The Real problem with cancel culture

[Solmyr]

Are there many examples of people's freedom to speak being majorly impacted by "cancellations"? I have yet to see anyone forced to censor themselves unless they really want to use racist rhetoric without consequences. Heck, many of those "cancelled" are ranting about it in major national media - doesn't seem their freedom of speech was impacted at all.

[Berkut]

If you get fired, then the ability to rant about getting fired isn't evidence that your freedom to speak freely was curtailed.

And of course the chilling effect is not going to be directly measurable.

I am surprised that we have to have an argument about whether or not restricting speech with the mob is a problem or not. I thought freedom to speak without having your job or character threatened was something that most liberal people would defend on principle. I guess not.

Are we holding other issues to this same standard - that unless you can prove with some kind of objective measure the consequence is adequately meaningful (even on matters of principle), then we should not care or act on the things people do? Do we demand that people show that the police measurably and provably target people of color before we protest one of them killing a black man? Do we demand that someone show that asking non white people in Arizona for their papers whenever a cop runs into them "majorly impacts" them before we decry the imposition on their rights by the state?

Do we demand that Rosa Parks prove that her ability to get to work is "majorly impacted" before we stand up and say she should be able to ride any bus she wants, anywhere she wants? I mean, "separate but equal" - isn't that the very definition of saying "Hey, it ought to be ok for us to stomp on your rights, because you know, you are not "majorly impacted!"

[The Minsky Moment]

"Chilling effects" beyond actual tangible repercussions can exist, but they aren't easily measurable or quantifiable.  It sure sounds bad to feel "chilled" but how much a problem is it?  On a national basis it certainly doesn't seem like there is a lot less racist or misogynist speech now than say is 2015.  On the contrary it seems like there is a lot more and it has become a lot more socially acceptable.  Which imposes it's own chilling effect.   If you focus on a small number of university or other "elite" settings, the incidence of potential "woke offensive" speech is presumably lower, but predominantly for reasons that have little to do with woke chill.

[Berkut]

"Chilling effects" beyond actual tangible repercussions can exist, but they aren't easily measurable or quantifiable.  It sure sounds bad to feel "chilled" but how much a problem is it?  On a national basis it certainly doesn't seem like there is a lot less racist or misogynist speech now than say is 2015.  On the contrary it seems like there is a lot more and it has become a lot more socially acceptable.  Which imposes it's own chilling effect.  If you focus on a small number of university or other "elite" settings, the incidence of potential "woke offensive" speech is presumably lower, but predominantly for reasons that have little to do with woke chill.

That is a fair argument, and one I can actually get behind.

The pendulum has swung, and it inevitably tends to swing to far, and perhaps that is what we are seeing now.

The benefits of more social awareness around racism and bigotry are more valuable then the unfortunate reality that that adjustment will end up over-correcting in some corner cases.

My response to that would be that in that case, we should be vigilant about that, acknowledging it, and actively trying to correct it while keeping the positive momentum moving.

Not deny that it is happening at all, or saying it only happens "to people who deserve it".

[DGuller]

"Chilling effects" beyond actual tangible repercussions can exist, but they aren't easily measurable or quantifiable.  It sure sounds bad to feel "chilled" but how much a problem is it?  On a national basis it certainly doesn't seem like there is a lot less racist or misogynist speech now than say is 2015.  On the contrary it seems like there is a lot more and it has become a lot more socially acceptable.  Which imposes it's own chilling effect.  If you focus on a small number of university or other "elite" settings, the incidence of potential "woke offensive" speech is presumably lower, but predominantly for reasons that have little to do with woke chill.

Without getting into the argument about the volume of racist or mysoginist speech, you're assuming that the chilling effect impacts only that kind of speech.  I would argue it is more likely to impact speech which is entirely reasonable, or at least not obviously unreasonable, but which could be twisted with enough motivation.  People who are outright racists aren't going to be chilled as much, it's people who have a lot to lose who are getting chilled.  Open racists tend to not be in position to lose a lot.

One specific example is a chess Twitch streamer I watch.  He's actually very liberal, but he keeps making "jokes" about hoping he won't get cancelled for saying something about social issues which strays from the liberal orthodoxy.  He says it as a joke, but it really isn't, it's the kind of joke you say to deal with something you're uneasy about.  It's a single example of how the cancel culture can make people feel uneasy for no good reason, and how it can feed into resentment against liberalism.

