I'm not sure what's wrong with a definition of cancel culture that appeals to a lack of proportionality. Yes, a disproportionate punitive response to transgressions can be part of a culture. And we have plenty of words to refer to excessiveness, such as "excessiveness."
Your case is a little tricky, because if someone sincerely read you …
I'm not sure what's wrong with a definition of cancel culture that appeals to a lack of proportionality. Yes, a disproportionate punitive response to transgressions can be part of a culture. And we have plenty of words to refer to excessiveness, such as "excessiveness."
Your case is a little tricky, because if someone sincerely read you as calling for violence against Trump--and some people seem to have, though obviously not anyone with any prior knowledge of you--then your being fired does not seem excessive (indeed perhaps it's inadequate).
However one suspects that the Nikanssen Center *did not really believe* you were making a threat of violence--since, again, no one familiar with you would have not gotten the joke. And this, I think, is part of cancel culture--when someone gets fired not because their organization truly believes they've done anything wrong, but simply because of the size of the howling mob outside. (Social media makes this possible because the mob doesn't even need to go to the trouble of gathering in person.)
So if you fire your employee for making a Nazi joke you honestly think is disgusting--even if they've otherwise seemed like a "great person"--then no, I don't think that's cancel culture. Cancel culture involves an element of "jumping on the bandwagon"--punishing someone because that's what everyone else is doing, since (this is the underlying worry) if you don't join in, you might be next to suffer.
I'm not sure what's wrong with a definition of cancel culture that appeals to a lack of proportionality. Yes, a disproportionate punitive response to transgressions can be part of a culture. And we have plenty of words to refer to excessiveness, such as "excessiveness."
Your case is a little tricky, because if someone sincerely read you as calling for violence against Trump--and some people seem to have, though obviously not anyone with any prior knowledge of you--then your being fired does not seem excessive (indeed perhaps it's inadequate).
However one suspects that the Nikanssen Center *did not really believe* you were making a threat of violence--since, again, no one familiar with you would have not gotten the joke. And this, I think, is part of cancel culture--when someone gets fired not because their organization truly believes they've done anything wrong, but simply because of the size of the howling mob outside. (Social media makes this possible because the mob doesn't even need to go to the trouble of gathering in person.)
So if you fire your employee for making a Nazi joke you honestly think is disgusting--even if they've otherwise seemed like a "great person"--then no, I don't think that's cancel culture. Cancel culture involves an element of "jumping on the bandwagon"--punishing someone because that's what everyone else is doing, since (this is the underlying worry) if you don't join in, you might be next to suffer.