If you haven’t lived it (and maybe even if you have) it’s hard to imagine what it’s like having a public persona that garners you attention on an international level, even if it’s only small scale celebrity. In 2020, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone given the current attitude in society and the power of social media.
There’s no doubt the power of social media to spread information is astounding and can be used for good: fund raising fulfillment, returning lost or stolen property, finding missing persons, getting support after a crisis as well as the more mundane aspects of sharing our lives with loved ones and our community.
Equally so, the dark side of social media is rife with some of the worst aspects of interpersonal dynamics: mean spirited communication, name calling from the tame to the absurd, social shaming, judgment, and of course, the sometimes denied aspects of cancel culture that has been seeping into our reality bit by bit over the years.
Living in a country that purports to value due process as a fundamental principle, it seems to me cancel culture is simultaneously both the opposite of our core values as a society while also having the potential to embody some of the fundamental elements of what makes conscious capitalism work. I find the duality of those truths to be a fascinating investigation into the complexity it creates.
For those unfamiliar with the term, to “cancel” someone is to stop supporting that person which could include boycotting their work, smearing their reputation, blasting them on social media and even giving them fake reviews in on-line forums like Yelp, Google or Facebook. Reasons for cancelling someone vary. When #metoo got popular a few years ago, cancelling began as a response to allegedly reprehensible behavior on the part of those in power in various industries who misused their position to take advantage of others over whom they had authority. As time has passed, like the dilution of the reasons one could claim something was a #metoo experience, cancel culture became a way to exact social justice upon those whose opinions others found objectionable.
On the one hand, it’s easy to argue in favor of cancelling as a benefit to society when this power is used with integrity and discrimination. Larry Nassar’s actions were covered up for years before he ultimately had his day in court and got sentenced. Similarly, Harvey Weinstein got sentenced to 23 years for his crimes against 6 women. Using social media to embolden the victims and support them in outting these men and their crimes occurs as something of an empowering opportunity for those who were aggrieved and it might leave one to wonder: would justice have been served had the #metoo movement not exploded the way it did? In these examples, using social media to share experiences of individuals who are powerful and might not have toppled without the help of the #metoo movement made sense. And looking at these specific examples, one might then extrapolate it makes sense to blast companies that engage in business practices that are genuinely harmful because, after all, wouldn’t we want others we care about to be informed and avoid engaging with people and businesses that won’t treat them fairly?
Of course cancel culture didn’t stop with these two incidents. It took shape as a weapon leveled against people and companies for ideas that were not genuinely harmful but were morally “wrong” according to the subjective standards of those doing the cancelling. Consider what happened with Al Franken taking a photograph that was meant as a joke that ultimately cost him his career in which he neither touched nor harmed the woman’s body. To call that a #metoo moment seems disingenuous at best, especially considering the woman wasn’t violated. Or more recently, how Starbuck’s got “flayed” in social media for initially telling employees they couldn’t wear Black Lives Matter shirts and, in response to the viral cancel campaign, ultimately changed their position. Of course, Starbuck’s was primed to win no matter what happened to them: no response meant no problem; responding to cancel culture pliantly made them look heroic.
From my vantage point, the #metoo movement popularized cancel culture and used social media to justifiably attempt to remove some bad actors from various industries. No doubt, the movement itself was based in some real challenges women (and as time passed, men revealed their own #metoo experiences as well) had, and even if they could have been avoided in many cases, that doesn’t mean those in positions of power should have been engaging as they were with those subordinate to them. Bombshell explored this topic quite well and showed the complexity of the experience with the much needed nuance we seem to be losing in society today, even if the story was only loosely based on actual events. I had thought the movie would be some drivel glorifying women playing victims, but it turned out to be far richer than that, showing the difficult choices the characters needed to address when confronted with dynamics they didn’t support.
However, as time passed, I also think the movement went too far, in some ways culminating in the Kavanaugh hearings. Public reaction around me was divided into two main camps: “I believe Blasey Ford; he’s guilty” and “What happened to due process and innocent until proven guilty?” We could dispute what we believe all we like, and the fact is, none of us will ever know the truth. However, the lasting impact of that experience on culture, from where I sit, is that people walked around unwaveringly declaring Kavanaugh a rapist which seems harmful to the fabric of civilized society to me. This isn’t a matter of people simply saying, “I believe he’s a rapist” rather various people around me insisted that it was a fact based on Ford’s testimony. What’s most troubling about this is that Ford herself, as far as I’ve seen, didn’t accuse him of rape.
