Find Out, I think.
Yes, in that online culture context it’s “Find Out”, the second half of the FAFO expression. Was copying how people would label it.
I’m too busy to reply for two days, and suddenly there’s 100 new posts and I can’t catch up. 
The author is so close to getting it. 
You might be interested in this essay from 2021 @Frilly_Heck:
Please don’t be put off by the author using the word ‘woke’; he explains that he isn’t using it in a pejorative way, and is approving of the movement’s aims here.
Re Twitter pile-ons, and to a lesser extent, the SDMB Pit: being attacked and criticised by large numbers of people is hugely psychologically threatening. It triggers a primitive fear of being exiled from the tribe and abandoned to die alone. That’s why it’s such an aversive experience, even with no threat to one’s livelihood.
Yet @puzzlegal is right that most of the participants in those pile-ons have no malicious motive: they simply feel outrage and want to express it. It’s the sheer number that makes it devastating to the victim, and there are enough genuinely horrible messages and threats included in the torrent to make it frightening. This is a problem with the structure of social media; particularly Twitter and its clones. I tried to refrain from joining in pile-on’s after I realised this - I told myself if someone had already said what I wanted to, I wouldn’t comment. It’s hard to resist the temptation to add my two cents, though.
Which is exactly why I don’t want to put a whole lot of effort into trying to dig up things I half remember from several years ago, many of which have probably been deleted in the meantime.
He didn’t ‘put himself in the public eye’. He attended a march along with thousands of other people. Is any one of them supposed to be fair game for doxxing and death threats if they happen to be photographed while checks notes smiling uncomfortably at a guy during a tense situation?
This sort of attitude, that anyone who takes part in a protest should be fair game for disproportional ‘consequences’, along with the idea that free speech is merely about protection from the government rather than a broader cultural attitude are what I was arguing against in the posts @Kimstu labelled virtue signalling.
Yes, killing people for political reasons is worse than social or institutional pressure or threats. I never said silencing people using threats of social consequences is the worst problem in the world, just that it is a problem. Or, in short, this:
Trump’s multiple abuses, appalling as they are, are not the subject of the thread. Nor are the increasing legal limitations on free speech in various European countries, including my own. I already had to consider possible legal ramifications while posting in this thread: it’s unlikely, but I could potentially be arrested for posting something that’s within the rules in Great Debates. Obviously this is a far more serious problem than cancel culture, but I didn’t bring it up before because it’s similarly not on topic.
As for @HMS_Irruncible’s question about the merits of the situation: I don’t think it matters whether the person ends up gaining a new career as a conservative grifter, except insofar as it makes cancelling less effective as a threat, which is a good thing. But most people would not want to upend their lives that way, and anyway, I think the world would be better off with fewer audience-captured influencers, not more of them.
As for what they did to merit the ‘consequences’, of course that’s important. That’s why I suggested guidelines for when views you disapprove of should be tolerated (and implicitly, when not).
What I actually want to do is not convince people that any particular case of cancelation is unfair, but to weigh free speech more heavily against other values like preventing harm. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do that. What evidence would people here find persuasive?
But “cancellation” is a form of free speech. I mean, death threats aren’t protected free speech in the US. But, “did you see that photo of so-and-so? Don’t you think he’s despicable” is absolutely an exercise is free speech. So is, “i don’t want to go to that shop, because the owner is a Nazi.”
So you can’t just say, “free speech good” if you are concerned about cancellation.
The issue is that it is not really as black and white as you like it. Many of examples that I posted demonstrated that preventing harm, or preventing the people making harm to continue to do so when they are not brought to justice or taken to task, are part of what the right-wing likes to paint as “evil” cancelling culture.
In reality it is an effort from the right-wing to end the good that it can do, so as to protect the bad agents that do know that when light shines on them, they are in trouble, and justifiably so.
The evidence that is needed is a basic one, to show that all the time this is harmful. In reality it is not an absolute, because there are many times when this is not the case.
It’s just the paradox of tolerance. I know this idea is abused a lot, but if you want to keep the benefits of free speech, you have to oppose efforts to limit it (I don’t mean in a legal way, generally, but by ignoring the would be cancellers, and standing up for the right of people to believe differently and speak their minds.)
