insert link to freedom-loving tune here
Is cancel culture a thing? Is it new and distinct? And is it always wrong?
IT’S A THING !!!!!eleventy!!!!!!!!
Trotsky: we barely knew ya
Several Glibs have revealed strong feelings about cancel culture, and I had admitted confusion over the various definitions. Looking back, I got my first synopsis of the situation when I asked:
bacon-magic had keenly summarized:
Cancel culture is a tribal tool used to subjugate and wipe out individualism. Wrongthink at it’s finest.
So cancel culture is a thing, a thing to be despised.
NOT THAT I CAN PROVE IT
Thereafter followed many illuminating comments that still left me unsatisfied. Many Glibs said cancel culture was wrong, but I couldn’t get a simple definition to which one might apply first principles. As with many things these days, I chalked this up to my grand confusions around buzzwords and the unlimited notions that each can project onto them . . . to say nothing of the slants and perversions foisted upon us by partisan narratives and the vagaries of generation gaps. I kept an eye out regarding the subject, and then, recently, it seems to have become a more important issue.
Cancel culture is a tactic, a weapon of sorts, and here’s a contemporary (if redundant) definition:
Then David French alerted me via a recent The Dispatch podcast (20 minutes in) to Nicholas Christakis.
@NAChristakis replying to @Popehat Here’s my proposed definition of cancel culture:
a/ forming a mob to
b/ seek to get someone fired (or disproportionately punished) for
c/ statements within Overton Window.
To this French added that cancel culture might include “overt cruelty and malice.” I’m not necessarily going to take on these definitions; I list these only to point out that it’s a nebulous notion.
OKAY, EVERYONE ELSE REALLY REALLY KNOWS IT’S A THING
To add to the tumult, there recently was a free speech letter of conscience published in Harper’s. It’s vague, not necessarily aimed at cancel culture, and more than a little lefty, but it’s signed by a hundred disparate notables and includes a couple of interesting, relevant lines (emphasis mine):
resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion . . . free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.
I add this last tangent because it runs in the same space as cancel culture or at least manifests bits of it: pundits and editors seemed to be losing their jobs over political disagreements. A larger question of who should be able to say what where was emerging, but, I must say, I couldn’t necessarily follow any of the arguments to first principles. I’ll list here that the contemporary cases of record seem to be Bari Weiss’s leaving the New York Times and James Bennett’s dismissal from same, but there are probably better examples in the real world of normal folk being hounded out of their formerly normal positions (and livelihoods) for revealing barely unpopular opinions.
I’d collect my relevant speech notions as follows.
- I’m already on record as a free-speech purist: you should be able to express any thought any time without meeting violence.
- No government has a role in this discussion whatsoever other than announcing that it has no role in this discussion whatsoever.
- Speech is not violence, and violence cannot be legitimized as a response to speech. But property is property, and economic access to the property of the second part does not constitute coercion on the party of the first part: employment is an arm’s-length transaction.
- Platform content remains at the sole discretion of the platform owner, although I would prefer that facebook, twitter, and ISP did not editor, censor, or comment on user content in any way. I regret to hear of de-platforming or even demonetizing, no matter how egregious the offending content, but I keep coming back to the old pearl: if you don’t like it, write your own newsletter, start your own social medium . . .
That’s how I see the marketplace of ideas.
THAT DIDN’T HELP AT ALL, DON
After trying to understand if cancel culture were some new, special, and different thing, I remain at the same place, summarily: it’s just another one of those situations where a slightly different take on some timeless issues is captured under some newly-named umbrella instead of simply distilling the take to first principles and disposing of it in a dispassionate, disinterested way. There is noise and sexy drama afoot, but it’s mostly partisan mud-wrestling over whose ox has been gored.
Which is not to say that I don’t regret to hear of some actions described as cancel culture. And I don’t emotionally criticize the many decent and well-intentioned Glibs who have waved their hands over this case or that and objected to some guy’s ease in earning a living being severely affected.
OTHER THINGS YOU ALREADY KNOW
I come in peace !!!
But I want to set aside the emotional arguments and stick to the transactional . . . without abandoning the philosophical. Let me apologize here for a technical education: I haven’t read much beyond Locke and Hume and tend to write like the technocrat that I am; I misuse words that have been absorbed and adopted to mean specific things in political discourse that Faulkner and cummings failed to keep me current on. As always, I look forward to any Glib help correcting such bumbling. Now: Back to the plot!
I seldom disagree with bacon-magic, and he’s not wrong in this wise: wrongthink should be resisted. But speech and action are parts of a wider market; the cauldron of notions, votes, subscriptions, purchases, hirings, and firings boils on. Just as our economy improves as new products gain favor and ascend, the necessary friction of this is that others fail; the transactional fact is that, no matter our philosophy, we make discrete choices; the sum of these choices is our economy and our culture, and some ideas like Shakerism, scotch snuff, and Bill Cosby 8-tracks simply die off.
insert link to soothing music here
NOT GUNNING FOR ANYONE, I SWEAR
you loved my steaks; you’ll love mi frijoles
Everyone makes choices, and every purchase is a dollar vote; ideas and products really aren’t that different in that they make markets. I tried to explain this a last year when I noted that I normally avoid Chick-fil-a; my view is that their firm supports political actions that I oppose; they are free to continue doing so, and I am free to remain at Zaxby’s man. I rather suspect that the heat I took then was simply partisan: a good Christian company ox was being gored.
Conversely, when Goya’s ownership came under some scrutiny for political alignments, some Glibs announced that they had rushed out to patronize their products; they weren’t alone. Of course, everyone should vote as they please and buy the flavor they favor, but I think these two in-house examples capture the spirit of (what some consider) cancel culture: politics come home to roost when my team is on the line.
love is a four-lettered word
Mr Bacon used tribal. Christakis refers to a mob; I don’t think mob has any useful meaning since when mobs do good things they’re suddenly not mobs: they’re civic groups; mob is simply a pejorative characterization of populist masses and doesn’t address the underlying detail of right and wrong: it’s ad hominem writ large. Mob or grass roots, terrorist or freedom fighter, I sense the angle and justification of much of what I read outside Glibs is driven by identity politics, not any consistent treatment of principle. Cancel culture per se is how some normalize their witch hunts and is the name some give to ostracize others’ witch hunts; but witch hunts aren’t new, and neither is identity politics. The good news is that Glibs are much more dedicated to intellectual honesty than most; we would be the worst mob ever.
I AM NOT A PRAGMATISM APOLOGIST
But buying Goya didn’t cancel anyone! Well, as I’ve pointed out, if we all buy Toyota, won’t the Ford line shut down? Don’t those people have mortgages? Every coin has an obverse; most philosophy and politics is transactional: to choose for is to also choose against. For every choosy mother who chooses Jif, Peter Pan . . . its stockholders, suppliers, advertisers, neighbors, and employees . . . are a bit poorer.
And the NYT op-ed page has similar constraints. There is only so much space there for essays and letters, and its someone’s job to decide (transaction!) which ones get printed and which ones do not. They have, even after declaring a commitment to all the news that is fit to print and some philosophy of supporting open debate, zero obligation to print what they believe are discredited (or even merely distasteful) positions. Some refutations of cancel culture imply that all ideas deserve airing, but there’s only so much room at some outlets; certain people get paid to make those decisions according to the goals and policies of management and ownership.
Meanwhile, Overton’s Window is moving . . . everywhere . . . but it must be admitted that the NYT gets to decide where the windows are in their own op-ed room. Whether Tom Cotton makes the cut at the NYT on a given Sunday morning is strictly a business risk, a position that the market will weigh, a risk and reward proposition; for Team Sulzberger to oust Bennet is strictly a property decision: they are completely within their rights to dismiss a manager who they feel is not deploying their capital as they prefer, political and market ramifications notwithstanding.
Further, Bennet has no right to be a major editor or to even make a single dime in journalism whatsoever; if the market shuns him, he ends up driving a garbage truck, and his children end up eating hamburger helper helper, that’s his problem. This isn’t the Red Scare: Bennet wasn’t fired because of some HUAC testimony or a governor’s executive order; markets and property (not the government) have spoken, and, for the moment, he needs to retool, move on, or start over. In a world that has room for Ron Paul to publish newsletters that even Newt Gingrich argues raise “fundamental questions” and for Alex Jones to exploit people who are genetically pre-dispositioned to watch pro wrestling and retell conspiracy theories, it’s hard to say Bennet is out of options.
freedom residue
I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH FRENCH AND FRIENDS
So where does this leave Christakis? He and French had a couple of bullets left. As to whether his mob “willfully misinterprets original statement or narrows window behind all recognition,” Christakis is just talking in circles: the Overton Window is a swamp ever oozing downhill and, like goalposts, is moved all the time by everyone anyway. Limits on discourse are almost always arbitrary and self-serving, and this is nothing new or interesting or helpful in defining bad guys or ordering society. No matter how high the speed limit is raised, there will always be speeders, and, as long as they don’t run into anyone, the speeders never were hurting anyone anyway: it’s just the way of the world to argue norms . . . and to change them.
wo ist mein sanitizer?
French’s last shot was to add “overt cruelty and malice.” This is particularly helpful in our treatment of cancel culture in that it’s arbitrary and neither here nor there. On the one hand, Jesus was met with cruelty; on the other, he was guilty of treason. Style doesn’t move the needle on reason; aesthetics is its own discipline. That French adds his lagniappe tells us all we need to know: there were no firm and clear standards to define and clarify, so more emotional baggage is piled on instead; firm understanding could not be had, even from a Harvard law man, so sensibilities were deployed.
French may not be the last word on cancel culture, but he has helped me size it up. Ontologically, it exists (of course, ontologically, everything exists!). In terms of spontaneous order, like shit and antifa, it happens. But the idea of cancel culture isn’t a step forward in our way of understanding the world around us. Its bits aren’t new, and the employers of its tactics aren’t necessarily immoral. There simply remain markets of ideas, transactional facts of choice, winners, and losers.
Ideas have currency and traction, or they end up on the ash-heap of history, and, sad to say, people and firms who don’t wish to be judged for their opinions had best operate discretely . . . even in our world of free speech.
hey hey! HEY!!!
First, I did not like the formatting of this at all.
Second, the marketplace of ideas sadly sucks.
Third, start your own would work better in a free market, we dont got that
The problem with cancel culture is it is the tyranny of a small loud minority
formatting
go figure; I thought I had made a big step forward: what offends?
just noticed: it’s really awful on my phone
* sad trombone *
I tired to fix the formatting gaps…but I am not sure it helped. We had an imagery casualty too.
All this talk of cancel culture and no mention of Target Tori or Kroger Andy?
Gah. Meant as a new thread.
CANCEL SEAN!
Am I doing this right?
No.
#CancelNephilium
Also there is a big distinction between asking for laws against cancel culture and advocating against it,
It is not enough to define free speech as solely law/government. Social pressure can stifle it just as much. I want a culture who listens to as many opinions, both by law and by custom.
