Americans tune in to ‘cancel culture’ – and don't like what they see | Hacker News Reader

Americans tune in to ‘cancel culture’ – and don't like what they see

politico.com

52 pointsundefined145 comments

I have to admit I only recently tuned in to "cancel culture". Up to now it was just something vague that I thought you lived with in Berkeley.

But recently it feels more personally relevant (and dangerous) as it has moved from repudiation of celebrity / repugnant-level inflammatory opinions to people's everyday legitimate questions and doubts.

It says to me "even you, average person, need to be careful and edit what you say for fear of having your life upended for saying the wrong single word about something". People getting fired from jobs for one badly phrased comment or a moment caught out of context on video. Or fired or forced to resign for not being all-caps in favor of the latest movement. You feel danger in airing partially formed or not-fully-onboard-with-the-movement opinions, aside from the most trusted friends.

Maybe it's just magnified out of proportion because it's in the news so much.

The problem is that people so vehemently believe they're right, on both sides. It's not that the underlying sentiment doesn't have some merit -- it's that the person or movement believes they cannot be wrong, and anyone disagreeing must be the embodiment of evil. Especially when movements become so symbolic (none of us can know all the details, we advocate for symbols), how can we so confidently think that we are completely right about that symbol and what it implies we should do? When was the last time you were fully onboard with everything a symbol represented?

Our culture has become dominated by (or has incentivized) such extreme views, because that's what it takes to make the news. And of course, it's dominated by people who have partial knowledge about a situation and think they're right in theory -- but that's the most dangerous position to be confident about. I used to take positions like that too. But I found that reality is much more complex than expected.

It's hard to be a moderate voice against passion. You tend to think that people with such deep feeling (if they're rational people) tend to be angry about something legitimate. But it has gone to the extreme that every issue, no matter what proportion, has risen to outrage.

This isn't healthy. The point is to make progress. How do you have progress when the details and nuance can't be discussed rationally for fear of being labeled a non-believer? Silence = complicity? Most people are silent on an issue, you just made them co-conspirators, not contributors to the solution.

People can't be outraged about the entire world, all the time, and cause our society to swing from issue to issue like this, and anyone who is moderate or questions how such a movement is getting to its goal gets pilloried.

Cancel culture are witch hunts organized over social media.

There is a good comparison to be made with McCarthyism. Other than the political identities of those wielding the tools and those targeted, what is happening today is the same.

In the end Arthur Miller stopped McCarthy with a play about the Salem witch trials. That play introduced the phrase "witch hunt", and McCarthy was defanged by the transition from fear to mockery.

We need a new Arthur Miller.

> We need a new Arthur Miller.

100%

I'm convinced the only way to effectively fight it is through comedy.

It was noticeable and bad when I went through college around 2010. But now it's been intensified as the same people I saw in college (those storming university offices until speakers they found "dangerous" withdrew) begin moving into the urbane, bien-pensant, privileged stations at media institutions, etc.

This recent Ryan Long video really hit the right tone I think.

Laugh at the tyrants and they're disarmed.

https://twitter.com/ryanlongcomedy/status/128520849751747379...

    > Cancel culture are witch hunts organized 
    > over social media.

I can't take the teeth-gnashing over the "culture" aspect of "cancel culture" seriously, though plenty of people I respect do (eg: Yascha Mounk, Matt Taibbi, Noam Chomsky).

The actual problem is social media, much more than culture. Social media flattens all the world's events, without regard to their relevance. Does it alarm me if a professor or police officer loses their job because they say the "wrong" thing? You know, not really, in the vast majority of cases. And I'm glad that such a culture results in, for example, Twitter "mobs" reliably doxxing right-wing extremists.

Where I see an actual problem is in the scope. There's a difference between someone losing their job over an isolated incident of poor judgement, and someone losing their job and being hounded by outraged people from all corners of the globe, and gaining a life-long bad reputation.