[DGuller]

The fundamental problem with the debate about the chilling effect of cancel culture is that it's very hard for one side to make their point.  I myself censor myself here and on Internet in general on certain topics, and just let people say things I have very good professional reasons to believe are false.

The conversation will go something like:

"What are you self-censoring yourself about?"
"The things I don't want to discuss?"
"Which things you don't want to discuss?"
"The things that I think are too dangerous to discuss."
"Like what?"
"Like the things I don't want to talk about."

I'm going to throw this out there:  if people themselves feel like they're being forced to self-censor to an unreasonable degree, then maybe that alone is all the proof you need.

[Josquius]

"Chilling effects" beyond actual tangible repercussions can exist, but they aren't easily measurable or quantifiable.  It sure sounds bad to feel "chilled" but how much a problem is it?  On a national basis it certainly doesn't seem like there is a lot less racist or misogynist speech now than say is 2015.  On the contrary it seems like there is a lot more and it has become a lot more socially acceptable.  Which imposes it's own chilling effect.  If you focus on a small number of university or other "elite" settings, the incidence of potential "woke offensive" speech is presumably lower, but predominantly for reasons that have little to do with woke chill.

Without getting into the argument about the volume of racist or mysoginist speech, you're assuming that the chilling effect impacts only that kind of speech.  I would argue it is more likely to impact speech which is entirely reasonable, or at least not obviously unreasonable, but which could be twisted with enough motivation.  People who are outright racists aren't going to be chilled as much, it's people who have a lot to lose who are getting chilled.  Open racists tend to not be in position to lose a lot.

One specific example is a chess Twitch streamer I watch.  He's actually very liberal, but he keeps making "jokes" about hoping he won't get cancelled for saying something about social issues which strays from the liberal orthodoxy.  He says it as a joke, but it really isn't, it's the kind of joke you say to deal with something you're uneasy about.  It's a single example of how the cancel culture can make people feel uneasy for no good reason, and how it can feed into resentment against liberalism.

Honestly this sounds like a issue of that guy. No idea who he is and not a trained therapist but to me it sounds like he's a bit overly concerned with trying to make everyone like him.
He thinks of jokes that he thinks some people will find funny but he has a concern they might offend some people so he has to add disclaimers around them.
Sounds like an issue of confidence more than anything.


Also on the issue of being afraid to say something lest you be branded conservative.... This goes both ways. I would say even more so with the anti woke brigade. People self censor all the time to avoid getting themselves labelled as woke.
In a way this is just fundamental to the human condition. We all learn to control the voice that wants to shout about how fat the lady in front it. I guess the issue comes in the age of mass social media the whole world (that you care about) can potentially see when you get it wrong.

This is an issue. But I really don't think it's one of woke, whether the side of  "pro cancel culture" or the anti woke cult.

[DGuller]

Honestly this sounds like a issue of that guy. No idea who he is and not a trained therapist but to me it sounds like he's a bit overly concerned with trying to make everyone like him.
He thinks of jokes that he thinks some people will find funny but he has a concern they might offend some people so he has to add disclaimers around them.
Sounds like an issue of confidence more than anything.

You're able to come to all such conclusion about him and his personality based on my one paragraph description?  I must be a very gifted writer.

[Oexmelin]

As mentioned before, we've been dancing around this issue without much budging. It seems to me that part of the problem is the conflating of many things. Sure, we can say they are all intimately linked, but it may be of benefit to try to disentangle some of them, at least conceptually.

1) One of the issue is self-censorship in one's private life and conversation. This always happened. It's part of living in society. What may be different now are two things:

a) The fact that private life and public social networks have had their lines blurred considerably. The potential consequences may now be quite different, but lest we romanticize the past, let's remember that ostracism in small communities was quite a harsh punishment. And it still is. See: LGBTQ youth in small/religious communities. It used to be that one could flee one's community for the anonimity of the city. This is now harder, if only because social networks now provide a sense of community that our cities no longer seem to offer. Cities today are a lot more anonymous than they used to be.

b) The other change is that some communities who did not have to censor about much, are now being policed in ways they aren't used to. Minorities, women, downtrodden or marginal people always knew they had to be really careful about the words they used, and with whom. The consequences could be dire. A lot of the strong reaction to "cancel culture" do seem to come from white men, who historically, have not always had their speech so strongly policed.

