Aren't there countless examples of people who have been cancelled in this way to various degrees? People accused of sexual crimes, racist beliefs, fringe moral views, heretical religious/theological beliefs, etc. have been cancelled countless times both recently and all throughout recorded history.
Examples:
* Norman Finkelstein (blacklisted from Academia for his work relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict)
* Richard Stallman (made to resign from his positions at MIT and FSF due to comments relating to Marvin Minsky and Jeffrey Epstein)
* James Watson (ostracized from the scientific community due to his comments about race)
* Justin Roiland (forced out of Rick and Morty due to alleged crimes)
> Norman Finkelstein (blacklisted from Academia for his work relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict)
He wasn't "cancelled" for being "woke", that's straight up political fallout for going up against Israeli interests.
> Richard Stallman (made to resign from his positions at MIT and FSF due to comments relating to Marvin Minsky and Jeffrey Epstein)
He's back at FSF. Clearly not "cancelled" as evidenced by this entire thread. He received relatively mild repercussions for supporting a known sexual predator combined with his own list of accusations of sexual predation.
> James Watson
This is the only one that is possibly a "cancelation" and that's a stretch. Being repeatedly and openly racist and then getting kicked out of your cushy chancellor emeritus position because of it, again, doesn't feel like "cancellation".
> Justin Roiland (forced out of Rick and Morty due to alleged crimes)
Ah yes, the "guilty until proven innocent" version of "cancellation" ... not associating with people with multiple credible accusations of crimes is not "cancelling" them.
Stallman was cancelled. If the repercussions he faced were just, he was nonetheless cancelled. If the repercussions have turned out to be only temporary, he was nonetheless cancelled.
In general, you seem to think that because these people deserved the punishment they faced, that they were not really cancelled. This is a wrongheaded way to think about the matter. A person is cancelled when he faces certain punishments for having done (of being thought to have done) certain actions. Whether these punishments were just does not play into whether they constitute cancellation. Justified or unjustified, it's cancellation the same.
Now, it is true that people who are the most vocal about cancellation tend to be against it as a rule. Or, to be against it when it is seen as going against freedom of speech - Justin Roiland and others who are seen as having been credibly accused of having committed a crime may be seen as fair game.
P.S. I never said Finkelstein was cancelled for being woke (you likely misread the word "work"), in fact he is very much against woke culture - see his latest book, "I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!"
Your definition of "cancelled" seems to be pretty different than the current usage, in particular people who are against "cancel-culture" as a threat to legitimate freedom and/or as a dangerous unfair ideology. (in both cases, it requires the cancellation to be unfair. If it is not unfair, then it cannot be considered as a danger)
I don't really see the point of the term "cancelled" if it is what you describe: what you describe is just the normal usual consequences of living in society, and it existed since millenia without the need of using a specific term like "cancel".
It is also not really good because it muddies the water. We have people who are saying that the cancel-culture is a big danger. What they have in mind as "cancellation" is mainly a fantasy, and it is true that what they have in mind practically never happens in real life. But then, if you come and say "yeah, there is the list of people cancelled", these people will just start to believe these people went under the way more extreme definition of "cancellation" they have in mind.
> P.S. I never said Finkelstein as cancelled for being woke (you likely misread the word "work"), in fact he is very much against woke culture - see his latest book, "I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!"
Oh. When I saw that, I was thinking "Good, this list contains some people that would have been cancelled for not conforming to right-wing ideal. Then I guess it is already more believable". But if it is not the case, I find it problematic. There is absolutely no intrinsic reason that only people would be cancelled for "not conforming with a left-wing ideal". If "cancellation" is a real thing, it should happen to right-wing or left-wing.
Can you state which parts of the popular conception of cancellation are fantasy? What is it that people have in mind? that thing which practically never happens in real life.
Norman Finkelstein is as left-wing as it gets. He views wokism as a right-wing ideology (correctly).
The popular conception of cancellation is that cancellation is an unfair imposition of an ideology on people who don't deserve to be judged, and that it is destroying their life.
But on this discussion you've provided a list, and some people have highlighted that there is legitimate ground for their "cancellation" and that their lives are not destroyed. Therefore it does not correspond to this idea that we have a kind of crazy inquisition randomly punishing perfectly innocent people.
Sure, those "cancellation" can be criticized and discussed, but they are not more a big danger than any other decision about rule of society.
My comment here is rather: "I was told that cancel culture was bad, life-destroying and unfair. Then, someone asked for a list. Someone else provided a list. But then, others have noticed that this list does not correspond to what I have been told: it's way milder than bad, life-destroying and unfair."
