>It’s exceedingly hard to be cancelled if you’re acting genuinely, kindly, and with empathy for the topic you’re discussing.
This a hypocritical Isolated Demand For Rigor[1], or in this case for Niceness. Many people doing the cancelling don't have to be and don't bother with civility or politeness, they are entirely ok with the worst slurs if it came from mouths they support. The kindness they demand is a thin wrapper over ideological conformity, and the demands are demonstrably done in bad faith to silence the discussion not to shape it.
It also, rather naively and hilariously, imagines potential cancellers as ideal rational censors who will read all of your words before arriving at a fair judgment. This is in stark contrast with what actually happens, where cancellers read a headline and then reach a red 100 Celsius before reading a single additional word. The off-the-top-of-my-head example is a whole ironic saga of twitter cancelling a trans scifi author[2] because a pro-trans story just so happened to have an "offensive" title (that turned out to be literally true in the world of the story.)
>Getting canceled isn’t a landmine, it’s a tar pit
Both are public dangers that civilised societies hunt and eradicate.
There's no difference between the people doing the cancelling and the person being cancelled, from a "what are their fundamental rights?" perspective. Both must be kind, and both can face shame and shunning for failing to do so. "The Demand for Rigor" here is not Isolated.
More "cancellers" should be shamed and shunned for failing in this way. Isabel Fall should not have been ridiculed for her work, Ken White would agree with you on that.
This a hypocritical Isolated Demand For Rigor[1], or in this case for Niceness. Many people doing the cancelling don't have to be and don't bother with civility or politeness, they are entirely ok with the worst slurs if it came from mouths they support. The kindness they demand is a thin wrapper over ideological conformity, and the demands are demonstrably done in bad faith to silence the discussion not to shape it.
It also, rather naively and hilariously, imagines potential cancellers as ideal rational censors who will read all of your words before arriving at a fair judgment. This is in stark contrast with what actually happens, where cancellers read a headline and then reach a red 100 Celsius before reading a single additional word. The off-the-top-of-my-head example is a whole ironic saga of twitter cancelling a trans scifi author[2] because a pro-trans story just so happened to have an "offensive" title (that turned out to be literally true in the world of the story.)
>Getting canceled isn’t a landmine, it’s a tar pit
Both are public dangers that civilised societies hunt and eradicate.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sexually_Identify_as_an_At...