[Liam-]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

To suggest that the people most embroiled in this culture are "willing to have those discussions" is flat out false - there are a large number of people who are not only unwilling to have the discussion, but are in fact so angry that anyone else wants there to be a discussion that they aggressively campaign to ensure that everyone is too scared to openly have those conversations.

I wouldn't even ATTEMPT to discuss the nuances of something like trans rights on Twitter under my own name. There's a reason I highly value the anonymity of smaller forums.

I've seen people attacked to breaking point for even suggesting that nuances exist or that there's a discussion to be had.

That’s not what I said was it? I said there are people who are willing to have discussions, but the people who are desperate to be seen as victims don’t converse with them, instead they play on the narrative that the only thing they’re getting is abuse, they choose to highlight the extremes rather than defend their points

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Liam-

That’s not what I said was it? I said there are people who are willing to have discussions, but the people who are desperate to be seen as victims don’t converse with them, instead they play on the narrative that the only thing they’re getting is abuse, they choose to highlight the extremes rather than defend their points

And I pointed out that I fully understand being unwilling to engage in a conversation with those who are more moderate when there is a large, very vocal, very aggressive sub-group waiting to accuse and threaten anyone who fares, and I know that the group that is willing to converse will absolutely not call them out for it.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

And I pointed out that I fully understand being unwilling to engage in a conversation with those who are more moderate when there is a large, very vocal, very aggressive sub-group waiting to accuse and threaten anyone who fares, and I know that the group that is willing to converse will absolutely not call them out for it.

Look what happened when Evanna Lynch (Luna from HP) dared to suggest that the abuse JK Rowling was getting was too much and she was disagreeing with what JK Rowling had actually said on the trans topic. She ended up shutting down her Twitter account because of the abuse she got

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Look what happened when Evanna Lynch (Luna from HP) dared to suggest that the abuse JK Rowling was getting was too much and she was disagreeing with what JK Rowling had actually said on the trans topic. She ended up shutting down her Twitter account because of the abuse she got

Not to mention the children's drawing competition on Rowling's feed being hijacked by "activists" posting nudes and calling for her to suck their "lady dicks".

[Elliot]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Its also a myth that only right wing or right leaning people think cancel culture exists

A lot of people on the left agree cancel culture exists, just those people are also sick of the right using it as a tool to deflect and prevent criticism or challenging their bs rhetoric

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Elliot

A lot of people on the left agree cancel culture exists, just those people are also sick of the right using it as a tool to deflect and prevent criticism or challenging their bs rhetoric

That's happening too but really it's a separate issue. "I refuse to call out the people on my side who are being aggressive and threatening because other people are doing bad things toooOOOoooOOoo" sums up one of the biggest problems with the entitity of social media.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Elliot

A lot of people on the left agree cancel culture exists, just those people are also sick of the right using it as a tool to deflect and prevent criticism or challenging their bs rhetoric

I consider myself to be left leaning, I'd also consider TS to be left leaning

[James]

Some people from a couple of film podcasts I listen to had a (fairly balanced) discussion about this subject. I thought it was interesting and would share it here (about an hour long).

Youtube video

These are the cases that were mentioned of non-celebrities who got 'cancelled':

PR executive who go fired after a tweet - https://www.google.com/search?q=Just...hrome&ie=UTF-8

and

'Husband-and-wife Yale professors resign in the wake of Halloween costume scandal' https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...t-yale/484418/ & https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ume-email.html

This is about the book 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed' by Jon Ronson.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a 2015 book by British journalist Jon Ronson about online shaming and its historical antecedents. The book explores the re-emergence of public shaming as an Internet phenomenon, particularly on Twitter.....

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You...ublicly_Shamed

[Niamh.]

I'm might have a listen to that on my way to work, thanks James

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by James

Some people from a couple of film podcasts I listen to had a (fairly balanced) discussion about this subject. I thought it was interesting and would share it here (about an hour long).

Youtube video

These are the cases that were mentioned of non-celebrities who got 'cancelled':

PR executive who go fired after a tweet - https://www.google.com/search?q=Just...hrome&ie=UTF-8

and

'Husband-and-wife Yale professors resign in the wake of Halloween costume scandal' https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...t-yale/484418/ & https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ume-email.html

This is about the book 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed' by Jon Ronson.



From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You...ublicly_Shamed

I'm just over half way through that video, I'll finish it on my way home from work. It's good, a few thoughts so far :

- I don't want to get into the rights or wrongs of JK Rowlings tweets but I have to agree with one of the guys when he points out about her(and not just her, it could apply to a lot of other people too) which has been a big problem of mine with "cancel culture" (or whatever you want to call it) He said that, this is one topic that she has a different opinion on to some people, particularly very "liberal" or left wing people however probably 80% of her other views are probably toeing the party line so to speak but you have a different opinion on one thing from the "approved opinions list" and suddenly you're far right and a villain. This whole left or right thing and nothing in between just seems bad to me for individuality and for good reasoned discussions in general. Can we agree on a lot of things but not on others and still get on with each other anymore?

