Back to the salt mines

by liberal japonicus

I think that there is still a lot of talk left about racism (As DiAngelo said, white people always have an opinion on racism, white people including me), though if you are exhausted, I totally understand. But for anyone who still wants to talk about it, there is something below the fold.

While this post won't have the rules that the other one did, I would ask that you avoid hyperbolic posts. Thanks.

Comments

[Girl from the North Country]

Fascinating piece of film, lj. "Is the tape off?"
Thank you.

[nous]

From FB again. The need for co-conspirators rather than allies in the fight for equality:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4804332/user-clip-conspirators

[russell]

The history of black people and American music is almost too deep and tangled to unpack. I'm not sure how to even start on the topic.

To give a tiny window into it, I offer this quote, from jazz vocalist Joe Williams, speaking of bass player Carole Kaye:

Carole Kaye, as black as she wants to be

Kaye is a blond white woman, originally from Everett WA, who made a career as an A-list session bass player in the LA pop scene.

What is Williams saying? What does it mean for a blond white woman musician to be "black"?

Pull that thread and see how many directions it takes you in. Start with the fact that it was intended to be a compliment of the highest order.

Also just want to say that Bowie, for all his early transgressive glam showboating and mid-career coke-fueled dark years, was one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and interesting cats in rock. He spoke at various times of wanting to challenge and change the culture, and saw popular music as an instrument for doing that.

I'm not surprised to see him taking this line of questioning in the clip. Politely, in his very British way, taking no shit, and giving no easy way out.

A remarkable person.

[cleek]

i accidentally wrote "Moonage Daydream" last week. i was very proud of that chord sequence, for about three minutes. and then i thought maybe i'd heard it somewhere before...?

Bowie was a magician.

[Nigel]

Given a choice between doing the right thing and taking the easy money...

[hairshirthedonist]

MTV ultimately came to feature black music pretty heavily (before they stopped featuring music much at all around the time I completely outgrew it). I can't help but wonder if that Bowie exchange influenced that change, even if it did come fully to fruition for several years. (Or did Michael Jackson's MTV explosion render Bowie's words moot?)

Off-topic aside:

After I had stopped watching MTV even occasionally at home, Live 8 happened. I was in Philly during the event, though on the periphery. We popped into a bar showing MTV's coverage on their TV right when the Pink Floyd reunion was happening in London.

I knew then that the "M" in MTV had lost nearly all of its meaning, because they interrupted the live concert coverage mid-song (Comfortably Numb, maybe?) for some insipid commentary from one of their "reporters." Everyone in the bar started shouting obscenities. An utterly historic moment in popular music interrupted for the equivalent of "Hey, everyone. We're at Live 8. Isn't this cool? Wow!"

[hairshirthedonist]

even if it didn't come fully to fruition

[nous]

Don't forget the panic point in the 80s/90s handoff when Yo, MTV Raps blew up and hip hop culture spread into the midwest.

[wj]

If you want a better done (than DiAngelo's) discussion on the topic, try this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/cape-up/the-author-of-white-rage-on-the-persistent-pattern-of-punishing-blacks-for-their-resilience/

[byomtov]

The history of black people and American music is almost too deep and tangled to unpack.

Indeed, rock, jazz, rap, etc. are essentially black forms, sometimes somewhat sanitized for white audiences.

[Girl from the North Country]

I wonder what the commentariat think about cultural appropriation generally? I'm asking because the Dem housemembers kneeling with kente cloth stoles reminded me how much I love kente cloth. Leaving aside the question of its connection to slavery, which seems complicated and ambiguous, I wonder what you all would think of a theoretical white woman who wore a garment made of kente cloth (not me, I couldn't afford it!). I grew up with white women wearing padded silk chinese jackets, or much more rarely cheong sams, and still find it hard to condemn. But then, I may not be sufficiently woke for this day and age. Does anybody here have a strong (or even a weak) opinion on this very controversial question?

[russell]

I just figure cultures are porous. It's hard or impossible to keep them from leaking into each other.

The issue with black music being appropriated by white musicians, specifically, is that the black guys historically haven't gotten much money out of it. As a generalization.

The issue with Carole Kaye, specifically, is that she plays her ass off, and has earned the respect of musicians of all colors.

[CharlesWT]

Cultural appropriation outrage seems to be a part of the larger cancel culture. It gives people the excuse to shame others on behalf of minorities who often couldn't care less.

[Girl from the North Country]

I guess the weavers of the kente cloth would get the same money whoever wore it. I agree with your concept of porous cultures, russell. It seems much more expansive and inclusive to me, if the original culture is acknowledged, and more particularly, recompensed. But I'm open to argument. There's a huge brouhaha going on in the food world at the moment, for instance, about white people writing about the food of other cultures, and natives of those cultures not getting the chance to do so. It's complicated, too complicated to go into on a phone!

[nous]

Agree with russell that the heart of the matter is one of equitable reward.

If something (an industry, a country, a family fortune) has been built on the stolen resources or labor of another (colonialism, slavery), leaving those people only their culture and art to call their own, it seems like a complete asshole move to come in and then try to commodify that culture and art in a way that again cuts them off from any reward. This is especially true for the auteur class. Don't step on someone else's hustle when they are already boxed into a limited set of hustles.

Second level of cultural appropriation - it's insulting to turn someone else's identity into a fun costume or a caricatured mascot, especially one that trades on some essentialized notion of race. Call this the Disney level.

From there things get a little more fuzzy and fraught, but Wheaton's Law is always a good policy: "Don't be a dick."

[sapient]

Does anybody here have a strong (or even a weak) opinion on this very controversial question?

I have an opinion, which is only strong in certain areas. For example, food. I really hate cultural appropriation arguments about food, other than acknowledging the legitimate history of where a food tradition has come from. Obviously, if "appropriation" means lying about who created the food tradition (pretending that Southern recipes weren't created/influenced by African enslaved people), that's wrong. But people who want to cook that food, or create businesses cooking that food, while acknowledging its origins? That's okay with me.

This reasoning applies to the arts. People who find their inspiration anywhere should go with that, acknowledging it, of course.

[sapient]

Don't step on someone else's hustle when they are already boxed into a limited set of hustles.

This is a bit complicated. For example, people who popularize a genre that doesn't "belong" to them can actually assist people who do more legitimately "own" it make money from it.

Second level of cultural appropriation - it's insulting to turn someone else's identity into a fun costume or a caricatured mascot, especially one that trades on some essentialized notion of race. Call this the Disney level.

This seems right to me. It's probably important to discern the cultural meaning of certain clothing traditions.

I grew up with white women wearing padded silk chinese jackets, or much more rarely cheong sams, and still find it hard to condemn.

