Thank you for your answer.

In my wrestling with the topic, I've tried to understand why certain things are called "cancel culture" while others are not.

For example, is the opposition to Colin Kaepernick part of cancel culture?

To go to your definition, we have to ask if standing up for the national anthem in order to play a football game is a sphere where it doesn’t belong - which is clearly true. People play football games all the time without an anthem. So the anthem is there for some other purpose.

We can see that the ritual around the activity - standing up for the anthem - suppresses the views of those who think the flag is not worth that respect. And we have court cases which show that in other circumstances, not standing for the flag is protected free speech and protected religious speech.

And we see how adherence to the ritual is used to punish those who harbor those with other views, where the "mob" reaction in this case includes Trump's call to fire those who refuse to stand.

Yet, while Kaepernick's case seems to fit your definition, that isn't what people seem to mean by "cancel culture."

(I could go on with other cases, but my comment is already too long.)

You write that they say that Pinker's views are "not aligned to this new policy". But all they are calling for is to have his name removed from a couple of lists where the LSA privileges some LSA members over others. They are not calling for him to be removed from the LSA, but only not given special ranking. Pinker himself says he's not worried this will cancel him.

So what does "cancel" even mean here? Is any loss of even minor status equivalent to "cancel"? Because it reads like the people involved are snowflakes who can't stand the least bit of possible negative consequences to their speech, and I can't figure out why anyone outside the LSA would care.

You write: "What does racial justice have to do with the LSA’s core field that isn’t already included as part of the pursuit of truth? Very little."

Now, I know squat about the LSA but your argument comes across as a 19th century view of science. Science ethics classes often use the Tuskegee syphilis experiment as an example where the 'pursuit of truth' lead to racial injustice. If truth sets us free, how were the African-American men involved any more free as a result of the study? And Guatemala considers its sibling experiments there to be a crime against humanity. So no, I don't think simple "pursuit of truth" is the right framework to think about this topic.

Again, I know squat all about the LSA. But going right to "must defend the unhindered investigation of truth" - which has been proven time and again to be wrong for other fields of science - just doesn't seem like a good defense.

You write "Researchers and professors are both allowed to be wrong and allowed to form opinions that disagree with the prevailing sentiment." I looked at William A. Jacobson essay you linked to. Jacobson writes that he faces "no adverse employment action because of my academic freedom and job security".

Since he's free to 'form opinions that disagree with the prevailing sentiment' - how is he "cancelled"?

And I see that elsewhere - Stephen Hsu resigned from his administrative position at MSU but retains his tenured faculty position. Yet that's still called part of "cancel culture" even though he can use his job to form opinions that disagree with the prevailing sentiment.

It seems like tenured positions are a strong weapon against being cancelled, so why aren't the people who complain about cancel culture also pushing for more tenured positions, and stopping the exploitative adjunct teaching position where people with opposing viewpoints aren't "canceled" so much as "don't have their contract renewed for the next term"?

But it feels like many of those who complain about cancel culture also want to remove tenure in teaching positions and increase uncertainty in the ability to express ideas - which comes across like "cancel culture" is (re-using your phrase) "simply rhetorical warfare".