On "Cancel Culture"

[Tiassa]

The Price

​

Somewhere between "cancel culture" and "fafo", there is "My Pillow".

The attorneys defending Mike Lindell and his business against defamation claims from voting machine companies are seeking to sever ties with the "MyPillow Guy" over millions of dollars in unpaid legal fees.

In a court filing Thursday, the law firm of Parker Daniels Kibort LLC said Lindell and MyPillow are months behind on their legal bills in three defamation cases, and they can no longer afford to represent him ....

.... The firm has been defending Lindell in defamation lawsuits filed by voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, as well as a third lawsuit brought by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer. All three claim their reputations were damaged by Lindell's repeated fantastical claims of fraud around the 2020 presidential election.

Lindell on Thursday praised his lawyers as "brave and courageous" and said he would gladly keep paying them, if he wasn't broke.

"We've lost everything, every dime," he told NBC News in a phone interview. "All of it is gone."

Lindell said his company has faced financial challenges amid the lawsuits and sustained bad publicity, to the point that he can no longer take out any loans.

"They took away my borrowing because of all you guys in the media," Lindell said, adding that he'd been "canceled" over his comments on the 2020 election.

(Gregorian↱)​

There really is a part of me that wonders how people just can't figure it out. It will be sad if this ends up destroying a bunch of jobs in Minnesota¹, but clearly Mr. Lindell thought through such risks before undertaking his defamatory crusade against the 2020 election.

I mean, right?

It's kind of like what we tell the young people of pretty much any generation, that what they do might come back to haunt them, and compared to racist mockery, vandalism on video, and even things like rape, maybe the defamatory publicity campaign against the 2020 election was the kind of thing people might notice.

And the thing is, compared to some notorious "cancel culture", there are the business decisions public pressure campaigns have always intended to affect. With social media, of late, businesses have been deciding whether or not to risk being seen sponsoring Nazis; certain working partners don't wish to be associated with the defamatory, insurrectionist pillow company. Lindell picked a fight, staked his credibility, and lost. He had to know this was possible. And he decided it was worth the risk.
____________________

Notes:

¹ cf., #274↑ above.​

Gregorian, Dareh. "MyPillow lawyers say CEO Mike Lindell owes them millions of dollars". NBC News. 5 October 2023. NBCNews.com. 5 October 2023. https://nbcnews.to/48IaQlN

 

[Tiassa]

A. R. Moxon↱ enumerates:

2016: FUCK YOUR FEELINGS
2017: YOU LOST GET OVER IT
2018: DRINKING UR LIBERAL TEARS
2019: FOUR MORE YEARS BITCHES
2020: STOP THE COUNT
2021: WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY
2022: BURN GROOMER BOOKS!
2023: DEATH TO ALL LIB BABYKILLERS
2024: I, a victim, am being shunned for my beliefs​

†​

Note for interational neighbors: What might seem a bit subtle, from half a world away, is that, depending on where we start the cycle, that lamentation could be any of the last thirty years, at least.

This particular version corresponds approximately to the Trump experience; if I don't feel like writing the masculinist version, for instance, it's also true there are too many available variations on a theme.

But if I pick December, 2017↗, for instance, then I need to go look around for however many sayings from around the time. Like 2018↗, when New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote an article about the redistribution of women as a resource to men ("redistribution of sex"). Somewhere between asking about stripper poles, or their panties, to the one, and the subjugation of women as a resource to be distrubuted among men, the idea that disapprobation is abstractly about "beliefs" is nothing more than we've heard for generations, now, complaining about, political correctness, thought police, callouts, shaming, silencing, deplatforming, and cancel culture. And I'm pretty sure, if I look hard enough, I can find the argument about why statutory rape shouldn't be illegal. And, to be fair, there is actually a joke about not taking dating advice from the guy who opens with discourse on Tanner stages, but that really should be an outlier, except child-marriage discussion out of Missouri and New Hampshire, of late, keeps that one relevant.

Recall the Trump experience. At first, it wasn't racism, but that he said what was on his mind. Then it wasn't that the supporters supported racism, but they liked that he said what was on his mind. And after Donald Trump said those supporters were racists, they kind of went all in. And these years later, sure, maybe they feel shunned for their beliefs, just like the masculinists when those bitches at work won't be friendly about their panties.

But Moxon isn't simply stuffing sosobra. Rather, it's a question of how much attention we might give in the moment, compared to, once again,

†​

Anyway, I have no idea, at this point, which would-be rightist victim set Moxon off; again, there are just so many possibilities.

But it's worth considering, the sort of thing Moxon reminds is a significant driver of complaints about cancel culture. And always has been, though not always so blatant.

