That was a great conversation, loved listening to you both. I couldn't fully get on board with your take on the difference between "censorship" and "cancellation," though. Colloquially, I certainly agree that we tend to place them on opposing ends of a political spectrum. But functionally, there's a y-axis on that chart as well: at one end is top-down authority exercised by the state and by large institutions with (a media conglomerate, a large research university, a professional organization), and at the other is the angry mob exercising a sort of ad hoc vigilantism that supersedes institutional prerogatives. Censorship, to my mind, is Congress meddling with the NEA's grantmaking prodecures amidst the Robert Mapplethorpe controversies of the 80s and 90s; cancellation is BLM activists trying to have Dana Schutz's painting of Emmett Till removed from the 2017 Whitney Biennial. The outcome, in both cases, was to prevent the public from encountering artwork that was considered blasphemous, but the means of bringing pressure to bear were exercised from opposing ends of social and political power structures. (Fortunately, neither attempt that I cited was successful in its objective.)
That was a great conversation, loved listening to you both. I couldn't fully get on board with your take on the difference between "censorship" and "cancellation," though. Colloquially, I certainly agree that we tend to place them on opposing ends of a political spectrum. But functionally, there's a y-axis on that chart as well: at one end is top-down authority exercised by the state and by large institutions with (a media conglomerate, a large research university, a professional organization), and at the other is the angry mob exercising a sort of ad hoc vigilantism that supersedes institutional prerogatives. Censorship, to my mind, is Congress meddling with the NEA's grantmaking prodecures amidst the Robert Mapplethorpe controversies of the 80s and 90s; cancellation is BLM activists trying to have Dana Schutz's painting of Emmett Till removed from the 2017 Whitney Biennial. The outcome, in both cases, was to prevent the public from encountering artwork that was considered blasphemous, but the means of bringing pressure to bear were exercised from opposing ends of social and political power structures. (Fortunately, neither attempt that I cited was successful in its objective.)
"Woke" was already a joke on SNL in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adPXDTvADD0
"Woke" was already a joke on SNL in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adPXDTvADD0