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There’s at least three elements, though.
1. I dislike this content.
2. This content shouldn’t exist.
3. Society should take active steps to block content I don’t like. https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1281438946682167297
1. I dislike this content.
2. This content shouldn’t exist.
3. Society should take active steps to block content I don’t like. https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1281438946682167297
Those who believe in 1 will usually believe in 2, even if they don’t admit it out loud. 3 is the real issue of the debate. 3 is all about power, or better still, the access to power.
So let’s talk about power. I believe we are ascribing too much power to the social mechanism of norm-setting. I’m having lunch with my co-workers. A funny joke pops in my head. Do I say it out loud? Maybe. But a filtering system occurs. Is this appropriate? Will it offend?
So maybe I hold back and say nothing. But this is norm-setting, this is a judgment about context, people, and place, a concern for my job, a calculated decision. This happens all the time and at so many levels it would be inaccurate to call this coercion.
Maybe I don’t hold back and I tell the joke and someone is offended. Soon others rally to their side and tell me it was inappropriate. Do I apologize? Do I defend myself? Do I insist the other person is being overly-sensitive? All these are judgments about norms.
Let’s say I do apologize, but the offended co-worker raises the issue with my boss. So do I apologize and admit I was wrong? Or do I defend myself saying it was outside of work hours, and I didn’t mean anything by it? Judgment. Values. Norm-setting.
Let’s say others come to my boss and say my joke was beyond the pale and think I should be fired. So my boss calls me again to explain. What made me say such a thing? What does it say about my choices and ability to work with and respect others?
My joke, in other words, cannot be isolated and removed from the broader context of our societal relationships.
Maybe my boss does nothing, or puts me on a probation, or fires me. Now we are talking about power. But notice, this power exists independent of the outrage my joke caused. No one can “force” my boss to do anything. The decision is her’s alone.
This is why I don’t believe in “cancel culture”. We are describing the fact that technology and instant communication have made it much easier for the process of norm-setting social influence to do what it always does.
The real issue then is the flow of communication. Communication is power. The cascading effect of emotions, the spectacle of being swept up in the moment. It’s the madness of the crowd. But these are well-established psychological and biological facts.
Social media works by aggregating and compounding common messages and themes. It is often pornographic, in other words, removes the narrative structure and replaces it with pure sensation. This is what the letter ought to be addressing. The sensationalist manner of discourse.
But this is a much harder, almost intractable problem. It requires us to examine techno,hot, social platforms, internet and attempt to find ways to channel discourse away from sensation I am and more towards rational, thoughtful debate.
Telling people to settle down and be more open to ideas is like trying to stop a train with a flyswatter. This is why the response has been opposite of the high-mindedness that the authors intended. It is woefully inadequate to the challenge.
Sorry for the typos. My autocorrect is just ridiculous.
