So apparently Louis CK played Madison Square Garden again. People had a lot of thoughts to share about it. I post this tweet simply as an example of a broad genre. I see this thought expressed fairly often, and I think the essential logic is a little weird. The argument is that, because someone has enjoyed personal or professional success after a public shaming, therefore “cancel culture” does not exist. This is all somewhat confused by the vague boundaries of cancel culture - boundaries that are vague, I think, for the benefit of both the cancelers and the anti-cancelers. I think “a culture where social norms are enforced with repeated and vociferous public shaming” is the most useful way to define the term. Regardless, there’s a couple different kinds of weirdness here.
Jan 31, 2023·edited Jan 31, 2023Liked by Freddie deBoer
I think that with "cancellation," the true target isn't the specific person being cancelled, but the broader public that’s being disciplined and conditioned to adopt a range of politically acceptable norms and behaviors. This is why a climate of cancellation is so pernicious. It can succeed in changing the way people talk and argue and behave even if it doesn’t succeed in destroying the careers of some of the more famous people who are targeted.
The attacks still serve to discourage other people from saying what they think. The goal isn’t just to punish someone, but to shame or scare just enough people to make the rest conform. When opening your mouth is liable to get you ruinously accused of committing a long list of -isms, this obviously has a chilling effect on speech. People self-censor. Wrote about this here:
When people say that cancel culture doesn't exist by naming famous figures like Louis C.K. or Dave Chappelle, they are engaging in survivorship bias. The people that were successfully cancelled simply disappeared from the public eye. So you only get to hear about the ones that survived.
I think cancel culture comes down to two main driving forces:
1. The desire for people you don't like to be permanently banished from society
2. The need for people you like to be forgiven, regardless of their transgressions.
Donald Trump is maybe the easiest example for this right now. Those who hate him want him ejected from the planet. Those who love him are willing to overlook any possible bad behavior.
But this seems to hold true for most people most of the time.
"But I am on record, obviously, as saying that we live in a public culture that is too retributive and insufficiently forgiving."
Yes, the idea that someone should suffer certain kinds of social "life sentence" such as permanent loss of career, permanent exclusion from public life, etc, with no possibility of forgiveness or redemption is exactly not what I would expect from people who consider themselves secular democratic leftists (or, for that matter, Christian or observant Jewish democratic leftists with a humane conception of their religion).
The rich and famous being cancelled is not good, but usually they survive just fine. It's regular people being cancelled that concerns me. Someone living paycheck to paycheck can fall a long ways.
I joined Twitter recently because of the Elon Musk kerfuffle so I saw the Tweet referenced in this article. The best reply by far comes from Dan Friedman.
"Louis CK has enough fans that he can sell out stadiums, yet nobody will put him on TV. Cancel culture doesn’t mean that somebody’s audience abandons them, it means that institutions act to attempt to sever a person from their intact audience."
In this sense cancel culture is gatekeeping and attempted censorship at its most noxious, an attempt by a tiny minority to impose their tastes and will on everyone else. It's fundamentally anti-democratic.
Obviously once somebody is rich and famous enough the ability of institutions to cut them off from their fan base is limited. The problem is everyone else who is not sufficiently rich and famous, meaning that the consequences of cancel culture inevitably fall most heavily on the little guy. So much for "punching up".
Kat Rosenfield has made this point eloquently as well. The problem with Cancel culture isn't that it affects rich, famous people. They'll be fine. The real issue is that the up-and-comers, the less famous folk with far fewer resources trying to break into entertainment or journalism or whatever.... they can see this culture of fear happening and they're worried they'll be next.
I was a big Louis CK fan and will have some of his brilliant work lodged in my head forever. The expose by the NYT was tough to absorb. He did wrong. But the timeline was such that its not clear to me he didn't reform himself/stop his unacceptable behavior. Though too late for some of his victims and so maybe it doesn't matter but it matters to me.
The thing about it that bothered me was his comedy took a turn towards speaking up for women's issues but once the news broke it was assumed he did this for disingenuous reasons. That his work on the topic was only to normalize it and rationalize his predatory behavior. Based on the timeline I held out hope that it was actually a case where a creative person used his craft to help reform his behavior. As such there would still be some redemptive quality to his comedy and work as a director. We laud artists that use their art to get over addiction. Is there room for that in the realm of #metoo? This was no doubt a secondary concern to some form of justice being served but I wish there was an effort to explore.
The guy would have went down as a contender as a top 10 comic of all time, now he's just shy of Cosby for half the nation. So I think cancel culture is still a real thing even if it doesn't lead to permanent removal from society and castration.
When I read “cancel culture isn’t real”, it’s typically a lament. I think it comes as a shock to the twitteratti when the rest of culture doesn’t comply. In the real world, Dave Chappelle is the worlds wealthiest comedian, JK Rowling is still a best selling author, and “Yellowstone” has like 5 times the audience share of any HBO series. These celebrities haven’t in a real sense been “cancelled”, but not for lack of effort
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5MLolgMWk
cancel culture is panideological too. we need to be vigilant aways against the impulse
All that means is that the rules are different for the cool kids.
