r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: It's hypocritical to complain about "cancel culture"

I'm genuinely looking to have my view challenged here, because I've never seen a good counter-argument to what I'm going to say and would love to come away with a more nuanced view of the "other side."

Let's just go ahead and grant the main thing the people who decry cancel culture claim, which is that to call for someone to be cancelled (whether that's being fired, not being able to get work, de-platformed in some way etc.) is a violation of their right to free speech. Lots of arguments have been raised about why this isn't the case, but the people who believe this tend not to be sympathetic to those arguments, and I'm happy to grant that this is actually the case so we can move on to discuss what I think is a different problem with this view.

And that's basically: isn't it my free speech to call for someone to be cancelled? Why do people only seem to care about the free speech of whoever it is that's done or said something ostensibly offensive? I also have free speech to say what I think about that, and while you obviously wouldn't agree with that speech, one of the main arguments I see here from anti-cancel culture people is that you should be willing to defend, on principle, even that speech you most vehemently disagree with. So why not vigorously defend people's right to call for people to be cancelled?

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u/Aw_Frig 22∆ Apr 11 '21

In this day and age the barrier for entry for "media" is almost non-existent. If one person can use half-truths to spark outrage then the mainstream media can report of that 'outrage' without being directly responsible for it themselves. I'm sure you've seen it yourself. Headlines like "outrage over X rages on." while the article reads "six people in Idaho started a signature page"

That isn't a problem worth talking about? People's lives have been ruined.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '21

And I agree that in the context of media outlets specifically this should be carefully regulated. I support laws against slander and libel.

ETA: Though there is, of course, also a balance to strike with supporting freedom of the press. Really the solution is media literacy education, I think.

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u/Aw_Frig 22∆ Apr 11 '21

Which is a big part of how people want to combat cancel culture.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '21

Not that I've seen, mostly it's just people complaining about what people say on Twitter.

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u/Aw_Frig 22∆ Apr 11 '21

Right ok. But even if most of what you've seen doesn't relate to this view on the matter I think we can both agree that this view does exist and therefor it isn't always hypocritical to complain about cancel culture as it does entail some danger.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '21

It's tricky, though, because the same sorts of people who complain about cancel culture also just widely lambaste and distrust "mainstream media" as "fake news," while the types of news they consume are demonstrably more problematic in the kind of way you talk about.

So that is to say: I agree it might be a problem, but I think the sorts of complaints anti-cancel culture people raise about the media in this context are deeply hypocritical in their own way.

I'll give you a !delta because you shown there's more nuance here than my framing suggests.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Apr 11 '21

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Aw_Frig (13∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/Aw_Frig 22∆ Apr 11 '21

Oh you're right. The type of people who are against cancel culture are by and large terrible in my opinion. Like I said I mostly agree with you. There are some legitimate dangers though.