On an ideally-designed internet, "cancel culture" would exist, but not be a problem, because its reach would scale according to the behaviour, and the importance of the person. Some random person in a tiny town does not merit as much scrutiny as an elected official, but currently, they may get it anyhow. The problem is the design of social media.

The big problem I see is discussed at the end of the article. Language is difficult to interpret and many times we misinterpret one another. When communicating we have a certain amount of assumptions we make about the other person's argument. If these are in good faith these tend to go smoothly, although there's always hiccups. The problem I see is that we're in a hyper partisan environment so the assumptions we are making about others' opinions are extreme. For example there's two assumed positions on immigration: let everyone in vs kick everyone out and build a wall. Of course the vast majority of people believe something in between (because both extremes are pretty unrealistic) but that's hard to determine without good communication. If you're pro DACA and you talk to someone that is pro restrictions you are likely to assume the person holds the extreme version of build a wall and kick everyone out (as in White Nationalism) despite that they probably have a more nuanced viewpoint. I believe this is happening because 1) the news is showing us these extremist people because it generates more hate, and thus more views/clicks and 2) people are co-opting some of these terms to dog whistle so it is hard to distinguish who is dog whistling (aka a white nationalist) vs who is oblivious to this context and using it in earnest. Which if it is latter, presuming they are the former makes it more likely that they turn to the former because you back them into a corner where that's where they can get support from.

This all, I believe, comes down to a phrase I have been finding myself repeat more and more.

> There are three components to communication: What is meant, what is said, and what is heard. They don't have the all be the same thing.

So I think we need to better train ourselves to try better at hearing what was intended and trying to say what we mean. In addition we need to stop turning to this reactionary based news, I believe this is why many (including myself) have turned off social media. Having lived in many parts of the country what I've learned is that everyone, no matter how simple their education is, has a nuanced view on everything. But I've also learned that trolling people, exaggerating arguments well beyond their merit, and "winning" have become more and more acceptable. There's a lot of people who just want to "get 'em" with a sick burn instead of having a conversation. I believe this is where we have broken down (and yes, I do think this is all related to the cancel culture).

I agree that we need to be better listeners.

I disagree that this is the reason for cancel culture. This isn't about misinterpretation. It's typically about bad-faith interpretation. There's a very deliberate effort to destroy anyone who disagrees in the slightest from an ideology. When you disagree, anything you do or say will be construed, regardless of how tortured the reasoning, as meaning what the cancel-mob wants it to mean, in an effort to destroy your life.

This is straight out of the revolutionary playbooks. "Rules for Radicals", Lenin's brand of Marxism, Mao's Cultural Revolution...

This is not "oops, they misunderstood." It would be a much smaller problem if it were that.

There is a reflexive aspect to this discussion in that cancel culture can't be discussed openly and honestly, for fear, valid or not, of being cancelled.

It will be interesting to see what the long term effects of this are.

Interestingly enough the post itself is being shown as flagged. Kinda ironic if you ask me.

There is no cancelling.

Also, the discussions around cancelling have been cancelled.

> Interestingly enough the post itself is being shown as flagged. Kinda ironic if you ask me.

Eh, flagging isn't "canceling." I flagged it because many people can't help pontificating against some straw man of theirs whenever they see some culture war term, and that's pretty obnoxious.

In that case why not downvote the comment and move on? I think the article did good by mentioning, though I wish they dived deeper on this, that these words have very different meanings to people and that the assumptions we make about peoples' perception are often inaccurate. Personally I wouldn't flag a post if the conversations are off topic. Just downvote the off topic comments and move on. The difference I see is flagging a post says "the post should be removed" which is more similar to what many think of "cancel culture" while downvoting says "you have your opinion, but I disagree."

Edit: WOW that was quick, but fair. You're entitled to your opinion.

> In that case why not downvote the comment and move on?

No one can downvote posts. Only comments can be downvoted, and then only if you have enough points.

