The Real problem with cancel culture

[Valmy]

NFL careers are usually short and owners/managers focused on winning above politics. I'm inclined to believe he doesn't have the goods anymore.

Yeah but that happened in 2016. He would have been on a roster for a few years after 2016 if he hadn't done what he did.

[The Minsky Moment]

NFL careers are usually short and owners/managers focused on winning above politics. I'm inclined to believe he doesn't have the goods anymore.

Top tier QBs can last longer if they can avoid critical injuries.

[Admiral Yi]

Colin is/was not a top tier QB. He had a great Super Bowl season then kind of crapped out.

[PDH]

Yeah, but that kind of QB can/should last another decade

[grumbler]

The most dramatic destruction of a career I have ever seen was the Dixie Chicks by right wingers. That was insane just because it occured so suddenly at the height of their stardom. But, granted, pre-twitter.

The Dixie Chicks thing was an own goal by the right; the Chicks came out of that attack better-off than they were when they went in (Taking the Long Way won five of five Grammys, including best song, record, and album).  They gained way more rock-n-roll/pop fans and airtime than they lost country fans and airtime.

[grumbler]

Yeah, but that kind of QB can/should last another decade

Well, he lasted for several years after 2012, even though he never again averaged even 8 ypa.  He probably should have had another couple of years post-2016 as a journeyman/backup QB, but he was almost certainly done as a starter.

[frunk]

In Kaepernick's final season he wasn't top 10 but he was definitely top 20.  In a 32 team league with starters like Blake Bortles and Trevor Siemian he should have had a job in 2017.

[The Minsky Moment]

In his place, the 49ers started such standouts as  CJ Beatherd, Brian Hoyer, and Nick Mullins.

And yes Garoppolo put up some good numbers if you ignore his consistently higher INT rates and the huge difference in rushing yards and Y/A.

[Solmyr]

I'm sure the right would do it if they had the power, but it just so happens that the left has much better ties to the big corporations' virtue signalling departments.

All those radical leftists controlling huge corporations...

[DGuller]

I'm sure the right would do it if they had the power, but it just so happens that the left has much better ties to the big corporations' virtue signalling departments.

All those radical leftists controlling huge corporations...

They don't control the huge corporations, but they control the narrative that huge corporations don't want to go against.  Even huge corporations know that they're vulnerable to Twitter mobs, so they buy indulgences with token gestures. 

Firing an employee being cancelled is one of the easier token gestures, it costs even less than releasing "IG Farben has always been a strong supporter of diversity and inclusion" statements from the PR department.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think I agree with that framing of the issue. You know, I think there's been a generational shift on issues around race and LGBT rights. The companies that seem to go furthest on this (and also the environment) are ones that are either chasing the 18-35 demographic for sales or need to hire the best and brightest of that generation as part of grad recruitment.

There is nothing irrational about trying to show that your values are aligned with your consumers or people you're trying to attract to come work for you . In fact I think there's loads of research that people are stickier when they perceive a company as aligned with them on values/identity rather than price or quality - and there's nothing new about this, see previous generations "aspirational" brands or the way John Lewis positions itself.

Added to that is that I think statements etc are lower cost than actually doing something. So investment banks might not divest from fossil fuels, but they have a very impactful tweet lined up for Earth Day. Similarly companies might not look at their hiring practices but they can issue a statement supporting diversity etc.

Basically I think it's a lot more rational and cold-eyed than you do

[DontSayBanana]

We're having this argument because journalism and editorialization are natural enemies that are being pushed through the same channels. Most of what I'm seeing is journalists complaining that editorials should be protected to the same degree that objective journalism is, but the ones complaining about "cancel culture" are completely glossing over how far they themselves have slipped from presenting unadorned facts to presenting an editorial agenda.

They're (mostly) not getting cancelled to hide inconvenient facts, they're (again, mostly) getting cancelled because they're cherrypicking arguments to advance their own causes to a repugnant degree.

