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Thoughts on Cancel Culture


Brian Leiter - Wikipedia


The philosopher Brian Leiter has listed the following as the characteristics of "cancel culture,: the cultural impetus for shutting down and punishing dissent. I will reproduce what he has written with only very minor re-writes. If you want the original, I'll leave the link to the source below.

1. Punitiveness. Are people denouncing you to an employer or social connections? Are they blacklisting you from jobs and social opportunities and jeopardizing your livelihood, directly and indirectly?

2.  Deplatforming. Are campaigns trying to prevent you from publishing a work expounding the forbidden ideas? giving speeches? attending meetings? Are they claiming that merely allowing you such a platform is a form of "violence" against them?

3. Organization. Does this criticism seem to be organized and targeted? Are the organizers recruting others to pile on? Are people hunting through your work and scouting your social media for further ammunition?

4. Secondary boycotts. Is there an explicit or an implicit threat that people who stick by you will be punished for it? Do people who defend you fear adverse consequences in their lives?

5. Moral grandstanding. Are the attacks on you ad hminem, repetitive, ritualistic, posturing, accusatory, and outraged? Dos this involve flattening distinctions, demonizing you, slinging inflammatory labels and engaging in moral one upmanship? In the process do they ignore what you actually say?

6. Truthiness. Are the things that are being said about you inaccurate? Do the people saying them not seem to care about that? Do they distort your words, ignore corrections, etc.?

Here is the source
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/08/what-is-cancel-culture.html#more
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