WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.200 If you have been online, watched the news, or 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:06.839 just sat at a dinner table with family any time 00:00:06.839 --> 00:00:09.599 in the last, what, 10 years? Oh, at least. There's 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:14.300 this ghost haunting the machinery of our daily 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:16.660 lives. A ghost in the machine, yeah. It's a two 00:00:16.660 --> 00:00:20.320 -word phrase that you have absolutely heard. 00:00:20.519 --> 00:00:22.640 I mean, you've probably heard it shouted in anger. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:24.980 And whispered in fear. Yeah, whispered in fear 00:00:24.980 --> 00:00:27.280 in corporate break rooms. It totally dominates 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:30.000 headlines. It can destroy careers. And it seems 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:32.539 to be the one thing that everyone, and I mean 00:00:32.539 --> 00:00:35.579 everyone, regardless of politics, age, background, 00:00:35.780 --> 00:00:38.560 has a very, very strong opinion about. It's become 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.560 the ultimate Rorschach test for the 21st century. 00:00:41.740 --> 00:00:43.460 You look at it and you see what you want to see. 00:00:43.579 --> 00:00:45.479 Exactly. We are talking, of course, about cancel 00:00:45.479 --> 00:00:47.439 culture. But here's the thing. And this is really 00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:49.560 why we want to do this specific deep dive today. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.439 For a term that is used so constantly. It's incredibly 00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:56.060 poorly defined. It's just become this catch -all 00:00:56.060 --> 00:00:59.420 boogeyman. Right. Is it social justice? Is it 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:02.859 a digital mob out for blood? Or does it, as some 00:01:02.859 --> 00:01:05.480 people claim, not actually exist at all? It is 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:08.159 a fascinating paradox, isn't it? We see the effects 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:11.040 of it constantly. We see the apologies, the firings, 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.540 the trending hashtags. Oh, yeah. The notes app 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:16.780 apologies. Right. But we still struggle to agree 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:19.219 on what it actually is. Is it accountability? 00:01:19.659 --> 00:01:22.969 Is it censorship? Is it just... bullying on a 00:01:22.969 --> 00:01:27.989 massive scale. So today our mission is to move 00:01:27.989 --> 00:01:30.170 past all the shouting matches. To cut through 00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:32.030 the noise. Yeah, exactly. Right. They're going 00:01:32.030 --> 00:01:33.870 to ignore the hot takes and the angry Twitter 00:01:33.870 --> 00:01:36.810 threads. And we are going to perform an anatomy 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:40.180 of cancellation. I like that framing. and anatomy 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:42.780 we aren't here to debate whether specific people 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:44.719 should have been cancelled that's not the goal 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:46.959 we're here to understand the mechanism itself 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:50.260 and we have a massive stack of sources here historical 00:01:50.260 --> 00:01:53.209 data psychological studies some pretty heavy 00:01:53.209 --> 00:01:55.709 philosophical treatises, and some really surprising 00:01:55.709 --> 00:01:57.790 pop culture history. And we are going to take 00:01:57.790 --> 00:02:00.629 that anatomy metaphor quite literally. We need 00:02:00.629 --> 00:02:03.390 to dissect the origins, the mechanism, the psychology, 00:02:03.510 --> 00:02:06.209 and the ultimate impact of this whole phenomenon. 00:02:06.530 --> 00:02:08.469 What makes it tick? Why are we so drawn to it? 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:11.050 What's the impulse? And trust me, you are going 00:02:11.050 --> 00:02:13.969 to want to stick around for this. Because I promise 00:02:13.969 --> 00:02:17.389 you, the origin story of the term cancel culture... 00:02:17.789 --> 00:02:20.810 is not what you think. Not at all. It didn't 00:02:20.810 --> 00:02:22.629 start in a university lecture hall. It didn't 00:02:22.629 --> 00:02:25.530 start with some political manifesto. And it definitely 00:02:25.530 --> 00:02:27.990 didn't start on a college campus. It started 00:02:27.990 --> 00:02:31.210 with a disco song. Which is, frankly, my favorite 00:02:31.210 --> 00:02:33.689 fact in this entire deep dive. It's amazing. 