[gpu_explorer]

Humans are a social species, and a lot of what you refer to as "cancel culture" is a reaction to antisocial behavior like racism and sexism and homophobia that actively harms our societies. Some of this behavior has been going on for centuries or longer. People who support so called "cancel culture" simply think that a few millennia of racism and sexism are enough.

Reasonable people should not condemn cancel culture; reasonable people should support efforts to cancel racism, sexism, ageism, and the other -isms that cause profound harm to members of our societies. It's not really that difficult to not make racist, sexist, or homophobic remarks.

[mark_l_watson]

I realize now that I have a different definition of “cancel culture” than you and some other people here, which is OK.

I was thinking of what Bill Mahr, on his HBO show, talks about as far as cancelling appearances at universities of people who were invited to talk, and then some subgroup protested that they didn’t like their opinions. I am also thinking of cancelling people whose political opinions vary, and also in this case an elected Congresswoman who has some very wrong ideas about the dangers of vaccinations.

I think that racist, etc. remarks are easier to filter and discard than political ideas. I feel comfortable using automated filters to discard racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks, but I am not comfortable discarding political speech.

[gpu_explorer]

< and then some subgroup

I'm going to assume that you have good intent here, but usually "some subgroup" is dog whistle for a repressed group such as persons of color or gay people. I hope that marginalized subgroups continue to protest and get people canceled, and I intend to continue paying and donating my time and effort to make sure they can get the canceling done.

< didn’t like their opinions

Very often these "canceled" opinions include one or more of the "big three": ideology that is sexist, racist, or homophobic. People espousing these beliefs should face consequences for their behavior; they should be canceled. Society does not have to accept the toxic notion that a system should be "fair and balanced" to accommodate poisonous, antisocial ideas and behavior.

The old system, the system that accommodated these poisonous, antisocial ideas was responsible for ruining many lives because people thought it was okay to say that people should not be able to get divorced, or go to college, or have birth control, or earn an equal living, or have a bank account or credit card. Or live in a certain neighborhood. And when it was okay to say it, it was okay to put it into public and private policy alike. You could be fired for being gay, or pregnant, or not hired. You couldn't live in a certain neighborhood if you were African American, unless you wanted to find burning crosses outside your house at night. You could be jailed for engaging in private, consensual gay sex in some US jurisdictions until 2003.

So forgive me if I take a little liberty here. I think it's totally okay for people to assemble and protest a speaker because they don't agree with their political views. It's equally okay for a university to cancel an appearance because they or their students or faculty don't agree with the political positions of the speaker. I can't remember a single instance in my life where I ever made political speech, or any other speech, that called for the repression of any group or sub-group of society simply because I felt like it, or because I read about it in some book written in the Judean or Arabian deserts several millennia ago.

Cancel culture is just the free market at work. I found that explaining it this way to conservatives helped them understand why it was necessary (and I am not assuming you are a conservative).