Douthat notes a current disputation about the meaning of "cancel culture" and whether it exists at all and announces he'll make "10 sweeping claims" about it:
1. Cancellation, properly understood, refers to an attack on someone’s employment and reputation by a determined collective of critics, based on an opinion or an action that is alleged to be disgraceful and disqualifying....The idea here is to narrow what counts as "cancellation." You need a "collective of critics" and it must be "determined." And their attitude must be that they find their target "disgraceful."
2. All cultures cancel; the question is for what, how widely and through what means....The idea here is to broaden what counts as "cancellation." It's not something special that the left is doing. Conservatives do it too, Douthat says, they just do it for different "sins."
3. Cancellation isn’t exactly about free speech, but a liberal society should theoretically cancel less frequently than its rivals. The canceled individual hasn’t lost any First Amendment rights....Freedom of speech is about much much more than what the First Amendment protects. It's important to fight for the freedom of speech that you can't enforce in courts. We need a culture of free speech, and the cancel culture threatens it. Which side are you on in this fight? I need some stronger commitment than the theory that we should "cancel less frequently" than societies that aren't free at all!
4. The internet has changed the way we cancel, and extended cancellation’s reach....We're sorely challenged to understand — in sped-up real time — what the hell is happening to us.
5. The internet has also made it harder to figure out whether speech is getting freer or less free....
6. Celebrities are the easiest people to target, but the hardest people to actually cancel....Hey, New York Times, invite Roseanne Barr to do an op-ed responding to Douthat's 6th Thesis. That was the greatest comedienne in the history of television, and she was crushed in an instant. For nothing.
7. Cancel culture is most effective against people who are still rising in their fields, and it influences many people who don’t actually get canceled.... [A] climate of cancellation can succeed in changing the way people talk and argue and behave even if it doesn’t succeed in destroying the careers of some of the famous people that it targets.... The goal isn’t to punish everyone, or even very many someones; it’s to shame or scare just enough people to make the rest conform.That's what culture is. You only need a few victims to cow virtually everybody and to drain the vigor out of political and intellectual discourse. We're already so bland and weak we hardly notice.
8. The right and the left both cancel; it’s just that today’s right is too weak to do it effectively....The right isn't doing it these days, but don't trust them. They would if they could. That's Douthat's point. He says after 9/11, conservatives were able to use cancellation to create a "patriotically correct climate" and that today there's some intra-conservative cancellation going on.
9. The heat of the cancel-culture debate reflects the intersection of the internet as a medium for cancellation with the increasing power of left-wing moral norms as a justification for cancellation.... It’s debatable whether these new left-wing norms would be illiberal or whether they would simply infuse liberalism with a new morality to replace the old Protestant consensus....That's bizarrely bland. The "heat" of the debate just shows we're at an "intersection" — an intersection of the internet and left-wing norms — and it's "debatable" whether something awful is happening or whether we're just getting "a new morality." I'm gazing backward to Thesis #8 and getting more of an idea of what it means to say the right is too weak to be effective. The norm that is missing is freedom, and it's woefully inadequate to say, hey, maybe things will be fine without freedom, because — who knows? it's debatable! — the forces of repression might lock us into a good new morality.
10. If you oppose left-wing cancel culture, appeals to liberalism and free speech aren’t enough.Left-wingers have never been fans of freedom as an end in itself. That's why they are so dangerous. Perhaps appeals to liberalism and free speech can be effective when they're addressed not at the extreme left but at the vast middle of Americans who vaguely value freedom but have devolving into a sickly mix of complacent and intimidated. But Douthat says the opposition to left-wing cancel culture needs substantive values to fight. In his analysis, freedom isn't good enough. It lacks substance. I'd say it's the emptiness of substance that makes freedom the highest value for us, the human beings.
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94 comments:
Rosanne Barr was a very successful television comedienne. But mot nearly as successful, talented or enduring as Lucille Ball.
You only need a few victims to cow virtually everybody and to drain the vigor out of political and intellectual discourse. We're already so bland and weak we hardly notice.
...and that's a big part of the problem. Career and livelihood are threatened by free speech from the left. Yes, it is free speech as they claim but the power comes from the inability of those threatened to stand up to the people doing the canceling. You can genuflect to try and appease, hoping they won't come after you but eventually they will get around to you...or you can begin to stand up and reject it. Instead of resigning make them fire you. Stand up for yourself for chrissakes...
Ann's been doing it but she's economically safe. Others who aren't so lucky are beginning to stand up, too. Hopefully it will be enough to turn the tide.
Just reject it...
A few decades ago, I thought that Hollywood's blacklisting of Communists was a rather good idea.
