A few more thoughts after rereading this list of supposedly outrageous incidents mentioned in the Harper’s “cancel culture” letter. 1) As @samthielman points out, many of the descriptions of these episodes are extremely misleading or oversimplified to the point of absurdity. 1/x https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/1280522621529047046

“Editors are fires for running controversial pieces?” We don’t know who this one is about specifically, but one of the signatories is Ian Buruma, who left the NY Review of Books in 2018 after running a piece aiming to rehabilitate Jian Ghomeshi. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/new-york-review-of-books-editor-ian-buruma-steps-down 2/x

As the Guardian piece notes, Buruma’s defense of the piece in an interview with @IChotiner only made things worse: Buruma said he didn’t know whether the allegations that Ghomeshi had violently assaulted women were accurate, “nor is it really my concern.” 3/x

2) I’m not sure which incidents the other parts of that graf refer to, but I’d approach it with a heavy dose of skepticism. I.e., what “works of literature” did professors get investigated for quoting in class? Did they perhaps contain the n-word, as some have recently done? 4/x

3) Upon reflection, the common thread among many of these “cancel culture” critics seems to be that they want to protect the ability of powerful people to say and do things that harm vulnerable groups — women, people of color, trans people. 5/x

Being able to say and do things that harm people in those groups — with few career consequences — has long been the status quo. That’s changing now, and to me it seems like those who are most vocal about “cancel culture” are really longing for a return to that status quo. 6/x

4) There’s definitely a debate to be had about ordinary people whose lives are turned upside down by a viral moment, a phenomenon that’s happening more and more these days. Sometimes the consequences are warranted, and sometimes they’re not; each case is different. 7/x

But high-profile “cancellations” such as the ones alluded to in the Harper’s letter are a different beast, and it’s disingenuous to describe them in such innocuous terms as the letter does. It’s not about “free speech.” It’s about words and actions that harm the vulnerable. 8/x

A key component of the whole notion of “cancel culture” seems to be the denial or dismissal of that very harm — as though sexual assault, racial epithets and the marginalization of trans people were all frivolous things, just part of some intellectual exercise. 9/x

Instead of thinking of “the cancelled” as figures whose merits and flaws can be weighed within a vacuum, why not view them within the context in which they actually exist: as figures whose actions may be putting their coworkers, or students, or others around them at risk? 10/x

Okay that’s the whole thread but I ended the last tweet with “10/x” so now I have to add another one so that people know it’s over. 11/11