> Edit: WOW that was quick, but fair. You're entitled to your opinion.

I also can't downvote replies to my own comments, so I hope that wasn't directed at me.

> No one can downvote posts. Only comments can be downvoted, and then only if you have enough points.

I don't see this as an issue because posts fall off the front page quickly. Using the flagging feature as a form of downvoting seems, to me, as an inappropriate equivalent because flagging acts more like a super downvote and is more intended for notifying of posts that need to be removed because they violate rules in a certain way.

> I also can't downvote replies to my own comments, so I hope that wasn't directed at me.

Not directed at you (no one can downvote replies). It was just funny that less than a minute after posting I got a downvote. I had a good laugh and this was more intended as funny and not an attack on anyone. Sorry if it came off differently.

I don't want to be the preacher yelling that nothing is new under the sun, but I feel like I'm reading an article written by somebody who doesn't know what a boycott is. I feel like the only major difference is that boycotts were traditionally supported by voting blocs, but these "cancellations" seem to cross party lines. Otherwise, though, isn't this the same sort of outrage that folks had had last century when African-Americans chose en masse to not spend money at establishments whose management they found to be acting offensively?

That's a good point, what's the difference between cancel culture and boycotts? Does anyone know whether there is one?

Cancel culture typically targets individuals with the goal of removing their ability to participate in open society - sometimes that extends into calls for a person to lose their livelihood.

Boycotts target companies with the goal of driving policy change through commercial power.

I don't really think those two look very similar.

Can you elaborate on "participate in open society"? I'm not very familiar with cancel culture but AFAIK it's done against celebrities so people unfollow them or stop buying their products.

Increasingly, it's being done against normal people - mid-level or even low-level employees, contributors, members, participants, etc. - for things they've said or done in their personal time. See "Donglegate" [1] and "Opalgate" [2], for well-known examples.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is-classic-... [2] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

Oh, I see. Yeah, that's... Something else.

"Donglegate" happened at a professional conference. The PlayHaven employee represented his employer. Adria Richards didn't even contact PlayHaven. The article points out PlayHaven implied the PyCon incident wasn't the only reason they decided to fire the employee. Richards was also fired and 10 months later was still unemployed.[1] People in the community criticized how everyone handled the incident. PyCon changed its code of conduct to discourage "public shaming".[2]

"Opalgate" went nowhere. Elia Schito kept his position and still mentions it in his Twitter profile.[3]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/21/internet-...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5415256

[3] https://twitter.com/elia

I would say that, generally, boycotts have been organized against specific companies or groups that are well understood to have clearly and undeniably done something wrong, whereas a lot of these "cancel" storms, often started by rumors and or heresay, build up so quickly that there is not a chance for examination, no time to question whether the "cancellation" is deserved.

Hm, true, this "witch hunt" mentality seems to be common in internet "activism".

"Witch hunt" and "bullying" are words that closely describe the mob rule mentality. The simple truth is that most people have no problem supporting bullies. It's the rare exception that people stand up against bullies, as needs to be done to avoid toxic exclusionary tactics and "rule by the bully". We now witness the lack of bully immunity in the population, and its dire consequences, caused by the accellerations from "social" media.

Boycotting is an economic mechanism, "cancelling" is a social one. It's not just not buying things associated with a person, it's completely shunning them.

Another issue is that organizing a boycott took enough effort that it took conviction about the reason. With cancelling it's dogpile at the drop of a hat, leading to the thread of cancelling is leading to a stifling of speech.

The mechanism underlying boycotts and shunning is the exercise of free relations. The thing which takes boycotts and shunning from individual water droplets to a flood is public conversation, whether over the web or elsewhere.

I am not talking about shunning in the sense of social disconnection, and neither is the article. First, let's note that, for companies in particular, there is no way to cancel them other than to not purchase goods and services from them, since the typical company cannot be bought out and dissolved the hard way.

