As we pointed out the other day, cancel culture has even reached academics, such as Steven Pinker, and 150 intellectuals already have signed a letter to have the right to disagree about hegemonic opinions without fear of being ostracized, among whom are Noam Chosmky, Salman Rushdie or Pinker himself.
Cancel Culture's Intentions May Be Laudable. The problem is that its consequences can also be very pernicious, and we must not remember that the greatest disasters usually come from policies that pursue good.
Three reasons
The cancel culture (from the original English cancel culture) designates the widespread phenomenon of withdrawing moral, financial, digital and social support from people or media entities considered unacceptable, generally as a consequence of certain comments or actions. But several concerns arise when we attribute punitive consequences to people's speech based on their perceived moral wrongfulness (rather than simply argue that it is wrong or false).
There are three basic reasons why cancel culture is counterproductive:
- Claims of moral wrongfulness in a debate They imply immediate urgency and distract from the debate itself. For example, suppose that in a debate about immigration, one person says something that offends another. Discussion of the original issue (immigration) will be placed in brackets until the issue of moral wrongdoing is resolved.
- Claims about illegality, harmfulness or offensiveness are open to debate. As the English philosopher, politician and economist John Stuart Mill observed in his best-known work, About freedom, back in the 19th century: "The usefulness of an opinion is itself a question of opinion: as debatable, as open to discussion, and requiring as much discussion as the opinion itself." It is also necessary to define "good" and "bad." Those are lysological concepts, they change over time, sometimes they change according to the criteria of each person (even the laws adapt to those changes, not the other way around). Good or bad acts cannot be isolated, they are part of and interlocked with the needs, desires or shortcomings of other people, and also with their conceptions of what is good or bad, better or worse, acceptable or unacceptable.
- Allegations of unacceptable irregularities in an opinion cause friction. Few people respond constructively to accusations of wrongdoing. Retaliation in kind is often taken, escalating the conflict.
There are also three reasons why these types of dynamics are fruitless or even counterproductive, that is, what is precisely what we are trying to combat is fed:
- Democracy itself assumes that citizens can listen to different arguments, evidence and perspectives. If significant parts of the political spectrum are no longer tolerated, then social institutions lose this type of legitimacy. We are all less free.
- Listening to and engaging with others with different opinions can help us understand their views and develop more informed versions of our own positions. Failure to do so makes us more tribal and intensifies Us/Them relationships, the source of conflict between groups of people. On the other hand, being constantly outraged by opposing points of view provides a robust reason not to consider them. This directly feeds the confirmation bias and the groupthink, that is to say, it makes us more stupid, more intolerant and more reactionary. The perfect fertilizer for totalitarian states.
- Shame, censor or parody the views of other groups can cause just the opposite: that the group no longer feels that the legitimacy of its opinions is being questioned as much as its own freedom, individual and group. The feeling that they are trying to control them will cause the group to become more cohesive or individuals to embrace their opinions more vehemently. The university censorship current is good proof of this.
None of these concerns categorically rule out attributing punitive consequences to hate speech, let alone defamation and slander. But considering erroneous opinions as intolerable speech carries ethical costs that should not be overlooked.. And given the risk, it is preferable to take them by giving priority to certain opinions that seem aberrant to us rather than allowing opinions to be censored in a way that we can hardly argue is not arbitrary (and that those same reasons do not serve to censor many more opinions, including ours).
Also, courtesy of Stuart Mill, on why we should never censor opinions, unless the law considers that they are treading the ground of slander and the defamation:
First, if any opinion is forced to remain silent, that opinion may, as far as we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, although the silenced opinion is an error, it can contain, and very commonly does, a part of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely if ever the complete truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the rest of the truth has any chance of being attained. Thirdly, even if the opinion received is not only true, but the whole truth; Unless it is considered to be, and indeed is, strongly and seriously contested, it will be regarded as prejudice by the majority of those who receive it, with little understanding or feeling of its rational foundations. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine is in danger of being lost, weakened, and deprived of its vital effect on character and conduct: dogma becomes a mere formal profession, forever ineffective, but shaking the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and sincere conviction, of reason or personal experience.
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The news
Three reasons why cancel culture is ineffective (and three that prove it is counterproductive)
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.