00:02:33.849 --> 00:02:36.610 The road to modern political polarization starts 00:02:36.610 --> 00:02:39.009 on the dance floor. It's just perfect. We'll 00:02:39.009 --> 00:02:40.629 definitely get to the disco in a second. Yeah. 00:02:40.750 --> 00:02:42.669 But first, let's just ground ourselves. Let's 00:02:42.669 --> 00:02:45.370 set a baseline. When we say cancel culture, what 00:02:45.370 --> 00:02:47.150 are we actually talking about according to the 00:02:47.150 --> 00:02:48.969 research? Right. We need a working definition 00:02:48.969 --> 00:02:51.090 before we can start tearing it apart. Exactly. 00:02:51.389 --> 00:02:53.930 Okay. So if we look at the definitions provided 00:02:53.930 --> 00:02:57.110 in our source material, specifically how sociologists 00:02:57.110 --> 00:02:59.889 and media scholars categorize it, cancel culture 00:02:59.889 --> 00:03:01.990 or call -out culture, they're often used together, 00:03:02.189 --> 00:03:06.330 is essentially a modern form of ostracism. Ostracism. 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:10.919 That sounds so ancient. It is. Like ancient Greece 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:13.520 writing a name on a piece of pottery and literally 00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:16.340 banning them from the city. That kind of ancient. 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:19.419 It's exactly that ancient. Humans are social 00:03:19.419 --> 00:03:22.659 animals. Exile has always been the ultimate punishment 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:25.939 because, you know, evolutionarily speaking, if 00:03:25.939 --> 00:03:28.000 you were kicked out of the tribe. You died. Simple 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.360 as that. You died. But while the impulse is ancient, 00:03:31.639 --> 00:03:35.590 the mechanism is brand new. In the modern context, 00:03:35.889 --> 00:03:38.189 it's where an individual is criticized for behavior 00:03:38.189 --> 00:03:42.210 or speech that's deemed unacceptable. But, and 00:03:42.210 --> 00:03:45.000 this is the key part, It doesn't stop at criticism. 00:03:45.240 --> 00:03:47.639 It's not just an argument. No. The defining feature 00:03:47.639 --> 00:03:50.259 is the call for action typically happening on 00:03:50.259 --> 00:03:53.419 social media for that target to be shunned, fired, 00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:56.240 boycotted or deplatformed. Right. So it's the 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:58.099 difference between saying I disagree with you 00:03:58.099 --> 00:04:00.759 or she think you're wrong and saying you should 00:04:00.759 --> 00:04:02.379 not have a job. Or you should not be allowed 00:04:02.379 --> 00:04:04.960 to speak. Your publisher should drop you. Precisely. 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:07.300 It always involves a third party. It's not just 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:09.979 me versus you. It's me appealing to the crowd, 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:12.659 to the institution, to your boss to punish you. 00:04:13.020 --> 00:04:15.539 And this leads directly to the central tension 00:04:15.539 --> 00:04:17.839 we found running through every single piece of 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:19.779 research we looked at. Yeah, it's a constant 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:22.500 battle between two competing narratives. Okay, 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:25.879 so what's narrative A? Narrative A is that this 00:04:25.879 --> 00:04:29.120 is mob justice. It's a direct threat to free 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:32.220 speech, a way to punish dissenters, and basically 00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:35.050 a form of high -tech cyberbullying. Which is 00:04:35.050 --> 00:04:37.449 the story we usually hear from those who feel 00:04:37.449 --> 00:04:40.029 targeted by it or are afraid of being targeted. 00:04:40.189 --> 00:04:42.350 Absolutely. Then you have narrative B. Narrative 00:04:42.350 --> 00:04:45.050 B is. Narrative B is that this is simply consequence 00:04:45.050 --> 00:04:47.629 culture. That it's a vital tool for marginalized 00:04:47.629 --> 00:04:50.670 people. People who historically had no access 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:53.410 to the media or the courts or corporate HR departments 00:04:53.410 --> 00:04:56.290 to finally hold powerful people accountable for 00:04:56.290 --> 00:04:58.689 their actions. So it's the shield versus the 00:04:58.689 --> 00:05:00.689 sword. That's a great way to put it. One side 00:05:00.689 --> 00:05:03.050 sees it as a weapon of tyranny and the other 00:05:03.050 --> 00:05:05.019 sees it as the only. weapon they have against 00:05:05.019 --> 00:05:08.420 tyranny. Exactly. And today we're going to