Among liberals and progressives, it is not uncommon that someone might observe the absence of otherwise common voices against cancel culture; this happens when the politics don't go well for what is, fundamentally, a conservative complaint. And the politics have gone poorly, now, for a while. In that sense, the quick redefinition of a free speech crisis at American universities is probably the most recent example. Last year, conservatives felt shamed to silence according to what they imagined other people might think. This year, their demand for censorship is nearly insatiable.

I suppose, at some point, we should try to figure out what they're calling it, next, since the whole "cancel culture" canard can only keep falling apart.
____________________

Notes:

@JuliusGoat. "2016: FUCK YOUR FEELINGS". X. 24 May 2024. X.com. 24 May 2024. https://bit.ly/3QZ3W4k

 

[Write4U]

And he decided it was worth the risk.

What on earth did he seek to gain?

 

[Tiassa]

What on earth did he seek to gain?

Prestige, possibly wealth, and maybe even authority.

In January, 2021, Lindell was seen entering the White House with papers discussing martial law. At first he said he had no such papers, but the words were visible in a photograph. Later, he claimed he did not write the notes and had not read them. Still, it just seems strange that he would walk into a meeting with that page visible even to a camera.

I have no idea what he was thinking, but there is in American conservatism a certain projection of confidence that they somehow cannot lose.

It is more likely Lindell did not really think through the potential ramifications he likely did not recognize. That is, he probably didn't expect Trump to lose, believed the hype, and never expected whatever plan they were concocting to fail.

 

[James R]

Interesting article on "What to do when you're cancelled." by Ilya Shapiro.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/what-to-do-when-youre-canceled

Useful definition of "cancelling" at the top:

Those who deny the existence of cancel culture argue that the term is a smoke screen to excuse bad behavior from people who don’t want to accept the consequences of their actions. But the mere articulation of an unpopular opinion or uncomfortable truth shouldn’t make it impossible for ordinary people to live their lives. As the writer Jonathan Rauch has observed, criticism, or “expressing an argument or opinion with the idea of rationally influencing public opinion through public persuasion,” can be distinguished from canceling, which is “organizing or manipulating a social environment or a media environment with a goal or predictable effect of isolating, deplatforming, or intimidating an ideological opponent.”

Useful advice to those whom people are trying to "cancel":

Nobody has the power to silence you—that’s the mob’s goal—so you must keep talking, keep speaking the truth. Early on, you’ll need to craft a message that you’ll stick to throughout, something simple that flows logically from the strategy you’re pursuing. But while you’re talking, you must know your audience—and it’s not the extremist rabble-rouser. It’s the onlooker silently watching. It’s the administrator who would rather resolve the whole thing with minimum fuss.

The author gives several examples of typical attempts to "cancel" somebody and how to respond to them. For instance:

In business, employees, particularly younger ones, may engage in forms of cancellation when they don’t like something that their coworker or boss is doing. What used to be kvetching in a bar after work has degenerated into orchestrated social-media and Slack-channel campaigns that throw around critical-theory jargon about “systems of oppression” and “privilege hierarchies.” Accusations of “causing harm” get made, escalating to lists of demands with thinly veiled threats of bad publicity, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints, and litigation for mistreating queer or BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) employees. People facing this kind of cancellation should, as lawyers do, record everything and refuse to attend meetings that are thinly veiled struggle sessions where the mob shames its target into submission. Whenever “harms” or “violence” get invoked, require specific evidence and insist on shared definitions of key terms before engaging in discussion. You must not accept the opponent’s terms of debate.

The best response might depend on whether you are already a public figure or whether you are a non-public figure who is being targeted (often by an online mob):

Publicity, in other words, can be worth seeking. The news cycle is head-spinningly short, as is the public’s attention span, so a social-media hiatus may allow time for the circus to move on to the next shiny thing. On the other hand, for a public figure to reenter the public sphere after such a blackout risks reigniting the controversy. For nonpublic figures, there’s safety in numbers: you don’t need to martyr yourself over every bit of craziness; just remember that you’re not alone. Banding together with like-minded others can be more effective in changing the narrative.

To apologise or not apologise? Some interesting thoughts on this:

The best rule to follow, then, is contingent: if you did nothing wrong, don’t apologize. If your apology is perceived as disingenuous, it will lead to accusations of hypocrisy, as well as alienate your supporters. One apology could invite more attacks, as your accusers might keep dredging up items from your past to use against you. If you do decide that you need to apologize because you’ve actually wronged someone—not just “offended” an overly sensitive soul—make the apology short, heartfelt, and specific. And be sure to avoid New Age language about needing to “do the work,” “educate myself,” or “be better,” which feeds into critical-theory therapizing. (Make no citations to “my truth,” either.)

....