One of the main issues with this, to me at least, is whether the idea of political emancipation that informed the free speech of white men ought to remain an ideal to be expanded, rather than a speech to be policed as equally as that of other groups. I think sometimes progressive groups tend to treat this as a zero-sum game, that is: the speech of one is always to the detriment of the speech of another. There may be value to that argument in the specific niches of mass media - but that was also true before, albeit arranged according to capital. It's much less clear to be that this argument holds for an ideal of democratic polity.

2) Another issue is institutional. Boycotts are nothing new: see, the American Revolution. Should people pay a price for saying things that provoke ire, or outrage, for another group? Here too, I think there are two elements to take into consideration.

a) The first is the relative power of the person or group being "cancelled". None of the controversial celebrities, to my knowledge, have lost income, or been forced into obscurity. Relatively powerless individuals, on the other hand, have lost their jobs - maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't, but I note that they have much less capital, social or otherwise, to allow them to rebound easily.

b) The other is that institutions now seem to operate increasingly as "brands". Image has taken a lot of place, both for institutional leaders, and, paradoxically, for their "clients". In those circumstances, we may not always have great confidence that institutions will make a principled stand about anything - other than image. This, obviously, goes both ways. I should also note that this has, at least, allowed to expose some pre-existing shadow influences within institutions. Like the role of donors in American universities, for instance.

I think I said it before, on that note, what concerns me mostly is how both left and right now run to existing hierarchies to police and punish medium-level people. What it does is mostly reinforce hierarchies, which I don't personally think is desirable. The other thing that concerns me is not the existence of protest, but the comparative absence, or dearth, of mechanisms of re-integration into a community. We know how to ostracise and punish; not much time is spent on the meaning of forgiveness. Even the demands for contrition appear fake, empty ritualism.

3) A third issue is political. Is denouncing "cancel culture" a neutral sociological observation? Of course not. It's part of political discourse from the right, which carefully curates certain stories to generate outrage. Participating in that discourse can be done from all perspectives, of course, but there is a chance that borrowing the terms, the examples, the concern, the tone, of the right amplifies the right's concerns (and strategies), rather than discussing the issue dispassionately, something which is going to be quite difficult anyway. It also runs the risk of being quite the smokescreen. Is this a gigantic problem in universities? In terms of scale: no. Despite the Republican's best efforts, I am not armed when I teach students. When students are armed on campus, however, who is silencing who?

4) A fourth element is sociological: are people now more sensitive about certain issues than they previously were? This is the sort of question that runs the risk of veering into reactionary "old-man-yells-at-cloud" ranting. Still, if I were to be pressed about identifying changes, I would mention the high valence given to a politics of authenticity and consumerism, which tends to conflate more than ever, what you like (i.e., what you consume, including news) with the person you intimately are.

[Sheilbh]

One specific example is a chess Twitch streamer I watch.  He's actually very liberal, but he keeps making "jokes" about hoping he won't get cancelled for saying something about social issues which strays from the liberal orthodoxy.  He says it as a joke, but it really isn't, it's the kind of joke you say to deal with something you're uneasy about.  It's a single example of how the cancel culture can make people feel uneasy for no good reason, and how it can feed into resentment against liberalism.

So I just read this totally differently than you. I don't know that guy but I listen to other podcasts or things where people joke about being cancelled - Mark Kermode and Jack Howard, for example - who are at no risk of being cancelled.

I don't read that joke as reflecting genuine anxiety or fear. It's a bit or a trope - like "you can't say anything now" was a joke. Ricky Gervais has managed to have a career straddling both from Office era to now. I think it is, for now, part of the language of jokes which always changes and evolves to reflect the society it's in. I don't think it's because of some deep-seated or genuine fear of liberal orthodoxy any more than than "one for the kids" literally means I've just made a joke young people will enjoy. Which I can personally guarantee because it's a line I have to use an alarming amount

Also on the issue of being afraid to say something lest you be branded conservative.... This goes both ways. I would say even more so with the anti woke brigade. People self censor all the time to avoid getting themselves labelled as woke.
In a way this is just fundamental to the human condition. We all learn to control the voice that wants to shout about how fat the lady in front it. I guess the issue comes in the age of mass social media the whole world (that you care about) can potentially see when you get it wrong.

Yeah this goes a little bit both ways. I remember biting my tongue at a work do with some very Brexity clients - because it's work, they're clients etc. But also frankly even among colleagues - I think here the "don't talk religion or politics" - I wouldn't bring up certain things and certainly wouldn't express my real views because I know it wouldn't fit in that group and would cause a bit of social awkwardness for no good reason.

