150 writers, scholars sign letter to cancel cancel culture

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It seems at least one of the people pulling out is a supporter of transgender rights - and one infers has pulled out because Rowling signed it, not because of what the letter actually says.

That certainly makes it look like the only signed it for "self preservation" rather than an honest belief in the subject of the letter...Makes me wonder what there is in their past that they wanted "protection" from being canceled for.

It wouldn't bother me at all to have my name in a list with theirs.

Never, if we're only talking about opposing speech with speech.

Don't want to be cancelled, don't be a bigot, that simple. You can educate yourself so you won't say bigoted things.

I'm all for holding people accountable. Obama had no problem apologizing when he said hd felt like he was in the special Olympics when he bowled. I wasn't offended by that comment and saw no offense to it.

Also cancel culture seems to be common in those with notoriety. If people like us say something bigoted, we won't be cancelled because we aren't well known enough for a few people go cancel us because their canceling would have no power.

Plus I am sure JK Rowling would still have support because people would still buy her work. She has always been clear trans people can live their lives and they shouldn't be harassed. But she seems to have fallen for right wing propaganda. No one is trying to make kids trans, trans people are not convincing teens they are trans. No i am not threatened if JK would have thought she is trans as a teen and didn't she say she also had OCD? Yes that will make you convince you you are this or that. Big difference. I haven't cancelled her.

Reading right wing stuff, they sound like a paranoid schizophrenic. That is how I feel about Kaitlin Bennett after seeing her vblogs she made during the quarentine. No wonder they are being cancelled.

The problem is if you associate yourself with a bad group, you then look bad. That is why people get fired for being racist because the company does not want to be associated with it and don't want to endorse it so they let the racist go.

If I was friends with a pedophile, just how would that look to you? Or if I remain friends with a rapist? So that is why people walk away and abandon you when you are a horrible person. They do not want to associate and look like an apologist and a supporter.

If you were a pastor who behaved that way, then I would commend you for following Jesus' teachings.

But I would not attend your church.

Do you think that state of affairs will last forever? Nothing lasts forever.

How will you feel if some time in the future, the boot's on the other foot, and someone's saying "Don't want to be cancelled, don't be a liberal, that simple. You can educate yourself so you won't say liberal things."



Or maybe they've done the crime, done the time, know they were wrong, feel remorse and won't do it again, and it says about you that you've forgiven them for their sins, and you're going to be there for them, to help get them back on their feet as a productive member of society and keep a watchful eye on them.

And the problem with notoriety is that it can occur without warning (Dog walker in NY, for example)...All it takes is a video of someone under stress, with people WANTING to interpret their words/actions in a way that does not coincide with the meaning\intent of that person, and suddenly you're cancelled.

Or, a video appears where something is shown out of context, such as school children surrounding a native american and blocking him, resulting in them being targetted, yet when the full video is released, it is apparent that he walked up to them to cause a confrontation.

Not everything is "black and white", and in many cases the "canceling" comes before all the facts are known, with no recourse for those cancelled.

I am never going to be influential enough for people to want me to sign an open letter

Hypothetical situation
I am asked to sign an open letter saying the anti-vaxx movement is bad but I find out some the other signees think autism is a horrible disease the needs to cured or eliminated through eugenics. I would grit my teeth and sign the letter because I think the anti-vaxx movement getting less influence is a good thing for autistic people and I think having an open letter signed by a wide variety of members of the autism community is more effective then one signed by just by Aspie adult self-advocates.

For me to oppose this cancel culture letter because I don’t like some of the wording and some of the signees make me cringe would be selfish. Right now cancel culture is a real threat that is winning the battle for influence and winning it fast. I am heartened not distressed to see that so many of the signees are way to left of me politically. Proponents of cancel culture have effectively pointed out that most of those opposing them have been either defending out of date or bigoted ideas or doing it to cancel liberal-left opinion. That case has been weakened by so many prominent left of center people signing this letter.

I would hope that this spurs someone like Cenk and lets say the Australian female conservative youtuber linked often on WP whose name escapes me ATM get a bunch of social media influencers of all political persuasions together to put out a statement on all social media platforms denouncing cancel culture.

Looks like I forgot to submit my previous post.

Issue is that “cancel culture” is a very nebulous term. One person’s unfair cancellation is another person’s social justice.

Most people accept that sometimes it is acceptable for your employer to take action against you for your words and actions. Most people also accept that sometimes the internet rushes to judgement.

For most people, Kevin Spacey deserved to fall from grace. But for some people, it was a silly act of cancel culture, particularly when he was recast in a film he’d already finished shooting.

For some people, the backlash against JK Rowling is justified and not an example of “cancel culture”.

For some people, the backlash against Michael Jackson is an example of cancel culture.

And that’s exactly what we see with this letter - some people withdrew their signatures when it became apparent that signing it was seen as a tacit acceptance of Robert Galbraith’s transphobia.

So we can’t agree on what exactly cancel culture is. Can we maybe try to spell out the situations in which we think public outrage is appropriate? What form should the outrage take, should we just leave everything to the police, when is such-and-such an action acceptable, what precautions should people take?

“Cancel culture is bad” tell me absolutely nothing about where you lie. You could be someone who thinks Hollywood was wrong to ostracise Harvey Weinstein, or someone who thinks private people shouldn’t lose their job for a single I’ll-considered Tweet.