It is not enough to define free speech as solely law/government
how do you do that without asserting your right to manage others’ property?
It is not about asserting right over others property. It is about advocating for a culture open to speech. The law part you are against laws criminalizing speech. The culture part is you advocate for not censoring people by social pressure. Advocating is not asserting.
“I may not agree with what you say…”
It’s a mean world out there, reality is a bitch
Oh, and great article, Don, ideas/words are often distasteful.
After trying to understand if cancel culture were some new, special, and different thing – it is not, just amplified by internet and bullshit PC culture. But just because it is not new does not mean it aint bad. And the main problem is that it is moving more and more into trying to put it into law. In US it is not there yet, but Western Europe cancel culture means the police show up at your door over a facebook post.
ideas and products really aren’t that different in that they make markets – nonsense. they are very different. In product markets usually good products win. in idea markets usually bad ideas win. Because sadly ideas don;t seem to cost anything up front.
This is where I’m at: the moment where a critical mass of people no longer value the culture of free speech, any laws defending it are simply done for. I mean 2020 has shown that when specific government actions are both “broadly popular” and also “unconstitutional,” the former tends to win out a lot more often than the latter.
The courts right now have said that governors have “broad latitude” to do more or less what they like. How “limited and enumerated rights” became “broad latitude” is precisely because the public at large has morphed into one that demands their government “do things.”
*rights = powers
Interesting point, but I think most people have complete respect for the sidewalk crier, though. What I tried to do was work through some examples; what laws are you suggesting are in play?
The 1st amendment is, truthfully. If the government passes a law that says my ISP mus require me to post my full name and place of employment on all of my social media posts, or else the government will sanction my ISP, that’s quite obviously not free speech. The government is obviously _trying_ to silence people with unpopular opinions. But I bet you could get 5 of the right Supreme Court justices to argue otherwise.
If the law is simply viewed as something that needs to be “gotten around,” then they’ll come up with ways to get around it. And so whether the prevailing culture views the law as “valuable” or “something to circumvent” is obviously a huge difference.
I’d also be willing to wager that California will before 2025 pass a state wide bill criminalizing “hate speech” or “false and misleading news”. I still have hopes that it would get struck down at the Supreme Court, but I can see the court punting on that as well.
I’d bet my whole 401K on that wager. And between those two things plus “foreign interference in our elections”, I don’t doubt for one second that the Left would destroy free speech for the entire nation.
I’d say let us not forget that “protesting [was] a non-essential activity” up to the minute somebody decided George Floyd’s death was a good reason/excuse to riot/protest. The sidewalk crier was not respected until he started crying a (more) popular line.
I would disagree. Sometimes a difference in magnitude becomes a difference in kind. Being able to generate barriers to entry means the “build you own” argument is silly.
1. An employee pisses you off. You fire them.
2. You schmooze with your buddies in your trade association to make sure that nobody in you field hires them again.
2a. Bonus points for making it so that you need to be a member of this trade association in order to legally do business.
3. Let the banks know that any banks that do business with the ex-employee will not be doing business with you.
4. Ditto real estate companies
4a. Bonus if you’re in a state that requires real estate transactions to be carried out by realtors belonging to a guild.
5. Have your friends in the media, law enforcement etc, spread the word about what a bad guy the ex-employee is.
I have no problem with step 1. Anything past that…
We should never have invented the internet.
In the distant future, some space faring civilization will happen onto this rock and find our ruins. After some research, they will come to the conclusion that it was the internets that gave the smallest minority of perpetually aggrieved miserables the biggest megaphone and led to our early demise.
no doubt: the internet is more dangerous than democracy
As someone who was around before the internet, I can attest that these perpetually aggrieved victims were around before. It’s just that people who knew them or were around them, ignored them or made ridicule of them. Now they have more political power than anyone else and are going to use it to beat the rest of us over the head, forever, until we commit self genocide.
In the before days my irate letters to the editor went unpublished. I totally understood that the newspaper was privately owned and they were the mouth piece of the local government.
Now, on the internet, we can just ignore those irate letters we disagree with or try to re-butt them. Same result.
Don wants to Cancel Canceling Cancel Culture.
I just want to force Pie to subscribe to the NYT and eat Chick-fil-a every week
fried chicken in unhealthy
Not as unhealthy as reading the NYT.
The problem with cancel culture is it is the tyranny of a small loud minority
The problem at the New York Times, which I am at least tangentially familiar with, is that the fleas are taking over the circus. The junior “writers” and other employees were outraged that a voice like Cotton (you know, a United States Senator) would be given legitimacy-by-association by the Times. Rather than the owners making decisions about content, it’s the People’s Truth and Justice Cadre. Dunce caps for everybody!
Start your own goddam newspaper, and you can decline to publish whomever you please.
Cancel culture goes beyond the Tiempos de Nueva York
Cancel culture sure seems a lot like witch-burning or heretic-hanging.
Why does everything become a fucking religion?
Fun article, Don. Thanks for writing it up!
Because some people need the moral high ground. Look at the progs, they’re just moving us forward for our own good. It is known that they’re on the right side of history. As soon as they get rid of bad orange man, they can start rounding up the meddlesome deplorables. Once those are all in the camps, utopia will appear as promised.
Or like every other effort to foist utopia on humans, a whole lot of misery and destruction, followed by even more misery, all with growing paranoia and disillusionment and the attendant corruption given that humans refuse to reform themselves into proper utopian drones.
Feature, not bug. That’s when some strong man seizes the moment and takes control. Then they get the real bad orange man tyrant dictator.
Because humans are wired to be tribal, and religion is a way to form a tribe with nothing else in common. If you all believe the same thing to be true, then it is true (for you). If you truly believe that those who disagree with you aren’t just wrong, but evil, why would you stop trying to stamp them out?
Maybe the end-state of democracy + constant access to social media = every last fucking thing is politicized.
I can remember as recently as the 90’s when nobody thought much about politics, politicians, or elections until a few weeks before an election – then went back to ignoring it right afterward. I had no idea what political beliefs most of my acquaintances held and really didn’t care.
I don’t think this is inevitable. There are very particular steps along the road that were taken that got us here. While politics is downstream of culture, the government was allowed to capture certain institutions, and the exercise of this power was captured by a particular political faction, and everybody mostly ignored it, and the way this was done allowed certain cultural factions to take prominence and others to be minimized.
The banks and payment processors, the K-12 schools and colleges, the telecom and tech companies, etc. have all played their parts in this, and in every case you can see the hand of politicized government being moved behind the scenes. From “combatting terrorism” to “ensuring access” to “providing basic research” etc. every time the government was expanded it put a tool in the hands of those willing to abuse it.
One should also not discount the role that driving everyone to dump all their money into the stock market, via pensions and retirement funds, played in empowering institutional investors to dominate over individual shareholders, either.
Cancel culture is just a form of ostracism. As practiced currently, it is a heckler’s veto and is only effective because of the lack of principles on the part of those in power. Since this is social custom, you can’t really trace it to first principles. And there is sure as hell no political solution to it – the only solution is to ridicule those who attempt to use it, particularly when they are those who can’t enforce their will by any other means.
I don’t think any of the definitions you quoted are good. They’re all garbage.
It has nothing to do with boycotting, except that the implied or explicit threat of boycott is usually tied to the canceling.
It has very little to do with the Overton window, except that the current attempt to shift the Overton window enables canceling to go unchallenged.
canceling is adults tattling on one another to their employer. Add in a bit of manipulative coercion and thinly veiled threats, (oh, and compliant HR offices) and you have a massive, effective cancel culture. The offending comments and conversation have nothing to do with the writer’s relationship with their employer, but Sally McCancel expands the scope and intentionally threatens the writer’s livelihood over the comment.
Should cancel culture be illegal? No. Should it be tolerated? Hell No!
No government has a role in this discussion whatsoever other than announcing that it has no role in this discussion whatsoever.
Agreed.
Speech is not violence, and violence cannot be legitimized as a response to speech. But property is property, and economic access to the property of the second part does not constitute coercion on the party of the first part: employment is an arm’s-length transaction.
Meh. “Fighting words” are a thing, and for good reason. “I’m gonna go fuck your wife right now”, combined with the context showing an intent and ability to do so, is well into “fighting words” territory. “Im gonna get you fired and make you unmployable” is not appreciably different.
Platform content remains at the sole discretion of the platform owner, although I would prefer that facebook, twitter, and ISP did not editor, censor, or comment on user content in any way. I regret to hear of de-platforming or even demonetizing, no matter how egregious the offending content, but I keep coming back to the old pearl: if you don’t like it, write your own newsletter, start your own social medium . . .
Agreed. However, IMO, canceling and deplatforming are two very different issues. The latter is “you’re using our platform in a way we don’t like, and this you can’t use our platform anymore” (basic property rights). Canceling is “I don’t like what you say, so I’m going to do everything I can to destroy your livelihood”. It’s a form of harassment, which I imagine is a tough concept for a free speech absolutist to get behind.
If I squint very hard, I can see where canceling is a whole lot of people and organizations doing what’s well within their rights, which is why I’m not for making it illegal. However, as I’ve said many times, I’m a restraintist libertarian, because (as I think this article illustrates quite well), it’s hard to find the foothold to stand against shitty behavior like canceling when coming from the live and let live camp.
(to be clear, I’m not saying that your article is garbage or that you selected tht definitions poorly… only that most people have no clue what canceling is)
No worries, but, really, I think you made my point: this whole thing is just a miasma.
Maybe suggest an example that makes your central point.
I guess my central point is that wrong =/= should be illegal. And conversely, shouldn’t be illegal =/= right (or even morally neutral).
It’s hard to pick just one point, because you brought up so many interesting topics.
I am not for making “cancelling” illegal as it puts a burden on someone else.
However, I find it extremely intellectually, morally, and socially corrosive.
I make exception for monopolistic ventures (eg the payment industry) which seek to enforce social standards on their clients by threatening to take away their income. Those guys should be taken out to the woodshed and dealt with.
corrosive
no doubt
The thing about monopolies, though, is, again, same as before, same as elsewhere. Monopolies only survive when the government is involved. As long as the government is kept out of these markets, people will always find new ways to express themselves. The platforms we’re talking about didn’t even exist ten years ago.
The online payment industry is extremely shut at this point. If Visa/Mastercard/AmEx arbitrarily decide you’re not allowed to take cards because they don’t like you, you’re pretty much fucked.
Right. I think a lot about that angle: it’s not like we can run off into the woods and create an independent society; the tools (internet, finance) are too complicated to replace. Even when we talk about loading our own ammo, we’re still buying primers from someone and having them shipped somehow. I wish a man could be an island, but that ship has sailed.
Problem, though: which laws and bureaucracies can regulate the monsters? And who writes those regulations? Our argument here is that regulation leads to graft and tyranny: how is being rules by grifters any more reliable than cancel warriors?
