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I always thought "cancel culture" was a bad term and a misdiagnosis. The problem was people getting canceled for saying true things or for semi-private jokes, while lots of people were saying horrible anti-white things or pro-riot things with giant megaphones and not facing any consequences. Lot's of people should have been canceled who weren't. Lots of people on the left were awful saying things in 2020 that would have got themselves rightly canceled in 1995 or 1955. For example, I always felt that the NY Times should have canceled Sarah Jeong for her gratuitous anti-white statements, but kept on Razib Khan for his smart and truthful analysis. Nikole Hannah Jones should have been fired from the NY Times for endorsing the 2020 riots. Etc.
There is always an Overton window. And the Overton window of what can be said on network TV without getting reprimanded or punished by your boss is and ought to be smaller than the Overton window of what you can publish in your own pamphlet without getting punished by the state.
Yes, cancellation is excellent praxis within an illiberal milieu, but I can't blame anyone for mourning the death of the liberal détente that prohibited it.
Of course, from the NYT's perspective Razib's "smart and truthful analysis" amounts to justification of horrible anti-black sentiment. On one hand, they're correct; on the other hand, he's correct.
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