When that was happening in my youth, I wasn't aware of any objection to it. It's important to listen to objections (and to be sensitive). Clothing is tricky. It's not just a cultural identity issue, but can be a personal one.

[wj]

I wonder what the commentariat think about cultural appropriation generally?

As opposed to, say, cultural imperialism? Since they are both matters of stuff from one culture being taken up by another culture. The only difference being whether you are objecting on behalf of the culture doing the exporting or the culture doing the importing.

I'd agree with russell that the only real issue is compensation for the artists who originally come up with something. But if the "something" is, for example, jazz as a style (as opposed to a particular jazz composition), who is there to compensate?

[russell]

But if the "something" is, for example, jazz as a style (as opposed to a particular jazz composition), who is there to compensate?

The classic complaint of black jazz musicians historically has been that white guys came around, copped their style, and made big money off it, while they (the black musicians) were scraping by.

There's a **lot** of justification for that in early days, probably through mid-20th C. Less so since then.

At this point, jazz is an international style, more accurately a portfolio of styles and traditions, some of them rooted in black America, lots of them not remotely rooted in black America.

Blues -> swing -> bebop and hard bop -> modal styles through the late 60's and early 70's is basically the "rooted in black America" family tree, as far as jazz goes. And for a lot of that time, it was more difficult for black performers than for white ones, even performing in much the same styles.

So, a complaint that had some merit, if less relevant now. Kind of the same story in blues and R&B.

Nowadays, nobody makes money playing jazz. It's equal opportunity poverty!

:)

[byomtov]

I'm with Russell that the money is what matters, and of course the black musicians routinely got the short end, if they got an end at all.

Aside from that, the whole "cultural appropriation" business strikes me as generally silly. If O'Hara's Restaurant wants to serve lox and bagels at its Sunday brunch, that's fine with me, though I might be a bit suspicious of the quality.

[russell]

Dem housemembers kneeling with kente cloth stoles

My thought about this example is that it's a kind of virtue signaling. It's a way for (D) House members to say hey, we stand with the black community, we have their back.

People talk about virtue signaling as if it's a dirty word, which I think is a mistake. There's nothing wrong with making a public gesture in acknowledgement of something worthwhile. The issue is whether the gesture represents something more substantial, or if it's just a gesture.

[Girl from the North Country]

Second level of cultural appropriation - it's insulting to turn someone else's identity into a fun costume or a caricatured mascot, especially one that trades on some essentialized notion of race. Call this the Disney level.

nous, obviously I fully agree with this. Where it gets so complicated is e.g. when I was something of a hippy, in my twenties, I often used to wear antique embroidered long bedouin dresses from the ME. There was no one living to recompense, apart from the antique dealers from whom I bought them, and I wore them (and might even still wear them to the right kind of occasion) because I thought they were beautiful, and they suited me. But what a modern, woke young Palestinian might think of this is a concern, and might stop me.

Again, I agree with russell @09.47. I thought the kente stoles were a gesture of respect.

[John Thullen]

Better kneeling in a culturally misappropriated kente cloth stole for some earnest virtue signaling then forming a perimeter of heavily armed, Buchanan locked and loaded, camo-ed right wingers virtue signaling that they are going to murder us, so help them GOD their culturally appropriated Jewish Messiah who looks like a blonde Jeffrey Hunter.

I can live through silliness the year round.

Not so much gunfire.

[sapient]

Again, I agree with russell @09.47. I thought the kente stoles were a gesture of respect.

I agree. The stoles were offered to the participants to be worn as a gesture of respect, and the moment was meant that way.

[McKinneyTexas]

The stoles were offered to the participants to be worn as a gesture of respect, and the moment was meant that way.

The problem is that, in too many cases, "cultural appropriation" is entirely subjective. If not too damn entirely subjective. And, unfortunately, with the SJW twitter mobs in full force--not just in college anymore--what seems perfectly fine to most people won't pass muster with the eternally offended "spokespeople for all oppressed peoples."

The WaPo got called out for making a mountain out of a molehill in the last day or two. Cancel Culture is a thing and it's awful. Indefensible.

I'm old, near retirement, so fear of giving PC offense doesn't play a role in my social calculus. Texas is a multi-racial society with the two major races being white and Mexican-descent. It is common for white Texans to borrow from the Spanish language. I do it all the time. No one who isn't a full-on idiot thinks anything of it.

In a similar vein, my wife bought a Chinese coat/top of some kind in China Town in San Francisco--sold to her at a Chinese owned and operated clothing store. I wonder how long stores like that will remain in business if only Chinese are permitted to wear that style? Seems stupidly and ignorantly self-defeating to me.

Obviously, using a cultural or ethnic feature to belittle is wrong, but what about gray areas? Why the presumption--selectively applied, see R Northram et al--of mal intent?

So, for me, like most of the other SJW/Woke devices for short-cutting substantive discussion or casting out (cancelling) the heretics, "cultural appropriation" is 99% BS.

[cleek]

Cancel Culture is a thing and it's awful. Indefensible.

it's as old as humanity. ask Hester Prynne.

shunning isn't something some "SJW" came up with in order to torment the welcoming, non-judgemental "conservatives" of the US.

[hairshirthedonist]

For example, people who popularize a genre that doesn't "belong" to them can actually assist people who do more legitimately "own" it make money from it.

This reminds me of a text I got from a friend a couple weeks ago about how astounded he was over the long list of legendary blues musicians Steve Winwood had played gigs with while still a teenager. It gets to a couple of things.

Even the top blues artist at that time couldn't afford to haul a band around with them while traveling to play live shows, so some local teenager (albeit an enormously talented one in Winwood's case) would be among the local musicians enlisted for a given show. But, later, these largely-forgotten blues artists would enjoy a resurgence from the appropriation of their music by English rockers.

They didn't make the money bands like, say, The Animals did. But they made more than they otherwise would have were it not for the popularity of the overtly blues-based rock coming out of Britain in the 60s.

The thing for me is that, though there was some "theft" to varying degrees from black musicians by white musicians, there was most definitely a genuine love and respect for the music among the band who took it up and put their own spin on it. They loved it so much that they couldn't not play it.

[nous]

WRT Cancel Culture - I know that media heads on the right get seriously worked up over this, but I don't see how their rage over it is any different than their insistence on not baking a cake or seeing two humans of phenotypes on the proscribed list kissing in public.

The whole story of civil rights is the breaking down of one big ass cancel culture that still insists on having its way and is willing to suppress voters and stack the judiciary in order to do that.

The media heads fear and rage because they are losing the privilege that allowed their cancel culture to work invisibly.

[nous]

Pre-coffee first paragraph. Clearer me: their culture is just as much a cancel culture.

