[glangdale]

> Schools are being pressured to remove books and cancel professors for spreading the “wrong” ideas. These sentiments are all too familiar to me, and to anyone who has survived life in a dictatorship. The only answer is more freedom, more speech, not less.

This is a good sentiment, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of pressure to "cancel" books and academics is directed at the left by the right, regardless of what gets column inches and think-pieces.

[lhorie]

I think it's interesting phenomenon on its own that Kasparov is taking a fairly centrist stance here through a careful choice of words (cancelling books getting tends to be done by one side and cancelling professors is often done by the other side) and specifically calling out to promote more freedom regardless of what side you're on, but here in the comments people are looking at it from a bipartisan blame-shifting perspective.

The parallel to my immediate life that comes to mind is when my kids are bickering about some inconsequential triviality and I say "I don't care who started it, I only care that you stop fighting". It must surely be an "important" topic for them that they feel the need to argue about it, but in the grander scheme of things, the resolution shouldn't come at a cost of a losing a core principle (i.e. aiming for resolution through vengeful means is not a productive course of action).

[watwut]

> "I don't care who started it, I only care that you stop fighting"

I stopped doing that when I realized this is systematically enabling aggressor. The kid that minds own business is on the defense and effectively forced always do what aggressor wants. Because if it protects or defends itself, adult steps in to tell him he is equally wrong.

[ajuc]

It's less harmful in family (because the assumption is that ultimately kids do love each other and won't do anything really bad). But I've mostly encountered this sentiment at school when somebody is bullied. And there it can be really bad, for a really long time. And that response is basically adults telling the victim "Nobody cares".

[avmich]

That's why in families it's an appropriate action, and in school isn't.

In school there is a better (worse?) chance to meet somebody particularly nasty, who's bullying kids around. That should be answered by "authorities". In families it's less of the case, so GP logic is reasonable.

I keep a high respect to Gary Kasparov. I however have a question regarding what he writes here -

"It is the coordinated, coercive attempt to win a debate by ending debate—to punish, not to educate."

Could it be that those who "cancel" just found a tool which is more effective than those before, something which they were missing in the "old status quo" of inter-class interactions? Could it be that the voices of those who do cancelling today weren't heard enough, so now they use this new opportunity to participate in the societal decisions?

[watwut]

It is not appropriate in families. It just does less harm, because parents are more likely to notice harm and change.

When I wrote "I have seen it" originally I meant siblings in families. At this point, I have seen dynamic three times. Each time one kid ended up being systematic aggressor and other victim. The victim was pushed to submissivity and aggressor honestly believed he/she is entitled to act like that. And that victim is bad for defending own toys or boundaries.

And each time it went on, until parents changed approach.

[lhorie]

Oh to clarify, I know who "started it" (the themes are fairly easily distinguishable, usually falling in one of two buckets: bullying/nagging/disrespect for boundaries or "calvin-ball"-like disagreements; and mostly the latter). If the theme falls in the former category, that kid gets chewed on right from the start. If it's not clear, I ask probing questions first.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> (cancelling books getting tends to be done by one side and cancelling professors is often done by the other side

I can name dozens of books that have been "cancelled", almost entirely by conservatives.

Depending on the definition of "cancel", I can think of very few professors that have been "cancelled" [0] at all, and roughly equal numbers by conservative and progressive perspectives.

[0] "cancelled" in this case seems to typically mean not a lot more than had to listen to some unpleasant feedback on their views and/or behavior.

[systemvoltage]

You may be right about one instance, but I've never seen anything but pro-freedom of speech from the right. Leftism in colleges and academia is so rotten beyond belief.

I am down with History of Racism, naked and in all its gory details. But, let's not confuse that with how fusion of Big Tech with Big Gov to move more and more towards totalitarianism - we've seen this happen in Australia in the name of COVID. Vast majority of this is a push from Left, not the Right.

Edit: Australia passes mass surveillance laws: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451066 . I can't reply because of limits, been too much on HN, I need to get off :-). It is indirectly linked to quanrantine and other measures Australian government is taking as a result of COVID. I would go a step further and argue that the world has become more authoritarian post-COVID in general.

