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Earlier this year, a social tempest called Cancel Culture took hold of the headlines.
Then the names Dave Chapelle, R. Kelly, Don Cherry, Jussie Smollet, Shane Gillis and Harald Uhlig were at the forefront of public attention.
Was there a qualitative difference between the accusations leveled at one or the other, or was any difference negligible, irrelevant, or simply of little concern? (Do you know the contexts in which these individual’s alleged improprieties occurred?)
Concern over the viral spread of incendiary accusations was taken up in one or another media outlet, only to be plowed under in the wake of the next accusation.
To my thinking, the dynamic behind ‘canceling’ itself needs a reckoning.
When accusations go viral, their movement is comparable to centrifugal spinning, or casting (think of the process by which plasma is separated from red and white blood cells). As the spinning gains speed and momentum, elements (for our purposes, context) are cast off; separated out, with the result that the (prized) denser element (the accusation) can be extracted and put to use.
This suggests that trial in the court of public opinion does more than verge on harassment. As an accusation goes viral, its spinning casts off any restraints on vigilante justice.
While this might be an extreme way of viewing cancel culture, few will argue that the act of canceling boils down to this: an outcry is made, the accusation itself (which verges on a judgment) gains momentum, and public status is stripped. The individual accused becomes a cast-off of culture, as we become increasingly dense (in both senses of the word).
If this process sounds vaguely familiar, recall that accusations of witchcraft (in 1692 Salem, no less than in Savonarola’s Florence in 1494) rested on public outcry that immediately stripped the accused of public status. Questioning the veracity of outcry (in the middle ages, Colonial America, or in 2020) might raise suspicions that an individual was/is a sympathizer, and threaten a similar fate.
The content behind the persecution in past eras was deemed so morally egregious that what can only be characterized as group mobbing—the equivalent of cyberbullying in the 21st century—was primed and fanned by loud, conservative, religious movements (and their charismatic leaders). Their clamoring amounted to a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ outcry to the accusations themselves (which purported involvement in the occult, or pedophilia). What began as bullying by a cultural clique, as public rumor-mongering, rejection, and humiliation, devolved into the autocratic control of a populace.
It is important to ask to what extent this public process reflected/reflects the norms of any given culture—both its content and its dynamics. For my purposes, a focus on dynamics reveals that no matter the era, bystanders are clustered with group members who question the views and behaviors of the clique, and become part of the cast-off, separated out and silenced.
Clearly these dynamics, so identifiable in cancel culture/witch hunts, reflect those underlying current political polarizations. The process of spinning/canceling itself and the casting off done by both parties, create a denser and denser core of supporters. In the face of this process, it is important to consider what specific (21st century?) needs might have engendered it.
- The need to create meaning in order to resist the onslaught of an overwhelming consumer culture. The reductionistic polarization (or "binarization") of positions simplifies difference, and makes meaningful choice possible (black or white; yes or no, right or wrong, straight or gay, Republican or Democrat. In addition, it exemplifies the murkiness of the techno-cultural interface, as computer technologies all rely on binary “0 and 1” coding.)
- Our belongingness needs. Pushing the centrifugal analogy further, the need to belong at our core—and our hollowness in the face of unmet needs—are readily understood in terms of increasingly frenetic spinning. (Spinning causes cast off, which leads to density. At the same time, centrifugal forces create a void around which the denser element spins). This hollow might be said to recapitulate the hollow at our cultural and personal cores—belongingness needs that have not been met. And, we will cast off much of ourselves in order to meet them. (Recall the famous Robber’s Cave experiment, which chillingly illustrates the lengths to which we will go in order to belong. These include the creation of meaning by the vilification of the 'other,' and the elimination of space for bystanders).
The upshot of the Robbers Cave experiment can be articulated as the devolution of an assemblage into binary-coded clarity provided by team identity.
Pause here, and bring your thoughts full circle.
Reflect again on the dynamics of cancel culture outlined above, and the persons who fell victim to them.
Do you know the contextual nuances in which the offenses were situated, or were they quickly stripped from the accusations themselves?
Do you, nonetheless, have an opinion on the canceling of one, another, or all persons?
If so, to what extent is it based on the opinion of your "team"?
Now consider all the nuances behind the political positions asserted by one party or another. How well do you understand their nuances? Or do you just feel the need to choose sides; to belong and to champion one candidate over the other?
To what extent do your choices reflect the dynamics of Savonarola’s or Salem’s witch-hunts?
Reflect the binarization of culture?
To what extent are you prevented from being a bystander to the fray (as this may mark you as a sympathizer to whatever party triumphs)?
The Republican party is entrenched in causes spinning around sacred religious texts, and the moral laws they derive from them. Democrats spin their position around sacred political texts, and the laws of equality they derive from them (not the least of which involves discrediting the derivation of laws based on religious beliefs).
Beliefs and belonging to either party are the basis of “false facts.”
And "false facts" portend a binary outcome: anarchy or dictatorship.
