Comment by claudiawerner
5 years ago
> It also strikes me that such economic terrorism could very well be the precursors to actual killing and state oppression.
They could also not be. Even the phrasing of "economic terrorism" stretches both the terminology of economy and terrorism beyond what most people would consider by the terms.
> People who don't respect the right to liberty or property of others probably don't respect their right to life either.
Which of the 'cancel culture' advocates don't respect the right to liberty? I can understand they have arguments against the right to (private) property, but this seems far more abstract.
>the objective is the purging institutions of dissidents and the destruction of all artifacts of the old order
I have some recollection of Marcuse's argument that the qualitative, historical, and social differences between terrors and movements are increasingly being reduced to nothing by the popular consciousness who is only acquainted with them through one-off facts and cherry picking...
>Whatever the people participating in Cancel Culture believe, they are still following the Cultural Revolution template.
What is sufficient to constitute a 'template' here? Let me provide a concrete example; the anarchists of old frequently argued against the notion of human rights, the state, and property. Marx and his followers did the same. Who is following who's template here? As another commenter in this thread pointed out, when most people think of the cultural revolution, they're really not thinking about tearing down statues or call-outs on social media (or even newspapers!) from a mob only given power by association (and not, say, the state or weaponry).
The comparison is almost entirely bunk, and it's a little surprising that Mao's atrocities are being reduced to tearing down statues of slave traders. BLM actually more closely resembles (again, I'm ignoring many qualitative differences here, since it seems to be fair game to do so in this discussion) the systematic removal of Marx and Lenin statues in Europe and especially Lukacs' and Engels' statues being removed recently.
> Even the phrasing of "economic terrorism" stretches both the terminology of economy and terrorism beyond what most people would consider by the terms.
The literal firing of some nobody over accidentally making a gesture that looked like a "white power" symbol fits very nicely into the idea of "economic terrorism"[1]. The idea that anything you do in your life could be captured, taken out of context, and shared on the Internet and subject to the fury of a mob (and resulting in the loss of income, employability, and economic stability) is pretty terrifying.
What makes it terrorism is not simply that people are subjected to this treatment randomly (although that does happen too, and should not be discounted) but that there is an ideological agenda behind these attacks. The person who posted the picture from the linked article, those who shared it, and possibly even the company that fired him (though they could have just been cowards) all felt that they were contributing toward a righteous cause of fighting against bigotry.
Of course, even if the gesture was genuine the idea that bigots should not be able to even get jobs as repair technicians (assuming that they otherwise conduct themselves in a lawful manner) is baffling to me. There's no justice in going after people who are already relatively low on the social and economic hierarchy just because the believe repugnant things.
[1]https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove...