What happens when you get canceled (and why) HotAir

Applebaum goes on to say that the larger problem is people are so unwilling to be uncomfortable. Like others before her she conflates legitimate complaints, for instance parents who are angry about a teacher trying to indoctrinate students with Marxism, with the kind of left-wing cancel culture in which someone who is directly or tangentially connected to a controversial opinion on Twitter discovers people are calling their boss and trying to get them fired. The difference isn t hard to discern. Parents have a right to demand their kids not be indoctrinated in classrooms. Randos on the internet do not have the right to demand that everyone who disagrees with their feelings about trans rights or equity or whatever else be fired from their jobs because they don t fall in line or even because they dare to disagree.

Applebaum opens her piece by using the novel The Scarlet Letter as a kind of example of the experience of being canceled. While I agree it s possible to read that as a compelling story of human behavior apart from ideology, the book really makes sense in the context of a Puritan religious community whose cultural views are a specific, shared ideology. The same is true with the cancel culture mobs on Twitter. They mostly share a specific ideology, one that has strains of left-wing authoritarianism from the past. It may be that such strains come from underlying character types which in some sense give rise to similar phenomena in different places and different times. But I don t think you can ignore that certain ideologies (ones that idolize equity and the common good) seem to give more license to behaviors that result in the mistreatment of individuals.

via hotair.com

RTWT.