In a work context or if I don't know what people think I'll always be a little bit cautious/try to suss out the audience first. It didn't always work and I've had a couple of awkward pints while we try to move on after I've embarrassed myself by being too political

[DGuller]

So I just read this totally differently than you. I don't know that guy but I listen to other podcasts or things where people joke about being cancelled - Mark Kermode and Jack Howard, for example - who are at no risk of being cancelled.

I don't read that joke as reflecting genuine anxiety or fear. It's a bit or a trope - like "you can't say anything now" was a joke. Ricky Gervais has managed to have a career straddling both from Office era to now. I think it is, for now, part of the language of jokes which always changes and evolves to reflect the society it's in. I don't think it's because of some deep-seated or genuine fear of liberal orthodoxy any more than than "one for the kids" literally means I've just made a joke young people will enjoy. Which I can personally guarantee because it's a line I have to use an alarming amount

Obviously you're going to have to trust my words and my perception, but the anxiety feels very real.  Content creators are not like Ricky Gervais:  if they fall afoul of zero-tolerance policies of their platforms, or the platforms give in to the pressure of the cancel campaign, they will lose all their income and further ability to earn it.

[Barrister]

I was looking at a file last week.  It was an allegation of domestic violence, Accused bit the victim several times drawing blood, and choked almost to unconsciousness.  Accused has been charged with assaulting the same victim twice before, neither of which resulted in a conviction because the victim was reluctant to co-operate.

Anyways, given the past history I wanted to reduce the charge and elect a different mode of procedure.  The reason for this was it would keep the matter in Provincial Court and remove the possibility of a jury trial.  It would give us a faster trial date, would only require the victim to testify once, and thus increase the chance we could get the victim on the stand in the first place.  Finally the max available sentence would still be as much if not more than I would ever get by proceeding with the higher charge.

But I really paused, because this was an allegation of same-sex male domestic violence, and I didn't want anyone to think I didn't take it just as seriously as having a female victim.

All's well that ends well (so far) - I felt it necessary to run everything by a manager who completely agreed with my assessment, and I documented the same.

I definitely find myself being extra careful in certain cases when they touch on social justice/"woke" issues at work.  And perhaps that's for the best - it's better to be extra careful in such cases in order to make up for a history of having such cases not taken seriously.  But it's a real phenomenon.

[Sheilbh]

Obviously you're going to have to trust my words and my perception, but the anxiety feels very real.  Content creators are not like Ricky Gervais:  if they fall afoul of zero-tolerance policies of their platforms, or the platforms give in to the pressure of the cancel campaign, they will lose all their income and further ability to earn it.

I take your word for it.

But to be clear I'm not comparing him to Ricky Gervais - but to, say, Jack Howard who's a very liberal and young-ish (just turned thirty) YouTuber who is now getting to direct things and does podcasts I listen to. He also makes those jokes - to be honest I probably have - and I'm absolutely certain they're not from a place of anxiety (also because they can be read or used as much as a comment on people saying "I'm about to get cancelled", as reflecting the risk of getting cancelled). Off the top of my head I think he did when dissing The Eternals, for example.

With Gervais I just mean that he is someone whose career has included both "you can't joke about anything now" to "I'll get cancelled".

[The Minsky Moment]

None of the controversial celebrities, to my knowledge, have lost income, or been forced into obscurity.

A decent amount of the discourse around wokeness and cancellation relates to comedy or comedians. Comedians often offer a kind of special pleading - with some legitimate justification - that they should have some leeway to poke at social norms.  I have sympathy for that position but at the same time it has always and will always be true that comedians select and present material based on audience reaction or anticipated audience reaction.  There is a "market test" and thus there is ALWAYS self-censoring going on (this joke will kill with this audience, this one will bomb). It's also true that some comedians have and do make their living around pushing to the edge (or beyond) of social acceptability and that their act depends on such boundaries existing.  To take one recent high profile example, I have no doubt that Dave Chappelle thought through the pros and cons of pinning his comedic barbs to the TERF flag.  It's not just an abstract stance for free speech, it's a marketing plan.

As you (Oex) allude, boycotts are also an expression of speech.  In a market-based consumer society, decisions about what to patronize or what not to are fundamental to autonomy, as is the right to explain one's position and persuade others of its validity.  Of course, it is often true that one person's exercise of rights can negatively impact on another, and with the exercise of power - even rhetorical power - comes responsibility.  But these are basic propositions that cut in many directions.