Edit: Those saying this is a naive and disingenious take - my observations are pretty much consistent with censorship is mostly from the left than right. Sure you can give examples of suppression from the Right (which I would oppose), but that doesn't really change my observation. Generally speaking, it is indisputedly obvious to me. Here is an economist article that goes in much more depth than single counter examples in the responses: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/09/04/the-threat-from...

[noelwelsh]

"I've never seen anything but pro-freedom of speech from the right"

This seems a very naive or disingenuous take. Here are two examples that immediately came to mind:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Art... particularly actions against Mapplethorpe

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed#Rece... 2006 Arizona State Legislature

[JamesBarney]

I don't know if deciding whether not to fund the NEA or what books can be taught in school is really anti-freedom of speech.

Someone has to decide what to teach children. Teachers and parents both influence that decision. Teachers through what books they pick and parents through who they elect. And since Teachers are to the left the population as a whole, it makes sense that they would push books to the left of center, and elected officials would rein in that impulse.

[noelwelsh]

What, then, do you think is an action that is against freedom of speech?

To me these are textbook examples of censorship. Note that I don't think your summary captures the relevant facts.

NEA: the issue is not whether it should be funded but how the funds, which were already approved, were allocated. Exhibitions were cancelled after receiving funding due to political pressure, and 4 artists won a court case when their funding was vetoed due to political pressure.

Pedagogy of the oppressed. I'll just quote wikipedia here: "The book was among seven titles officially confiscated from Mexican American studies classrooms, sometimes in front of students, by the Tucson Unified School District after the passing of HB 2281." This was ruled a violation of the First Amendment: https://ncac.org/news/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-a...

[JamesBarney]

I'm probably missing some context, but I'm not sure what about politician's arguing what artists the NEA should fund is against the 1st amendment.

> This was ruled a violation of the First Amendment: https://ncac.org/news/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-a...

It looks like that ruling was just because it was racist, and has since been overturned at the circuit court. Maybe I don't understand something, but the government fundamentally determines what does and does not get taught in public schools.

[joshuamorton]

Two things to consider:

1. There's a difference between defining a curriculum (what needs to be taught) and banning things (what cannot be taught). The government is generally allowed to determine the first, but the second is more dubious. It's difficult to claim, for example, that banning certain books has a legitimate interest in improving academic freedom, as educators already had the freedom to not teach those books.

2. This specific example is from a university, where "defining a curriculum" is even more dubious due to the existence of elective classes. If a university wants to, in addition to its core curricula, offer a class on racial or gender studies, why is that any less legitimate than a class on water polo or whatever?

[noelwelsh]

I don't think this is a productive conversation so this is my final response.

NEA: again, what do you think is an action against free speech if not someone organizing action against an art exhibition?

Ruling: I couldn't find anything about the circuit court overturning the ruling. Here is a direct quote from the article, emphasis mine: "After a lengthy trial, Judge Tashima wrote in an interim opinion yesterday, that the Arizona Superintendent’s office violated the First ... Amendment"

[yesenadam]

> how fusion of Big Tech with Big Gov to move more and more towards totalitarianism - we've seen this happen in Australia in the name of COVID

I don't know what you're referring to here, could you give some links? Thanks. (Sydney here)

edit: The link you added is about new laws that seem nothing to do with covid. What's the connection? (And you edited again. Maybe I'll wait until you stop doing that. In general, please reply to comments rather than repeatedly adding to your initial comment!)

[joshuamorton]

What's your opinion on anti "critical race theory" laws that generally speaking ban teaching important aspects of civil rights history? These are basically solely pushed by the right, and have been passed in nearly a dozen states.

The economist article you cite is interesting in that it doesn't actually explain what's wrong with the progressive approach, it just describes it as bad. It says

> Individuals, not just groups, must be treated fairly for society to flourish.

But this fails to realize that favoring "individuals" over groups disfavored the invidiuals in those groups. Intersectionality suggests that you can't treat individuals fairly without understanding how the groups they're apart of impact their identity.

And this is really just disparate impact, a well understood, classically liberal, civil rights era policy that the right is slowly scratching away at!

[amalcon]

> Generally speaking, it is indisputedly obvious to me.

When I catch myself saying things like this, I contemplate whether the availability heuristic is deceiving me. It might not be -- I haven't done a rigorous review of this topic either -- but I usually find it's worth introspection when I have this thought.

