I edited over my original post – it was too unfair to Larks and did not convey the message I intended.
In short I felt that this was good post well considered and well written. That said:
I didn’t find the case made in this post very convincing, I think it defines “cancel culture” as bad rather than proves it so (it could have used a more neutral term like “boycott”). I also think the German cultural context (for EA Munich) might be very different from the US cultural context (as per the examples), and I was not general convinced the examples were analogous to the Munich case.
Perhaps because I found this post unconvincing, it made me worry about folks in EA focusing on issues such as cancel culture that are the focus of or used by one side of a political spectrum and not the other without sufficient evidence. (I am not saying this post is bad just that it worries me and noting a need for caution). [Edit: I have been led to believe Larks put effort into making this post political neutral and I think that is valuable and appreciated.]
[EDIT 2020-11-10: I wrote this in response to weeatquince’s original comment; it doesn’t apply nearly so strongly to the current version.]
It’s pretty clearly false that cancel culture is a term used only on the right. I’ve seen plenty of centre and centre-left people use it – it’s a term that resonates with many people. Most of the people I can think of who speak out most frequently against cancel culture are not conservatives. (That’s anecdote, but so is your claim that the term is mainly used on the right.)
Of course the people actively engaged in the thing don’t like the term, because it suggests that the thing they’re doing is bad. But this is a problem encountered in any situation where someone thinks someone else is doing something that is bad. If you forbid even giving the bad thing a name, you quite effectively prevent organised opposition to it.
Whatever “cancel culture” is when you taboo those words, it isn’t just boycotting organisations you disagree with – it carries a connotation of actively going after individuals. I agree that the evidence that this is a serious problem mostly takes the (somewhat shaky) form of a collection of examples, but given the nature of the thing I’m not sure how you would go about collecting more systematic evidence. What evidence would convince you that this is actually something to worry about?
Will, you are right that boycotting is not the right term for the phenomenon at hand. In addition to the reason you gave, a cancellation campaign mostly involves pressuring other organizations or people to boycott somebody. Plain old boycotting is one personal’s decision to not attend a talk, cancelling is demanding to stop the talk from even happening.
However, I think there is some truth to the point that cancel culture is not the most productive term when used in discussions over whether it is actually a bad thing, precisely because as you say it suggests that people engaging in it are doing something wrong and thus begs the question. For a somewhat symmetrical situation, consider proponents of cancel culture starting a discussion over “Should Organization A be a platform for Person B’s harmful views?”.
Upon reflection I think that in my initial response to this I post was applying a UK lens to a US author.
I think the culture war dynamics (such as cancel culture) in the USA are not conducive to constructive political dialogue (agree with Larks on that). Luckily this has not seeped through to UK politics very much at least so far, but it is something I worry about. I see articles in the UK (on the right) making out that cancel culture (etc) is a problem, often with examples from the states. I expect (although this is not a topic I think much about) that articles of that type are unhelpfully fanning the culture war flames more than quelling them. As such I had a knee jerk reaction to this post and put it in the same bucket as such articles. I think I was applying a UK lens to a US author, without thinking if it applied.
That said I still think that Larks is (similarly) unfairly applying a US lens and US examples to a German situation without making a good case that what they says applies in the German cultural context. As such I think he may well be being too harsh on EA Munich.
I edited over my original post – it was too unfair to Larks and did not convey the message I intended.
In short I felt that this was good post well considered and well written. That said:
I didn’t find the case made in this post very convincing, I think it defines “cancel culture” as bad rather than proves it so (it could have used a more neutral term like “boycott”). I also think the German cultural context (for EA Munich) might be very different from the US cultural context (as per the examples), and I was not general convinced the examples were analogous to the Munich case.
Perhaps because I found this post unconvincing, it made me worry about folks in EA focusing on issues such as cancel culture that are the focus of or used by one side of a political spectrum and not the other without sufficient evidence. (I am not saying this post is bad just that it worries me and noting a need for caution). [Edit: I have been led to believe Larks put effort into making this post political neutral and I think that is valuable and appreciated.]
[EDIT 2020-11-10: I wrote this in response to weeatquince’s original comment; it doesn’t apply nearly so strongly to the current version.]
It’s pretty clearly false that cancel culture is a term used only on the right. I’ve seen plenty of centre and centre-left people use it – it’s a term that resonates with many people. Most of the people I can think of who speak out most frequently against cancel culture are not conservatives. (That’s anecdote, but so is your claim that the term is mainly used on the right.)
Of course the people actively engaged in the thing don’t like the term, because it suggests that the thing they’re doing is bad. But this is a problem encountered in any situation where someone thinks someone else is doing something that is bad. If you forbid even giving the bad thing a name, you quite effectively prevent organised opposition to it.
Whatever “cancel culture” is when you taboo those words, it isn’t just boycotting organisations you disagree with – it carries a connotation of actively going after individuals. I agree that the evidence that this is a serious problem mostly takes the (somewhat shaky) form of a collection of examples, but given the nature of the thing I’m not sure how you would go about collecting more systematic evidence. What evidence would convince you that this is actually something to worry about?
Will, you are right that boycotting is not the right term for the phenomenon at hand. In addition to the reason you gave, a cancellation campaign mostly involves pressuring other organizations or people to boycott somebody. Plain old boycotting is one personal’s decision to not attend a talk, cancelling is demanding to stop the talk from even happening.
However, I think there is some truth to the point that cancel culture is not the most productive term when used in discussions over whether it is actually a bad thing, precisely because as you say it suggests that people engaging in it are doing something wrong and thus begs the question. For a somewhat symmetrical situation, consider proponents of cancel culture starting a discussion over “Should Organization A be a platform for Person B’s harmful views?”.
Yeah, I’m sympathetic to this, and I accept the symmetry you suggest. I’m not sure to what extent it applies to this post, though.
Upon reflection I think that in my initial response to this I post was applying a UK lens to a US author.
I think the culture war dynamics (such as cancel culture) in the USA are not conducive to constructive political dialogue (agree with Larks on that). Luckily this has not seeped through to UK politics very much at least so far, but it is something I worry about. I see articles in the UK (on the right) making out that cancel culture (etc) is a problem, often with examples from the states. I expect (although this is not a topic I think much about) that articles of that type are unhelpfully fanning the culture war flames more than quelling them. As such I had a knee jerk reaction to this post and put it in the same bucket as such articles. I think I was applying a UK lens to a US author, without thinking if it applied.
That said I still think that Larks is (similarly) unfairly applying a US lens and US examples to a German situation without making a good case that what they says applies in the German cultural context. As such I think he may well be being too harsh on EA Munich.