SurveyUSA just put a poll with Biden up by 9 in Minnesota.
There’s some truth in that article and some misinterpretation. I think they’re viewing 2016 as the accelerated continuation of a trend, rather than a local aberration.I’ll take your word for it being a local Minnesotan, although there is evidence suggesting that the state is trending red: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-minnesota-could-be-the-next-midwestern-state-to-go-red/
I have never understood the backlash against "cancel culture". It's the 1st Amendment. You say something using your freedom of speech, I decide not to associate with you because you said something I don't like. It's pretty straight forward, even if "cancel culture" has a fancy name. Plus, the people screaming about "cancel culture" will turn around and yell "boycott" out of the other side of their mouth, which is the same thing.Cancel culture is inherently rude and offensive.
Shouldn't be, but there you have it. Then again, in 2004 GWB weaponized gay marriage to win, and it became legal across the USA what, 11 years later?trans issues, which are a much, much harder sell than gay rights.
The effect is quite the opposite, though. If you say something that doesn’t pass the purity test of the self-appointed arbiters of morality, who apply their standards retroactively to decades-old material, they will verbally assault you and everyone who associates with you in a business capacity, dox you so you can feel threatened by wack jobs, and do their best to insure that you can’t make money ever again unless you kiss the ring and bend your behavior to match their standards. And by attacking your business relationships, they know that companies will most likely follow their short-term business interests and cut off their relationship with the target, so it’s an easy blackmail tactic.I have never understood the backlash against "cancel culture". It's the 1st Amendment. You say something using your freedom of speech, I decide not to associate with you because you said something I don't like.
Yes, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The reality of short-term politics is different. Trans people understandably want fair treatment immediately, but if you keep plowing ahead full steam when society as a whole is still trying to catch up to the last social milestone that was just met, you run the risk of a major backlash that sets back the timetable of your long-term goals.Shouldn't be, but there you have it. Then again, in 2004 GWB weaponized gay marriage to win, and it became legal across the USA what, 11 years later?
Why wouldn’t you immediately pivot to trans rights?
I certainly don't condone the deployment of targeted hate, harassment, etc. Let's just get that out of the way. "doxxing" followed by a flood of harassment, hate claims, rape threats, suggestions someone should perform self-harm, etc - that's bad and evil and illegal and it shouldn't be part of any part of speech. I completely agree with that. But that's not "cancel culture". That occurs regarding every single piece of disagreement on the internet. People dox/harass/hate each other based on political choice, movie choice, comic choice, saying "yeah I'm a feminist", and taking a job in a Star Wars movie in which you happen to be an Asian woman playing an Asian-looking character. Any sort of oppositional stance on the Internet that gets to any level of notice goes down the hate train. The hate train is not a "Cancel Culture" feature. It occurs in every major internet movement regardless of political alignment. So let's separate that out from "Cancel Culture". Is it a part of the process of opposing people? Sadly, yes. Is it caused by or intentionally utilized by those calling out poor speech? In most cases, no (of course there are some people who want that to happen, but generally, no).The effect is quite the opposite, though. If you say something that doesn’t pass the purity test of the self-appointed arbiters of morality, who apply their standards retroactively to decades-old material, they will verbally assault you and everyone who associates with you in a business capacity, dox you so you can feel threatened by wack jobs, and do their best to insure that you can’t make money ever again unless you kiss the ring and bend your behavior to match their standards. And by attacking your business relationships, they know that companies will most likely follow their short-term business interests and cut off their relationship with the target, so it’s an easy blackmail tactic.
And let’s not kid ourselves, blackmail is exactly what it is. Apologize and kiss the ring or your ability to earn a living is gone. Sorry, but that’s about as anti-first-amendment an outcome as I can imagine — curtail your speech to appease the mob if you want to keep your job.
Bad ideas should be challenged with better ideas, not with censorship. The anti-intellectual crowd on the far left doesn’t want to debate your argument and defeat it, they just want you to shut the fuck up, and will use any means necessary to achieve that goal. Well, fuck them.
@Onhell Sure, not disagreeing that it’s hard to digest, but that’s besides my point. If you’re a civil rights advocate, your job is to make an effort to normalize those things as soon as possible.
Universities that are publicly funded have an onus to protect the 1st Amendment to certain extents. Those that aren't, don't.But when you extend this to universities (particularly public ones) .. it is a 1st Amendment issue
There was a ruling that private schools play by the same rules if they accept Pell grants.Universities that are publicly funded have an onus to protect the 1st Amendment to certain extents. Those that aren't, don't.
I personally don't see an issue with a professor saying something stupid or hosting a shitty talk from a shitty person like Ben Shapiro. I also don't see a problem with 5000 students standing outside and protesting. I think if someone is being actively vile (IE, a tenured professor who participates in Holocaust denial) then there's an onus to move that person on, too, which is where things like school governors come into play.
Counts as public funding.There was a ruling that private schools play by the same rules if they accept Pell grants.
Yup. So every school essentiallyCounts as public funding.
The blackmail comes in when people threaten to assault the person’s business relationships unless the person prostrates themselves in a manner the mob deems sufficiently humiliating. If the response isn’t quick enough, deep enough, and self-deprecating enough, then it’s off to the races trying to end the person’s career. And other people who see this going on are then compelled to join the mob for fear of becoming one of its targets.You say that threatening someone's financial livelihood is blackmail for the purpose of censorship. Let's get into that a little deeper, but let's be 100% clear: it isn't blackmail. When someone is "cancelled" it is almost certainly because they have said or done something that is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. Of their own free will, they have made a choice, and people are holding up that choice.
It’s de facto censorship if people are prevented from saying anything outside the mob-determined acceptable lexicon for fear of reprisal. Yes, someone could try to explain why they did what they did or said what they said in the past, and try to put it in historical context, but if they’ve already seen examples of people attempting to do that and having their careers ended as a result, they’re going to jump straight to the scripted hostage video response instead.Furthermore, you call it censorship. It's not censorship. Nobody is forbidden from continuing their speech. And I am free to not associate with the people/companies that associate with that person.
This is a better example of how things should work. A steady stream of information was revealed showing what an awful human being this guy was, and that his attitudes didn’t improve over time. There was the infamous “felafel” tape, and there were a number of harassment allegations spanning years. The guy was an ongoing liability, and ultimately the sponsors and his employer reached the conclusion that it wasn’t a good idea to keep him around. It wasn’t felafel tape -> doxxing -> insta-boycott -> fired!, he actually had an opportunity to speak to the allegations and get his shit together, but he ultimately didn’t.Let's talk about someone else who was "cancelled". Let's talk about Bill O'Reilly. This was a guy who repeatedly said ridiculously sexist and vile things on his tv show. People stopped buying brands that sponsored him, which led to his status on Fox News slowly getting less and less stable. He was still a star, but some brands withdrew slowly. I mean, if you go to, say, 2009, you'd think he was bulletproof at Fox. But when it came out that he'd settled $50 million in sexual harassment lawsuits, he was done. Because Fox decided that it wasn't worth keeping him around - because his sponsors bailed en masse after that. They didn't want to be "the company that runs ads on known sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly's show".
It’s easy to see it this way when you agree with the mob. But what if you disagree with them? What if the mob is the local community in rural Mississippi who found out that you serve black people at your restaurant, and in response they call you horrible names and boycott your place? Or what if they keep showing up, but treat your black customers so badly that the black customers stop showing up? No laws have been broken, free speech has been exercised, technically black people can still come to the restaurant, but they never do anymore. Isn’t that a de facto ban on black people eating there?In the end, what you see as "cancelling", I see as "consequences". A person has done something that is specifically not illegal nor punishable by law. In addition, I see this: freedom of speech does not make you free from the consequences of that speech.