[McKinneyTexas]

it's as old as humanity. ask Hester Prynne.

shunning isn't something some "SJW" came up with in order to torment the welcoming, non-judgemental "conservatives" of the US.

Compelling and well thought-out, as usual. I agree with it, sort of. I and other unregenerate's have noted the quasi-religious nature of the Woke left. Reviving 17th century religious bigotry practices is entirely in line with the genre. The Woke movement is nothing new in form, if not substance. Shunning, compelled public groveling, loss of employment, etc for non-believers and sinners is the new--or eternal--normal.

Soon, it won't be enough to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing. Before too long, we will be called upon to publicly witness to the Woke Intersectionalist left's various totems.

Some other time-honored customs that strengthen your argument: slavery was once a universal practice, ditto women as chattel, forced marriage and states that were the polar opposite of a constitutionally established democracy with courts, a free market, individual rights protected from state capriciousness, etc.

So, yes, Cancel Culture has deep, timeless roots and, given its proven effectiveness, it is no wonder that it is embraced by the mob. And tolerated by the mob's complicit enablers. Until, of course, they come for you or someone you care about.

[Hartmut]

A rather curious case I remember is white Europeans complaining about blacks (in the colonies) adopting European clothing in the early 20th century (still present in the years after WW1). The German term was 'Hosenneger' (trousers negro). The language used had some similarity with the cultural appropriation discussion of to-day. The alternative presented as appropriate was not the loincloth-wearing primitive from the jungle but the educated black (man) wearing traditional African clothing (both for practical reasons [climate]and because it was simply more fitting [from the European POV]).
lj may be in a better position to tell, if the same was true about Japanese people adopting Western clothing.

[McKinneyTexas]

Pre-coffee first paragraph. Clearer me: their culture is just as much a cancel culture

Sure it is. Not agreeing that's its fine for the state to force someone to bake a cake for an event that has, for that person, deep religious significance is just like publicly pillorying someone who wore blackface twenty years ago and causing that .

Show me the persistent right wing twitter mobs and their results. Show me the right wing campus movements that deny others their speakers and hound non-conforming students and faculty.

[Tony P.]

So, yes, Cancel Privilege Culture has deep, timeless roots and, given its proven effectiveness, it is no wonder that it is embraced by the mob. And tolerated by the mob's complicit enablers. Until, of course, they come for you or someone you care about.

McKinney,

If I agree with your original, are you willing to allow that maybe it's also true as amended?

--TP

[cleek]

The Woke movement is nothing new in form, if not substance.

it's humans being human.

you should be more afraid of the clever marketing that's got you all wound up about it.

[McKinneyTexas]

If I agree with your original, are you willing to allow that maybe it's also true as amended?

"Privilege" is a much more subjective, contextual concept than cancelling people. That said, no one can credibly argue that being white, male, heterosexual isn't an advantage in Europe, the US and Canada. How much and under what circumstances varies and, as a whole, it is less of an advantage today than 10 or 20 years ago (and going back further and further, the advantage becomes more and more pronounced).

[McKinneyTexas]

it's humans being human.

you should be more afraid of the clever marketing that's got you all wound up about it.

Sure--I'm being manipulated but you get it.

[sapient]

Show me the persistent right wing twitter mobs and their results. Show me the right wing campus movements that deny others their speakers and hound non-conforming students and faculty.

Does this kind of thing count?

[russell]

The thing for me is that, though there was some "theft" to varying degrees from black musicians by white musicians, there was most definitely a genuine love and respect for the music among the band who took it up and put their own spin on it. They loved it so much that they couldn't not play it.

^^^^ this right here ^^^^

nobody owns culture. the legitimacy of cultural borrowing comes down, IMO, to exactly what hairshirt describes here.

the reason I called out Carole Kaye way way upthread is that the ineffable quality that gets described as "blackness" in popular America (and other) music is not a function of skin color, but of sensibility.

the swampers are all white guys, for instance.

does it swing, is it funky, does it have soul, is it greasy, does it make you feel like we just all had church. all refer to that sensibility. if you can pin it down more than that, there is a graduate degree in musicology in it for you.

it's obvious, and impossible to describe.

that sensibility is rooted in the experience of black people - people originally from Africa - as they lived in this country. but the sensibility is something that anyone can acquire.

mostly people acquire it by loving it and having it rub off on them.

Steve Winwood, as far as I'm concerned, is one guy who is a black as he wants to be.

as far as "cancel culture", I figure some things deserve to be shamed. it's not something I participate in, but I'm also not all that upset by it.

there are much, much bigger fish to fry.

[cleek]

you are being manipulated.

shunning isn't new. it's isn't exclusive to the left. it isn't something the left has revived. what's new is the term "Cancel Culture" and the way it's being used as the latest bogeyman on the right.

[cleek]

ask Jeff Sessions or Steve Bannon if there's a Cancel Culture on the right.

ask the dozens of his bowing and scraping Congressional toadies why they're afraid of Trump and his deputies excommunicating them from the GOP. don't call it "cancelling", though - that word is reserved for the evil left.

[Marty]

Shorter cleek, bullying by the left is fine.

[cleek]

shorter Marty: derp

[CharlesWT]

The WaPo got called out for making a mountain out of a molehill in the last day or two.

That was pretty despicable. Public humiliation of a private person for something they did two years ago at a Washington Post event.

"It's astonishing that this article—a story about a long-ago Halloween party attended by the Post's own staff and principally involving three private persons—made it to print, and everyone involved in its publication should be deeply ashamed. That includes Prince and Gruber, but also Fisher and Trent, and their editors. As far as cancel culture goes, this is a new and depressing low point."
The Washington Post's Halloween Costume Hit Job Is a New Low for Cancel Culture: There was absolutely no reason to run this.

[McKinneyTexas]

ask Jeff Sessions or Steve Bannon if there's a Cancel Culture on the right.

ask the dozens of his bowing and scraping Congressional toadies why they're afraid of Trump and his deputies excommunicating them from the GOP. don't call it "cancelling", though - that word is reserved for the evil left.

This is actually somewhat of a point. Compelled group-think is a thing. However, 'cancel culture' is much more of a thing. Among other things, the right wing stuff involves people who stuck their oar in the water. Cancel culture goes after anyone for sinning against the Woke left's rules, if you can call them that. As Marty says, it's ok when it's on the left.

Until they start coming for you.

[McKinneyTexas]

That was pretty despicable. Public humiliation of a private person for something they did two years ago at a Washington Post event.

She lost her job. So did some guy in San Diego who was photographed anonymously and had his photo sent to his employer, allegedly because his hand was signaling some kind of white supremacist thing.

Mob justice. It doesn't go away when the supposed adults ignore the behavior.

