People who get into a moral panic about cancelation should ask if they would ever *self-censor* because of who’s present. If there were no consequences at all today, in 2021, for making a racist joke, would you make it in every context? No context? Some contexts?
Conversation
I suspect the cases that seem like egregious thought and speech policing of context-reasonable things obscure this more basic, uncontroversial progress in decency.
All the actually tough cases involve authoritarian power grabs over institutions.
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Yes, there have been egregious cases. Usually in the peripheries of institutional control battles. They should be analyzed for what they are — specific battles over institutional power. Like board seats or committee control. Speech policing/cancelation are red herrings there.
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I mean, really... are you going to read ritual theater around occupying native lands in SF city meetings as an actual cogent discourse on native rights? Or is it better to treat that the way we treat (for eg) Carl Icahn commenting on business models of companies he’s raiding?
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Just as you don’t treat activist shareholder and PE raiding propaganda as meaningful business commentary, you shouldn’t treat institutional power struggles as meaningful cultural commentary.
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And finally, le sigh the motte and bailey move of turning conversations about actual social justice into conversations about trusties writing for old media from Brooklyn. That’s the easy way out. Just because the messengers are easy to shoot, doesn’t mean the message is empty.
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I’ve been basically stationary in the culture war since I started tracking it in 2013, because afaict nothing material has changed. Players have come and gone, careers have been made and unmade, and entire subcultures have swung around like starling murmurations.
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It’s disappointing that people have basically lost all interest in all underlying real issues. The internet of beefs has fully taken over. But that doesn’t mean the substance of old issues has magically disappeared. It just means they are evolving in ungoverned, dark ways.
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We’re now at peak-antiwoke, and the early beginning of the antiantiwoke phase of the culture war. Chapter 7 by my count. Is antiantiwoke the same as woke? Stay tuned, we’ll find out in Chapter 8, the Rise of Threadthulhu, premiering in 2022.
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Replying to
I think as antiwoke energy peters out (shot their load with Trump, now face an unraveling), woke energy will mirror this — woke activists, lacking a mortal enemy, will become more circumspect, and level up nuance & self-awareness
(Trying to manifest my Wishful Thinking here)
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