Hmm... Was thinking this post was clear and excellent until:
"February 2019: Jussie Smollett is written out of the fifth season of “Empire” after his reports of being a victim of a hate crime the month prior fell apart. Smollett wasn’t canceled, he was caught lying about being a victim of a race-motivated crime. This — lying about having a crime committed against you, and as a result wasting police resources on an investigation into it — is itself a crime."
Was there a campaign? Is it because of a campaign that the bottom line might have been affected? If there was a campaign then wouldn't that meet your definition of cancel culture? Surely a campaign to "cancel liars" or even criminals is still cancelled culture.
I can see you might argue how it is a core part of the job. Actors are brands afterall, but as written you don't lead with that, or make it clear that that is why this isn't an example of cancel culture. The fact he is a liar is complete red herring, and distracts from the clarity of your point.
Thinking further I think the distinction you see here is that the "cancellation" is based on you interpreting them being cancelled for lying as different from them being cancelled for speach. I think such a distinction needs elaboration. Would cancelling Trump be fair game as he has lied? Should media platforms like twitter be allowed to pressured to deplatform trump because of that? Etc...
I read it as that being fired for committing a crime is distinct from being fired for protected speech. Making a false police report is a crime, and it's not even a crime that has any push for decriminalisation (compare to eg. someone being fired for being convicted of marijuana possession)
Thanks, I really liked reading this and I agree with the points. Four particular thoughts of mine about universities and colleges:
First, the way I understood the founding principles of US democracy was that the state would adjucate disputes: you have an argument over whether someone's cow trampled your crops or someone said something indecent, you go to a judge and they decide. Access to the courts is of course harder in practice these days - and so, especially at private universities, a private organisation ends up fulfilling much of the role originally assigned to the state. You have campus rules on top of laws, that are enforced and breaches investigated by the college; even in cases such as accusations of rape, which is a felony if I understand the definition correctly, colleges are expected to do their own internal investigations and punish offenders accordingly. It's even considered, to say the least, very bad manners to involve the actual state, as in calling the cops on someone.
To the extent that a private organisation takes on executive and judiciary funcations that, in public space as opposed to on a campus, would be the state's business, I think it's especially valuable to say they should be following the spirit of the first amendment, just like there should be a presumption of innocence until proved otherwise when you're investigating an alleged theft or assault on your campus. You want to be your own courthouse, that comes with responsibilities as well as rights.
Otherwise, as you say, freedom of speech becomes meaningless - you essentially have a system where the real state can't go after you for your speech, but the "going after you" bit has been shifted to the private locally-state-like institution so you end up sanctioned after all. That's about as honest as a dictator promising the real military won't torture any subjects, and then setting up a separate mercenary-paramilitary force for that instead. The real question is whether you enjoy the outcomes that the authors of the first amendment were thinking of when they drafted it.
Second, it is generally held as you said that academic freedom is a particularly valuable principle so the threshold for cancelling a professor, as opposed to maybe an actor, should be reasonably high.
Third, I find it particularly dumb that the "left" is trying to cancel people for bad ideas. Back in the day, someone could have been dismissed for being gay, and there was a risk of everything from co-workers you had a beef with to organised campaigns from the "right" to get you outed and fired. You can't have a consistent argument that it's ok to cancel someone for saying the term "woman" is useful in medicine, but then throw a fit when someone tries to use the same tactic because you're pro-choice.
Finally, I think most of what's happening on campuses actually comes down to money. Colleges need fee-paying students and donors to do everything from keeping the lights on to growing their profit margins, and the academic job market has many applicants chasing every single place, so the managerial class has decided to get exploitative. My best source for this is https://acoup.blog/2023/04/28/collections-academic-ranks-explained-or-what-on-earth-is-an-adjunct/ which is on the surface about adjuncts, but goes into the whole structure of universities. For example, in the Hamline case (https://verdict.justia.com/2023/01/18/the-not-renewed-excuse-at-hamline-and-elsewhere linked from the previous article) where the uni "cancelled" an adjunct for showing a depiction of the prophet Mohammed, in AN ART HISTORY CLASS for crying out loud, there was some debate over whether the university "fired" the person in question. Technically, they did not, because adjuncts are on rolling fixed-term contracts anyway, so the uni could just choose not to renew the contract. That both makes it much easier to get rid of faculty, and keeps the remaining ones more in line.