Satre nailed it: other people
The net neutrality people focused too heavily on the ISPs, not that they couldn’t have been weaponized too, and ignored the rest of the Internet ecosystem. All of those pieces have to be generally inclined toward openness for the culture to continue. The Internet was able to route around censorship up until 1. everybody offloaded the problem of routing (both in a technical and more general sense) to others and considered them “important” then 2. state actors got seriously involved to ensure their own agendas were met. While the US has a lighter touch than the UK, and both have a much lighter touch than the PRC, nobody can say with a straight face anymore that the Internet infrastructure is unregulated. Most of the regulation is behind the scenes, and there is more winking-and-nudging than codified rules, and staving off net neutrality keeps it from getting worse for the moment, but an interested/disaffected party’s ability to start out on his/her/their own is greatly diminished from where it once was.
OK, great.
By the way, the financial industry is highly regulated, with massive government involvement.
Which explains why the payment processors are so eager to deny access to the financial system by people who publish opinions uncongenial to the government.
^^^^^^This.
With an emphasis on how it’s part and parcel with the perpetual adolescence preached by the Progs (and witness the juvenalia at the DNC last night). Adults know better than to do that sort of foolishness.
(and I’m pointing at trashy)
One part that isn’t talked about much either is people trawling and linking pseudo-anonymous accounts back to a real name to use that to cancel someone. While legal and (depending on how the linking was done) within free speech rights, it’s really shitty behavior.
Lots of good thoughts. Some of my two cents:
1. SLD that matches your #4 point
I see the push back on “cancel culture” to be legitimate as a gripe about a “cultural shift”, where everyone is on call to be fired if a social media mob can be outraged enough to scare their employer. However that means that there is a flip side to the cultural aspect. It’s not just that their are mobs promising boycotts if the offenders are not punished, its that business leadership is so craven that they cave into every demand, afraid of even being called: racist, sexist, etc.
In otherwords Cancel culture is just mob action, and the only power the Mob has is the power you let them have. Boycotts, especially of the CC variety, have shown to be very ineffective. What is effective is having a C-suite indoctrinated in cowtowing to the feelings obssesed mob, rather than sticking up for their own empoyees.
As an example there is the worker who was fired because he had his hand out the window, which at rest looked like the “OK” sign. Some twerp calls it in and gets him fired, because they say it is a white supremacist symbol. I’m sorry but that is not the kind of culture i like, and it is totally legitimate to call out those shitheads that do it.
In the end, I don’t think tight lines are easy to draw, because this is a cultural issue, and it is a fight over what is acceptable or not. We have two (at least ) cultures fighting, one that wants to make things the other thinks is benign, verboten. Add in that the mobs targets are often weak and powerless individuals, and you can see why a libertarian might want to defend such a person from them.
The question always comes back to “how do we fight it”?
I haven’t found a fully satisfying answer yet.
Not giving a shit when the mob comes. I think that is the single most important thing. Saying “Go fuck yourself”,.
Unfortunately Equal Employment laws that make it easy to claim a “Hostile Environment” make it easy for the already craven leadership to say “well we had to fire him, to keep us safe from legal liability”.
The laws lean one way, and one way only. There should be no liability where someone is merely offended.
“Should” is nice, but we have to live with “is”.
I’m just hoping that there is some silent majority that will stop tolerating it and eventually make it painful to the cancelers to the point where the cancelers stop it. Of course, when that silent majority does stop tolerating it, the silent majority will most likely overreact in bad ways.
Since hope is not a strategy, I’m busy packing away FU money so that when the mob comes for me and runs me out of a job, I can laugh at them.
Yeah, this is it: it’s a marketplace, and maybe good ideas and people will penalize bad behaviors so that platforms and credit cards took no interest in the goings on of those who use their services.
Build your own bank is an answer . . . or it was; black banks are a thing here in Memphis for 150 years. I’m surprised there aren’t at least two channels: web search, credit cards, social media for teams left and right.
Well there would have been, but the existing left-oriented payment processors keep smothering the new arrivals in their cribs.
^This.
There have been many attempts at “right-wing” alternatives to patreon, gofundme, twitter, etc. None of them (correction — none that I know of) failed because of a lack of customers or mismanagement, they were all deliberately shut down by people who didn’t like them.
I was intrigued by the new twitter that emerged last month thinking it was going to be a free-speech utopia, but it stepped on its own dick before I could even investigate. I’m not a conservative, but I would have gladly patronized a conservative platform if it were truly interested in free speech.
will most likely overreact in bad ways
I hear the ringing of an Iron Law in my ears.
This will sound too navel-gaze-ish, but I think a major tool for fighting it (and several other problems) is disentangling insurance from employment.
Yes, really.
That unnatural relationship is a big part of what makes the “employer” part of cancel culture so harmful.
the funny thing is that I struck that exact point from one of my posts. Employment mobility fixes this problem overnight, and killing the benefits infrastructure that ties you to your company is step 1 in that process.
Fucking absurd relic of WWII that lives on – there is NO reason for health insurance to be tied to employment. We certainly don’t do that with any other insurance product on the market.
This
legitimate to call out
absolutely
we already do that every day, all day, rushing out to buy Goya beans. By marketplace I was implying legitimacy. My critique is that there’s nothing new to see here: same old brawl, same old sides, just some cool new word that confused this Boomer-adjacent
All’s fair in love and war and whanot. No i don’t think this is anything new. Like i said, i think the argument is less about the validity of the tactic, as much as the substance of the claims. I side on the anti-cancel culture side, not because i think the tactic is necessarily illegitimate, but because i think that the cultural norms that one side is pushing is abhorrent.
To clarify, Its not that i’m ok with canceling lefties who disagree with me politically.
I don’t like the idea of it becoming a cultural norm where we feel that it is a honorable, acceptable means to go after people personally for political/personal slights. I think that is something that should be regarded as “something a shitty person does”.
And yes i know that is exactly what an advocate for cancel culture would say they are doing. They want to make it so that “shitty” behavior is not welcome. 1st, we disagree on what is deemed “shitty” behavior, and i think one is a zealous attempt at establishing social purity and extremely intolerant. I do want to live in a society that is tolerant of people who make mistakes, because i know that I’m one of those people. So while i might not be friends with someone who has offended me, i recognize the value of maintaining a culture that is tolerant to shitty people.
I take major issue with the elevation of “offense” to that of physical harm or even above.
The antidote to speech is more speech. The antidote to cancel culture is to cancel the cancelers?
The idea being, if a few people get fired for trying to cancel someone else, the idea will die off. Maybe?
Yes. Remember the Iowa beer money guy? Guy puts up a joke sign asking people to Venmo him beer money, which results in $1M of donations to a children’s hospital.
Asshole reporter goes through the guy’s years-old tweets, reports in outrage, and gets the beer barons to turn off the donation spigot.
So people turn around and go through the reporter’s old tweets and get him fired.
Said morally wicked reporter then claims he’s the victim in all this
Western Europe cancel culture means the police show up at your door over a facebook post.
They’re civilized!
and, to be fair, arresting 17 year old girls who post rap lyrics on facebook is the price we have to pay for civilization
There is some question-begging going on here, and more than a little bit of using connotation in place of denotation, but I think the main problem here is you are trying to make arguments about a phenomenon based on what some other (quite motivated) people are saying about it, rather than doing any direct observation of the phenomenon itself.
You can make all the conclusions you like from perfect models, but when you’re modelling cows as spheres, your conclusions are bogus. ^That quote right there? Do you really need me to point out what makes it so completely inapplicable to any actual example of cancel culture?
You and Ken are both taking this attitude. You are either unwilling or unable to accept that malice is an indispensable part of cancel culture. Why?
Cancel culture is a) malicious and b) totalizing. That second part is integral. Why are you disregarding that?
I’m glad to stipulate to all your points; I could be wrong on every point. My article is, to my mind, like a report from my family reunion: it’s crazy because all the people and ideas involved are crazy. I took this up to study, but all I have for you today is the news from Uncle Ernest. I can’t get my sea legs on this boat.
Just know that I took a journey trying to figure out what it is, mainly because Glib comments legitimized the existence of this thing: guys I respect are worried about something. I kept asking; I didn’t really get clear answers. I confess I still don’t know. I really tried; I keep reading: there’s nothing new there?
Who wouldn’t stipulate that it is malicious? What’s an example of being wrongly malicious? I wish you had written the article: I might know something by now.
Boycotting Goya is not cancel culture. It’s a boycott.
Getting a racecar driver’s sponsorship pulled because his father said a naughty work before said racecar driver was born is.
Closing a subreddit down is not cancel culture.
Tracking down the moderator of said subreddit, getting him fired, evicted, and harassing his family, his wife’s family, and his children and believing that you are a good person for doing so is.
You have a grasp of the line that totally eludes me. I’m transactional: the distinctions you list go completely over my head.
I’ve already implied: I don’t have any opinion on how reddit runs its business.
This is the thing: this should be easy to pin down. I don’t think it is easy to pin down; I think it’s just a buzzword that people use to identify themselves as the good guys and having some great line-drawing ability, but no line ever emerges.
I looked for clarity; I got none. Some thinkers elsewhere wrote “boycott.”
I wish you had written the article: no bright line is emerging for me.
We all think a lot of this behavior is disgusting because we prefer civil discourse and a lines between private, work, and family consequence; that’s fair enough. But, transactionally, the civility is thin stuff: when you boycott someone into poverty, that’s harder on the kids than calling their dad a jerk in an op-ed.
This is just messy to me.
Here’s something that might help: Cancel culture is about eliminating bad people. It is often justified as being about eliminating bad behavior, but stated/revealed preferences say otherwise.
So what’sshisnuggets moderated an icky subreddit. It gets closed. Great, you’ve stopped the behavior. It’s gone. Tracking the guy down IRL doesn’t serve that original stated purpose. What it does do is let you engage in some righteous rage against A Bad Person. And getting him fired more so. And you’re only harrassing his kids because it’s IMPORTANT that they learn to hat the Bad Person as much as you do. And if that wife won’t divorce that Bad Person, she’s just as bad as him — harassing her family might be the only way to break up that marriage and make her reconsider her evil ways.
This is an actual example of Cancel Culture that actually happened, not David French’s (Mike Adams is one of the good guys because I like him, even though I’ll keep hating everyone else that writes like him) ompthaloskepsis.
ompthaloskepsis (sic)
That’s a new word for me, even if you did misspell it.
Fun fact: rats don’t have belly buttons.
That’s a good point. It’s more inquisition than boycott.
It is also worth noting that their definition of bad behavior includes holding bad ideas. If somebody is as polite as can be, and never cyberstalks or cyberbullies or whatever other uncivil online behaviors you might think of, but e.g. doesn’t believe transgender 10-year-olds should be on hormones and/or puberty blockers, then by the mere act of holding that opinion, they become a “bad person”. Since bad people deserve bad things to happen to them, all sorts of vitriol can be directed at that person now. They are garbage, trash, despicable people who said horrific, detestable things. You can call them names, shout them down, send them death threats (which, to be fair, are dime-a-dozen on the Internet), harass them in real life, etc. even though they’ve never done anything like that you, and you can do it with a clear conscience because bad idea = bad person = deserves it.