A better perspective might be achieved on a smaller scale.  Change "Cancel" to "Ban", and then apply the concept to the ultimate in moderatorial authority.

If you say that ________ is appropriate for banishment, then you have to officially define ________.

• Bullying
• Obscenity
• Personal attacks
• Profanity
• Spamming
• Trolling
• ... ?

Cancel Culture goes above and beyond choosing which movie to watch or whom to fire based on being personally offended. Cancel Culture would say not only fire Weinstein but demand that the movies he directed be never shown again. I did not engage in cancel culture when I stopped identifying as an Aspie when the negative facts about Hans Asperger came to light. I would be engaging in cancel culture if I say all WP members who call themselves Aspies are proving their ableism and should be banned. I would be engaging in cancel culture if I refuse to acknowledge Hans Aspergers contribution to understanding the Autism Spectrum because of his actions that have come to light.

While many people engage in cancel culture because they are offended by an individual the reason it exists is to delegitimize political opposition. In that regard, while the left is arguably the side of the political spectrum engaging in cancel culture most often these days all sides do it. The right has a long history of this from book burnings, to destroying Beatle and disco records to trying endlessly to ban "porn". The right needs to uncancel this part of history.

Oh no, someone is being cancelled for being too inclusive and caring about minority groups!

I wonder which side of the political aisle has more of a history of things like book burnings and canceling people for things like being gay?

Does anyone remember Gamer Gate from a few years ago, just to inform that all the canceling in that were from the rightwing attacking women for being women in the game industry. And the type of people who wanted to ban The Last of Us 2 to because they were uncomfortable with a lesbian character and thought another did not look feminine enough. It is actually super common in things like pop or geek culture where you will see people on the right trying to cancel things because they think that it is something like forced diversity, or getting into a tizzy because a company said that they want to be inclusive of everyone except those who are exclusive themselves.

The reason that I imagine a lot of you might have heard about these canceling by those on the right is that it sounds ridiculous if they actually explained what their problems are, you maybe just get a vague idea that there was a controversy.

So you see no problem, were a religious minority to "cancel" those believeing in rights for certain minority groups...Or is cancelling only OK when it is YOUR side doing it? If you're happy to support "canceling" when it serves your purposes, then no whining if it gets turned against you...



An interesting (and exceedingly dishonest) interpretation...The backlash was over the way a major, much loved character from the previous game was killed off BY the lesbian character early in the game, particularly after preview material had featured that character so prominantly (reviewers were only allowed to review up until just before this point in the game, too). Following that point, players were then expected to play as this character, who they would almost certainly dislike for that previous action.

The interesting thing about computer games, is that the LGB... industry are so vocal in pushing for changes to suit their cause in games, yet don't actually appear go out and support the games by buying/playing them ( It might surprise you to know, but most people play computer games to relax with something "familiar", not to have propoganda shoved down their throats while playing). Maybe all games need to be produced with "neutral" characters (early FPS games like Doom or Quake, for instance), or a story around a specific character with no customization possible (went back to KC:D recently, and it was nice not having to waste hours designing a character before even starting to play (although the "tutorial" there certainly makes up for it).), in order to keep everyone (excluding the grievance industry) happy.

Insulting, cancelling, or bullying those who do not support your minority group\view is not a way to gain support for it, and is more likely to make people turn against the group (which in certain cases is starting to work)...Playing "victim" while doing so is likely to cause an even bigger backlash.

For someone so very very upset at being called woke, you sure are keen on swallowing woke nonsense hook line and sinker.

What? I said before that I thinking that "canceling" is okay when it protects the wellbeing of people like minorities because the argument can be for being ethical. Allowing religious minority to cancel people for protecting the rights of another minority, they are free to try and explain how hating LGBT is ethical, but it is becoming an increasingly tall order. How long ago do you think that a teacher could have been fired for bein queer as a part of conservative canceling?





This is great, you are trying to teach me how I am wrong about this. The male character was not killed by the lesbian, she is his sort of daughter character who actually tries to get revenge for him. The character that did kill him was a super buff lady that a bunch of transphobic gamers thought she was transgender due to her more masculine physique, they thought that it was being "woke" by making a transgender character badass and kill their middle aged white man character. Of course Abby as it turns out was not transgender, and was actually very much straight. The lesbian controversy comes from a couple years ago at E3 which featured the main female character from the first game, and this one, dancing with another woman and kissing her, putting it right up front that she is a lesbian. People complained that they altered her character, despite the fact a DLC already made it pretty clear that Ellie was a lesbian.





What makes you think that people who advocate for things like inclusivity and good representation do not support or buy games? Is that what Gamergate types told you? Games are art, and all art is political, even the exclusion of types of people is itself a political stance, what you call "neutral characters". Do you know what percentage of the population is LGBT? Do you know what percentage of characters in games are LGBT as opposed as not? The existence of an LGBT person is not political statement, thus should plenty of such characters in gaming, and while there have been some recent movements, for a lot of people it can still be difficult to get games that might share their experiences. It would be rare for me to find games that give non binary options.




Why are you getting so emotional? It kind of sounds like you are getting a little worked up by people saying gay and trans rights. Do you want to talk about why it makes you feel uncomfortable?