The New York Times ran an editorial on Friday about "America's free speech problem," and naturally this has Twitter all atwitter. I myself find the whole "cancel culture" controversy exhausting, mainly because of the absolutism on both sides. My side denies the problem exists at all, while the Fox News set insists it's rampant.
For what it's worth—which is nothing much, unfortunately—here are some things I believe:
- Cultural mores have changed over the years and everyone needs to acknowledge this in practice, not only in theory. That means adjusting how you talk about people (and groups of people) even if you privately roll your eyes at some of it.
- If you're mad because you can't be racist in public anymore—not even a little bit—then you just need to get over it.
- Young lefties have had a history of "callout culture" for years. At first, this meant that if someone said something offensive you should call it out instead of staying silent and providing tacit acceptance. This steadily got more and more aggressive and eventually morphed into what's called cancel culture these days.
- "Cancel culture" is a terrible name, but it's what we're stuck with. Very few people who say something offensive actually get canceled—i.e., get fired or seriously disciplined, lose their ability to speak in public, or pay some other meaningful price—though it does happen.
- Most of the damage is far smaller: being ostracized, shamed, or getting a lecture from HR for an offense that possibly—possibly—isn't worth it. This shouldn't be minimized, since it can cause genuine anguish and create lifelong enemies, but it also isn't the end of the world.
- Don't confuse cancel culture with ordinary political fights. Disagreements—big, loud, vicious disagreements—are normal parts of human society. The side that eventually loses hasn't been canceled, they've just lost a cultural battle in the most ordinary sort of way.
- It's really important to distinguish between at least two types of cancel culture. One type is entirely an intra-left issue, where lefties name and shame other lefties who have said something that's verboten. This is by far the more restrictive version of cancel culture, where people can be taken down for even tiny infractions.
- The other type is left vs. right. I don't have much to say about this because it's just the modern version of lefties and righties yelling at each other. There's really nothing new about it and lefties simply have no power to cancel conservatives. The only example I can think of is university students who heckle conservative speakers and drive them off campus. This has happened only a few times and has very limited impact. On the other hand, the heckling business is stupid, and activists should be ashamed of themselves for doing it. Charles Murray is not Hitler.
- The left-on-left version of cancel culture is really, really hard to get a handle on. There is literally no real data on how widespread it is and there probably never will be. This is because much of it takes the form of people just shutting up; another large portion never gets reported; survey data is all but useless; and there's no good definition of cancel culture in the first place. We have anecdotes and that's all.
- That said, there are anecdotes. Lots of them. In addition to the ones that make news, I've heard personally from very normal, reasonable people who think cancel culture has become too stifling. They really do feel like they can't talk about sensitive topics for fear of being ostracized unless they toe the absolute latest and wokest line, and they often express a genuine fear of being shunned or worse if they make even a small mistake. This is real, and pretending it doesn't exist is just putting your head in the sand. Not only does it do a lot of damage to people who are shy or not especially verbal, but it's politically suicidal as well since it makes no friends. Any movement that's in thrall to its most extreme elements is doomed to implode at some point.
- When issues come up within newsrooms or other companies, they are usually driven by young staffers. That's fine, but it shouldn't be a foregone conclusion that the young staffers are automatically right. Unfortunately, managers are often afraid to argue with them even if they think things have gone too far. But they should. This kind of guidance is what experienced managers are expected to provide to younger workers.
- Note to managers: Don't take this as permission to dismiss those younger workers. They probably know more about this stuff than you do. Just because something doesn't exist in your social circle doesn't mean it's all a bunch of made-up snowflake-ness.
- It should be possible to have normal, good faith conversations about what's acceptable and what isn't without the wokest or most oppressed voice automatically being assumed right.
- Intentions absolutely have to be taken into account. There's a big difference between someone being willfully offensive and someone who just makes a casual mistake or who has an opinion that's not quite full-bore extreme lefty. For the latter, it's fine to disagree with them but they should otherwise be left alone.