[cleek]

Cancel culture goes after anyone for sinning against the Woke left's rules, if you can call them that

of course it does. because that's how it's been defined for you. it doesn't include when conservatives do the same thing, because that wouldn't make for good rabble rousing.

As Marty says, it's ok when it's on the left.

Marty invents a position for me to hold and you agree. so compelling, so well-thought out of you both.

[hairshirthedonist]

We can probably discuss specific instances where someone was "cancelled" and whether it was justified. There are probably some instances most of us would agree on - be they justified instances or not-justified instances.

The biggest problem for me is when there is no room for learning the lesson, sincere apology, and making appropriate amends. People should be allowed to be better than they once were. In fact, that should be everyone's goal.

The point that unjustified "cancellations" aren't exclusive to "the left" (TM) isn't to suggest that they're okay. It's pointing out how some people selectively notice such things.

[McKinneyTexas]

We can probably discuss specific instances where someone was "cancelled" and whether it was justified.

The premise is wrong. Cancellation is a fact-free, justice free, mob action that has real world consequences. That some 'group' can define acceptable limits on thought and speech and get someone fired because of imputed impure thoughts is the polar opposite of a civil society based on the rule of law. Who the F conferred on anyone--and the Woke left in particular--the authority to create new rules of speech and thought and to enforce those rules through mob action.

Of course the right is more aware of the left's shortcomings. The left doesn't police itself anymore than the right polices itself. That doesn't mean that the left's cancel culture isn't the much larger, unjust threat to people who don't agree with the Woke agenda.

The Woke cancelers are not shy about eating their own. They demand total submission. Using cultural appropriation as a bully stick to beat the unwary or uninitiated is just one example of how awful they are and why they are sui generis in a modern, supposedly liberal society.

[John Thullen]

Most of the American fire-at-will tradition seems like cancel culture to me.

For example, folks canceled for attempting to organize unions.

The two examples cited above should not have been fired from their jobs, IMO.

Apologies from them, after review, would suffice.

Is there a reason why, McKinney, besides good social taste on the part of the individual employees, none of the white employees of law firms which you lead show up at parties, even of the office variety, in black face, or for brandishing hand signals of various types at fellow employees?

Surely, there would be some kind of expected consequences for them governing such behavior.

I could make a case if I felt like it that online dating services are positively orgiastic examples of mass cancel culture.

Most of what goes on there is mass cancellation, just like in judgmental American real life.

All reality entertainment shows have as their hook cancellation culture.

In fact, that's the sadistic fun of that crap for Americans, watching the pathetic losers on "The Apprentice" trundle into the elevator, their wheeled luggage in tow, and on to the sidewalk for the humiliating limo ride (they should make them hitch hike, shouldn't they?) to the airport after the biggest sadistic loser in the world fires them for failing at some ridiculous "business" task and then America elects the head sadist to wreck the country and cancel an imaginary deep state.

The biggest test of cancellation culture will be the November elections in which we wait with baited breath to learn whether an abject racist, corrupt thug gets canceled for being what he is.

If he is re-elected, besides knowing that the election was stolen, we'll know that cancellation culture is not working to its full potential.

[cleek]

The left doesn't police itself anymore than the right polices itself.

then go police yourself and quit pretending a handful of overzealous Twitter dipshits are either representative of the left in general or are going to destroy our society,

[John Thullen]

"Who the F conferred on anyone--and the Woke left in particular--the authority to create new rules of speech and thought and to enforce those rules through mob action?"

Lester Maddox?

Mel Gibson?

[cleek]

i really like this seething hatred of "the woke".

nothing could be more 2020 "conservative" than a sweeping prejudicial hatred of people who pay attention to social racial injustices.

[cleek]

happy Juneteenth, Party Of Lincoln

[McKinneyTexas]

Surely, there would be some kind of expected consequences for them governing such behavior.

With respect, you recast 'cancel culture'--which we all see everyday and know what it is--as just another aspect of what "people do." It isn't. Cancel culture is a mob of anonymous, unaccountable people charging and convicting a person in a swarm of tweets that leaves the accused alone and usually fired. It is sui generis. The employer is threatened. It is so grossly different and over the top that I find it astounding that so many here are either silent or, as you are, somewhat willing to concede an excess here or there but generally ok with peeps being called out IF THEY APOLOGIZE APPROPRIATELY--who gets to be that "someone" and determine if the penance is sufficient and sincere and whatnot?

There is no limit, no rules, no boundaries that apply to these vigilantes. They single out and vilify individuals for what can only be seen as thought crimes. In older times, instead of twitter, they used rope. It is beyond disgusting.

To compare the anonymity of a twitter mob descending on a defenseless individual and compelling that person to grovel and possibly causing that person his/her job to someone like me addressing someone on my payroll for an act that I can observe or at least verify--all of which happens in private, not to put too fine a point on it--is really quite odd.

[McKinneyTexas]

nothing could be more 2020 "conservative" than a sweeping prejudicial hatred of people who pay attention to social racial injustices.

Classic. We can't be wrong because we are obviously right, hence our authority to judge everyone else. White Fragility!

[CharlesWT]

The Woke cancelers are not shy about eating their own.

The narcissism of small differences.

[nous]

sapient - This is a bit complicated. For example, people who popularize a genre that doesn't "belong" to them can actually assist people who do more legitimately "own" it make money from it.

A clear and specific example of what I would consider as stepping on someone else's hustle would be the 90s New Age publishing industry and people like Lynn V. Andrews and other Plastic Shaman, which seems very different in kind from young white musicians who embrace black music.

And if you want to get back to black music where there is money (as opposed to jazz), then look at hip hop and rap and Eminem, or 3rd Bass, or Bubba Sparxxx, or the Beastie Boys and then compare them to Vanilla Ice or Fred Durst or other MC Chads.

And as for non-SJW cancel culture of a much more dangerous kind - Gamergate.

[McKinneyTexas]

And as for non-SJW cancel culture of a much more dangerous kind - Gamergate.

I vaguely recall a post or two here addressing Gamergate and participating in the discussion. My sense of it was there was a group of male losers who had issues with the left leanings of some female game designers and maybe a journalist and executed an extended online attack on these women. I didn't care for it then, I care even less for it now. That said, Danger' is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. I'd be interested in your explanation, if you would care to give one, as to why Gamergate is more dangerous than the WaPo article Charles linked to.

Are you ok with cancel culture, nous?

[hairshirthedonist]

That some 'group' can define acceptable limits on thought and speech and get someone fired because of imputed impure thoughts is the polar opposite of a civil society based on the rule of law. Who the F conferred on anyone--and the Woke left in particular--the authority to create new rules of speech and thought and to enforce those rules through mob action.

You seem to think this is a far more organized "group" than it is. And no one conferred anything. It's mostly stuff going viral on social media. I'm not sure what you want anyone to do about it. It's another one of those free-speech things that goes to show that guaranteed free speech isn't perfect, even if it's better than state-enforced censorship.

