Canceling: Yes, Yes, Yes or Nonono

Socrates on Age and the Progress of Study

If we would start by defining Cancel Culture it is not possible to get a fixed definition rather than it has no precise, consistent meaning. It is used cynically and exploited by whoever has the power to use it. People are targeting a person because they say something negatively that doesn’t get well with a certain group of people and rapidly, he/she/they have to be cancelled. We might have thought that this is a new ‘thing’, but it results that cancelling has occurred way back to B.C. Taking Socrates as an example. We need to first think and situate the social and cultural context at that time. On Socrates, Spinoza and Other Thinkers “In this context, Socrates was cancelled in large part because he did not ft in with either the traditional education that continued to hold sway in ancient Athens or the professional teachers who offered their services for a fee. His eccentric, nonconformist personality is ultimately what led directly to his condemnation and death.” (Gordon, 2022) We can see that just because Socrates was trying to implement or change the way of teaching at the time, that did not go well with the others, this causing even his life for this.

Delmira Agustini

Taking it to the end of the19th and beginning of the 20th century we can find the Uruguayan modernist poet Delmira Agustini was another person who got cancelled. Agustini was ahead of her time daring what was the normal for women poetry at the time. Her works dealt with erotism, themes that society didn’t go well with women presenting it. “As Sarah Moody points out, women enjoyed very few rights and those that tried to assert those rights to realize their own ambitions were often met with scorn (Moody, 2014, p. 57). Moody argues that “If women’s status in the writing world in general was shaky, their position within modernismo was even less secure. Darío had little faith in women’s intellectual abilities and responded with condescension to their demands for rights” (Moody, 2014, p. 58)” (Gordon,2022) Come on, there is no surprise that literally anyone can get cancelled in today’s world due to the technology and social media wave. Even Jesus Christ got cancelled.

In Cancel Culture is toxic a debate conducted by Intelligence squared had two people in favor on that cancel culture is toxic and on the other side two people who are against on that cancel culture is toxic. A summary of the points they gave are on the following table I made to present some of them:

Even though the debate was a more opinion and philosophy based it still gives the observer to analyze those opinions and try to find out more about what they said. I can feel more inclined to one side but not everything is about taking sides but to find that in betweenness and that’s the most difficult part to get to.

On the Philosophical Arguments Against Cancelling, “Discussing the limitations of representative democracies, Arendt wrote in her book On Revolution that Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exist, there may be moods—moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former—but no opinion. (Arendt, 1963, pp. 268–269)” (Gordon, 2022)

There is intention on trying to address a certain problem or concern but the ability to truly open a discussion falls shorts when it turns into an emotional and in moment situation. When we are open to dialogue and debate there may be different outcomes and not just one that is cancelling someone without the proper process. Free of speech is necessary to all people each one of us have different opinions in everything and thanks to different opinions we can talk about them and hear each other out. But this is not possible to do with certain people who obviously think that their opinion is the only right one. “Thus, Arendt’s insistence that representative democracies ought to ensure that a diverse group of citizens have opportunities to exchange opinions and achieve sound judgments suggests that she would support Mill’s argument advocating free speech and rejecting the banning of controversial viewpoints. An environment that favors the censoring and cancelling of provocative opinions undermines our ability to conduct open debates of all ideas and reach well-reasoned conclusions.” (Gordon, 2022)

I manage to talk to someone I’m close to and ask about their side on practicing Cancel Culture and this is what they had to say: “I’m conscious on that cancel culture is not a real thing. But I practice it in ways that my own moral and ethics and human rights is addressing what is bad for me, the community(LGBTQ+) and society itself. There are people that might change their opinions or behaviors but there are some who will not change and it’s necessary to make them accountable. If famous, something so simple as not consuming their content.”

West recently claimed that Adidas could not drop him, despite his comments prompting calls for a boycott. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

One example that I wanted to add is the currently occurring the cancelation of Ye (Kanye West) this due to his antisemitic remarks on interviews and social media. But this is not new to the rapper he recently has had some episodes of unstable behaviors. We can tie it to his diagnosis as a person with bipolar disorder and that’s a fine line with this particular case. I’m not entering into details because I’m no neuropsychologist. But just a though, is it really him saying all of these things or is the condition? Even still his words and actions are a danger to himself and to society due to the amount of movement of masses he can/will move in favor of him and that’s what’s Cancel Culture can do or is necessary to prevent hate speech literally happening.

We Are The World by CaramelCookie

So, do we practice or not cancelling? I personally can say that I’m scared of it and for that I’m really cautious on what a say, what I write and even what I think. We can also say well okay, yeah cancelling has done some good on not providing a platform to people propagating hate speech or causing harm to a specific group of people but it has also caused some harm on minorities and that’s when cancelling is questioned and real motives. There are some kinds of behaviors that should not be acceptable from people in a certain circumstance or even place. The World right now call us to be tolerant but not ignoring the problem causing. Just because people have to tolerate someone, or something doesn't mean they/us have to approve of it. If we or they had to like that particular thing it will be called acceptance. Tolerate means you're just putting up with whatever it will or is. For example: People will tolerate a crying child sitting next to them on an airplane or you can tolerate a bad cold, yet all of this can still make you uncomfortable. Let’s try and be more tolerable and less hater. Remember that… We are the World.

Resources:

1. Cancel Culture is Toxic: A Debate, produced by Intelligence Squared US, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK7t7wOoklo&t=332s 2. “Socrates, Spinoza, and Other Cancelled Thinkers,” by Mordechai Gordon in Education in a Cultural War Era: Thinking Philosophically about the Practice of Canceling, Published by Taylor and Francis Group, 2022. 3. “Philosophical Arguments Against Cancelling and Restricting Speech,” by Mordechai Gordon in Education in a Cultural War Era: Thinking Philosophically about the Practice of Canceling, Published by Taylor and Francis Group, 2022.

4. “Elites are Distorting the “Cancel Culture” Crisis,” System Update With Glenn Greenwald, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXDPPkuRimQ&t=225s