There are some things we should be free to say, which we still ought to refrain from saying on moral grounds.

For example, "mRNA vaccines do more harm than good."

For another example, "Women ought to be submissive to their husbands."

For yet another example, "Andy should be fired because of Danielle's tweet."

That potential had already been actualized at the time of writing, since people had been publicly calling for the event to be canceled.

Is there some threshold the cancel culture warriors need to cross to count as "backlash" in your book? If so, that's fine, but we may well disagree.

I'm not sure why you'd think that those latter examples don't count in the minds of anyone participating here.

And who decides on what ought not to be said?

And if there is no consequences for "ought not" why shouldn't someone say the things you have decided shouldn't be said?

Doesn't get past your dishonest answer, as I said we can see you moving those goalposts.

"latter" is not precise - which ones?

1)Cancel a belligerent transphobe
2) cancel Disney
3) cancel books
4)follow through on violent threats

Which are the latter examples you are referring to?

:rolleyes:

What, you think it's bad form to assume your conclusion or something?

////

The last three.

Individual speakers have to decide for themselves. I'd encourage people to think twice before piling on to someone who is being publicly shamed, especially if all you have to go from is a tweet from a moral entrepreneur^WP such as the one in the OP.

The venue explained their reasons in this post. They don't say exactly where the public "outrage and concern" is coming from, but it does appear to be a major factor in their decision making process.

???

They don't say, but you assume the cause anyway, and then use your assumption as proof that what you assume was the cause actually was the cause. Yay, who could argue with such logic?


eta: damn but they point out over and over that it's crappy music, the "artist" couldn't sell tickets based on the music, the "artist" hadn't earned the right to play their small community stage, and the event doesn't matter anyway. If this is the best you can find to prove how awful CANCEL CULTURE is, I'm underwhelmed

You are now saying there is no ought not things to say.

I would hope that we'd both agree that it is wrong to make demonstrably false statements which foreseeably lead to physical harm, e.g. "Ivermectin is safer and more effective against coronaviruses than mRNA vaccines."

We may well disagree on the underlying metaethics, but we should agree on the idea that people should feel morally obligated not to say such things, even when the state refuses to sanction them.

These reasons all existed prior to the initial booking, except for the tickets bit which is impossible to know without surveying the ticket holders.

The only thing that obviously changed was the online outrage directed against the venue, characterized in some outlets as backlash.

But not in the one you claimed it did.

Are you certain that the online outrage was the only thing that changed? Are you even certain that there was a significant backlash? Yeah, we have articles claiming that Market Hotel claimed there was, but judging by your selection of milquetoast tweets, where we know you were picking the absolute worst of the worst that you could find to prove your point, I'm not seeing it.

It's just as likely that the venue who admitted to booking the show as a stunt then realized they could make a bigger name for themselves by cancelling because of unspecified feelings of unsafeness in "the community". You know, another stunt. And then, folks like you with an ax to grind just...uncritically took them at face value because 'of course this thing that you haven't been able to describe or find good examples of is this huge existing and existential problem, and if you both assume that it is a problem and that this is an example of it then you can use it to prove that it happens'...ya know, the whole assuming the conclusion you've been caught doing already?

...because I've read the thread?

People have variously argued that illegal actions are a different category, and that government actions are likewise not the phenomena under discussion.

It would not surprise me in the least if on searching back you specifically argued one or more of those points.

I'd say it's generally worthwhile to distinguish between problems which can be fixed by changing policy and problems which can really only be fixed by changing minds. The various (attempted) cancellations I've talked about fall into the second category, since there isn't a conceivable policy change anywhere near the Overton window which would prevent them from happening.

ETA: Cancelling Disney is classic conservative cancel culture, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that one before.

ETA2: Cancelling books (e.g. American Dirt) strikes me as a fine example of cancel culture as well.

I'd say my explanation is significantly more straightforward: Some people got upset and asked the venue to cancel the concert, and (after a bit of hemming and hawing) the venue capitulated to their demands.

Found this article which is describing online bullying but the person who wrote it called it 'Canceling'



https://www.msn.com/en-au/lifestyle/...hat/ar-AAYKJvc

If it is about online bullying what relevance does it have to the topic of this thread?

Is anyone surprised that you think your explanation, which requires your assumption to be true and then uses that presumed truth as evidence that it is true, is the correct one?

Be honest, had you heard of John Hinckley's "music" or the Market Hotel before the Market Hotel's stunt cancellation brought them to your attention?

