Can you explain to me the connection between a certain group of people wanting to burn books and "cancel culture"?
You're joking, right?
Okay, seriously: You might be looking at it a little simplistically, James. What we're looking at is a basic comparison between real censorship and complaint "cancel culture". The comparison has been there since the
beginning of the thread↑:
• My problem with the proposition of cancel culture is that the term has been introduced in a way that overlooks functional distinctions; there are any number of ways. A blatant example is the right to exclude .... The book burning argument ran that one's right to free religion was violated unless some other person's right to free speech was refused. Cancel culture is a downstream iteration of an old, bogus complaint.
• Compared to being blacklisted for suspected communism, or disqualified from parenthood for being a lesbian, the idea that a newspaper refused someone a regular column for, say, their support of supremacism, does not mean that person has been silenced.
• Questions of platform access will always persist, but the proposition of cancel culture is counterrevolutionary, which ought to tell us something.
Maybe you missed it.¹ But as I
told you directly↑:
• Complaints of cancel culture tend to simplify circumstances. It really is largely the same argument as we heard about thought police and political correctness, decades ago.
• Once upon a time, book and record distribution could be disrupted by offending certain other people's morals, and there has in recent decades, as that empowerment has failed to meet myriad challenges roiling even its safest harbors, emerged a plaintive cry: 「How dare you silence my free speech right to force you to shut up!」 Over time, that idea has found much sympathy; birds of common feather gather together. Certain ideas are hard to justify rationally; it isn't cancellation if we refuse to give certain exclusionary—i.e., silencing, canceling—prejudices a pass on justification. Nonrecriprocal imposition is not equal protection; that is, it is not an equal right to free speech that one should impose another's silence. It is not an equal right to religious freedom that one should impose religious burdens and expectations on others. These are not, nor are intended to be, reciprocal impositions.
• The proposition of cancel culture pretends to observe something unique, but what actually reserves it from the rest of reality is its own detachment from real function. The overturning of established injustice is not a silencing of the just. This should not be a difficult concept.
• "Cancel culture" is just a particular variation on a theme, an appeal defined by its defense of dishonesty, disrespect, disruption, and disparity. Arguments supporting free speech generally appeal to communicative needs. The complaint against "cancel culture" is styled to empower disruption of communication.
Maybe you didn't miss it, and are instead merely confused. If that's the case, then the
historical consideration↑ about the evolution of conservative complaints through the last several decades,
vis à vis the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, might only be even more so. To put it simply, the historical consideration ties the IDW, at least, and implies the same of those who complain about "cancel culture", to the book burners.
And if we consider
a line↑ about the cancel culture complaint in particular, that while there exist in the world examples of overzealous censorship, shaming, and cancellation, basic questions of function have always been effective stumbling blocks for a range of complaints, this, too, refers to the dysfunction of the bawl. To the other, if you were already confused by the basic comparison, that line might seem subtle.
But the underlying theme, the juxtaposition of what the cancel culture complaint bawls about with actual historical trends in censorship, persists,
i.e.↑: There is a reason why it goes this way; the complaint against
cancel culture is the latest in a long line originating among empowerment-majority voices lamenting that something untoward, which they largely have been getting away with, has been called out.
I also explained that in that long line leading to the cancel culture lament, what distinguishes these complaints from other discussions of censorship is found in what they protect or not, and why. One thing still unclear is why that basic concept would confuse someone like you.
However, might take the moment to consider your response to that last. Given four examples including both the sort of censorship I refer to and what otherwise looks like "cancel culture",
you turned away↑—
"It strikes me as strange that the reporter Michael Hobbes (whoever he is) has not come across any statements from leftists condemning the actions mentioned in those headlines. Or maybe he believes that those people don't qualify as 'anti-cancel culture crowd'."
—and pretended confusion:
"It's hard to tell from a Twitter post what he is trying to say. Maybe there were extenuating circumstances which meant that leftists considered these actions of the school authorities to be reasonable, in the circumstances."
And maybe something goes here about how confused, stupid, or dishonest you want us to think you are, because that really was ridiculous, James. But you also went on to make the point: "From my point of view, none of those headlines is an example of 'cancel culture'. Not in the way I have been talking about it."
And, yes: You've
already made the point↑ about "another side to cancel culture that does give [you] pause for concern", and we find a hint: "Cancel culture" seems to be a political accusation you make against liberalism and leftism. If that is actually the case, then the response is obvious as a question of function, that is, how the components of an argument fit and work together to produce what effect.
Comparatively, as I
already told you↑, the complaint against cancel culture tends toward infamous dysfunction, describes a suicide pact, and has a strange relationship with censorship, exclusion, and cancellation.
It's like a bizarre episode of self-cancellation and a contrast from American history in which
what stands out↑ is the underlying traditionalist expectation:
• The complaint against feminazis would put women back in their proverbial place, while the complaint on behalf of the [Jewish female] Nazi sympathizer would sympathize with white—and, inherently, male—supremacism, including the genocidal. This is what stands out about the complaint against cancel culture: Its functional role in the discussion of censorship is to empower traditional authority, including censorship.
Or, as one reporter suggested: Abstract appeals to free speech can distort or obscure the point that it isn't really about anyone's right to speech, but their access to any given platform while being shielded from public disapprobation. This idea would not be new to you, who
wrote↑, "I think that the term 'cancel culture' was probably invented by people on the political left … who were concerned about increasing calls from people the left … to punish people for saying certain things." It's a vague statement of something recognized more particularly in discussions of censorship and cancel culture, such as another
journalistic observation↑ of "'cancel culture' … apparently defined as any sort of consequences for displays of bigotry that happen to be driven by social opprobrium". This cancel culture, "is not a real thing", "not a thing that exists", because the very term falsely "implies some sort of systemic phenomenon where being cancelled … is happening regularly and universally". And this usage, for instance, has been popular among "a constellation of … IDW-adjacent anti-'cancel culture' specialists who believe that progressive pushback on bigotries of all stripes is a de facto stifling of speech".
Explain the connection? It's not hard to perceive: The contrast of complaint and reality only denigrates the complaint against "cancel culture". Maybe I wasn't clear enough when the complaint got so ridiculous that
we might wonder↑ if those who complained are even a little bit embarrassed about what they decided to be a part of;
it seems↑ a striking contrast between the "cancel culture" complaint and reality. Traditional
chauvinism↑ is the heart of the complaint, and the contrast between the "cancel culture" complaint and what really goes on is important to observe.
What should be a short answer is made long by trying to account for what part you missed. Unless, of course, your point is just to complain about liberals and the left, or whatever. But since that can't be it, who knows. Maybe someday you'll even tell us.
____________________
Notes:
¹ And that first one was even
recalled↑ earlier on this page of the discussion.
