Tag: cancel culture
“Cancel Culture” Not a Government Matter, But The Boss Can Shut You Down
The law is clear: employers get to decide whether or not an employee’s latest Tweet is grounds for termination and the First Amendment, though meant to be a shield from government overreach, is no shield from private consequence.
Dav Pilkey and “Cancel Culture”: A Conversation with Deborah Caldwell-Stone
This is an interview with Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom, and, as such, provides information on the Office’s and its stance regarding Scholastic’s recent decision to pull Dav Pilkey’s The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future.
You need to calm down: you’re getting called out, not canceled
“Cancel culture” is becoming synonymous with fragility. Pundits increasingly resent when racial, cultural and sexual norms are enforced in public. They bemoan cancel culture as a form of censorship, despite the fact that no one has actually been “cancelled.” They grieve the loss of free speech when they’re merely being taught a lesson: there is currency in our words and the price paid is accountability.
An Invitation to Danger: Perspectives on Intellectual Freedom and Information War
The first task of information warfare is to recognize when you’re in one, because you might not be fighting the information war, but the information war is fighting you. This essay revisits the wartime writing of Archibald MacLeish, poet-warrior, playwright-propagandist, and Librarian of Congress from 1939 through 1944. It explores whether we’re experiencing an information war now, and how the library community can respond.
Every Canceller Its Book, and Every Book Its Canceller
Harper’s Magazine recently ran an open letter calling for the reestablishment of open debate in this culture war being fought on the front lines of social media. It was refreshing to learn of a written rebuttal to this open letter, but the cause would benefit more if you didn’t read it at all.
Woody Allen’s Book Cancellation is Apropos of Today’s Discourse
The ability to stymy humiliation, to withhold judgement about intellectual pursuits is a pillar of intellectual freedom. Hachette’s recent move to cancel Woody Allen’s memoir represents an irreparable crack in this pillar as it buckles to sentiments anathema to an adult’s right to read.