J.K. Rowling, B.Weiss & N. Chomsky Among Dozens Sign Open Letter Calling for End to Cancel Culture

[Sympthsical]

174. Cancel culture is just a mob in internet form

For some reason, people think authoritarianism is solely reserved for the Right. Not so much, not so much. There are plenty of ideologues on our side who want to silence and minimize any opinion that doesn't fit their narrow views of "acceptable."

Anti free speech folk are all over Berkeley, which I think is just the most fantastic irony. They've learned nothing.

And of course, this mob is, as ever, a bunch of comfortable people, sitting at home on their computers, thinking that just typing all day is somehow activism (see: slacktivist).

It's an entire toxic culture spawned out of social media. There are a lot of people on the Left who do not want free speech. They want control and conformity. They have that in common with their right-wing counterparts.

If people don't want to buy an author's book, don't. Don't watch that actor's film. Don't buy that singer's music. That's your right.

It's when people start demanding firings, the loss of livelihoods, the destruction of lives that I draw the line. Commencement speakers now can only express narrow bands of thought, lest bored students get outraged (and why they're being taught they have to be outraged by every little thing is beyond me. Safe rooms when conservative speakers come. Jesus H. What are we teaching there? Not how to handle a challenging world, I tell you that).

There's a kind of bloodlust that seeped in along the way. It is not cute. It is not attractive. It is fascist. And our side is going to have a reckoning sooner or later. I hold no truck with authoritarians. The ones on my side may vote the same as I do, but we are not the same. I oppose them and am disgusted with them with every fiber of my being.

They are not pro-democracy. Not even a little bit.