Later, however, I decided that trying to get people fired for their political beliefs is a violation of civility. I came to appreciate Czech dissident Vaclav Havel's teaching about the value of "civil society".
In a civil society, citizens refrain from trying to punish their fellow citizens for differing opinions.
The value that most naturally opposes Cancel Culture is not Freedom but Truth. Freedom, along with many other values and rights, derives from Truth.
in his defense, anything more than faint and dull defense of free speech would get him cancelled. ........................ lol
I'm not paying any attention's to the right's thoughts on this:
They're screwy.
I got canceled in. the '90s. I know enough.
Progressives are changing the meaning of words. Example: Defund the police doesn't mean defund the police. They are lunatics, and they are running the freak show that is America right now.
The internet has NOT made it harder to tell if we are more or less free.
You can watch people being cancelled in real time. Even when they don't say anything. Silence is violence, you know.
You must sing the appropriate song. And if at anytime in the past you sang inappropriately, you must pay.
If you are not free to even keep your thoughts to yourself, you are exactly as free as North Korean is to not collapse in uncontrollable wailing when told his dictator has died.
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead was a song of freedom.
This is clearly the new path of thought directed by those who steer collective Leftist thinking. I've suddenly seen articles and heard discussions dismissing cancel culture as something that sits in the minds of Conservatives, but does not actually exist. The reality is that it has existed for years now. First showing up on the college campuses around the country. Remember when Conservatives used to be asked to speak at universities? No, I suspect you don't recall that. But it actually used to happen.
Dig this: There was a time when you could have actual debates on college campuses. In classrooms! Seriously. People would have differing opinions, if you can believe that. And they would discuss and debate their opinions with each other, trying to persuade through facts and strong argument. We would even bring speakers to the campuses. Speakers holding different viewpoints. And we would, on our own with no coercion, attend these talks to hear differing opinions. Weird, but we actually used to look for discussions that included differing opinions, hoping to learn more and expand our minds. Silly, weren't we? Yes, those were barbaric times.
Thankfully, we are now safe in our intellectual cocoons with no harmful thoughts other than those approved by the Collective. So, when you ask me about cancel culture, well...per the current information sent to me on Twitter- There is no Cancel Culture. It's just not a thing. It's in the Conservative minds. Please dismiss any thought of it and get back to making your posters for today's peaceful protest.
As someone who has bled for that non substantive thing called freedom I value it highly.But apparently Douthat and his ilk do not.And will thus surrender it easily.The problem is when One surrenders it makes it harder for the others to fight.
I guess the Hollywood Blacklist was OK then.
"4. The internet has changed the way we cancel, and extended cancellation’s reach...."
It's reduced the cost of meddling to zero. In tribal days, if one person pointed the finger at another, everyone would know that the finger pointer was, himself, quite flawed. On the internet, point the finger and you're immediately joined by a gang of dunces you've never seen before.
Excellent work, Althouse.
"Douthat notes a current disputation about the meaning of "cancel culture" and whether it exists at all"
Whether it exists at all? WTF?
"The idea here is to narrow what counts as "cancellation." You need a "collective of critics" and it must be "determined.""
Right. He's trying to cancel deplorable defenses against cancelatin.
"It's not something special that the left is doing. Conservatives do it too, Douthat says"
How do we do it, Ross? Who is our Roseanne? Another pro-left move by the NYT "conservative."
"I need some stronger commitment than the theory that we should "cancel less frequently" than societies that aren't free at all!"
But our Ross doesn't. He likes his tea as weak as possible.
"6. Celebrities are the easiest people to target, but the hardest people to actually cancel....
Hey, New York Times, invite Roseanne Barr to do an op-ed responding to Douthat's 6th Thesis. That was the greatest comedienne in the history of television, and she was crushed in an instant. For nothing."
But hey, the right is just like the left.
"You only need a few victims to cow virtually everybody"
True. Pour encourager etc. Are there any lefty victims, anywhere? Woj gets suspended for a week. The woke Harvard knifing girl loses a job offer. Any others?
"The right isn't doing it these days, but don't trust them. They would if they could."
Ah, there's our defender of the right: declaring guilt in advance.
"He says after 9/11, conservatives were able to use cancellation to create a "patriotically correct climate""
Huh? Where was this patriotically correct climate?
"The norm that is missing is freedom, and it's woefully inadequate to say, hey, maybe things will be fine without freedom, because — who knows? it's debatable! — the forces of repression might lock us into a good new morality."
Thanks, Althouse. Right on.
"Left-wingers have never been fans of freedom as an end in itself. That's why they are so dangerous."
