A clip of Graham Norton discussing ‘cancel culture’ went viral last week. His arguments were much applauded by what you’d loosely call the ‘woke-Left’ due to it’s defence of cancel culture.
I wanted to offer a quick response on Twitter but I felt I had a little too much to say on the matter for that micro-blogging site, so I’ve expanded on my thoughts here.
Firstly, let me respond to Norton’s argument that ‘nobody gets cancelled’ because he’s read articles in major publications written by people who claim to have been cancelled.
- There are lots of people silently cancelled. These are usually people without existing platforms. Just focusing your attention on those who have a high-profile and continue to hold a high popular profile after their ‘cancellation’, is a form of survivorship bias. You only notice those who ‘survive’ their cancellation.
- There are high-profile cases of people who get cancelled who lose jobs and career opportunities. However, luckily, we have journalists who (rightly, in my opinion) see a public interest angle in highlighting these stories. Therefore, we do get a few ‘I was cancelled, this is my story’ pieces in the mainstream press. It doesn’t automatically mean those people can then sail back into their old career and profession at the same standing as before.
- There are a few individuals who due to the size of their platform and their stature (and guile) have managed to bolster their profile and platform (either gaining new respect, or new notoriety — usually both!) due to their cancellation
- There is also something to say for getting ‘cancelled’ from certain spaces we once called home. I.e. A progressive journalist feels so socially isolated at their current workplace that they feel they must move to a new publication outside their previous circle. Or a musician is accused of improper conduct (often left unproven in court) and must leave their progressive music scene. They can continue working, but they’ve lost their important network and social structure. This is an aspect of cancel-culture that’s often overlooked.
Over hundreds of years we’ve developed a delicate balance of powers throughout institutions to protect people from arbitrary (group) power. We enshrine free speech as a pillar of our society and to a certain extent, religious and philosophical beliefs are protected against discrimination. If an individual does something illegal (hate speech, sexual misconduct), the correct form of retribution is through a trial through the courts. Collectively, we provide the state with legitimate power to ‘cancel’ someone by ‘proving’ their guilt.
Gradually, as faith in our institutions erodes, people are relying more on using their collective voice, rather than formal institutions to ‘cancel’ or punish people. Consumers harass organisations to fire or boycott someone, knowing that most organisations care more about their bottom-line than they do about fairness to an employee and their employee’s rights to free speech and to work free from harassment.
The issue here is it that this culture puts a great deal of power in the hands of relatively small numbers of people (not our elected representatives, our judges and juries) to pressure organisations into harming someone. The classic request to cause harm is that the cancelled individual is fired or that their platform (in which they use to make their livelihood and make their arguments) is removed from them.
Handing a relatively small number of people this power is worrying, as these individuals are not accountable in the same way elected representatives or judges need to be. The mob, in its structure and essence, gives people a cloak of anonymity. Nobody holds the canceller accountable. In essence, it is arbitrary.
The arbitrary nature of cancel culture means that these dynamics can easily be flipped and used against your own political allies. It doesn’t take a genius to see that if the cultural and consumer heft swings to The Right, we could see progressives being cancelled for being socialists or for being woke etc. As Rob Francis remarked on Twitter, it is ironic to see defenders of ‘accountability culture’ respond in dismay at Norton being hounded off Twitter after his viral clip. ‘Isn’t this the precise social dynamic you’ve been pushing for the whole time?’ He questioned.
In short, the checks and balances provided by our imperfect system of lawmaking and law enforcement, doesn’t just provide protection to our enemies. It also provides protection to us.
Bosses will always act in their financial interests and in the interest of their company’s brand. In my opinion, it should be a cause on the Left to ensure that workers have protections in the workplace from arbitrary sackings or reprisals due to (perceived) legal, misconduct outside of work.
In the case of media publications, publishers and booking agents, the area is somewhat less clear cut. These platform-providers should understand their essential role in upholding our pluralistic democracy and have an appreciation of the importance of free speech. And unlike a standard employer, their decisions should be based on economic considerations — will this gig sell, will this book sell etc. If an individual still sells out venues, or still sells lots of books, it shows that the ‘cancellers’ are actually a small, noisy, minority. Bowing to pressure from small, noisy minorities, rarely ends well.
I am somewhat more eurythmic on ‘social group cancellation’. While I believe it is an issue when taken to extremes, I understand it is a judgement left for individuals and who they would want to associate with. As a society, we seem to be becoming less accepting towards differing opinions, more partisan and more divided on social attitudes. How to combat that, is a discussion for another day.
If you liked this blog, you might enjoy these reads:
- A short blog considers whether we should be judge people on their personal record or their professional record?
- My long-read on cancellations and culture-wars.
