Hacker News Reader

Comment by tejohnso | Hacker News Reader

Cancel culture has reached an absurd, satirical level cancelling an entire culture and nation of people now. And not even just people. The International Cat Federation banned Russian cats from competition [1]. This cat story is something I'd expect to see in The Onion.

[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/international-cat-feder...

View on HN

I wouldn't call it cancel culture, it's something that doesn't really exist in Italy in this term. Read my comment here for some clarifications on how things really went: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644847

According to the tweet, it was cancelled "because he’s a Russian writer". It doesn't matter what happened after that. If an academic institution steps in and cancels something because of someone's nationality, especially while following a herd of similar behaviour, that's pure cancel culture in action.

Maybe the term hasn't caught on in Italy but it sounds to me like the actual behaviour has.

Aside from the cancel culture term, I'd go even further and be clear. It's pure Russophobia, and it's no better than Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, etc.

Cancel culture is only when American left wing does it. When American right wing does it, it is not cancel culture. When non-Americans do it, it is not cancel culture.

That's an absolutely absurd conclusion to reach here. Yes a university banning Dostoyevsky is stupid, but Russia has attacked a free independent country and is bombing hospitals and maternity wards. Everything and anything to do with Russia should be currently banned if you have even a sliver of a moral compass. That's not cancel culture, that's having two eyes and a few braincells to go with them.

> Everything and anything to do with Russia should be currently banned if you have even a sliver of a moral compass. That's not cancel culture, that's having two eyes and a few braincells to go with them.

Eh, that is a prototypical example of cancel culture, and your suggestion of re-naming this activity to "having two eyes and a few braincells to go with them" is very insincere and unhelpful.

Getting rid of any and all ties with a country that is starting aggression in Europe not seen here in 70 years, is cancel culture? Because if yes, then sure, I love cancel culture. We should cancel culture the crap out of Russia, including their cat beauty contests.

Yes, it's called "cancel culture" even in cases where you favor the canceling, not only in cases where you oppose the canceling.

For what it's worth, I also agree that canceling Russia broadly is the right move at this time (although I do think that banning Dostoevski is stupid).

I feel like you're redefining "cancel culture", at least the way I understand it. To me "cancel culture" is exclusively the western(primarily US) obsession with cancelling things which are deemed even marginally offensive to someone.

Russia invading another European country and us breaking up all ties with them is not "cancel culture". We're not doing it because someone's feelings got hurt. There's an actual war going on, with very real people dying. Calling our reaction to it "cancel culture" strikes me as dismissive, offensive almost(yes I'm offended at your use of the phrase cancel culture to describe this).

> Russia invading another European country and us breaking up all ties with them is not "cancel culture". We're not doing it because someone's feelings got hurt. There's an actual war going on, with very real people dying. Calling our reaction to it "cancel culture" strikes me as dismissive, offensive almost(yes I'm offended at your use of the phrase cancel culture to describe this).

First of all, I already said that I support your position of cancelling Russia. Yes, I agree that Russia's offensive war-mongering is horrible, and the situation in Ukraine is extremely bleak with millions of people suffering because of Russia's actions. I agree that severe economic sanctions and voluntarily imposed boycotts and other non-violent pressure can help put an end to this war (either by pressuring Russians to overthrow the government, or by pressuring the oligarchs to convince Putin to back down, or simply by draining Putin's economy so he is unable to pay soldiers at some point in the future). It appears to me that we agree on what the facts are, and we agree what should be done about it, but you are offended at my choice of words.

Ok, so let's talk about the terminology. You imply that there are situations where proponents of cancel culture propose "cancelling" somebody because of "hurt feelings". Can you point to a single example in the history of humanity where this has actually occurred? No, you can't, because the proponents of cancel culture have an obsession of re-naming everything. In particular, they vehemently oppose the phrasing "cancel culture", they never use that term, unless it's in a sentence where they deny it exists or deny to be participants in it. And they most certainly won't describe the motivations for cancelling someone with the description of "hurt feelings". Show me a single example of a person genuinely saying "yes cancel culture is great, and we should cancel person X because they hurt person Y's feelings". You can't.

Here you are, defending the decision to cancel cats from a cat show. I agree with that decision, but that isn't enough for you; you want me to describe these actions with weasel words instead of calling it what it is.

"Getting rid of ties" is very different from declaring a witch hunt on anything concerning Russian culture. Surely we should also stop using any technology Russian inventors invented or helped invent? Should chemists look for a replacement of the Periodic Table?

I hope people realize bigger danger of easily rationalizing such narrative. Of course governments and institutions need to protect their interests, hence such actions. However regular people almost always lose by having such view.

Should we "ban" the history, culture or authors from the most of the nations as almost all of them have been aggressors at some point in time?

No. Absolutely not, and I did call banning Dostoyevsky stupid. I hope that was clear.

so you want to ban Vladimir Sorokin also, who only writes how stupid Putinism is, and all of his latest books are to make fun of this insanity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com