To sum up Brett's point on ACOUP: " University leadership have exploited the creation of an academic caste system to create a class of academic serf, allowing them to redirect funding (and spiraling tuition money), often towards their own pet projects." The driving force behind this is not DEI, but money. DEI is sometimes and excuse, sometimes a whip to beat the serfs with, and sometimes pandering to "the (paying) customer is always right". Having the threat of cancelling hanging over the serfs is just one more way to keep them in line, especially when there's always always another applicant you could hire instead.
The one thing that would really shake things up is if the student mob went after a donor, and other donors started to re-evaluate how much they'd send to their alma mater that year.
Mostly agree. One example of cancel culture doesn't match the others: A comedian's appearance being cancelled because of the content of his jokes.
This isn't like a Home Depot cashier making jokes; his jokes are his job; he made those jokes ex cathedra, on stage. This is directly relevant to his actual job performance.
Notably though, it wasn't "people didn't like his jokes so he couldn't sell enough tickets", it was "some people didn't like his jokes and got the venue to cancel him despite him selling plenty of tickets to other people"
As a typical example of cancel culture, I have always imagined nice people like scott Alexander, saying as politely as possible: "maybe we should consider this (problematic) hypothesis, some data point that direction. If we make it a taboo, it can lead to these and these disadvanages, a false blame and a waste of resources." Under Cancel culture, I always imagine people who are trying very hard not to offend, yet unsuccessfully. Many of your examples are the exact opposite. On the gut level, I feel less sympathy for the attempts to keep these provocateurs at their tenured positions. Yes, I understand your mission, but some of your examples are not exactly heart warming.
One of the several scary things about your friend who committed suicide was, that the harassment did not end after he was send to retirement. What did people want of him after that ? To give his settlement money to charity or what ?
People asking for strict definitions, of the "where exactly do you draw the line?" variety, always remind me of a fable I heard as a child that left a strong impression on me:
There was once a king who lived in a mountainous region. One day, he had need of a new royal carriage driver, and put out the call for the best carriage drivers within his kingdom to apply for the prestigious position. When the day came, three men showed up at the appointed place, near a treacherous mountain pass filled with steep cliffs and winding switchbacks.
The king told them, "This pass is the only route that connects with the neighboring kingdom. I have to visit on diplomatic business from time to time. Which of you can demonstrate that you're the best driver, to keep me safe on such journeys?"
The first driver mounted up on the front of the carriage and took the horses' reins. As the king watched through a spyglass, the driver drove the carriage down the length of the pass, showing off his great skill by keeping the horses at a brisk trot the whole way, and the wheels of the carriage no more than a foot away from the edge of the cliff. Despite this, he reached the far edge of the pass safely.
The second driver, seeking to one-up the first, snapped the reins at the horses and kept them at a full gallop for most of the way, only slowing down for the sharpest of turns. He stayed as close to the edge of the cliff as he could, and at some points one of the wheels even went off the edge briefly. Despite this, he reached the far edge of the pass safely.
The third driver, though, took a very different approach, keeping the horses at a walk and hugging the rock wall jutting up on the other side of the path as closely as possible, keeping well away from the edge of the cliff. He took three times as long as the other drivers to navigate the pass, but he too arrived safe at the end.
The king hired the third driver, of course, because the first two were obviously reckless idiots who would have eventually gotten him killed someday.
Forgive me as I'm fairly new to this newsletter if you addressed this in the past. I suspect you have. There is a disproportionate power dynamic when cancelling someone. That needs to be addressed. When online debate, turns into offline violence this is a legal no brainer isn't it?
The person being cancelled often doesn't even know that it's happening. That is a deliberate weaponization of online anonymity. For dissidents anonymity is genuinely required in the interest of real justice. But there is a paradigm in the west, that everyone is a victim (see luxury beliefs). That diminishes real suffering and real abhorrent forms of violence. Its akin to propagandized brainwashing (gulag archipelago). We are free to think as we please. This is not a hive. Yet social media definitively produces hive mind.