“Silence is violence” wasn’t ironic when it was trending on social media. There are more than a few people who had their social media businesses targeted because they didn’t speak when others expected them to.
I haven’t seen that particularly nasty sentiment interact with cancel culture yet, but it’s coming.
It’s an attempt to create a New Soviet Man and a Paradise on Earth.
oh!!!
Malicious just hit home a bit, and now I know why I whistle past it in the dark; I’ve implied an answer, but I hadn’t written one.
Answerish: I don’t think it matters: the guy’s kids end up eating hamburger helper helper either way. If I enjoy his losing his job doesn’t matter; or, if you prefer, we all enjoy getting our way, so everything is malicious. It’s a distinction without a difference.
Aren’t we setting ourselves up as the good people when we say that something else is cancel culture? It’s good and bad people all the way down, is it not? That gives on to the missing bright line: I’m still arguing it’s a muddy miasma of perception between the sides (BTW, really disappointed that my brilliant image selections drew little notice; I think the Crab Nebula really captures the situation).
That’s why I carelessly throw “markets” around: people just do what people do. If someone wants to boycott Benetton or Goodyear or Goya into receivership, I think that’s up to them; I always have, and I think it swings both ways. I don’t get say the boycotters are bad people just because they do it because they think they are getting the bad people . . . this thing never ends.
I think malicious is being used as more than just “bad” in this context.
Now you have me thinking though. Does “malicious” resonate because cancel culture goes against the implied rules of fair play? Is it the proverbial crotch kick during a schoolyard fight?
Accepting that explanation would completely alter my view of how to respond to cancel culture, from resisting it to preparing for it to take aim at me.
Am I the cancel culture equivalent of the whiny conservative complaining about the hypocrisy of the left when it is long clear that they don’t care about playing by the rules anymore? I dunno. This feels different, even if I can’t fully explain why.
Of course it does. It doesn’t even mean “bad” it means “intended to harm.”
Cancel culture considers it good to harm bad people. Just like honor culture considers it good to kill people who have insulted you.
These are essentially the same notions that gripped me as I left Glib conversations and began reading and listening more and while writing the article (a couple of weeks ago, FWIW).
I just got lost looking for hard answers and was only left with markets.
take aim at me
Notice that I closed with a warning!
You’re begging the question again.
There is no “either way.” The only reason the guy was fired (his wife too, iirc) was because someone wanted to hurt him. You can’t consider the case of the guy losing his job for some other random reason when we are discussing the phenomenon of getting someone fired because he did something you don’t like in a different context.
I think we’re misunderstanding each other. Consider it withdrawn if that helps: I’m absolutely with Ozy in that motives don’t add anything to this discussion; if anything, that’s a point I’ve failed to make well.
Circa 1950: “If the negroes want loans, they should start their own banking system.”
I’ll admit, I stopped at the mud wrestling pic, and on that sweet note I’m off to bed.
If your first principle is not self-preservation/self-defense, you’re starting off wrong
The NAP is a nice principle, but it is a second principle. I thought this was illustrated very clearly in Mises’ “Human Action”.
Self ownership. But otherwise agree.
This is where I’m at: the moment where a critical mass of people no longer value the culture of free speech, any laws defending it are simply done for. I mean 2020 has shown that when specific government actions are both “broadly popular” and also “unconstitutional,” the former tends to win out a lot more often than the latter.
We see, over and over, the media churning out articles about popular opinion. “Poll shows [X]!” in which [X] is some grossly unconstitutional usurpation of freedom.
The Constitution was written specifically to restrain the will of the mob. But that was a long, long time ago.
Pie touches on the aspect of this that I think Don glides by (great article, btw, Don – and I kind of enjoyed the different formatting and visuals, even if it wasn’t quite the way I’d like).
Here’s the crux of the issue – and my problem with – the seemingly standard Libertarian “as long as it’s not government doing it then it’s A-Okay!” i.e. “It’s just a market.”
The lawyers in robes have said that “state action” is the sine qua non of a Constitutional violation, which is a fine enough summation of the legal reach of the Bill of Rights, but it really misses the mark vis a vis the protection of fundamental rights, IMO.
If no one in a society actually cares about, adheres to, and honors the fundamental rights of others – and govt does nothing – do we really have those rights any more? In other words, at what point does everyone cancelling each other destroy Liberty?
“At least it wasn’t the govt doing it!” is a cold comfort to the person who can no longer speak for fear of being fired from their job simply for exercising what is supposed to be a fundamental right. At what point does a group of private citizens coalescing together to silence Wrongthinkers become a criminal enterprise in denying the Civil Rights of other citizens? Can we say…. KKK, anyone?
It shouldn’t be surprising that Team Left is all in on this shit; it’s exactly what the Klan was. Wasn’t technically the government denying people their rights, so all good, amirite!?!
I disagree vehemently that Cancel Culture isn’t a problem. It’s a huge problem. It’s the Night Riders without the guts to actually come to my door.
What makes it truly problematic is that it is in lockstep with the Media, public school system, and one-half of the government apparatus, which allows punishment of political enemies to be outsourced and play the “but it’s not government so it’s all good, mmkay?” I’m disappointed in dogmatic libertarians who can’t see through the form to the substance to understand why this isn’t merely boycotting or voting with your wallet. It’s way, way worse than that.
I was not told there would be Latin
How’s that a problem for you, Pie? I would surmise that your ancient Romanian is problem a lot close to that than our current lingua franca.
Latin should be a piece of cake for a Romanian, no?
I don’t know if it’s okay. I glided past it because markets are markets; they’re inefficient and often wrong (Edsel, Beta). People hate on each other, on ideas, and on products and services all the time, and that’s a transactional fact that will always be with us. I did draw the line at government interference; but the rest is just a worm wrassle so far as I can tell.
Maybe my NYT examples would have been clearer if had pointed out that subscribing to it or ignoring it are existential: to hate the NYT is to put editors’ jobs at risk, to take food out of the mouths of their children. I’m trying to understand what’s new or interesting about people boycotting the NYT to put everyone on staff there on the street.
I started with question; I’ve ended with questions. This thing that is so obvious to everyone else just eludes me.
Well, maybe let’s be more concrete and perhaps that will aid in understanding.
Was the KKK riding around at night threatening black people if they voted or otherwise exercised their rights bad? If so, why?
That last question is the real question of principle that you claim to be trying to get to. “Markets are markets” isn’t an answer or a moral principle, IMO; it’s a bromide.
IOW, there are a qualitative differences between me (a) simply not subscribing to the Times (“Markets are markets” you would say); (b) boycotting/protesting in front of their offices (free speech and convincing others is fine); and (c) trying to actively get particular individuals/employees fired from their jobs by holding up various examples of their “wrongthink” as worthy of termination by their employer.
If I burn a cross across the street from your house, it’s protected 1A activity (see, e.g. Brandenburg v. Ohio). But at what point is my “free speech” a barely veiled threat to keep you from going to the polls, or otherwise participating in the Republic? That is to say, there is some point at which me and my gang of boys is a conspiracy designed to deprive you of your civil rights (an actual crime under Title 18).
I think you’re ignoring these distinctions and lumping it all together. My criticism is, in short then, that you are engaged in an overgeneralization that lumps together similar, but qualitatively different, actions and concluding (therefore) that it’s all “no harm, no foul.”
I’m only lumping together things when I can’t find a distinction; it’s a constructive default; I’m searching for distinctions. I’m terribly open to your approach, but most of the answers come back either ala Potter Stewart or reductio ad absurdum; I don’t think burning crosses are a useful boundary
unless, of course, you were just employing a bromide 🙂
To be honest, Don, it feels like you’re being intentionally obtuse, rather than admit that there are distinctions that can be made between (a) combatting free speech with more free speech, (b) boycotting as a form of market pressure, and/or (c) specifically targeting particular groups or individuals because you don’t like their speech.
Let me try it this way: there is a marked difference between (a) willingly debating someone on the substance of their speech vs. (b) going after someone’s livelihood because you don’t like how the debate might go.
I’m not sure how else to explain the difference because it seems very, very clear to me and easy to distinguish those two things. Cancel culture is the latter. Those are qualitatively different acts. We don’t even need to get to intent.
obtuse
geez
Those are qualitatively different acts. We don’t even need to get to intent.
Yes and yes, exactly so; yes, a thousand times yes. I’m going to make a hot key out of that.
here is the line? Can someone not be fired for anything they say outside the workplace? What about someone who commits a felony, not yet convicted, can I go ahead and fire him, if I so choose?
If yes, how is that different. If no, what about my freedom of association?
Where is the line?
I put the line after step 1 above.
Looks good to me. Although I think cancel culture is often about covering your ass, not being pissed.
Of course they can be. I think what’s at stake is not a legal principle but a societal one. There’s a difference between asshole behavior and criminal behavior, but there seems to be a movement afoot that all of this snitching is no longer to be considered “asshole behavior.” Ironically enough, one of the main defenses of this point of view is because this snitching is indeed legal, therefore there’s nothing wrong with it. And they’ve gotten a lot of people to agree with them.
Exactly. The key is the word “culture.” Cancel culture is a bad thing, and very anti-libertarian. And laws tend to mirror culture. If cancel culture is widely accepted, then then laws enabling it will follow.
Imma disagree about mobs doing good things. While true that mob is a pejorative, it is not a descriptor for things that are social but not destructive. Social organizations are not mobs, in that they have structure and purpose – i.e. they do good things. Mobs are highly transient in nature, although they can be harnessed into a more structured and purposeful form – or as Hoffer might put it: a mass movement. A military force is social and destructive, but it is not a mob.
I was just being silly, of course. I wanted to take a shot at Rotarians but couldn’t work it in.
The wider point of “mob” is that it’s a notion that everyone projects whatever they wish onto it. I think that’s the source of half the arguments these days.
Again, I disagree. A mob is not simply a collection of people I don’t like. It is specific group behavior but it tends to lack the cohesion to make it a socially relevant movement. Here cancel culture is a tool of a particular social movement – at least in this form at this time.
Amish shunning is also a form of ostracism, powerful because of the desire of adherents to remain in good graces. No one is complaining about that. What the complaint adheres to is this social movement, using social media amplification, to use fear to coerce behavior they can’t otherwise enforce. And there is not a damn thing illegal about that – but that doesn’t make it unobjectionable.
It’s the difference between exiling someone, and threatening war on any country that takes your exile in.
I wanted to take a shot at Rotarians but couldn’t work it in.
Stiffed by Mazda in your auto days?
Talk about cancel culture. Wait until the dems have a supermajority again (Nov 2020 according to all the polls) and they undo the Electoral College by executive order. There’s your final cancel notice, no more cancel needed, you’ve been cancelled forever.