True.
"I'd say it's the emptiness of substance that makes freedom the highest value for us, the human beings."
Yes, freedom is the highest value, but here Douthat has a point: the right needs more to counter "anti-racist" social justice mania.
I'm all for free speech, but I think both Ann and Douthat miss the point. There are Nazis and the KKK, and everyone else. That's the dividing line that most of us draw and I think most Americans are comfortable with it and have been for my whole life.
We are not comfortable with a sizable group of Americans rising up and labeling us as Nazis. Where "us" includes anyone who doesn't do exactly what this sizable group says, using exactly the wording they prescribe.
That's the kind of thing Nazis do. They are the Nazis. They are the ones who need to be cancelled. I don't think that most of us are saying that, or not loudly enough.
@Crack "I'm not paying any attention's to the right's thoughts on this: They're screwy. I got canceled in. the '90s. I know enough." Well, Crack, now everyone can cancel you, from both sides!
We should learn some lessons, instead of expanding our mistakes.
@The Crack Emcee
you have just called Ross Douthat 'the right'
An early example, but still the gold standard is "Has Justine landed?" I'm still horrified by that.
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," is true to Voltaire's philosophy even if he did not say so in as many words.
That is SO 19th century. We in the new millennium are much smarter, and we know heretics when we see or hear them. New ones are being identified every single day.
Let us join forces, virtuous citizens, and purify the collective.
That was a lame article. What do you expect from Hanoi Douthat?
I don't understand the urgency part though. This is hardly a new problem.
When only some lives matter, the cancel culture is a natural consequence.
Also, mobs don't sweat little details like the destruction of a human life.
Hey, I've got an idea! Let's cancel statism. Cancel statism before statism cancels us.
"climate of cancellation can succeed in changing the way people talk and argue"
Is this column an example of that?Is Douthat's spinelessness why he was hired or a reaction to cancel culture.
Celebrities aren't the best examples of "cancel culture." Jack Philips, the Colorado baker, has been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on attorneys and would have been long bankrupt had he not been able to fund-raise. Gibson's Bakery, ditto. The worst sufferers are not the celebs, but those without the means to defend themselves. Hundreds of non-celebs have lost their jobs because their scared employers were stampeded by woke mobs--like the truck driver whose "OK" hand signal was deemed "racist" by the mob.
The beatings will continue until morale improves, "pour encourager les autres".
It really has nothing to do with the internet. Cancel culture is the normal human condition. Freedom is the exception, historically.
Do not question the teachings.
Submit.
The Crack Emcee writes: "I know enough."
That's not the impression I get.
The heart of Cancel Culture is Ross Douthat. What makes the cancellations work isn’t the cancellers but everyone else who goes along with it. Why do they go along with it? Because they’re just like Douthat.
Douthat occupies a very high-profile and well-paid position in society that he doesn’t deserve and hasn’t earned. He’s not a great thinker. He’s not a great writer. He was a diversity hire at the NYT and knows if he steps out of line, both his status and standard of living would sharply drop.
The intellectual/knowledge worker part of our economy has outgrown the supply of actually smart or mentally talented people. It’s full of those who contribute nothing of merit and wouldn’t be missed if they’re gone. All these people have is their position and when you threaten that, they knuckle under because even they know how fraudulent they are.
Mike
Even though I agree with one of his points, I can throw the rest of the article in the trash. I’m with Willow Smith, who recently said, “Shaming doesn't lead to learning.”
I’m so old I remember a time when the American Civil Liberties Union actually fought for civil liberties, and some people didn’t like them.
I think it’s different when people/groups/movements just want to use things for their own power. Cancel now, because we thing we have power and this will cement is in the powerful group. God forbid things change and they find themselves out of power. Then all these tools can be used against them and we’re back to fighting for “civil liberties”.
Let’s just hope (when the pendulum has shifted again) that they haven’t all been written out of the constitution by liberal judges who make up shit as they go.
That's why Ross Doughnut writes for the NYT. He's supposedly a Conservative but a "reasonable" one. You can tell he's "reasonable" by his point that "both the left and right cancel". See both sides do it. Don't blame the Left. "We" are to blame.
This is standard Cuck speak. The never-trumpers pull the same trick. Never can they blame the Democrats, somehow Trump must be dragged in, so the Cuck can proclaim that "Both sides are wrong">
I see ZERO evidence the "Right" wants to cancel anyone. To talk about how the "Right" would do so, if they had to power, is just mind-reading and irrelevant. When's the last time anyone was "Cancelled" for being unpatriotic, being a communist, attacking Religion, or being racist against white people? You'd have to go way, way, back to the 1950s. Of course, then the NYT's was screeching about McCarhtyism and the right of everyone to say what they want and not be fired for their politics.