So, who are the public figures that the article wants to talk about? When we actually dig in, we find a few journalists who were fired for various causes. Did the public cause them to be fired? No, their employers caused them to be fired. Does the public owe them employment protection? No, their union owes them employment protection; we the public owe them tax-funded unemployment benefits.

The fact is that jobs are so important in this country because we have next to no social safety nets and we have institutionalized a lack of empathy and a desire to see the weak struggle and perish. As a result, when somebody's job is threatened, their very life is threatened. Should we endorse this sort of histrionic mania, or should we fix our society so that people are not starving if they do not report to some corporate overlord?

And once we've taken this massive step back, then by what measure should we punish corporations who unfairly punish their employees? Well, by not purchasing their goods and services! So we are indeed back at the concept of boycotts.

Please do not confuse any of this with actual shunning, as practiced today mostly by religious cults. If a public figure finds themselves suddenly without as much of an audience as they expected, then that is not at all comparable to a private person finding themselves bereft of their closest and most intimate relationships.

> Boycotting is an economic mechanism, "cancelling" is a social one. It's not just not buying things associated with a person, it's completely shunning them.

You could characterize the Industrial Age by saying that it was the time where the primary way people interacted was by making and buying physical goods. Boycotting severs that connection.

In the Information Age, the primary way people interact is by making, sharing and consuming information. Cancel culture—deplatforming people and organizations on social media—severs that connection.

In some ways, it's the same act, just translated to the currency of the time.

Common morality-in the form of shame, outrage, and stigma-has always been society's first line of defense against ethical transgressions. What's new about cancel culture is that it inverts the power hierarchy. Instead of top-down command and control of moral hegemony, new groups have found the means to exercise their value systems. The social media provides unprecedented access to manipulate the value system and mores of a society which was previously only available to the ruling class.

In a democratic society, in the end might makes right. So if 70% of the population want to apply boycotts or cancel culture to 15%, the only protection the 15% will get is whatever is afforded them by constitutional norms that the courts choose to enforce.

If it's more like 40% trying to cancel a different 40% then it's more like a cold civil war than like democracy.

The Harpers' letter tells me it's not even 40% pushing cancel culture, but maybe more like 15% trying to cancel some 40%. Once the folks in the middle feel threatened enough to make cause with the targets, the 15% will have to back off.

The politico article links this, to their credit: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/fact-check-trump-can...

“the practice of withdrawing support for (or canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive."

Imagine unironically arguing that public figures and companies should be actively supported despite doing objectionable and offensive things.

Imagine not understanding that there may be some disagreement about whether something 'considered objectionable or offensive' is truly objectionable or offensive, having problems with shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to canceling people, or believing there may be some gray area in anything in the world.

Look, we can do this back and forth all day unless we all agree there is nuance to anything - including cancel culture. There are great applications of free association (the benign aspect of cancel culture) and there are poor mob justice applications of cancel culture. Let's not pretend the issue is black and white.

Or in other words on one end of the spectrum you have moral progress and on the other end you have witchhunts/mccarthyism/moral panic.

> Imagine not understanding that there may be some disagreement about whether something 'considered objectionable or offensive' is truly objectionable or offensive

And this is really the crux of the issue. If I find what you have done to be objectionable or offensive, it shouldn't matter that there is debate about what society at large considers objectionable or offensive, you have lost my personal support. If lots of people also consider it objectionable or offensive, and they all subsequently withdraw their support, that's how things are supposed to work. You don't get to decide what other people get offended by, nor do you get to decide how long it should take them to get offended by it. If my support is valuable to you then you shouldn't do those things which I say offend me for fear of losing my support. If you don't value my support, then you are free to ignore my cancelling of said support. This is what it means to live in a free market of ideas.

