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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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I read a bit, and then started skimming. Not enraged, just disagree with a few points (though I guess I was a voice of relative restraint):

1. Nobody Learns Anything Useful From Being Persecuted

(...) And now they say . . . that lefties must suffer terribly at the hands of cancellation mobs, because it will teach them that cancellation is wrong?

If being on the receiving end could teach people cancellation was bad, it would have taught you that. It obviously hasn’t, so try a different strategy.

That's silly. They don't want to do it because they think it's good, they think it's bad, and that his bad thing needs to be done to the people who were doing it with impunity for the past decade. So yes, it has taught them that it's bad.

3. You’re Not Debating Whether To Become Like Woke People, You’re Already Like Woke People

(...) One of the fundamental problems with wokeness was that it believed in collective guilt and collective punishment.

Much like his point about the necessity to define Cancel Culture, I think we need to sit down and talk out the limits of individualism and collectivism. Yes, I agree full-collectivism is bad, but full-individualism is plainly unworkable, and opens you to attack from hostile groups. We mostly know this already - no one is going to treat a hundred thousand Russian soldiers the same way they'd treat a hundred thousand individual Russians they met somewhere. Now one might protest it's obviously different, because an army is an official organization, with uniforms that makes your membership clearly visible from a distance, but I regret to inform you that not all collectives (not even all armies) are kind enough to uniform themselves, or have a clear hierarchical command structure, with a chain of responsibility.

I'd argue half the reason we're in this mess to start with is individualists insisting on individualism, and getting their ass handed to them by collectivists as a result.

I don't have answers here, but I think the question does need to be raised.

5. Most Cancellations Are Friendly Fire

(...) But they’re not stories about Trump, Tucker Carlson, or Nick Fuentes. The median victim of cancel culture is some center-left college professor who sent out an email saying that he supports BLM but questions some of their tactics.

I'd counter by pointing out that Nick Fuentes is, quite possibly, The Most Cancelled Man In America. Aside from that - I stood for a lot of these people when they were getting shot at, and was shot at myself for doing so, you don't get to push me away from them now, just because you've mentally put me in the "red" basket.

9. There’s Probably Other Options

All fine and well, but if you want to avoid a cycle of vengence, you have to at least offer some restitution (everyone that got throttled by Big Tech, will now have to be promoted by the algorithm!), or offer a different venue for the bloodlust. Here's my humble contribution: make it legal for cancellation victims to challenge their cancelers to a duel, and illegal for the cancelers to decline. If you got me fired for the OK handisgn, I get to pommel you in the Octagon until you black out. Bloodlust satisfied, no need for more cancellations, and we even have a mechanism to prevent future cancel mobs!

I think honestly people do learn from being persecuted. If they didn’t we’d never have gotten to this point. The very public cancellations will have some impact if they continue for longer, just like the Budlight thing is having an impact. I’ve noted a decline in public companies making overtly political statements since then. A lot of Pride related merchandising has declined. Companies are somewhat less vocal about DEI since the backlash against that.

What seems to work is targeted cancellations over a long enough time and having mere apologies not being enough.