Generalization is a intellectual shortcut but, the bubble that the stereotypical typical Williams collage student was raised in supports this problem. I don’t know exactly what a “cancel” is, but in my mind, the behavior isn’t a left / right thing- it’s an extremest thing. There are plenty of examples from the right extremes, including banning of books and the unashamed desire to repeal the legality of gay marriage. Extreme political positions require a clean message of good and evil, and in my view, the “cancel” of anything (eg nuance) disrupting those messages is a broad issue in the future of our society and culture.

Razor sharp analysis; the left and the right are both involved in similar policies around "cancellation". As an example, the right wing has expressed disdain and called for a reduction of powers of the FBI[1] in the same way the left has expressed theirs for the police[2].

[1] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-republicans-will-com...

[2] https://time.com/5849495/black-lives-matter-defund-police-de...

Great example- there are more. The far left and the far right are so close they don't even know it. If they stopped seeking "good" and "evil", and hating on principle they'd see the absurdity.

But defunding the police was never cancel culture, that's a separate thing. Cancel culture refers to the practice of trying to get individuals fired for things they said, or sometimes to try and get customers of a company to abandon that company for the same reasons.

I think you are being disingenuous if you are denying that cancel culture is a thing. There is a long list of people who’ve been cancelled or have attempted to be cancelled and finding that list is a quick Google away. Examples include: JK Rowling, Dave Chapelle, Matt Damon, etc. the list is a mile long. Some cancellation attempts are more successful than others depending on how famous they are. But the key is that a large mob of people banded together and tried to get them deplatformed, usually using common language like “do better”, and calling them things like “fascist”, “bigot”, “racist”.

Additionally, those are just examples of people in the public sphere, there are tons of videos and other examples of online of students shouting down professors or guest speakers, calling them "fascists", demanding they be fired, literally cancelling speakers with opposing views. I mean there's just a lot of evidence online, very easy to Google. I can link it here if that's helpful, but I worry that the people who don't already know about this problem will probably just ignore the links since they were already willfully ignorant up to this point.

Of course there are examples of right extremes, nobody here is denying that, we’re talking about the extremes of the left and how they are having a chilling effect on scientific research.

For the record, I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat.

I don't think I denied that "cancel culture" is a thing. The quote are because I have very limited exposure to social media (this site and some limited reddit) and don't follow any popular news (cnn/fox/abc/nbc etc), and don't talk politics socially- so I'm not comfortable that my definition of 'cancel' is the common definition. My intended point was this behavior is on both left and right BUT but more importantly, it is the extremes of each that are the problem and 'canceling' drives greater extremes. that is not good. I intended to make the point that the folks at Williams are likely extreme due to the bubble that they live in- and I don't support that at all. Fwiw: I'm neither Republican or Democrat either. I have deep distrust in anyone with power, which is dark soul of both of those organizations.

The right is using "cancel culture" as a boogeyman to deflect criticism of their ideas.

A few people complaining about you on Twitter now apparently constitutes being "cancelled", even if it comes with no actual consequences.