Cancel Culture Conversation Not Cancelled

[Josquius]

The left wing version of cancelling where an average person says something stupid and this gets forwarded to their boss, they get fired, etc... Does suck.
On occasion it can be justified but sometimes people get carried away.
Contra points did a video on this recently. She fell victim to it.

Of course this must be remembered in the context of the right wing version of cancelling, where they fucking murder you.

Sure sure. Not everyone. A minority of cases end up in physical violence. But the level of hate and threats left wing figures get absolutely dwarves that recieved by the right.

[Admiral Yi]

Well we certainly discuss all of the type of instances where people are wronged, while at the same time often gravitate back to victims of cancel culture.

If you're saying that people can be wrong when they accuse another of wrongdoing, when we agree and I guess we're done.

[Sheilbh]

One thought I have on cancel culture is I think you can have rigorous standards that you apply to the past if you are open to change and forgiveness, or you can be incredibly lax about things but if someone's been ostracised that's it.

I feel like we are drifting into a rigorous and unforgiving space which isn't sustainable. Possibly because a lot of it is actually just bad faith political actors - I also wonder if it's because it's American and this is your protestant roots coming to the fore (like how everything everything is described "doing work" because work is a good thing that gives worth rather than an unfortuate trap we're all in ).

I always think about Naz Shah who is a Labour MP who posted some anti-semitic stuff before she was elected and it then re-surfaced once she was an MP. And she gave, to my mind, the best response I've seen - she apologised for it (not just for "any offence I may have caused"), she engaged with her local Jewish community, she did training with the Community Support Trust and is now actually incredibly aware around anti-semitic tropes. By every measure it's incredibly sincere and she changed because she was horrified at the idea that she was actually being anti-semitic. But her bad posts are still used by opponents on the right as an example of why she's anti-semitic, I don't know if there'd be a similar process of her being rehabilitated into the mainstream now and a lot on the left point to her as an example of how the accusations of anti-semitism are themselves being made in bad faith for political reasons (see the right still going after her).

It's the post-cancelling thing I find slightly interesting - at the minute I think the incentives are that you are better off becoming a professional victim of cancel culture in the right/left media space which reinforces the whole thing, than taking the Naz Shah route.

[DGuller]

It's the post-cancelling thing I find slightly interesting - at the minute I think the incentives are that you are better off becoming a professional victim of cancel culture in the right/left media space which reinforces the whole thing, than taking the Naz Shah route.

You're probably right, but I think that's because the mob is rarely interested in reform or forgiveness.  It's much like the Great Purge: if you were targeted by NKVD, you were in a bad place no matter what, but confessing and apologizing was just going to make your odds of survival even more remote.

[garbon]

Well we certainly discuss all of the type of instances where people are wronged, while at the same time often gravitate back to victims of cancel culture.

If you're saying that people can be wrong when they accuse another of wrongdoing, when we agree and I guess we're done.

But of course. To hold a contrary opinion would be mad.

[Berkut]

Proving my point!!!!

But yeah, sure fair enough.

How would that prove your point?  Obama spoke out about the cancel culture way before Fox News did, as far as I am aware.  Fox News did not need to frame anything or invent any terms for this discussion, left wingers like me already did their work for them.  As I said before, Fox News doesn't need to stay silent on the bad things some on the left actually do engage in, they don't need to focus solely on made up bullshit.  These bad things don't suddenly become good once Fox News gets on the case.

That is really nuts about how woke the left has become.

The immigration debate certainly went this way - once the right adopted "WE FUCKING HATE IMMIGRANTS!" as a rallying cry, the left decided anything other then "ALL IMMIGRANTS ARE OSSUM!!!" is fascist.

[Berkut]

One thought I have on cancel culture is I think you can have rigorous standards that you apply to the past if you are open to change and forgiveness, or you can be incredibly lax about things but if someone's been ostracised that's it.

I feel like we are drifting into a rigorous and unforgiving space which isn't sustainable. Possibly because a lot of it is actually just bad faith political actors - I also wonder if it's because it's American and this is your protestant roots coming to the fore (like how everything everything is described "doing work" because work is a good thing that gives worth rather than an unfortuate trap we're all in ).