True apologies, or what [federal judge Stephanos] Bibas calls “Apology 1.0,” are a “secular process of remediation” that heals the bond between wrongdoer and wronged. They also “presuppose that there is some sort of moral community that shares a sense of right and wrong,” such that apologizing lets us make amends—preferably in person—and move on with our lives. But today’s apologies, or “Apology 2.0,” care nothing about sincerity and carry no hope of forgiveness or redemption. Far from healing, they can sow discord. And they lack the elements needed for a successful apology: the violation of an agreed-upon wrong or norm against a specific person, who can accept the apology and let bygones be bygones. The intolerance of political disagreement absent a concrete victim provides no fertile field for reconciliation.

Apologies under such circumstances aren’t just pointless; they degrade self-respect. “The problem with going along with being told to bend the knee,” the writer Douglas Murray has observed, “is that it demoralizes you and it makes you a smaller person inside. You will be demoralized because you will know that you shouldn’t have done that and at some level you will think badly of yourself for having done it. You’ll feel regretful. You’ll feel cowardly.” True apologies are supposed to bring us together. But the now-common demands for apology tear us apart. They’re designed not to reintegrate wrongdoers into the community but to solidify their exile. They’re not a path to reconciliation but a kind of forced confession leading to permanent ostracism.

When someone tries to force you to apologize, without first convincing you that you made a mistake, don’t do it. People may convince you that you were wrong, but don’t let them bully you into caving in and denying what you still believe. To quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, live not by lies.

 

[Tiassa]

Useful definition of "cancelling" at the top:

It was called "voting with your wallet" when conservatives did it, or simply "the way it goes", and didn't become something evil until disfavored political groups were empowered to take part.

And, honestly, the idea of being cancelled made a certain amount of sense. After complaints against political correctness, we've heard an evolving spectrum of lamentation from conservatives about consequences including shaming, callout, silencing, and deplatforming. The idea of cancellation seemed pretty straightforward. (Recall that "deplatforming" was the complaint preceding "cancellation", and "silencing" before that. Vloggers losing a revenue stream, for instance, looks a lot like being cancelled in the same way a television show might be cancelled.)

The reason we have to make it so complicated is that the whole proposition just doesn't work. Here's an analogy to illustrate why: Earlier this month, Elon Musk called for the execution of political opponents. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) identified Democrats as needing to be executed. This weekend, after a Republican shot up a Donald Trump rally, Sen. Lee issued a statement that "we've got to take the political temperature down", and called on President Biden to force states to drop their prosecutions against Donald Trump. What is similar to the cancel culture complaint is that it only really applies to one part of the discourse. When conservatives want to talk tough, it's all good; when something goes wrong, they blame everybody else.

Do you want to know what an actual cancel culture looks like? We've seen and known it for generations, but called it something else. You know, like, "censorship"; the reason conservatives need special words, "cancel culture", to describe their complaint is that they're complaining about a different kind of constraint.

In the moment, we might note Shapiro quoting Rauch in re the "goal or predictable effect of isolating, deplatforming, or intimidating". Consider the example of a $500,000 fine against CBS, a significant sum for such FCC action, levied in 2004 because part of a woman's outfit broke on television.

One thing we learned from that episode is that ninety-five percent of the FCC's content complaints were coming from an organized effort of comms trees driving phone and letter-writing campaigns among Christians. If you've heard of Jerry Falwell, Donald Wildmon, James Dobson, the Moral Majority, American Family Association, or Focus on the Family, then you already know key players.

And here is an important distinction, cf., Spiers, #206↑ above: "Cancel culture is not a real thing … There is no systemic overreaction." More particularly: "'Cancel culture' is not a thing that exists … because 'culture' implies some sort of systemic phenomenon where being cancelled (which is also apparently defined primarily as losing one's employment or dominant revenue stream) is happening regularly and universally." And there, Spiers might be a little too demanding: What happened regularly, albeit not universally, was that censorship was actual cultural behavior among a significant and influential population. "Cancel"? Okay, this word seems to be in play. "Culture"? The younger generation is learning to say, "every accusation a confession". Consider that the conservative complaint against cancel culture, including Rauch's, descends from and reiterates the value of a censorship (cancel) culture that involved phone trees, letter-writing campaigns, and organized activism to intimidate businesses with boycott threats and harangue public officials to punish someone. Spiers made the obvious point in referring to "anti-'cancel culture' specialists who believe that progressive pushback on bigotries of all stripes is a de facto stifling of speech".

We can also juxtapose Spiers in 2021 with Hamburger in 2018. In discussing the Intellectual Dark Web, a predecessor to the cancel-culture complaint, Hamburger noted (cf. #111↑ above), the ideas of the IDW lamentation "are actually a well-established institution in American discourse: an institution whose home is on the political right", and the argument "ought not to be allowed to pretend that its ideas are, historically speaking, anything other than conservative." Spiers, trying to make sense of the cancel-culture complaint per an empty controversy, observed, "the only consistent application of principle … is the basic essence of conservatism: a determination to conserve a particular value or institution".