It is possible that what I have been told is not the "popular conception of cancellation", but it would be surprising: it is still very much how it is depicted in mass media (from "official newpapers" to "twitter feed of politicians").
About Finkelstein: it is not really what I mean. I'm not saying Finkelstein is right-wing or left-wing. I'm saying I'm interested to see example of cancel culture of someone who wanted to do something left-wing and was canceled by people who defend right-wing ideals. Was Finkelstein canceled because he was too left-wing to the taste of people who liked right-wing?
It's a honest question, the answer can be "yes". The situation is just that I first saw "Finkelstein was canceled for being too woke", which seems to be a description that correspond to that. When you said that it was not the case, I thought "oh, ok, maybe it's not the case, then".
As for "wokism is a right-wing ideology", I would be more convinced by argument saying things like "wokism shares aspect with authoritarianism" or things like that. Something "right-wing" is first and foremost "something that is loved and adopted in the right-wing community". At the end of the day, it fails against to reach my argument. My argument is not really that "a good list will have people who are blue and people who are red in it", my argument is rather "a good list will have people who are canceled by the group A and the group B is outraged by the cancellation, and people who are canceled by the group B and the group A is outraged by the cancellation". So, in fact, it does not matter if wokism is theoretically right-wing or left-wing: if the cancellation is done by the left-wing community acting like the right-wing community, and that the right-wing community is upset about the cancelation, it still has the problem I've raised: why are all the cancellation examples always done by the left-wing community?
One possibility is that one includes ideological orientation in the definition. But even so, if cancel culture is bad, it would be because it's unfair or arbitrary, and "being unfair" or "being arbitrary" is possible whatever ideology you have. So it feels strange that "cancel culture" is a danger while something that is as unfair and arbitrary is not considered as a danger.
Finkelstein was cancelled by the right. Most prominently by Alan Deshowitz, lawyer for Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, etc.
As a result, he was denied tenure and was never able to get a job as a professor, other than occasionally working as an adjunct. Really, I'm not sure how much more severe it could be without being something other than cancellation.
He was cancelled long before his work on wokism - that topic was only brought up because someone misread one of my previous comments.
Another example of someone on the left-wing being cancelled by those on the right is Paul Robeson, who was perhaps the most famous American alive at one point, but lost everything due to his left-wing beliefs.
I do think you're confused about the popular conception of cancellation. Stallman lost his position at the FSF and MIT. His speaking engagements were cancelled. Article after article came out about how terrible he supposedly was. Almost all of it was unfair, almost all the claims against him were inaccurate. If these things don't constitute cancellation, nothing does.
> If these things don't constitute cancellation, nothing does.
I think that is exactly my point: what you describe constitute the usual social interactions that always existed, and for which we don't need to invent a new word. And for which we certainly don't need to pretend it's a new "culture" and a new "danger".
So, yeah, what you describe is real, but it is not "cancellation" because this concept does not correspond to any new phenomena.
This is demonstrated by your example of Robeson, that happens decades ago and nobody never mentioned "cancel culture" to talk about that at the time.
So, yes, nowadays, we have people who claim there is this new phenomena, super dangerous or getting worst than before, and they call it "cancellation". This new phenomena does not correspond to anything real, because there is no new phenomena. There is and there always will be people who will choose to not work with people they don't like and who will share and defend their opinions on this subject.
> Stallman lost his position at the FSF and MIT.
The way I understand it, Stallman lost his positions for demonstrating he did not had the skills required for these positions. For instance, his lost position at the FSF was as a spokesperson, which is a public relationship role. The blunders he has repetitively done demonstrate he is not competent for this role. Same way a driver that keeps have car accident will end up being fired.
> almost all the claims against him were inaccurate
I agree with that, and that is regrettable.
But one have to understand that it is not only inevitable, the pro-Stallman were as bad as the anti ones. Almost all the claims in defense of Stallman were also unfair and inaccurate, accusing people of hidden agenda or dishonesty because they were just jumping to conclusion. While we should give the benefice of the doubt and while it is unfair to have article after article coming out about how terrible he supposedly was, it is exactly the same crime to not give the benefice of the doubt to the panel who decided that Stallman should step down and writing, without any more proofs, how innocent he supposedly was. I was disappointed to see no reaction (or really really few) defending Stallman saying "I understand the honest mistake of incorrectly thinking that ...", they were all trying to "cancel the cancellers", applying exactly the same method. For example, as I've just said, it looks to me that Stallman's position as PR was revoked because he acted in a way that shows he is not the best person for this position. Yet, the very very large majority of articles in defense of Stallman choose to lie about this situation, dishonestly presenting it as if his position was totally disconnected to any social skill.