This seems to be the crux of this cancel culture issue. Those who support it seem to be coming from a philosophical stance of: If I believe it to be true that is all the evidence I need to take actions to “right” this “wrong”. In contrast, those on the other side who believe in due process hold a different stance: I might believe one thing or another based on what I’ve seen and, my belief is just that, a belief, not a fact.
I’m left with a deep inquiry: when did beliefs become facts? Moreover, when did people’s beliefs and feelings become a reason to slur other people, impacting their lives and livelihood?
If one is using cancel culture to cancel a person or business based on verifiable facts, that’s a drastically distinct position from cancelling them based on opinions and beliefs one holds to be true that are not verifiable and/or are subjective.
I’d like to say this is all an intellectual exploration, but the reality is, I know from first hand experience that cancel culture has a dangerous power because it can tap into the cultural milieu of the day which can be as fickle as a leaf on the wind. Consider that early in the week people cancelled Starbuck’s and by the end of the week it didn’t seem to matter which demonstrates more a flexing of social justice muscles than a sense of collection commitment toward specific principles.
I recently learned that a colleague in the flow industry was cancelled and similarly to one of my own experiences, it was based on people’s upset over comments on a status on Facebook. In many ways, their situation seemed far worse since the comment was deleted relatively quickly yet ultimately cost them thousands of dollars of business a month in response. In contrast, while my cancel experience was based on two lies and led to fake reviews on multiple platforms, it ultimately didn’t seem to impact my revenue although it certainly did impact my standing in a community in which I am considered a progenitor. We are not alone: I have other friends who have been well known in their niche communities who have been cancelled and each time, its gut wrenching to witness.
Yet evidence indicates this may be a broader scale issue these days. 62% of American’s say they have political views they are afraid to express and who can blame them when 22% of those surveyed support firing an executive who privately donates to Biden’s campaign and 31% said the same about supporting Trump campaigns. To my mind, the idea of firing someone for the specific candidate to whom they donated is a misuse of cancel culture and presents a danger to civil society wherein we are trying to live and let live. It doesn’t stop there though: I’ve seen countless incidents where women level accusations against men for non-specific behavior they consider misogynistic or predacious and then they gather community around them hoisting the #believeallwomen flag. This puts community members in a tough position: if you assume the accusation to be true, you forsake due process and if you wait for more evidence, you are cast out for being unsupportive of victims.
I got cancelled on one occasion for moderating a thread in a ~6,500 person group I administered in which I asked the women who were accusing a member of the group to share specifics of what happened rather than general interpretations of the accused’s character. This is a simple ask and as a society, I believe it is a question that is critical for ensuring our collective liberty and justice to the degree it is possible. For my efforts to ensure the group wasn’t slandering the man’s reputation, I was told I was a “traitor to my gender” and subsequently cancelled for “victim blaming.” To be cancelled for standing in support of due process and preventing someone else from being cancelled is certainly a mild and ironic example of the problem at hand, yet it pales in comparison to the accusations against men I’ve seen that often occur as bad feelings born from tough breakups. Then the aggrieved party asserts interpretive characterizations against the men designed to cast doubt on his character while at the same time failing to provide much in the way of evidence and most definitely failing to meet any sort of legal standard that would result in criminal charges.
As time has passed and this tool has been used for increasingly more questionable situations primarily based in subjective opinions versus verifiable facts, while it’s hard to support unilaterally cancelling cancel culture and saying all cancel culture is bad since some good clearly has come from it, equally so, the counter question is relevant and one I believe we need to take to heart both individually and collectively:
There’s no real recourse against the slander and libel for those individuals impacted in this way who don’t have a legal team at the ready… which is most people. The canceling leaves its mark: no matter how much one tries to defend themselves, those doing the cancelling continue to believe what they will while they spread their opinions, half truths, and lies as if they are facts.
If we value due process as a society, how can we stand behind cancel culture as a means of deplatforming people and groups simply because someone doesn’t like them or their feelings were hurt by a diverse opinion or challenging interaction?
If we value any semblance of justice, how can we get behind a nefarious means of undermining the personal and professional reputations of other citizens without evidence and based predominantly on subjective interpretation?
Is this not, ultimately, a modern day witch trial of sorts where evidence is irrelevant and haven’t we already learned how dangerous this path is to follow?