You Americans won’t look down on Europe no more when all your guns are confiscated (except Suthen he can hide his in the swamp )
I hope insurance companies are prepared for all the boating accidents. Although I’m sure the democrats will bail them out. What’s a few more trillion after they bail out all the cities that intentionally let most of their cities burn down.
“You Americans won’t look down on Europe no more”
It’s only West Europe that we look down on.
Is it too early for a beer? Asking for a friend.
nope 20:10 says the old laptop clock
I had two beers a scotch and some wine today already
Thanks for the excuse, off to get a beer…
Principals over principles. Own the libs and kill the commies.
And this is one of the greatest standup, er sitdown performances.
https://youtu.be/ymUYO4T_ZjQ
I’ll always remember when me and my cousins would listen to the Fat Albert stuff and laugh our asses off.
Funny has been cancelled.
Read this Conor Friedersdorf article in the Atlantic, if you want a real through-the-looking-glass immersion in the degeneracy of (“elite”) American discourse. Cancel culture on stilts. “If you don’t accept my premises (and definitions) completely and at face value, then you are disqualified from participating in the “conversation”.
It’s just a lot of incomprehensible yammering, to me. I could make neither head nor tails of it.
I couldn’t even select an enlightening pull quote.
The Atlantic is on the same reading scale for me as the Guardian. It stopped being amusing a long time ago.
When they moved from Boston is about the same time as it started really going downhill.
They hitched a ride?
I remember the last article I attempted to read of theirs. It was this totally unhinged bullshit about how we have to surrender total control the country to ‘experts’ so that they can fight this pandemic, and suggested we just give them as much money as they want, they can name their price and we have to fork it over.
I’m not sure if the Atlantic intentionally recruits sociopaths to write lunatic articles, but it sure seems like it.
I have no respect for Conor Friedersdorf. The left has picked the chess board and thrown it accross the room and he still expects the right to try to move the pieces.
‘After trying to understand if cancel culture were some new, special, and different thing, I remain at the same place, summarily: it’s just another one of those situations where a slightly different take on some timeless issues is captured under some newly-named umbrella instead of simply distilling the take to first principles and disposing of it in a dispassionate, disinterested way.’
I agree. It is my belief that the Cancel Culture of today is just another extension of an underlying trait of American culture. Namely, Puritanism. This is just another case of religious dogmatism by another name. Any expressed thoughts that are a deviation from the current views of those who hold ‘Moral Authority’,regardless if those views are ever-shifting, can expect to be ostracized by their neighbors and peers, to the point of lying not only to those people, but yourself.
I’ve been saying for a while that the lefties of today are the church ladies of my youth. They scolded you for all your sins and then you just knew they’d disappear to the outhouse for a while, where they kept their bitters and giant dildo.
Expect Eugenics by another name soon. People will be I
institutionalized and be subject to Guinea Pig experiments while under state custody for publicly expressing wrong think/mental instability within the next twenty years, mark my words.
They’ve already suggested that and worse. Is there any reason we should not believe these people? When you suggest that the earth’s population be maintained at 500 million, when you know that means killing off 7.5 billion, should I say that evil does not exist?
And I did read at least a couple of articles advocating that wrong thinkers, I mean conservatives and religious people, other undesirables, be treated with medication for their illness.
Yeah, I can no long believe that true evil does not exist. I’m not a religious person, but I find it completely impossible to be an atheist, because there sure has to be hell for those people.
Expect Eugenics
well, with government-enforced racism (anti-racism), if we don’t measure some skulls and design the next generation of answers?
* shudders *
*Cancels Don*
Don did not Escape Being Cancelled
You forgot to name his sin for which he is being cancelled. The longer ago and more vague and unfalsifiable the accusation is, the better.
I think I saw him back in Texas consorting with the devil! Out there behind the tumble weed pile it was!
Poor snek…
I think the hallmark of cancel culture for me is the dragging out of old speech or old actions (that do not rise to the level of criminal behavior) in order to punish someone (particularly a private citizen who is not in a position of power or influence) in the present.
Saying “That’s so gay” was considered completely normal in 2010, it was elevated to being rude in 2015, and now it is considered to be on a par with a racial slur. Digging up some old tweet from 8 years ago where a then 21 year old college student used “gay” as a synonym for “boring” or “lame” and using it to fire a 29 year old whos run afoul of the woke mob is cancel culture.
It’s not enough for them to win the culture war, they have to bayonet the survivors.
My sins may be too many to be forgiven. Just from yesterday.
Gay.
gotta admit I don’t mind this much, but my philosophy and pronouncements haven’t changed much in 40 years; I’m glad to be tried for what I wrote in high school (some of it would go great here!)
But here’s the thing: firing people over ideas is within the purview of property . . . and of markets. There are stupid prizes to be won there: when these things get out, bad people will pay (via market forces) or there’s nothing at all worth talking about.
Ah-ha! Here’s a key – the market is amoral, it serves whatever purposes society puts it to. Culture is what gives validity to the market, not vice versa.
^^^this right here. The market isn’t magic, it isn’t good, it isn’t right. It is an amalgamation of a bunch of decisions made by a bunch of flawed people. Nothing more, nothing less.
I mean, the slavery market was a market that operated “within the purview of property . . . and of markets”.
I like markets because its a powerful tool and I like powerful tools (hey now). Not because it has its own internal morality. A knife cuts dinner as well as a snitch, and all that.
absolutely
That’s what I was backing into: I couldn’t find anything to hang my hat on; all that was left was the random walk.
Maybe this would have been infinitely more interesting as an ethics quandary: your employee A turns out to be a pedophilia apologist, your business is now constantly under picket, and most of your customers are threatening to leave; do you fire him to save the jobs of your other ten employees, all sensible churchmice, or do you take a stand that his private musings are none of your business . . . further, you support his right to debate subjects that are outside the Overton Window?
Firing a gun is within the purview of property. The direction it’s pointing is “arbitrary and neither here nor there.”
That is a damn great line, Viking.
I shall flay myself vigorously with chains to atone for playing Smear the Queer as a child but, alas, no matter how much I bleed, it will never be enough to erase the stain.
There’s a few decent books about cancel culture from centuries ago. The authors are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Amish shunning is also a form of ostracism, powerful because of the desire of adherents to remain in good graces. No one is complaining about that. What the complaint adheres to is this social movement, using social media amplification, to use fear to coerce behavior they can’t otherwise enforce. And there is not a damn thing illegal about that – but that doesn’t make it unobjectionable.
I think this is it. The religious overtones and connotations are particularly apt, because where it leads is a lot of people attempting to enforce conformity of thought and deed. And they come at it from all points of the compass.
As has been said here many times, it is no longer enough to be left alone. Certain people, and groups, demand their manias be celebrated. Anything less is oppression.
Cancel Culture 1981 — See Soap (TV Series 1977 to 1981).
As I recall, this was the first TV show with an openly gay character in prime time on a major network.
The show was considered very controversial for many reasons, but the gay character (Jodie Dallas played by Billy Crystal) drove religious conservatives nuts. Religious conservatives mounted a campaign to boycott the advertisers of the show. As a result, the show was cancelled leaving major cliff-hangers at the end of the 4th season even though it still had high ratings.
I loved the show at time, and was thoroughly pissed that it was cancelled.
– – – –
Start with the premise “I don’t like this”. My options include:
1) Just don’t watch it or buy it or what ever (personal boycott).
2) Convince other people not to watch it or buy or what ever (organized boycott).
3) Get it removed from the market (get it cancelled).
– – – –
Option 1 takes away what ever is bothering me personally.
Option 2 potentially gets the producer to change some undesirable behavior.
Option 3 is explicitly about taking choices away from other people and/or directly punishing the producer.
– – – –
Option 3 is Cancel Culture. And I think it is evil.
I’m not quite sure where the line is for me. Personal boycott is fine. Group boycott is fine. Boycotting those who enable the thing I don’t like is fine.
To me, it’s the diffuse connection and the personal nature of it that gets me. “Hey Nabisco, stop sponsoring queer eye” targets a company that is directly funding the production and dissemination of something that the old church ladies found objectionable. While I find the tactic stupid, it’s not offensive to me like canceling is.
“Hey Coca-Cola, why are you employing that racist, Randy in accounting? Here’s what he said on Glibs in 2018 under the handle ‘Mr. Lizard'” gets my hackles up big time. The 2018 comment has nothing to do with Coca cola, it doesn’t target a specific action or financial support program that Coke took, and it implies that Coke has some responsibility for what Randy in accounting does in his spare time.
Yes. Cancel Culture is totalizing. It’s not about removing a person from one position of power, it’s about removing them from everything and all time.
you’re going to come up with a definition that I like pretty soon if you keep this up
Option 3a) or Option 4) — you draw the line — Vendetta against individuals.
This is explicitly about punishing individual people.
The tactic is to bully other people into doing the dirty work for you.
I like this a lot.
You’ve implied a definition of cancelling that I really don’t think anyone has codified before
If anyone thinks the left and the democrats are bad now, can you just imagine what they will be like after November when Trump is reelected? Biden apparently just gave the greatest speech in modern history yesterday and his poll numbers slipped again today in the battleground states. It’s not looking great for Gropey Joe. Just imagine the aftermath. I’d like to be watching it from space.
Also, I want to mention that surfing around the web last night, like I am often prone to do late at night, I keep seeing Bernie Bros that are not only hating on the dems, but some of them actually saying stuff like ‘and then they’ll blame us for voting for Trump’. Biden is not uniting the Bernie bros to the cause, I am really getting the feel they are not supporting Biden.
The way they cleared the path for Biden – everyone except Warren and Bernie dropping out before the key primaries was a blatant fix. The bros should be upset.
Biden is a blank check for anything the dems want to write. He’s a rubber stamp. Bernie is too troublesome for them. The old commie might actually have some sort of morals and principles he clings to, he might actually care about the sheeple and show some restraint. Biden has none of those problems.
I also had to laugh because one of the self professed Bernie Bros called Camela ‘Head over Heels Harris’, lol.
Biden apparently just gave the greatest speech in modern history
And Barry did the day prior. Banal platitudes and flowery rhetoric must not work on me.
Oh, and Biden threw in some “you dang deplorables” stuff. It felt very uniting, of course. It was quite refreshing after Democrats spent the week insulting my intelligence and telling how they want to violate any and all of my rights.
Destroying everyone who disagrees with you could be considered uniting, i guess.
when everyone left agrees with me, we’ll all be unified!
Thinking of how long any of those Borg would last at Glibs? That’s why I love here, because we can’t even agree with ourselves most of the time!
Lies! It’s a hugbox echo chamber!
I forgot the part about us all being Trumpbot Rethuglicans and running off people. It was a nice feeling while it lasted, you just ruined it! *trudges off and pouts*
…Says the Monarchist. ;p
That Dilbert guy had a great tweet the other day, along the lines of: “Did that Trump Derangement Syndrome telethon that was on last night raise enough for a cure?”
Marquise Love arrested. My money is on anger management and 10 hours of public service.
