Cancellations

[john eden]

What happens to the people who get fired? Is losing the one job enough and they can just go and get another, or should they be hounded out of each subsequent one too?

Depends what they have done and how contrite and reflective they are. Not sure I’d want an unrepentant nonce or neo-Nazi working with me.

 

[version]

which people - people who are racist tweeters?

Yeah, and anyone else who gets fired and cancelled.

 

[sufi]

Don’t really work for the self-employed, zero hours contracts etc.

but pretending that you can just get sacked for thought crime or saying the wrong thing is not actually true

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's about harnessingthe masses

I become deeply suspicious any time anyone starts saying things like "harnessing the masses"

whatever good it may or not may not do, cancel culture potentially and sometimes actively has all the normal problems of mob action

but at least it has the benefit of individuals nominally deciding for themselves what to cancel - subject to manipulation etc, but nonetheless

but harnessing the masses is vanguardism, pure and simple

 

[sufi]

Yeah, and anyone else who gets fired and cancelled.

they probably deserved it, unless they didnt, in which case they didnt get fired or cancelled?
or is there some sort of cancellation stictch up i'm unaware of

 

[sufi]

I become deeply suspicious any time anyone starts saying things like "harnessing the masses"

whatever good it may or not may not do, cancel culture potentially and sometimes actively has all the normal problems of mob action

but at least it has the benefit of individuals nominally deciding for themselves what to cancel - subject to manipulation etc, but nonetheless

but harnessing the masses is vanguardism, pure and simple

yeah but that's pre-internet thinkng, with the greatest respect dear p

 

[sufi]

yeah but that's pre-internet thinkng, with the greatest respect dear p

these days us masses are harnessed whether we like it or not

 

[linebaugh]

just gonna put my comment her again bc Im interested in your response Sufi and it might have gotten buried. No aggression intended.

Social media isnt invalid though, even if its crap. I'm thinking of artists. A huge artist can get sensationally 'cancelled' online and they will be just fine. See Doja Cat from just last month. But now if your an up an coming artist and its revealed that, essentially, you've spent time on chat rooms other than Twitter the subsequent cancellation could completely ruin you. I've had a couple friends who have been driven out of artistic communities, real life communities, on extremely dubious grounds for no reason other than the reactionary, piling-on to cancel culture

 

[Mr. Tea]

Perhaps if you only follow the sensationalised accounts of sackings due to social media that you read in the press, which are generally the most ludicrous and exceptional cases, then you may get a somewhat skewed perspective
https://www.ier.org.uk/product/social-media-and-law/ £4 well spent if it stops you talking bollocks tea

I didn't say they were common but they do happen, especially in America, as you now appear to be admitting is the case, yes?

 

[luka]

i love you Sufi, and you've usually got good judgement but you're on your own with this one. Can't back you up! Sorry! No hard feelings. I'm leaving you to stand alone against the savage mob.

 

[Mr. Tea]

you cite these totemic alt-right issues so readily, it's almost as if....

Well you are, of course, free to interpret what I've said however you like.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

they probably deserved it, unless they didnt, in which case they didnt get fired or cancelled?

this is absolute nonsense

it's exactly the line of reasoning right-wing law + order types (and leftist authoritarians) use all the time to justify repression

"if you didn't break the law/perform counterrevolutionary action/thought-crime you don't have anything to worry about"

as if ostracization is always fairly and correctly applied

 

[version]

they probably deserved it, unless they didnt, in which case they didnt get fired or cancelled?
or is there some sort of cancellation stictch up i'm unaware of

Maybe they did, but they don't just die the moment they're cancelled. What happens to their families, dependents etc if they have them? Should they be forced onto welfare?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Strikes me as odd that an argument against people losing their jobs without proper recourse to some kind of legal defence should be "right wing", but there you go.

 

[Mr. Tea]

They were trying to get Simon Reynolds cancelled just last week weren't they!

Probably just jealous of his massive, swinging... well, you know...

 

[sufi]

I didn't say they were common but they do happen, especially in America, as you now appear to be admitting is the case, yes?

yes your honour, but i'm less interested in the ludicrous exceptions than the core phenomeon whch has achieved some notable victories (as i mentioned er at the start of the thread).
Generally you'll find that if you follow the cases they turn out to be less ridiculous than you'd like them to be - like the guy who lost his job for tweeting a joke about bombs in the airport

 

[john eden]

Maybe they did, but they don't just die the moment they're cancelled. What happens to their families, dependents etc if they have them? Should they be forced onto welfare?

Do you have someone in particular in mind or is this a purely imaginary family on welfare?

Isn’t everyone on welfare “forced” onto it?

 

[linebaugh]

Cancel culture is definitely wielded by pockets of the left to circumvent the use of reasoning against dissenting opinions, primarily inter-left opinions. Anything called racist does not need to be explained. Heres a relevant meme:

This isn't explicitly targeted at cancel culture, but the same mechanism is at play.

You could say, 'well you shouldnt be in those circles', but at least in America, that's understating just how pervasive this attitude is in lefty circles. Saying you shouldn't buy into the sensationalized crap is essentially saying that the left should just be abandoned.

 

[version]

Do you have someone in particular in mind or is this a purely imaginary family on welfare?

Isn’t everyone on welfare “forced” onto it?

It's a hypothetical. And yeah, they are, but I dunno whether that's a great argument for forcing more people onto it.

 

[sufi]

just gonna put my comment her again bc Im interested in your response Sufi and it might have gotten buried. No aggression intended.

Social media isnt invalid though, even if its crap. I'm thinking of artists. A huge artist can get sensationally 'cancelled' online and they will be just fine. See Doja Cat from just last month. But now if your an up an coming artist and its revealed that, essentially, you've spent time on chat rooms other than Twitter the subsequent cancellation could completely ruin you. I've had a couple friends who have been driven out of artistic communities, real life communities, on extremely dubious grounds for no reason other than the reactionary, piling-on to cancel culture

Yes i think that sounds bad, and there must be borderline cases, but i'm surprised how everyone is subscribing to this old fashioned notion that the masses are stupid and malleable, i don't think that's the case any more, and that's why i don't think vanguardism comes into it