Thread by @donmoyn

This is really insightful piece about the abuse of language on the right. What does language like "cancel culture" do in these cases?
1. As @ParkerMolloy identifies, it provides easy talking points - "rhetorical empty calories" mediamatters.org/fox-news/woke-…

2. Use of terms like "cancel culture" connects and makes sense of disparate events into coherent themes for people, reducing cognitive demands on the audience.
3. It prioritizes certain topics as more worthy of your attention, and gives them a specific framing.

4. As a result terms "cancel culture" or "woke" or "critical race theory" creates a cognitive bias - don't think about it, or look at the details, just turn to a pre-programmed emotional response (usually anger).

https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1371597117626716163?s=20

5. Finally, by reducing attention to the details of the case and generating an emotional response, these forms of language serve as a means of blame avoidance. You don't have to defend what you did, however awful, just pivot to "cancel culture."

https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1379561703009095681?s=20

The last point in particular reflects the old debaters trick - if you have an indefensible position, don't defend it, but turn the discussion to some lofty principle people might support.
"I'm not defending vax conspiracies/racism, just fighting against cancel culture"