[Sheilbh]

a) The fact that private life and public social networks have had their lines blurred considerably. The potential consequences may now be quite different, but lest we romanticize the past, let's remember that ostracism in small communities was quite a harsh punishment. And it still is. See: LGBTQ youth in small/religious communities. It used to be that one could flee one's community for the anonimity of the city. This is now harder, if only because social networks now provide a sense of community that our cities no longer seem to offer. Cities today are a lot more anonymous than they used to be.

Yes I think this gets to the tension of the internet society. On the one hand it allows for incredible self-expression and connection, on the other it is a panopticon. I think different people and, particularly, different generations use the internet and social media in different ways along that scale of understanding whether the internet/social media is for you to self express or where you are being watched (and that may vary in different spaces - for example Tumblr ).

I also think there is an angle of work attempting to claim more and more of people's private personal life. I am absolutely out at work and I've led a company LGBT+ network - I am very strongly of the view that you should generally feel comfortable in being who you are at work. But, in the context of work phones and social media or emails as part of your work, I slightly read "bring your whole self to work" as also "bring work to your whole self". It is knocking barriers of time and space that are yours and private to be occupied by work. But I think there has been a deliberate blurring of the private and the professional by companies - and "wokeness" has possibly been part of that.

b) The other change is that some communities who did not have to censor about much, are now being policed in ways they aren't used to. Minorities, women, downtrodden or marginal people always knew they had to be really careful about the words they used, and with whom. The consequences could be dire. A lot of the strong reaction to "cancel culture" do seem to come from white men, who historically, have not always had their speech so strongly policed.

Yeah this is absolutely true. I worked as a lawyer in a City law firm - I knew older gay guys who'd worked in that sector since the 80s. They spent years where they could not discuss their life with colleagues or clients. We did surveys and that has mostly gone but is still present with, especially, junior lawyers who've just started and don't know how open they can be. It is a real shame - it's a cliche but I've spoken to trainees who felt like it was going back into the closet. They were very out at university and then aren't when they get their first professional job - on the positive side most feel they can be open after a little while.

a) The first is the relative power of the person or group being "cancelled". None of the controversial celebrities, to my knowledge, have lost income, or been forced into obscurity. Relatively powerless individuals, on the other hand, have lost their jobs - maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't, but I note that they have much less capital, social or otherwise, to allow them to rebound easily.

I've mentioned before but the cancellation that sticks in my mind was some Latino guy - I think working for an electricity company - who did the Ok sign with his hands. It was photoed and interpreted as "white power" by a white guy online - there was a brief furore, the Latino guy was fired, then re-hired and everyone realised things got out of hand quickly.

As I've said before I think one point is that in the US part of the problem is at will employment and this is a labour law issue. He should not have been fired, but also he's not someone with a huge amount of capital and should not be targeted for clout. The other point is that I think part of the issue with "wokeness" is that it is driven by people who spend a lot of time online - and often directed at people who spend a lot of time online. I don't think 90% of what they're arguing about are things that have permeated through to normal society which means you see something that is absolutely a sign among terminally online Proud Boys and apply it to a random guy in the street. Normally it will not be because they're a raging Nazi.

I think I said it before, on that note, what concerns me mostly is how both left and right now run to existing hierarchies to police and punish medium-level people. What it does is mostly reinforce hierarchies, which I don't personally think is desirable. The other thing that concerns me is not the existence of protest, but the comparative absence, or dearth, of mechanisms of re-integration into a community. We know how to ostracise and punish; not much time is spent on the meaning of forgiveness. Even the demands for contrition appear fake, empty ritualism.

Yes. I think you can have very strict standards and attitudes, with a broad route for redemption/re-integration/forgiveness - or you can have very lax standards but there's a one hit and you're out approach. It's perhaps inevitable that the US goes for the most Calvinist approach that emphasises both the sin and the impossibility of redemption.

I think a better model is the Blackpool footballer (and captain) Marvin Ekpiteta, who sent homophobic tweets when he was 17. Another Blackpool player Jake Daniels (also 17) has become the first professional footballer to come out as gay. Ekpiteta apologised for those tweets from the past, said they don't reflect who he is now, he's fully responsible for and embarrassed by them. Daniels said he had no issue with it or with Ekpiteta who was (as captain) one of the first team-mates he came out to. I think that is how it should work - or should be able to work. The FA already launched an investigation into the tweets, but hopefully they also agree it's basically closed.

Edit: Amazing that I wrote about that and was thinking about "cancel culture" - then I checked Twitter and see that Milo Yiannopoulos is now apparently working for Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress.