https://amzn.to/3RFCJ86
The Cancellation of the American Spirit
Cancel culture undermines trust and threatens us all – but there is a solution
By Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott
About the book:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Canceling-of-the-American-Mind/Greg-Lukianoff/9781668019146
Greg Lukianoff:
Does cancel culture really exist? Everyone knows this happens. It's one of those things that is so well established that virtually everyone watched it happen. And there are still people who are so ideological that they say, "That never happened. It's a hoax." That's just absurd. I've been on campus watching this for 22 years. One of the things we're trying to show in this book is that not only is this happening, but it's happening on a historical scale. Take, for example, early in my career, the September 11 attacks. It was true when I started, people got in trouble for saying things about 9/11. It was really bad and people were losing their jobs for making insensitive comments about 9/11. Nearly half a dozen teachers were fired.
What we talk about in the book are 1,000 attempts to get a professor fired [or punished], about two-thirds of which succeeded in getting them punished in some way. Nearly 200 of them were fired. This represents twice as many people fired during the Red Scare. It’s been nine and a half years of cancel culture. It's been 11 years of Red Scare and we're almost twice that. And people still try to say it doesn't happen at all. It's absurd.
Fundamentally, what we need to understand is that there is no comparable period in the history of academic freedom since the law was established, between 1957 and 1973, where we see so many teachers lose their jobs or be punished in some other way. And people keep saying it didn't even happen – they're being willfully blind.
Rikki Schlott:
Yeah. I would also add that Generation Z is obviously a younger and more progressive generation and yet we grew up with Cancelculture and we overwhelmingly have the most negative view of it of all. I think it's because my generation takes it for granted that this happens. We all grew up seeing this happen, especially when you're a teenager too. Everyone does and says much less calculated and much stupider things very frequently. So cancel culture is happening left and right. And young people know it, whatever their political orientation. I think it's just further proof that this is indeed happening and that there is a whole generation of people who have only known a world in which this is happening.
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