[avgDev]

The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics. Humans have been cancelling people and things for eternity. People with extreme views that did not align with the majority were always pushed away. This even happened in medicine and science.

[mc32]

I think the problem is the "democratization" of cancelation. Someone says something mildly controversial (some talk radio host said something terse about a neighbor) and people start lodging complaints against the employer and the hosts advertisers.

It's idiotic.

[klyrs]

As if this hasn't been happening to gay people who got outed until extremely recently. It wasn't exclusively democratic, of course: the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was only repealed a decade ago. Cancel culture isn't remotely new; only now it's punishing bigotry, not an instrument of bigotry. And, no shit, bigots are pissed about that.

[mc32]

It’s not new. The ability for people with little context whatsoever to cancel something just because is new. The democratization is the problem. There is usually little due process, if any. It’s not different from East Germany where is you wanted your neighbors bigger apartment you convict a story about them listening to west German radio programs.

It’s stupid.

In Korea they use this to cow people into behaving “properly” whatever the fuck that means. There is no reason to maintain the belief it will only be used to smoke out the “bigots”.

[shadowfox]

> The democratization is the problem. There is usually little due process

In context of what the parent post, are you under the impression that gay people were cancelled after going through some due process?

[mc32]

I'm not under that impression. But I am under the impression that if we had had something like the democratized cancellation we have today that it would have been much, much worse.

People having done a bad thing in the past does not excuse doing a bad thing today.

[klyrs]

Are you suggesting that people who have experienced democratized cancellation for multiple generations would be much, much worse off compared to populations that did not experience that treatment?

edit: never did I say that a previous wrong justifies a wrong today. I'm challenging your assertion that this is "new." At the same time, I do think that some cases of so-called "cancel culture" are just fine, specifically when it's no different from any other business owner booting a customer for being abusive towards staff or other customers. Some examples of so-called "cancel culture" are in fact bad, and I agree that folks who said dumb shit 20 years ago should get some leeway if they've changed in the meantime.

[howaboutnope]

Yes, and gay people were pissed about it, too. Your point? It was an unjust way to treat homosexuals, it's an unjust way to treat supposed "bigots". Especially when it turns into vulgar Gesinnungsschnüffelei combined with double standards, and reading inner motivations and beliefs into snippets, because "it could be".

[klyrs]

Only gay people have suffered millenia of outright persecution, and face a death penalty in several countries to this day. Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison here.

[howaboutnope]

Something wrong doesn't become one iota better, or acceptable, because bigger evils exist. By that logic, persecuting homosexuals is perfectly fine, because bigger evils than that exist, too.

And no gay person suffered millenia of persecution, not even non-persecuted individuals live that long. You might as well say carbon-based lifeforms suffered millenia of persecution at their own hands and call it a day.

[kelseyfrog]

I'm simply not convinced that cancellations of mild controversiality represent a significant proportion of total cancellations without evidence.

[monkeydreams]

> The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics.

Yes, but the power balance shifted so that the dissatisfaction of "small" people can now be perceived and felt by the wealthy and powerful. "Small" people can organise around a cause and make the powerful uncomfortable, so the powerful attack.

[Krasnol]

You are right, it's been around since we evolved into civilized human beings actually. We even have places where people are being "cancelled" out of society. We call it "prison".

The only new thing is that it's labelled "cancel culture" which makes it somehow "bad" for some people.

[specialist]

Socrates and Jesus are two noteworthy examples.