> the cancel culture in the West is destroying people from speaking freely
All of the pundits complaining about “cancel culture” are themselves constantly demanding that various things be “canceled” (fired, taken off the air, defunded, boycotted, deported, imprisoned, ...).
Not in every case, but as a general rule, “cancel culture has gone too far” is a hypocritical euphemism for “I don’t like it when people call out my bigotry”.
Yep. The desire to 'cancel' sentiments and people they don't like, or at least not grant them particular platforms is the societal default, not some kind of modern exception.
Transpeople have been 'cancelled' from all sorts of opportunities since time immemorial without a single person outraged at Zuby's short term Twitter suspension being prepared to defend them to the death...
No it's the good old "if you're arguing that modern Western 'cancel culture' where accusations of insulting certain minorities might get you 'cancelled' from certain private platforms is more chilling to free speech than any other form of 'cancel culture' including those where being certain minorities got you blackballed from everything or even imprisoned or killed, you're not channelling Evelyn Hall so much as expressing which forms of freedom of expression you are most concerned with protecting' argument.
Especially in the case of the many pundits on the cancel culture complaint bandwagon who are quite open about which people and forms of expression they wish to silence instead.
All of the pundits complaining about “cancel culture” are themselves constantly demanding that various things be “canceled” (fired, taken off the air, defunded, boycotted, deported, imprisoned, ...).
Not in every case, but as a general rule, “cancel culture has gone too far” is a hypocritical euphemism for “I don’t like it when people call out my bigotry”.