- One of the victims of cancel culture is the ability to speak plainly. Not everyone knows the approved academese ("conventionally coded as feminine" as opposed to "like a girl") for addressing touchy subjects, but that's OK: there's lots of value in feeling that it's safe to express ideas in simple, intelligible ways as long as they're offered in good faith. Even if this leads to poorly considered phrases on occasion, it's still better than feeling like you have to defensively lard up every sensitive opinion with the kind of endless nuance and caveating that buries your main point. Just let the occasional glitch go unless it happens all the time or there's real reason to think it's intentional.
- Too much of the opposition to cancel culture comes from conventional liberals who simply don't want to change the way they talk because they figure that the way they talked in the '70s was fine and no one got hurt. That ain't so. People did get hurt but mostly kept it to themselves. Liberals who don't understand this need to, um, wake up.
- Twitter sucks, and Twitter mobs make this whole problem infinitely worse. Unfortunately I can't say that this means you should ignore Twitter. That may be good advice for most of us, but there are times when Twitter mobs affect real-world decisions and need to be sharply fought. If they aren't, people will reasonably assume that the Twitter mob's opinion represents the whole world. If you disagree, say so!
Just generally, I believe that cancel culture is plainly a real thing that presents us with real dilemmas. However, its main problem isn't the idea itself, which is generally admirable. The problem is that in its current form it utterly lacks even a trace of empathy. It is too often a weapon of brute power and ideology, used to crush people into subservience. This is wrong on just about every possible level. It is hateful. It makes enemies. It doesn't work.
So first of all, we should hold on to the best ideas behind cancel culture: namely that cultural mores change; not everyone (especially us olds) is up to speed on them; and we should all press ourselves and others to do better. But second of all, we should commit to doing this with grace, not scorn and contempt. That's good advice for just about everything, and it's especially good advice for this.
So if I call Jim Jordan the faggot he is, will I get "cancelled" ???? Let's be clear the whole left/right dialectical stuff is hardly of the kind. The Left Hegelian branch rejected that nonsense in the 1830's. Maybe, the moral stuff is just right wing dialectics all along and you just don't want to admit it.
Chill with the slurs my friend, dang
Please don't feed the racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, semi-literate troll. It only leaves its droppings to get attention. Cancel it.
It should be obvious by now that Spadey doesn't need feeding. Yes, he is racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, and probably semi-literate. But there are people like that in the world, and "cancelling" him will not change that fact.
I admit to being mildly curious about his opinions, which are not uniformly wrong. I just wish he could express them better. It is usually just not worth the time to try and decipher them. God knows what a "left-Hegelian" is, but Spadey seems to think he knows and evidently thinks it is important.
On second thought, maybe it is a good thing that he can't express his opinions better.
It should be obvious by now that Spadey doesn't need feeding.
How could that possibly be obvious? The fact is people regularly feed it.
Maybe if we could all be sensible for an extended period of time—say, five or six weeks—he would in fact leave. Years of participating in fora such as this one inform me that trolls mainly do what they do because of the reaction it provokes.
(What is obvious is that Kevin isn't going to ban it; which is his right as the blog author; what's more this is very likely the sensible path because there's nothing to stop it from simply registering under a different name or email address).
In short, DFTT.
What annoys me is the esoteric garbling of everyday political discourse to avoid offense. This is a common characteristic of people you might call “woke”. A huge amount of my peers (early 20s) have internalized this and will be upset if you don’t use the latest and greatest terminology
Replacing African-American with BIPOC or handicapped with differently-abled or Latino with Latinx are only less offensive because “our team” are the only ones who use them and know what they mean. Sort of preempts the development of common language for shared political discourse. To me, it seems the primary point of this march is to get cheap wins for “our team”, since the widespread belief is that right-leaning and centrist people can be ignored during political consensus building (see: the hardcore, over the top vitriol for Joe Manchin)
I don’t care when celebrities get “cancelled” and I don’t want to be offensive on purpose myself. But for a large cohort of the public it feels there’s this endless focus on language and there’s a never-ending fight make sure your terms aren’t 6 months out of date. It’s tiresome, and who really gives a shit?