[systemvoltage]

I am the same way but here it is just plain in day light. Regardless of whether left or right is more prone to censorship, I am a proponent of free speech and civil rights, and any progress in that area is a win for society IMO.

[cool_dude85]

Isn't it at least a little bit embarrassing to you to start with:

"You may be right about one instance, but I've never seen anything but pro-freedom of speech from the right."

And then wind up saying sure, there are plenty of examples of right-wing censorship, but check out this article in the Economist?

Come on.

[JauntyHatAngle]

Mate, you literally linked Australian legislation that was passed by the "Right" party in Australia.

They are just called the Liberals, but they are Economic Liberals, not social, and are considered our "right wing" party with an evangelical Christian as our Prime Minister.

[noelwelsh]

Exactly. And on "Vast majority of this is a push from Left, not the Right" here's the Green Party (probably the most left Australian party of any size) opposing it: https://lidia-thorpe.greensmps.org.au/articles/more-police-p...

[cool_dude85]

Look at Bari Weiss, who started a right wing free speech university and cut her teeth trying to get her professors fired in college for supporting Palestine.

[glangdale]

Some more examples: https://www.salon.com/2021/05/01/conservatives-claim-to-hate...

A right-wing think tank with strong influence on Idaho legislators produces this gem of a report:

'The report doesn't just call for eliminating individual courses, however. It calls for the elimination of five whole departments — Gender Studies, Sociology, Global Studies, Social Work and History — that it claims are infused with "social justice" ideology. (A sixth blacklisted department has since been added: Criminal Justice.) Eight other departments (later updated to nine) are on a watch list of sorts, judged to be "social justice in training."'

[temp8964]

> You know who's not canceled? The endless parade of conservative pundits and politicians complaining about "cancel culture." You know who is canceled? George Floyd is canceled. Breonna Taylor is canceled. Ma'Khia Bryant is canceled. Andrew Brown Jr. is canceled.

Lol. This is the first paragraph of the article. Is there any intellectual honesty in the discussion any more?

[maccolgan]

I hope you noticed it's from Salon.

[glangdale]

Followup: I can't Google up the studies I read on this, as all the terms I can think of are either overloaded or heavily partisan ("cancel culture"), etc. But I have a strong recollection of seeing quantitative data on number of complaints brought against academics from outside with an attempt to figure out whether this was a left/right thing and seeing a tentative conclusion that the bulk of complaints about academics are that they are "too left".

If this seems tendentious and unlikely, let's remember that Bari Weiss, now advocating for the University/grift that is University of Austin as a beacon of academic freedom, made her reputation attempting to get academics "cancelled" for having the wrong views on Israel.

There are a lot of people with a vested interest in beating the drum to claim that universities are a mess of "cancel culture", but I'd be intrigued to read some actual statistics on this, rather than heavily publicized anecdotes.

I tend to agree with the poster who complained this was some sort of blame-shifting ("he started it, mom!"). But the portrayal of normal academic life as being rife with endless left-wing cancel culture is a project being done for a reason. I don't like left-wing cancel culture either - and some of the leftiest people I know dislike it from a practical perspective (I know people personally teaching at elite institutions whose teaching has become unmanageable from constant weird student political demands). But any analysis of this that doesn't take into account the fact that universities are under pressure from the whole political spectrum is dumb.

It's also worth noting that "right wing cancel culture" sometimes just manifests itself by quietly shutting whole departments in favour of, say, expanding the "trade school" elements of a university. Just nuke the whole history department and double the size of business... obviously an apolitical act, right?

[hackinthebochs]

This database has a record of about 500 attempted or successful deplatforming on college campuses: https://www.thefire.org/how-to-use-the-disinvitation-databas...

Deplatforming speakers is largely the left's MO.

[glangdale]

Deplatforming is not the only form of external pressure applied in the academic world. Getting entire university departments closed, for example, is considered a bit more final and effective.

Also, it's interesting that even the very ideological "FIRE" group (not exactly a neutral player in all this) shows roughly 60% of user-submitted cases being deplatformed "from the left", which is far from overwhelming.

[Jensson]

The scientific sciences are also more right wing, the more you go to the softer sciences where opinions are everything the more left the professors lean.