explore 00:05:08.420 --> 00:05:10.740 both sides of that. We'll look at the history 00:05:10.740 --> 00:05:13.540 from 1981 all the way to today. We'll get into 00:05:13.540 --> 00:05:15.420 the psychology. We're talking about concepts 00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:18.519 like safetyism and the spiral of silence. And 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:20.420 we're going to dive into the philosophy, bringing 00:05:20.420 --> 00:05:22.399 in some heavyweights like John Stuart Mill and 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:24.959 Martha Nussbaum. And crucially, we are going 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.629 to bust the biggest myth of all. which is that 00:05:27.629 --> 00:05:30.790 this is a partisan weapon used by only one side 00:05:30.790 --> 00:05:32.709 of the political spectrum. Because, as we'll 00:05:32.709 --> 00:05:35.209 see, the evidence shows that is just factually 00:05:35.209 --> 00:05:38.589 untrue. Cancellation, it turns out, is an equal 00:05:38.589 --> 00:05:41.430 opportunity tool. It is absolutely tool agnostic. 00:05:41.709 --> 00:05:43.810 OK, let's unpack all of this and let's start 00:05:43.810 --> 00:05:45.470 where you promised we would. Let's start with 00:05:45.470 --> 00:05:47.389 that disco beat. Let's do it. Because when I 00:05:47.389 --> 00:05:48.810 found this in the notes, I actually laughed out 00:05:48.810 --> 00:05:52.290 loud. We have this image of canceling as this 00:05:52.290 --> 00:05:55.269 very modern, very serious, very online thing. 00:05:56.350 --> 00:05:58.810 But the etymology, the origin of the word itself, 00:05:58.949 --> 00:06:01.790 traces back to 1981. It really does. It takes 00:06:01.790 --> 00:06:04.350 us back to the legendary band Chic. Chic. Le 00:06:04.350 --> 00:06:08.310 Freak. Good times. Legends. Nile Rodgers is an 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:12.129 absolute musical genius. Undisputed. So in 1981, 00:06:12.410 --> 00:06:15.329 they released an album called Take It Off. And 00:06:15.329 --> 00:06:17.490 on that album, kind of buried in the track list, 00:06:17.689 --> 00:06:20.730 is a song titled Your Love Is Cancelled. Your 00:06:20.730 --> 00:06:22.290 Love Is Cancelled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds 00:06:22.290 --> 00:06:24.329 like a bad game show tagline or something. It 00:06:24.329 --> 00:06:26.550 really does. But the backstory here is fantastic. 00:06:27.189 --> 00:06:30.110 Nile Rodgers, the guitarist and primary songwriter, 00:06:30.269 --> 00:06:33.069 had gone on a date. Okay. And apparently it was 00:06:33.069 --> 00:06:35.860 a very, very bad date. The woman he was with 00:06:35.860 --> 00:06:39.000 expected him to use his celebrity status to do 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.660 things for her. Oh, no. Yeah. She wanted him 00:06:41.660 --> 00:06:44.379 to get her into exclusive clubs, maybe buy her 00:06:44.379 --> 00:06:46.259 expensive things. It was pretty clear she was 00:06:46.259 --> 00:06:48.339 there for the clout, not for the actual connection. 00:06:48.699 --> 00:06:51.100 She's trying to leverage his fame. A tale as 00:06:51.100 --> 00:06:53.519 old as time. A tale as old as time. And Nile 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:56.079 Rodgers, being this incredibly cool, creative 00:06:56.079 --> 00:06:58.480 person, just wasn't having it. He was frustrated. 00:06:58.759 --> 00:07:01.100 So being a songwriter, what does he do? He channels 00:07:01.100 --> 00:07:03.519 that frustration into his work. He writes a song 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:06.060 about it. He writes the song comparing the breakup 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:08.199 of a relationship to the cancellation of a TV 00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:11.660 show. He's literally using the metaphor of a 00:07:11.660 --> 00:07:14.379 network executive pulling the plug. That's brilliant. 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:17.480 He's saying our ratings are down. The sponsors 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:19.639 are leaving. The network is pulling the plug. 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:22.899 Your love is canceled. I love that. It's so witty 00:07:22.899 --> 00:07:24.899 and a little bit petty and just perfect disco 00:07:24.899 --> 00:07:27.699 drama. It's such a creative way to say we are 00:07:27.699 --> 00:07:32.319 done. It is. But how do we get from a Nile Rodgers. 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:37.860 deep cut on a 1981 album to, you know, a geopolitical 00:07:37.860 --> 00:07:40.379 weapon. That's a huge leap. It's a fascinating 00:07:40.379 --> 00:07:43.420 case of cultural transmission. The song itself 00:07:43.420 --> 00:07:45.639 might have just faded into obscurity. It wasn't 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:47.779 a massive hit like La Freak or anything. Right. 