I always think about Naz Shah who is a Labour MP who posted some anti-semitic stuff before she was elected and it then re-surfaced once she was an MP. And she gave, to my mind, the best response I've seen - she apologised for it (not just for "any offence I may have caused"), she engaged with her local Jewish community, she did training with the Community Support Trust and is now actually incredibly aware around anti-semitic tropes. By every measure it's incredibly sincere and she changed because she was horrified at the idea that she was actually being anti-semitic. But her bad posts are still used by opponents on the right as an example of why she's anti-semitic, I don't know if there'd be a similar process of her being rehabilitated into the mainstream now and a lot on the left point to her as an example of how the accusations of anti-semitism are themselves being made in bad faith for political reasons (see the right still going after her).

It's the post-cancelling thing I find slightly interesting - at the minute I think the incentives are that you are better off becoming a professional victim of cancel culture in the right/left media space which reinforces the whole thing, than taking the Naz Shah route.

Sam Harris had a good argument about this in one of his podcasts.

He mentioned that if it came out that you employed a murderer who had gotten out of prison, figured out their life, and never had another violent episode at all, you would be seen as being something of a hero in that figures redemption story.

But if it came out that you employed someone who had once shown up at a party in blackface, but otherwise never evidenced any racist tendencies, you can be certain that the woke left would destroy your business if you didn't fire that person RIGHT NOW and there would be zero interest in any stories about their life outside that picture of them as a 21 year old college student.

[Sheilbh]

I think that's a lot less common in Europe where there are stronger employee rights and you can't just fire people - that feels like a key part of addressing it if you're really worried about "cancel culture". Here it is far more people in positions of responsibility.

If you can't legally fire someone for something they did on social media 5 years ago then the demands for that kind of go away.

[Tamas]

In Hungary an ex-footballer now football commentator tweeted in support of gay adoption rights  (the government was doing a whole "family is a man and a woman" thing so a counter "family is family" thing was started by some people, which this commentator supported). So he got fired by the Fidesz oligarch-owned station he worked at. Well, this wasn't the official reason, but even pro-government pundits agreed yes it was the reason.

Then the Hungarian-nationality goalkeeper coach of Hertha Berlin had an interview in a pro-government newspaper basically outlining how the above guy was wrong and how this whole diversity thing is bad.

So Hertha has fired him.

[Duque de Bragança]

That's a tie in football terms: 1-1.

[Eddie Teach]

My dad lost a job 30 years ago for making a political endorsement.

[Valmy]

My dad lost a job 30 years ago for making a political endorsement.

Yeah it is not exactly a new thing, especially for people who live in small communities. Just the internet has empowered the busy bodies.

Who did he endorse? Ross Perot?

[Duque de Bragança]

In Hungary an ex-footballer now football commentator tweeted in support of gay adoption rights  (the government was doing a whole "family is a man and a woman" thing so a counter "family is family" thing was started by some people, which this commentator supported). So he got fired by the Fidesz oligarch-owned station he worked at. Well, this wasn't the official reason, but even pro-government pundits agreed yes it was the reason.

That was Péter Gulásci, right?

[Tamas]

In Hungary an ex-footballer now football commentator tweeted in support of gay adoption rights  (the government was doing a whole "family is a man and a woman" thing so a counter "family is family" thing was started by some people, which this commentator supported). So he got fired by the Fidesz oligarch-owned station he worked at. Well, this wasn't the official reason, but even pro-government pundits agreed yes it was the reason.

That was Péter Gulásci, right?

No but yes, he also made pro-not being a fascist comments, that's true. He is not a commentator though and don't have his livelihood depend on Orban's good graces.

[Eddie Teach]

My dad lost a job 30 years ago for making a political endorsement.

Yeah it is not exactly a new thing, especially for people who live in small communities. Just the internet has empowered the busy bodies.

Who did he endorse? Ross Perot?

Local congressional candidate.