No, that’s not a logical conclusion at all. If you know this about the KFC guy, feel free to take your business elsewhere and tell your friends. Inform the local paper or stage a demonstration that doesn’t prevent people from entering the restaurant if you like. Let KFC know, and they can decide whether to allow the guy to keep franchising from them. All of that is reasonable. But demanding that he prostrate himself in a very specific way in a very specific amount of time or you’re going to have a coordinated PR assault on everyone who supplies him with ingredients and utilities and anyone who dares to eat there is blackmail.Taken to the logical conclusion, it goes: "Oh, well, my local KFC is run by a member of the KKK. Too bad I love fried chicken so much, I have to keep giving him my money because to do otherwise would be wrong."
This is true, and it’s equally shitty. I just didn’t bring it up at the time because the conversation was sparked from discussion of what the left is currently doing that is alienating midwesterners. These tactics are bad no matter who uses them.The right has been "cancelling" people and corporations for years. Groups like Focus on the Family made massive careers out of it.
The only idea being “exchanged” is the mob stating that the target’s idea or action is unacceptable and must be immediately and completely disavowed without any nuance or other considerations, or there will be extreme consequences.You also talk about the marketplace of ideas. Leaving aside that I've come to think of the marketplace of ideas concept as a deeply flawed portion of the supposed exercise of freedom, the marketplace of ideas is central to the concept of "cancel culture" and "boycotts". Indeed, "cancel culture" can only occur if there is an exchange of ideas!
I certainly don't condone the deployment of targeted hate, harassment, etc. Let's just get that out of the way. "doxxing" followed by a flood of harassment, hate claims, rape threats, suggestions someone should perform self-harm, etc - that's bad and evil and illegal and it shouldn't be part of any part of speech. I completely agree with that. But that's not "cancel culture". That occurs regarding every single piece of disagreement on the internet. People dox/harass/hate each other based on political choice, movie choice, comic choice, saying "yeah I'm a feminist", and taking a job in a Star Wars movie in which you happen to be an Asian woman playing an Asian-looking character. Any sort of oppositional stance on the Internet that gets to any level of notice goes down the hate train. The hate train is not a "Cancel Culture" feature. It occurs in every major internet movement regardless of political alignment. So let's separate that out from "Cancel Culture". Is it a part of the process of opposing people? Sadly, yes. Is it caused by or intentionally utilized by those calling out poor speech? In most cases, no (of course there are some people who want that to happen, but generally, no).
You say that threatening someone's financial livelihood is blackmail for the purpose of censorship. Let's get into that a little deeper, but let's be 100% clear: it isn't blackmail. When someone is "cancelled" it is almost certainly because they have said or done something that is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. Of their own free will, they have made a choice, and people are holding up that choice. "Cancelling" doesn't start with a threat of "pay up or else", it starts with "holy shit look what X has said". X is almost always a public figure already, or participating in an extremely public event, and should be well aware that their actions are fully visible. There's no hidden behaviour here to blackmail. It's already public. The person who threatened their financial livelihood was the person who made a transgression. They committed an action that was not likely to make people happy, and are now being called out for it.
Furthermore, you call it censorship. It's not censorship. Nobody is forbidden from continuing their speech. And I am free to not associate with the people/companies that associate with that person. I am free to use my freedom of speech to talk to those companies and say, "Hey, this guy sucks, he's a big homophobe, you need to fuck off sponsoring this guy". In fact, depending on the form of "cancellation", there are large industries that celebrate and reward people "cancelled".
It is extremely rare that a decades-old thing is dug up and used to fully justify the "cancellation" of people. It happens - like the James Gunn attack (which was an orchestrated right-wing attack designed to remove him for being supportive of left wing causes by showcasing old content that he had already apologized for with the intent of discrediting him among the audience he was recently supporting, which is why he has been reinstated to all the stuff that he was "cancelled" from). In the vast majority of cases, a current public figure says/does something racist/sexist etc OR someone gets up on TV supporting a cause in the same vein. One that I recall vividly was a man in Ontario going up behind a reporter, who was a woman, and yelling "fuck her right in the pussy!" into the camera. Someone figured out who he was and he was fired from his job. Was he "canceled" by the current definition? Absolutely. Whose fault was it? I'd say it was the fault of the man who decided to put his face on live tv and scream something sexist at a woman.