Say for example, if Former president Obama unfairly pushed Kamala Harris as the democratic nominee. He weaponizes his platform, or his wife does against everyday citizens who believe he is responsible for the current inequalities because of the GFC. Trump was his gift to the world. This is one of the most undemocratic, weaponizations of celebrity, bordering on propaganda. All the news outlets follow suit. The world knows it. Is that really labelled stupidly as cancel culture, deep state. It's intellectually crushing, not to have a legal form of recourse. Or to have that recourse turned into procedure.
What do you say to children looking for REAL change? You deserve a second, third shot for endless incompetence? Surveillance of citizens is acceptable and endorsable by adminstration? You get to lie about it whitewash it. The democratic party and Republicans see any real intellectual challenge as "cancel culture". These people don't even realize what they've done to truth. This is just who we are? Confused ignorant, blind, tribal, unjust and biased? Do you have any idea how unlikely it is for anyone to admit that 'power' is the goal?
For example is someone deliberately maligns my character affecting myself, my kids and my husband (who is exceedingly kind BTW) I would really like to know about it. If you do that for say 10 years, spitting and harassing children you'd think the imbeciles in local law enforcement, or the FBI, or some functional literate imbeciles with daughters could fucking put 2 + 2 together. Like Obama or the Trump children.
The assumption is little people should live in fear of what they say. FUCK THAT SHIT.
I've lived my entire life according a moral code. Did just about everything right, watched my parents do the same and get fucked over. No more. People can go fuck themselves and cancel me. See what happens when you elect mass incompetence.
You dont get to beg for help. If I make a mistake, I apologize and make amends. These assholes have cleaners mop up everything and make their trash shiny white and clean.
While I might sound angry. It's irritating and tiresome. I've traveled enough to know I'm STILL extremely lucky.
Your treatment of the Jussie Smollett example seems to exempt campaigns to fire actors from being Cancel Culture. You seem to be okay with his firing because (1) he lied and (2) "When your only job is to have people look at you while you say words, you have a baseline obligation of not conducting yourself in such a way that nobody wants to see your stupid face ever again. "
But wouldn't the second reason here essentially mean no actor could ever be "cancelled"? The Gina Carano firing is an incident of what I think most people would consider Cancel Culture, but I can't see why the same principle you cite for why Smollett's firing wasn't a cancelation wouldn't apply here too. She's paid to talk while people look at her, so under the reasoning given for the Smollett example, if a lot of people don't like her political views (or whatever), it's fine for her to be fired.
If you say that the real reason is because he lied, then the second reason you give for his firing is irrelevant and should probably be deleted for the reason given above, and you should make clear that you think there should be no Cancel Culture protections for people who lie in public. (I'd also be interested in how lying fits into your framework in general, as while false speech gets less First Amendment protection, given NYT v. Sullivan I'd be surprised if a State were allowed to punish speech like Smollett's, given that he wasn't even libeling anyone. (This is setting aside appropriate punishments for lying directly to the police about a crime's being committed and therefore wasting their time and resources.))
Thanks for your feedback, Maximilian. I've edited the paragraph to clarify that the bottom line is that Smollett committed a crime, and there is no First Amendment protection for filing a false police report let alone staging a hate crime.
What may be called “free speech absolutism” (more generally, full freedom of communication) is part of liberty. It is highly desirable for many reasons and has no refuting criticisms. The problem with FIRE is that it appears to have overcorrected away from limits on free speech and is sometimes advocating privileged speech. No one should be obliged to associate with anyone (whether employee, employer, or whoever) if he wants to break that association (by sacking, resigning, or shunning) because of what that person advocates, or for any other reason. There will still be “free speech” fora of many kinds in a free market. If anonymity is sometimes the only safe way to use them, then that is still far better than having privileged speech that is an imposition on the liberty of other people. However, all this is assumed in the general context of private property and free markets, otherwise various qualifications are required.
Take a look at the statements of the Brimelows (all that's left on the site it seems) of what just happened last month to vdare.com, i.e., its cancelation, finally succumbing to private and public social pressure and brazen lawfare after 25 years.
The best defense is a good offense. I'd like to see counter suits in cases that merit them.
