Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[LuckyR]

Sorry, but to me this is much ado about not much. Folks who profit from social media do something that their audience doesn't like so the gravy train gets cut off. Who cares? It's poetic justice. No one has a "right" to social media popularity and compensation.

I think you've missed the mark in a couple ways. It's not just about social media and people profiting from their opinions. Those types could almost be considered fair game. This goes back to book burnings and McCarthy-ism through riots from the 60's to last year, and I'm sure it goes even further back. Anyone can be 'cancelled' for having a view that the people doing the cancelling don't like.

It's not their own audience that tends to go after the target, but the other side. People at all levels of society get 'cancelled' because they said or did something, often unintentionally, in opposition to someone else's hot button issue. There is often no legitimate outrage at the actual comment or action that sparks the cancel. Rather, they lurk and wait for a mistake which can be exploited to take out their target. It's not about the terrible thing you've said or done, but about an opportunity for your opponents to silence you, or frighten others with similar opinions from speaking out.

Who cares? People who value free speech, and I would think philosophers are near the top of that list. Don't you see the importance of being able to consider controversial and difficult ideas from all sides? When one off-handed comment can be taken out of context to destroy someone, then everyone is less likely to even address difficult topics, and problems can't be solved because they can't even be considered.

This argument confuses dissent with punishment. The victims of cancel culture are generally not powerful people. They are often vulnerable people who suffer devastating harm. A previous post discussed an African American school security guard who was fired for using the N-word in the course of telling a student not to direct that word at him. (Thankfully, he was eventually re-hired after a national furor erupted.) The same post discussed a teacher who was fired for inadvertently failing to address a student by his self-identified gender pronoun. The security guard and the teacher each have four children to support and lost their health insurance as well as their income when they were fired. They are hardly examples of the rich and powerful.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstm ... 93258e63f4

If I display an opinion at the water cooler in my office and 3 coworkers change their opinion of me, I have been "cancelled" but only within the confines of the office. That has been the case since speech was invented, that's called "normal" and expected. If one of the three people put the conversation online without video nor a posting by me, it will go nowhere (see above). OTOH if I upload a braggy video of me doing the same thing, it could possibly go viral and the situation might qualify as a "cancel". If you use a bullhorn, guess what, more folks hear about it, the repercussions are going to be magnified.

As to your examples, is the firing the fault of anonymous internet trolls or the school board? Trying to get social media back in the bottle is a fool's errand, the security guard and more importantly the school board need to put anonymous web chatter in it's proper place, which is: real yet ultimately unimportant.

Face it, group opinions got a label when the traditionally victimized used their numerical power to hit the traditionally powerful successfully. Not unlike when the label "Reverse Discrimination" was invented in response to Affirmative Action.

[LuckyR]

And you believe that is an example of cancel culture, and not justified action?

Of course. No one should have a show canceled just because of something they say on twitter--it could be anything imaginable. That's a ridiculous overreaction.

Your comment would true in other contexts such as being kicked out of school, where the administration doesn't have the power to arbitrarily "cancel" someone. Television producers OTOH, routinely cancel shows based specifically on their public popularity, which is the exact situation in this example.

Would it matter to you if there wasn't a social media outcry and the producers made the identical decision on their own?

[Pattern-chaser]

The point is that this internet mob violence only works on the weak.

Ah. To me, this is the only strong argument against cancel culture that I've seen so far. Hmmm.

[Sculptor1]

I do not think that this fits with some examples of cancel culture where there is a concerted effort to fight a cyber war to destory an idea or a person.
Cambridge Analytica are good at such things. Call it rent a mob.

In my opinion, the actions of corporations paid to simulate or instigate grass roots reactions on behalf of their clients, simulate cancel culture, but aren't technically an example of it.

I think you are missing a trick here.
Such a thing as "cancel culture" is something of a phantom summoned up by the observation of a range of phenomena. No one actually ascribes to it, and no one directly identifies with it. In that sense generalised examples which lead to people being traduced unplatformed, and cancelled can all be examples of it.
Racism is such a thing too. We see examples individual, cultural, endemic and even legal and systemic examples. Few, though, would actually own the term and it is purely negative.
But if we want to call attention to it, all examples much be considered since each of the categories I have listed lead into and feed each other. Racism exists. To what degree any such thing might be justified or to what extreme degree people go to, to combat it is a matter of opinion.