"There's some really important aspects to our new social media technologies. We can organize and mobilize but the tendency to shortcut everything and assume that everybody has to know everything already — what about the conversations? This is a moment in which we can share and learn and think and converse. People should not be afraid of being canceled because they make a mistake in that process."
-Angela Davis
The reason the left wins, isn't just they control the press, its because you have this weird dynamic, whereby the Left is constantly harassing and attacking the Center-Right, and the Center-Right responds by saying "We need to stop all this fighting" or "We need to come together" or "Both sides are wrong". One side always attacking the other, and the other side always saying *everyone* is to blame. Guess who's going to win over time?
Of course, Ross Doughnut is being paid by the NYT, because he's useful to demoralizing the other side. He's the Washington Generals that puts up the fake opposition to the Liberal Harlem Globetrotters. The NYT readers don't want 100% liberalism, they like the idea of having a FEW "conservative" voices, as long as they are "Reasonable" and don't actually challenge anyone.
Douthat's essay stands as self-proof that left-wing cancel culture is successfully advancing. When they come for Douthat, and they will, no one is going to come to his defense if this is the literal best he can do in denouncing it.
Cancellation IS about free speech. Doughnut is pushing the idea that everybody -except the Government - can punish you for saying the wrong thing. This is just censorship by other means. We have the right not to be fired based on religion or sex. We need the same right for political beliefs. As long as they aren't pushing their beliefs using their employer's name, people should have the right to express their politics without being fired. Or being forced into bankruptcy.
THey have that right in New Zealand and France. They need it here.
Douthat is the "conservative" safe space for NYTimes readers.
You want the non-safe space version, read this
and that today there's some intra-conservative cancellation going on.
On the Right it's not so much canceling as debates over purity of ideas and identifying RINOs. There's people who claim to be conservatives and/or Republicans who don't seem to behave in ways that seem congruent with the contemptoary ethos of conservativsim. Certain public figures who call themselves Republicans, Mitt Romney for example, regularly say and do things that the vast majority of people who currently consider themselves conservatives strongly disagree with. So the general response is not to "cancel" them or silence them, but to reveal them for who they really are, to call them out.
MikeR said...
"Crack, now everyone can cancel you, from both sides!"
That started when I got here.
The point is institutional power. Without that it would just be noise.
There is no real interest group for free speech as an abstract. Free speech is a useful concept for all sides, ideally, in the course of their power struggles with their opponents, as all sides have something to gain from it. Free speech can exist only in a condition of a balance of power.
It stops being useful to a dominating side when it aquires sufficient institutional power to guarantee that it does not need to worry about its own megaphone. At that point free speech as a cultural value becomes something useful only to its opponents.
Therefore it becomes a strategic necessity to the dominating side to remove free speech as a cultural value, to cement their power.
they really don't want any alternatives, they used to be able to tolerate saffire, but they have gotten feral since then
https://babalublog.com/2020/07/13/wasp-network-movie-a-disshonest-and-irresponsible-attempt-to-rewrite-history/
the borg collective spreads
We're all Justine now.
I think a lot of people are taking notes. Making lists, collecting ideas about who and what and how. Trying to generate options for creating a healthier culture than the rage-aholic mobocracy now consuming bandwidth.
I hope those options remain peaceful, but who knows? In physics, when you compress a spring, it stores energy. The energy doesn’t dissipate, it comes back at you when you might least expect it.
Temujin@8:16AM/
LOL! I remember my undergrad days at LSU ('62-'66) when we actually had such antiquated things like "Free Speach Forums," etc. :) In those days the student body at LSU was just the obverse--overwhelmingly conservative and the problem was not that lefties were shouted down; rather most weren't even mildly interested in their views. When I was a freshman the Forum proposed a topic: "Medicare-hope or hoax?" NOBODY could be found to argue the "hope" side.lol. Finally I was dragooned by my Speach teacher to argue the "pro" side (I could always argue both sides of a proposition--should have gone to law school but didn't think I had enough larceny in my soul to be a successful attny, lol) I gave as good as I got but the audience overwhelmingly voted "Hoax." Still, I was given the Outstanding Speaker at the LSU Forum award--still have it framed on "my love me" wall in our Den. :)
Crack Emcee: "I got canceled in. the '90s. I know enough."
Oh dont hold back.
Share with us exactly how you were "cancelled" and by whim and for what.
Feel free to include the part about the aliens and medical experimentation.
