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Why not? It's not like consumer boycotts, getting people fired etc. are tactics that haven't been used by whatever political sides long before we started to call them "cancelling".
Consumer boycotts aren't cancel culture. Because for some mysterious reason, when the right had a lot more cultural and political power, left wing figures remained distinctly uncancelled. Whenever asked for an example people reach for the Dixie Chicks, which is wrong for obvious reasons, or have to go all the way back to the Hayes Code or McCarthyism which, unlike modern cancel culture, are recognized as an overreach.
Hold on. I'm not attacking people in the 50's for criticizing McCarthyism, I'm attacking people now for not criticizing Cancel Culture, especially when they did criticize McCarthyism.
Isn't that closer to what you are doing here:
?
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That's a really weak argument. A cancellation attempt doesn't have to wipe someone from the face of the earth for it to have an effect. Otherwise no one is ever cancelled.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/
No it's not. Nybbler is pointing out no one made a cancellation attempt. James Damore lost his job, and even though he could find a new one, he was still cancelled. Louis CK's film got dropped by distributors, and even though he's a popular comedian filling up venues, he was still cancelled. Please show me how anyone even attempted to cancel The Dixie Chicks. Did anyone try to get their record label to drop them? Did they try to get a venue to boot them out, even after tickets were sold? Anything?
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Dixie Chicks isn't cancel culture anyway. They were "cancelled" for things they said in public as part of their public performance in the job they were being "cancelled" for.
The same can be said of, e.g., many cancelled academics.
No, because of the other factor that they were "cancelled" by their own customers (or people who would otherwise be their customers).
If students refused to attend lectures by a professor because of their content, and weren't substantially assisted by outside forces (including other staff, Twitter mobs, etc.), I'd agree that wasn't cancellation.
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You can't actually make anyone pay attention to fine distinctions though, particularly when the other side has a megaphone, which is why the whole "Cancel culture is just us doing what conservatives have been doing to us all along" thing works every time.
Alternatively, those fine distinctions amount to conceptual gerrymandering and aren't compelling to anyone who isn't already in agreement.
Yeah, he's clearly wrong. The distinction isn't "fine". It's gaping and massive, as proven by the fact that cancellers never apply the progressive standards to non-progressives or vice-versa.
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