What’s the problem here that you think needs to be fixed?

Why should anyone care if people are surprised? Here is what happened, step-by-step:

1. Venue sets up gig
2. Venue sells out gig
3. Venue pressured to cancel gig
4. Venue cancels gig

This is textbook cancel culture in action, even if the protagonist is singularly unsympathetic.

Ask the people who paid to see the concert.

Today was the last day of Reply All, a massively popular show which brought joy to many listeners until the cancel culture fair reckoning brought it down.

https://twitter.com/newsmanual/statu...76089962876928

The problem that needs fixing is that a concert was cancelled?

Concerts get cancelled all the time for a variety of reasons. How many concerts do you think were cancelled during the first two years of the pandemic? (Hint: A lot.) Most emotionally-healthy adults accept this minor disappointment and move on with their lives.

Why do you view this as a problem that needs fixing?

Luckily, the joy we get from laughing at people emotionally invested in the existence of a podcast will last us a lifetime.

Have you, perhaps, heard that correlation does not equal causation? Is there some reason you're ignoring that by cancelling the gig Market Hotel got massive amounts of free publicity and the fact that that certainly gives them just as much if not more motive to cancel than a handful of tweets?

Will d4m10n continue to assume his conclusions? Stay tuned!

Even putting the causation error aside and assuming the reasoning is correct, it’s still not clear what the problem is.

What’s being described is a scenario in which a venue scheduled an event, a bunch of people said “We don’t like that and you shouldn’t do it”, and the venue said “Okay then, we won’t do it”.

What is the specific problem with that?

I think it's something to do with a podcast or something?

Or d4m10n's previous take that popular performers should never be held accountable for their actions....no, wait, Hinckley isn't a popular performer.

Wait...maybe it's mean tweets?

Um, yeah...I'm struggling to figure out what problem d4m10n is trying to bring out attention to, as well.

Even big law firms like Kirkland and Ellis get in on the cancellations... https://abovethelaw.com/2022/06/paul...e-case-may-be/

(No, it isn't cancel culture like Clement claims and the article is very snarky about how stupid the claim is.)

Analogizing cancel culture to an historically disruptive pandemic might not be quite the own you think it is. I'm happy to concede that both forms of virality need to be mitigated and minimized.

Any time people are denied the opportunity to enjoy a performance, speech, podcast, film, book, etc. they are denied at least some of the benefits of living in a free marketplace of ideas.

First off, it's silly to assume that tweets are the only feedback in play here just because I scraped Twitter rather than Instagram—one of those sites is readily searchable, the other is not.

Secondly, the venue knew exactly what they were up against:
https://twitter.com/markethotelnyc/s...70317061480453

Finally, the venue explained their actions fairly clearly in the above-linked Instagram post. "We aren't living in that kind of free country anymore..." because of a cultural shift in favor of deplatforming those whom we find offensive, even when their performance "harms no one in any practical way."

I never said those tweets were the only feedback, just that they were both milqetoast and also the absolute worst that a motivated searcher such as yourself was able to come up with. If someone is not already convinced of your point, the fact that you can't actually find anything worse than 'you shouldn't do that' from a couple of people with 17 followers means that this supposed "backlash" was weak sauce indeed, and far more likely to be an excuse for the venue to get real publicity with a stunt cancellation.

Yes, the venue knew that there was a large enough segment of the populace who has uncritically bought into the "cancel culture" narrative and would eat up their stunt.

So, the venue that got a metric **** ton of free publicity for cancelling a show that they didn't really want to hold anyway gave lip-service to how "not free" they were to make a name for themselves by cancelling? I'm sure that you find that convincing because you have already assumed that cancel culture is real, and an existential crisis on par with a virus that killed over a million Americans, but I've already pointed out that assuming your conclusion is a bad way to argue this point.

And anyway, over in the Roe V Wade Strikedown thread, you implied that the only definition or usage of "cancel culture" was "trying to get someone fired"....which this isn't that. Why, it's almost like "cancel culture" is just another right wing faux freakout nebulous term where the word can mean anything you want it to and nothing you don't, with that definition changing depending on your position at the moment. Like CRT or "gay agenda".

I think more akin to "political correctness", they used all the same whining and whinging about that - "oh he was fired because he was politically incorrect", "oh we can't have Christmas because it is politically incorrect" and all that crap.