I could not agree more
Yeah, yeah ... tell us "your pronouns."
But seriously, Like +2.
'Their several majesties'.
My wife has a name that is sometimes a man's name and sometimes a woman's name. So for her having an easy and accepted way to share her pronouns is actually pretty convenient. Also true if you have a non-English name, the gender of which is not obvious to most Americans, like a lot of the Indian developers I work with.
Yup.
Back in winter 2019, I popped into a USBank branch to withdraw quarters for my laundry, & I saw the teller had his pronouns on his nametag. I thought about it for twenty seconds, thought "that's nice", & it never gave me pause again.
my first name is common for both men and women and i have been referred to by the wrong pronoun and it does not bother me at all.
Like Kevin said, let's assume good faith and stop policing ourselves and others over innocent mistakes.
We’ll said and totally agree.
What I'd like to know is who are these dingbats who are responsible for continually added letters, and things, onto the acronym for what used to be 'gay'?
I recently saw it's now up to 2SLGBTQIA+.
Why not just go with Alphabet Soup People and put these guys out of a job?
(Except Alphabet Soup People will quickly become ASP, which will lend itself to all kinds of variants).
The history of the evolution of the gay acronym would be interesting and could probably fill a small volume now. I remember it started out back around 1980 or so, with just GLBT. The following day they reversed the order of the first two letters so it's been LGBT as the opener ever since. (The 2S prefix is new to me.) The dingbats were the Lesbians, clearly, and the reason was a big joke at the time: ladies first. Unity and solidarity have never been hallmarks of the gay rights movement.
Ell gee bee tee also has better rhythm than Gee ell bee tee, which also sounds like a diner order.
I was active in officer roles in lesbian/gay groups during my college days, graduating in 1993. At that time, it was LGB, no T at all. The T was added sometime after that.
Once the "Q" got added in the early 2000s, it was open season for 100% straight people to claim "queer" status for the cultural cachet. Things have only gone downhill from then, with the addition of all sorts of other niche identities.
LGB was clearly defined because it was about sexual orientation - zero to do with identity or subjective internal thoughts about oneself. Once it became increasingly about poorly defined identities like "questioning" and "aromantic" or "genderfluid" the movement largely abandoned the LGBs.
Is it because gay, as such, became legal?
(It says 'aromantic' but I read 'aromatic' and thought, wow I am really out of the loop).
Well said.
As a woman an older woman…I find the adoption of a whole new vocabulary around gender..extremely annoying…apparently I’m expected to refer to myself as a cis woman…no thanks. I’m increasingly inclined to join the branch of feminism that is pushing back on the expectation that women are the ones expected to do the accommodating on all things related to trans people. I’ll try to use the correct pronoun..but you have no right to change the terms I use to describe myself….
'Cisgender' is simply the ugliest way of describing something there are plenty of other terms for, a faddish term that will vanish in a generation, the way 'negro' supplanted 'colored'.
It's just a modern spin on Classical supremacy.
Latin & Greek aren't the height of culture.
The existence of KKKlay Travis & his sports-ignorant ass acting like the top* women's swimmer in America swims for the Ivy League does not excuse the existence of J.K. Mewling.
*Not even in the fevered dreams of a Yalie c. 1915 could one have suggested the best jocks in America are the flouncing doors from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, & Yale.
Lia Thomas may be owning the athletic dilettantes that treat varsity participation as another line item on their Goldman Sachs or Amazon applications, but that doesn't mean she would be shit in a good high school competition in California, Georgia, Maryland, or Illinois.
Apparently I’m expected to refer to myself as a cis woman
Really? I'm getting older, too, and I experience zero "pressure" that I'm "supposed" to refer to myself as a cis man. It's true quite a few people in digital media do use such terms, though. It's fine with me.
