The new McCarthyism

In early July of 2020, in the midst of the COVID19 Pandemic, a letter appeared in Harper’s Magazine dealing with what was called “Justice and Open Debate.” Over 150 people signed the letter, most with ties to the literary world, writers, editors, commentators etc. Without mentioning the term, it complained about the creeping “cancel culture” in the press and media. Something I have written about before. I’m happy to see others consider it a danger too.

 

Later on in July, Bari Weiss, a writer, editor and former columnist for the New York Times, resigned with this letter to her employer. Both letters dealt with the “chill” that writers face when they write something that strays from the common consensus. This quote from the Weiss letter:

“..... standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back. Too wise to post on Slack, they write to me privately about the “new McCarthyism” that has taken root at the paper of record.” BW 

What is this new McCarthyism, this cancel culture?

According to Dictionary.com, “Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (cancelling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. [It's] generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.” Similar terms are “doxxing” and “deplatforming” Deplatforming conservative and right wing speakers at universities have been a common occurrence for a number of years now. One just has to listen and look at the drivel that comes out of most universities to understand why.

 

Of course it goes beyond just shaming for those shamed and one does not need to be famous to be affected. It damages careers, jobs, and ultimately its character assassination often unjustly and inappropriately delivered.

 

There is nothing wrong with publicly castigating the comments and the commentator for something said or written. But harmful comments need to be evaluated on their harm and degree of offence. Some comments do not rise to the level of public shaming, some do. Some are not offensive at all, but simply innocuous opinions that don’t really require a response. Of course there are evil people with evil and dangerous intent that need to be outed and ultimately marginalized. That makes it important to discover intent. Trying to be objective when evaluating speech and written work is all-important. But in many cases intent is ignored and the response of the evaluators is excessively harsh. Why?

 

In late July, while being grilled at a ridiculous anti-trust hearing, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, (Bezos testimony - this is great) commented that social media is a 'nuance-destruction machine' when asked about his views on 'cancel culture.' In other words, comments on Facebook, Twitter and the like, can be easily misinterpreted. Nuance disappears in the new world of triggering and micro-aggression. 

 

That’s part of the problem and the rest almost entirely involves identity politics. With that, civil discourse is stifled on all sides of the spectrum and that further polarizes individuals and groups.

 

Here is a troubling example. A former colleague and friend, who worked as a teacher for the largest school board in Canada, made what I consider an innocent post on Facebook. He commented that there was a “distinction between peaceful protestors in a just cause and violent rioters who undermine that cause.” This was related to the violent anti-racism protests occurring in the States at the time. After reading this, some irate and unknown to him, social justice warriors lodged a formal complaint against my friend to his employer. The employer instantly suspended him for possible “human rights violations,” banned him from school property, accused him of “discrediting the teaching profession,” put a formal reprimand on his record, and even threatened further investigation including possible termination of his contract. Naturally he was pissed to say the least, and fortunate to be close to retirement. And that’s exactly what he did, thankful to distance himself from those idiots.

I have studied and taught biology for over 40 years and have never encountered such low level life forms as those bits of slime that forced a career to end so undeservedly. Of course the idiot Board admins were no shining example of fairness and good judgment. These are the folks responsible for the education of our children and grandchildren, and that is what is most distressing.

This video puts forth a libertarian view of cancel culture:

 This is also a good link: https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-cancel-culture-checklist-c63