Right-wingers throw around death threats on social media like confetti at a parade when someone says or does something they don't like, sending people into hiding and seeking state protection. That's today's world, I guess. I don't like it, either, but I'm not pretending it's something that only exists on the political "other side" from me.

I doubt anyone here is a big participant in twitter mobs, but this is a great place to rant. Knock yourself out. I don't think it's going to be the most interesting or enlightening conversation.

[cleek]

We can't be wrong because we are obviously right, hence our authority to judge everyone else

irony

[hairshirthedonist]

Cancellation is a fact-free, justice free, mob action that has real world consequences.

Sometimes it is. Not always. Unless you define it that way, in which case your conclusion and your premise are the same thing. If you're only talking about the most awful instances of someone being called out and having their life negatively affected without justification, then what's there to talk about?

[Tony P.]

McTX: With respect, you recast 'cancel culture'--which we all see everyday and know what it is--as just another aspect of what "people do." It isn't.

Speaking only for myself, I had not been "woke" enough until about yesterday to have heard of "cancel culture", let alone be clear about its definition. McKinney helpfully defines it for me:

Cancellation is a fact-free, justice free, mob action that has real world consequences.

I'm pro-fact and pro-justice, I think. So is McKinney, apparently. As for "mob action", well, I suppose if a bunch of people tweet something, McKinney is entitled to call them a "mob" and their tweets "action". That's his privilege.

Still, I'd be more inclined to call Tiki-torch-carrying racists marching in unison a "mob". It's a matter of taste.

--TP

[russell]

'cancel culture'--which we all see everyday and know what it is

I don't mind saying that I don't know what it is. The term is too vague to have any meaning.

The WaPo article was bullshit. Doxing Nazis, by which I mean not people with nasty opinions but people engaging in racist violence and mayhem, I have very very little qualms about.

Different things are... different.

Complaints about specific cases seems reasonable. Railing against a 'culture' which is defined as 'some people did some stuff', less so.

And FWIW, the target of thd Gamergate BS was threatened with rape and murder, had her address published, and had to move to avoid harrassment and risk of physical harm.

Her crime was writing a computer game that was insufficiently violent for the boyo's taste.

[hairshirthedonist]

I'd say one big problem with the WaPo thing is that it was something published in a major newspaper. Someone in the organization should have had the good judgement not to run the story. It's an entirely different thing than a twitter mob, where the "blame" can't be nearly as focused.

[Girl from the North Country]

McKinney's characterisation of the dire effects of woke culture, and particularly cancel culture, reminded me irresistibly of the McCarthy hearings, which it seems to me could be characterised as the ne plus ultra of cancel culture. I know McKinney loves to cast us here on ObWi as "the left", and to inveigh against the horrors of communism, and certainly most here agree with him about communist regimes in the countries that went for it, but it is an astonishing thing how many European countries, including the UK, manage to have legal Communist parties without the dire collapse of civil society and the stability of what I think McKinney himself has called "liberal western democracy", so it's quite funny to hear him and Marty characterising this as a phenomenon of the left when the most dramatic possible example of it was executed by the right.

[Girl from the North Country]

Plus, what too many here said, particularly hsh, nous and Tony P.

[cleek]

the WaPo's story was dumb enough to make me wonder if it was the result of some interoffice tiff.

the Dixie Chicks are still waiting for an apology.

[Girl from the North Country]

Good point on the Dixie Chicks, cleek, and a lot more recent than McCarthy!

[nous]

Are you ok with cancel culture, nous?

Are you okay with structural racism McKinneyTexas?

If commenters here want to go all King Canute on these waves of social disapproval rippling out across the Internet, then help yourselves. If, after doing this, commenters want to go after the platforms where these waves happen for stomping on the free expression of their own side of whatever issue made those waves in the first place, then help yourselves.

I called Gamergate assholes more dangerous because they resort to SWATting the people that they disagree with.

As far as the WaPo article goes, I think it was a poor editorial choice. The article itself was not sparing of anyone in particular and none of the people came off particularly well, though I did cringe in sympathy for the woman at the center of it all. What do you want me to do about it? Pressure my university to cancel their institutional subscription? And the Reason article blasting the WaPo article didn't do anything but try to balance the outrage scales with a side order of libertarian aioli.

Cancel culture is just the levers of capitalism being wielded as they always have been. There are just fewer fences and checkpoints between those levers and your ordinary schmo than there used to be.

Feel free to come after me for appropriating the use of "schmo" here. It's a meshugga move for a goy like me to pull in a conversation like this.

[Girl from the North Country]

nous: LOL. Properly deployed, in my opinion.

[russell]

ok, so a 'cancel culture' story. apologies if this is, like, the ninth time I've trotted this one out, but it seems on point. so here ya go.

a friend of mine opened a small cafe two towns over from me. right downtown in the kind of hardscrabble down-at-heels former industrial small city that New England is just chock full of. that, of course, being another whole set of stories for the crying-in-our-beer midwestern rust belt trumpster knuckleheads to ponder, should it ever occur to them to do so, next time they want to bleat about the 'coastal elites'.

but I digress.

the city has been trying to establish the downtown as a place that people might actually want to visit, my friend's cafe was part of that overall vibe.

she booked in live music, had vinyl night on Tuesdays when you could bring your favorite vinyl records down and play them for everyone. wine and painting night a couple of times a month, poetry and fiction readings. good Celtic seisun on the weekend. art on the walls. good food, good coffee, wine and beer.

culture. right?

a cool little scene. it was very nice. she made something very cool, out of nothing.

her daughter was the day manager, and completely unrelated to the business, went off on social media about cops being out of control. it was not well received.

word got out that she was associated with the business. the business was cancelled. cops boycotted it, anyone who liked cops boycotted it, anybody who was on the "blue lives matter" side of that particular great cultural divide boycotted it.

my friend went on social media apologizing, fired her daughter, specifically invited cops to come in for breakfast or lunch.

no deal.

my friend lost her business, lost her life savings, lost her condo. at age 50-something, she was starting over, completely, from nothing.

nothing.

my wife and I and a couple of her other friends helped her move out of her condo and helped her get her tiny collection of possessions into storage while she and her teenage youngest kid looked for a place to live.

so yes, 'cancel culture' exists, in the sense of people mobbing up on other people in social media and similar and making their lives turn to shit.

but it is not by god anything like a specifically 'lefty' thing.

people can be hateful. sucks that that is so, but it is so.

you want to cry a tear, you could cry a tear for my friend. nobody is 'championing her cause', nobody other than a group of friends is stepping up to get her back and win her any kind of 'justice'.

not that she wants any of that, she landed on her feet eventually, got a pretty-ok job working for another down-at-heels-hardscrabble-former-industrial New England city, doing outreach for disabled and otherwise impaired people. which she is really good at, enjoys, and is grateful for.

it was just a hell of a left turn, and it was a freaking shame for the city. most of the people who took it upon themselves to punish her for her kid's loud-mouthing live in that city, and now they have no nice groovy little cafe downtown.

there are assholes everywhere. it's not a 'culture', it's just people being dicks.

