RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – I don’t know about you guys but the more this gringo hears about “cancel culture”, the more I want to cancel it.
In this crazy world in which we are existing – it used to be called ‘living’ but after almost a year of pandemic isolation and endless bad news from all corners of the globe, ‘existing’ may be more accurate – there are probably other things that need canceling too; however, we’ll stick to “cancel culture” here.
Let’s be honest: how many of you can more or less define ‘cancel culture’? Without Google, and Wikipedia, I’d have been totally lost. So, let’s share the definition just in case.
“Cancel culture (or call-out culture) is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to be ‘cancelled’.”
And if you haven’t tripped over this term lately, you probably have been smart enough not to pay any attention whatever to the Karol Conká ‘cancel’ uproar on Big Brother Brasil 2021, or to the mega CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) jamboree which just wound up in Tampa, Florida.
The questionably reliable Fox News reported that the issue of cancel culture is the theme of this year’s conference, labelled “America Uncanceled.” Not surprisingly, no one got around to explaining who had ‘cancelled’ America, but one speech did explore what to do when a social media network ‘de-platforms’ a conservative by deleting his account.
Grievance-fueled politics and complaints of cultural victimhood set the ‘Apprentice’-like stage for the big event, normally the anointing of 2024’s most likely GOP presidential candidate. Whoever it is, he or she will have to make peace or wage war with the CPAC keynoter, the Oscar winner of cancel culture whose accounts were permanently cancelled (also now called ‘deplatformed’) by both Facebook and Twitter.
Big Lie propagators of “we won the election”, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and some second-stringers like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and far-right Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, all had coveted speaker spots. Lesser lights still had their chance to genuflect in the direction of Mar a Lago.
What happens next depends upon the twice impeached, orange domed ex-president whom POTUS Joe Biden now refers to as “the former guy”. His removal from his favored platforms instantly cancelled him and made him invisible to the millions of followers who are said to still hang on to his every word.
But if cancellation makes you invisible, don’t give up hope. Cancelling cancellation is always possible. You just have to have the knack for it.
Indulging his traditional super ego, Trump’s end of the conference speech left unanswered whether or not he will be the candidate for 2024. Until he makes up his mind, the wannabes have been cancelled in a single stroke and he returns to center stage, previously cancelled or not.
Most of us never imagined that we could just be ‘cancelled’, that some or many would take such strong exception to something they perceived we had said or done and that they would turn the mighty megaphone of social media against us and let fly.
Simply exercising freedom of speech has given vast numbers of people what they believe to be their ‘invitation’ to opine on almost every subject imaginable to vast audiences and even small groups of ‘followers’. And once out there, the spreader of that opinion can make a determined and often successful effort to cancel anyone who voices disagreement: if you don’t want some of the same aimed in your direction, you had better shut up. Take note of Trump’s public reading of the list of Republicans who voted to impeach him and his clear promise to cancel them.
Outright lies are voiced as truths, reputations are destroyed, jobs and livelihoods are put in danger or lost, intimacies are made public. Perhaps worst of all, small or even medium sized disagreements or misunderstandings once settled quietly among mature adults are now magnified into national events giving the loudest voice what Andy Warhol described as “15 minutes of fame” when fed as raw meat into the 24-hour news grinder.
That’s not surprising given the toxic political and cultural atmosphere which appears to have weaponized even innocence. One of the warnings lobbed by those who rail against “cancel culture” says the BBC is that it will eventually know no boundaries. The living and the dead will all be subject to judgement by the contemporary standards of the day – standards that can change according to political whim.
Just look at all the renaming of buildings going on and all the statues being pulled down in the name of political correctness. Just imagine what would happen to the ten commandments if Moses was ‘cancelled’ for having been an Egyptian double agent?
Far-right Republicans believe that the Democrats control the cancel culture. The BBC reports that Trump adviser Jason Miller said that “big tech” was trying to cancel the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020. He obviously ignored the irony that had they been successful in this questionable endeavor, the 80 million Americans who voted for Biden would have been cancelled.
The cancel culture debate is one of action and consequence and the question of when words deserve punishment, what form of punishment and from whom?
When Jack Dorsey approved the cancellation of then President Trump’s Twitter account, the Twitter CEO wrote: “Having to take these actions fragments the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption and learning. And they set a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.”
If we wish the public conversation to thrive, Dorsey has made a very sensitive and cogent argument for cancelling cancel culture. Now the problem is how to do it.