Ricka’s view is that these things unfairly target conservatives. He simply doesn’t like that people who are bigots and worse have to suffer consequences. I’m obviously not convinced there is a “cancel culture”, and most certainly not in the way ricka uses the term (as I said above), especially as warped as his view of society is.

Im not sure there is a good chance everyone in the past will be cancelled, and that concern certainly shouldn’t prevent anyone from suffering that “fate”.

And, it often goes too far or involves utter stupidities. Like cancelling Wallace by a couple of ornithology grad students who did not understand what they were reading, abetted by a second rate journalist working for a major newspaper who could not admit he was wrong.

Like everything new, unfettered, in the internet, from software apps that break your phone to reinterpretations of scientific observations that are absurd, cancel culture can make a mess of things as much as it can help.

But the good side is that when it does work out, associations with living or historical figures that are in the end obnoxious and triggering, traumatizing even in some cases, can be identified and mitigated against. Individuals who were actively racist, anti LGBT, etc. can be examples of this, and this may be one of those examples.

Rick has a point: almost everyone in the past is liable to get cancelled. However, it is also true that not everyone in the past was a dickhead. Some were not, but they tend to be overlooked, and were probably repressed or silenced at the time. I have no problem with cancelling the name use of past people when they turn out to have acted like everyone else in an age where almost everyone was a jerk.

I also think we should stop naming thigs after people.

dean:

In addition to this very post – which is about cancelling James Webb, I also cite:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/16/top-10-recent-examples-cancel-culture/

Of course cancel culture exists.

“”Cancel culture” as you define it doesn’t exist. The same as the “antifa organization” you imagine doesn’t exist. The same as many things you imagine pose threats don’t exist.

When we judge historical people by contemporary standards, all historical people will get cancelled. Nobody acts “properly” when measured 50 years or more in the future. Everybody famous today will get cancelled in the future – even the most fervent cancelers of today will get cancelled in the future (probably because they are so fervent in cancelling people today).

So this is a dumb decision and I don’t agree with it. It was the James Webb space telescope when launched and it remains the James Webb space telescope. If the journal won’t use its official name, publish in a different paper. Don’t allow political correctness to influence your decisions. That is what weak and cowardly people do. Take a stand and use the official name and push back against any attempt to substitute a different name for the official name.

Just one person’s opinion (of course).