Some (more) thoughts on cancel culture
Okay, so. Let’s talk about cancel culture.
Cancel culture isn’t what a lot of folks think it is.
You can’t reasonably address the notion of what “cancel culture” is until you first address what it isn’t. Cancel culture is not saying “I don’t like the way that company does business, so I’m not going to shop there.” Cancel culture isn’t “I don’t like ( Read more... )
Is it legit to stop socializing with Bob if he gives money to fund the execution of gay people? You bet. It doesn't even need to be that extreme. Hell, I won't be friends with folks who voted for Trump. Nobody's entitled to your friendship.
Where it spills over into questionable territory, though, is:
- If you boycott a company, and you explain to Bob why you're boycotting the company, and he says "well, I hear you, but I'm going to keep buying from them anyway," do you now start telling people to stop being friends with Bob and associating with Bob too?
- What if you boycott a company, and you explain to Bob why you're boycotting the company, and he says "well, I hear you, but I looked into it, and I don't believe the evil company is actually doing the evil thing they've been accused of," what then? Do you still behave as if Bob is the embodiment of evil, too?
- What if you say "Bob is still buying from EvilCo, you should cancel Bob," and someone else stands up and says "hey, I think going after Bob is mmmmmaybe a little over the top," do you then go after that person too?
These aren't hypotheticals, by the way; I've seen all of them happen.
There's an article a Quora user pointed me to on ContraPoints that makes the distinction this way: something goes from "I don't want to support $person because $thing" and into something else like "cancel culture" when it starts to involve:
- Abstraction (taking something someone said or did out of context, or inferring a meaning that isn’t there)
- Essentialism (asserting that the abstraction is a quintessential representation of the individual at large)
- Condemnation (signal boosting the new abstracted and essentialized narrative and asserting it as fact, to garner public outrage)
- Canonization (the new narrative becomes common knowledge and common discourse, superseding reality)
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1) I'd certainly be happy telling people that Bob gives money to fund the execution of gay people, and that I am not okay with that.
2) If he's looked into it and found that they aren't, then there's presumably evidence that we can both look at and see, and understand if said money is actually going there or not. I'm totally up for re-evaluating whether there's been a misunderstanding - or if things have changed, or if it's unclear whether they do or not, depending on who you believe, and that people may come to different conclusions based on a reasonable reading of the evidence (see below).
3) If someone says "I'm fine with Bob giving money to fund the execution of gay people" then, yes, I would have opinions about them as a person.
To look at the bit at the bottom, fundamentally, the issue there is the "taking things out of context and putting in meaning that isn't there" - and I'm against the lack of context and insertion of meaning. The steps after all that all seem fine, when based in reality. When based on rumour and assumption they're obviously bad.
The other issue is the lack of nuance, and places where (as above) good people may come to different understandings of what actually happened. Either in a "there were only two people in the room, and they're saying different things" situation, or in a "Only a small amount of information is available to us, and it's being interpreted in different ways by different people". And in both of those situations I'd advise caution, and agree that raging mobs stringing people up is not a good thing.
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