Hmm... Was thinking this post was clear and excellent until:
"February 2019: Jussie Smollett is written out of the fifth season of “Empire” after his reports of being a victim of a hate crime the month prior fell apart. Smollett wasn’t canceled, he was caught lying about being a victim of a race-motivated crime. This — lying about having a crime committed against you, and as a result wasting police resources on an investigation into it — is itself a crime."
Was there a campaign? Is it because of a campaign that the bottom line might have been affected? If there was a campaign then wouldn't that meet your definition of cancel culture? Surely a campaign to "cancel liars" or even criminals is still cancelled culture.
I can see you might argue how it is a core part of the job. Actors are brands afterall, but as written you don't lead with that, or make it clear that that is why this isn't an example of cancel culture. The fact he is a liar is complete red herring, and distracts from the clarity of your point.
Thinking further I think the distinction you see here is that the "cancellation" is based on you interpreting them being cancelled for lying as different from them being cancelled for speach. I think such a distinction needs elaboration. Would cancelling Trump be fair game as he has lied? Should media platforms like twitter be allowed to pressured to deplatform trump because of that? Etc...
I read it as that being fired for committing a crime is distinct from being fired for protected speech. Making a false police report is a crime, and it's not even a crime that has any push for decriminalisation (compare to eg. someone being fired for being convicted of marijuana possession)
Thanks, I really liked reading this and I agree with the points. Four particular thoughts of mine about universities and colleges:
First, the way I understood the founding principles of US democracy was that the state would adjucate disputes: you have an argument over whether someone's cow trampled your crops or someone said something indecent, you go to a judge and they decide. Access to the courts is of course harder in practice these days - and so, especially at private universities, a private organisation ends up fulfilling much of the role originally assigned to the state. You have campus rules on top of laws, that are enforced and breaches investigated by the college; even in cases such as accusations of rape, which is a felony if I understand the definition correctly, colleges are expected to do their own internal investigations and punish offenders accordingly. It's even considered, to say the least, very bad manners to involve the actual state, as in calling the cops on someone.
To the extent that a private organisation takes on executive and judiciary funcations that, in public space as opposed to on a campus, would be the state's business, I think it's especially valuable to say they should be following the spirit of the first amendment, just like there should be a presumption of innocence until proved otherwise when you're investigating an alleged theft or assault on your campus. You want to be your own courthouse, that comes with responsibilities as well as rights.
Otherwise, as you say, freedom of speech becomes meaningless - you essentially have a system where the real state can't go after you for your speech, but the "going after you" bit has been shifted to the private locally-state-like institution so you end up sanctioned after all. That's about as honest as a dictator promising the real military won't torture any subjects, and then setting up a separate mercenary-paramilitary force for that instead. The real question is whether you enjoy the outcomes that the authors of the first amendment were thinking of when they drafted it.
Second, it is generally held as you said that academic freedom is a particularly valuable principle so the threshold for cancelling a professor, as opposed to maybe an actor, should be reasonably high.
Third, I find it particularly dumb that the "left" is trying to cancel people for bad ideas. Back in the day, someone could have been dismissed for being gay, and there was a risk of everything from co-workers you had a beef with to organised campaigns from the "right" to get you outed and fired. You can't have a consistent argument that it's ok to cancel someone for saying the term "woman" is useful in medicine, but then throw a fit when someone tries to use the same tactic because you're pro-choice.
Finally, I think most of what's happening on campuses actually comes down to money. Colleges need fee-paying students and donors to do everything from keeping the lights on to growing their profit margins, and the academic job market has many applicants chasing every single place, so the managerial class has decided to get exploitative. My best source for this is https://acoup.blog/2023/04/28/collections-academic-ranks-explained-or-what-on-earth-is-an-adjunct/ which is on the surface about adjuncts, but goes into the whole structure of universities. For example, in the Hamline case (https://verdict.justia.com/2023/01/18/the-not-renewed-excuse-at-hamline-and-elsewhere linked from the previous article) where the uni "cancelled" an adjunct for showing a depiction of the prophet Mohammed, in AN ART HISTORY CLASS for crying out loud, there was some debate over whether the university "fired" the person in question. Technically, they did not, because adjuncts are on rolling fixed-term contracts anyway, so the uni could just choose not to renew the contract. That both makes it much easier to get rid of faculty, and keeps the remaining ones more in line.