In this way, it isn't really surprising that the examples Ilya Shapiro gives are just another styling of the same old traditionalist-conservative argument in defense of supremacism. Perhaps it's not apparent from half a world away↗, but it really is the same old thing. You might have missed a recent marker amid the noise about Biden's age, when the New York Post warned of being "subjected to the country's first DEI president: Kamala Harris". The Post aims for impact; the Cato fellow is more calculated and subtle, but the imposition of DEI is part of the same argument as Ilya Shapiro is making with examples you describe as "typical". And that, also, reaches back to the complaint against political correctness.

Consider, for instance, a 2017 discussion↗ of workplace sexual harassment, and please understand that what the woman is describing in that example, "when … a colleague asked her if she ever considered 'jumping on the pole' at a strip joint or about the time she says a supervisor asked her what color panties she was wearing", is precisely no different than thirty years before when feminism was the problem because libbies wreck all the fun.

It leads to the same argument Shapiro is making. And here we come back to the question of what is being constrained.

The thing about Shapiro's advice is that it only really works if it happens to be correct: "If you did nothing wrong, don't apologize"; this is entirely subjective, much like the advice that one "must not accept the opponent's terms of debate". It's one thing to refuse certain terms of discussion, but that refusal only works if one is actually right according to fact and merit. There is a difference between doing nothing wrong and thinking what you've done ought not be called wrong.

And maybe from afar it makes as much sense, in the abstract, as ignoring the question of business considerations. We didn't call it cancel culture when business considerations, i.e., boycott threats, that censored rock albums and even band names. And books; the American version of Adams' Life, the Universe, and Everything is censored against these fears.

That was then. Think, today, of actual cultural behavior among a significant and influential population, and consider what it is doing. Here's a hint, they're in the same territory as Rauch and Shapiro, with religious-affiliated behavior organizing significant efforts to censor history and science in the public sphere; the effort just happens to target women, queers, and bipoc. Shapiro cites Douglas Murray, for instance, an advocate of white supremacist conspiracy theories including Cultural Marxism and Great Replacement. The thing is that without context, Murray's offering is the sort of thing that pretty much anyone can try. It's one thing to quote Solzhenitsyn ("live not by lies") and attend the stations of pride ("being told to bend the knee", "permanent ostracism", "don’t let them bully you"), but there is also the question of what those arguments intend, i.e., what is being constrained. For Murray, it's white supremacism; for Shapiro it's fallacies of conservative politic, including supremacism; for Rauch it's a shield against criticism such as Spiers describes, a cancel culture "apparently defined as any sort of consequences for displays of bigotry that happen to be driven by social opprobrium", and Zack Beauchamp parses as "not anyone's right to speech, but rather their right to air that speech in specific platforms like the New York Times without fear of social backlash".

Moreover, think of the difference in business considerations: To the one, 「We want you on our TV program, but we can't say your band name because we're afraid of getting boycotted, so we're going to introduce you by this other name, instead.」 To the other, 「The public relations executive who just embarrassed the entire firm not simply by the plain racism of it all, but also by showing such extraordinarily poor public relations acumen that people might doubt the firm's capability.」 You might worry, James, about Justine Sacco, but the same historical and political currents that made CBS afraid to say "Jesus and Mary Chain" on the air are banning books according to white- and Christian-supremacist arguments, today, even threatening to close libraries, and in all that you're worried↗ that criticism might be too hard on Republicans.

Shapiro, meanwhile, is back to the same workplace holdout complaing we've heard for decades, throughout the lamentation against political correctness. "Refuse to attend meetings", he advises, much akin to Peterson resigning his tenure instead of attending institutional process. What are they fighting for? What do they think is constrained?

Maybe it's not apparent from half a world away, but Shapiro's advice works better when one isn't pushing supremacism. I mean, City Journal, Shapiro, Rauch, Murray: Did you really not know?

 

[Tiassa]

What It's Worth

A social media account covering Louisiana politics observes:

LA HB122 Takes effect today.

Louisiana teachers can no longer talk about their husbands or wives. Yes, you too straights.​

The reference, there HB 122, would appear to do just that:

§412. Sexual orientation, gender identity; prohibited instruction, discussion

A. No teacher, school employee, or other presenter at a school shall engage in the following discussions with students in grades kindergarten through twelve:
(1) Covering the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity in any classroom discussion or instruction in a manner that deviates from state content standards or curricula developed or approved by public school governing authorities.
(2) Covering the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity during any extracurricular academic, athletic, or social activity under the jurisdiction of the school or public school governing authority.
(3) Discussing his own sexual orientation or gender identity.​

​

This is what it's worth to Louisiana conservatives.