Let's not pretend that this issue is some complicated and nuanced situation. There have always been weirdos out there who get vocally offended by dumb things - maybe you pissed off a bunch of flat earthers by having a globe in your profile pic - and nobody cared. The reason people are concerned about cancel culture is that they recognize that some of the things they have said or done or plan to do could legitimately be considered objectionable and offensive by a significant number of people, and rather than choosing to address their own behavior they instead choose whine about how unfair it is that people don't unconditionally support them.

>> whine about how unfair it is that people don't unconditionally support them...

There's a difference between 'not unconditionally supporting' someone who offends you and, mob-handed, hounding that person, their associates, their employers in an attempt to have them ostracised, sacked and their life ruined.

Imagine you went into a McDonalds and the cashier called you a racial slur. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to tell people that this happened and why it offended you. I think it would be quite reasonable if other people agreed that such behavior was unsupportable. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to request that McDonalds take measures so this sort of thing doesn't happen again. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for others who are also appalled that this happened to do the same. I think it would be quite reasonable to stop frequenting McDonalds if they instead did nothing. I think it would be quite reasonable for McDonalds to make the requested changes for the sake of not losing those paying customers.

Now let us consider the reverse. Would it be reasonable to say that you shouldn't tell anyone this happened to you? Would it be reasonable to say no one else should be able to form an opinion on this? Would it be reasonable to forbid you from asking McDonalds for any sort of change to address the issue? Would it be reasonable to force you to continue frequenting that McDonalds if it didn't? Would it be reasonable to forbid McDonalds from firing their employee for a decision they had made which McDonalds considers to be wrong?

No, there is no middle ground between forcing people to support things and them being free not to support things; it's a boolean situation. Cancel culture is merely a large number of people deciding to excersize that freedom to not support things.

Sure should a situation move beyond people just complaining on twitter - perhaps people start doxxing or inciting violence - then that is unacceptable. But that's not what we are talking about here. If you have the freedom to say what you wish, they have the freedom to denounce you for what you say. If you can't take it, you shouldn't dish it out to begin with.

> Cancel culture is merely a large number of people deciding to excersize that freedom to not support things.

No, Cancel Culture is the deliberate attempt to destroy people who disagree. "Not supporting" would be an avoidance of the person or business. You don't give them any of your money.

That is the middle ground, by the way, and like nearly all the rest of real life it isn't a binary situation. Actively tearing down someone's life is not the same as "not supporting" them. Unless one lives in some sort of philosophical bubble where one's actions must always have the approval of the group or else be prevented, non-support is simply lack of encouragement.

What we're really talking about is intolerance. Now we have something to sink our teeth into. Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance" is that in a tolerant society, there would necessarily be some intolerance. The primary thing to oppose? We must not tolerate attacking people whose ideas differ from ours. After that, I think we can come to some agreements on what social behaviors cannot be tolerated (violence, racism, theft...).

There's one other thing missing from this whole notion of cancelling. No one is ever actually allowed to change their ways and gain forgiveness. It provides no room for mercy or growth. It only hands out condemnation, replacing one set of unreasonable biases with a different set.

We can do better than that.

I remember an article about how the knitting community got "into a purity spiral". I don't think criticism can be brushed away like you try to do. I wouldn't want to cancel you, even if I think your position is objectionable.

If you say and do things you are proud to say and do, then it is easy to brush off criticism. If a community goes into a purity spiral and deems something I'm proud of to be wrong, they're doing me a favor expelling me as I want no part in it. Again, consider the flat earthers - their criticism means nothing to me because I am proud of supporting science, and I will continue to support science regardless of any consequences.

Criticism only stings when it is valid. If you say or do things you're not proud of, and someone calls you out on it, you can't simply ignore it, you have to address it, and that may be uncomfortable if not downright painful. However it is not the fault of the party laying valid criticism that you feel uncomfortable. You did something you are not proud of, and this is merely the consequence of it.