I think the argument he's making goes something like this:
1. We all agree that "canceling" someone is sometimes the right thing to do. Sometimes a person's ideas are so beyond the pale that the person deserve to lose his/her job. For example, a private school should fire a teacher who openly voices white supremacist views, and a company should fire an employee who openly supports Nazism and its goals.
2. Critics of cancel culture, then, need to explain the principle that makes some cancellations "good" and some cancellations "bad". The principle must be objective. It cannot just be that a cancellation is bad "because I don't like that view".
3. But, opponents of "cancel culture" have not been able to express such a principle (yet). Appeals to the value "freedom" aren't sufficient, since they don't differentiate between the "good" and "bad" cancellations.
Therefore, in the absence of such a principle, critics of cancel culture are effectively doing the same thing that proponents of cancel culture are doing: saying that something should go away because they don't like it.
In response, you could reject #1 and say nobody should ever be cancelled - even if he/she expresses very extreme views. Otherwise, Douthat is suggesting, you need to come up with a plausible view about what distinguishes the "good" from the "bad".
This might not be as difficult as Douthat suggests, but it also might not be as easy as you first think.
buwaya said...
The point is institutional power. Without that it would just be noise.
It stops being useful to a dominating side when it aquires sufficient institutional power to guarantee that it does not need to worry about its own megaphone. At that point free speech as a cultural value becomes something useful only to its opponents.
Which is why it's so frustrating to listen to conservatives point out how liberals were known for "free speech". Berkley the "cradle of free speech."
They simply used "free speech" as a tool to take power. Once in power, free speech is no longer useful. It never was about free speech. It was about defeating the enemy.
The same way islamist use "freedom of religion" to take power in the west. Once in power, guess what happens to "freedom of religion"?
I got canceled in. the '90s
Cancelled? Alternative theory: You just suck.
I'd say it's the emptiness of substance that makes freedom the highest value for us, the human beings.
Aye, indeed.
Didn't Jesus say something about the consequence of knowing the Truth?
Most Hindu's spiritual objective is Moksha.
AKA Liberation...AKA eternal freedom from Samsara.
http://ajitvadakayil.blogspot.com/2013/06/moksha-final-stop-to-endless-cycle-of.html
In “1984” Winston Smith has a mantra that hope lies in the proles (proletariat). In the end he realizes the proles will not save him or society. But I think Winston Smith was correct in his hope, not in his cynicism. Today the hope in stopping cancel culture and all the evils we see foisted upon us by a demon spirit is in the people with less social capital to lose: the poor, the uncool, the rednecks, the retired, the failed.
I’m retired so I qualify. In my neighborhood a rundown house on Main Street is presently decorated in flags and “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” signs. Cars honk as they pass by. This one house, with a woman often sitting out in the front yard waving, has frightened the BLMers.
The Republican elite — senators, congressmen, businessmen, pastors — have too much social capital to speak out forcefully. They will not help us. Trump will, but he is one voice crying out in the wilderness, a powerful voice, true, but with a galaxy of haters muffling him. But there is hope. If we of low social capital would start to sing in unison, the world would change. And I think I’m beginning to hear voices.
"Russ Douhat" just another weak minded scribe who believes publishing a piece in the "NYT" is the be all and end all. Well, for him probably, since he needs to publish so the next NYC cocktail party he can brag. Look at what I wrote - boy am I smart. BTW, saying the "right" does it too, just made his arguement moot.
BTW, I agree Lucille Ball was much better versus Roseanne Barr who was good. But you also left out another comedian - Carol Burnett. The talent she put together on her show I've not seen duplicated anywhere.
I talk about the steepness of the hill.
I speak about the laugh of off-ramps down the hill.
I speak of the slipperiness of the hill.
People have underestimated the desire of those who wish to throw us down that hill.
Stupid people deny the truth: people want us at the bottom of the hill.
People who wish to negotiate with cultural terrorists are going to lose, too.
Can even Freeman Hunt see that now?
rcocean: We have the right not to be fired based on religion or sex. We need the same right for political beliefs.
Are you going to make it illegal for me to stop shopping at a store if I disapprove of their employees' stated political beliefs? Are you going to make it illegal for me to suggest publicly that others should do likewise?
People who get "cancelled" aren't really getting fired for their political beliefs - they're getting fired because (their employer believes) their continued employment is negatively affecting business.
(I'm not defending cancel culture, by the way - I'm just questioning whether employment law is an effective way to deal with it.)
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but if the NYT tasked Douthat to write a rationale for left-wing cancel culture that would confuse mainstream centrists about the real nature of what the cancellers are doing, would a single word change?