Now in the case of CC, we have people such as student unions decided to "unplatform" people based on their racism and so on. They have every right to do so since no one is under any obligation to offer platforms to people they disapprove of. They is really no basis upon which to criticise such actions. Then, surely, everyone has the right to block individuals on Facebook? Does Cambridge Analytica have the right to collect and distribute disinformation about a political party?

[baker]

I disagree.

As do many other people, obviously.
/.../
No one is disputing that it was legally above board.

We don't know the details. Perhaps a person has a history of problematic behavior, but it was kept secret by the stakeholders, and only the final straw eventually made it into the public. This is what I would consider before saying that someone "overreacted".

When people behave in a scandalous manner, this is not rarely part of a long-standing pattern, not an isolated incident.

[Terrapin Station]

Of course. No one should have a show canceled just because of something they say on twitter--it could be anything imaginable. That's a ridiculous overreaction.

Your comment would true in other contexts such as being kicked out of school, where the administration doesn't have the power to arbitrarily "cancel" someone. Television producers OTOH, routinely cancel shows based specifically on their public popularity, which is the exact situation in this example.

Would it matter to you if there wasn't a social media outcry and the producers made the identical decision on their own?

Again, the issue isn't whether this is legally permissible at the moment, whether it's a norm, etc. It's not as if I'd agree with something just because it's legal, just because it's a norm, or whatever.

Rather in my opinion, this is an example of a ridiculous overreaction, it's an example of something I consider immoral, and yes, that would still be the case if the producers made the decision on their own with no consideration of general public reaction/opinion (not that they'd do that, they just care about the monetary situation, but just hypothetically . . . )

[Terrapin Station]

As do many other people, obviously.
/.../
No one is disputing that it was legally above board.

We don't know the details. Perhaps a person has a history of problematic behavior, but it was kept secret by the stakeholders, and only the final straw eventually made it into the public. This is what I would consider before saying that someone "overreacted".

When people behave in a scandalous manner, this is not rarely part of a long-standing pattern, not an isolated incident.

Again, no speech (include "habits" of it) would justify this sort of thing in my view.

[baker]

Absolutely their exposure and convictions are the positive part of things such as the Me Too movement. However, OJ Simpson walked, and so have many other powerful people. Whenever there are actual consequences that are brought about by things like this, it is often the rich, powerful, and famous that have the best chance of escaping these consequences. Not that only people who are powerful are bad, and many people who do not have any useful social status are also bad persons, however there is a clear disparity in consequences. You're still gonna buy an IPhone, but some girl got kicked out of college for saying the n word with a soft a when she was 15.

That clear disparity in consequences is at least in part due to people not having control over how the public will respond. Unless the publication of some problematic material is strategically timed.

It's imaginable that publishing some problematic material will have less impact when it's done soon after other problematic material has been published -- and the public has already run out of steam for the time being. Or else, some news can be made to seem more scandalous because they were published at a time when other news of the same kind (but worse) were published. There's a whole science to "managing" public opinion.

[baker]

Again, no speech (include "habits" of it) would justify this sort of thing in my view.

Like I said, the publicized incident could just be one (minor) one in a long history of verbal and physical incidents of which the public doesn't have much knowledge.
Sometimes in scandals involving celebrities such a long history of verbal and physical incidents eventually becomes known. Sometimes, the celebrity themselves eventually gives a tell-all interview, and then things start to make sense in hindsight.

What can be held against the producers of films, shows etc. is when they hire a celebrity for whom they know was trouble, and then eventually fire them for that same trouble.

[Terrapin Station]

Again, no speech (include "habits" of it) would justify this sort of thing in my view.

Like I said, the publicized incident could just be one (minor) one in a long history of verbal and physical incidents of which the public doesn't have much knowledge.
Sometimes in scandals involving celebrities such a long history of verbal and physical incidents eventually becomes known. Sometimes, the celebrity themselves eventually gives a tell-all interview, and then things start to make sense in hindsight.