My guess is they let him out on bail and nothing else happens. The democrats need their brownshirts at the polls in Nov.
$260k bail. Wonder how long before he’s out on the streets.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1296860691790311424
https://www.gofundme.com/f/pdx-protest-bail-fund
Funny how this is left up when other fundraisers get yanked.
Soros will pay that out of his pocket change.
Brilliant headline Fox-jackasses.
Also: the cops never found him. He turned himself in.
Before you find someone, you have to first be looking for them.
He only kicked that guy unconscious because he was hungry.
/Ocasio-Cortez
Am I the only one that sees some connection between Don’s article here to The Hyperbole’s way-overstretched cartoon series?
“Hey buddy, quit escaping it!”?
They’re both morality plays?
(Didn’t read Don’s article because of day job tasks needing attentions)
It needs more focus on the half-reformed whore.
and have you ever seen the two of us at the same time . . . at the same place!?
well, Zoom, but that’s just what Skynet wanted you to see!!!!!
Federal buildings in Portland, including a pair of courthouses, are closed Friday due to bomb threats.
Also The Standard building. They were just in the news a couple days ago as relocating some remaining employees due to safety issues and violence in downtown. Total coinky dink
https://www.kgw.com/mobile/article/money/business/future-uncertain-for-downtown-office-space-amid-pandemic-and-protests/283-b23f7119-4bbd-428f-a355-efc1724db7d5
Of course, who knows what’s really going on. Fake threats or false flag.
I think current technology has created a new dimension to an old problem (as plenty of other people have suggested). The tyranny of public opinion was certainly oppressive in the past, but it’s not an accident that cities were seen as more open-minded than villages, or that people could emigrate to escape from oppression.
What seems new is that the village mob has become a global phenomenon. If you lived in a small community in the past people might remember your past mistakes and judge you for your current behaviour, but you could always leave. Today a mob scattered over thousands of miles can dig up old tweets, and with barely any effort co-ordinate an attempt to destroy you.
The left is very very very good at getting its assumptions accepted as the standard view. At the moment your only choice in social media terms is to go for something explicitly right wing. Or drop out altogether, which isn’t necessarily that easy in some professions.
The other change, which is far more tendentious, is the feeling that something new is replacing Judaeo-Christian values (though perhaps they were never strictly observed anyway). When the religious sought to control people they did so by reference to dogma, but at least that was occasionally leavened by forgiveness.
There’s no room for forgiveness amongst the woke because they’re self-righteous bullies. I’ll never forget reading the tweets after August Ames killed herself. A load of pompous gay men telling everyone how proud they were hounding a pornstar to death because they were permanently and essentially victims.
That’s difference – all but the craziest Christian sects believe in forgiveness, redemption, and moderation. Christianity has built in limits and rarely descends into fanaticism. The kind of radicalism the left is practicing right now always turns into bloody fanatical purity tests. There are no limits with them if left unchecked. From the French Revolution on they’ve shown an insatiable appetite for the blood of sinners.
I recently have had some thought on this, and i come back to a lot of the excesses/baid of cancel culture lay a the feet of, well, current culture. In particular, leadership (as i mentioned above). Many people have taken a CYA form of leadership that means drop-kicking anyone who could remotely be toxic to them. This isn’t leadership. For example, i’ve worked with people accused of very bad things, and have given my own assessment of their character. If i was anyone important, i would fully expect the mob to be upset that i have given good character references for people who have done bad things. But my job was not to be the judge or jury. I was presenting a portion so that those who did have that job could get a full picture. We are, as a society, too obsessed with Justice, and people getting “what they deserve”, and make no room for mercy.
Pluralism is undervalued, even in America. Then again, Hitler’s dog loved him.
CYA is, to borrow from above, corrosive, and it comes from very bad thinking: we all are or should be perfect. The B- student, marriage with compromise, the Dodge pickup: these all work well enough. This idea that no one can ever slip a tire off into the ditch is a problem.
Above we were talking about old opinions haunting people, and I think it’s okay to be called up for what you wrote 40 years ago; I also think “I was 15” is a good enough answer. That’s the yin and yang to me.
Uh oh, there’s undoubtedly someone here who is a Mopar guy.
I work with one of those. Pretty sure he has portraits of Walter Chrysler and Lee Iacocca hanging over his mantle.
My grandfather was one. When I was a kid, I remember him having a Caprice as a company car for a while, but other than that he always drove Chryslers or Dodges.
I don’t have the time to read all the responses because I really should be working right now, so apologies if this ground has already been trod. Whether you want to call it cancel culture or whatever, what really pisses me off is the mob trying to destroy every aspect of someone’s life, particularly when it’s trying to get someone fired for something that has nothing to do with their work, didn’t happen at work, etc.
Also, regarding Bennett and the NYT, was it the market that spurred them to replace him? I don’t believe so. It was their own idiot children staffers who screamed their heads off about him.
It was their own idiot children staffers who screamed their heads off about him.
Mommy and daddy want their children to like them. Sure you end up with warped little shits in the next generation – but that isn’t their fault.
Don,
I would like to say that I enjoyed reading your article, even if I’m baffled by your inability to distinguish what are, to seemingly the rest of us, very distinguishable cases. I also wanted to say that I am glad to see you engaging in the comments constructively.
But I can’t. Fuck you Don. There’s no two ways to say it.
No one implies than Hamburger Helper is anything other than a worthy and cherished delicacy and gets away with it.
+1 Cheap Ground Beef Stokin’ Off.
He said what (!?) about Hamburger Helper???
Or, you know, the homemade version.
Fuck you
I’ll try to limit my jabs to Rotarians and Chrysler products from now on
Why do you hate Rich Corinthian Leather? You are simply iredeemable.
Corinthians have way too much body hair and the texture is terrible.
I don’t know why they call this stuff Hamburger Helper. I think it does just fine by itself.
Don – to continue our conversation if you will, I think there’s another aspect to cancel culture that helps illustrate its sinuous shittiness:
Some people on the right pushing back on it have (justifiably, IMO) attempted to hold the Left to their own “cancel” standards. e.g. Why the fuck is Bill Clinton still in the public eye talking to anyone at the party of “women’s rights” given his, uhhh, dating record? Hell, why is Joe Biden, for that fact? This then gets pushback from people who claim to be “principled” that if cancel culture is wrong, then it’s wrong to use it back against the Left. Conspicuously absent from this second order analysis is that the people pushing back aren’t doing so because they believe in cancel culture – they’re simply trying to point out that the whole thing is completely unprincipled. Because it’s been demonstrated time and time-again the Left does not hold its own to the same standards that they claim demand X person’s firing/cancelling.
That is another aspect to this that I find helpful for definition of why this isn’t simply “markets being markets” or “same old, same old.” And you still haven’t addressed the issue of the ‘cancel culture’ mob having significant control and (at least tacit, sometimes active) support of both governmental institutions and major industries. When there are criminal laws on the books for “hate speech” I don’t think cancel culture can be shrugged off as easily as your comments seem to suggest.
The fact that Governor kkklansman and vice governor rapist are still in office in VA says all that needs to be said about the true goals of the movement.
Yep. WaPo ran like 60 straight days of front-page coverage of “macaca” but dropped Coonman from the headlines quickly.
all good points
I’m okay with cancelling Clinton, though; I don’t see a problem with using any leverage I have to penalize him for being an asshole. That is same old, same old. Sauce for Trump; no problems here.
I did voice concern above about banks. This thread is fast and furious and serious: everyone is contributing faster than it can be digested. And I tried to spend lunch with NewWife, so I’m quite behind. Who knew this would drop at 11.
Fair enough, Don! Enjoy your lunch and thank you for writing it.
Great fuel for conversation. Perhaps some of us hyperventilating in the comments have added something of value to your understanding. Perhaps not. If nothing else, I think there are a number of comments here that have “colored in the lines” a bit on the definition and where and why we find it unacceptable.
*I actually think that cancel culture is appropriate only for those who attempt to wield the power of the state*
*ducks off stage*
I don’t buy parts from Auto Zone(partially owned by George Sorod) and refuse to purchase ice ceam products affiliated with Ben & Jerry’s(plus a few others), because fuck them, they have enough money and I can purchase a product of equal value and quality within the same price range while not funding the views of people I disagree with. Then again, I’m fortunate enough to still have the option. Boycotting a company for t&e leadership’s beliefs isn’t ‘gay’ per se but, it’s definitely a luxury reserved for a wealthy society with multiple product choices.
Not sure what my point was, I have the day off and am already half faded.
*Soros
Heh, 60% faded.
Leap, that’s actually both a funny and trenchant point.
One of my problems with cancel culture is – as someone noted above – that it makes everything, including politics, personal (right out of Alinsky’s playbook). As someone noted above, bitching to Coca Cola to go after Kyle in the Accounting Dept. because of something he posted on Facebook is (to me) clearly a bridge too far. That’s not a “market” action at all; it’s no different than the example I gave above about the Klan during the Civil Rights era. It really is a combination of both mob and The Mob justice.
Its intent isn’t just specific deterrence of the particular wrong-thinker; it’s intended to be general deterrence to all who are watching, as well.
“Oh, you think you can say things about politics that we don’t like? Okay. We’ll show you how that works out.”
Anyway, your line that people who are being paid in public leadership positions should be subject to cancel culture has some curb appeal to me (emotional appeal would be more accurate for specific and general deterrence reasons… but wrong is wrong.
While they have their own idiosyncratic definitions of power, in practice they want to wield every actual power they can get their hands on against their opponents. They have been stymied from weaponizing the state too much so far, but the Title IX Inquisition was a taste of what they really want. It’s not just that they badger a company to get an employee fired, it’s that they want their 401k funds to badger the company as well, and their bank, and the company’s trash collector, and every other entity along the way. It is an amplified heckler’s veto. For now, when they do bring the state into the question, it’s to remove competition. So the end result is a sleight of hand; they are using market power and that’s what you see, and they are using state power to foreclose market alternatives, and that is the part up their sleeve.
I wonder if the concept of ‘proportional response’ can add any clarity to the issues raised?
Shooting someone who cuts you off in traffic, or, gods forbid, turns without signaling, is not a proportional response.
Neither, IMNSHO, is destroying persons for non-destructive behaviors. The subreddit is shut down, that should suffice, to borrow a discussion point from above.
“Winning” the cultural war is all well and good, bayoneting the survivors is not.
When your culture war demands that humans not be quite human anymore, bayoneting the survivors is merciful.
These are people that would read Harrison Bergeron as a manual.
What is a proportional response to a disproportionate response?
Diana Moon Glampers was not sui generics, she was a response (to a response to a response ….); I think (and hope) we’re not at that stage.
But I think it is clear, at least to all of us here, that DMG is a disproportionate response, just as hunting down the subreddit editor and turning his life is a disproportionate response.
I’m suggesting that the whole notion of proportionate response seems all but absent from discussions of culture. And I think that’s a problem.