There’s no real limits to this social pressure; that’s why I pushed Andy so hard to come up with rules on what should be cancel-worthy. Not because I don’t believe in nuance, but because ‘cancel anything I disapprove of’ is ripe for abuse.
You say you disapprove of bigotry - okay, supporting affirmative action is bigotry, because in most implementations it involves discriminating based on race. If I can persuade enough people to agree with me, we can vastly reduce support for AA by making it socially risky to be open about it. Is that good for society? I don’t believe so. I’m not a fan, but I think people who are should be able to make their arguments for it, and let voters decide.
This kind of definition creep is a major factor in objections to cancel culture. Like I said, very few people have a problem with cancelling literal Nazis. They do have a problem when these labels and punitive attitudes are extended to their own beliefs, or to adjacent ones - if you don’t speak out when they come for the conservatives, you know damn well you will be next.
What’s the point of some specific “rules” when we’re talking about speech? My rules wouldn’t matter to anyone else. Because it’s all speech, everyone necessarily gets to decide for themselves.
However, many times the right wing does willfully ignore good sources of info, specifically, the “cancelers” that in reality are there to denounce the ones that are not doing good.
But since the right wing is not the majority, most of the people that do want to do good, do ignore the ones that wanted to cancel the ones doing good. Point here is that it can get misguided, but most people do want to do good, while it is in reality a minority of influences who want to do evil.
There is also the clearly avoided item that the right wing is now deep into canceling the ones that do want to do good.
Because if you want to argue cancelling Nazis is okay while still supporting free speech, you need to have somewhere that you draw the line, even if that line is necessarily a fuzzy one.
Fair enough, and not unreasonable. But then I guess the question becomes, “So why repeatedly make such vague sweeping assertions about the behavior of ‘the left’, based on some occasional ‘things [you] half remember from several years ago’?”
But the devil in the details there is, “Exactly what behavior(s) do we mean when we refer to people ‘speak[ing] their minds’?”
Is it limited to simply saying, when the question of personal beliefs on a particular topic is raised, "Actually, my personal belief is [statement of unpopular belief]"?
Does it include making an angry YouTube video telling protestors against racial injustice that they can “kiss [your] ass”?
Does it include violating an employer’s institutional policy by refusing to use a transgender co-worker’s designated pronouns?
Which of these behaviors, and innumerable others, should be defended on grounds of free-speech principle as just letting people “speak their minds”, and which of them is it okay to protest against as gratuitously assholic inappropriate conduct?
It’s easy to thump one’s chest and utter noble-sounding vague sentiments about “standing up for the right of people to believe differently and speak their minds”. But when it comes to specific interactions in the real world, there’s a very wide range of social acceptability in the various behaviors that the individuals who engage in them would call “speaking their minds”.
Because it’s what I believe. Considered rationally, it’s likely anti-persuasive for posters here, and that is a good reason not to say it. But screenname notwithstanding, I’m only human.
I think that’s a more productive conversation. It’s reasonable for an employer to discipline a worker for something they did at work. Deliberately refusing to use preferred pronouns likely counts as creating a hostile workplace, and should be grounds for firing. Policing what workers say in their own time is different. IIRC, it’s legal in some US states to fire an employee for eg having a Trump or Kamala Harris bumper sticker, which is nuts. Supporting mainstream parties outside of work should clearly be on the ‘allowed’ side.
It is nuts, but after a quick check, sure, there are cases; but so few that no one is tracking them, and about half of the ones I noticed, could be attributed to bosses that were/are right wing, or more justifiably and less political: when the stickers were very extreme or offensive.
So, even fewer firings coming from the left. Compare now with the number of workers being dismissed systematically when reported to just have the smell of having democratic or liberal tendencies.
Science and Democracy Under Siege | Union of Concerned Scientists
Federal government programs, including grants, designed to target and enhance participation among historically underserved communities—Black, Brown, Indigenous, non-English speaking, rural, and low-income communities—have been crudely eliminated. Hateful and inaccurate rhetoric and threats, especially toward transgender people and their health care, have escalated. And perhaps most chilling: the administration has begun illegally imprisoning and removing people with legal status in the United States, specifically non-White immigrants.