00:07:47.899 --> 00:07:49.899 But a screenwriter named Barry Michael Cooper 00:07:49.899 --> 00:07:52.839 heard it and that phrase canceled, just stuck 00:07:52.839 --> 00:07:55.620 in his head. So 10 years later, a full decade, 00:07:55.899 --> 00:07:58.579 he's writing the script for the 1991 film New 00:07:58.579 --> 00:08:01.519 Jack City. Classic movie. Wesley Snikes as the 00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:04.120 drug lord Nino Brown, an iconic performance. 00:08:04.379 --> 00:08:07.220 An absolute classic. And Cooper puts that line 00:08:07.220 --> 00:08:09.379 into the movie. There's a scene where Nino Brown 00:08:09.379 --> 00:08:11.220 is breaking up with a woman in a very harsh, 00:08:11.319 --> 00:08:13.139 dismissive way. I remember this. And he just 00:08:13.139 --> 00:08:15.839 says, cancel that B. I'll censor myself there, 00:08:15.939 --> 00:08:18.579 but you get the idea. And that's the spark. That 00:08:18.579 --> 00:08:20.800 is the moment it jumps from the song into the 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:23.040 wider lexicon. That appears to be the moment. 00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:26.399 It became slang. It entered what linguists call 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:29.519 African -American Vernacular English, or AAVE. 00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:33.019 And at this stage, it is absolutely crucial to 00:08:33.019 --> 00:08:36.059 note, it was not political. Not at all. It had 00:08:36.059 --> 00:08:39.879 nothing to do with voting records or old tweets 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:42.820 or problematic statements. It wasn't about holding 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:46.039 someone accountable for some societal transgression. 00:08:46.259 --> 00:08:48.820 No, not in the slightest. It was purely slang 00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:51.480 for a personal decision to disinvest in someone. 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:53.340 So, Amanda, I'm done with you. You were dead 00:08:53.340 --> 00:08:55.480 to me. I'm not dealing with you anymore. It was 00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.299 about personal agency. It was about setting a 00:08:57.299 --> 00:09:00.320 boundary. OK, so we have this slang term percolating 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:03.720 in AAVE for a couple of decades. Then we fast 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:06.820 forward to around 2015. This is where the story 00:09:06.820 --> 00:09:09.379 pivots to black Twitter, right? Correct. Around 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:12.700 2015, we see the concept of canceling just explode 00:09:12.700 --> 00:09:15.419 in usage on black Twitter. But again, the usage 00:09:15.419 --> 00:09:17.820 was really nuanced. How so? It was often used 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:20.360 in jest. It was hyperbolic. You know, people 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:24.039 would say things like, it's raining out. So it 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:30.039 was just a funny way of expressing annoyance 00:09:30.039 --> 00:09:32.740 or disapproval. Exactly. Jonah Engel Bromwich 00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:34.740 at the New York Times did a piece on this, and 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:38.320 he described it as indicating a total disinvestment 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:41.200 in something. Anything. It could be serious. 00:09:41.299 --> 00:09:44.259 It could be a joke. But then something shifts. 00:09:44.500 --> 00:09:46.919 And this feels like the real pivot point for 00:09:46.919 --> 00:09:49.210 our entire discussion today. This is the moment 00:09:49.210 --> 00:09:52.090 of weaponization. Yes. We move from these isolated 00:09:52.090 --> 00:09:55.330 instances of online shaming or just joking around 00:09:55.330 --> 00:09:59.549 to a culture of outrage. The transition is subtle 00:09:59.549 --> 00:10:03.289 but profound. It's the move from I am done with 00:10:03.289 --> 00:10:05.789 this person to we must all be done with this 00:10:05.789 --> 00:10:07.950 person. That is a huge leap. It goes from being 00:10:07.950 --> 00:10:10.789 a personal boundary to a collective demand. A 00:10:10.789 --> 00:10:13.990 moral imperative. It stops being about my relationship 00:10:13.990 --> 00:10:15.669 with you and starts being about my relationship 00:10:15.669 --> 00:10:18.440 with the group. About you. And that demand is 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:21.399 then enforced by the mob, by the digital crowd. 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:23.860 It becomes a litmus test of your own morality. 