So your observation is just "left wing professors often work on unscientific subjects and therefore more often gets their department shut down". It has nothing to do with politics, if you had a department full of right wingers who called their blog posts "scientific papers" then I'd call for them to get shut down as well. Blogging is fine, just don't call it science or make university courses based on your blogs.

[glangdale]

"Blog posts".

Your mind is going to get blown when you find out there exist whole departments at universities that aren't sciences, and that there's kinda of a tradition of academic scholarship that goes back centuries in the humanities.

[glangdale]

Another good example (from a Nation article):

"Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, in a tizzy over the discontinuation by the estate of Dr. Seuss of six lesser-known books with racist content, had the audacity to gripe via social media that “the woke mob” is trying “to erase our history and cancel anyone who disagrees.” This is the same Tom Cotton who wrote a whole legislative act aimed at banning schools from teaching the 1619 Project, the initiative exploring how the United States was indelibly shaped by slavery—or what Cotton blithely describes as “the necessary evil upon which the union was built.” Cotton is not concerned about the censoring of history; he’s just picky about what parts of history get erased. What the Arkansas senator really means when he gets prickly about preserving “our history” is making sure the mythical white-supremacist recollection of American events is the only version schoolkids can read. Along with racist Dr. Seuss books, of course."

[aqsalose]

So took a chance to Google the quoted phrase attributed to Cotton. It comes from an interview to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, in context:

>In the interview, Cotton said the role of slavery can’t be overlooked.

>“We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction,” he said.

>Instead of portraying America as “an irredeemably corrupt, rotten and racist country,” the nation should be viewed “as an imperfect and flawed land, but the greatest and noblest country in the history of mankind,” Cotton said.

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jul/26/bill-by-cott... via https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tom-cotton-slavery-necessa...

One common historical argument (I think I got it from H. W. Brands' biography of Benjamin Franklin that I read recently), is that there would had been no union at all if the southern states (with slavery) were not accommodated.

Of course, any decision about a school curriculum excludes other curriculums, unless one chooses to deliberately cover all aspects of debate of any debated school subject, or take an anarchist attitude of no imposed curriculum by the state, giving total control individual teachers or maybe parents themselves.

In Finland, teachers have quite much autonomy as long as the minimum standards of vaguely specified curriculum is adhered to, which is more "free speech compatible" in some sense, but that comes with failure modes too. (I had quite professional teachers in my time, but I recall reading a complaints about politically partisan teachers. System like is prone to have issues because while government schools are, in theory, part of the democratically governed system, the actual decisions about education and choice of teachers are quite many hoops and levels of hierarchy removed from the kids and the parents themselves.)

[glangdale]

I'm not going to get into a debate about whether Cotton is an idiot with a completely ahistorical view of slavery, but I think it's intriguing that he was pushing for a federal ban on a particular bit of educational content. I got into this discussion because people were wheeling out the trope that "only lefties go after free speech", that's all.

[blub]

Don’t know about most pressure, but when it comes to succeeding at cancelling, conservatives don’t seem to be able to cancel anything. What or who was cancelled by conservatives in the past let’s say 2-3 years?

[salt-thrower]

If you zoom out you can find many more examples. A bit further back, look at the Right's behavior throughout the Bush years - the Dixie Chicks are a perfect example of someone opposing the Right from within their own culture and being summarily "cancelled" for it.

More recently though, Kathy Griffin hasn't recovered from the Trump's severed head controversy.

I'd also like to point out that the type of cancelling and thought suppression the Right does is much more insidious than the Twitter mob, which has the attention span of about a week. The way the Right targets school boards at the local and State level to suppress any curricula which makes them uncomfortable is a huge, widespread problem. Countless teachers in America are legally forced to teach demonstrably false narratives about racism and slavery, as well as to present evolution and Creationism as "equally valid theories."

Comparing a comedian getting cancelled by the Left on Twitter (which rarely sticks; even Louis CK is doing gigs again) with the systematic miseducation of millions of kids based on demonstrably false narratives by the Right, I'd say the latter is much more harmful.

[blub]

This seems to be a global issue affecting many democratic countries, although the way Republicans likewise target education is probably unique to the US.

An illiberal debate culture is taking root in the West, where certain positions may be publicly held only at great risk for one’s career. In academia, which is supposed to shape the thinking of future generations, this is nothing short of an inquisition. Read Anne Applebaum’a “The new puritans” for a detailed analysis of the situation in the US. Something similar is happening in the UK and Germany for example.