Think about it in terms of cancel culture: They're so pissed off about not being able to cancel gay people they went and hurt heterosexuals, too, just to make the point. This will be important to remember, whenever in the future, when someone tries to blame queers or liberals for not being able to talk about their family. That is to say, this isn't liberal doing, and cannot be blamed on gay people for forcing conservatives to take such measures.

Nor is this new. In Oklahoma↗, twice↗, Republicans in the legislature filed bills to forestall gay marriage by canceling marriage. True, the bills didn't advance to the floor for a vote, but canceling marriage is a bit extraordinary compared to two-bit classroom censorship.

This is also exemplary of the difference about so-called "cancel culture"; the most basic explanation is that people feel censored by not being allowed to censor others, and some version of that politic goes back at least to the time of crying about political correctness↗. In this case, traditionalists found themselves unable to remove the fact of gay marriage from public discourse¹, so they have taken somewhat drastic action in pursuit of a proverbial pound of flesh.

Functionally, we can observe these freedoms to constrain others cannot be equally distributed and reciprocal, nor were they ever intended to be. And that's why complaints like "cancel culture" emerge, as assertions in defense of dysfunction.
____________________

Notes:

¹ ca. 2020↑:

「 A blatant example is the right to exclude. Argue what one will about gay marriage, or a book in a library, for example, but one argument that doesn't work is that being refused empowerment to suppress another person's equal rights violates one's own equal rights. An appeal against marriage equality, for instance, argued that the Christian's right to religious freedom was violated by the fact of gay marriage itself, that equal rights to religious freedom were violated when Christians were not allowed to prevent gay marriage. 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.」​

@truthlafayette. "LA HB122 Takes effect today. Louisiana teachers can no longer talk about their husbands or wives. Yes, you too straights." X. 1 August 2024. X.com. 1 August 2024. status/1818991852294447561↱

Louisiana State Legislature. House Bill 122. 2024. Legis.LA.gov. 1 August 2024. https://legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1382702
​

Spoiler

 

[Tiassa]

Obviously Obvious Obviousness

As the report comes in from Utah—

Thirteen books are now banned from all Utah public schools per a list released Friday afternoon, Aug. 2, by the Utah State Board of Education. Utah's first statewide removal list was also emailed to the appointed representative in each district and charter school who has to deal with "sensitive materials" issues.

A new law that updated the state's "sensitive materials" law required the board to create and distribute the list. To be included, titles had to be removed from either three school districts, or two school school districts and five charter schools, for being "objective sensitive material." That means the work is considered "pornographic or indecent" as defined in state code.

(Harris↱)​

—the continued lack of outrage among the cancel culture criers remains conspicuous.

Okay, no, it doesn't.

The reason, of course, is this is the kind of censorship they support. Rowling, for instance, is an obvious example. A signatory to the Harper's letter against cancel culture, it's not so much that they're banning her competition, as such, but that she is too busy revising her own standards in order to cancel women from womanhood for not being womanly enough. Still, Sarah J. Maas, bestselling author of serial fantasy fiction, saw six titles banished; she's nearly half the list. Also banished from Utah schools were titles by Elana K. Arnold, Rupi Kaur, Judy Bloom, Ellen Hopkins, Craig Thompson, and Margaret Atwood.

To reiterate what I said four years ago: Cancel culture, meanwhile, is largely a canard. The problem with the proposition of cancel culture is that the term has been introduced in a way that overlooks functional distinctions. A blatant example is the right to exclude.

And here we are. And nobody should be surprised by the silence; we've had a few years to learn how ridiculous it is to expect the complaint about cancel culture to actually oppose censorship, suppression, and cancellation.

This is the first statewide book removal list, but likely won't be the last. Districts and charters will continue reporting any books deemed "objective sensitive material." If any more titles rise to the threshold, the board will notify schools and keep updating the list.

In a statement, the Utah School Library Association said the books on the list have been mischaracterized and that they "encourage freethinking citizens to read these and any additional titles banned." They contend that the state's law "condones the censorship of literature, infringes on students' First Amendment rights, and the rights of parents to choose their own children's reading material."​

And that sounds about right; the complaint against cancel culture was always oriented around libertarian-rightist attitudes, and one argument that doesn't work is that being refused empowerment to suppress another person's equal rights violates one's own equal rights.

But the reason we don't see more overlap between arguments against censorship is that the supremacist censorship we see in Florida, Utah, and other states, is the sort of free expression the argument against cancel culture has been trying to protect, the whole time. Hint: It's a collective assertion, an identity politic, i.e., community standards, just like sundown towns, mandatory prayer in public schools, or rewriting medical standards to suit religious demands.

