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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Louis C.K. was trending on Twitter because his Madison Square Garden concert was sold out, which some on the left are interpreting to mean that cancel culture is not real, or that it does not hurt people's careers. (link: https://archive.is/ryKrI )

What does it mean to be sufficiently canceled? I think Louis C.K. qualifies as having been sufficiently cancelled. If you look at his Wikipedia page, his sexual misconduct scandal, in 2017, killed off his TV and movie career. His filmography abruptly ends in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_C.K._filmography

Sure he's still able to sell out, but this reflects individual preferences for his comedy, not the approval of the media establishment, in which he is still damaged goods. Comedians are sorta like contractors in the sense that they have to hustle, not depend on a platform or the backing of a major media establishment. I think this is is what gives comedians an advantage over actors in regard to cancellation, because stand-up comedy can be inexpensively distributed at scale, such as digitally online, without needing the backing of an entire studio or publishing house.

Cancel culture regards the intent and attempt to end one’s career, reputation, and livelihood. Just like we did to the Nazis. It’s very real and very alive. That some Nazis escaped to South America does not change the Allies’ intent and attempt to hold them accountable.

What is risible is for ordinary people to try to give other ordinary people the Nazi treatment. Before social media, CK may have run into some small-time, inside baseball sanctions. Maybe FX and HBO get wind of allegations and fail to renew his hit series. And if the CK infractions are truly egregious and criminal, then maybe there is mainstream media coverage. But I believe the whispers here both started and were amplified by social media before mainstream media ran with it.

I think you have things backwards. What the allies did to the nazis wasn't 'cancel culture'. It was just warfare. The enemy was the nazis and they hunted the enemy down and murdered them. That war was a total war. Not just in the economic sense but in every sense possible. That's why the allies executed Julius Streicher despite him not having fired a weapon or commanded any troops. Same goes for the monuments and art the allies intentionally destroyed due to the connections to nazi ideology.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment. It was always ordinary people who did these things. From the soldier and his rifle to the largest institutions in the world. It's all individual people.

If you don't live in an actual nation with a national ideology then I don't see why you would expect the society you live in to not devolve into a state of warfare.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country. Ordinary people refusing to do so in Russia and Germany are a big part of the reason WWII came about.

It's all individual people.

It's not. Groups matter. Russia, Germany, The American North and South in the Civil War and after, all were shaped far more by social dynamics than by atomic individual choice.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country.

And what happens when a part of ordinary people refuses to live in peace with another part? Should the others submit to keep this Moldbuggean sort of peace?

Then it is war to the knife, and woe to those who cry out "Can't we all just get along?"

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country. Ordinary people refusing to do so in Russia and Germany are a big part of the reason WWII came about.

That's not an answer to the relevant follow up question pertaining to the lack of reasons people had to find ways to live in 'peace'. I mean, I can certainly understand why an impoverished Russian farmer didn't quite fancy the 'peace' of a perpetual state of starvation, which would lead to conditions which would ultimately bring about the Soviet Union. And I can also understand why a German might not like to live under Weimar conditions. I would, in fact, sympathize more with them than the person who considers those situations tolerable.

It's not. Groups matter. Russia, Germany, The American North and South in the Civil War and after, all were shaped far more by social dynamics than by atomic individual choice.

This statement is completely irrelevant to what you are replying to.