Cancel Culture: The Modern Day Witch Hunt
How many times have you felt reluctant to express your opinions for the fear of being publicly abused? How many times have you felt that something was not politically correct enough to be stated? Or that you could be politically labelled or misunderstood, simply for peacefully expressing your point of view? Probably way too many times. Indeed, in today’s cancel culture , disagreements and beliefs that go against the morals of the mass are stigmatised, shamed, and discouraged. A veritable witch hunt, targeting the values of good, right, and fair. Even though “cancelling someone” is an effective way for particularly marginalised voices to be heard, it can lead to a dangerous ideological conformity and stagnation. As with every kind of extremism, all of this is not good, right nor fair.
Some people argue that cancel culture does not exist, that it is “a myth”. Others say that ostracism has always been present in society, that it has just changed trajectory, flipping against elites which are now upset about it. Whether or not you think of cancel culture as new phenomenon, the two words most typed in the latest weeks are actually not as recent as you may think. The big irony is that the term ‘cancelling’ comes from a misogynistic joke that Wesley Snipes (aka Nino Brown) made in a scene of the 1991 movie New Jack City. “Cancel that bitch. I’ll buy another one.” These were the words Snipes used to refer to his girlfriend. After all, political correctness was not yet an issue at that time. Even so, it wasn’t until 2014 when the expression was commonly used, especially amongst the internet users and twitter warriors. Then, when the #MeToo movement became viral in 2017, a stronger cancellation attitude developed in public opinion. From a tool used to denounce crime and the abuse of power, it has now evolved into a restless Internet-watchword for condemning celebrity gaffes and the controversial views of public figures. Cancel culture can be seen as the angrier and tougher sister of another concept: so called call-out culture. It is just the natural metamorphosis from simply criticising someone to the more extreme reaction of boycotting their persona or company.
So, everybody can be cancelled. Expressing different opinions about sensitive topic such as race, LGBTQ+ matters or other hot political issues could easily escalate in a public shaming and backlash. Social media, especially Twitter, are the platforms on which the mobbing occurs. Hashtags, open letters and online petitions are the preferred munition fired by the moral police. Although social media had created an echo chamber in which everyone has the opportunity to raise his own voice, an erratic sense of outrage and anger is turning it into a merciless mediated pillory aimed to silence debates. Your private, public, and professional lives are tangled up together in an insidious conglomerate. Here, fierce social inquisitors are always waiting for you to stumble, publicly condemn your mistake, and ask for your head. There is always someone keen to look back at your past, searching for some thorny sins. The real problem is that it is so easy to fall into the trap of misinterpretation. People are publicly slandered for a badly expressed joke or for a post which has been taken out of context. Ultimately, as the comedian Ricky Gervais pointed out in a recent interview with TalkRADIO, “Social media amplifies everything. If you’re mildly left wing on Twitter you’re suddenly Trotsky. If you’re mildly conservative you’re Hitler, and if you’re centrist and you look at both arguments, you’re a coward and they both hate you.” In other words, you will never win if you do not conform.
As philosopher Stuart Mill remarked, talking about the liberty of thoughts and discussion in his masterpiece On Liberty (1859), “The usefulness of an opinion is itself a matter of opinion: as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion itself.” It is precisely the importance of this point that had been highlighted in an open letter published on Harper’s magazine at the beginning of July. The letter, signed by 153 liberal writers and academics, opposed the “intolerant climate” of censorship in which opposing views are labelled as immoral, and the perpetrators are public shamed and cancelled. “This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.”
JK Rowling, Noam Chomsky and Margaret Atwood are just some of the signatories of this controversial statement. The now infamous Harper’s letter soon became object of intense criticism by those who denied that cancel culture even exists. Some who had actually supported its defence of free speech later distanced themselves from the inconvenient names of other liberal activists. Raise the voice for free speech, but don’t retreat to the safe space of ‘political correctness’.
The list of people who have fallen into the depths of cancel culture in 2020 has grown rapidly over the last few weeks. JK Rowling’s controversial tweet about transgender cost her many Harry Potter fans. She has not yet dared to return to Twitter. The recent call for cancelling the show Rick and Morty from streaming platforms occurred after a questionable satiric video made by co-creator Dan Harmon in 2009 resurfaced on the web. In the clip, a parody of the TV series Dexter, he simulates the rape of a baby doll. Several New York Times editors have not escaped the inquisitor machine. At the beginning of June, the opinion editor James Bennet resigned after several Times employees attacked his decision to publish an op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, in which he invoked military intervention to overcome BLM protests. A month or so later, on the 14th of July, it was the turn of senior opinion editor Bari Weiss to calling herself out of the game.
Weiss, another signatory of the Harper’s letter, publicly explained its decision, claiming that “As the ethics and mores of that platform (Twitter) have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.”
The now ex-senior editor of New York Times touched upon an important issue in her resignation statement. In fact, cancel culture represents a big obstacle for disclosing ethical and discussion-orientated journalism. A journalist should not have to be scared about exposing different points of view. Facts, accuracy, and the plurality of opinions should prioritised in the content delivered to readers. Looking at the world from different angles is everything that journalism is really about. Journalists need to be aware of the complexity of issues. They need to look at the grey area of things and picture it with the right words and images, without being afraid of losing their job.
Sadly, not only journalism is in danger: suppressing a democratic debate leads to many implications for different aspects of society. First of all, in politics, shaming and bullying create heat and friction. An angry tweet for silencing a perceptive wrong idea could generate an unhealthy attachment to that specific view. When discussion is condemned, there is no space for understanding and developing a more informed version of your belief. Art and cancel culture do not make a great combo either. Art is made for shocking, questioning: producing a reaction. Art cannot be polite or politically correct. It has to be above this. As Stephen King recently tweeted, ‘quality has to be at the centre of the artistic discourse’. Art should be received without discrimination, but I would also say that it must be produced without the need to adhere to moral etiquette.
Has cancel culture gone too far? Has the new left gone too far? Is modern society going too far? Instead of spitting your daily dose of venom onto the keyboard, wait a second. Free speech is the base upon which an equal and inclusive society should be built. Free speech is not just talking, but the listening to and exchange of ideas too. As history teaches, a dialogue based on hate and censorship has never turned out well. And remember: although the majority of people cancelled are celebrities, this climate of outrage can easily be weaponised against normal people: against all of us. It will be us who will pay, and suffer the consequences. The fear of being shamed and the risk of ruining our careers is causing us to be silenced and conform. Is this what we really want?
Written by Chiara Castro
Chiara is an Italian writer based in Bristol. She likes writing about things that matter and stuff she loves. Travels, books, movies and good beers are some of them. Check her out here https://medium.com/@chiaracastro