There's a reason why the lamentation against cancel culture has so little to say about this kind of censorship: "Upon examination of the actual ideas put forward in defense of these values," [urlhttps://www.sciforums.com/posts/3651987/]Hamburger observed↑[/url] of dark web movement, "these supposedly centrist crusaders against political correctness may have more in common with their conservative predecessors than they let on."

And, just for instance, with Rowling trying to decide what women are allowed to be, or Lindsay is pretending to be retarded in support of white supremacism, it's kind of obvious. And it has been since before the cancel culture bawl itself.
____________________

Notes:

Harris, Martha. "These are the 13 books now banned statewide from Utah schools ". KUER. 2 August 2024. KUER.org. 4 August 2024. https://www.kuer.org/education/2024...-books-now-banned-statewide-from-utah-schools

 

[Tiassa]

Silence Like Thunder

It is not at all surprising that rightists continue to ban books from schools and libraries.

On August 2 a federal appeals court lifted a temporary injunction against an Iowa law that will ban over 3,000 books from K-12 curricula and school libraries because they depict sexual matters, with the exception of religious texts.

Senate File 496 was originally signed into law in December by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds and thousands of books were immediately removed from schools and school libraries. After the law was challenged on First Amendment grounds by civil rights and gay advocacy organizations, as well as a number of authors, Judge Stephen Locher of the District Court for the Southern District of Iowa issued the injunction, noting that the law was too vague and would cast a "puritanical ‘pall of orthodoxy' over school libraries."

With the new ruling, however, Iowa will now resume removing titles which include The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the graphic novel about the Holocaust, Maus, by Art Spiegelman, George Orwell's 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and the DVD of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. It would be hard to argue that any of these books are being banned for their prurience ....

.... The right-wing group Moms for Liberty, which is closely associated with the most fascist elements in the Republican Party, and their supporters in the Iowa state legislature have been instrumental not only in garnering support for the censorship law, but in implementing it as well. The state government itself did not issue a list of books to be removed, but fascist politicians took it upon themselves to send Moms for Liberty material to local school districts, including the group's notorious screed, the "Book of Books" document. The group is also playing a key role in the Utah book banning.

(English↱)​

Neither are we surprised that the crocodile tears about "cancel culture" have dried up. See, the "cancel culture" complaint never had any kind of concern for actual censorship; it was always an anti-liberal complaint seeking to advance traditionally more conservative values. And there is a reason why so much of the complaint was make-believe↑; as observed↑, such complaints don't even tell us what they're describing. There are reasons why they don't want to dig up specific examples, and can only argue their point by asking if you deny their fancy actually occurs. And while it ought to suffice to remind that it is hard to consider what we cannot examine, it's like four years later and maybe it's time to sit our bigoted neighbors down and have a talk.

Look: There is no cancel culture. The nearest thing in history is actually the old Christian-rightist phone banks and letter-writing campaigns, an actual cultural identity invested in organized response and civic action. Think of it this way, the anti-liberal and allegedly anti-censorship complaint against cancel culture overlooks censorship as cultural heritage in order to complain about liberals and feminists, which really was apparent at the outset.

The point is that the complaint against cancel culture was, itself, scurrilous from the outset. As we considered nearly four years ago↑, the historical record on this was already known, and tracks back to the complaint against "political correctness" in the 1980s. Political correctness, thought police, shaming, silencing, cancel culture; they even tried to romanticize themselves as an "intellectual dark web", and that should have been a clue, right there, that they thought of darkweb as something to admire and romanticize. And if, along the way, we encountered the prospect↑ that they aren't really talking about anyone's right to speech, but rather their own right to air that speech in specific platforms like the New York Times without fear of social backlash.

In their way, these attitudes have always been counterrevolutionary. Even the idea of what is a conventional belief, i.e., intellectual dark web "figures all pride themselves on upturning conventional beliefs"—is counterrevolutionary. Terfs, IQ racists, something about neo-Marxism; as was apparent, even six years ago, the "ideas … are actually a well-established institution in American discourse: an institution whose home is on the political right".

Which is why it is unsurprising that the ruckus against cancel culture falls silent about this censorship. As conservatives literally cancel school health programs, remove teachers for being too multicultural, and censor school libraries—even forbidding classroom libraries, in some places—the complaint against cancel culture falls silent in deference to its purpose.
____________________

Notes:

English, Sandy. "More book banning in Utah and Iowa". World Socialist Web Site. 16 August 2024. WSWS.org. 19 August 2024. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/08/17/pulo-a17.html

 

[Tiassa]

Cancel Culture: Episode ... uh ... I don't know, I lost track ....

