The Problem of Cancellation Inequality
Immunity from cancellation is the unearned privilege of the few.
The word “cancelled” has a meaning today that it didn’t have prior to about 10 years ago. One writer says it started as a joking reference to breaking off a dating relationship. Eventually it morphed into the meaning it carries today, which is, in its milder version, to protest or boycott a person or organization; in its more aggressive version, it’s going after said person or organization, seeking to abolish him/her/it from public life.
This can involve getting someone defunded, de-platformed or fired. The aim is public shaming, and sometimes to get the target of cancellation disinvited as a speaker, or maybe get an award or opportunity revoked. In the worst cases, the cancellation isn’t complete until total reputational demolition is fully accomplished. This process became common and trendy enough that people started describing it as a “culture.”
Cancel Culture is Mob Justice
There is no centralized court of cancellation, no authoritative body of deliberators. Social media is the primary courtroom, and it is mob-directed. Thus, as you would expect, the verdicts and punishments of cancel culture are sudden, haphazard and not rationally considered.
And here is where the chief problem lies. Mob justice is notoriously and ironically unjust. Innocent people hang & guilty ones go free. I won’t try to catalog here the numbers of people whose lives have been ruined by unfair cancellation. That’s been highlighted by others. Nor will I rehash all of the celebrities and historical figures that have been in the crosshairs of cancellation mobs for various reasons. The list is too long and pretty well-known.
Instead I want to make a simple moral appeal on a simple basis. And it is the basis that is supposed to be of central importance to those most likely to fuel the culture of cancellation - namely, equality.
Is Cancellation Applied Equally?
The easy and obvious answer to this question is NO. To illustrate the irrational injustices of mob cancellations, consider some of those convicted vs. some of those who got off with a warning.
There was the case of Chinese-American Professor Bright Sheng of the University of Michigan. In a seminar analyzing the works of Shakespeare, he showed the 1965 version of Othello in which Lawrence Olivier was in blackface as the lead character, in keeping with nearly every renowned British stage actor for the prior four centuries. There was an outcry; a stunned Sheng wrote a letter of apology. But they called for his head. He was removed from the course & disciplined by the university.
And then there was the unjust firing of Emmanuel Cafferty, a Mexican-American employee for San Diego Gas & Electric. Driving near a BLM rally he had some kind of confrontation & was followed by the individual, who took a photo of Cafferty with his arm hanging out of his truck window, cracking his knuckles. The photo was sent to his employer with the claim that it was a secret ‘white power’ sign. Cafferty was stunned and confused when he learned he had been terminated.
Grant Napier had a popular drive-time sports radio show and was the long-time play-by-play voice of the Sacramento Kings, until one tweet changed all of that. In response to a prompt about BLM, Napier tweeted “All lives matter … Every single one.” Twitter mobs came for him. He was swiftly fired from his radio gig, and suspended from his job with the Kings. After enough pressure he finally resigned that job as well.
Around that same time, USC Professor Greg Patton was teaching a Zoom class on the topic of cross-cultural communication, when he said something worthy of cancellation. It was not even something in English. Having lived in China, Patton was explaining that they use filler words similar to the English words like “uh” or “um.” But the Chinese word he used sounded to some students like a racial slur in English. And that was all it took. Patton was removed from that course and placed on suspension.
These examples could go on for days.
Now contrast these examples with that of former Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D). While governor, a photo surfaced from Northam’s days in medical school in which he appeared as one of two persons (he could not or would not say which). He was either (a) the one in blackface, or (b) the one dressed as a Klansman.
Naturally Northam apologized, and a lot of people on social media repudiated the photo. But, unlike so many others, Ralph Northam escaped cancellation. He remained as governor, almost as if it had never happened.
Joe Biden’s wayward son Hunter also proved immune to cancellation after text messages showed him making repeated use of the “n-word.” Like many of his father’s gaffes on issues of race, that which would have ruined others’ careers has had only the mildest repercussions for him.
It’s the same in Hollywood, where many a cancellation has ended the careers of actors and actresses for the flimsiest of reasons. By contrast, according to actor Matt Damon, he only stopped using gay slurs last year, and this does not appear to have affected his box office status or film opportunities.
The singular attribute that these lucky, privileged few have in common is their very public political views and alliances. Which leads me to a similar observation about cancellations of historical persons and groups.
Selective Cancellation of History
When the mobs of 2020 turned their attention to historical figures, notably in the physical form of statutes, they ended up defacing or toppling representations of nearly everyone. The framers, the early presidents, founders of the historic universities, namesakes of business and industry - none was safe. Even Grant, who won the war for the anti-slavery side, was defaced. Lincoln the emancipator couldn’t escape it. For crying out loud, Frederick Douglass’ statue was torn down.
And yet there is one prominent, powerful, enduring political organization that remains uncancelled despite a more racist history than any other group. I’m talking about the Democrat Party.
Knowing as we do how easily persons and organizations - then and now - can be cancelled for the slightest missteps, ask yourself how a major political party has remained impervious to cancellation with a resume like this one:
Defended slavery to the death, willing to go to war for it.
Gave the terrible Dred Scott decision (thanks to the 7 Democrat justices).
Despised Lincoln (later murdered by a Democrat activist) for emancipation.
Opposed the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments on behalf of freed blacks.
Opposed and undermined reconstruction and integration.
Founded the Ku Klux Klan.
Initiated lynchings, poll taxes, black codes and Jim Crow laws.
Opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Promoted eugenics-minded abortion campaigns targeting black populations.
Degraded black families and communities by creating the welfare state.
If ever the cancel mobs were looking for a specific organization to “hold accountable” for the egregious sins of their history, I can’t think of one more deserving.
Am I saying the Democrat Party should be “cancelled” on this account? No, but that’s because I don’t believe in the philosophy and enterprise of cancellation anyway. I am wondering why those who so fervently do believe in cancellation are so unjust in their application of it. Why the inequality? Why do some people’s careers and reputations get the death penalty for politically incorrect misdemeanors, while the most vile offender in American history gets your allegiance, your support, your money and your votes?
Maybe you simply blame America as a whole for all of this, but why do that while exonerating the more immediate cause? Thankfully America was bigger than the Democrat party, and there were enough ‘good guys’ to keep that party from finally having its way. Blaming all of America for what Democrats did, while continuing to be loyal to them, is like (pardon the predictable analogy) blaming Germany for the holocaust while continuing to support the Nazi Party.
If there were no other reasons to disregard the cancel culture industry as an irrational and immoral insult to our national intelligence, this discrepancy alone would suffice.