[emn13]

The idea that cancel culture isn't effective isn't limited to cancel culture by conservatives; many of the cancellations decried by conservatives seem ineffective too. Still, I wouldn't have wanted to be the person on the receiving end, and there have been a bunch nasty campaigns - including by conservatives.

But if cancel culture is synonymous with effective public harassment, then virtually every single non-trumpist republican is a victim. Various public servants related to voting and elections have told a few harrowing tales.

A quick bit of googling find a bunch of articles devoted to conservative cancel culture, e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/fact-check-trump..., https://www.salon.com/2021/05/01/conservatives-claim-to-hate..., https://www.vox.com/22384308/cancel-culture-free-speech-acco..., https://www.thenation.com/article/society/republicans-cancel...

And while cancel culture may typically be about retribution for perceived slights by the public (or a mob), if you take a slightly broader view and include any backlash against speaking out, well, then most whistleblowers unfortunately suffer consequences that qualify. Many whistleblowers are treated absolutely terribly, and some suffer really serious consequences - inflicted not just by liberals, corporations, or the politically agnostic, but also by conservatives. While this may be stretching the definition, the most reasonable criticism of cancel culture I've heard is that it stifles reasonable discourse, and from that perspective cancel culture and whistleblower punishments are in a similar ballpark.

(I don't really want to express an opinion on right or wrong here - because given today's hyper-partisan and highly combative atmosphere it seems to me that these kind of backslashes or mob outrages are inevitable; i.e. this is a symptom, not really a cause.)

[blub]

Having read three of the links you posted, it looks like they’re approaching this purely from a US Republican vs. Democrat perspective. But this same phenomenon is definitely happening in the UK, France or Germany and likely other countries. It’s happening in Canada.

In fact that’s what makes it so concerning, this illiberal way of thinking is spreading in most if not all liberal democracies.

[oh_sigh]

Is it? Anecdotally, I see a lot of news about conservatives trying to "cancel" books in their kids libraries whose topics they don't like, but regarding professors, it seems like those getting cancelled are getting cancelled by the left, not the right.

[dragontamer]

https://www.texastribune.org/2010/03/22/sboe-removes-thomas-...

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/texas-board-of-education-c...

Thomas Jefferson was successfully removed from all Texas schoolbooks, as one example of many. The Right is no stranger to censorship.

[stevenicr]

You got me to wonder, thanks for providing the links.

I have seen stories recently about removing Jefferson from the public view / cancelling him, based upon far-left / progressive / anti-racist/slavery ideals (I think/assume) that are removing monuments around the country (and murals and building names, etc), not right-wing censorship, so I was quite curious.

sadly some of the supporting links are 404 on the thinkprogress page you linked to.

However reading the texas tribune article it says that Jefferson was not removed from all Texas schoolbooks, it says that he was removed from a list of 'revolutionary thinkers' - the other references were all left in.

- So this is kind of a red herring thing?

From the TexasTribune Article you linked:

"the Colbert Report got the board's move technically correct, noting it removed Jefferson from a list of "revolutionary thinkers," which is exactly what the board did. Colbert simply didn't provide the context that Jefferson was mentioned elsewhere. (Colbert, of course, is comedy and can't be held to journalistic standards.) "

... "None of the news stories from the day in The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News (which share state coverage), the Austin American-Statesman, and The Texas Tribune (that's me) mentioned the Jefferson amendment, much less asserted he had been removed entirely from the curriculum. "

Not that I disagree that "The Right is no stranger to censorship." - however this is not a good example for such, and perhaps the bigger debate should center around what tactics of censoring should be out of bounds, and example of such from different 'sides'.

Although it becomes tougher to paint sides when we have to wonder if a twitter mob is a side? if none of the leaders of a side are advocating for thing X - and which leaders are actual leaders of a side, and which influencers are a thing, and if 'leaders' denounce an influencer, then does it really count for/against a 'side'.. much to consider with all this.

[dragontamer]

Say that what you will, but the Texas School Board is highly conservative and makes these decisions all the time.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-lawmaker-says-850...