Abortion... cancel culture. Life deemed unworthy of career... ... standing... life, denied a voice, denied arms, legs, a head, etc. follows a progressive path. #HateLovesAbortion
Libertarianism is self-organizing. Liberalism is divergent. Progressivism is monotonic. Conservativism is moderating. #PrinciplesMatter
MikeR said...
"Crack, now everyone can cancel you, from both sides!"
That started when I got here.
C'mon, Crack. If what you've said is true, that started long before you arrived on these digital shores. The degree to which some here offer you some sort of attachment to the genius and life story of Sun Ra is both amusing and gratifying, though.
At least it is to me.
>>The right and the left both cancel; it’s just that today’s right is too weak to do it effectively....<<
Yeah, uh, I'm going to need some examples of that -- of the right canceling someone. Not some vague 9-ll generality -- actual equivalents of what the Left wing scum are doing right now. *Canceling* them. I'll be here all day...
Maher and the Dixie Chicks are still working and doing just fine, btw.
Cancel culture looks different to those who start with a belief in objective truths and values, as I think Douthat does (he's an observant Catholic and a convert to boot).
"Even though I agree with one of his points,"
Don't leave us in suspense.
"This might not be as difficult as Douthat suggests, but it also might not be as easy as you first think."
Considering that we managed to do it pretty well for the last 50 years, I don't think it's that hard.
Mike
"People who get "cancelled" aren't really getting fired for their political beliefs - "
One thing that could be done is to create a cause of action for interference with employment with any company that a part of interstate commerce, or by use of social media to interfere with employment. Congress can do this.
Crack Emcee: "That started when I got here."
Crack claims to have been cancelled here years ago.....and yet he's still here.....complaining about his theoretical cancellation....complaining about it here....in the place in which he claims he was cancelled.....
Discuss.
Martin: "Call me a conspiracy theorist, but if the NYT tasked Douthat to write a rationale for left-wing cancel culture that would confuse mainstream centrists about the real nature of what the cancellers are doing, would a single word change?"
Spot. On.
Douthat offers up the inevitable pro-dem "The "Conservative" Case For Why Cancellation By The Left Is Not Wrong.....And Besides The Conservatives Are Worse Anyway"
Althouse, you've got your nerve. Where was your concern for free speech when people were getting canceled for saying your son should not have the legal right to marry a man? Your side won that one, at least you think you did. And you were and are delighted. You would not change a single cancellation of it. But the cancel train didn't stop at that station, it's still going strong and in fact, picking up speed.
Has it been noted that Bari Weiss resigned from the Times today? She's more of a man than Douthat.
"A few decades ago, I thought that Hollywood's blacklisting of Communists was a rather good idea."
I think that the Hollywood blacklist was a very specific: you had a group of people working in concert to advance each other and to advance a message that was not the message of the business owners. It was analogous to payola, except all the payees got were pats on the head from the Soviets.
NY Times has some more cancelling tee'd up
The QAnon Candidates Are Here. Trump Has Paved Their Way.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/qanon-politicians-candidates.html#click=https://t.co/UMKLkRLb5C
"Crack claims to have been cancelled here years ago.....Discuss."
I've first posted here five years ago, and have no idea what that's all about.
The communist black list could not work today.
Too many Democratics to name them all in a single list.
when people were getting canceled for saying your son should not have the legal right to marry a man
Civil unions for couples and couplets. Marriage to normalize the functional relationship between a man, a woman, and their children. Political congruence ("=") and selective exclusion is an apology and a double-edged scalpel.
For Rabel: Yes, and it's a beaut.
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
So the right is strong enough to elect a president and a majority in the Senate and just four years ago a majority in the House. But not strong enough to cancel??!! Ummm, I call BS. The right doesn't cancel because, on the whole, they aren't despicable, immoral assholes like the Left.
Bari Weiss' resignation letter
"...intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times. Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world? And so self-censorship has become the norm...
The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany."
As noted, this makes Douthat look even more pathetic and ball-less.
Conservatives do it too, Douthat says, they just do it for different "sins."
Bullshit. You find me one leftist - just one - who was hounded out of a job and whipped in the public square by conservatives simply for having 'wrong' thoughts.
Just. One.
I think that for government and ginormous corporations, employees should be allowed to subscribe to odious positions. The organizations employ too big a portion of the economy, and odious people pay taxes that run the government and regulate the economy. If they do their jobs and don't use their jobs to advance the cause, they should be left alone. I don't think I'd want an adult-child love subscriber to teach, so it couldn't be a hard rule.
To be fair, Paco Wové, you cannot be more ball-less.
I do not believe in negative balls.
