
Cancel Culture in 1974 - riverlong
https://jayriverlong.github.io/2020/06/28/cancel-culture.html
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grawprog
>The left is in a curious, self-damaging position, where lots of center-
leaning moderates who are genuine progressives – are not meeting the
ideological standards of those further left, which functions to their
exclusion, thereby weakening the left overall.

I try to avoid placing myself on the political spectrum, I tend to believe
politics need to take a well rounded view on things, so I guess that would
place me center or something.

I tend to believe in a decent amount of personal freedom while believing the
government exists to serve and provide social systems for the population.

I tend to find both the 'left' and 'right' push me away. Both are so extreme
and exclusive in their views that they're blind to whatever common ground they
might have with eachother if they have even the slightest difference in views.

It's ridiculous. Both far left and far right of the political spectrum have
become caricatures of themselves. They've both lost all reason and critical
thinking abilities and resort to black and white, yes or no, all in or out,
fuck on or fuck off statements.

Human beings aren't like that, society isn't like that. Humans are a million
shades of grey ans everyone likely falls somewhere not so extreme when asked
candidly and given time to think on their beliefs.

Too much time is spent on alienating eachother, finding the smallest faults
with eachother to show why they are 'them' and we are 'us' and not coming
together over common ground.

I truly believe, the average person wants what a good majority of other people
want and if people were given time to think and understand rather than react,
the majority of us, whatever side you fall on, where ever you're from would
likely have more in common then we all think, were we more able to look past
all our differences.

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foolfoolz
don’t equate internet ramblings with political beliefs. the majority of all
posts on political topics are just trying to maximize the internet points

~~~
catalogia
I agree partially, internet point systems give people a metric to optimize for
(any metric that can be gamed, _will_ be gamed) and it happens that
sensationalism is an efficient strategy for accumulating internet points in
most extant internet point systems.

However, I think what people say online will leach into what they truly
believe, particularly with repetition. I believe humans have a cognitive bias
towards consistency, particularly with respect to their self-image. If there's
a large disconnect between what you truly believe and what you say online, I
think there's probably a psychological pressure to alter your self-image to be
more inline with what you've been saying.

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Kephael
The primary difference between 2020 and 1974 is that smartphones and social
media greatly increase the number of people who can (and do) serve as the
tabloid reporter from the article.

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lobocinza
Your rss feed isn't working.

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riverlong
Hey, thank you for pointing it out! I've hidden the Feed from the navigation
bar for the moment. It's probably an issue with the Jekyll template that I'm
using -- I've been trying to fix it. (As a stopgap, I do also post updates on
my twitter.)

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wellpast
While cancel culture may not be new it certainly seems amplified by new
conditions of media and the digital era, which seem specially able to
manufacture larger polarized mobs and hermetic ideological bubbles.

He points a ginger finger at the left and its tendency of late toward
puritanism, but I think this is too polite. (The modern right has its own
tendency and gets no pass, by the way.)

One thing I find interesting amid the modern polarization of ideologies is how
clearly the essence of "conservatism" and "liberalism" can be seen in their
extreme lights. You get a much clearer picture of "where" each ideology goes
when taken to its extreme.

Embarrassingly I grew up tacitly seeing "conservatism" as the "bad guys"; I
reject that simplistic thinking these days.

People are people: the right and the left are cut from the same cloth, and
both are subject to fundamentalist thinking. I'm speaking not just from media
but how certain ideas falling from it have been trickling directly into my
friend circles over the years without any kind of thoughtful skepticism or
individualization.

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buzzkillington
>For no fault of her own, Katharina’s life is in shambles: her career is over,
and her friends distance themselves for self-preservation. In desperation, she
tries to meet with the reporter who has been hounding her. The reporter tries
to extort her for sex, whereupon she shoots him. Remorseless, she turns
herself in to the police for justice.

I think this describes Gawker more than the current howling mob. There is
someone to blame at the end of the day, and there is a clear malevolence in
motives.

Today what we have is closer to the medieval village in winter where there is
nothing to do but go to the town square and watch the witches be humiliated.