> Along with the letter, which was first obtained by The Texas Tribune, Krause appended the book list that includes well-known titles like the Pulitzer Prize-winning William Styron novel, “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and best-sellers that were turned into movies or television series, such as John Irving’s “The Cider House Rules,” Alan Moore’s dystopian “V For Vendetta,” and the graphic novel version of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Censorship, especially censorship applied to schools and education, is simply a tool of those in power to remain in power. In my experience, the conservative states seem to do it the most.

The conservative states also force upon the textbook writers things like "Intelligent Design" or whatnot.

-------

Book banning, removal of icons (Thomas Jefferson), etc. etc. Its all the same techniques. Conservatives simply ignore it when their peers do it, so you don't get to see those issues come up in conservative circles / conservative bubbles.

[dlemire]

The original claim was "the overwhelming majority of pressure to cancel books and academics is directed at the left by the right, regardless of what gets column inches and think-pieces."

Many would say that the overwhelming majority of the academy is left of center. This makes it intuitive that if there is censorship of academics, then the recipients of the censorship would be people left of center. But I do not think it follows that the censors are on the right.

I argue that most of the censorship on campus, be it people being uninvited or forced to resigned, comes from the academy itself. It is true that, quite possibly, the vast majority of the people being censored are on the left, but I think it is also true that the vast majority of the people censoring are also on the left.

The right simply occupies very little room in the academy. It mostly exists outside of the academy.

This is not to say that people on the right (mostly from outside of the academy) do not come in with censorious intentions... but my impression is that most universities are very well protected against external interventions. It is simply not the case that a business leader or a radio show host can easily censor a professor on campus.

So if we are thinking about, say, college professors, I would say that we are mostly dealing with a left-left censorship.

That is, the left is not this uniform block.

Kathleen Stock is a leftist: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-59084446 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock

Bret Weinstein is a leftist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Weinstein

Verushka Lieutenant-Duval is a leftist: https://arts.uottawa.ca/visualarts/people/lieutenant-duval-v...

The people doing the cancelling were on the left.

[dragontamer]

The majority of school boards and other local-government structures in the USA are conservative / on the right.

Which means that they'll levy the most censorship / control over the academics. Its the nature of the beast. If local school boards want to force the teachers to teach "intelligent design" and remove references to Thomas Jefferson, it will happen (and does happen regularly).

The whole "Critical Race Theory" stuff going on is just the newest push by the right to reshape education into their mold. Whether this works or fails, we can be certain that in a year or two, another educational issue will pop up and the right will use it as a rallying cry to change education again.

Thomas Jefferson, Intelligent Design / Creationism, Critical Race Theory. Just a few of the culture wars that the right has waged in the past decade and more will come.

-----

Welcome to educational politics. We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning. This "censorship" stuff has been going on for decades.

[glangdale]

To be clear, I don't approve of these "cancellations".

Public universities are not well-protected in the United States from conservatives seeking to defund programs with which they disagree. One might be well-protected against being fired directly for saying something controversial, but if your whole department is closed, you can be gotten rid of, even with tenure.

https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/education/2021-04-07/l...

There's an echo chamber out there that amplifies the notion that there is some sort of epidemic of "woke cancellations" and critical race theory etc. - this is heavily emphasized by conservative media. There's plenty of ridiculous behavior by students - e.g. at Reed College - which I am aware of a massive amount of left-on-left cancellation - someone I know had their career upended by the unlimited claims of the rather stereotypically woke students there. But stupidity at places like Evergreen and Reed will beget endless think pieces and have left cancellation magnified endlessly.

Meanwhile, conservatives' own role in cancellation is minimized to the point of ridiculousness: so Bari Weiss can straight-facedly claim to be a fan of academic freedom.

There's a quieter, but considerably more effective, campaign to defund entire departments among conservatives - the model is a narrow "university as career prep". This means getting rid of the humanities and social sciences in favour of business/law/engineering/CS (good for us, I guess?).

In Australia, the conservative governments have been fairly unabashed in raising the cost of a humanities degree (paid for via our "HECS" scheme) in a way that seems pretty much Amazingly, this gets considerably less press in the echo chamber than some jackass left students acting like jackasses. I wonder why...