To sum up Brett's point on ACOUP: " University leadership have exploited the creation of an academic caste system to create a class of academic serf, allowing them to redirect funding (and spiraling tuition money), often towards their own pet projects." The driving force behind this is not DEI, but money. DEI is sometimes and excuse, sometimes a whip to beat the serfs with, and sometimes pandering to "the (paying) customer is always right". Having the threat of cancelling hanging over the serfs is just one more way to keep them in line, especially when there's always always another applicant you could hire instead.
The one thing that would really shake things up is if the student mob went after a donor, and other donors started to re-evaluate how much they'd send to their alma mater that year.
Mostly agree. One example of cancel culture doesn't match the others: A comedian's appearance being cancelled because of the content of his jokes.
This isn't like a Home Depot cashier making jokes; his jokes are his job; he made those jokes ex cathedra, on stage. This is directly relevant to his actual job performance.
Notably though, it wasn't "people didn't like his jokes so he couldn't sell enough tickets", it was "some people didn't like his jokes and got the venue to cancel him despite him selling plenty of tickets to other people"
As a typical example of cancel culture, I have always imagined nice people like scott Alexander, saying as politely as possible: "maybe we should consider this (problematic) hypothesis, some data point that direction. If we make it a taboo, it can lead to these and these disadvanages, a false blame and a waste of resources." Under Cancel culture, I always imagine people who are trying very hard not to offend, yet unsuccessfully. Many of your examples are the exact opposite. On the gut level, I feel less sympathy for the attempts to keep these provocateurs at their tenured positions. Yes, I understand your mission, but some of your examples are not exactly heart warming.
One of the several scary things about your friend who committed suicide was, that the harassment did not end after he was send to retirement. What did people want of him after that ? To give his settlement money to charity or what ?
People asking for strict definitions, of the "where exactly do you draw the line?" variety, always remind me of a fable I heard as a child that left a strong impression on me:
There was once a king who lived in a mountainous region. One day, he had need of a new royal carriage driver, and put out the call for the best carriage drivers within his kingdom to apply for the prestigious position. When the day came, three men showed up at the appointed place, near a treacherous mountain pass filled with steep cliffs and winding switchbacks.
The king told them, "This pass is the only route that connects with the neighboring kingdom. I have to visit on diplomatic business from time to time. Which of you can demonstrate that you're the best driver, to keep me safe on such journeys?"
The first driver mounted up on the front of the carriage and took the horses' reins. As the king watched through a spyglass, the driver drove the carriage down the length of the pass, showing off his great skill by keeping the horses at a brisk trot the whole way, and the wheels of the carriage no more than a foot away from the edge of the cliff. Despite this, he reached the far edge of the pass safely.
The second driver, seeking to one-up the first, snapped the reins at the horses and kept them at a full gallop for most of the way, only slowing down for the sharpest of turns. He stayed as close to the edge of the cliff as he could, and at some points one of the wheels even went off the edge briefly. Despite this, he reached the far edge of the pass safely.
The third driver, though, took a very different approach, keeping the horses at a walk and hugging the rock wall jutting up on the other side of the path as closely as possible, keeping well away from the edge of the cliff. He took three times as long as the other drivers to navigate the pass, but he too arrived safe at the end.
The king hired the third driver, of course, because the first two were obviously reckless idiots who would have eventually gotten him killed someday.
Forgive me as I'm fairly new to this newsletter if you addressed this in the past. I suspect you have. There is a disproportionate power dynamic when cancelling someone. That needs to be addressed. When online debate, turns into offline violence this is a legal no brainer isn't it?
The person being cancelled often doesn't even know that it's happening. That is a deliberate weaponization of online anonymity. For dissidents anonymity is genuinely required in the interest of real justice. But there is a paradigm in the west, that everyone is a victim (see luxury beliefs). That diminishes real suffering and real abhorrent forms of violence. Its akin to propagandized brainwashing (gulag archipelago). We are free to think as we please. This is not a hive. Yet social media definitively produces hive mind.
