How do you end 'cancel culture'?

[Traitorfish]

Socialism is when you get minimum wage workers fired, and the more workers you get fired, the more socialister it is.

 

[Crezth]

She got herself fired. If she doesn’t like it she should join a revolution.

 

[Socrates99]

She got herself fired. If she doesn’t like it she should join a revolution.

You're not helping.

She had black coworkers agreeing with her about the group of guys. She, herself, is Hispanic. The group had already dined and dashed there before and were even dumb enough to brag about it on social media. An internet sleuth gathered that info and did a viral post to undo the damage to her.

I'd say that's more of an example of how bad actors can try to harm someone over social media than an actual "cancel culture" problem though.

 

[Traitorfish]

She got herself fired. If she doesn’t like it she should join a revolution.

Everyone gets themselves fired, according to the people who are doing the firing. My contention is that the left should take the side of employees, rather of employers; that the alleged (and in this case, disproven) transgressions of the employee are not grounds for the employer to sacrifice them for the sake of public image; that the left should be prepared to insist on labour protections as a matter of principle, that the left should insist on a rigorous process which places the burden on the employer to demonstrate reasonable cause for termination, and not on the employee to demonstrate unjust termination; my contention is that we should prepared to do this even if it may occasionally mean stepping up to bat for people with authentically noxious news or behaviour, because we should expect that if reasonable cause exist for their termination, the employer will be able to demonstrate it without great difficulty.

If any of this sounds radical or controversial to you then, then you are not on the left, you just like the aesthetic.

 

[Crezth]

I don’t go in much for allying with Nazis, no.

 

[Crezth]

You're not helping.

She had black coworkers agreeing with her about the group of guys. She, herself, is Hispanic. The group had already dined and dashed there before and were even dumb enough to brag about it on social media. An internet sleuth gathered that info and did a viral post to undo the damage to her.

I'd say that's more of an example of how bad actors can try to harm someone over social media than an actual "cancel culture" problem though.

Cancel culture literally recovered her reputation. Looks like we’re doing fine.

 

[aelf]

Plenty of right-wing folks attempt to use the exact tactics you described. It wasn't left-wing folk trying to "cancel" James Gunn (by getting him removed from Marvel movies under Disney). It came out of right-wing folk digging up ancient Tweets (that he still completely own and publicly apologised for) after he started being political (read as: against Trump) on Twitter.

Ben Shapiro (as an unfortunate example) tries to "cancel" things on what seems like a near-daily basis (see Socrates' post literally two posts up).

Where do you get these wild claims from, NovaKart? You're hardly painting a fair picture, is your hangup of "the left" getting in the way of being objective?

Concern trolling. The usual suspects become quite obvious after a while.

 

[Lexicus]

The objections raised to their comments must necessarily be to their content, and not for the implications that their saying it has for the relationship between the speaker and the audience, which in most cases does not actually exist to begin with.

I'm not sure I agree with this, it seems close to "There's no such thing as society, only collective bargaining agreements."

 

[Berzerker]

See? Here I'm expected to attack him in the "motte", to give some explicit example of him literally saying he defended an argument by literally saying he said, as a rebuttal "you hate free speech". Then, if I can't produce an exact quote of him literally saying those exact words, he'll be able to deploy to the "bailey", the less defensible aspects of his argument,

You're running away from your accusations, is that what strategists call turning tail?

Yeah, 'cause NWA, Snoop Dogg, Biggie, 2Pac, & other rap music was SOOO inclusive, gay friendly, & not at all mysogynistic. You're totally different from the Moral Majority censorship police.

Tracy Morgan of SNL fame said he'd kill his son if he was gay

My GF's motive in this example is clearly to stop me from inhibiting my right to free speech by applying a negative consequence, ending our relationship. If she tells her friends that I'm verbally abusive and to stay away from me, she is now "boycotting" me by your logic, again with the intent of inhibiting my free speech.

Remember?

She left to stop you from inhibiting your free speech? She left because you violated her trust, not because she wants to inhibit your speech. She didn't walk away thinking that'll teach you to watch your mouth. First you compare boycotting speech to a civil rights bus boycott and now this, your analogies are actually getting worse.

It's not totally clear what he thinks because, for pretty obvious reasons, he won't engage in any discussion about the real-world implications of what he's saying.

