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eta: You seem confused about what I'm arguing, so let me try to be more clear:
1. Concerns about "cancel culture" are overblown.
- "moderates" are not being "taken out" by the left
- when established voices move from one platform to another, it's not a threat to "free inquiry"
- many ostensible examples of "cancel culture" aren't really
2. "Cancel culture" is mostly a bad-faith response to arguments the right is losing, the new version of PC
- as it used, "cancel culture" excludes silencing by conservatives
- most people who complain about "cancel culture" seem to have no commitment to free speech as a principle
- they are complaining about "cancel culture" to avoid debate on the merits with people to their left
3. There are much bigger threats to "free inquiry" than "cancel culture"
- this obviously follows from the fact that people are not being silenced by "cancel culture"; also....
- newsrooms are not diverse, and many voices and viewpoints are not published
- the economics of the media space are terrible
- political media would rather avoid criticism than report the truth
- the right wing is committed to making arguments in bad faith, and the media won't deal with it
- technology gives people the news they want to hear
- there is a huge right-wing news/opinion machine, and nothing of the sort on the left
- etc.
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I'm not confused and you haven't been unclear. You're: (1) refusing to recognize this cancel silliness as a phenomenon; and, (2) trying to shift the discussion from one about its negative impacts to a discussion about minorities not being represented adequately in newsrooms.
As to 1, you've failed. To argue there is no such thing as cancel behavior is to deny reality. It's a left and right phenomenon. It comes down to this:
When people still revered Enlightenment views, they would listen to a person say something they didn't like and respond by ignoring it or explaining why they thought it was flawed.
This was recognized, properly, as the mechanism by which bad ideas were pushed aside in favor of good ideas.
Today, there is a thinking, left and right, that the proper response to an idea one doesn't like is to claim one is a victim (words as weapons mentality) or one is offended, or triggered, and that the next appropriate move is to seek to destroy the person who said the offending thing.
This is degenerate behavior. It is a dressed up version of "honor society" one might see in the bowels of Appalachia where that sort of idiocy persists. It is excused because the practitioners of it are usually emotional and lack the talent to dismantle what they don’t like with a cogent counter argument. The wink and nod from those of us who are smarter but sympathetic to cancel behavior is an unsaid, “Well, they overreact because they’re angry, and they haven’t had the advantages that would gift one the ability to express himself with a tight, logical counter.” (I’ll even admit having had an affinity for the “Radical Chic” of the bleating classes myself... it’s raw emotion and feels more real than rational, well considered, well crafted discussion.)
It is not okay. And these people who practice it, left and right, are knuckle draggers. They deserve no respect. BUT, that does not mean these dimwits should be cancelled as they would seek to cancel. It means their silly views should be shown to be such. The way the previous system, incorporating Enlightenment views, operated.
I'm not triggered or angry about the cancellation mindset. I believe them, simply, offensive.
They are not logical or thoughtful. They are Robespierres, Torquemadas. You don't countenance these shouters. They've debased discourse. They go in the bucket with the QAnon folks. Temporary infections of the public square accruing from a moral panic taking hold in the midst of a pandemic-induced national nervous breakdown.
They are not winning. They are simply causing a lurid spectacle. Like Trump Nation. But they are doing damage. The winds change. And god help us when the Right is in power again. Their use of cancellation will destroy any remaining reverence for the Enlightenment value of free and open expression and debate.
As to 2, I'm with you. The more free expression by more different voices, the better.
PS: I'm not advocating "free inquiry" here. I do champion that, but the term I've preferred and used is "free expression." And there's a difference. And you know it.
