>"If you dismiss the demand for clarity, you can't coherently rebut his assessment of what "end cancel culture" means."
I'm dismissing his standard of what counts as "clarity" because I sense he's expecting a lawyerly definition based on something akin to precedent and case law. In other words, he's seeking past examples of alleged "cancel culture" and trying to define what made each event count as, or not count as, "cancel culture". And then from that formulate a rigid definition. I believe such a rigid definition is flawed because it is reactionary, because vernacular consensus is not formed this way, and because the definition can easily be skirted around.
It would be like me demanding clarity on what makes something "cool".
I'm not sure I'm trying to do that. I chose "cool" as an example because none of us came up with the term, no one can confidently define it and have everyone agree on it, and it's a word we all seem to use without truly knowing what it means.
At the risk of stretching an analogy too far, I would not need to define what "coolness" is in order to confront people who I perceive to be overly critical and who are trying to get people to stop expressing themselves in ways they perceive as "uncool". In other words, if I tell someone "If you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all", it does not seem reasonable to expect me to define what "nice" means in order to justify chiding someone for not being nice.
You're getting to Ken White's point, which is that we can't reasonably call for clear norms about "cancel culture" given how poorly defined it is. Without that definition --- and maybe we'll never have it --- "cancel culture" is mostly just an undisciplined tool for shutting down criticism.
White writes at length about the fact that disproportionate responses to objectionable speech happen, and are worth discussing. His take is that you have to talk about those things in their particulars, rather than trying to write staff editorials and open letters about the phenomenon of "cancel culture" (or, in the NYT's case, a [nonexistant!] right to express thoughts without fear of shame or shunning).
White's essay is about the NYT letter. It is not an attempt to end the "cancel culture" debate once and for all. I'd ask you to scroll through this thread and try to pick out the arguments here that recognize that fact, or the ones that are clearly premised on the notion that White believes he's "solved" the cancel culture problem (or doesn't believe it's real).
I'm dismissing his standard of what counts as "clarity" because I sense he's expecting a lawyerly definition based on something akin to precedent and case law. In other words, he's seeking past examples of alleged "cancel culture" and trying to define what made each event count as, or not count as, "cancel culture". And then from that formulate a rigid definition. I believe such a rigid definition is flawed because it is reactionary, because vernacular consensus is not formed this way, and because the definition can easily be skirted around.
It would be like me demanding clarity on what makes something "cool".