So centrist Bari Weiss resigns, while Douthat blandly suggests that cancel culture, should it exist, is not tied to any particular group but just a human tendency we should watch out for. Sad.
I've often found Bari Weiss' opinions annoying, but have to give her credit for laying it out there. You don't fuck with Bari Weiss.
"Crack claims to have been cancelled here years ago.....and yet he's still here.....complaining about his theoretical cancellation....complaining about it here....in the place in which he claims he was cancelled.....
Discuss."
"She turned me into a newt!"
(small voice) "I got better."
"The right doesn't cancel because, on the whole, they aren't despicable, immoral assholes like the Left."
I don't think it's that simple, although that touches upon it. The fact is that the right tends to frame political issues in terms of the common weal, while the Left frames political issues in terms of oppression of a minority. This means that when I say the institution of marriage is too vital to society to be made into a plaything for people who view sex as a form of recreation, the Left accuses me of expressing hatred for those people. And expressing hatred for the customers and the people you work with is unacceptable at a business. But since I am, by definition, unoppressed, it is acceptable to express the view that I should be marginalized and discriminated against, on the grounds that I enjoy "privilege", which is obtained at a price to others. In fact, I am expected to cooperate with my marginalization, since I am merely losing a few privileges, in the interest of "equality".
I'm posting Bari Weiss' Resignation Letter to the Times in its entirety over three posts because it marks the passing of the world we knew. The Times is convinced it can survive only if it meets the extreme demands of the youngest, loudest, and wokest. But if all the news that’s fit to print becomes nothing more than the opinions woke twitter accepts, the Times will have ceased to provide a useful service to anyone outside that bubble -- and ultimately inside that bubble, since over the long run, twitter will always do a better job of delivering the latest woke goods.
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
Bari Weiss Resignation Letter
Dear A.G.,
It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times.
I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers. Dean Baquet and others have admitted as much on various occasions. The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.
I was honored to be part of that effort, led by James Bennet. I am proud of my work as a writer and as an editor. Among those I helped bring to our pages: the Venezuelan dissident Wuilly Arteaga; the Iranian chess champion Dorsa Derakhshani; and the Hong Kong Christian democrat Derek Lam. Also: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Masih Alinejad, Zaina Arafat, Elna Baker, Rachael Denhollander, Matti Friedman, Nick Gillespie, Heather Heying, Randall Kennedy, Julius Krein, Monica Lewinsky, Glenn Loury, Jesse Singal, Ali Soufan, Chloe Valdary, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Wesley Yang, and many others.
But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.
Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.
My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.
There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.
I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public. And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage. Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.
Part of me wishes I could say that my experience was unique. But the truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times. Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world? And so self-censorship has become the norm.
What rules that remain at The Times are applied with extreme selectivity. If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.
Op-eds that would have easily been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired. If a piece is perceived as likely to inspire backlash internally or on social media, the editor or writer avoids pitching it. If she feels strongly enough to suggest it, she is quickly steered to safer ground. And if, every now and then, she succeeds in getting a piece published that does not explicitly promote progressive causes, it happens only after every line is carefully massaged, negotiated and caveated.
It took the paper two days and two jobs to say that the Tom Cotton op-ed “fell short of our standards.” We attached an editor’s note on a travel story about Jaffa shortly after it was published because it “failed to touch on important aspects of Jaffa’s makeup and its history.” But there is still none appended to Cheryl Strayed’s fawning interview with the writer Alice Walker, a proud anti-Semite who believes in lizard Illuminati.
The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.
Even now, I am confident that most people at The Times do not hold these views. Yet they are cowed by those who do. Why? Perhaps because they believe the ultimate goal is righteous. Perhaps because they believe that they will be granted protection if they nod along as the coin of our realm—language—is degraded in service to an ever-shifting laundry list of right causes. Perhaps because there are millions of unemployed people in this country and they feel lucky to have a job in a contracting industry.
Or perhaps it is because they know that, nowadays, standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back. Too wise to post on Slack, they write to me privately about the “new McCarthyism” that has taken root at the paper of record.
All this bodes ill, especially for independent-minded young writers and editors paying close attention to what they’ll have to do to advance in their careers. Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule Two: Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative. Rule Three: Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you’ll be hung out to dry.
For these young writers and editors, there is one consolation. As places like The Times and other once-great journalistic institutions betray their standards and lose sight of their principles, Americans still hunger for news that is accurate, opinions that are vital, and debate that is sincere. I hear from these people every day. “An independent press is not a liberal ideal or a progressive ideal or a democratic ideal. It’s an American ideal,” you said a few years ago. I couldn’t agree more. America is a great country that deserves a great newspaper.