If you have a problem with my position, I strongly encourage you to tell my that it's hurt you, tell me why, and suggest how I should behave differently. This goes for both the person I'm replying to and anyone else who might read this. Assuming you're a reasonable person, I do not wish to make you feel uncomfortable, and if I have I would like to change my ways so I won't do it in the future. If you simply assume I'm an asshole and say nothing, then I will have no opportunity to rectify the situation, and I will go on just being, at least in your eyes, an asshole. Now if your objections are dumb, I may very well ignore them and continue being what you view as an asshole, but in that case I will be doing so with pride, and you too can continue to hold your position with pride.

A system where everyone expresses their minds and we all bear the consequences of our actions is much better than one where we bite our tongues and hope that everyone else does as well.

Hmm. If anyone thinks the definition of "objectionable and offensive" is clearly-cut, I invite them to read the tweet linked below and figure out why the author got fired:

https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1265998625836019712

Cancel culture isn’t a recent trend - there are entire websites dedicated to cancel culture on college campuses, such as https://www.thecollegefix.com/. Free thought, free inquiry, and open debate are under attack from those that want only their worldview to prevail. It is a direct threat to a free society and much has been written about it recently from Quillette (https://quillette.com/2020/07/01/on-steve-hsu-and-the-campai...) and Harper’s (https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/) and others. It's become so extreme, that there are now even people trying to cancel Steven Pinker, famed author of bestseller books like "The Better Angels of our Nature" (https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/the-forehead-slapping...).

I’m not sure how to fight back except to create direct consequences for those pursuing cancellation. Perhaps we need to shame and demand the firing of everyone who signs such letters (those who demand censorship and cancellation of others).

Young people have different views from their parents and grand-parents, new at 11.

Cancel culture is just the stupid name given to the eternal "kids these days" complaint. Old people get pissed off when young kids discover and begin leveraging their political capabilities. This really isn't very different from complaints about rock & roll, hippies, or any other previous instances of young people using their economic influence to shape the views of society. Elvis shaking his hips on TV seems so quaint today, but lots of middle-aged and older people of the era found that highly offensive.

I'm getting to the age where I'm about to flip into the old man category here. But for now, I'm happy to see that young people aren't going to let assholes push them around and are fighting back with the tools they have available to them. There are loads of teenage girls out there who are half my size with twice the courage.

Yes, getting a Mexican-American fired for unknowingly making a hand gesture is just "kids these days". It's so simple! (https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove...)

From my understanding this specific gesture was turned white supremacist through 4chan's efforts to turn mundane and everyday things into hate symbols "because it'll be funny." [0]. It should be noted that this is more than just the okay symbol and they are trying to co-opt everything until everything is meaningless [1][2][3][4][5][I could go on, seriously]. They literally see this guy getting fired as a success because now people are using hate symbols and don't know it.

> DON'T FEED THE TROLL

[0] (ok) https://mashable.com/article/ok-hand-gesture-hate-symbol-ant...

[1] (LGBT flag) https://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/f1g3m1/anon_creates_...

[2] (#) https://www.rt.com/news/460490-4chan-hashtag-symbol-nazism/

[3] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-okay-to-be-white

[4] (milk) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/white-supremacists-sci...

[5] (larger list showing co-option of several symbols) https://www.wired.com/2017/05/alt-rights-newest-ploy-trollin...

I think this is a different issue. It is more of an attack on some fundamental principles. Like, even if some older people in the 70's thought hippies and beatniks were lazy no-goods, the fundamentals - free speech, the right to protest and disagree - protected everyone. I think the worry today is that the next beatnik kid is too scared to say anything outside the status quo.

Personally I feel like the traditional defenders of liberalism have gotten too limp dick and internet-unsavvy. Ultimately I hope that as internet-native people age and mature they will realize the importance of the loftier philosophical ideals required to make progress actually happen.

> Young people have different views from their parents and grand-parents, new at 11.

The expression is "film at 11." It dates from when TV stations used film cameras, and would find themselves in situations where they could report some news hours before the footage of it was ready to be shown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_at_11

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