What can be held against the producers of films, shows etc. is when they hire a celebrity for whom they know was trouble, and then eventually fire them for that same trouble.

But then anything could be anything that we don't know about and we couldn't talk about anything, could we?

[Terrapin Station]

(including for example when you asked about Cosby and Weinstein). The truth could be anything that wasn't disclosed to us--we weren't there, and we couldn't say anything about it, right? Otherwise, why wouldn't that be the case for some scenarios, but it would be the case for this one?

[baker]

But then anything could be anything that we don't know about and we couldn't talk about anything, could we?

Such is the predicament of the prospective gossiper.

[baker]

Interestingly enough, the government officials involved in an investigation aren't supposed to comment on an ongoing investigation. But John Q. Public can.

What I see as the bigger problem in terms of cancel culture and related topics is that we're living in a society where there is a distinct pressure to have an opinion on all kinds of things, most of which are such that the majority of people simply do not and can not have sufficient information about them, simply because that information is privileged, private (and not because people would be too lazy to obtain it). The person who refuses to form opinions based on what they consider not enough information then faces some measure of social ostracism (from being considered lazy, to shy, to having a dark agenda).

It's an example of the plebeification of knowledge. People went to school where they were told to "think criticially". And then they do so -- in an utterly plebeian manner. The public opinion now isn't just gossip anymore, it's gossip on steroids, doubly so: for one, because of the power of social media, and for two, because it's bolstered with notions of "critical thinking".

[baker]

Outside of internet forums, what's the use of considering controversial and difficult ideas from all sides?
I'm asking this seriously.

At some point in our history, it was not controversial to beat your wife, to own slaves, to conquer and exploit 'uncivilized' civilizations, to cast aside people for their sexual preferences or race or age or whatever. At some point, it was a controversial idea to consider that these were not just ways to live, and that we needed to change the way we were doing business. Of course, we still have lots of problems we should address, and enforcing silence is not a good way to make progress. If your own ideas are truly just, then they should be able to survive scrutiny and open conversation.

Your ideas might survive, but you might not.

[Count Lucanor]

That's part of one of my largest critiques of any sort of mob-violence system like this, it always turns its vengeful destruction into a cycle, that ends up turning inwards. I also connect Nietszche's ideas in the genealogy of morals to this, in that the ethics of cancel culture are born out of a hatred of the strong. The weak turn hateful and create "morals" to destroy what the strong knew was correct. Tangentially consider critical race theory. It boldly rejects the maxim that we should treat everyone based on the content of their hearts, and instead let someone's race and ethnic history be the main guiding force behind our cultural beliefs about what is right and wrong in situations that can be related to race (which no surprise is everything according to this theory). Cancel Culture and CRT go hand in hand, and these are the divisive tools that are wielded against our society. If these is some shadowy cabal pulling the strings on these things, they have done an excellent job at making a large portion of us throw away our moral common sense.

The weak vs the strong looks like a powerful image, but I differ. Can't be that simple and it most likely goes both ways. People that find themselves at the weak end of power relations will find cancel culture useful for striking back at their perceived oppressors, but there is also abuse of power, where the most vulnerable get cancelled for pure sadistic pleasure. Also, we might be talking about strength of character (perhaps closer to what Nietzsche had in mind), that not really goes hand in hand with political strength and administrative power, being very often the case that many powerful people are annoyingly pusillanimous. The administrators of the University of Tennessee in the Mimi Groves case are a perfect example of this. Facebook's groups are plagued with wimpy moderators.

And there's also the difference between individual strength and group strength: a set of weak individuals (either in character or in administrative power) might become a power force working united against a strong individual that might find themselves powerless, absent the hierarchical privileges. Think of Bret Weinstein and the student mob in the Evergreen State incident. But as the long history of cancel culture shows, it also works the other way around: think of the Assange case, McCarthyism, etc., where powerful people exercised their privileges to cancel individuals that one might consider of strong character.