The Trump administration is operating as an authoritarian regime. And fundamental to the scheme: cutting out science and scientists that challenge their agenda. By ignoring high-quality evidence and facts, the Trump administration attempts to position itself as the arbiter of truth and reality.
In the past six months, the administration has systematically and recklessly destroyed federal scientific systems by:
- slashing the federal workforce, including pushing out experts in federal agency leadership;
- wiping out funding for critical scientific research within and outside the government;
- cutting scientists and the public out of government decisionmaking processes;
- silencing independent advisory committees;
- and spreading disinformation, distorting scientific information, and halting government data collection; among more.
There’s a fuzzy line at “not Nazis but still advocating really bad stuff”. Case by case. Contrary to your earlier uncited claim about me, I wouldn’t boycott or advocate any “canceling” consequences just because someone says something I disagree with. It has to be really really bad before I’d even consider it.
How’s that?
3 points on this:
- Setting aside the inaccuracy for a moment, the internal inconsistency here is glaringly obvious. When you’re at a public protest on public property at one of the most well-known public monuments (and protest sites) in the world, where the media are visibly present (as expected, because the point of the thing is to be seen), you have ipso facto placed yourself into the public eye. You have inserted yourself into an attention-seeking event, and shouldn’t be surprised when you get it.
- Please stop with the innocuous descriptions of his behaviors as “standing” or “smirking”, as he and his classmates were documented as yelling, chanting, taunting, mocking. Not in that single clip that went viral, true, but in the other undisputed media reports of what happened that day. They were all interactive and obnoxious participants.
- I need to emphasize here that given the public nature of this protest that I described above, being “doxed” is neither unexpected nor unjust. You came to a public place to be seen and known, and that’s exactly what you should expect to happen.
I can understand why my words would be interpreted that way, but my position is more nuanced than that, and I’ve explained that several times. The abuse of a public mob shouldn’t be considered excusable or morally just. Yet it’s a fact of life that’s existed since mass media existed. In fact, the most effective protests depend on it. Civil rights marchers in the 1960s depended on this fact, because the photos and footage of them being assaulted by police and counter-protesters was instrumental in getting policies changed.
When you join a protest, this is what you must expect, and if it happens to you, then you should seek some kind of legal recourse, as Sandmann did. But what you can’t do is sit back and wail “how could this possibly happen to me, I had no idea that it works like this”.
I will make the concession that the media were wrong to air footage of a minor as the focal point of the coverage. Since Sandmann decided to settle the case, the courts never found culpability, and we’ll never know because the terms were confidential. Obviously Sandmann saw that his case wasn’t strong enough to get a decisive judgment in his favor. But had he secured that judgment, I’d have a hard time finding fault with the court. Minors shouldn’t have their mugs blasted across their TV without their parents’ permission.
So then the question remains, what kind of test case is this for a discussion of “cancel culture”? I don’t think it really applies. The dynamics of mob action have existed since mass media existed. It’s well-known enough to the point where some protestors actually depend on the persecution. There’s a mechanism for prosecuting harassers and abusers if they can be identified.
So without excusing behavior of the anonyous mob, and stipulating that they should be punished, I will say that I don’t find the Sandmann case to be a productively discussable example of “cancel culture”. I think it’s a cause celebre that conservatives reach for to add emotional valence to the whole cancel culture situation, but it’s a different thing that doesn’t really advance the conversation.
2 points here:
- This is my opinion, though I think it’s a very good one, that the actual novel and concerning phenomenon of cancel culture is the way it’s possible for the mob to apply pressure to the vulnerable parts of a person’s life, and for those vulnerable points to collaborate with the mob, issuing unaccountable justice. Example: Chris Rufo decided to go after Claudine Gay, coloring some fairly innocuous behaviors as much more serious than they actually were.
