Problems with defining "Cancel Culture"

[notimp]

Greenwald on him struggling to define the term, and a whole lot of contemplation that follows.



Imho better than the clickbaity title might suggest.

 

[nero99]

What’s so hard about defining them? They’re a group of cry babies that want people to be broke and homeless just because of one little mistake they’ve made. Anyone who is part of cancel culture and cancel their own life.

 

[FAST6191]

What’s so hard about defining them? They’re a group of cry babies that want people to be broke and homeless just because of one little mistake they’ve made.

I don't know if I can get there. Sometimes it is something most would not even consider a mistake or unconscionable position. Also sometimes it can also be inaction as well -- see the people that were on holiday or taking a few days offline, came back to see the nice riots and as they had not expressed support for the elements at play there (by virtue of being offline for a while) then they had sinned. The threat of such action also leads people maybe self censoring, feigning support for things and adopting courses of action they might not have otherwise.

To that end I would sooner go with people attempt to remove social status and income streams/livelihoods of individuals and companies that they perceive to have done some immoral act or failed to act in a manner they deem moral.
Right now* it is predominantly seen among seriously left wing folks (in general and they do eat their own as well, see JK Rowling's recent fun and games, as their religion and mindset of priests thereof is ever evolving) but we have seen plenty of right wing (the Gillette stuff following that advert might be a good start there), or religious right wing as that is somewhat of a separate entity (no heavy metal, no harry potter, no film that dares to take the piss out of religion... in the previous decades. Other religions have theirs too going back and stretching to this day Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in the late 80s being a good example but various cartoonists and Islam play to this day), and generally ambivalent (see the various fun and games with the gamergate folks seeing sponsors pull out of kotaku and such). In many ways it is the modern equivalent of running someone out of the village after a transgression, which when the village is your whole life and other places might not be inclined to take you in is not a great position to be in.

*cancel colbert was probably the first one people really met there https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-campaign-to-cancel-colbert in 2014 and failed rather spectacularly but it is much the same play/strategy.

 

[notimp]

Posting the video alone might have not been enough input..

Greenwald touches on aspects like

- nothing about this is new, but the term is new, making it seem like a more timely discussion (piece)

- that mostly is being held currently by figures of daily life that are so 'high prominence' they are under no risk of being demoted and removed from the public eye

- in return making this an artificial discussion in the sense, that the people that would be affected by it most - arent in on the loop of 'defining' what it means in a current cultural context

- all while recognizing, that some form of it always was there and would be wanted from a societal perspective -

ending up at the question, so are we talking about an 'excessive use' / abuse issue here?

Also - most interestingly in my own opinion is the corporate angle, where promoters of cancel culture theory are invited into companies, to establish new corporate cultures - that basically forbid any aspect of critical thinking, and have "mandatory religious" connotations on more than one level.

Again - a corporation (HR ) usually does this to divert social unrest potential of 'people being unhappy' into venues where it is easier controllable (just tell them its something caused by white guilt, and you are born with it, and you have to rethink every social interaction based on a guilt based principle - of you being privileged) and cognitive dissonance is sufficiently increased to the point, where people won't protest publicly because of wage distributions f.e. (or any aspect that transcends race, really) ... Currently they are rectifying it with 'lowering risk of being sued' on grounds of discrimination, as part of their public argument.

 

[FGFlann]

No.

Help, I'm being cancelled.