As in any war, it is generally a good idea to be on the winning side.
Yeah, that’s really the question: where is the line. What I was saying is this new thing is well within the old band of gray; I still think that. Notice that the bright line arguments tend to drag in the government (which I had already addressed as out of scope: we all agree we need less government) or cross-burning.
The thing about the culture way is the gored ox, and I”m writing in circles at this point. I still think what is mostly at play when anyone decries cancel culture is that it’s in defense of some victim with which they identify. Transactionally, nothing new is going on: everyone is still trying to get the other guy, own the libs, whatever. When gen Z gets someone fired, it’s awful; when the NYT loses circulation, it’s funny; there’s no real difference there.
So I still think: where is the line . . . or there is no line. It’s a thing . . . or it’s not a thing. I suspect cancel culture is the thing when bad people do it.
I don’t second-guess anyone’s virtue here; I just think we could drop the entire term and the discourse wouldn’t suffer. I like the idea of proportional response, but it kinda implies that there’s not a rule here, this is just about sensibilities and judgment calls.
…and you say this without an actual understanding of what this thing is?
Again, this is a real-world phenomenon. You need to address it in those terms. Models and theoretical equivalencies ain’t gonna cut it.
Sorry that was overstated.
The model only works is it’s based on actual observation.
I took your point; no worries at all. For that matter, we seldom disagree.
I’ve already said that my reports would be only as serviceable as telling Uncle Ernest stories. That’s the point: I don’t get it. Try to take all of my remarks as questions; maybe I’ll write from a more Socratic from now on.
Don, this is where we part company. I think a number of commenters here have offered pretty clear definitions, along with principled distinctions, regardless of whose ox is being gored. To wit, someone – an individual – getting fired from their job is a very, very different thing than a corporate entity like the NYT losing subscribers.
I’m not sure how you can simply elide that distinction. The difference is profound – and principled – but I’ve already stated above why that is.
but it kinda implies that there’s not a rule here, this is just about sensibilities and judgment calls.
What is tolerance, but a sensibility and/or a judgement call? That comes from culture, not from some formal rules. It seems like you are setting up a paradox because you can’t decide how to look at this.
Ostracism as a social tool of conformity transcends all kinds of cultures and governments. The question is how it is being used: no one really questions it about disciplining in-group behavior – the issue is it’s use outside of that group. I don’t care what the Catholic Church demands of it’s members, as long as it doesn’t demand anything of me as a non-member. The point of cancel culture isn’t that it is policing the progressives, it is that it is a cudgel raised against your head or mine. That is a threat, and threats can only be ignored so long; as was noted above – the majority will reject this, eventually, and with probably a non-proportionate response. This is exactly what I harp on amongst my leftie acquaintances – you are creating a backlash even if you don’t see it coming.
Just to extend this, consider the non-Muslim in an Islamic society. That vision of society isn’t really any different than what progressives are after. Oh, true enough, you don’t have to espouse the faith – but if you blaspheme we will kill you.
Peak NASCAR: Kyle Weatherman’s #47 Car Stolen From A Cracker Barrel Parking Lot
He drove the competition car for a run to Cracker Barrel?
They wanted to know which way the wind blows.
Doesn’t really matter to me.
The team was pulling the competition car home in a trailer.
Someone stole their F350 connected to the trailer (probably not knowing what was in the trailer).
That’s no fun.
They may well have known. I think some teams put their names on their trailers. Gotta be able to pick your trailer out of all the others in the infield. [Disclaimer: have not seen whether security footage shows trailer.]
So you’re saying it was insurance fraud
/I wish I could remember who I’m satirizing
Time was of the essence.
No, someone stole the truck and trailer that was hauling the track car.
Finally, Don. thanks for the article, I like the ones that generate disagreement, because it generates a lot of on topic conversation and forces me to think through a lot of things.
Now i really should get back to work.
But i probably won’t be able to stay away.
Yep, was just going to post the same. Thanks, Don. It takes guts to post something you know is going to get picked to pieces by this crowd, and it’s much appreciated.
Well, it’s like science: learning what doesn’t work is almost as valuable as learning what does work.
My favorite things so far: Adahn’s destruction-of-business question below (which is absolutely in the same vein, a better way of asking the exact same question so far as I can tell) and Trashy’s gentle ponderings (how do I feel? do I have objective criteria in a space?).
Others could probably broach the subject more soothingly. I’ve never written collaboratively; a normal guy as a partner would probably help filter the edges away earlier.
I would think that the quest for eliminating arbitrariness and defining ideals would be attractive to libertarians. I have sensibilities and preferences, of course; I agree where many have characterized this or that as ugly or unseemly. But this engineer keeps coming back to the transaction, and I’ll give a quick example and close: I believe in Efficient Markets, but to buy and sell what I do when I do is to make a distinct transaction (even if I’m dollar-cost-averaging index funds). Markets of ideas are like that, philosophically driven, perhaps, but bald and tactical at the end of the day (year?). So, few ideas strike me as particularly new or philosophically pure: every stock that was bought was sold, every idea and team and identity is muddy, and the tide washes the beach clean every day for a new set of footprints that are not really any different from yesterday’s footprints.
So, the market-place of ideas is a statement of faith – that people can work out what is good and bad based on reasoning through the offerings on display in said market. So you can take all of that engineer-i-ness about market efficiency and just chuck it aside. And boy oh boy, did you just hit the mother-load of libertarian dogma with that.
This is a common blind spot for us liberty loving capitalist types – that the market precedes the culture, which is 100% ass-backwards.
Individuals will trade with each other whether the culture approves of such transactions or not.
I’m pretty sure I’m missing your point.
If it helps, I see markets like traffic: they just are. I don’t ascribe any necessary morality to them. Almost all of this looks to me as Brownian motion, like swirls in a van Gogh. Like flow, though, turbulence often improves flow, and what one particle does at any one time doesn’t paint much of the picture.
FWIW, when we do have culture . . . cultures . . . we get wars; there’s a battle to decide what what is favored. When I say marketplace, war, or traffic, I’m just noticing that some people overstay visas, move to Florida, or whatever as parts of finding places and systems and people that (they think/hope) will be in their best interests.
This is ebb and flow to me, maybe a hotspot in a pan of oil that will average out pretty soon.
State of Jefferson follows its predecessor state into lawlessness.
https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/08/motorist-shot-along-i-5-in-southern-oregon-first-injury-in-string-of-freeway-shootings.html
This has been going on for several weeks with zero apparent progress.
Made me think of this.
I Thought of this
Now i really need to get back to work.
You just can’t quit me. I knew it.
/Glibback Mountain
Every time i think i’m out…
Not this?
As much of a free marketeer as I am, it occurs to me that there’s an objection that I don’t know that I’ve seen trotted out, and I don’t know the Standard Libertarian answer to.
We do deal with barriers to entry, but not so much deliberate destruction of a business by third parties. Yes, there is some recourse if someone literally burns your place down, but what about someone using legal means to make it so you can’t compete freely?
-A competitor enters into an agreement with wholesalers/suppliers to buy their entire stock to deprive a competitor of raw materials or goods.
-As above, but the competitor pays suppliers not to do business with their targeted competitor.
-As above, but the person paying to harm the business is a non-competitor (motivation could be personal animus, religious or political differences, whatever).
-As above, but instead of paying, the third party is offering non-monetary considerations
!
All of those presume a sufficiently concentrated market – something that usually only happens when legal system barriers (i.e. non libertarian means) have been erected. How does competitor (in a competitive market) sustain that cost? All of that reduces his profitability because he is absorbing costs he can’t recover.
In a capital heavy industry the cost to entry before malicious action is taken into account reduces the number of people who will attempt it and increases the amount of time between attempts that the cost of crushing an upstart could well be less than the expected returns of ongoing monopoly/cartel status between now and the next expected attempt at entry. And if there’s a trail of ruined businesses behind you, it deterrs others from even trying becaus ethe expectation would be a lot of lost money and destruction at the hands of the major players.
I was inspired partially by the wreckages of Patreon competitors, but more importantly by Dissenter. It’s pretty easy to strangle something before it gets established, so you wouldn’t need to “waste” resources indefinitely.
You aren’t really talking about a product competing in the same market (after reading up on Gab/Dissenter).
Right. That specific case would be the fourth iteration — crushing a business by a third party for non-monetary reasons.
So the interesting thing here is the contrast between what UCS‘s is thinking and what inspired NA. The actual example of Dissenter is anything but a capital heavy industry. I’m not familiar with Dissenter, but I take it it was attempting to serve a fringe market (those denied access to Patreon) as opposed to presenting a better service to all?
I don’t know who Dissenter is or was. But there have been a number of low-capital companies crushed into compliance by the threat from payment processors to not process payments to them if they didn’t do X, Y, or Z (usually making them no longer useful as an alternative to the established companies in the same niche they were aiming at)
Dissenter was just an app, but one I can’t believe doesn’t exist.
It was something you added to your browser that set up a comments section for any web page you visited — even if that website didn’t have one/had it disabled.
So people who were banned from comment sections could still comment. It struck me as a perfect solution. The owners of sites could have their homes not shitted up by undesirables, the undesirables could have a place they could be jerks and everyone could live and let live.
Naturally google play and the apple store banned it. And then something with chrome prevented you from installing it if you already had it. Last I checked, the people who made it were “building their own” web browser.
I think cartelization is a bigger and more realistic problem than monopolization. Genuine monopolies tend to either be propped up by the government or short lived. When Standard Oil was broken up, it had already begun to lose market share. Cartelization on the other hand is essentially a conspiracy, and like any conspiracy it is typically difficult to prove. For a particular though not too extreme example, computer memory (aka DRAM) manufacturers keep colluding to fix prices; they get slapped down, they relax for a bit, then they do it again. The hard drive makers were doing this too, I think, until SSDs really stole their thunder.
The problem is that regulation doesn’t stop cartelization, it actually incentivizes it. It is easier to assess rule compliance when you have fewer targets to investigate; it is easier to eliminate your competition when you can sic a rules lawyer on them; it is easier to absord high fixed costs when nobody can undercut you; etc. And so this is a genuine conundrum, but I’d say calling it a libertarian-specific conundrum is very wrong. It happens all the time and libertarians are not the only, or even primary, ones to answer for it.
We already have people donating/fundraising/pooling money in order to buy land and retire it for ecological purposes. And that’s the entire design for emission credits markets.
What’s stopping people from forming a fund to pay steel wholesalers to not sell to Freedom group or Colt? That last one probably would get them in trouble with FedGov, but pick some non-DoD supplier.
We already have people donating/fundraising/pooling money in order to buy land and retire it for ecological purposes.
Once again, government sticks it’s beak in and picks winners and losers. Land trusts would be more constrained if they didn’t receive favorable tax designation or exemption from property taxes.
