Author Topic: The Progressive Thread!  (Read 8546 times)

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Offline Black Dog

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Re: The Progressive Thread!
« Reply #330 on: February 22, 2021, 10:38:17 am »
I totally think we could come up with a definition...

Being booted off Twitter is not cancel culture

Having people not buy your albums is not cancel culture, however, being threatened is.

Not having a contract renewed because a company thinks it’ll lose money is not cancel culture.

Preventing people from seeing someone speak (non-hate speech) in public, or disrupting the speaker who has a right to speak and be heard is cancel culture. 

Accusing Petersen, Sam Harris, Rowling or that pompous bag-o-crap Ben Shapiro of hate speech and trying to prevent them from speaking is cancel culture.

Can we start there?  Do you agree with my list?

To the bolded, I see a profound difference between accusing someone of hate speech and physically preventing them from speaking and to blur the line between the two is itself a threat to free speech.

Also you tacitly acknowledge there are circumstances in which it is acceptable to prevent someone from speaking or take away their platforms, so how do you determine when that is ok and when it is not?

One thing proponents of the "cancel culture" narrative tend to elide is the drastic power imbalances that actually determine who has a voice or not. It's ridiculous to claim college students protesting some rich bigot's speaking engagement or the Twitter crowd roasting a sinecured moron's opinion piece in a major newspaper is a drastic threat to free speech and liberal values while ignoring-as most of these boneheads do-ongoing attacks on the free press by corporate interests or even the police. This omission, more than anything else, makes it clear that this narrative is not about protecting liberal values or free speech, but insulating the privileged and powerful from consequences in a time where anyone with a smartphone can call a sitting US senator a dipshit.


« Last Edit: February 22, 2021, 10:47:49 am by Black Dog »