Brian Stelter↱ of CNN explains:

In a move that critics are calling a flagrant abuse of power, Florida's Department of Health is threatening to bring criminal charges against local TV stations for airing a campaign ad about overturning the state's six-week abortion ban. Today the FCC chairwoman stepped in​

The report for CNN↱:

Florida's Department of Health is threatening to bring criminal charges against local TV stations airing a campaign ad to overturn the state's six-week abortion ban signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The unusual warning from the Republican-controlled state agency prompted the Democratic chair of the Federal Communications Commission to step in on Tuesday.

Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC chair, said that stations should not be intimidated for airing political ads.

"The right of broadcasters to speak freely is rooted in the First Amendment," Rosenworcel said in a statement. "Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government's views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech." ....

.... The threat from the health department underscores the intensity of the political battle over Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in Florida's constitution. The state government led by DeSantis has campaigned aggressively against the amendment, including by running its own TV ads.

The cease-and-desist letters from John Wilson, general counsel for the state health department, appear to be part of that campaign. The letters were first reported by Orlando investigative journalist Jason Garcia and state news outlet Florida Politics. ​

So, isn't this just the funny thing about "cancel culture"? Ladies and Gentlemen, once again, Florida.

Ron Filipkowski↱ reminds:

Whether you think an ad is accurate or misleading, the concept of a politician or elected official using the power of the state government to criminally prosecute media companies for airing an ad and put people in jail for it is something we have not seen in this country. Whether it is removing Democratic elected officials or targeting companies like Disney who oppose him, Ron Desantis has shown that he is always willing to use government power and authority to accomplish his political aims.​

There's a reason we don't call this stuff "cancel culture"; this is what real censorship looks like.
____________________

Notes:

@brianstelter. "In a move that critics are calling a flagrant abuse of power, Florida's Department of Health is threatening to bring criminal charges against local TV stations for airing a campaign ad about overturning the state's six-week abortion ban. Today the FCC chairwoman stepped in". X. 8 October 2024. X.com. 8 October 2024. https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1843800694467572205

Stelter, Brian and Liam Reilly. "Florida is threatening to prosecute TV stations over an abortion rights ad. The FCC chief calls it 'dangerous'". CNN. 8 October 2024. CNN.com. 8 October 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/08/media/florida-tv-abortion-rights-ad-fcc-desantis/index.html

Filipkowski, Ron. "Desantis Threatens to Prosecute Stations Running Ads for Abortion Amendment". Meidas Touch News. 6 October 2024. MeidasNews.com. 8 October 2024. https://meidasnews.com/news/desanti...e-stations-running-ads-for-abortion-amendment

Spoiler

 

[Tiassa]

Checkpoint

Sometimes, we might check in on the things we've said in order to see how they held up over time. For instance—

… there is another side to cancel culture that does give me pause for concern. It's the kind of cancel culture in which people on the extreme left target try to "cancel" those on the less-extreme left.

—someone once asked for my take cancel culture, and after I answered, someone else gave me this advice as a counterpoint. Complaints about left-side censorship are even cheaper than dime-a-dozen, so we might expect, given the popularity of such fears, to be drowning in examples of how these extreme leftists pave hell.

By comparison—

With just two weeks remaining until the presidential election, former President Donald Trump has used his most recent appearances on podcast and cable interviews to escalate attacks on fellow Americans whom he calls “the enemy from within.”

In one recent interview, Trump said that if “radical left lunatics” disrupt the election, “it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

That statement, on Fox News, was not the first time Trump has expressed support for using government force against domestic political rivals. Since 2022, when he began preparing for the presidential campaign, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, NPR has found.

A review of Trump’s rally speeches, press conferences, interviews and social media posts shows that the former president has repeatedly indicated that he would use federal law enforcement as part of a campaign to exact “retribution.”

(Dreisbach↱)​

—the conservative campaign against speech and dissent continues apace.

Over the period, we've even heard the complaint that the Wednesday Putsch is a Democrat's fault because Nancy Pelosi wouldn't send the National Guard to suppress conservatives. Setting aside the points that Nikki Haley isn't Nancy Pelosi, and that the Speaker isn't in charge of the National Guard, it does make for an interesting variation on the theme: 「¡Cancel culture! ¡Cancel culture! ¡It's that liberal's fault for not suppressing conservatives!」 It's one thing when the oppositional complaint is that liberals are censorous, cancelling bastards, and concomitantly hilarious when the complaint is that a liberal didn't suppress conservatives.

And that's just one episode. But, if we think back over the period, what has history told us? The conservative relationship with "cancel culture" is something of a morbid farce. Voting is an act of cancel culture, according to some, but even if we set that aside for being ridiculous, there remains much to consider.

For instance, what sort of record has the asserted leftside cancel culture built over the last four years? Compared to what goes on among conservatives and rightists, this leftist toll ought to be an easily visible nightmare, but South Korean boy bands don't count in this tally.

