So it seems to me that the whole debate over “cancel culture” is hiding a broad point of consensus between many of the people arguing over it, which is that inflicting material consequences on people you disagree with is permissible, and maybe even good.

People who are against “cancel culture” largely are talking about public campaigns to get shows canceled, or people fired, or books pulped, or to block people from getting jobs on the academic job market. (Whether that threat is overblown or not is another issue.)

But many of those very same people are engaging in the private versions of the same behavior, they email people’s bosses about disputes on twitter, or use their perches on Univeristy committees to block people who support Palestinian rights, etc.

If you want to describe the first kind is mob behavior, with its images of pitchforks and torches driving people from the public square, the other is Mob behavior, with its images of powerful men in murky rooms making deals to destroy people’s lives.

“cancel culture”—ugh that term, but we know what it describes—happens in public mostly because the individuals involved don’t have a huge amount of power. It takes collective action. The other kind doesn’t because it relies on power and social relationships.

if we want to renegotiate our norms around when it’s permissible to target someone’s livelihood over their expression, that’s fine. I’d probably argue for greater restraint than many of my friends.

But still... I’d rather be talking about *that* than this really exhausting and maddening convo we’re trapped in that only really talks about the public stuff.