[A One-Man Mob]

Twitter, Facebook and other social media organs amplify the mob's cytokine storm of cancellation culture.

It's good "business". Remember that.

We know too of teens who have committed suicide because of concerted mob behavior against them on social media.

The now completely discredited "lamestream" media (now there's some fake mob hysteria) seems to be stooping to the mob's demands by allowing mobs of one kind or another to turn their comment sections on the web into gang cesspools.

Local broadcast news "invites" the mob to give their opinions. C-Span long ago tried to segregate the mob into right and left callers and what, moderate callers.

Result: three mobs

Wade into any business/stock market comment section at CNBC, MSN Money, Yahoo Finance, and Seeking Alpha, if you can stand to have your dick measured.

It seems to me that the phenomenon of social media has perverted the long-understood norms of First Amendment rights.

Somewhere along the line, probably when he declared in his dorm room there was no such thing as privacy, Mark Zuckerberg should have had his face punched in, probably by a roommate during one of their bullsh*t sessions.

But instead, his crap because a business plan to be monetized and the mob converted into "consumers", whatever they are, and once that happens in America, it's too late to stop evil.

Same with the business plans of Rush Limbaugh and dozens of white supremacist "entertainers", including Rupert Murdoch's in house mobs of surly blondes and male airheads.

Their mobs are big time moneymakers, but the thing about grifting mobsters on the right, they are canny enough to not only form the mob, they actually fleece the mob as they wreak havoc.

Black Lives Matter doesn't seem to be getting rich off their mobs.

My point about private employers, besides that private judgement can be unjust regarding firings even when it is not sparked by a "mob", is that is was in fact the employers who fired the two individuals mentioned above, not the Mob.

We need either some braver souls like Atticus Finch to sweet talk Mobs to break it up and go home for the night, or better, some private employers who are willing to stand up and tell the Mobs to go f*ck themselves.

Either that or remove Donald Trump's opposable thumbs, as a good example from on high.

That all said, besides McCarthy, William Randolph Hearst was an expert at assembling mobs to get us into war, as was George W. Bush (Colin Powell, I'm looking at you), and Obamacare was subject to threatened mob violence and discord.

A mob of Republican notables descended on the vote tallying offices of Broward County in 2000. Many of those same went on to legalize corporate mob rule by the very rich in our governance with the Citizens United ruling.

They call themselves an "interest group" of corporate individuals, but they've lit afire American politics and governance and broke political norms like so many storefront windows.

A mob of armed right wing self-proclaimed tax cheats descended on a wildlife preserve in Oregon not long ago.

I don't recall our good conservatives and one libertarian here dropping everything and rushing over here to condemn that crap.

I don't know, maybe they thought we had it covered.

And lest we forget, a mob lied about the nature and severity of Hillary Clinton's flu symptoms, and much more, in the Fall of 2016 leading up the the election.

I could hear them from here.

Now social media has made everyone fair game so each of us can tarred and feathered like we have been tar and feathering politicians since tar and feathers were found to complement each other.

Damn John Jay! Damn anyone who does not damn John Jay!

Sounds like a problem government might address, but there's a gigantic mob of Covid-denying pandemic super spreaders heading for Tulsa who will go to every length to not allow that to happen.

One of the biggest race riots in American history took place in Tulsa in 1921 when a racist white mob murdered black citizens and destroyed black businesses.

The entire Confederacy was mob rule (yes, yes, they called it an "army" because whenever a conservative mob wants to look legitimate, they put on uniforms and walk funny) and the sheer number of rapists and mashers among the male mob in this country, not to mention the mob behavior targeted against gays in this country since forever were precedents for today's mob behavior and pretty much ruined it for everyone.

Today's mobs did not form in a vacuum.

[John Thullen]

Enraged mob rule or ... "consumer dissatisfaction":

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/amc-require-patrons-wear-masks-200015895.html

[John Thullen]

Idiotic maskless mob rule ... or consumer dissatisfaction?

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/06/19/my-name-is-apparently-karen-so-put-your-fucking-mask-on-right/

Who is the mob?

State Officials in Austin Texas or local city officials in Houston, Texas?

[cleek]

behold the online mob!

A tweet published on Sunday by a New York City Police Department (NYPD) sergeants union has been deleted from the social network after appearing to contain the private information of Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter.

The post, shared by the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), appeared to show the arrest records of Chiara de Blasio, 25, who the New York Post reported was arrested by officers on Saturday night while taking part in a Manhattan protest.

The SBA, led by sergeant Ed Mullins, has a well-documented history of criticizing the elected official and recently "declared war" on him via the Twitter account, prompting an investigation by the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, Gothamist reported.

that left-wing police union has a lot to answer for.

John McAdams, a tenured professor of at Marquette University, a renowned Jesuit school and basketball powerhouse, launched a crusade against grad student and instructor Cheryl Abbate in November 2014 for supposedly squelching an undergraduate in her ethics class who wanted to discuss his opposition to gay marriage. McAdams didn’t stop there. He opened her up to the Wild West of the internet by linking to her personal information so others could hate on her. Also, on his blog, McAdams “doxed” her, providing personal identifying information to make it easy for others to harass her.

And they did. Abbate was deluged with threats, many violent, one calling her the “c” word with promises that an hour with him and she’d have a personal “understanding” of the “abhorrent behavior” these “freaks” engage in. Abbate dyed her hair and retreated from campus life. She moved her lectures to a new building, and security guards were posted outside her classroom. She noticeably lost weight. After the fall semester concluded, and despite losing three semesters of work and having to revise her dissertation, she left Marquette, the school she loved, to start over at a new institution in another state far away.

happy ending to that one, though!

It’s just as well Abbate left. McAdams is back. The 72-year-old professor was fired in 2016 for exposing Abbate to threats. But Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that everything, including the doxing, is “activity protected” by academic freedom.

tee hee. which is it then, free speech or online mobs run amok?

[byomtov]

A couple of things.

First I think sapient raises a good point in linking to pictures of assholes showing up at protests armed and threatening. Does showing up in person not count as a "mob?" Is that not cancel culture?

Second, as to the firings, yes they were stupid, unjustified, and, frankly, cowardly. The guy with the non-white supremacy gesture worked for a utility, for Pete's sake. Were the Twitiots going to cancel their electric service if he wasn't fired?