So… most of these items happen (to some level or another) in the video game/console market. Games come out that are exclusive for a specific console/game store, there are several different markets and sectors, there’s an old (now) well regarded storefront that has built up a lot of good will, there’s a brash up and comer that’s using their big bankroll to get exclusives and undercut the other storefronts (as well as offering a discount if you use their engine), there’s games that get exclusive content on specific platforms, there’s small companies hoping to make it big, there’s big companies going under.
Almost all of which is unregulated (at the moment), and you’d be hard pressed to say there isn’t a single segment of the gaming culture that can’t find games to their tastes.
Epic is not a brash up and comer, it’s a Chinese espionage organization.
Epic is relatively new to the storefront market, and launched that before the investment from Tencent (if I remember my timeline correctly). There’s also the Bethesda storefront that was launched recently as well (then the shattered remains of Origin and uPlay as competing storefronts).
And you leave out the actual compeditor? GoG is doing rather well. The one-company storefront/launchers are going to sickly linger (Blizzard has one too) but will never blossom into full-fledged marketplaces, unless they can get at least some of the other big guys on board and provide a space for the little guys to peddle.
Tencent first bought 40% of Epic in 2012.
The spyfront lunached in December 2018.
GoG never had the massive backing that the other publisher storefronts did. CDPR basically bet their entire company on the Witcher license, and succeeded. And to reward them, that’s where I’m going to be dropping my coin on Cyberpunk 2077 when it releases.
I stand corrected on the Tencent/EGS timeline, one interesting part in looking up who else Tencent invested in was that Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) is 80% owned by Tencent.
I’m really annoyed that Paradox hasn’t bought back that 5% yet.
*of themselves from Tencent
They haven’t made a new Wing Commander or Tie Fighter in forever.
*looks mournfully at Hayes Flightstick on the shelf*
That’s all on EA in my book.
But there are still games in that model coming out, there’s Strike Suit Zero, Elite, and if you have enough faith… Star Citizen (I don’t believe this one will ever release). There have been rumblings and rumors of another Tie Fighter/X-Wing game being in production. That was a niche market even back in the day though. And you can still pick up Descent Freespace on the cheap (the second one is better).
I’m more shocked that RTS games seemed to just die off entirely. I mean, outside of remakes and remasters, the last one I can think of off the top of my head was Starcraft 2, and that was released 10 years ago.
The video game industry started going to shit when EA bought Origin.
“We do deal with barriers to entry, but not so much deliberate destruction of a business by third parties. Yes, there is some recourse if someone literally burns your place down”
Unless you live in a major blue city. Then the city will probably help the looters sue you for not having enough to loot, and then fine you for some sort of fire hazard violation, just to make sure you ain’t coming back.
“but what about someone using legal means to make it so you can’t compete freely?”
That’s par for the course what large corps do these days. If they can’t buy their competition, they send their lobbyist armies to DC to make sure you can no longer compete.
Remember that archaic anti-trust stuff? Now the same government who swore to protect consumers and aspiring entrepreneurs from monopolies, are helping to create them.
I’m not defending lobbying here, but the lobbying would have no effect if the legislators weren’t hanging out “Open for lobbying” shingles.
And that’s at the national level. At the local level, there’s no need to lobby when the business operator can just run for office.
NA – To give more support to Don’s crib of Ecclesiastes (“there is nothing new under the sun”) I’ll point out that the last three (probably) would all fall under the common law’s definition of “tortious interference” or “tortious interference with business expectation.” There are a million variants of this, but the common law was quite clear that “free markets” did NOT mean doing dirty shit to your competitors. In original conception, free markets did not mean a “free-for-all,” though that has been the non-stop characterization by socialists from the get-go. It also probably hurt us when everything went to statutory law; we lost judges who actually understood markets and the underlying principles that made them work. Another one of those “lost knowledge” things that we’ll probably never quite get back.
I am free to remain at Zaxby’s man
Bojangles or GTFO.
*tosses chicken E into the ring*
All this talk of cancel culture and no mention of Target Tori or Kroger Andy?
Try this again.
If every case of cancel culture wound up like those two (or Memories Pizza), CC wouldn’t exist.
If Justine landed without an incident, would that have been like killing baby Hitler?
How about Adam Smith?
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/reputation-1.4589616/his-first-protest-ever-cost-him-his-career-reputation-and-sense-of-self-1.4596546
Was that too extreme or was it legit karma?
“When Adam Smith got in his car, drove up to a Chick-fil-A drive through window and began confronting an employee about LGBT rights, he thought he was doing something positive.”
Being an asshole is something positive?
“The morning after he uploaded the video, he went to work as usual.”
Sure, you have expectations to go to work as usual without some asshole harassing you for just going to work, but can’t someone come to treat others with the same respect?
“The receptionist who greets me every morning, she looked at me and she had huge eyes and said ‘Adam, what did you do?'” says Smith, “‘There are hundreds of voicemails … and they are full of death threats and bomb threats.'”
Sure, totally believable.
He went looking for trouble and found it. In a big way.
The initial termination was punishment for an action that Smith did right then and there.
The rest of the story…
If the guy who had ID’d him was stalking him, that could be cancel culture. That’s not alleged.
I find it odd that the guy was supposedly on food stamps and homeless but the only jobs he mentions applying for are one in which he needed board/C-suite approval.
…and that he was also still paying multiple therapists.
…and that he had sufficient capital to move to Costa Rica and open a “healing center.”
JFC, is there anything good that ever came out of Twitter? Maybe that’s the big fucking lesson here for everyone – recording yourself being a shit human might have consequences?
Iowahawk. That’s pretty much it.
Even his shtick is mostly poking at the shit flowing through the sewer.
The only person not an asshole in that story was the poor girl at CFA. She didn’t ask to have her mug blasted across the internet. She didn’t ask to be harassed by this dick head. He was trying to get her cancelled and it backfired on him, so I don’t have much pity, even though I think that all the people canceling him are assholes.
One of the lines I remember most from Freedom School (with Kevin Cullinane) was: “You get what you ask for. Whether you want it or not. And whether you even know you’re asking for it or not.”
She seems like a wonderfully decent person who still is reserved with her opinions. Aka has more sense than the wokesters running the PR and HR departments at most F500 companies.
Seconded
First I’ve heard of Kroger Andy.
Looking through the threads and stories, he did nothing wrong.
Correct.
https://twitter.com/daniellemuscato/status/1291897282712023041?s=21
CWAA.
She’s a walking SJW cliche.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/08/21/u-s-customs-intercepts-barrett-50cal-other-guns-and-ammo-on-venezuela-bound-private-jet/
He’s not wrong. ?
I wish.
Thanks for the article, Don. I’m not fully clear on cancel culture either. It seems like an ambiguous term that morphs and changes depending on the goals and politics of those using it.
Third party doxxing, harrassment, and social history digging is very clear. If this is what Cancel Culture is, then just call it doxxing someone to cause harm. Otherwise we get something like the term Karen that was supposed to mean a very specific action (complaining to authority or minor slights) and instead morphed into a racial slur against white women.
*over minor slights
doxxing and canceling are a partially overlapping venn diagram. Doxxing doesn’t have to involve notifying an (de facto or de jure) authority. Canceling doesnt have to involve de-anonymizing content. Both are nasty practices, and they amplify one another when combined.
My thoughts on this are fairlycomplex. I do not believe that one should easily allow political differences to prevent one from having non-political interactions with another person, or business. I grant your right to boycott a company with whom you have a political difference, but I think, short of an extreme case in which you are convinced that the idea they espouse is such that anyone espousing it must be not merely wrong but actually evil, you are displaying an authoritarian streak when you do so. It boils down to a subtle distinction, and thus is not going to get anywhere, but I see there as being a crucial difference between not buying a product or hiring a person because you find something about it offputting and trying to punish a company or person for not sharing your beliefs. In many cases the two things will externally look the same, but internally in one case you are simply exercising your personal choices and in the other you are attempting to impose them on others. Boycotts are not a matter of not buying a product because you personally disapprove of something, they involve attempting to get others to do the same, generally by some implied threat that not joining in will subject people to the same treatment. In other words if you are not with the boycotter you are therefore against them.
The boycotter is acting fully within their rights, but their actions are designed to make the world a less free, less tolerant of disagreement, and less pleasant place, and I will not emulate them.
Another thing that people (ok maybe just me) tend to prickle at (weather or not it is logical) when it comes to cancel culture, is the canceling of people who do things that were not generally considered outside the purview of polite society.
Get someone fired because they marched with Nazis? Gonna be hard to get me worked up over it. Get someone fired because they posted “All Lives Matter” on facebook, and now i see that you are trying to force a shift in what is acceptable. I’m not saying it’s consistent, i’m saying it is the reaction that a lot of people have.
Once you create the weapon you can’t control who uses it and why. I understand wanting to punish a Nazi, but I really think that tolerance must mean tolerance for people who hold beliefs you find abhorrent. You don’t show approval for Nazism by tolerating the person who believes in it, you show tolerance. Hate the sin not the sinner is exactly what the adminition to love thy neighbor as thyself means. It is certainly not easy (probably harder for those of us who accept the idea but not the faith), but isn’t that the point? It isn’t showing tolerance if you only extend it to individuals who believe what you think are acceptable beliefs. But remember, we are talking about beliefs here, not crimes. Punishment should be reserved for crimes. When the Nazi smashes a Jewish delicatessan you can punish away.
Lest it sound like I am being self righteous here let me freely admit I struggle with this just as much as anyone. I have a visceral hatred for communists and have frequently made joking, and not so joking, references to helicopters. That is entirely inconsistent with my concept of tolerance, and I acknowledge my failing.
I guarantee I will do it again though, cause commies are bad.
Me too.
Yes, I agree, it isn’t right, and that allowing for one, and not the other is “just haggling over the price” as it were.
Get someone fired because they marched with Nazis? Gonna be hard to get me worked up over it.
Once you say that there’s no problem with getting someone fired for beliefs that have nothing to do with their job or employer, you’ve pretty much said there’s nothing wrong with cancel culture.
You’re not wrong, but I read him the other way around: he doesn’t care about Nazis, so their having a bad day doesn’t cause him a bad day, the same way he’d laugh if they slipped on a banana. I read that as natural and lump it in this way: this Glib or that have often celebrated when an enemy got hoisted on his own petard, a liberal caught in a bureaucratic nightmare or trapped by onerous regulations, ends which none of us believe in in the first place but okay in a just irony sort of way (there’s a phrase for that that just won’t come to me).
I’m with you philosophically: this is good both ways or it’s bad both ways. But I still haven’t much got “worked up over it” in either event: I think this sort of thing is unseemly, but life’s too messy to do anything about it.
Another thing that Trashy and I hinted at above: if we hate cancel culture, what’s to be done about it; should we boycott companies who fire people pursuant to cancel campaigns? Or is that sinking to their level? Again, I think this is old news: hate on whom you wish, spend your money as you please.
Notice also that my pedophile example didn’t draw flies 🙁
I didn’t get through this until now and everyone pretty much covered anything I’d have to say, but well done to everyone and thanks Don for kicking it off!