Which are? Your real world example was to compare boycotting speech to boycotting Jim Crow, the KKK canceled free speech too. That means you're arguing free speech is evil, right? You're comparing it to Jim Crow. I've been clear about what I said - boycotting free speech inhibits free speech. That shouldn't be heretical, its supposed to do that. As Dolly Parton said, she learned to shut up when the Dixie Chicks were canceled.

This concept of free speech only means the government can't lock people up or fine them for their speech.

The concept of free speech predates government

If someone says something you disagree with and you say "wow, I dont really like that, I'm not buying his book, watching his movie, listening to his music, etc." that's not infringing on their free speech that's using your own. Berzerker thinks we should put on earmuffs and pretend the bad stuff doesn't matter and continue to be patrons to artists in spite of our own beliefs.

I think we should tolerate the bad stuff for the sake of free speech. And I'm not saying you cant walk with your $$$, I am saying organizing boycotts inhibits free speech. If boycotting speech increases more and more people will self censor out of fear for their jobs and the only people allowed to be offensive are the people they fear - the hypocritical boycotters demanding civility while calling dissenters every name in the book. Dont offend me you racist Nazi fascist scumbag!

 

[Lexicus]

Yep she’s racist. “Falsely accused” of being racist indeed, it was all a set-up to make her look bad! Hilarious.

It was all a set-up for some dine-and-dashers, she was just collateral damage.

Cancel culture literally recovered her reputation. Looks like we’re doing fine.

I don't agree at all that what happened to her is "fine." Are you going to admit that you were wrong to call her racist, or that referring to her as "Hitlerina" was ridiculous and over the top?

 

[Lexicus]

Something I wish happened way more often, and you’d think would happen way more often if the cancel culture specter these people were afraid of actually existed.

Were you not referring to actual events?

 

[Yeekim]

It was all a set-up for some dine-and-dashers, she was just collateral damage.



I don't agree at all that what happened to her is "fine." Are you going to admit that you were wrong to call her racist, or that referring to her as "Hitlerina" was ridiculous and over the top?

Next you'll be saying black people ought to pay for their food. What are you, some kind of a Klansman?

 

[Gorbles]

If any of this sounds radical or controversial to you then, then you are not on the left, you just like the aesthetic.

You and I have talked a bit about this in the past, but we never covered the paradox of tolerance.

Skipping over the very funny attempt at gatekeeping, as leftism is multifaceted and a lot more interesting than that, the upshot of your position in general is that we should always tolerate even the intolerable in protecting worker protections. But that's a given. This isn't anything new. Because there's a very important caveat you yourself say:

"because we should expect that if reasonable cause exist for their termination, the employer will be able to demonstrate it without great difficulty"

On the face of it this is simple. And more often than not, it can be proven. I've seen people fired for demonstrably, absolutely, making peoples' lives a living hell. But then again, I've seen people not fired for the exact same scenario. In my limited and privileged experience I have seen people burnt out of jobs by others, either by unintentional, unchecked, aggro, or by targeted grinding down until no willpower remained.

If we're going to no true Scotsman other leftists. If we're going to accuse folks of just being in it for the aesthetics. If that's the road you're going down in a wonderful example of purity politics (which is very funny in a thread on cancel culture, because you are in effect cancelling leftists of a slightly different strain). Then you also need to contend with this singular focus on worker protections. Because companies don't always want to fire the troublemaker. And don't get me wrong - this isn't me saying we don't need stronger worker protections. This is me criticising your tolerance of the intolerable because you don't seem to understand the cost of truly noxious people (as you put it) continuing to be employed

That, and the gatekeeping bugged me enough to wade in.

 

[Lexicus]

And don't get me wrong - this is me saying we don't need stronger worker protections.

Is this really what you meant to type?

purity politics

We really want to go down this road? Asserting that "the left" is a term with a definition is purity politics and gatekeeping? By this same logic we should let those Nazis into the left because excluding them is purity politics.

I am honestly very disconcerted by all this. If the view that employers need at-will powers so that they can fire "intolerable" people as needed is very widespread, then there is hardly any "left" worth speaking about in existence. It's just neoliberals all the way down.

 

[Lexicus]

Socialism is when you get minimum wage workers fired, and the more workers you get fired, the more socialister it is.

I believe the Chipotle employee was actually a manager but lower-tier managers in many ways have a just as bad a deal as minimum wage workers. They get paid more but the pay:responsibility ratio is likely lower.

