It Wasn’t My Cancelation That Bothered Me. It Was the Cowards Who Let It Happen | Hacker News Reader

It Wasn’t My Cancelation That Bothered Me. It Was the Cowards Who Let It Happen

quillette.com

42 pointsRickJWagner19 comments

> My specialty was deflating Canada’s numerous liberal pieties. I did it rather well. Among Canada’s liberal elites, who take their pieties very seriously, I was an abomination.

Irrespective of the merits of her case, I find it pretty hard to take such pompous and self-righteous writing.

So, a person who for years had a nationally published newspaper column, could write whatever they wanted and have it delivered to millions of subscribers, was not able to join a nepotistic social club. This is the censorious Reign of Terror?

It sure sounds silly when you remove all context, doesn't it?

That _is_ the context. There may be problems with puritanism in our society but this particular complaint is incredibly silly.

Wente was formerly a director of the Energy Probe Research Foundation [0]. Energy Probe is a non-governmental social, economic, and environmental policy organization based in Toronto, known for denying man-made climate change. [1]

I dunno, she sounds charming! :-/

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Wente [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Probe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Wente

“ It didn’t help that Massey was already under a racist cloud, due to a single bad joke. Three years ago, a retired professor named Michael Marrus, then a Senior Fellow, attempted to make a clumsy poke at the old designation of “master” within Massey College. “You know this your master, eh?” he said to one of the Black junior fellows, referring to the then-head of the college. “Do you feel the lash?”

Needless to say, this joke did not go over well. Prof. Marrus was forced out, and offered his profuse apologies; as did Massey College, begging for everyone’s forgiveness for longer than was necessary or dignified, and thereby setting the stage for the even sillier scandal involving me.”

Oh boy...just a joke you say? Cancelled for no reason eh? I wonder why.

Yeah, she lost me there.

Ms. Wente was not cancelled, her invitation was. The goal was to provide a "safe" environment, so people who are deemed "unsafe" are excluded. That is inviting-people-101, it is not new.

Overton giveth, and Overton taketh away.

If that is the "systemic racism", it is severely lacking in consequence.

I wonder who _actually_ wrote this article.

What everyone seems to overlook is how do you cancel cancel culture without simply engaging in the act of cancelling (it)yourself. Calls to end cancel culture are mostly within realms of sides,which ultimately means confliction which will lead to more calling-outs of it's opposition which will always preceed some type of cancelation. Not everyone cancelled is good and not everyone cancelled is bad, a lot of social nuance and tribal neuroses. No easy solutions.

Don't use products that are associated with it and let companies know. Paypal, BMW, Mastercard and quite a few others. It does make a difference. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but you can bet these companies will have an image of looking the other way and will feel the consequences. Don't overdo it and call them holocaust enablers or something far fetched, but letting them know how you see it is a first step.

Engaging in the same behavior is the wrong move, you would also hit innocent people. Responding in kind is a strategy that already empowered real fascists and is a bad idea in general.

I don't think we saw real positive examples of cancel culture. Alex Jones for example. Yes, some poor souls believed him and bought his man pills but he is certainly not responsible for the general lack of trust towards government or anything relevant really. He was canceled as a scapegoat.

There's no such thing as cancel culture.

The lack of self-examination and self-awareness is stunning in these types of responses of people who may have some problematic aspects in their lives.

>But the cultural revolution has entered its mass-spectacle Reign of Terror phase

The author is another person who is upset because they got called out on some problematic aspects of their work/persona, a lot of people agreed, and it turns out the problematic aspects had an adverse affect on their lives.

Sounds like a good time to self-examine to me.

I've had to eat crow sometimes. I always try take it as an opportunity to grow and reflect.

I think it's more nuanced than that. There are excesses[1]--I'm skeptical that this was one of them.

[1] https://twitter.com/jenbrea/status/1271148784316108800

Thanks, I'm glad I followed that to Jonathan Chait's piece:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-...

That assumes we should all seek to progress towards someone's ideal of human behavior and thought patterns. Why should she self-examine? To adhere to your standards for behavior? To a segment of society's standard? I argue that we need journalists and others who make us uncomfortable. That's how we learn to examine ideas for their own merit. If we cancel out people who espouse radical ideas, we cut off the pipeline of critical thinking, debate, and the surfacing of ideas. The only way to a better society is through more ideas. Not forced adherence to one that people are scared to challenge.

Her persona doesn't need to be fixed. She needs to be invited to more forums, so critically thinking adults can examine her ideas and either accept, reject, or refine those ideas.

> Why should she self-examine? To adhere to your standards for behavior?

I believe "lack of self-examination" is code for "she expresses views I find distasteful, that I believe she would change if she self-examined. I also want to imply she has not done so and kept her views".

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