
Cancel Culture and Harper's Letter - throwaway29102
https://jezebel.com/cancel-culture-isnt-a-culture-its-a-religion-1844322044
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wilsocr88
I have to admit, I did not expect to see a Jezebel headline and think, "Well,
that is an extremely reasonable thing to say."

A good section:

>"And like many religions, the cancel culture congregation is teeming with
members eager to point out the sins of others to deflect from their own. Mass
free expression is chaotic, clearly, which at the very least means we should
be wary of pat explanations that attempt to squeeze the nature of the problem
down to 500 words and place certain manners of expression in tidy boxes on
either side of an ideological divide."

Jezebel has always (perhaps fallaciously) been considered something of a
thought leader in some communities. Maybe this gutsy article, which some their
audience may not like, signals a return to some kind of capacity for normal
discourse among human beings.

~~~
gotoeleven
I hope so. The world is going to be a much nastier place if this new anti-
free-speech in the name of manners and harm prevention stuff takes hold.

Free speech is the greatest equalizing force between the powerful and the non-
powerful that has ever existed. The only people who are against free speech
are the ones that plan on being among the powerful.

------
0x8BADF00D
In my view, the issue is not so much cancel culture. It’s that journalists can
publish inaccurate information and libel people without any sort of punishment
or way for the targeted party to respond.

Also, this article is extremely racist. They are supporting the decades old
trope of the “uppity” black male that just won’t shut up and behave like an
Uncle Tom. At least these journalists are no longer hiding what they really
think about minorities.

~~~
nickthegreek
There is a way to respond when a corporation says libel thing about you... you
can sue. The target can also respond, thru social media at the very least.

Where in this article were they 'supporting the decades old trope of the
“uppity” black male that just won’t shut up'? I felt like I read it pretty
closely and I cant even begin to understand where that took place.

~~~
0x8BADF00D
> Kanye West has made increasingly oppressive, malformed declarations over the
> past several years, and yet commands earth-stopping attention every time he
> opens his mouth/Twitter app. Forbes ran a massive feature just this week
> about the ridiculous notion of West running for president in this year’s
> election.

It is very subtle. Oppressive? Malformed? This is basically calling him an
uppity ni---r.

~~~
nickthegreek
[https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/entertainment/kanye-west-
slav...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/entertainment/kanye-west-slavery-
choice-trnd/index.html)

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/lindsayfarber/twitter-reacts-to-
kan...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/lindsayfarber/twitter-reacts-to-kanye-wests-
bill-cosby-is-innocent-tweet)

------
awb
> Last year in The New Republic, Osita Nwanevu characterized social media
> backlash that is often seen as the root of cancel culture as not a threat to
> speech itself, but perhaps just noise. “It seems at least possible that
> tweets are just tweets—that as difficult as criticism in the social media
> age may be to contend with at times, it bears no meaningful resemblance to
> genocides, excommunications, executions, assassinations, political
> imprisonments, and official bans past,” wrote Nwanevu. “Perhaps we should
> choose instead to understand cancel culture as something much more mundane:
> ordinary public disfavor voiced by ordinary people across new platforms.”

Anti-Cancel Culture seems just as anti-Free Speech as Cancel Culture. Everyone
has a right to express their opinion. And everyone has a right to react and
respond to your opinion. People are allowed to boycott, demand, shun whoever
they want. And "cancel cancel culture" folks are doing exactly that:
expressing outrage, demanding change, shaming others, etc. It's totally fine,
just ironic to see people shaming people for shaming others.

Have people in power made bad decisions based on a few loud voices? Sure. But
it's the people in power who bare the responsibility, not the people who
expressed outrage.

~~~
gotoeleven
Being actually supportive of free speech requires some level of tolerance for
things that you disagree with. It can't possibly work if people with unpopular
opinions are are cancelled (i.e. blacklisted, fired, castigated, sanctioned).
If the government did these things to people with unpopular opinions that
would clearly be anti-free-speech, right? Why is it different when it's done
by a mob instead?

~~~
mcphage
> It can't possibly work if people with unpopular opinions are are cancelled
> (i.e. blacklisted, fired, castigated, sanctioned)

What would it mean for JK Rowling to be cancelled? Legitimately an honest
question: she's a billionaire backed by a media empire. What do you think
would have to happen before she could be considered "cancelled"?

~~~
geebee
That is an interesting question. I'm not the OP, I'll think about it.

Do you have any criteria?

~~~
mcphage
Honestly, no. I can’t even think of what would qualify as cancelled for her.
If publishers refused to sell her books, she could start her own.