Let's talk about someone else who was "cancelled". Let's talk about Bill O'Reilly. This was a guy who repeatedly said ridiculously sexist and vile things on his tv show. People stopped buying brands that sponsored him, which led to his status on Fox News slowly getting less and less stable. He was still a star, but some brands withdrew slowly. I mean, if you go to, say, 2009, you'd think he was bulletproof at Fox. But when it came out that he'd settled $50 million in sexual harassment lawsuits, he was done. Because Fox decided that it wasn't worth keeping him around - because his sponsors bailed en masse after that. They didn't want to be "the company that runs ads on known sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly's show". According to your theory, they shouldn't have threatened his financial livelihood? Or should they have followed through on the logical need to protect their brand from the association with O'Reilly? Not sure what the line here is.
In the end, what you see as "cancelling", I see as "consequences". A person has done something that is specifically not illegal nor punishable by law. In addition, I see this: freedom of speech does not make you free from the consequences of that speech. But a surprising amount of people seem to believe that free speech means that you can say whatever you want and nobody can do anything about it. Taken to the logical conclusion, it goes: "Oh, well, my local KFC is run by a member of the KKK. Too bad I love fried chicken so much, I have to keep giving him my money because to do otherwise would be wrong." Alternately, "Too bad Bill O'Reilly likes sexually harassing women to the point where millions of dollars are still paid out to him. But I started advertising on his show so I gotta keep doing it until he retires!"
I don't see one specific person who opposes "cancel culture". There are certainly some people who oppose it because they don't want the consequences of their speech to occur to them. Your Ben Shapiros and Tucker Carlsons and Anne Coulters of the world, for example. But there's a lot of people who look at their past and think to themselves, that could be me. I've said some dumb shit in the past. I've called things "gay". I may even have said something stereotypical about black people or women etc. And they're naturally afraid that their job could be called into question any time. Or even people who say, I don't know that my speech would be considered "correct" and I am afraid of the consequences of misstepping. All of which are understandable, especially with the hate train rumbling under the surface any time someone is laser targeted by any movement online.
The right has been "cancelling" people and corporations for years. Groups like Focus on the Family made massive careers out of it. Boycotting stores for saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", etc. It's all the exact same thing, and the far right is far more guilty of it than the far left. And they'll do exactly that, talk about how horrible "cancel culture" is then talk about why we need to boycott NASCAR because they banned the Confederate flag. But again, I don't personally think this is wrong, either. If someone feels that strongly about flying their homegrown American Nazi flag that they don't go watch guys drive real fast and turn to the left, so be it. And if they want to write an angry letter to NASCAR about it, all the power to them. And if they want to have a demonstration, hey, go ahead. That's freedom in action. But if people think that person is wrong and quite possibly racist for posting these things online, and point it out to their employer, and the employer goes, "Hmm, maybe I don't want a neo-Confederate on staff", then that's also freedom in action.
You also talk about the marketplace of ideas. Leaving aside that I've come to think of the marketplace of ideas concept as a deeply flawed portion of the supposed exercise of freedom, the marketplace of ideas is central to the concept of "cancel culture" and "boycotts". Indeed, "cancel culture" can only occur if there is an exchange of ideas! It goes like this:
Person A: Says something racist.
Person B: Hey, Person A said something racist! People should do something about it.
Person C: Compares what Person A said to their own ideas. Decides it was indeed racist and is indeed actionable. Decides to write to the person's employer to say, hey, I think Person A said something really racist.
Person D: Hmm, Person A has said something racist and it's going to get out there and hurt us. I need to make a decision on whether or not we want to associate with Person A anymore. This decision is both based on my corporate morals and my personal morals, as well as the likelihood of harm to my financial stability.
Speech & actions have consequences. Speech, by definition, is not regulated by government so the only consequences that can be expected are by those of other people using their morals to guide their decisions within their freedoms. You might not like it, and that's fine, but that's the system intended by the interconnected set of freedoms that we have. Hypercharged somewhat by the internet, sure. But also really good at combating entrenched ideas of hatred.