Four years ago, I joked about the Harper's letter: When Rowling and Lindsay are both in, but Greenwald needs to be excluded .... These years later, I still don't know why Greenwald wasn't asked to sign the letter, but that's probably beside the point. I mean, sure, it would be hilarious if, but still. The thing is, J.K. Rowling was last seen in crisis, literally holed up in a moldy castle, spitting fury as the celebrity head of a bully campaign against women who aren't feminine enough. And James Lindsay might still be reeling two years after a disastrous appearance in a friendly room, but the thing is that, compared to cancel culture, he was still around to be invited onto Dr. Phil as some sort of expert on Critical Race Theory. So, even after publicly announcing his support for racism, the self-professed "slow learner" activist was still respectable enough to be invited to such friendly rooms. That is to say, it doesn't seem like he was cancelled.

Greenwald, once a darling among progressives, fell into a conspiracist abyss and cancelled himself; these days, he struggles for relevance while critics wait to see if and when his name emerges, alongside Tucker Carlson and the notoriously self-cancelling Jordan Peterson, as an accused Russian asset. (Again, it would be hilarious if, but still.)

But as rightist censorship and cancellation endeavors pile up, we might wonder at the comparative. It's one thing to complain of liberal paternalism and condescenscion, but conservatives will eventually make the point. Cartoonist Barry Deutsch reminded, in 2021↗, that CRT opponents would both claim they are not trying to prevent teaching about racism, and also seek to banish the story of Ruby Bridges. And that was so long ago that the Nazi moms group founded by those rapey Christians from the Florida Republican establishment had yet to come out as Nazis, and weren't yet known for the notorious behavior of their founder and her party-hand husband, who in turn had yet to be elected chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

Or, as journalist Michael Hobbes observed in 2022↑, "Love watching two years of panic over 'cancel culture' evaporate into thin air", and when he said, "Turns out it's totally fine to ban books as long as they're bad!" well, that's the thing, that really is the conservative argument. And according to conservatives.

The conservative tally is ongoing, and gets so ridiculous that some would pretend ignorance↗ of issues they are already aware of↗. That's how badly it's going, and if you look around, you can see it throughout conservative discourse: When hemmed in by facts, they rely on uncertainty.

So we don't have to say, "What about the geese?" or answer random whataboutism, there is, actually, an answer to assert: What is the leftside tally?

Removing educators, canceling programs, censoring curricula, censoring libraries, even closing libraries, censoring science, firing public officials; the movement is punctuated with terror threats. Beyond the populist politics of American conservatism, other rightist and traditionalist variations on the theme include a strange British Nazi-Terf relationship orbiting shared values about what a proper woman should be, and the recent Clifford Tower re-enactment targeting migrants and refugees at a Holiday Inn Express.

And, back home, it isn't a liberal newspaper publisher who is instructing his editorial board to withhold any presidential endorsement in this year's election so that they won't disagree with him.

The results are asymmetric. While it is true that we can find ranting leftists in society, liberals tend to not empower them. Seriously, consider Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts Democrat might win state voters' hearts, but one thing Democrats in general might agree with Republicans is that the presidency of a university professor and consumer advocate would be a bridge too far. The hope and change liberals are sending this year is a prosecutor.¹

There is no equal leftside pheonmenon; the cancel culture question just comes back to censorship, and is a lopsided result running all the way back through complaints of political correctness.

There are even potential examples I've mentioned along the way, and if they're not compelling, sure, maybe I'm not the one who should be making that list. Because a stuffy university committee isn't the best example of extreme leftism, nor even liberalism. Neither is the business decision of copyright holders about the next batch of reprints. Nor the business decision of a PR firm embarrassed by extraordinarily terrible public relations; that was someone else's example. And, you know, the self-cancellations, like Weiss, Greenwald, and Slate Star are more indicative of other problems. Peterson's not silenced. And it wasn't the extreme left that just took down that Michigan preacher who performed at CPAC for alleged crimes against children.

Again, maybe I'm not the one who should be making that list. And remember, it's not just Donald Trump who is taking it so far. The preachers and populists, and even the think-tanks² are in on it, too. But this is what it comes to, and where it goes.

Four years ago, when someone asked me about cancel culture in order to change the subject↗, and then someone else offered a counterpoint, this was already where it was going, because it has been going this way for a long time.

So, let's dig up that list. It's going to be hard to inflate to an appearance of equivalence. The difference is important.
____________________

Notes:

¹ There are three socialists on the presidential ballot in my state; Stein or Kennedy will probably get more votes, individually, than all three socialists combined.

² cf., notes on the Claremont Institute, 2022↗, 2023↗.​

Dreisbach, Tom. "Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies". All Things Considered. 22 October 2024. NPR.org. 23 October 2024. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s...arris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-liberties