I counsel patience: a lot of lefty PC stuff proves to be ephemeral. A few years ago most of us felt very nervous about failure to use the term "African-American." Now we're back to "Black" (though upper case, which in my view is fine, as it's comparable to the use of such terms as "Latino or Caucasian or Arab"—all of which are capitalized). FWIW both CNN and CBSNews now capitalize "White."
I don't usually agree with you, but you're right on this.
Saying "I am a man" or "I am a woman" is fine. No need for prefix.
In fact, as transitioning/confirmation becomes less novel, I think emphasis on the prefix trans will be less prevalent, & individuals of transitioned status will just be simply men or women.
"Young lefties have had a history of "callout culture" for years. At first, this meant that if someone said something offensive you should call it out instead of staying silent and providing tacit acceptance. This steadily got more and more aggressive and eventually morphed into what's called cancel culture these days."
I remember calling someone out for telling an anti-Semitic joke when I was 18. It was the right thing to do, and it still is.
The shift in language can be difficult to manage, though, since society is constantly re-euphemizing to soothe feelings. I used to work alongside people who worked for the Department of Mental Retardation. Mental retardation became a term of opprobrium, following in the steps of imbecile, moron and idiot, which were all once technical terms used by folks who worked with intellectually disabled people. Granted, the folks who introduced the terms were mostly eugenicists, but by the time I entered the field they were gone. But the terms lived on in Warner Brothers cartoons.
Now when I use the term "mental retardation" -- even within its correct historical context -- I can expect objections. And that's fine, as long as the stigma that developmentally delayed folks face is lessened thereby.
You identify an annoying issue regarding language. Whatever term we use to identify members of a particular group, those people who wish to express opprobrium toward that group will turn into a term of opprobrium. The result in many cases is that when the bigoted start using a term opprobriously, the non-bigoted abandon the term and invent a new term for the same group, which the bigoted then appropriate as a term of opprobrium, etc. This leads to VERY unstable language.
You've identified the process with respect to the mentally challenged. We can follow the very same process with respect to "persons of color", starting with the anthropologist's term for people with high melanin skin, simply derived from the Latin word for "black", which was subject to various distortions on lazy Southern tongues, with the distortions being used pejoratively, finally landing on the forbidden N word. There is nothing inherently offensive about the forbidden N word, but we've allowed the bigots who use it as a pejorative exclusive ownership of the term, which is the reason why it's forbidden in polite society.
We could use some mechanism for defending our language so that the bigots aren't effectively telling us which words we can use.
This is called the “Euphemism Treadmill” or the “Euphemism Carousel.” Reclamation tries to change a slur back into a neutral term. My problem regarding “cancel culture” and this concept is when people honestly don’t know that a previously neutral term has become pejorative and use this term and get piled on. Also when people mention a word to discuss it and get piled on like they called someone that word. It’s like the stoning scene in Life Of Brian.
I'm saying that right-thinking people should simply refuse to accept that a previously neutral term has become pejorative; keep using the term and let the bigots find a new one, instead of letting the bigots dictate our language usage.
Sorry, but I have to call you out based on your use of the horrific term "mentally challenged." Didn't you get the memo? The only current accepted phrases of the day are "neurodiverse" or "neurodivergent."
The phrase I use as a polite euphemism for "stupid" is "cognitive limitations".
I'm just imagining my sister's reaction if I were ever appointed the head of the Department of Mental Retardation.
Did they have their own stationery?
Good explanation of why we shouldn't worry so much about soothing feelings.
It's actually really simple.
It's not a free speech problem. It's a due process problem. No one cares that real ass holes get cancelled. It's when the mob acts like a mob and doesn't wait for the facts to come in.
Sarcasm is also dead because of this, which is bad. Sarcasm is near impossible on the Internet and so we assume intent many times.