[Cleek]

When you’re counter-protesting Juneteenth, you’ve lost the plot

https://mobile.twitter.com/kirstenglavin/status/1274062068929507328/photo/1

[John Thullen]

If you are whistleblower at Boeing Corp, your employer is a mob:

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3584605-boeing-whistleblower-alleges-systemic-problems-737-max-report

The guy is probably unemployable as well in the future as his entire professional field mobs up against him.

[Ugh]

Is an attempt at Prior restraint for trying to publishing a book Cancel culture?

[Ugh]

And OT but there ain’t going to be any meaningful team sporting events in the US this year. It’s all blowing up in the owners’ faces as the players decide maybe risking their lives (and if loved ones) isn’t worth it.

This means, of course, that the Nats will be two-time defending (And non-cheating) WS champs! Woo!

[Ufficio]

The three biggest cancelations of this century that come to my mind are the Dixie Chicks, Colin Kaepernick, and Steven Salaita.

But, yeah, let's get rid of at-will employment. Fewer people would be getting fired for being assholes outside of work if employers weren't allowed to fire people for being assholes outside of work.

[CharlesWT]

And OT but there ain’t going to be any meaningful team sporting events in the US this year.

Those taxpayer-subsidized sports stadiums are beginning to look humongous white elephants. Instead of very large white elephants.

[John Thullen]

No baseball this year. Not even fantasy.

Five Philly ballplayers and staff have tested positive.

Major league ballplayers' bodies are now really corporations unto themselves. Major investments and assets with future enormous earnings streams.

They aren't going to risk those assets because they are owned by bigger corporate entities.

Should the players be forced to go back to work like meatpacking employees, because America demands their entertainment, as we demand meat?

Or should meatpacking employees prize their health and their bodies like the privileged ballplayers and be given a year off with pay and benefits?

[John Thullen]

Tragic:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-black-wealth-has-stayed-relatively-flat-since-tulsa-massacre-150041181.html

[Marty]

tee hee?

[John Thullen]

Tough reading, a trail of tearful reports repeatedly tossed in the round file and ignored:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/the-history-of-the-riot-report

Note the McCone thesis therein: peaceful demonstrations cause violence.

Conservatives and racist southern Democrats, soon to be Republicans, in the Sixties didn't even like Lyndon Johnson's Rat Extermination Act to lessen rat infestations in the inner cities.

They ridiculed it.

Maybe they thought they would mistaken for the rats.

I keep wondering WHY peaceful demonstrations, like those in Lafayette Park, and even bystanders and black citizens asking for help to protect their businesses are being attacked by police, but law enforcement is not interdicting the looters and Antifa elements to any noticeable degree as they run amok.

[John Thullen]

Sometimes it's a matter of canceling them before they cancel us:

https://newrepublic.com/article/158215/florida-coronavirus-cases-ron-desantis-leads-state-morgue

[liberal japonicus]

there are assholes everywhere. it's not a 'culture', it's just people being dicks.

Yep. But often, people don't notice the assholes who support their views, just the ones who don't...

[Hartmut]

Looks like someone else got canceled too
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/navy-won-t-reinstate-captain-fired-raising-coronavirus-concerns-n1231582
To my uninformed eyes this stinks (mixed metaphor) and reeks of superior scapegoating.
First it was about shortcutting the chain of command out of uncalled-for anxious concern that things were not moving fast enough, now it's about not reacting to the crisis fast enough. My money is still on 'you dared to embarass us and draw the ire of the supreme baboon down on all of us caring more about the common scum manning our favorite toys than about us you own your only allegiance to. Now suffer the consequences with added interest.' as long as there is not compelling eveidence to the contrary. The crew seems not to have had the impression that their captain was doing a bad job there.

[John Thullen]

In some red states, the cancelers and those they wish to cancel are of the same party, and of course the meanness and sadism of it increases the farther to the right of the Overton Window one ventures:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/greg-abbott-wheelchair-empower-texans

The perps, themselves now canceled, until the republican party uncancels them for future battles against liberals:

https://empowertexans.com/

Masks, natch.

The disabled, natch.

And just when you get a good hate on of Texas' Lieutenant Governor for offering up the elderly and infirm to Corona-19 sacrifice, someone worse in that party comes along to make HIM appear normative.

By the way, the Republican Party, to my mind, jump-started mob cancellation culture in politics with its decades-long purge of RINOs from their exquisite inner sanctums of governance.

On the other hand, if I, the liberal, were a campus academic and was harassed by characters presuming themselves to be to my Left and on my side of the issues, including having my classroom activities rudely disrupted and my job threatened, as opposed to being subjected to mere civil criticism, I wouldn't be fired for whatever thought crime accusations were brought against me, I would be fired for physically assaulting the individuals who physically disrupted my teaching activities AND those who caved to their behavior.

I don't even like arrogant bullies I agree with. They bring out the bully in me.

And if the self-righteous rump right in turn decided to valorize me for those actions, say, Rod Dreher, for example, I'd tell THEM to eff off as well with my fists.

If I'd been a guest on Firing Line when William F Buckley, Gore Vidal, and Norman Mailer were about to go a few rounds back in the day before yesterday (they nearly did), I'm not sure of the three of them who I'd punch first if it came to that.

To paraphrase Groucho, I make a lousy club member....

..... except for the Hypocrite Club, where I can blend in.

[sapient]

The Justice Department cancellations were proceeding apace until Geoffrey S. Berman bravely refused to be cancelled.

[McKinneyTexas]

Damn, I deleted a very long comment that, to paraphrase our revered leader, was 'perfect!'

Anyway, the National Review maintains a CC "body count" of recent examples of what the aggregators call CC incidents. For those willing to step out of their comfort zone, here is the link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/the-cancel-counter/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

As an aside, I usually read the LGM and American Prospect links others provide, FWIW.

Also, FWIW, I draw a very bright line between Jefferson, Washington, etc. and the heroes and flag of the Glorious Cause. The latter belong in museums, not the public square and not on state flags. The former should be assessed in context and by the totality of who they were and what the said and did.

I'll address the three of the examples of CC imputed to the right:

1. Colin Kaepernick--people who wish to make a public statement, political, religious, whatever, are free to do so but they are not immunized from others' right of rebuttal or right to disagree or right to disengage. CK made millions off of a market that, to a huge extent, respects the flag and sees the national anthem as a time to stand and reflect and be a part of something bigger. He was not cancelled because of his Facebook comments or because he marched at a campus or because he failed to agree with someone else's political agenda. He--a public commodity--was rejected by the public for stupidly and gratuitously insulting his customer base.