The Bari Weiss letter is a great example- complaints about "being forced to advance progressive causes," suggesting extreme progressivism is clouding editorial judgments while trying to paint extreme conservatism as just strawman arguments used to silence moderates. As much as she's complaining about self-censorship, it sounds an awful lot like she's trying to tailor her own language to paint her positions as more moderate than they really are.

Maybe if you don't want your arguments to be given the public axe, you should start basing them in good faith.

[Malthus]

I don't think I agree with that framing of the issue. You know, I think there's been a generational shift on issues around race and LGBT rights. The companies that seem to go furthest on this (and also the environment) are ones that are either chasing the 18-35 demographic for sales or need to hire the best and brightest of that generation as part of grad recruitment.

There is nothing irrational about trying to show that your values are aligned with your consumers or people you're trying to attract to come work for you . In fact I think there's loads of research that people are stickier when they perceive a company as aligned with them on values/identity rather than price or quality - and there's nothing new about this, see previous generations "aspirational" brands or the way John Lewis positions itself.

Added to that is that I think statements etc are lower cost than actually doing something. So investment banks might not divest from fossil fuels, but they have a very impactful tweet lined up for Earth Day. Similarly companies might not look at their hiring practices but they can issue a statement supporting diversity etc.

Basically I think it's a lot more rational and cold-eyed than you do

I think what some are objecting to is not so much the idea that corporations are trying to attract certain demographics, but their methodology - that is, allowing social media mobs the power to influence them into firing people because they have caused a "controversy". The "cancel" aspect of cancel culture.

This goes hand in hand with a notion that employees are basically disposable, and creates an odd sort of relationship between progressives (who usually have little time for corporate concerns) and corporations - based on neither caring very much about the division between public and private when it comes to individual employees.

[Sheilbh]

I think what some are objecting to is not so much the idea that corporations are trying to attract certain demographics, but their methodology - that is, allowing social media mobs the power to influence them into firing people because they have caused a "controversy". The "cancel" aspect of cancel culture.

Yeah I suppose my point is that I don't think it's social media mobs. I think there is a genuine and significant shift in attitudes in certain demographics about racism and LGBT rights especially - it's not just a social media "mob" or froth.

I think part of this is also reflected in the way that in a lot of cases the pressure comes from within - it's from young employees and visible in the Slack channels, hangouts etc in workplaces. We also know that younger generations are significantly more diverse. So you have a workforce that has very different attitudes around the tolerable edges of racism etc and that is more likely to experience that personally..

My point is this isn't some sort of irrational genuflection to a mob or seeking indulgences - I could be wrong but I'd be willing to bet the level a company demonstrates "woke capitalism" reflects its customer and employee base. It's a rational business decision, even if you don't like it - and as I say part of this is just the targets and the demographic you're appealing to has shifted from the old Moral Majority boycotts.

This goes hand in hand with a notion that employees are basically disposable, and creates an odd sort of relationship between progressives (who usually have little time for corporate concerns) and corporations - based on neither caring very much about the division between public and private when it comes to individual employees.

That's fine - the way to address it is legal protections for all employees. If you don't want people fired for nonsense reasons, then get rid of "at will" employment. Otherwise it feels like special pleading.

[Tonitrus]

One of my hesitations with the "fire the offender" part of cancel culture is when look at the question of "what is the ultimate goal?".  If the idea is to have a person with objectionable views reconsider those views, do we think that firing them from their job is the best way to go about that?  I am not sure that depriving someone of their livelihood is the best way to go about that, and can be argued that it is at least as likely to reinforce their views as it is to have them reconsider.   

I can understand that we see it as a form of social ostracization, and/or the best alternative a free society can do (as opposed to jailing someone for offensive views should be repugnant...even if some democracies see it as more and more acceptable).  But I fear that it tends to end up being a more of a "I don't like this person, but I cannot kill them, so we'll just exile them to poverty" form of vengeance.

I am not so sure there really are good solutions to this dilemma, without approaching too close to the terrible realms of brainwashing, thought control, or authoritarianism. So perhaps this kind of social/economic ostracization is the best we can manage...with the hope that we do so for more benevolent reasons (that of persuading someone from a repugnant view) than malevolent ones (vengeance-fueled social exile).