That’s Rufo’s free-speech right, but he knew that Harvard University would capitulate due to their corrupt weakness and sensitivity to viral criticism, that they could and probably would fire her, and that she would have no recourse. This was absolutely odious and contemptible behavior on Rufo’s part, but within his free-speech rights. But the worst actor here was the administration of Harvard University, who didn’t exercise their rightful discretion as a private institution to stand up for their employee, and sacked her on Rufo’s whim.
To me, there’s no case that shows the issues more clearly than the Gay case. There also might be anti-conservative examples as well. If we’re casting about for evidence, that’s something I’d like to see, a case of a conservative being cancelled from job or school that’s also clean from concerns about their behavior toward their colleagues or schoolmates vis-a-vis creating a hostile work or school environment. I’m highly skeptical there are many (if any) such cases, and I think that’s why you’re having a hard time developing evidence for it.
The actionable policy topics are Gay’s lack of recourse against Harvard, and more generally how much lopsided and unaccountable power our schools and employers have over our lives. This isn’t exactly a new situation, but the risk of viral exposure has made it newly exploitable in some highly concerning ways. To me that’s the real discussion about “cancel culture” since the OP was asking for definitions.
- If you think you have an argument, develop your own support for it. Asking others to do it for you suggests that you’re really not sure if it’s supportable or not.
Calling someone “woke” is a compliment.
That’s one of those things that has always confused me about the extreme right. They use pejoratives that make me want to say “thank you”.
Social justice warrior? Thank you!
That’s what I’d expect. Not that it’s necessarily 50-50, but that there would be bosses of both political inclinations who abuse their power this way. I was trying to find something we could all agree people should be fired for (deliberately misgendering colleagues at work), and something we could all agree they shouldn’t be fired for (expressions of support for mainstream parties that are outside of work but easily visible).
The Trump admin’s attacks on science will be among its most damaging actions in the long run. And most of it doesn’t even benefit them.
Okay, ‘cancel anything I disapprove of’ was an exaggeration. But “really really bad” can cover a lot of ground. A big part of my objection to cancelling, censorship etc is the way this category has expanded and been weaponised. That was the point of my affirmative action hypothetical: we agree as a society that racism is really really bad, then a group of activists decide that affirmative action is racist, accuse its supporters of racism, and try to silence them on that basis.
Is affirmative action genuinely racist? If you try to argue that it isn’t, you must be one of those nasty racists yourself, and should suffer the consequences. It’s a catch-22. That’s what I mean by weaponising cancellation to unfairly win an argument. But even if you do believe it’s racist (I think it can be in some circumstances), does that mean supporters are genuinely bad people who deserve to suffer some kind of consequence? Or that it’s such a pernicious belief that it needs to be censored? I don’t think so. But by labelling it as racist, you bring all that baggage in, and that label is all that most people will hear about it.
So what’s the disagreement here? You don’t believe this is happening, at least to any significant extent? You think censorship/cancelling has been expanding in certain areas, and that’s a good thing because they genuinely are really really bad? Do you believe what I described as weaponising cancellation is a bad thing, at least?
I believe that some people are stupid, and some people are bad, and stupid and bad people will use things like boycotts (“canceling”) in stupid or bad ways, against people who don’t deserve it. I wouldn’t call it “weaponizing”; it’s just using a tool the wrong way, or for the wrong purpose.
It would depend on the specifics, but in general I would oppose boycotts and similar for someone who advocates for or against affirmative action, unless they’re also advocating for white supremacy or something like that.
Another way to sum up my position - there’s nothing new about “canceling”, except that the internet equalizes the playing field much more so than before. This can be good and bad - good because it makes it easier for regular people to hold the powerful to account for bad behavior; bad when anyone uses this “easier” playing field to target those who don’t deserve it.
This whole post is excellent. It helps put into words something I’ve been mulling over as I read this discussion: we are always subject to (and take advantage of) two different methods of social control- the law and public/community pressure. They can both be abused, but both are necessary and equally important. It seems that the argument in this thread that holds “free speech” as an absolute good is in fact an argument against community pressure. It is insisting that community or socially driven consequences for behavior/speech is inherently bad, while the use of the law or government to punish speech is less of a concern.