If we just waited literally a day to hear all the information on things before cancelling the ratio of false cancellations would go down a lot.
I suspect the tweet-mob "cancellation" storms are akin to a dog chasing whatever appears to be fleeing. The hunt becomes the thing. It doesn't matter that much if the quarry is "real"; let's all give chase and try to bring it down!
So, we are getting closer to finding out why Clara Jeffrey had to ask Kevin Drum to leave Mother Jones.
With all due respect, who actually gives a shit if or why some person named Clara Jeffrey asked Kevin to leave Mother Jones?
If I said in real life what I write in this comment section, I would be ok among my friends, family, and co workers. Here, I am called names and told to eff off. But, again, this is not canceling because there is no real moderation process. And I don’t care. I just have a chuckle or provide feedback if I think it’s unreasonable. Some people just like to say eff off no matter what. Their entire commenting history consists of telling people to eff off. It’s not worth the effort. I did like the Disqus blocking feature and used it quite a bit.
The NY Times has a comment approval process which is quite rigorous and, I think, unnecessarily restrictive, but it’s their site so… good for them. Those forums aren’t debates, they are informal letters to the editor, I’ve been banned from Rod Dreher’s blog at two or three times at the American conservative over the years. Now, of course, he’s a complete whack job. He really doesn’t like my perspective but I’ve never so much as called him a name. At the Washington Monthly I was banned several times as well.
I get cancelled from all sides! ????
And it’s completely inconsequential. In real life, I self-censor all the time because generally I’m talking to people I care about. Just last night, a co-worker did something really dumb, but didn’t tell them that. I “coached” them and we discussed how mistakes like that can happen. On the other hand, another co-worker was being really annoying, but I didn’t say anything about this behavior. They will be more challenging to coach.
Religion and politics. It’s not worth debating these topics in real life anymore.
We can't all be as blessed as Emma Camp to pass muster at America's leading tribune of all that is right & natural & proper, the New York Times.
“Some people just like to say eff off no matter what. Their entire commenting history consists of telling people to eff off. It’s not worth the effort.“
Not worth the eff ort— good pun!
Ha! Good catch.
I was under the impression Kevin just wanted to kick back and relax a bit. There's no crime against wanting to retire, even if a lot of old fucks act like that's the case (looking at you, Tom Brady).
"It is too often a weapon of brute power and ideology, used to crush people into subservience. " IMHO it's often the weapon of the currently powerless. As they age and gain real world power their views will change.
Yawn..
Racism is as racism does. I don't need no stinkin' "cancel culture" to figure that out.
Laughter. Self-deprecating humor.
Not really available online. LOL not the same. Insisting it was "just a joke" definitely not the same thing. Calling it "sarcasm" also not the same thing as actual sarcasm.
It's ok to admit mistakes and apologize. It's ok to admit you're old. You make a mistake, you laugh at yourself. Someone else makes a faux pas, laugh with them.
This pre-supposes most people are acting in good faith. It also means you have to understand that you won't understand everyone's situation--you just have to be respectful.
The New York Times still has editorials?
Let me check my toilet.
Look, Kevin, you can't just haul-off and make nuanced sense of all this. Be woke or shut up.
(JK)
Death to all the dogamatists! (S)
You know where cancel culture is rampant? Fox News (and, to a lessor extent, MSNBC). Back when they had the "fair and balanced" mission statement they used to have a token "liberal" ( I forget his name) to make bad arguments for liberal positions. Now they don't even bother, it is all straight, white, Christian supremacy all the time.
Alan Colmes? Yeah, when the Fauxy Newz viewers decide to "cancel" someone, it's via a "Second Amendment solution", not an aggrieved tweetstorm out of the ivory tower.