He wasn't. Pieces have been published on the movie as recently as 2019 without provoking a "cancellation" backlash.Should C. Thomas Howell have his direct-to-video career derailed because he once did Soul Man?
Despite major discussions about the role starting circa 2008, he wasn't. He was in movies until his death. And while the role itself is definitely racist today, and was pretty borderline in the 60s when it happened, the movie remains popular. In fact, it will probably become more notable over time due to it. It just likely won't be rebroadcast as much due to sensibilities.Should Mickey Rooney have been blacklisted later in life because of the Asian character he played in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, which is horribly racist by modern standards but was par for the course at the time?
He, also, wasn't, and hasn't been.Should Richard Dean Anderson be canceled because in an episode of MacGyver he put on face makeup and pretended to be one of the participants in a voodoo ceremony to escape the bind he was in?
some wanna be nazi twat said:Let us take a moment to consider what is meant by “cancel culture.” The best definition I can come up with is “the practice of pressuring an institution into sanctioning someone because others perceived that they were psychologically or emotionally harmed by something the individual said, or something he did a long time ago in history.”
The key elements of cancel culture, therefore, are that: the individual or group calling for the cancellation puts pressure on some third party to impose sanctions on the putative transgressor; and that he or she does so because others perceived that they were psychologically or emotionally harmed by the transgressor’s speech (or historical actions)."
No, that’s not a logical conclusion at all. If you know this about the KFC guy, feel free to take your business elsewhere and tell your friends. Inform the local paper or stage a demonstration that doesn’t prevent people from entering the restaurant if you like. Let KFC know, and they can decide whether to allow the guy to keep franchising from them. All of that is reasonable. But demanding that he prostrate himself in a very specific way in a very specific amount of time or you’re going to have a coordinated PR assault on everyone who supplies him with ingredients and utilities and anyone who dares to eat there is blackmail.
This. Happened. For. Centuries. Both ways. Laws were changed as a result. You might have heard of the Civil Rights Act in the USA. However, if it wasn't for the push of civil rights leaders in the US to create public change and to bring negative press down on those places in Mississippi that mistreated blacks, it wouldn't have happened. Spoiler alert: people wrote letters to the suppliers and stuff of those business too! It was "cancel culture" at slower, pre-Internet speeds.It’s easy to see it this way when you agree with the mob. But what if you disagree with them? What if the mob is the local community in rural Mississippi who found out that you serve black people at your restaurant, and in response they call you horrible names and boycott your place? Or what if they keep showing up, but treat your black customers so badly that the black customers stop showing up? No laws have been broken, free speech has been exercised, technically black people can still come to the restaurant, but they never do anymore. Isn’t that a de facto ban on black people eating there?
This happened. Not specifically for Iron Maiden, but bans on music because of taste absolutely happened. Jazz, for example, was functionally banned in many regions of the world because of its inherent blackness. And do you know what? That was the reading of companies at the time. So what did those people do? They made their own company. Many of them. Jazz was banned by major theatres, and then made the Apollo famous. That was the system working at the time, despite the significant power & economic disadvantage of black people. The difference here is that you're talking about stuff that white people (like you and me) like. The system was built this way, it's worked this way for a long time, but it's only a problem now that white people are in the crosshairs.What if Focus On The Family successfully convinced all major music retailers, including Spotify and Amazon, that the evil, satanic Iron Maiden shouldn’t have their devil music sold by upstanding establishments because they were contributing to the decay of western civilization? No laws are broken, but the music gets a de facto ban when no major music distributors carry it anymore. Victory for the first amendment?
They haven't, and this absolute, total, and complete falsehood is the core of the hypocrisy that is the concern over "cancel culture". There is no concern over the permission of offense. It's not considered a human right to be free of offense. People on the left offend each other all the time. This is a deliberate and dishonest reframing of what's happening by the right in order to make it seem like this isn't supposed to happen. When functionally, it is.The core of the problem here is that the far left is abandoning the principles of free speech, because they’ve apparently decided that it’s a core human right to not have to be offended by anyone.
And the only way unpopular ideas gain widespread acceptance is by allowing them to be heard, vetted, and debated in the public square.