- Then one of the other speakers who doesn't think cancel culture is a thing mentioned the extreme reactions on Twitter, he said that's not normal people "canceling" someone, that's just Trolls and while I kind of agree with him to a point, it seems to me that these trolls are almost taking over twitter and becoming acceptable and people don't really challenge them much and I feel like people actually think they're justified in some way? And if you say "hey, I don't agree with this person's opinion on this particular subject but she doesn't deserve death threats or rape threats etc etc" you're also cast out for not joining the pile on or saying that someone on your side has gone too far. So yeah you can say "oh yeah but that bad ones are trolls" but if people are allowing this big number of trolls to abuse and target people and even agree with them, isn't that still cancel culture?

- So far the biggest thing I've agreed with is Twitter is a hell hole and people should stop posting there

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

It's easy to see both sides of the debate. Owen Jones and slimy and creepy which makes automatically taking the opposite view to him pretty easy but it's not clear cut either way.

Do some people lose jobs or platforms because of things they've said or done, possibly decades ago? Yup. Weirdos on Twitter dug up ancient tweets from James Gunn and the guy from the Flash, and they both lost jobs because of it.

It's pretty stupid to:
- go digging in people's twitter history
- punish people for typing words on a screen which aren't calling for violence
- and also to say those things in the first place.

To call it a "culture" is giving it more credit than it deserves, but there's definitely a ... movement? of people trying to remove people from the public eye for no good reason, simply because they have disagreeable views.

Using ScarJo, JK Rowling, and Jimmy Kimmel as examples that it doesn't exist is silly, as they're all immensly rich, popular, and good at what they do. Removing JK's work because of her views, and whatever ScarJo and Kimmel are meant to have done would do more harm than good.

Some rando on twitter taught his dog to raise its paw in the air and his life was ruined because of it. That's not proportionate retribution. An appropriate response would be ... nothing at all.

I agree with this in its entirety.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I'm just over half way through that video, I'll finish it on my way home from work. It's good, a few thoughts so far :

- I don't want to get into the rights or wrongs of JK Rowlings tweets but I have to agree with one of the guys when he points out about her(and not just her, it could apply to a lot of other people too) which has been a big problem of mine with "cancel culture" (or whatever you want to call it) He said that, this is one topic that she has a different opinion on to some people, particularly very "liberal" or left wing people however probably 80% of her other views are probably toeing the party line so to speak but you have a different opinion on one thing from the "approved opinions list" and suddenly you're far right and a villain. T[B]his whole left or right thing and nothing in between just seems bad to me for individuality and for good reasoned discussions in general. Can we agree on a lot of things but not on others and still get on with each other anymore?[/B]

- Then one of the other speakers who doesn't think cancel culture is a thing mentioned the extreme reactions on Twitter, he said that's not normal people "canceling" someone, that's just Trolls and while I kind of agree with him to a point, it seems to me that these trolls are almost taking over twitter and becoming acceptable and people don't really challenge them much and I feel like people actually think they're justified in some way? And if you say "hey, I don't agree with this person's opinion on this particular subject but she doesn't deserve death threats or rape threats etc etc" you're also cast out for not joining the pile on or saying that someone on your side has gone too far. So yeah you can say "oh yeah but that bad ones are trolls" but if people are allowing this big number of trolls to abuse and target people and even agree with them, isn't that still cancel culture?

- So far the biggest thing I've agreed with is Twitter is a hell hole and people should stop posting there

if you say you are a centerist you are immediately shot down as if that stance has no value at all, and you must commit to left or right or be gone

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Cherie

if you say you are a centerist you are immediately shot down as if that stance has no value at all, and you must commit to left or right or be gone

I wouldn't call myself "centrist", I'm not anything really

The only things "political" I actually care about are the environment and animals. Other things come and go, some of my opinions line up with the left and the right, but not enough to call myself either.

I'm just above your puny human politics

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Cherie

if you say you are a centerist you are immediately shot down as if that stance has no value at all, and you must commit to left or right or be gone

Well this is the thing, I'm certainly left leaning in general but you disagree with one of the left ideas and suddenly people are speaking to you like you're on the right side, like if you don't agree with one thing you therefore must not agree with any left ideas or opinions? That's a sheep culture more than anything else imo. People have differing opinions because of life experiences, culture, gender etc etc All these different perspectives should be valuable to discussions if everyone would try to listen

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

I wouldn't call myself "centrist", I'm not anything really

The only things "political" I actually care about are the environment and animals. Other things come and go, some of my opinions line up with the left and the right, but not enough to call myself either.

I'm just above your puny human politics

Yeah and you have a point there, putting labels on people isn't that helpful either, it takes the individuality out of life. No one really agrees with everyone in their "box" on everything - whether they say they do or not. That would be mental

[Liam-]

People make out like tribal politics is exclusive to the left when it definitely isn’t.