I'll agree with you that most of the noisiest and embarrassing cancellations are left-on-right or left-on-left, but this a narrow slice of "actions taken against academics", and their noisiness is not indicative of their effectiveness. Some of these cancellations are simply part of right-wing grift: schedule a talk from someone with credentials designed to enraged the "woke left" somewhere on their home turf, then enjoy the newfound credibility when you get cancelled and get to be a Free Speech Martyr.

[AnimalMuppet]

Can we say that it's bad, no matter which side does it? And that both sides are doing it in different ways, and that's bad?

[amusedcyclist]

Has any professor gotten fired for their views ? The worst thats happened is some people getting disinvited from conferences, hardly seems like censorship, just editorial disagreement

[oh_sigh]

Is firing the only way to get cancelled?

What about being suspended? Being strong armed into "volunteering" into stepping back from teaching/speaking roles? Having career-advancing opportunities pass you by "for some reason"? Never getting a job in the first place because of your reputation?

[amusedcyclist]

Can you provide some examples of these happening ? Or even better some statistics ?

[oh_sigh]

I'm not really keeping track, but I can immediately recall the professor who spoke about a chinese filler word, the chinese native music professor who showed his class a critically acclaimed film starring Laurence Olivier...

[wyager]

Academia - a notoriously right-wing institution.

[drewcoo]

The American "left" is soft right wing. These disputes are the right squabbling with the other right. Much of the silencing of the hard right, for "decorum" and such, is not recognized as censure by the soft right. At least the hard right is honest about banning speech.

Because all of the focus is on soft and hard right wing cancellation, anything actually on the left is seen as extremist. Extremist speech can be silenced and, just like with the hard right, not acknowledged as being silenced.

[jedmeyers]

> The American "left" is soft right wing.

If by being "right wing" you mean strong authoritarianism and Mussolini-like fascism, then yes, American 'left' is right wing.

However, if right wing for you are conservative values, like family, independence, free speech, personal responsibility, and "judging by the content of the character, not the color of the skin" then American left is nowhere near the soft right position on any of those things. They are not even close to center.

[thoughtstheseus]

The “left” cancels everywhere. The “right” cancels in their own community. Big difference IMO. Pros and cons to both of those approaches but that’s how I see it.

[rileymat2]

I am not sure this generalization holds up, as the Religious Right, in particular, has a history of boycotts in attempt to “cancel.”

[acheron]

It's also not 1988 anymore, so the "Religious Right" is about as relevant as the Free Silver movement.

[salt-thrower]

The point is not who's currently relevant, it's that people on the cultural Right complaining about cancel culture are on par with a schoolyard bully complaining about someone else bullying them. They are happy to do it when their opinions hold sway; when they can't, they whine about other people doing it.

And to be clear, I'm not taking a "both sides are equally bad" stance, I'm just describing the hypocrisy of this particular line of complaining.

[ziroshima]

This selective application of values (e.g. being in favor of free speech, as long as you like what is being said) has been going on forever. We have had a system set up to account for this in the U.S., when the perceived threat to free speech was the government. That threat has become faceless mobs and private companies.

[troutmskreplica]

The religious right elected Trump. Without their support he would not only have lost the popular vote, but also the electoral college.

He spent his presidency attempting to keep them happy and in particular working with them on Supreme Court appointments.

I would say that makes them relevant.

[dlp211]

People choosing to no longer listen to you because you have ideas that are currently considered reprehensible to the larger society is not being cancelled. That's called consequences for my actions. You are not entitled to consequence free speech & actions. This has never been a principle of free speech.

Also, there is a massive difference between using government entities to ban books, and a bunch of people on Twitter saying we don't like you and what you said.

[JamesBarney]

You see the difference between not listening to something and applying political pressure to make sure it isn't spoken right?

> a bunch of people on Twitter saying we don't like you and what you said

No one thinks this is cancel culture. It's specifically wielding economic/political power to silence people you disagree with.

[dlp211]

There are a lot of people that think this is cancel culture. Bobby Kotick is likely going to be "cancelled"/fired from Activision if their board has any sense in the next few days. Was he cancelled, or did his past behavior finally catch up to him?

You are not entitled to a job or a platform and the people who have control over those positions are well within their right to remove you for the views and actions you take. Removing you from a position is a form of speech. And this isn't new, we've been doing this forever. Was Nixon cancelled? Were the Dixie Chicks cancelled?