None of this means that some of the most talented journalists in the world don’t still labor for this newspaper. They do, which is what makes the illiberal environment especially heartbreaking. I will be, as ever, a dedicated reader of their work. But I can no longer do the work that you brought me here to do—the work that Adolph Ochs described in that famous 1896 statement: “to make of the columns of The New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”
Ochs’s idea is one of the best I’ve encountered. And I’ve always comforted myself with the notion that the best ideas win out. But ideas cannot win on their own. They need a voice. They need a hearing. Above all, they must be backed by people willing to live by them.
Sincerely,
Bari
Where you = Douthat.
Sorry if that lead(s) to confusion.
Rory: "People who get "cancelled" aren't really getting fired for their political beliefs - "
One thing that could be done is to create a cause of action for interference with employment with any company that a part of interstate commerce, or by use of social media to interfere with employment. Congress can do this.
You think Congress can make it illegal for me to go on Twitter and say, "I don't think people should do business with Company X because they hire bad people", so long as Company X is engaged in interstate commerce?
Good for Bari Weiss for making berating the op-ed department for tunnel vision and cowardice.
What remains to be done is for someone to point out that the paper's other sections -- "news" reports, features, book reviews, all of them -- are every bit as slanted. If you appreciate thoughtful discussion, you canceled your subscription long ago.
Preaching to the NYT choir is a profitable business model, but the customers are a millions-strong claque who demand never to be presented with facts or ideas that do not gratify their deeply held feelings.
I don't see how this can be fixed without cutting profitability. I also don't see how the fevered keep-hate-alive energy can be maintained if Biden replaces Trump.
I live in fear every day that my employer will find out I'm a Trump supporter and fire me outright (they are extremely progressive). I've recently had to try and erase as much of my internet commentary as possible (much harder to do than you would think), identifying me as a conservative / Trump supporter because an ex-friend who hates Trump threatened to "turn me in" and get me fired... Its a significant source of anxiety and stress for me, and people should not have to live like this in America...
Political beliefs need to be protected just like gender, religion and race...
There was perhaps a time, back in the 1950s, that conservatives could cancel someone by pointing to their extra-marital affair or gayness, but this will no longer cause anyone to lose their job. What recent examples of canceling can they point to by conservatives? I am tired of this false equivalence. This will all stop when the people in charge (corp, universities) cease firing people for a racist joke 20 years ago or for a political statement (like opposing BLM as a movement).
Claims that cancel culture does not exist are hollow. Just yesterday reddit killed a thread documenting bogus hate crimes. A Facebook site documenting islamist terror incidents around the world was shut down I believe last year. Posts that oppose abortion are shut because they are "hateful" to point to dead babies. Youtube tried to shut Prager U. I have several friends who were state meteorologists and were fired for being "deniers". It goes on. Yet these same twitter, facebook, etc are happy to host islamist terrorists, feminists calling for genocide of men, BLM calling for burning the cities. Don't play dumb. Cancel is accelerating.
Rory: "I've first posted here five years ago, and have no idea what that's all about."
Crack routinely shows up to complain about how The Man has kept him down...you know... by having MAGA hat wearing, "San Francisco is MAGA Country"-shouting, Subway-sandwich-stealing, noose-holding white supremacist inventors of slavery get all up in his grill to steal music success away from this modern day rap music Amadeus.
It gets rather complicated involving foster family dysfunction, French maidens and alternative "medical" therapies.
And aliens.
Lots and lots of aliens.
My desire to heed the warnings of the New Testament about being in the world but not of the world are helpful here. It's more generous and considerate to listen rather than talk. More loving to empathize rather than condemn.
Avoid social media. It's proving to be the prime vector for the contagion that is judgement and condemnation - to children and adults alike.
Avoid engaging in anonymous debate online. One of our cultures greatest weaknesses is that few of us are ever made to remember our previous positions, and on the rare occasion when we are, it usually means catastrophe.
Unknown @ 4:43pn,
Agreed.
Andrew Sullivan resigned from New York magazine today, Bari Weiss from the New York Times. From her resignation letter at https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
But the lessons that ought to have followed the (2016) election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.
. . . Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.
Althouse
Thanks. I rate this as the best of your many great posts. Really first rate.
Douthat: Waste of time.
We are well past the point of "discourse" "civil discussion. It's I'm right, your wrong and we will do anything to defeat you. No one cares about being hypocritical or dishonest. They just want to win. I well remember when the right did this and quite effectively. Now they are getting it back. All this portends of violence coming well beyond what's being seen now. This is what happens in wars. Both sides remove the enemies humanity. They are objects to destroy. Stand by.
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