The loser kids get dumped on if they step out of line, or even if they don't.
I think that with "cancellation," the true target isn't the specific person being cancelled, but the broader public that’s being disciplined and conditioned to adopt a range of politically acceptable norms and behaviors. This is why a climate of cancellation is so pernicious. It can succeed in changing the way people talk and argue and behave even if it doesn’t succeed in destroying the careers of some of the more famous people who are targeted.
The attacks still serve to discourage other people from saying what they think. The goal isn’t just to punish someone, but to shame or scare just enough people to make the rest conform. When opening your mouth is liable to get you ruinously accused of committing a long list of -isms, this obviously has a chilling effect on speech. People self-censor. Wrote about this here:
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/cancel-culture-and-the-renormalization
When people say that cancel culture doesn't exist by naming famous figures like Louis C.K. or Dave Chappelle, they are engaging in survivorship bias. The people that were successfully cancelled simply disappeared from the public eye. So you only get to hear about the ones that survived.
The “cancel culture doesn’t exist” argument is similar to the Covid isn’t real/vaccines don’t work sort of argument.
I think cancel culture comes down to two main driving forces:
1. The desire for people you don't like to be permanently banished from society
2. The need for people you like to be forgiven, regardless of their transgressions.
Donald Trump is maybe the easiest example for this right now. Those who hate him want him ejected from the planet. Those who love him are willing to overlook any possible bad behavior.
But this seems to hold true for most people most of the time.
"But I am on record, obviously, as saying that we live in a public culture that is too retributive and insufficiently forgiving."
Yes, the idea that someone should suffer certain kinds of social "life sentence" such as permanent loss of career, permanent exclusion from public life, etc, with no possibility of forgiveness or redemption is exactly not what I would expect from people who consider themselves secular democratic leftists (or, for that matter, Christian or observant Jewish democratic leftists with a humane conception of their religion).
The rich and famous being cancelled is not good, but usually they survive just fine. It's regular people being cancelled that concerns me. Someone living paycheck to paycheck can fall a long ways.
Just to add more confusion to the discussion, I one time got shamed on Facebook just using the term “Cancel Culture” lol. It’s dizzying...
I joined Twitter recently because of the Elon Musk kerfuffle so I saw the Tweet referenced in this article. The best reply by far comes from Dan Friedman.
"Louis CK has enough fans that he can sell out stadiums, yet nobody will put him on TV. Cancel culture doesn’t mean that somebody’s audience abandons them, it means that institutions act to attempt to sever a person from their intact audience."
https://twitter.com/DanFriedman81/status/1619964420662366208
In this sense cancel culture is gatekeeping and attempted censorship at its most noxious, an attempt by a tiny minority to impose their tastes and will on everyone else. It's fundamentally anti-democratic.
Obviously once somebody is rich and famous enough the ability of institutions to cut them off from their fan base is limited. The problem is everyone else who is not sufficiently rich and famous, meaning that the consequences of cancel culture inevitably fall most heavily on the little guy. So much for "punching up".
Kat Rosenfield has made this point eloquently as well. The problem with Cancel culture isn't that it affects rich, famous people. They'll be fine. The real issue is that the up-and-comers, the less famous folk with far fewer resources trying to break into entertainment or journalism or whatever.... they can see this culture of fear happening and they're worried they'll be next.
Thank you for this article.
I was a big Louis CK fan and will have some of his brilliant work lodged in my head forever. The expose by the NYT was tough to absorb. He did wrong. But the timeline was such that its not clear to me he didn't reform himself/stop his unacceptable behavior. Though too late for some of his victims and so maybe it doesn't matter but it matters to me.
The thing about it that bothered me was his comedy took a turn towards speaking up for women's issues but once the news broke it was assumed he did this for disingenuous reasons. That his work on the topic was only to normalize it and rationalize his predatory behavior. Based on the timeline I held out hope that it was actually a case where a creative person used his craft to help reform his behavior. As such there would still be some redemptive quality to his comedy and work as a director. We laud artists that use their art to get over addiction. Is there room for that in the realm of #metoo? This was no doubt a secondary concern to some form of justice being served but I wish there was an effort to explore.
The guy would have went down as a contender as a top 10 comic of all time, now he's just shy of Cosby for half the nation. So I think cancel culture is still a real thing even if it doesn't lead to permanent removal from society and castration.
When I read “cancel culture isn’t real”, it’s typically a lament. I think it comes as a shock to the twitteratti when the rest of culture doesn’t comply. In the real world, Dave Chappelle is the worlds wealthiest comedian, JK Rowling is still a best selling author, and “Yellowstone” has like 5 times the audience share of any HBO series. These celebrities haven’t in a real sense been “cancelled”, but not for lack of effort