Senate Has Cancel Culture Gone Too Far?

WOAD!

 

Am I correct in thinking “cancel culture” is just the silly new name for boycotting?

because I am all for boycotting.

P.S. don’t buy The S*n

 

It's actually not. Cancel culture is one of two things: 1) people dunking on you on social media and 2) you losing your job. The latter is something solely within the purview of your employer and the former is not even that harmful just turn off your computer lmao. Very few occasions have led from dunking on Twitter to job loss.

Chuck Wendig loved to cry about how the right wing on Twitter caused him to get fired, but the truth is that he was asked a million times by Disney or whoever to stop arguing on social media with his account tied to his publishing. Well guess what he didn't do and after he 1/100th warning they told him to kick rocks.

 

Dunking? WTF Viv, I can only absorb so many repurposed words a night.

 

Ah the canceled became the cancelly

 

I just came back to this forum, and I just saw this thread and haven't read it in its entirety.

But in regards to social media and the internet, I would add this to the debate: I don't think that "cancel culture" is the biggest issue here, but rather tribalism. I mean there's a numerous number of factors that may have led to where we are in our western societies, but I think social media and the internet, as well as their toxicity, have played the biggest role in this: we no longer listen to each other and no longer have proper conversations and discussions as we would have as normal people being face to face. But we rather spend most of our time online and lash out at others, while we would never do this in the real life. And psychologically, this pushes us to be further and further apart from each other and being entrenched in different camps.

I also think that, in the current time period we are living in, with the recent rise of the far-right, Trump, Brexit, we've seen many people and movements being emboldened, which is a very good thing to counter the far-right. But also, some are getting the growing impression that many people are becoming radicalized and become more and more stubborn, either it is on the right or in the left, no longer being able to discuss and listen to each other, which is incredibly unhealthy for a society. But I also think that psychologically, when we feel our views, our opinions or our positions being threatened by another extreme political or societal spectrum, or the other camp, whether it is on the right or left, it pushes ourselves further to the other extreme as well, even if it means we won't necessarily support all the ideas of this extreme.

I think the main problem is this: there's no more dialogue in our societies, not the "cancel culture". And when there's no more dialogue, what is left then? Only power relations?

I think the "cancel culture" that some point out is the consequence of this tribalism...

 

Honestly hearing people talk about how "we need to have a discussion" or "what happened to civility" or any mention of dialogue is really grating.

No thanks.

 

That would work better if you weren't posting on a site where people would dox and threaten to beat people up over the sizes of ****ing imaginary spaceships.

 

Then, you just end up being part of the problem.

Thinking in absolute that our thinking and position is the right, and the only right one for how we should envision a society (which is a pluralistic environment with people having different thinking) has been proven to not work so well in human history... It's rather navelist, even if you might be thinking you're doing the right thing or have the right position...

 

I've said much worse in real life than I have on the internet. At least people can say some **** to each other on the internet and not be able to immediately punch each other in the face.

The internet has been fantastic for me in terms of "dialogue", discussions, and particularly listening. There are billions of people to listen to on the internet. It's great for listening. The internet has exposed me to perspectives I to this day have not encountered in real life. How else would I get exposure to so many perspectives? Without the internet, I never would have heard those voices.

 

I'm sorry, but I can think of a hell of a lot of topics where there is only one right answer.

 

@SW Saga Fan -- Not sure what "navelist" is? I'm not trying to go all "haha, that's not even a word, I am very intelligent." I just usually can sort out what a word is meant to be, and here I can't. Maybe naive? Nativist? My sincere apologies if "navelist" actually is a word--I just don't know it and neither does Google.

 

Person A: I don't think you should have basic human rights.
Person B: Okay, I don't want to consume your products anymore, and I will recommend that my friends don't consume your products either.
Person A: You are infringing on my rights!
Person B: I really am not.
Person A: I can't believe we couldn't have a discussion about why you shouldn't have basic human rights!!!

 

Some things just aren't up for debate. If that makes me close minded, cool. I don't really want to have an 'open mind' on topics like "Do my friends have a right to exist".

 

Without practical examples we're talking about nothing. It depends on the form and the extent of the "canceling" and on the action committed by the person who gets cancelled.

 

1. “Cancelling” is such a stupid term. Can we please call it something else? “Social media condemnation?”

2. I do think that we can acknowledge the internet has lowered barriers to communication. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes, it incentivizes people echoing low effort, dumb opinions where they wouldn’t have taken the time to sign a petition or go to a protest.

