<story><title>Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times</title><url>https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-shame-and</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Latty</author><text>&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know what Popehat actually wants here.&lt;p&gt;For people to stop calling it &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; whenever they face reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others would be a good start.&lt;p&gt;People not wanting to patronize or associate with you when you cause harm to people they care about is really not a bad thing, and it&amp;#x27;s not new either, and yet it is what gets called &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; by a lot of people.&lt;p&gt;Contextless social media that encourages misunderstanding, a lack of ability to find retractions, and the ability to dig up old sins and present them as present views are an issue, and result in people piling onto others over misconceptions. It&amp;#x27;s a real problem. That&amp;#x27;s almost &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; what actually gets talked about, it&amp;#x27;s just &amp;quot;I should get to say whatever I want without people disliking me&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>BitwiseFool</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. When some people vaguely complain about “cancel culture” in a way that lends itself to promoting this constant partisanship, other people not unreasonably see it as partisan.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Popehat seems to be falling into the trap of thinking the precisely defining something will lead to clarity. It rarely, if ever, does. Each one of us has our own conception of a term - wordfeel, if you will - and virtually no one actually knows or holds to the literal dictionary definition. We hear words and apply them if they seem right to us. Even if you managed to precisely define cancel culture, people would easily try to claim that some alleged cancelling event it is &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; something else, &amp;quot;accountability&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;showing you the door&amp;quot;, etc.. Never underestimate someone&amp;#x27;s ability to lawyerly redefine what something is or isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I think Popehat is dead wrong here:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Saying we should “end cancel culture” means we’re saying some people should refrain from some exercises of speech and association to promote other people feeling more free to speak.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No rights are actually being infringed by this. It is possible to have cultural mores that are in the spirit of free speech. The opposite stance, not calling on people to end cancel culture, is &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; accepting a reduction in speech. Even so, by Popehat&amp;#x27;s own worldview, because the government is not restricting cancel culture this shouldn&amp;#x27;t be seen as some infringement of liberty.  I don&amp;#x27;t know what Popehat actually wants here.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>noduerme</author><text>As you point out, while boycotting someone based on your perception of their opinion is not &lt;i&gt;new&lt;/i&gt;, the modality of mass mob boycotts of individuals over things potentially taken out of context is entirely new, and that&amp;#x27;s exactly what &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; refers to. The underlying mechanism of Twitter is what gave birth to the term, regardless of whether it&amp;#x27;s used by haters to justify hate speech.&lt;p&gt;One other thing that&amp;#x27;s new, in America, is the idea that speech is less important than people&amp;#x27;s feelings. Coupled with the new notion that hurting someone&amp;#x27;s feelings constitutes a form of harm tantamount to violence, this allows proportionality in punishment to be abstracted away. If measures of harm are arbitrary and shifting depending on how much mob traction one particular issue recieves or how sensitive one person happens to be, then proportionality is impossible, and &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; captures a state where cancellation is the answer to any grievance of any severity which manages to find cultural purchase.</text></comment>
<story><title>Our fundamental right to shame and shun the New York Times</title><url>https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-shame-and</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Latty</author><text>&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know what Popehat actually wants here.&lt;p&gt;For people to stop calling it &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; whenever they face reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others would be a good start.&lt;p&gt;People not wanting to patronize or associate with you when you cause harm to people they care about is really not a bad thing, and it&amp;#x27;s not new either, and yet it is what gets called &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; by a lot of people.&lt;p&gt;Contextless social media that encourages misunderstanding, a lack of ability to find retractions, and the ability to dig up old sins and present them as present views are an issue, and result in people piling onto others over misconceptions. It&amp;#x27;s a real problem. That&amp;#x27;s almost &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; what actually gets talked about, it&amp;#x27;s just &amp;quot;I should get to say whatever I want without people disliking me&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>BitwiseFool</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Our failure to have a serious discussion about defining “cancel culture” encourages this. When some people vaguely complain about “cancel culture” in a way that lends itself to promoting this constant partisanship, other people not unreasonably see it as partisan.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Popehat seems to be falling into the trap of thinking the precisely defining something will lead to clarity. It rarely, if ever, does. Each one of us has our own conception of a term - wordfeel, if you will - and virtually no one actually knows or holds to the literal dictionary definition. We hear words and apply them if they seem right to us. Even if you managed to precisely define cancel culture, people would easily try to claim that some alleged cancelling event it is &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; something else, &amp;quot;accountability&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;showing you the door&amp;quot;, etc.. Never underestimate someone&amp;#x27;s ability to lawyerly redefine what something is or isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I think Popehat is dead wrong here:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Saying we should “end cancel culture” means we’re saying some people should refrain from some exercises of speech and association to promote other people feeling more free to speak.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No rights are actually being infringed by this. It is possible to have cultural mores that are in the spirit of free speech. The opposite stance, not calling on people to end cancel culture, is &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; accepting a reduction in speech. Even so, by Popehat&amp;#x27;s own worldview, because the government is not restricting cancel culture this shouldn&amp;#x27;t be seen as some infringement of liberty.  I don&amp;#x27;t know what Popehat actually wants here.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jimbokun</author><text>&amp;gt; For people to stop calling it &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot; whenever they face reasonable consequences for actions they take that harm others would be a good start.&lt;p&gt;Someone having an opinion different than you does not cause you harm.&lt;p&gt;This is the Big Lie underlying a lot of the rhetoric that has been labeled &amp;quot;cancel culture&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The potential harm at shutting down the opportunity to find out you were wrong about something by hearing viewpoints different from yours, is far greater than whatever harms you fear from the words themselves.</text></comment>