A lot of people--I am one--do not like having someone else's political views served up to me when I am paying for a product that should be free of everyone's politics. If I watch a game or buy a ticket, I know what I'm getting. I don't have to watch and I don't have to go. But, the product itself is well known and well understood. If the primary beneficiaries of that product and my money choose to make it about THEIR politics, then I'm out. I didn't start the conversation, so to speak, and I don't care to be involuntarily dragged into it. That isn't CC. That is finding out that people don't have to pay to listen to your or anyone else's politics.

2. The Dixie Chicks--if a public commodity whose fan base is the country music crowd wants to travel overseas and gratuitously insult their own country, they are free to do so. For some on the left, that resonates. For many others, it comes across as ass-kissing, opportunistic, tone-deaf virtue-signaling. If I'm a fan, I can choose to be a former fan. I didn't cancel anyone. I simply decide not to give my money to someone who wants to make my participation in their operation contingent on listening to their political views.

3. Russell's Restaurant Owner Friend--this is closer to the CC culture but still not on point. First of all, the Friend was not employed by someone who then fired her because of outside complainers about her or her daughter's political views. She was self employed in the service industry. As a general rule of thumb for peeps in the public service industry, keeping your politics and your religion to yourself is a good move. Leaving aside that bit of advice, while it is shitty that people held her daughter's--who did work at the restaurant--views against the mother, they did not demand that the daughter be fired and that the mother renounce her daughter. Rather, they simply severed ties. It is a difference in kind and not in degree.

Further, some of you may remember a discussion a while back when a number of folks here endorsed excluding MAGA hat wearers from public facilities. I argued against that and was in the minority in doing so. I argued then that it is an unfortunate feature of some on the left who think so highly of their views that they can impose them on others as they go about their everyday lives. Certain Republican figures were refused restaurant service--I can't remember who and I don't care--and most here seemed just fine with that. Yet, when public figures like CK and the Dixie Chicks attempt politicize their customers and the customers decline further engagement, that's a bad thing.

There is no unifying principle here. It is ideology masquerading as manners and one of its manifestations is the very pronounced lefty proclivity for CC--going after people in their everyday activities based on their political views or opinions or for not being expressly on board with the lefty view of the day. For example, do not--in any way--criticize BLM or anything having to do with the post-Floyd excesses in some quarters.

We all have to make a living. 99.9% of us do so outside of our political views. To now find ourselves in a time when disagreeing with the BLM movement is cause for third party agitators to demand that our employers terminate our jobs is really hard to reduce to a single word. It is a form of political tyranny, of compelled acquiescence in a viewpoint that, quite frankly, the more one learns of it, the less attractive it is. It is everything bad about the left, the farther one moves on the spectrum.

A final note: whataboutism. A number of commentators and even headliners here have used that term as if it is, in and of itself, a substantive rebuttal to someone else's argument. It is not a rebuttal and it is not substantive.

It is a form of asserting tua quoque in lieu of substantive engagement.

Hypocrisy is always fair comment. Ditto double standards and taking inconsistent positions. I am fine when people respond to my positions by pointing out what they think are inconsistent positions elsewhere or that my brush is too narrow and fails to capture examples outside the lefty sphere I consistently disagree with.

All of that foreplay is a prelude to saying simply this: everyone here who thinks it is clever or responsive to assert 'whataboutism' needs to read their comments in this thread before ever making that statement again.

[sapient]

McKinney, regarding "whataboutism", you specifically asked that people show you:

Show me the persistent right wing twitter mobs and their results. Show me the right wing campus movements that deny others their speakers and hound non-conforming students and faculty.

So some of us showed you. Now we're whatabouters?

[cleek]

It is a form of asserting tua quoque in lieu of substantive engagement.

LOL.

how dare we illustrate the nonsense of your oft-repeated assertion that this is a "very pronounced lefty proclivity"! why, it's a logical fallacy to do so!

[russell]

tee hee?

It's the new lefty anarcho-syndicalist call sign.

Antifa elements

In the imaginations of the right, antifa plays the role of McCavity the cat. They are the Hidden Paw, the secret prime mover behind all of the violence, rioting, and looting.

Has anyone here ever met anyone claiming to be a member of antifa? Had, or been party to, a conversation with one? Seen one in the flesh?

I'm not an antifa supporter. They start fights. It's not helpful.

But don't believe the hype.

[McKinneyTexas]

So some of us showed you. Now we're whatabouters?

Sapient, fair point, sort of. I asked for "right wing twitter mobs" and "right wing campus movements". I got neither. I got a lot of other stuff, but not that. Furthermore, there was plenty of whataboutism before I made that specific challenge to nous. However, let me be clear: "whataboutism" as a self-contained response is meaningless. Pointing out, as many did, their views of inconsistencies or that CC extends beyond the left--classic whataboutism--is perfectly fine. It is a substantive response to a position they disagree with. I have no issue with substantive responses. I prefer them.

[Tony P.]

McTX: Further, some of you may remember a discussion a while back when a number of folks here endorsed excluding MAGA hat wearers from public facilities

"Public" facilities? You'll have to back that one up, McKinney.

When you buy a ticket to a football game, you want to watch 2-3 hours of violence interrupted by committee meetings without having anyone's politics distract from the business at hand.

When I sell booze and a place to drink it for 2-3 hours, why should I be required to allow anyone's politics to distract from the business at hand?

You're allowed to boycott sellers of entertainment, but the sellers of entertainment are not allowed to boycott you?

Incidentally, you seem to be fine with politically correct extra-curricular activities like standing for the national anthem at sporting events. How do you feel about dress codes at privately-owned "public" places?

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

Yep. But often, people don't notice the assholes who support their views, just the ones who don't...

You know, lj's comment really says it all about the relative behaviours of "rightwing" and "leftwing" "cancel culture", stipulating that there are no doubt better and more accurate terms for everything in quotes, depending on who's doing the condemning.

[russell]

I asked for "right wing twitter mobs"

You yourself cited gamergate. Which was exactly that.

Not that it matters much to me either way. Whether Twitter was used or not, or whether bullying and harassment happens on campus or not, seems somewhat beside the point.

Bullying and harassment, and when and whether it is ever justified, seems to be the question here. Or at least, should be.

But since you asked, that's a fairly well known example, and one you raised yourself.

I'm also finding myself hard-pressed to see anybody jumping to the defense of "cancel culture" here. The consensus seems to be that different cases are different, and should be considered as such.

There are real windmills to tilt at, if you're so inclined. This doesn't seem to be one of them.

[russell]

If you want to dig any deeper into "right wing twitter mobs", start with Milo Yiannopoulis. Pull that thread and see where it leads you.

It's not something I'd recommend, because Milo and his sad career of basically being a dick for a living is not actually a very edifying narrative.

But if you're actually curious, that's a very good place to start.