Say for example, if Former president Obama unfairly pushed Kamala Harris as the democratic nominee. He weaponizes his platform, or his wife does against everyday citizens who believe he is responsible for the current inequalities because of the GFC. Trump was his gift to the world. This is one of the most undemocratic, weaponizations of celebrity, bordering on propaganda. All the news outlets follow suit. The world knows it. Is that really labelled stupidly as cancel culture, deep state. It's intellectually crushing, not to have a legal form of recourse. Or to have that recourse turned into procedure.
What do you say to children looking for REAL change? You deserve a second, third shot for endless incompetence? Surveillance of citizens is acceptable and endorsable by adminstration? You get to lie about it whitewash it. The democratic party and Republicans see any real intellectual challenge as "cancel culture". These people don't even realize what they've done to truth. This is just who we are? Confused ignorant, blind, tribal, unjust and biased? Do you have any idea how unlikely it is for anyone to admit that 'power' is the goal?
For example is someone deliberately maligns my character affecting myself, my kids and my husband (who is exceedingly kind BTW) I would really like to know about it. If you do that for say 10 years, spitting and harassing children you'd think the imbeciles in local law enforcement, or the FBI, or some functional literate imbeciles with daughters could fucking put 2 + 2 together. Like Obama or the Trump children.
The assumption is little people should live in fear of what they say. FUCK THAT SHIT.
I've lived my entire life according a moral code. Did just about everything right, watched my parents do the same and get fucked over. No more. People can go fuck themselves and cancel me. See what happens when you elect mass incompetence.
You dont get to beg for help. If I make a mistake, I apologize and make amends. These assholes have cleaners mop up everything and make their trash shiny white and clean.
While I might sound angry. It's irritating and tiresome. I've traveled enough to know I'm STILL extremely lucky.
Your treatment of the Jussie Smollett example seems to exempt campaigns to fire actors from being Cancel Culture. You seem to be okay with his firing because (1) he lied and (2) "When your only job is to have people look at you while you say words, you have a baseline obligation of not conducting yourself in such a way that nobody wants to see your stupid face ever again. "
But wouldn't the second reason here essentially mean no actor could ever be "cancelled"? The Gina Carano firing is an incident of what I think most people would consider Cancel Culture, but I can't see why the same principle you cite for why Smollett's firing wasn't a cancelation wouldn't apply here too. She's paid to talk while people look at her, so under the reasoning given for the Smollett example, if a lot of people don't like her political views (or whatever), it's fine for her to be fired.
If you say that the real reason is because he lied, then the second reason you give for his firing is irrelevant and should probably be deleted for the reason given above, and you should make clear that you think there should be no Cancel Culture protections for people who lie in public. (I'd also be interested in how lying fits into your framework in general, as while false speech gets less First Amendment protection, given NYT v. Sullivan I'd be surprised if a State were allowed to punish speech like Smollett's, given that he wasn't even libeling anyone. (This is setting aside appropriate punishments for lying directly to the police about a crime's being committed and therefore wasting their time and resources.))
Thanks for your feedback, Maximilian. I've edited the paragraph to clarify that the bottom line is that Smollett committed a crime, and there is no First Amendment protection for filing a false police report let alone staging a hate crime.
Free speech or privileged speech?
What may be called “free speech absolutism” (more generally, full freedom of communication) is part of liberty. It is highly desirable for many reasons and has no refuting criticisms. The problem with FIRE is that it appears to have overcorrected away from limits on free speech and is sometimes advocating privileged speech. No one should be obliged to associate with anyone (whether employee, employer, or whoever) if he wants to break that association (by sacking, resigning, or shunning) because of what that person advocates, or for any other reason. There will still be “free speech” fora of many kinds in a free market. If anonymity is sometimes the only safe way to use them, then that is still far better than having privileged speech that is an imposition on the liberty of other people. However, all this is assumed in the general context of private property and free markets, otherwise various qualifications are required.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/free-speech-what-it-is-how-it-is?utm_source=publication-search
https://jclester.substack.com/p/privilege-a-libertarian-viewpoint?utm_source=publication-search
https://jclester.substack.com/p/discrimination-a-libertarian-viewpoint?utm_source=publication-search
Take a look at the statements of the Brimelows (all that's left on the site it seems) of what just happened last month to vdare.com, i.e., its cancelation, finally succumbing to private and public social pressure and brazen lawfare after 25 years.