t really understand the rest of your post, because it’s not a simple matter of associating with things. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I don’t really understand the rest of your post, because it’s not a simple matter of associating with things. 

The really negative impacts… as far as I can tell… are when the consequences move beyond the person shunned to those who shun those who refuse to shun the person shunned… yes?

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The really negative impacts… as far as I can tell… are when the consequences move beyond the person shunned to those who shun those who refuse to shun the person shunned… yes?

I’m not sure because it sounds like you have a very narrow focus. 
 

Cancel culture for me is the pervasive fear that one’s views cannot be expressed because the consequences are too heavy.

[Mentat]

38 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How can what you object to be curtailed or controlled?

Easily? We can mock and ridicule people who object to certain things. We can harass them or demand they face professional consequences for their objections. We can threaten them or act violently towards them. We can control public discourse so that objecting to something is seen under a poor light, and supporting it favourably. We can consider it in poor taste or unpolite, creepy or disgusting to object to certain things. Ultimately, we can prohibit or censor certain objections (some of this might not withstand a legal challenge in certain parts of the world, but that's another story). Of course, it depends on who this 'we' is how much said opposition to this objection will be felt (me and my buddy, a major media outlet, an authoritarian state?), but any person will find that publicly espousing unpopular opinions (or objections), has consequences, and might think twice about doing so.

[Week]

14 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Cancel culture for me is the pervasive fear that one’s views cannot be expressed because the consequences are too heavy.

As personally defined with its conception steeped in fear mongering. 

The entire discussion, using the absurd "cancel culture" term, is a canard from the Right where racism, misogyny, phrenology, and other ignorance and bigotry should be shared without fear. The "fear" and fear-mongering is almost entirely of and by white people who say a lot of pretty insane shit. Look at these latest protests across the world -- those folks don't seem to be fearing repurcussions for violent, anti-Semitic, etc. speech. The quotes coming from Republicans, partisan media, and 'thought' leaders after Biden's SCOTUS announcement certainly didn't hold back some pretty ignorant and noxious bile.

We're still waiting, as we have for years, of some legitimate examples of "cancel culture" where the consequences are too heavy.

[Heartofice]

The above post by week is almost a case study in cancel culture. To them the only cases of cancel culture are people who want to say racist or sexist stuff and are annoyed they aren’t allowed. What they miss, and continuously miss is that not everyone agrees with them and their definitions are not universally shared and that their tendency to brand everyone they disagree with as dangerous is a pretty good signpost of what we are talking about. 
 

I’ll give you a very small, very silly personal example of cancel culture at work. 
 

We have recently introduced a chat bot on our office slack that notifies people if they use the word ‘guys’ in chat, telling them it could be considered sexist and exclusionary.

When this was introduced it was widely applauded and cheered publicly, one of two people made a couple of humourous comments but there was no objection.

But I’ve had lots of chats personally between some of the same people who applauded it out loud, and in private have jokes about how stupid it is, how they use ‘guys’ as a gender neutral term so don’t understand it.So why did they cheer it? Well they said they wouldn’t want to voice that out loud because it might affect them. They also know the poltics of people up top and in HR and it wouldn’t be worth their while. 
 

It seems a really innocuous example, but my point is there can be lots of examples of things which are small and petty and unimportant but generate a sense that oppression and fear, a sense that some things cannot be said out loud.
Brexit would be another example, where in my workplaces being Remain is an accepted thing to say out loud, but anyone pro Brexit will say it in hushed tones and always looking over their shoulders. 
Another example might be pronouns in your bio, something that some people would proudly proclaim whereas others would be uncomfortable with it. But one view would have no issue telling everyone, but the other would most likely keep it to themselves or just do it out of fear. 

I think that general sense that thought is policed, that very genuinely held beliefs are deemed unacceptable because the gate keepers of thought are on the whole balanced on one side of the culture , and the punishment  for going against that thought is often deemed to be too heavy to be worth the risk.

 

This all isn’t to that the right don’t engage in cancelling people too, but I almost think that cancelling is simply a tool in a wider cultural war, so it’s almost odd to talk about the act of cancelling without thinking about the broader context 

[Larry of the Lawn]

If you're afraid that expressing how you truly think or feel will get you ostracized, maybe either reflect on why that would be the case, or maybe just stop caring how you'll be perceived and express yourself.

Then again I got a board vacation for something I said in the last cancel culture thread so YMMV.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Larry of the Lake said:

If you're afraid that expressing how you truly think or feel will get you ostracized, maybe either reflect on why that would be the case, or maybe just stop caring how you'll be perceived and express yourself.

Then again I got a board vacation for something I said in the last cancel culture thread so YMMV.

I’ve not been present as much on the board as I have in other years.  If this is too repetitive… I apologize.