Read on Twitter
A lot to unpack in a small sentence. But I'll say this: cancel culture is far from the rule of majorities. Social media distorts our perceptions so greatly that the concept creep that leveled liberal democracy to democracy can now level Twitter outrage with majority rule. https://twitter.com/roderickgraham/status/1361021869244219393
There are 340 million Twitter users worldwide. There are 7.8 billion people. In a Pew Research poll, they found that about 22% of Americans said they have a Twitter account. This does not mean they are daily users. But even if they are, 22% is a far cry from 50% plus 1 vote.
Beyond this, I think this shows two things:
Confusing the liberal elements of liberal democracy with democracy itself (valuing individual expression, etc.)
The disproportionate impact social media has because of the financial power it has in the culture.
Confusing the liberal elements of liberal democracy with democracy itself (valuing individual expression, etc.)
The disproportionate impact social media has because of the financial power it has in the culture.
It gives a tremendously disproportionate amount of leverage to loud, relentless pods of people (I hesitate to even say political minorities) because of the outsized influence of certain accounts.
This is far from egalitarian in any sense of the word. Influencers/blue check marks/massive accounts drive the material for social media; traditional media relies upon that material to drive revenue and cover the "controversy."
This is not democratic. At best it is oligarchic.
This is not democratic. At best it is oligarchic.
And I'd say the same for cancel culture and its variations. It is the left wing version of "freedom fries" and yanking the Dixie Chicks off radio stations. Its small groups of people using disproportionate power to demand capitulation to their preferences.
Equating the few with disproportionate power who demand capitulation to their preferences to the rule of majorities through debate and voting sounds like the inversion of those who criticize democracy by conflating it with the rule of the mob.
The Greek tradition of ostracism was almost always one oligarch or plutocrat undermining another by whipping up prejudices among the poor. I imagine cancel culture - and the culture wars in general - follow a very similar pattern.
The will to power that drives cancel culture, and culture wars in general, is a very strange bedfellow for advocates of democracy, especially egalitarian democracy, except when we place these phenomena that uses democracy as the arena for an intra-elite contest.
But that really seems to be the reality of seeing social media as a public square. It is not - and it will not be - and yet it is for those who have the time to be plugged in (or who operate the machinery) so it *feels* like a democratic place with democratic exercises.
Cancel culture, contrary to Dr. Graham's pithy punch, is far from a purely democratic activity. Rather, our mutated form of ostracism seems to be more akin to how Octavian manipulated sentiments against Mark Anthony than akin to the invisible hand of democracy working itself out.