[bots]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Yeah and you have a point there, putting labels on people isn't that helpful either, it takes the individuality out of life. No one really agrees with everyone in their "box" on everything - whether they say they do or not. That would be mental

everything is polarised these days. Looking at brexit, the obvious solution for the country ws to have some reduced membership status, that reflects the myriad of views surrounding it, but it had to be boiled down to absolutes that a tiny minority will actually ever be happy with .... it's mental

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Liam-

People make out like tribal politics is exclusive to the left when it definitely isn’t.

I'm certainly not if you're referring to me, why would I? I'm certainly not anywhere close to being right, the only reason I'm mentioning the left here is because it applies more to this topic

[Liam-]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I'm certainly not if you're referring to me, why would I? I'm certainly not anywhere close to being right, the only reason I'm mentioning the left here is because it applies more to this topic

No I mean in general, whenever these sorts of things are mentioned the blame the majority of time is placed on the ‘left’ somehow the right, who are just as tribal seem to get away with it at all points

[Oliver_W]

No-one said the right is innocent of such things?

[Tom4784]

The problem with centrism is that a lot of right wing people pretend they're centre when they're obviously not and it weakens the stance because it just makes it look like a stance for right wingers who don't want to admit they are right wing.

There are few true centrists and a lot of people in denial.

[Tom4784]

Also I saw someone mention that JK Rowling has basically been cast as the villain when her other views are liberal and to that I say that the prime difference in behaviour between left and right is that the left hold other left leaning people accountable. The right has a culture of defending anything right leaning regardless. Just look at when you mention Right Wing terrorism is the vicinity of a right wing person and their first instinct is to bleat on about the left rather than denounce right wing terrorism because they see 'right wing' and automatically feel defensive.

It doesn't matter to the left if you present yourself as a liberal if you have views that are rooted in bigotry, you will be held accountable for those views. Standards like that apply to everyone, not just the 'other side' unlike the right that allows right wingers to get away with whatever as long as they are right leaning.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

The problem with centrism is that a lot of right wing people pretend they're centre when they're obviously not and it weakens the stance because it just makes it look like a stance for right wingers who don't want to admit they are right wing.

There are few true centrists and a lot of people in denial.

I really strongly disagree with this statement, in fact I'd say the vast majority of people are centre-to slight leaning in one of the other directions. Most people don't have very strong opinions on political or social topics that don't affect them and just want to get on with their own lives

[Ammi]

...the video you posted, James, is interesting...all of them make good points...I’m very undecided about cancel culture just because it feels like another unnecessarily and unhelpful label when it does feel similar to trolling...one of the things that is interesting is the discussion they had about the college professor..(..and her husband..)..and how there were screams for her to be fired from her job because of the Halloween costume email she had sent..when she’d previously been a much beloved professor..?...how one opinion had changed everything and determined her whole future etc...?...when she had been praised so highly before...it would most certainly feel like a mob mentality...anyways..(trying to make a long story, short.....)...their whole opinion and ‘debate‘ about that was on a very small bit of information...and they said that/two of them did...’this is all I know..’...and then looking at your link, which yeah is the DM, so I wouldn’t say a great source either...but however accurate, it still gives a ‘different story’ to the one that they were given...It provided something entirely different ...it could be that another source would give something different again, I don’t know...people portray and relay with ‘slants’ and I think that’s true as well...According to the DM article, the professor wasn’t ‘just advocating free speech and saying a ‘dress code’ would undermine that’...she was intimating (...according to the article and allegedly etc...)...that there should be ‘room for students to offend in their dress code..’.../...as in blackface if they wanted to blackface etc...

...it also says in the DM article ...

‘The email was one of several incidents on campus that prompted hundreds of students and faculty members to march in protest on November 9 over what they saw as racial insensitivity at the school.’

...and one of those incidents being an apparent allegation that a female student had been turned away from a fraternity party because she wasn’t white...so this could have been a whole series of events which led up to a highly charged situation and the result being the loss of jobs for the two professors...?...but I think that it would be quite unclear and uncertain whether ‘cancel culture’ could be applied at all with all of the factors we still don’t know but presumably the college board did know and made that decision...

...It is very interesting to look at how things are reported/relayed/portrayed etc and the ‘debate’ they provoke because of that...

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Also I saw someone mention that JK Rowling has basically been cast as the villain when her other views are liberal and to that I say that the prime difference in behaviour between left and right is that the left hold other left leaning people accountable. The right has a culture of defending anything right leaning regardless. Just look at when you mention Right Wing terrorism is the vicinity of a right wing person and their first instinct is to bleat on about the left rather than denounce right wing terrorism because they see 'right wing' and automatically feel defensive.

It doesn't matter to the left if you present yourself as a liberal if you have views that are rooted in bigotry, you will be held accountable for those views. Standards like that apply to everyone, not just the 'other side' unlike the right that allows right wingers to get away with whatever as long as they are right leaning.

And that to me is exactly why I think putting people in boxes like that is bad. Why should JK Rowling be accountable to anyone for her own views?