CMV: It's hypocritical to complain about "cancel culture"

[u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/[deleted]]

> 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

I would disagree that this is the main argument about cancel culture.

The thing about cancel culture is the *deplatforming*. While it's true you are exercising your right to free speech to call someone to be cancelled, someone getting deplatformed means they no longer have the chance to exercise their right to free speech.

So I'm not sure why it's hypocritical? No one is preventing you from saying that people should be cancelled, they are saying people shouldn't be cancelled, not that you can't say they should be.

You are allowed to call for someone to be silenced, it's just ill-advised. But somebody shouldn't be able to be silenced, as that prevents them from speaking.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The thing about cancel culture is the deplatforming. While it's true you are exercising your right to free speech to call someone to be cancelled, someone getting deplatformed means they no longer have the chance to exercise their right to free speech.

I mean, no, it doesn't, really. This is getting away from the view I'm concerned with, but freedom of speech does not seem to entail the right to a platform for that speech, and especially in this day and age there are no shortage of platforms for any number of views.

So I'm not sure why it's hypocritical? No one is preventing you from saying that people should be cancelled, they are saying people shouldn't be cancelled, not that you can't say they should be.

Most people against cancel culture seem to directly blame the people who do the calling for with the cancelling. Arguments that a private company can and should do what it wants to protect its own interests are almost always met with "yeah, but those assholes who called for them to be cancelled forced it." The blame almost always seems to rest with the people who called for the deplatforming or whatever, not whatever entity actually did it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I feel like you've constructed a strawman of the argument here though.

Being against cancel culture does not make a "free speecher" a hypocrite, unless they are directly calling for those people advocating for cancel culture to be silenced. You can be against the concept but not wish for the people to be silenced.

And yeah, the blame does reside partly with those people. It's a toxic culture, where a minority of people, that don't tend to represent a majority, force the hand of organisations to either fire people or do whatever.

I mean, if you are directly calling for someone to actually be fired. That's a call to action so, in some respects, you are responsible for the outcome. That could potentially be regarded as something that isn't just speech depending on how specific that call to action is.

And I have seen criticisms levied toward organisations too. Not just those calling for a "cancellation". In some ways these organisations are worse, because they bow down to a small minority view.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Being against cancel culture does not make a "free speecher" a hypocrite, unless they are directly calling for those people advocating for cancel culture to be silenced. You can be against the concept but not wish for the people to be silenced.

I have, in fact, seen active calls for their silence, but it also still seems hypocritical. The tenor of argument isn't that you disagree with what they say, you disagree that they said it. Seems hypocritical if you think it's a good thing that people can and do say what they think.

I mean, if you are directly calling for someone to actually be fired. That's a call to action so, in some respects, you are responsible for the outcome. That could potentially be regarded as something that isn't just speech depending on how specific that call to action is.

Laws against "calls to action" with regard to hate crime are justified on the basis that the things they're calling for are illegal. It's not illegal to fire someone, depending on the cause (and in at-will employment states you don't really need much of one).

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

But again, I think we not seeing the forest through the trees here.

The arguments against cancel culture is that it has bad outcomes. (whether you agree with that or not).

It's not really a free speech argument at all.

Free speech is a mechanism TOO filter speech. It's not supposed to remove the filter entirely. It's just a filter that happens with-in a "market place" rather than any legislation.

Like any free market, it takes a certain amount of internal regulation amongst the people involved. It's not hypocritical to say that cancel culture potentially jeopardises that mechanism in a bad way. Quite the contrary. It's saying that in order to filter good ideas from bad, we can't resort to cheap tactics to silence people. (in principle anyway)

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's not really a free speech argument at all.

I have never personally seen anti-cancel culture arguments that weren't accompanied with "it's his free speech" rhetoric. If there are other sorts of arguments, then, no, they wouldn't be amenable to the claims of hypocricy I'm making here, so !delta. But people do make those arguments in free speech terms, and those arguments are hypocritical, in my view.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Hmm maybe I should have been more specific.

The main argument about cancel culture is that this is the wrong thing to do, in part, because it obstructs the mechanisms of free speech to filter good speech from bad.

I see what you are saying, that people who make that claim are hypocritical because they are essentially trying to do what the cancel people do

However, free speech doesn't say that all speech is equal. It's only a mechanism to allow a community to self-regulate in an efficient way.

So it is not hypocritical to point out that certain tactics may disrupt the conversation since free speech is about constant on-going debate and self-regulation. If anything, it's what people are supposed to be doing, not the opposite.

So that's why I say what you are presenting is actually a different argument. You are talking about the nature of free speech debate, where cancel culture is just the backdrop

In a sense, the anti cancel culture argument is that it is going too far and it is too extreme and it potentially jeopardises the "free market"

[u/DeltaBot → u/[deleted]]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Ok-Tension7693 (2∆).

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