Jon Ronson wrote a great book about this. Meghan Murphy didn't read it. She'd much rather tell you how she feels about "cancel culture" anyway, because she feels that she is vulnerable to it - which hey, top two comments here are, in fact, "cancelling" her. The meat of her argument is a journalist and a dude with a sign, neither of which are particularly vulnerable to being "cancelled" because they were never "on air." The lady in the park who decided to call the cops on the Black birdwatcher who told her to leash her dog? She wasn't "cancelled" as no one had ever heard of her before anyway. JK Rowling? Yeah, there's definitely a move afoot to "cancel" her. Because that's the thing: social media is media, and celebrities often say one thing to the media and another thing to social media, and the rest of the social uses that dichotomy to "cancel out" the media statements. That's the mechanism at play here: the mob using the statements of a public figure to nullify their privileged voice. Am I a fan? No - but if you're going to say one thing in public and another thing in private, best be sure it's actually in private, dumbass. Unfortunately nobody ever expects to raise a million dollars with the help of budweiser so we say dumb shit on Twitter.
Canceling doesn't go one way. Kathy Lee Grifwhatever (-ith? -in? don't care) got canceled for holding a decapitated Trumphead. Good! Don't do that. Louis C.K. is over. Or was over. Who knows, with multi-million business deals in the mix. I don't feel bad about joining dat horde who condemned people that beat their dick off in front of strangers, We just canceled Kanye in hubski chat a few hours ago. Examples like these go on forever. Q: Why are there two "L"s in "uncancelled" and only one in "canceled"? A: One was cancelled, because there is no consensus on the proper spelling. Congratulations, you just made it through the Worst Joke of the Day, hopefully without vomiting. It's still hilarious, to me, to pretend like the social justice warrior mob is the sole aggressor, like Stephen Miller, Ben Shapiro, or Diamond & Silk or whoever don't have a Twitter, like Donald Trump retweeting someone yelling "white power" is an accident, like the George Floyd-inspired, Kaepernick-continuing movement is unwarranted. HILARIOUS. It's almost like one side of the political spectrum is intrinsically more susceptible to attacks on their moral stances. ALMOST.
You're missing the power dynamic. - KATHY GRIFFIN did a photoshoot with Tyler Shields, whose whole schtick is to be obnoxious and provocative. Being photographed by somebody famous is a famousness multiplier, just ask anyone who has ever posed for Annie Liebovitz or Richard Avedon. Thing about these portraits? Neither you nor I will ever pose for any of these photographers 'cuz we're schlubs. But amongst the intelligentsia, being in the gallery is social signalling. And the hoi polloi know it. Kathy Griffin caused furor because the people that shoot was intended for - agents, publishers, execs, producers - HATE Trump and she was being "brave." She was one-upping other obnoxious Tyler Shields photos. And if you think she was surprised to be dropped by CNN over that shit you aren't paying attention. Kathy Griffin's Trump head move was coldly calculated through and through and pissing off the conservative hoi polloi to please the liberal hoi polloi is just public relations. - LOUIS C.K. fundamentally admitted that he had used his power to render women powerless for years or decades. The victims ceased to be nameless and faceless and the crimes became unforgivable. It could have gone either way - guaranteed he was going for some sort of redemption tale. I mean, that which destroys Pee Wee Herman barely touches Fred Willard. But again, it took people in power telling the hoi polloi what to believe. If you want to talk about "cancelling" you need to look at - ROSANNE BARR. Big new show, triumph of the conservatives, fundamentally changes the equation for broadcast television, Trump's popular mouthpiece, sitting around scoring likes amongst the MAGA-heads, tweets And it was fuckin' over. Rosanne had taken a beer shit in the middle of her career and everyone dove away from it as quickly as possible. There were points to be scored with the liberals for kicking her down and no points to be scored with the conservatives for backing her up so out the door she went. She probably could have walked back from that if she had shown some contriteness, demonstrated humility, gone on TV to talk about "changing" or some shit - that's part of the reason the powerless on Twitter live for this shit, it's water off a duck's back 99% of the time (Kathy Griffin is very much still working, thankyouverymuch). But she's fundamentally Roseanne Barr and nobody wants to put up with her shit. Which is why - JK ROWLING has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to worry about because she's richer than God and is probably learning that there's no point in tweeting with the Proles when your attempts at humor can be weaponized. Slowly. Painfully. Over and over. But I mean fuck Mel Gibson doesn't care. Roman Polanski keeps getting awards. And I think that's the part people don't understand - "cancel culture" is this thing Hollywood has been doing since before the advent of sound. You might be able to shout, but if I can get everyone to whisper I can drown you out. Tippi Hedren never worked again because Alfred Hitchcock told everyone what an impossible bitch she was when he didn't sleep with her. Same with Mira Sorvino and Harvey Weinstein. The Hollywood rumor mill allows people to justify their petty gut decisions and forces the less powerful to go along with them and now that we've got Twitter the super-powerless can do the same to the mostly-powerless.Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj
100% true... but fundamentally, the mob didn't like his position against Archive.org so they dredged up situationally-irrelevant vaguely-questionable hot takes from 2011 so they could ignore everything he had to say. That is cancellation - "you are no longer a part of the sphere of discussion for reasons having nothing to do with the discussion." The fact that they didn't succeed in canceling him doesn't mean they didn't try. And I agree: Kate Wagner has much more to fear because she has made a career out of slagging on the work of others. All the does is piss on creatives. Her every word begs for reprisal, which is why there isn't a post on here without me slagging on her. She's like Dane Cook: once everyone has a chance to step back and see what she's adding to the discussion, they can't help but decide she isn't.Chuck Wendig got harassed by the twitter mob for a couple weeks but I don't think he's going to lose out on any book deals just because he wrote an essay where he admitted he likes porn.
