Is "cancel culture" an actual thing?

[politruk]

It seems to me that when, e.g., students protest to stop some RW from speaking on campus, they're not suppressing his free-speech rights but exercising their own. The 1st Amendment guarantees nobody an audience.

[lagomorph777]

1. It's a RW attempt to cancel our first amendment rights.

[DemocracyWins]

2. No it just used by people to deflect criticism

[uponit7771]

3. Yeah, remember the Dixie Chicks? No, its not ... mostly whining racist whining cause their racism

... is not being as accepted in normal discourse because the lord and savior and Whore For Putin "Benedict" Donald J Trump is no longer president

[LanternWaste]

4. It's simply the right wing shibboleth, The Marketplace of Ideas...

working against their own narratives.

They of course cannot blame their false idol, so they reframe it as something else.

[jpak]

5. It's like the War on Christmas

Made up shit

Yup

[lame54]

6. It is under it's original name...

Accountability

[struggle4progress]

7. Republicans want to yank baseball's antitrust immunity

Five Republican senators introduced a bill on Wednesday to strip Major League Baseball of its immunity to antitrust law, saying the legal shield wasn’t deserved after the league moved its All-Star game away from Georgia to protest a law that could make it harder to vote ...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republicans-want-yank-baseballs-antitrust-immunity-after-mlb-reaction-georgia-2021-04-14/

[struggle4progress]

8. Stripping Delta Of A Multimillion Tax Break

Robert Hart
Forbes Staff

Georgia Republicans voted to strip Delta Air Lines of a jet fuel tax break worth tens of millions of dollars Wednesday after the company u-turned to unequivocally condemn the state’s widely-criticized voting restrictions, joining a growing list of executives who have criticized the new restrictions amid a debate over boycotting Georgia's biggest companies ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/04/01/georgia-house-passes-bill-stripping-delta-of-a-multimillion-tax-break-after-it-slammed-the-states-new-voting-restrictions/?sh=1b73e2e24a42

[Thomas Hurt]

9. PC, fake news, cancel culture...all just christofascist newspeak.

[struggle4progress]

10. Calls to boycott Coca-Cola

BY DOMINICK MASTRANGELO - 04/06/21 01:44 PM EDT

... Rand Paul .. is calling on Republicans to boycott Coca-Cola after the company stated its disapproval for a new voting law in Georgia ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/04/01/georgia-house-passes-bill-stripping-delta-of-a-multimillion-tax-break-after-it-slammed-the-states-new-voting-restrictions/?sh=1b73e2e24a42

[politruk]

20. Ooh! Coca-Cola!

Hitting Atlanta where it HURTS!

[SoonerPride]

11. No. It is not.

[struggle4progress]

12. Staged NFL walkout cost taxpayers $325,000

By CHUCK SCHILKENSTAFF WRITER
OCT. 8, 2018 9:10 AM PT

Vice President Mike Pence’s early departure from an NFL game last year because of players kneeling during the national anthem was very likely staged and also expensive for taxpayers ...

Pence stood with hand over heart for the playing of the national anthem prior to the game. At the same time, several 49ers players knelt on the sideline, continuing the protest against social injustice started by former teammate Colin Kaepernick ...

So Pence left ...

... receipts and folios recently released by the Department of Homeland Security indicate that Pence’s trip ran up more than $75,000 in expenses, including hotel and travel costs and additional security measures ...

https://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-mike-pence-nfl-20181008-story.html

[maxsolomon]

13. It is a term used by Conservatives to dismiss

demands for respect for and from historically discriminated minority groups of all types: racial, sexual, and gendered.

No Liberal should use this framing. Anti-bias Culture, Accountability Culture, there are many ways to describe it positively.

It's easier to mock than face the truth. It stings to be called out; I get it all the time from my no-quarter stepdaughter, and I've been through Anti-Racism training. Twice.

[StarfishSaver]

35. Not just conservatives. For example, Carville invoked the phrase in his diatribes against "wokeness"

[maxsolomon]

37. Carville is old. Very old.

He was mainly complaining about using terminology that the "average" American can't comprehend, which is a fair point. Look at DU's endless, repetitive "Defund the Police" OPs, where the issue becomes messaging not the concept of reducing and/or repurposing Police budgets.

But "Woke" isn't "Faculty Lounge" terminology. It's originally Af-Am Slang from what I gather. I can't help it that Old White People can't grasp the concept.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

14. Yep, just as surely as Republican Jesus is an actual thing (nt)

[Johnny2X2X]

15. It's real and rare.

Now consequence culture is much more common.

[Scrivener7]

16. "Cancel culture" doesn't exist. When you are disgusting and vile and no one wants to listen

to you, support you or be near you, that's called a predictable consequences. But republiQans call it cancel culture. Because they are under the misapprehension that they are entitled to attention and support no matter how disgusting and vile they choose to be.

