Cancel Culture

Wow I came back a little late, but I do see a consensus that cancel culture, in the extreme end, is not productive or beneficial, which is kinda what I was getting at. It's not so much the idea behind cancel culture, because some "cancels" I do think hold some water, like the Projared incident as it was pretty damning before he came back with "receipts" as he put it. Rather it's the execution that I take issue with when it's in the extreme end.

Never heard of it till now, but I think I might have been a victim of it once. A small group misinterpreted something enough to actively distance themselves from me. Silly thing is they were all missing important information which would have flipped their position entirely... so it sounds a bit like a variant of bullying, but I guess it depends on the details and domain of action.

It's not so much distancing, or at least not the variant I'm referring to. Distancing is more like the Kapernick/Nike controversy, where people said they would stop buying it. I'm sure some people went too far, and that's what I am referring to. IMHO, no matter how much you dislike something or someone, that does not justify harassing them and/or spreading false information just to spite them/it. If someone has an opposing view, and you aren't willing to listen to them, or even just let others, then just ignore them. Trying to "cancel" someone you don't agree with politically, morally, etc. doesn't help free speech. It limits it, and the more restraints you place just provide more points of tension.

Yep, though both can happen and work together for mutual effect. At its simplist it might just be a tit for tat type of distortion of context to leverage distance to shift it clearly into the out group so the in group can act more cohesively in its attack. The whole only Sith deal with absolutes thing, being the construction of a false dichotomy to exxagerrate the divide by misrepresenting stuff in the most easy to grasp manner, so ppl can get on board with a prepackaged narrative as an intro vector of attack..... for the devil is always the detail, and no one really has time or details hardly!

I'll agree with that

The subtle dark side to this call-out culture, is that objectivity is nearly impossible. Here is the way I see it going:

1. The person(s) participating in call-out culture always feels their actions are justified and heroic. This immediately makes the person (or organization) being called-out a villain. I may agree that there are clear instances in which things are black and white, but usually, events are rarely so.

2. The people joining the cancel-culture-mob are usually oblivious to the various motivations influencing their decisions to participate (the fulfillment of being part of something, the joy of feeling heroic by taking action, the deliciousness of being vicious to a perceived enemy, etc.), which in turn makes their already incomplete and uninformed view even more polarized. This is even more evident in online social justice warrior types, who are keen in finding a windmill to charge towards.

3. The supposed villain gets "cancelled". Their options are then to either apologize publicly (even if they don't believe they were at fault), dissapear completely, or actually own their villain label, and push back.

Culture war ensues. Those who take sides see each other as enemies. Those who don't take sides, get called enablers or cowards.

An accurate summation. I couldn't explain it better myself.

Manu wrote: The subtle dark side to this call-out culture, is that objectivity is nearly impossible. Here is the way I see it going:

1. The person(s) participating in call-out culture always feels their actions are justified and heroic. This immediately makes the person (or organization) being called-out a villain. I may agree that there are clear instances in which things are black and white, but usually, events are rarely so.

2. The people joining the cancel-culture-mob are usually oblivious to the various motivations influencing their decisions to participate (the fulfillment of being part of something, the joy of feeling heroic by taking action, the deliciousness of being vicious to a perceived enemy, etc.), which in turn makes their already incomplete and uninformed view even more polarized. This is even more evident in online social justice warrior types, who are keen in finding a windmill to charge towards.

3. The supposed villain gets "cancelled". Their options are then to either apologize publicly (even if they don't believe they were at fault), dissapear completely, or actually own their villain label, and push back.

Culture war ensues. Those who take sides see each other as enemies. Those who don't take sides, get called enablers or cowards.

Solid explanation. Admittedly, I hate the negative connotation to the SJW title. There are too many situations where a deficit of social justice is present, and after becoming aware of that prevalence and educating myself even just a LITTLE bit more, I believe we need people with the knowledge base and experience and attitude to step up and lead the fight for change towards equality and understanding. I guess the alternative to cancel culture then would me compromise culture? What are some steps we can take to promote and spread a constructive response to cancel culture?

Personally, I wish schools would take a stab at introducing topics like ethics and philosophy into curriculum, even if they were electives or after school discussion groups. Education, I think, is the key towards social and political success or failure. I know a lot of people that couldn't make their way through math and science to save their lives, but they are fountains of understanding and wisdom that would probably have benefitted greatly from resources like that.

Thoughts?

Tmattos93 wrote: Personally, I wish schools would take a stab at introducing topics like ethics and philosophy into curriculum, even if they were electives or after school discussion groups. Education, I think, is the key towards social and political success or failure. I know a lot of people that couldn't make their way through math and science to save their lives, but they are fountains of understanding and wisdom that would probably have benefitted greatly from resources like that.

Thoughts?

I 100% agree with this. At the level I teach at (grades 9-12) we do have a few electives that touch on these topics. There however comes several issues with it in practice.

1. In the public school system, whose views on this get taught, staying objective is very difficult. Even when using multiple sources and ways of explaining, it does not necessitate correctness. And as a teacher I can tell you it is easy to fall into your own biases.

2. Is the public school system able to decipher ethics? This is one of the reasons I focus on History as a topic a lot, because if taught properly it provides real case studies of applied ethics and actions (both successes and failures). Each situation though can be viewed from many different perspectives and come to different conclusions( as it should be in IMHO) but how do you tie that up into a lesson.

3. Parents. I hate bringing this one up but it happens all the time. If you try to teach an objective ethical message, you will have people that disagree. I make it a point to let kids know it is fine to disagree with me, in fact I welcome it. I want you to challenge my conclusions but you cannot change facts and just because "I said so" is not an acceptable argument. However, when a parent goes to administrators (even when the admins support your view) they will make you fold the lesson because they live in fear of action against them.

4.There are things you are literally not allowed to talk about.

This is just a few issues I have personally seen with trying to teach ethics. I would love, I mean love, to see more classes on logic (seriously like the college logic course I took). I also share the opinion with some people that we should teach kids chess or poker or some form of strategy game that requires fore-thought before action. After all that's just logic+action+consequence, repeat until the games are over.

These are issues yes, are they impossible to overcome? No, you can but doing it at the moment is walking a fine line, one the union and support will not walk with you. So, until we get to a point where we are talking about things again and looking at critical information in depth instead of altering facts (yes this is happening by way of omission) it is tricky and not an exact science (which ethics is not anyway IMHO).

Just some thoughts,
Much Love,
Kobos

Compromise culture definitely seems more rational. I think part of the solution is just listening. Look at the guy who LITERALLY converted KKK members. He didn't do it through destruction, harassing, or assault. He did it by listening and, to quote my manager, "thought with his head and not his ass". He presented the flaws in their way of thinking. That's the very basis of why cancel culture doesn't work, or at least in the way it's currently being used. Throwing a tantrum, harassing businesses, and, in the worst cases, destroying property isn't productive and just makes the cause look bad. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Also I think the reason SJWs have a bad reputation for this "them vs us" mentality.

For example, there was this one person I went to school with who LITERALLY SAID you can't racist towards white people because they are on top of the power system. Off topic, but I'll bring it back. That mindset, the mindset being taking a moral superiority and virtue signaling is, from my guess, the basis of SJW criticism. It just looks like they're waving their metaphorical d**k in everyone's faces and stating that their opinion is the only one that's right. At least that's my perspective. Thoughts?