3. Sites like Twitter are the bottom of the barrel so the worst and most toxic behavior will be here

4. While owners have a responsibility to make a better environment, you were also dumb to have gone there.

 

It's pretty obvious there are topics that are not open to discussion. I'm not going to sit down and have a debate with a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe or a misogynist, say, about the relative merits or otherwise of their POV.

Similarly, I am not going to sit down and have a debate with an Anti-Vaxxer, a Flat-Earther, or indeed any Anti-Science rhetoric.

And by extension, I am close to giving up on a dialogue with many other environmentalists (I am this by my original degree training and years of work) on the fact that many of them need to move with the times as research challenges many dearly held beliefs; in the same way that I have all but given up having this discussion with those who use hyperbole rather than facts to highlight certain environmental debates. If others want the thankless task of doing that, good luck.

I am similarly close to giving up on most mental health debates because I am tired of ignorant uninformed, but certain angry, opinions directed my way on the relative merits of the mental heath professions, and what it is we do. There are debates to be had, but angry, shouty, people have always nullified them with their entrenched views. The last two paragraphs are a real pity from my personal standpoint, because I have banged my head against a brick wall with the opinionated too many times, and I have found a reasonable debate simply cannot be had, for the most part.

As an atheist I am not going to sit down and have a debate with religionists about the existence, or otherwise, of God. In this instance, if you believe in God, good for you. Just don't please try and convert me, it won't work.

I have tried to accommodate all of these people in the past, not because I want them as friends, or even want them anywhere near me, but because they existed within my sphere, either as family members or work colleagues. I eventually came to the inevitable conclusion that I want as little to do with these people as possible; or in the case of those that believe in God, just please keep that to yourself in my company, with respect.

However, I think those that are saying that we need a discussion on certain other things are making a perfectly valid point in saying that. There are plenty of discussions to be had, just as much as there are plenty of discussions that don't need having. Actually acknowledging this is pretty useful IMHO. I made my point (repeatedly) about censorship of the arts, which is not remotely the same as, "I support Rowling and other bigots, or I think a certain white demographic should retain all their attendant privileges." If censorship goes ahead as is being discussed in some circles, then the arts will suffer; and even the people those measures are supposedly designed to protect and promote, will be affected by this too. It may have been a tangential point I was making earlier in the thread, but it is one I care about dearly. And it is a false narrative to sat, "If you're not being racist, homophobic etc, you've nothing to worry about." Artists of every persuasion are worried, whether you like it or not; and they are not trying to promote prejudice, unlike the Rowlings of this world. But because most of them are not angry, shouty, people, their voices are rarely, if ever, heard in public.

 

That's a seriously long video, and I'm working my way through it slowly. I like her approach to presenting the topic because it gives me time to get my head around it. But it does alas remind me of why I can rarely watch films these days; their length.

One observation I would like to make is on language: I don't always understand some language that is used by younger people. Why? Because language evolves constantly, and it can be difficult to keep up sometimes; especially for words, terms, and phrases that don't stick around for more than a matter of months before being superceded by something else, or which have a different nuance in other parts of the English speaking world.

This is a natural process, and will always be a thing. I do try and keep up, but I don't always succeed. What I resent however, is the assertion that I should always be up with the latest terminology. There can be this curious assertion made sometimes, that just because I don't immediately get something that is being said, that I'm a total bastard.

One of my nieces celebrated her thirtieth birthday this year. She made the joking comment that she can no longer understand 'young' people. The truth is (as we later discussed) that language evolves so fast, that you will get caught out by new language. So I will be berated today for not having all of that young language under my belt, but I can 100% say that those same people will have the same difficulties understand aspects of the new language when they are my age. It will happen; it is inevitable.

As a little aside, I was surprised to see in another thread that some people had never heard of the term TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist). I was surprised at this, but not tutting under my breath. Not everyone knows about this stuff; and that's OK. One can be fighting against prejudice with one's dying breath even without knowing all the latest terms. And that's why it's OK. Your actions matter the most IMHO.

 

Not only will it happen, it's already happening, and Gen Z is happy to mock your millennial niece for being old-fashioned and incapable of understanding social media usage by teens.

 

Yeah, and I think she was tacitly acknowledging that. Linguistic evolution is almost meteoric. Even accents change generationally. Just listen to interview vids from the seventies say, and they're downright surreal in the language used.

 

I'm confident that it's possible to live a fulfilling life without knowing the meaning of TERF.