And one needs to understand the following basic bias: if you think Stallman was unfairly treated, for sure you are going to particularly notice all the articles against him, and it will looks like it's a lot. And the article defending him will just sound "normal" to you and therefore as good measure. You will end up thinking the wave was dominated by article against him, ignoring that Stallman was also very well supported. In fact, in the past, there have been situations where Stallman would normally have been asked to step down, but he was spared because the pro-Stallman prevailed (some of the element that the MIT considered were reported at the time they happened and the decision was taken in favor of Stallman). In other words: "we never talk about the trains that arrive on time, and end up thinking there are more late trains than trains on time, even if it is not true".
Cancelled is probably the wrong word. I think what the other commenter meant was that the moral reputation of individuals tends to decline with time since what is considered moral is relative to a given society and a given period of time.
It's very hard to name a historical figure who lived prior to the 1900s who didn't express something racist, sexist or homophobic for example. Similarly, even people who were in the public spotlight 4-5 decades ago have often said things considered morally objectionable today. Even people who are obviously anti-racist like Justin Trudeau used to believe black face was acceptable until very recently, for example.
I don't know if Stallman has been "cancelled". I'm not even sure what that means. But his reputation has been harmed like almost anyone who's been in the public spotlight for long enough.
Maybe it is happening in America, which is very puritanical, but my feeling is that when people highlight elements that would not be accepted today in historical people, the goal is not to paint them as the devil, but to understand that nothing is all white and all black, and help learning to have a smarter approach to history than those lazy "heroes vs bad guys" depiction.
> But his reputation has been harmed like almost anyone who's been in the public spotlight for long enough.
These kinds of affirmation are really easily the result of the bias. You see a lot of public figure in the spotlight having their reputation harmed, but you don't notice the ton of people who are just "normal" or "not unlucky" that are not and will never be harmed.
For example, it is true that when Trudeau dressed in black-face, it was not such a big deal. But then, the probability of dressing in black-face was still very small. How many innocent people just dressed in black-face just for an innocent joke at the time? So, people who are "unlucky" are statistically a minority.
As another example, behavior like Stallman or Roiland are not "normal". "normal" people are just not that abusive or inconsiderate. So, people who are "not normal" are also a minority and to some extend even deserve it a little bit (they should have known better than being jerks, having their reputation harmed for being a jerk is not a bad thing, it is a normal consequence).
> Cancelled is probably the wrong word. I think what the other commenter meant was that the moral reputation of individuals tends to decline with time since what is considered moral is relative to a given society and a given period of time.
My personal view is ... did this person move society ahead? I will give someone who fought against slavery 200 years ago, a pass for being what would be considered misogynistic now or a racist who fought for suffrage at the turn of last century. If the person was just all around "a product of their times" or specifically evil, cancel away!
> Even people who are obviously anti-racist like Justin Trudeau used to believe black face was acceptable until very recently, for example.
This is an interesting case. When I first saw the picture, I was immediately struck by the fact that Trudeau was dressed up as a Djinn which were historically often (mostly?) displayed as black skinned in Islamic art. I totally understand why he didn't try to explain that and just took the hit (when I dressed as a Djinn, I went with green rather than black for the obvious reason that Trudeau also should have gone with red, green or blue).
> Even people who are obviously anti-racist like Justin Trudeau used to believe black face was acceptable until very recently, for example.
To the extent to which "black face" just means for a white person to play a black character, they were entirely right in thinking so. All actors play things they are not.
From what I understand, Stallman had several role at FSF. One of them was spokesperson, which is basically Public Relationship. Then, he made several actions showing that he does not understand the basis or does not have the skills to work in PR. So, we was asked to step down from this position.
If you hire a front-end developer and later discover that they are not able to do the basis of programming, are you "canceling" the developer if you decide to not continue to work with them because they are not what you need for the job?
(As for MIT, apparently, it's based on a series of incidents. Again, his work requirement included skills that would imply he would not have done those mistakes. Positions a universities obviously includes as requirement basic skills in knowledge communication and ability to work with pairs, that's what universities are supposed to do.)
The guy who just gave a well attended speech to loud applause and is getting gushing well wishes in this very conversation? The guy who is back at the FSF? That guy?
Do you have some examples of someone being “cancelled” in this way?