The phrase wasn't invented by right wingers, as I've already explained in the first iteration of this thread back when we were still hashing out definitions. (You might want to click on the linked definition as well, let us know if it's too nebulous.)

If you're a musician performing gigs, canceling those gigs is effectively ending your musical career.

Is there some reason I should find one particular definition out of the many contradictory definitions you use to be compelling? Or is that just the one that fits best now but we'll completely ignore it when it comes to the next example you provide?

You've never been a musician, have you?

And...gigs? You showed one, single. Kinda like a sick day being used to claim a career has ended.

You are free to provide a definition which you find preferable, and I'll try to remember which one you are using.

Every example I've mentioned was either an attempt to deplatform a known public figure (traditional "cancel culture" in the dictionary sense) or else an attempt to turn a private figure into a limited public figure for the sake of viral public shaming (e.g. OP).

At least three cities were planned.

https://deadline.com/2022/06/john-hi...el-1235046409/

Why should I have to provide a definition for a thing you're trying and failing to make a case for? It's your push, you have to define it. The problem is that if you stick to one definition, it appears the whole house of cards falls apart. If you use it the oh so scary term in many different ways, even if they contradict what you said before, it appears that your ephemeral phantasm just might possibly be real.

This "deplatforming" you speak of...that's your complaint that venues aren't forced to host events that they don't want to host, right?

Dang, that mass public movement you speak of actually caused events to be cancelled before Fox News or anybody made the events public? It's so massive that cancel culture now warps time and space to retroactively apply?

I wasn’t attempting to analogize anything, or attempt an own. I’m merely pointing out that the cancellation of a concert is neither uncommon nor a tragedy. It’s nothing more than a minor inconvenience that occasionally happens in life.

That would only apply if the podcasters or performers in question were being prevented from expressing their ideas. They’re not. They have the exact same freedom to express themselves that I have, someone who has never had a podcast or been booked in a concert venue.

Arguing that a performance some people find offensive harms no one but cancelling that performance does cause harm is not an argument that can be made while retaining any degree of credibility.

You still, after all this time, do not seem to get the fact that rights and freedoms apply to everyone.

If I own a venue, I have the right to decide who does and who does not get to use MY venue. Furthermore, not only do I have the right to not need to justify to anyone why I won't let some group or organization use my venue, I also have the right to be unfair and inconsistent in what I decide.

I will let an Antifa group use my venue, but not a neo-Nazi group.
I will let a pro-abortion rights group use my venue, but not an anti abortion group.
I will let a pride group use my venue but not an anti-LGBTQ group
Oh, and Peter Boghossian gets nowhere near my venue for any reason

I have the right to have the things being available in my venue reflect my philosophy and beliefs. These are my inalienable rights... My Venue, My Choice!

“F*** Diego. I love cancel culture.”
 

Canceled at 17 via The Cut.

Some replies:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politic...e-rape-culture

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/d...-unpacked.html

https://www.gawker.com/media/new-yor...led-teen-story

For the sake of clarity, can you please quote the thing that I said which denied such rights?

ETA: You're talking about legal rights, right?

One more June cancellation, in just under the wire:

https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphi...d_is_for_sale/

https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphi...now_dissolved/

Still trying to find a comprehensive write-up as to how the place imploded after the workers rose up.

Its not just one thing, its the general tone of your posts. You have been critical of the de-platforming of speakers and performers by the venue or owners of the venues at which they were going to perform.

Is there any other kind?

More cc in real life, well, animated real life:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...04045.html?amp

For the tl;dr crowd: Teenage boy shared a nude photo of his underage girlfriend with his buddies and was subsequently shunned at his high school when word got out. For some reason, the article - and presumably d4m10n - wants us to feel bad for the boy, who not only engaged in a disgusting violation of trust and privacy, but also almost certainly broke the law. No concern is expressed for the girl who was violated.

“Cancel culture” hand-wringers seem to choose their examples like Trump chose cabinet members. Only the Very Best People.

Great, we’ve established the venue was within their rights to cancel the concert.

What’s the problem, then?

I certainly have. Allowing those speakers and performers to go forward would have contributed to a more robust free marketplace of arts and ideas, a social goal worth pursuing in my estimation.

Many people (such as those who drafted the Declaration of Independence which will be celebrated this weekend) seem to believe that rights exist in something like a platonic realm. I hope scientific skeptics can avoid this pitfall.

This isn't the politics forum, it's the social issues forum. Legal rights are not dispositive here.