See? Both sides!!
fyi:
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/18/dont-be-fooled-the-love-affair-with-putin-is-worse-than-it-looks/
I do wish the college kids who yelled and screamed (and worse) at Charles Murray would, instead, start a movement that declared wherever Charles Murray talks tons of students would commit to spending 10 hours registering black voters. Real power is in the vote. If the students did that, you can bet AEI (or wherever he is these days) would take Murray off the speaking circuit pronto. In other words, you wanna cancel Charles Murray? Get more black people to vote.
Preferably, this voter registration drive would take place directly outside the venue when Mr. Bell Curve was speaking.
Sure
Was thinking about this a bit more and pondering why young people care so much about language and such, and not about actual political power. I think the answer is obvious: it's in the realm of culture where young people feel they have power. After all, so much of our culture is aimed at them: television, movies, music, technology. When young people demand you use certain terms for things, what they are really saying is: hey, this is our playground, we set the rules. It's only when you're a little older that it dawns on you that political power is far more important.
Cancel culture is when your views are considered so beyond the pale that you aren't allowed to air them---you are heckled, you are forbidden to give a lecture, you're fired for saying something that gives somebody offense. Cancel culture is not having people object to what you're saying. That is free speech. Tucker Carson can say all the stupid shit he wants, but he can't complain if people pile on him for saying it.
Besides the public sphere, there is a more pervasive cancel culture on a private level. I have family members who won't even let me voice my opinions on certain sensitive topics because they are considered too offensive to be aired in public. This holier-than-thou self-righteousness is what sticks in people's craw. Disagree with me all you want, but don't pre-empt the discussion by forbidding me from making my case.
Exactly
What I don't get about the anti-cancel culture or anti-wokeness side of this really boring debate is that the cancel culture people also have a right to free speech. No one seems to get that.
Not only can Tucker Carlson not expect people to complain or "pile on him". He also can't expect people to boycott his advertisers or try to pressure Fox News to fire him. It's all free speech.
Similar to Charles Murray supposedly getting heckled (I'd like to hear of specific examples because I doubt this has happened very often). Mostly what you hear about is people protesting his speeches or lobbying their colleges to cancel his speaking engagements. Why does no one realize that this is also free speech? I guess heckling from the crowd is rude but saying that Tucker Carlson or Charles Murray have a right to free speech is not the same as saying they have a right to whatever platform they happen to be standing on unless they own the platform.
In "On Liberty", John Stuart Mill's classic defense of free speech, he argues that the best response to offensive speech is not to suppress it, but to counter it with better arguments. Not less speech but more speech.
As Voltaire wrote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Or the David Letterman corollary, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right to ignore you."
So no, arguing against someone's right to express themselves because you find their opinions distasteful is not in the spirit of free speech at all.
Anyone who says that 'cancel culture' is a product of the left has not been paying attention. We could go back to religion, and their 'shunning' on anyone who might dare question even the least of the churches pronouncements. It still goes on today. The right picked it up long ago and continues to practice it, shunning those not far right enough, destroying lives and careers far more effectively that the cancellation of a few college bookings.
It was not very long ago that you could get fired from pretty much any job for being gay. And would not be considered for most jobs for being a woman or being black. Now THAT's cancel culture!
You still can, if your employer is a “religious entity.” SCOTUS upheld the firing of gays from catholic schools just last term.
As if Brett Kavanaugh never engaged in (non)consensual same-sex booking.
An angle I'd like to see fleshed out dovetails with another one of your favorite posts, Fox News astroturfing the use of "Cancel Culture" and how it might be causing a positive feedback loop with the left.
I could be wrong, but I've been wondering if a lot of the college etc cancel culture is a reflection of that generation taking in Fox et al doing their version causing the tactic to become even more acceptable in response. Kind of like that old anti drug psa where the dad asked where his son learned to do drugs with the kid responding "I learned it from watching you!"
The most salient issue here is that swear words are hard coded into a region of the brain separate from ordinary vocabulary, which is why people who have brain damage might not remember how to speak but they can still curse like a sailor, and this is why it's almost impossible for some people to stop using slurs of one kind or another even if they really try not to do it.