To the extent it’s that, I am all for canceling. However it’s been my experience that when a group of people are right about something and are taking action, you find that only about 20% can appropriately communicate that message, and the other 80% are finding their conviction from their peers. When this dynamic gets coopted by evil people, very bad things happen. I know people that suffered in the Cultural Revolution. Part of the fear is legitimately rooted in this. Part is just assholes afraid of being held accountable. Also, I have personal issues such as the nice weekend with my aunt and uncle who are Trumpers. We discussed politics, but it never got ugly, and I love them. I’m all about canceling Trump, but I can love his followers. I need to be careful not to be a hypocrite. I totally agree about free speech in the private sphere. It’s also why I think the Constitutional right is so precious. The ugly thing is that at the core of it, being "cancelled" is just other people not liking you.
I spent some time with Trump family this past weekend, too. We engage but we don't fight, and I don't care about them any less since Trump became president. I think the problem is that people have all sorts of reasons for voting Trump that don't have anything to do with Nazism. The trouble is that they can't be convinced that the white supremacists are a core constituency of his, and that supporting him is supporting them too. But it's just not that important to them, and there's no amount of convincing we can do to change that. But I totally and completely disagree that "canceling" is, at its core, about just not liking someone. It's about thought policing for purity. This type of thought regulation has a long history (goes back at least to a French philosopher whom Marx cited a lot called Helvetius), and the idea is that if you can get people to change their behavior via law (or de facto law, in the case of the Internet), then you can eventually alter their morality. Basically you Stockholm syndrome them into acting a certain way. It's more or less why art and literature were so heavily regulated in the Eastern Bloc. I fundamentally believe that there are not any ideas that are too dangerous to talk about--as ideas in an open marketplace. The Holocaust didn't happen because Mein Kampf got published. It's in print here in the US, and I read it years ago...I still have two little Jewish babies running around my house. This is as close to saying anything controversial as I'll probably say on the internet, because I'm not into Internet fights as a way of life, but the Twitter mobs are playing with fire they don't fundamentally understand. Vote, please. For the love of God vote.Also, I have personal issues such as the nice weekend with my aunt and uncle who are Trumpers. We discussed politics, but it never got ugly, and I love them. I’m all about canceling Trump, but I can love his followers. I need to be careful not to be a hypocrite.
Talk to me or don't, but when you some dumb, meaningless shit like this it's not really a conversation you're trying to have. Since you don't know much of anything about my background, and I know even less about yours, let's try to evaluate each other's words instead of making buzzword value judgments about character. To get back to the conversation: You have it the wrong way around. The ideas that were once too dangerous to talk about were that black people aren't subhuman, not that they are. In fact, there is a really large body of literature from post-Civil War until like the 1930s trying to use data to support that point (and not from backwater Southerners--Harvard was the biggest and worst offender for this type of "research"). It was only when more voices were let in that change started to occur. One thing I agree with you on is that there is never a true marketplace of ideas. That's a fantasy, but it's a good fantasy, not a bad one, and one that we would be wise to try to strive for. In fact, I have it on pretty good authority that's sort of the point of this here website (privileged information, you might even call it). The abject ridiculousness of ideas about, say, genetic inferiority, only get exposed in a world in which alternative narratives are allowed to thrive.this is an opinion that can only come from a place of privilege
"I'm making no judgments about your character. You can't empathize." Reread as many times as you need to figure out why that's wrong. Inherent in your argument is that no one can ever see anything from anyone else's perspective, because someone has always suffered more. It's hyperindividualism to a degree that would make Grover Norquist blush.
I think you misread my meaning. I wasn't moaning about either side or belittling them. I think they are both legit and important. I often see opposing forces as a good thing. It's how nature is stable. I'm glad to see people less repressed, but fearful of the means leading to other ends. I do think that if your side fully won, there would be repression and fear, but it would look different. That said, I don't take issue with your conviction, I don't think it isn't legitimate. Curious, have you read the autobiography of Malcolm X?
I mention the book because it is a candid and compelling account of his journey that was manifest in contradiction but was noble. Malcolm left the world a better place. His views on racial equality evolve, as do his views on gender. The ground moves beneath his feet. His views of women and his participation in the Nation of Islam were both progressive and regressive. Malcolm was at times right and wrong and neither and both, but he had a cause. You cannot define his work by a moment, or a measure. However, if you take him as the sum of his efforts, there is no question that we are better off for him. It is a very human story. I think everyone should read it. I agree with the pace of progress. Those repressions are clear. As an aside, some actualization is complicated, and it becomes difficult to get a social consensus on dignity, especially in matters of religion. I think polygamy is an interesting example. It is illegal, and most Mormons no longer practice it. But is that right? Should consenting adults be able to choose to live in polyamorous union? I think so. But maybe not if as children they have been subjected to religious indoctrination of a patriarchal-style polygamy? But why? Is that denying religious identity and dignity? Are agnostics and atheists in the clear for patriarchal-style polygamy? Should we choose? I don’t want to repress adults that want a certain kind of family, but at the same time, I am worried about why they want it. For some groups, it is not clear when respect and dignity are met for all. Is there a battle won when one man and three women are married? Some people want that. I don’t know. On some matters of repression there should be no debate. But it doesn't mean that all matters repression can be settled by applying a vision of respect and dignity. In some subjective value judgments get entangled.