Debunking the Debunking of Cancel Culture (7 Useful Tips!)

Leave no strawman unburned!

Surely you've already read Harper’s publication of an open letter “on Justice and Open Debate,” which inveighed against “cancel culture” and was signed by nearly 160 men and women of letters broadly on the leftist range of politics (from Chomsky to Rushdie to JK Rowling). And you've probably already moved on from the unimaginative backlash choreography generated in response. Seeing as I just last week expended over 1,000 words on the subject, I thought I too am over it.

But amid the many indistinguishable ripostes, which I can only imagine were written in the middle of a collective pendiculation, one piece stood out. Written for CNN by in-house analyst Brandon Tensley, the column is remarkable not for its originality or cogency, but for providing an almost naked, undigested list of talking points, leaving no strawman unburned. So for the benefit of future me I thought to use this as an opportunity to put down an economical, easily-referable list of the most common bad-faith arguments raised against detractors of “cancel culture.”

Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short this time.

1. Trump’s against “cancel culture”

Ongoingly-President Donald Trump, whose rotund frame tellingly appears on the cover of the CNN article, does blab a lot against “cancel culture” and “political correctness” in his rallies. Yes, that’s true. Similarly, Stalin frequently spoke against fascism and criticized American racism… so…

2. It’s about power

Tensley writes:

The loudest critics of cancel culture tend to frame it as a sort of inquisition -- as a campaign to quash someone or something that some person doesn't like, often for petty reasons. But these condemnations distort the issue at the heart of the debate: power -- who's used to having it, who's trying to be heard.

Correct.

(From my previous post: “in the case of some of the left’s loudest culture warriors, it’s not about who is really the victim and who the oppressor; it’s about who gets to decide which is which.”)

3. Some people survive the “cancel-culture”

Tensley names Dave Chappelle and Shane Gillis as two comedians who provoked the wrath of “cancel culture” by lampooning it. “Neither of them,” he writes, “was, well, cancelled, despite claims to the contrary.” Both still get to do their sets, therefore “cancel culture” isn’t real. Following this logic, Barack Obama’s presidency disproves the existence, let alone prevalence, of racism in America.

Chappelle still has millions of fans and millions of dollars, he’s not afraid of self-righteous tweets. But what about David Shor, the data analyst who apparently lost his job for tweeting that some research shows Democrats tend to perform worse in elections during times of violent protests? What about Majdi Wadi, who lost his business because his daughter posted anti-Semitic tweets six years ago? What about people who lack the armor of wealth and notoriety that protects a Dave Chappelle or a JK Rowling?

And what about the people who remain uncancelled because they’ve internalized the danger and simply adopted a strategy of safe insincerity (or taciturnity) in public?

And regarding Tensley’s two examples: Gillis and Chappelle aren’t of the same caliber — not in terms of their celebrity, or the ‘offenses’ for which they’d been criticized, or the cancelling (or lack thereof) they’ve consequently endured. But by lumping them together and using them as stand-ins for the problem, cancel-deniers can skirt any serious, shaded discussion of limits and boundaries in expression, to what extent we need them, and whether it’s wise to leave these questions to the ochlocracy of Twitter.

Nor should we ignore Tensley’s passing claim about ‘claims to the contrary,’ by which he implies that in certain hysterical circles there had been at some point a belief that Chappelle and Gillis were about to get cancelled. In truth, even the hard-right outlet The Washington Examiner, which indeed has all the financial incentives to hysterically play up the risks of political correctness, has published one piece noting in real-time that Chappelle is unlikely to be cancelled thanks to his fame, and another arguing that Gillis’s firing from SNL was not a strong example of “cancel culture.” But you can’t expect CNN to show the same degree of discernment as… the Examiner.

4. Corrective

Also lost [from talks about “cancel culture”]: how the criticism functioned as a corrective. It was in defense of groups that have long been kicked to American society's fringes.

Bringing more voices onto the public stage isn’t the same as traducing the ones who were already there and chasing them out.

In fact, the maligned Harper’s letter opens by unequivocally applauding “calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts.” But then, even though Tensley’s op-ed came out three days after the Harper’s piece, he doesn’t see fit to mention the letter at all, despite positioning his column as a rebuttal against “cancel culture’s loudest critics.”

And regardless, in what way does fostering (or making apologies for) an environment which almost 160 writers — of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and political beliefs — consider to be “stifling” and “intolerant” bring us any closer to a fair, open, and free society?

If our goal is to ensure that everyone, whether coming from historically-marginalized groups or expressing aberrant ideas, gets to have a voice in society, then commitment to some type of pluralism is paramount. It’s the culture that prizes open dissent and disagreement, not moral purity, that will safeguard minorities whichever way the wind blows.

Onto the next strawman.

5. Fast forward

Fast-forward to 2020 for another example of how claims of cancel culture often warp reality.

Note the recurring maneuver of avoiding the criticism by claiming that the criticism itself warps our perception of what’s real!

And to prove that criticsm of “cancel culture” indeed warps reality, Tensley leaps from discussing Chappelle and Gillis, glides past every single pertinent example from the past year of people harmed by the the left’s captiousness, and lands instead on… Donald Trump.

See: 1.

6. Trump and the right try to get people cancelled too

"Trump has long railed against 'political correctness.' But he has also tried for years to get people and entities punished or banished for what he considers objectionable words and acts," writes my CNN colleague Daniel Dale […]

Trump is a hypocrite. Good catch.

Maybe the obvious needs stating but yes, there are many horse-manure-storage-units posing as intellectuals on the right who shed tears for free speech when Milo Yiannopoulos gets disinvited from speaking on college campuses but then boost the president when he vows to loosen libel laws and punish mean journalists or people who burn the American flag. They can go to hell.

7. Yes, but…

For his last paragraph, Tensley admits, through the elegant use of a double negative (the written equivalent of gritted teeth), that on some “instances” people on the left have gone too far.

This [column] isn't to suggest that there aren't instances of overblown policing by those on the left.

Thank you. This post too isn’t to suggest that there aren’t instances of overblown reactions to policing by those on the left.

Rather, it's to appeal for a sense of proportion: Some are articulating righteous anger; others, such as the President, are just afraid of a bit of accountability.

See: 1.