There is a very simple word/idea that is always missing among the people who bemoan "cancel culture" [a thread] 1/x https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1285947021363478529

Humility. As an academic, I had to teach myself how to not assume authority over every topic because we're so often taught that's how we should project knowledge/engage in healthy debate 2/x

It is no coincidence (to me) that the people who are most threatened by "cancel culture" are those who made a career of projecting authority. Speaking in an authoritative voice publicly in op-eds and on the news. Not all white men but a lot of those 3/x

Because at the end of the day, I think what is actually confounding them is that when they speak with authority on topics that are divisive/complicated/and nuanced they get a lot of blowback, but like - imagine if they spoke with humility instead 4/x

Have you ever seen anyone get "cancelled" for exploring a "woke" idea or disputing a "woke" idea with sensitivity and with a tone that could admit some scope for productive debate? 5/x

e.g. "People who say abolish the police are wrong" vs. "Are you sure abolishing the police is the right approach? Here is why it concerns me" -- LIKE WHY IS THIS DIFFERENCE HARD TO GRASP??? 6/x

But I think it is not. Or it is more sinister. Like these people have made a career of doing the first thing, and they can't anymore without eliciting a similarly definitively negative response 7/x

Basically I feel like what is being decried as "canceling" is a response to a landscape in which public intellectuals have long been rewarded for speaking with authority. This begets an equal but opposite authoritative response. Maybe try to be #humble and see what happens 8/8