[Bleacher Creature]

17. It's a stupid term used to denigrate the idea that words and actions matter. NT

[PoliticAverse]

18. Demonstrating isn't "cancel culture". Getting someone's performance canceled is.

There's a long history of it in the US (often involving performers that opposed government actions or simply had the "wrong politics" ).

[kimbutgar]

19. No it's a bs talking point that was probably tested by some media executive to rile up the rubes in

The right wing media.

[Progressive Jones]

24. Frank Lutz. nt

[Johonny]

32. Exactly

[liberal N proud]

21. Just a catchy right wing phrase to draw the idiots to the cause

[mitch96]

22. "cancel culture" an actual thing? Yup, just ask the indigenous peoples of North America ..nt

[Progressive Jones]

23. Right Wing whining point. That's all it is. nt

[ismnotwasm]

25. No.

[Initech]

26. They made the whole thing up.

Just like they've made up 99.9% of the scandals against democrats in the last 20 years.

[JHB]

34. 30 years. If you list out all the "Clinton scandals" since 1992...

...and then use red ink to cross out the ones that were just puffed-up horseshit, you'll be left with something that looks like a prop from a slasher flick.

[meadowlander]

27. It's mostly "political correctness" rebranded.

I.e. I can have the right to say whatever I want without facing any of the consequences that a pro-social, shame-based society would otherwise impose on me.

Where I do think there is the tiniest, tiniest kernel of the truth is that, in the age of the Internet and social media, the odds of any given person never in their entire life expressing or doing a single objectionable thing that isn't documented for all time somewhere is basically zero. And dredging up that one thing from forty years ago, ignoring the person's sincere apology and entire history of good works to weigh against it and refusing to accept any verdict except "this person must be fired and shunned forever" is unfair and unproductive. C.f. Al Franken, Justin Trudeau, Joy Reid.

But what complaining about "cancel culture" ignores is that it's not as black and white as you either completely forgive the person immediately or you consider them dead to you forever.

You need to consider:

1. how long ago did this happen?
2. did it happen more than once?
3. is there a pattern of opposite behavior that suggests it was overall out of character for them (recognising that we all have shitty days where we've done things we're ashamed of)?
4. did the person sincerely apologise and try to make amends?
5. has the person sincerely acknowledged that they were wrong and undertaken not to do the same thing again?
6. was the infraction based on ignorance or malice? were they old enough at the time to know better?

I think we do need to make more space in our public conversation for genuine learning, growth and redemption instead of rushing to make people "go away forever" on the basis of one very old mistake that they would never repeat again. Otherwise it's paralysing to national discourse because everyone is too terrified to say anything meaningful that might expose their ignorance. And then nobody ever learns anything.

[Caliman73]

28. Yes and no.

Cancel culture with regards to how the right wing characterizes it ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT exist. Right wingers characterize anything that challenges their ability to say any hideous thing without any repercussions as "Cancel Culture".

There is certainly a thing called "canceling" in which groups of people, typically on social media can join in what is called a "pile on" if some person does something which offends the sensibilities of the group. In the worst cases of cancelling, things that may be problematic that someone says or does, can be portrayed as an essential part of the offending party's character and thus anything they do in response to the accusation of wrongdoing is used as weaponry to continue the assault.

You can look up "cancelling" on YouTube. Contrapoints, Tom Nichols, Thought Slime, Polite Conversations, and a few others have pretty decent takes on the situation.

Once again, Cancelling is an actual thing, but IN NO WAY is it what right wingers claim it is.

[AZProgressive]

36. As far as your second paragraph

Last edited Thu Apr 29, 2021, 05:11 PM - Edit history (1)

That is called a ratio on Twitter. In other cases it could be called dogpiling.

I have seen the same thing happen here especially when someone posts a bad OP.

The only time that happened to me was by conservatives. There were so many I had to mute notifications from the Tweet.

[Corgigal]

29. In America,

we cancel whatever we don’t want by not spending our money. It’s not a culture, it’s how we do business.

[Warpy]

30. It's what horrible people whine about when they are hit with consequences

for being horrible people in public and public forums tell them if they don't knock it off, they're outta there.

It's like obnoxious drunks who want to fight everybody in the bar complaining about being ejected by the bouncer before anybody gets hurt.

[niyad]

31. Welcome to our DU family.

[Celerity]

38. or not

[niyad]

40. Thank you. I had wondered. . .

[LanternWaste]

41. Seems to be a lot of these recently.

Makes me wonder if they're feeling threatened about social transparency, or if mom just grounded them to their basements again.

That said, Earl and the rest of Admin are pretty good at preventing too much mud from being tracked onto the floor.

[ck4829]

33. Yes...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215384309

[11 Bravo]

39. Yes.

It's an actual ploy utilized by whiny-ass, titty baby Republicans who have nothing of substance to offer; and instead rely on imaginary grievances in order to inflame the ignorant, toothless, cousin-humping goobers that constitute most of their base.