 

[Crezth]

I don't agree at all that what happened to her is "fine." Are you going to admit that you were wrong to call her racist, or that referring to her as "Hitlerina" was ridiculous and over the top?

Cancel culture came to her rescue in the end. What’s the big deal? She probably is racist at least on the balance, it’s not worth taking personally. As for Hitlerina, yeah, that was making light.

 

[Lexicus]

Cancel culture came to her rescue in the end. What’s the big deal? She probably is racist at least on the balance, it’s not worth taking personally. As for Hitlerina, yeah, that was making light.

I suppose if your attitude toward this is "the system worked" I want no part of your system. I guess I just don't believe this whole business of denouncing people as racist on Twitter is worth the collateral damage. What political purpose does "outing" random people as racist and denouncing them serve? The left used to view racism as a structural/political issue, not an issue of the status of people's souls.

 

[Gorbles]

Is this really what you meant to type?

Nope. That's what I get for 11pm posts. Edited

We really want to go down this road? Asserting that "the left" is a term with a definition is purity politics and gatekeeping? By this same logic we should let those Nazis into the left because excluding them is purity politics.

I am honestly very disconcerted by all this. If the view that employers need at-will powers so that they can fire "intolerable" people as needed is very widespread, then there is hardly any "left" worth speaking about in existence. It's just neoliberals all the way down.

"the left" is a broad spectrum of ideological positions. I don't like the generalisation, but sure it's a necessary one at times. TF was a lot more specific than that. He was explicitly arguing against Crezth and he finished with that particular footnote.

I've seen plenty of it in my time in leftist spaces. "agree with this specific position or you're not a proper leftist". It's unnecessary. You don't need it to make an effective argument.

Employers do not need at-will powers to dismiss people for arbitrary (or close enough as to be arbitrary) reasons. But one of the examples we're discussing someone wasn't even fired. It was a temporary leave of absence (which we have no idea if the person was or wasn't paid during) that it has been claimed was always the intention. We can believe that, or we can not. Honestly not fussed there. But we cannot use it as an example of someone being fired. She wasn't fired. She still has a platform. It's another example of "people called out her racism on her public platform". People are going to call this out even if the person isn't going to get fired. Leftists don't dunk on Ben Shapiro because they think he's going to get fired. Sometimes it's calling out people saying bad things. Are you saying we shouldn't have that?

And this is without touching my entire point about what happens to intolerable people being kept in an organisation? What happens to other workers? We need an answer to that.

Because this entire tangent is just weird. There's a general agreement that toxic people can be dismissed assuming there's proof. But there's this condemnation of any time any member of the public exposes such a person. Why? We're in this position because even with at-will dismissal being a real problem, actually toxic people aren't being dismissed.

If you close the hole that let's public pressure lead to that outcome, you need a way of dealing with the flipside - toxic people remaining entrenched in an organisation. You're focusing on the false positives, on the times the "mob" got it wrong. Why are we ignoring the times the "mob" has gotten it right? And why are we stuck debating an already-agreed goal of worker protections?

It just seems very abstract to me, very theoretical. It doesn't actually help this actually happen. There is no concrete "we need X and Y". It's just using leftists displaying a lack of sympathy for racists as a strawman to imply that they don't believe in worker protections. And I'm tired of seeing it. I've seen so many class-first takes over the years that flat out ignore the pleas of minorities that are suffering now (or then), because class solidarity matters. It does. But it's not all-important.

tl;dr: if you want to make it harder to fire people, including racists, you also need to have a plan to protect people in these workplaces, from the racists that you've made more difficult to fire. You can't do one without the other.

And don't be upset at people happy that racists suffer consequences. If you have a difference in opinion over what racism means, debate that. In my opinion, racism can be due to structural and political pressure. But it can also be because a person is just a nasty piece of work. It's not an either / or.

 

[Crezth]

I suppose if your attitude toward this is "the system worked" I want no part of your system. I guess I just don't believe this whole business of denouncing people as racist on Twitter is worth the collateral damage. What political purpose does "outing" random people as racist and denouncing them serve? The left used to view racism as a structural/political issue, not an issue of the status of people's souls.

Yeah, well, I guess I'm not as concerned about Twitter as the rest of you.

 

[Yeekim]

What’s the big deal? She probably is racist at least on the balance.

Based on the damning evidence that she asked known to her dine-and-dashers to pay in advance? if that's your standard for identifying racists, that explains quite a lot.