For social conservatives it's particularly difficult because revanchist ideation is simply who they are, so if you're against offending people you're offending them because that's who they are, and why they think you're the real racist.
Phineas Gage's tamping rod was the original cancel culture.
'You punch like a conventionally coded as feminine', is a phrase I look forward to using.
Barry Goldwater on religious psychopaths,
https://i.redd.it/24folet3ico81.jpg
That does nail it in a nutshell. "You can't disagree with me because I'll talking for GOD"
Without a real definition of what it means to be "cancelled", we'll never get a handle on the actual prevalence, or significance of the practice. Am I cancelled if I get fired from my job for speaking with respect to a customer but in language that has been updated to 2008 norms but not to 2022 norms? Probably. But exactly how often does this happen? Am I cancelled if a lot of people yell at me on Twitter but I suffer no other penalties for disrespectfully using a slur that would have earned me a punch in the nose if used on a playground in 1978? Probably not, but its easier on the ego to say "I was cancelled" than "I was a jerk and I'm sorry".
One thing I am very surprised about is that our thoughtful and data centered host seems to conflate fear of cancellation with the actual presence of cancellation. Mr. Drum is one of the people I count on to be very clear that fear of crime is a lousy proxy for actual crime. Violent crime rates fell for decades without having any significant effect on people's subjective reporting of their fear of becoming a victim or their willingness to take action intended to protect themselves. This is a critical point when asking "how can we make people less afraid of crime". Counterintuitively, actually reducing crime isn't a great strategy to achieve that result.
Similarly, I expect fear of cancellation is a poor measure of the actual practice, however defined. If I'm right, there may be little point in trying to reduce the fear of cancellation by remonstrating with the young leftists who are assumed to be source of the problem. If they stopped tomorrow, would it make a difference?
I think the challenge is: we can all find some things we regard as unjust "cancellations" as well as other things we view as eminently justified, commonsense (even long overdue) measures or reassessments.
I think forcing Lincoln's name off public schools is whack-job lefty craziness run amok (politically damaging craziness to boot, as Kevin mentions).
On the other hand taking down Tom Cotton's rather naked appeal for jackboot policing of BLM was the right call on the part of the NY Times.
Harvey Weinstein is a brutally violent criminal who should've been brought to justice many years ago. His cancellation was a good thing, and long overdue.
Woody Allen is a wrongfully (or at least dubiously) accused giant of American cinema whose cancellation is deeply troubling.
Al Franken was a highly effective public servant who was treated harshly, but nonetheless could've contested the allegations had he so desired, but opted out for the good (as he apparently perceived it at the time) of his party. His departure from the Senate was thus largely of his own doing, and so greatly diluted any charge he was "cancelled" as such.
The 1619 Project is a critical piece of scholarship that has played an important role in long overdue reassessment of Americans' understanding of anti-black racism, the enslavement of African people, and the centrality of these phenomena to the history, culture and economic foundations of The United States. The study's small number of errors don't change this.
Ibram Kendi is a hard left crank.
David Shor was railroaded.
Now, I'm guessing you agree with one or two of these takes. And disagree with one or two of these takes. Which is my point!
I am calling you out for holding a few position that I disagree with. How dare you disturb the unanimity of thought which is best for society. Don't be disruptive with independent thought. Just don't.
Off to the re-education camp for you!
And surrender you badge to security when you exit the building.
Right on them all but David Shor. & equivocal on Allen. But good job.
I just hope that David Shor doesn't dine out on shitting on the Democrar Climptonian Establishment, but from the left, for thirty years, like that pinhead runt Robert B. Reich. (To think we could have avoided all that, had Hillary Rodham just given Bobby R a handsome at Yale Law.)
Kevin has made an error that's all over Twitter re NYTimes opinion.