Maybe you think they were, maybe you don't, but this idea that somehow someone is cancelled because society says "we don't like your bullshit anymore" is new or dangerous is just preposterous to me.

I find the influence that right/conservatives have in infecting our school curriculum (even if not always successfully) far more dangerous. "The war of norther aggression" is an actual thing taught to actual children in the south. I find that far more damaging to our society.

[JamesBarney]

> There are a lot of people that think this is cancel culture. Bobby Kotick is likely going to be "cancelled"/fired from Activision if their board has any sense in the next few days. Was he cancelled, or did his past behavior finally catch up to him?

He's being fired because of his actions, not his beliefs or speech. Nixon resigned because he broke the law. There were two things that happened with Dixie Chicks, people calling into their radio stations requesting they be blacklisted, this is most definitely cancel culture. They also offended their core audience who just stopped buying their records which isn't cancel culture. Maybe in 2003 you were excited they had to face consequences for sharing their beliefs, but I wasn't enthused about it then, and I'm not now.

Would it be healthy to live in a culture where Walmart fired every worker who pro-BLM?

Where Amazon asks anyone they hire how they feel about unions before hiring them?

>The war of northern aggression

I grew up in the south. I've heard this term before but I've never seen it in a single textbook or ever heard a teacher use it.

[dlp211]

Speech is an action. Saying someone got fired for their actions (which were primarily speech, not physical actions) is the same thing as firing someone for their speech.

And I don't really care about the Dixie Chicks, they were right, but people don't have to listen to them either. The same way I feel about all these people that are claiming that they have been cancelled. They might be right, I don't think most of them are, but none of us have to listen to them, they are not entitled to anything.

Walmart and Amazon could certainly try to do those things, but both of those specifics do at least have some legal questions that I am not qualified to answer.

And I'm going to go out on a limb that you haven't seen every textbook in the South. And while I will fully admit here that it may not be pervasive, it certainly was taught in some schools in the South. Another term more frequently used is the "war for southern independence". While not as objectionable, it certainly was not the intent of the Civil War.

[dragonwriter]

> Nixon resigned because he broke the law.

No, Nixon resigned because he (or, rather, his party) had done a whip count and knew he would be removed from office.

(Now, sure, that was because other people were not prepared to accept the manner in which he had broken the law, but Nixon absolutely did not resign because he broke the law.)

[BLKNSLVR]

That's exactly one of the benefits of free speech. A kind of inverse of the "remain silent and be thought a fool, or speak up and remove all doubt" saying.

Free and open discussion lets me know who's worthwhile listening to and who should be ignored.

[dlp211]

And after having spoken and been declared a fool, are we not allowed to say "no more"?

[BLKNSLVR]

You can say "no more" as much as you want. You can point out their foolishness. You can block their content from your life. It's all part of the same dance.

Without some kind of legal exemption, however, you cannot prevent them from saying more (unless you own the platform, but that level of control is limited only to the platform that you own).

Such is my understanding.

[GoodbyeMrChips]

Ummmm

Our UK students unions are repeatedly preventing people speaking on campuses because they object to their views [1]. This IS 'cancel culture' and it is not healthy for our democracy.

Whatever happend to "I disprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it" ?

[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-is-cancel-culture-aff...

[dlp211]

You are not entitled to a platform. The student body choosing who they want to listen to is, in and of itself, a form of speech. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to understand?

[RansomStark]

The difficulty with rights is where they start and where they end.

The saying goes that my right to swing my arms ends where your face begins.

Equally the student unions right to decide what they personally listen too ends when they prevent others that want to hear the speaker from listening.

At that point they are infringing on another's right to free speech.

In the case of the student unions it is an inherently political organisation using their power to restrict the rights of what I can only assume is a minority of the student body.

Edit - formatting

[dlp211]

If the student body doesn't approve of the student union, do something about it. The student body refusing do something about it is implicit speech that they approve. If most of the student body isn't changing the student union, that tells me that perhaps your identification of who is in the minority here might not be accurate, or is at least incomplete.

[GoodbyeMrChips]

Because universities are culturally regarded as havens of free speech and the sharing of ideas.

If I don't want to listen to somebodies ideas (or read their books), I will make that decision thakyou. Not the students union!

What is is about "I disprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" that YOU do not understand?