04-06-2021, 06:30 PM
I don't mind boycotting (either by CEOs or consumers) but there are some parts of things that would be called Cancel Culture that I do find troubling. It gives cover to a lot of toxic behavior online. As Aaron Sorkin points out, the court of public opinion will never acquit, while an actual court of law can. The court of public opinion will eventually destroy an innocent person. Sorkin had a scene in the third season of The Newsroom regarding Sunil Tripathi and how his family was treated after reddit misidentified him as the Boston Bomber.
And even if the target is not innocent, cancel culture applies (roughly) the same punishment to all transgressions. That is not justice. Courts of law are not perfect but at least they are designed to protect the innocent while trying to make their punishments fit the crime in a consistent manner.
What may surprise some here is that the Clintons, Biden, and Obama have, to some extent, spoken out against being overly reactionary and engaging in cancel culture.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” Mr. Obama said. “You should get over that quickly.”
“The world is messy; there are ambiguities,” he continued. “People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”
Mr. Obama talked about conversations he’s had with his daughter Malia, who is a student at Harvard with Ms. Shahidi.
“I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people,’” he said, “and that’s enough.”
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb,” he said, “then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.’”
“That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change,” he said. “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
I'd add that if people are weaponizing shame they should understand that assaulting someone emotionally/psychologically is potentially just as damaging as assaulting them physically. I won't be too surprised if it takes someone who got cancelled committing suicide for society to really re-evaluate their behavior. And I'm talking someone who really did what they were accused of.
Whether you are religious or just believe that religion is an old way of propagating useful psychology, it is worth recalling that gossip was considered by many to be a sin. I really do think it is unhealthy, or that at least we should spend more time focused on improving ourselves rather than criticizing others. These are all generalizations of course. If we're talking about policy, then criticize away -- that is important stuff that can hurt or help many people. But as far as attacking people who are essentially strangers, I wish we would tend to do it a whole lot less, even if we are 99.9% sure they deserve it. If it is something really bad, leave it for the courts to deal with. If it isn't that bad or if you think there isn't enough for the courts to act on, maybe make your peace with it and move on. We can't fix every broken thing in the world and it can actually be very damaging to try.
And even if the target is not innocent, cancel culture applies (roughly) the same punishment to all transgressions. That is not justice. Courts of law are not perfect but at least they are designed to protect the innocent while trying to make their punishments fit the crime in a consistent manner.
What may surprise some here is that the Clintons, Biden, and Obama have, to some extent, spoken out against being overly reactionary and engaging in cancel culture.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” Mr. Obama said. “You should get over that quickly.”
“The world is messy; there are ambiguities,” he continued. “People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”
Mr. Obama talked about conversations he’s had with his daughter Malia, who is a student at Harvard with Ms. Shahidi.
“I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people,’” he said, “and that’s enough.”
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb,” he said, “then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.’”
“That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change,” he said. “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
I'd add that if people are weaponizing shame they should understand that assaulting someone emotionally/psychologically is potentially just as damaging as assaulting them physically. I won't be too surprised if it takes someone who got cancelled committing suicide for society to really re-evaluate their behavior. And I'm talking someone who really did what they were accused of.
Whether you are religious or just believe that religion is an old way of propagating useful psychology, it is worth recalling that gossip was considered by many to be a sin. I really do think it is unhealthy, or that at least we should spend more time focused on improving ourselves rather than criticizing others. These are all generalizations of course. If we're talking about policy, then criticize away -- that is important stuff that can hurt or help many people. But as far as attacking people who are essentially strangers, I wish we would tend to do it a whole lot less, even if we are 99.9% sure they deserve it. If it is something really bad, leave it for the courts to deal with. If it isn't that bad or if you think there isn't enough for the courts to act on, maybe make your peace with it and move on. We can't fix every broken thing in the world and it can actually be very damaging to try.
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