KD: "If you're mad because you can't be racist in public anymore—not even a little bit—then you just need to get over it."
and I've read: [It's not wrong to have] "increased scrutiny of bigoted speech"
Both of those statements are variants of Begging the Question. In these cases the speaker has defined the issue in terms that cannot be contested. Everybody agrees (well, almost everybody) that being racist or using bigoted speech is bad and worthy of condemnation.
But there is no clear definition of what being racist is or what bigoted speech consists of. And that's what the dispute is all about.
Is it racist/bigoted to:
Use the term Latino.
Not capitalize "Black".
Oppose the San Francisco School Board's proposal* to rename Abraham Lincoln H.S. or Paul Revere Elementary (b/c of alleged racism)
Support standardized tests.
Note that violent protests result in diminished political support.
Tell a joke based on cultural/racial/gender stereotypes.
and so on.
There used to be norms for this, but norms have been in retreat for a few decades (witness the GOP trampling Congressional norms that used to facilitate compromise and avoid polarization/gridlock).
Without agreed upon norms, you never know when you'll step on a woke-grenade or a MAGA-grenade. And with the further atomization of society, that condition is likely to persist.
*- I have the spreadsheet that the SF School Board posted about renaming schools (now unavailable except via Wayback) and it's remarkable. Pretty much everybody who did anything or had a point of view prior to 1800 is deemed guilty of a major transgression.
I would point out that the school board members who wanted to rename the schools were recalled in ultra liberal San Francisco. To me this shows a willingness of liberals to recognize and weed out the crazies on our side. Nowadays the right wing crazies are only chastised when they are not crazy enough.
Yup.
Dasher is a reichwing concern troll.
Here's what I can throw into the conversation: I am in my 60s, I used the word "thug" in a FB post a few years ago. My daughter, 30 years younger, suggested that I shouldn't use that word, as it has racist undertones. To me, a thug is a guy that comes to break your kneecaps, an enforcer. But over time the word has gained a racist taint that I wasn't aware of. Fair enough, I wasn't aware of the shift, I don't use thug anymore. Calling someone a pussy has overtones of misogeny, okay, I try to use coward or something else more precise. The recent discussion over language is "defund the police." She stands by it, I think it triggers a negative reaction, and would prefer something else. The discussion of police & community safety funding won't get far if people can't get past the "get rid of the police force" they hear. We have had to agree to disagree.
However, my most shameful moment is that I did not stand up and tell my in-law's neighbors that their "if those n*****s try to move to this part of town, I have my shotgun ready." was racist. (Even worse to me, this statement was made after singing a hymn to Jesus five minutes earlier.) I got up and left, but I should have told them I thought the language and sentiment was wrong, especially in light of the faith they professed to believe. Not speaking out or standing up for justice is wrong, and I think my generation has let it go on too long. Don't rock the boat, you know. The younger generation is calling out older generations on their hypocrisy, and rightly so.
While I agree with everything Kevin says about "cancel culture" from a liberal critique point-of-view, I find it amazing that he, a like many liberal or centrist commentators don't find what's going on in many state legislatures in terms of the laws they are passing (like Florida's "Don't Say Gay") either "cancelling" or any kind of threat at all, at least not to the point they are willing to comment extensively about them. It reminds me of a scene from the movie Footloose between Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn about the right to dance in their small Kansas town (paraphrasing):
"You mean can't dance here?"
"Oh sure and there's towns in Arkansas and Missouri where you can't dance either."
In other words, it sounds so normal. And because of this it's obvious you don't care what happens in such places (red state or whatever you want to call them) because they don't affect you. You don't live there, you may not know anyone who lives there or do business there so who cares what the "rubes" do? Who cares if they pass ridiculous laws that limit if not ban free speech or encourage people to spy and sue each other for what they do in their own privacy. Haven't they been banning everything since the Scopes Trial? Maybe so, but the days when you think this is all going to just "stay" in Tennessee are coming to a close my friend.
Maybe when California, in a knee-jerk reaction, passes a law which makes addressing a person with the wrong pronoun a hate crime, then maybe you'll stand up and pay attention.