00:10:24.220 --> 00:10:26.840 If I cancel this person for their transgression 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:28.919 and you don't join me. Then maybe you're part 00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:31.080 of the problem. And maybe you need to be canceled, 00:10:31.179 --> 00:10:32.860 too. And then, of course, we hit the earthquake 00:10:32.860 --> 00:10:37.419 of 2017. Harvey Weinstein. October 2017. This 00:10:37.419 --> 00:10:40.620 is the hashtag me too turning point. I mean, 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:42.500 the allegations against Weinstein were just. 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:46.659 horrific decades of systemic abuse. And the fallout 00:10:46.659 --> 00:10:49.700 was massive. Expulsion from the academy, cancellation 00:10:49.700 --> 00:10:52.539 of his projects. And most importantly, actual 00:10:52.539 --> 00:10:55.159 legal consequences. He was eventually convicted 00:10:55.159 --> 00:10:57.259 of rape and sent to prison. And I don't think 00:10:57.259 --> 00:10:59.080 anyone would look at that and argue it wasn't 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:01.240 justice. That seemed to be exactly what the system 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.120 is supposed to do, even if it took far too long. 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:05.379 All right. But this is where the term cancel 00:11:05.379 --> 00:11:07.600 culture starts getting applied to these really 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:09.620 high stakes scenarios. We saw it again just a 00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:12.100 month later with Louis C .K. in November 2017. 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:14.980 He admitted to years of sexual misconduct. He 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:17.240 did. And the consequences were swift. His shows 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:19.539 were canceled. His distribution deals were terminated. 00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:22.460 He was dropped by his management and his publicist. 00:11:22.460 --> 00:11:24.600 It looked like his career was over. But here's 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:26.519 where it gets really, really interesting and 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:29.360 where that question of does it even work starts 00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:32.240 to come in. Louis C .K. didn't just vanish into 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:35.250 the ether. No, he did not. He returned to stand 00:11:35.250 --> 00:11:38.029 -up touring in 2018. He sold out Madison Square 00:11:38.029 --> 00:11:41.269 Garden multiple times. And in 2022, he won a 00:11:41.269 --> 00:11:44.110 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. A Grammy. 00:11:44.730 --> 00:11:48.049 After being canceled. After being, for a time, 00:11:48.129 --> 00:11:50.529 the poster child for career destruction in the 00:11:50.529 --> 00:11:53.070 hashtag MeToo era. Which forces us to ask a really 00:11:53.070 --> 00:11:56.370 uncomfortable question. Is cancellation permanent? 00:11:57.350 --> 00:12:00.470 Or is it just a pause button for the rich and 00:12:00.470 --> 00:12:02.960 famous? For Weinstein, it was... Prison total, 00:12:03.139 --> 00:12:05.139 permanent removal from society. But for Louis 00:12:05.139 --> 00:12:07.899 C .K., it was effectively a career hiatus, a 00:12:07.899 --> 00:12:11.500 forced sabbatical. This variability, this inconsistency 00:12:11.500 --> 00:12:13.940 is a huge part of why the definition is so slippery 00:12:13.940 --> 00:12:16.960 and so debated. So we have this mechanism, we 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:19.440 have the history. But what is actually happening 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:22.039 in our brains when we participate in this? Because... 00:12:22.409 --> 00:12:24.370 Let's be honest, it can feel good, can't it? 00:12:24.389 --> 00:12:26.509 Oh, absolutely. It feels like you're doing something 00:12:26.509 --> 00:12:28.070 righteous. You're on the right side of history. 00:12:28.250 --> 00:12:30.029 You're fighting the good fight. To understand 00:12:30.029 --> 00:12:31.610 that feeling, we need to look at the psychology 00:12:31.610 --> 00:12:33.990 and the sociology of calling out. And the first 00:12:33.990 --> 00:12:35.730 thing we have to do is distinguish between two 00:12:35.730 --> 00:12:38.889 terms, call out culture and cancel culture. I 00:12:38.889 --> 00:12:40.830 feel like I usually hear them used interchangeably. 00:12:40.929 --> 00:12:43.009 They often are, but they're cousins, not twins. 00:12:43.370 --> 00:12:45.909 They're distinct. Okay, so break it down for 00:12:45.909 --> 00:12:48.490 us. Eve Enga, who is a media studies scholar. 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:52.279 defines cancel culture specifically as the withdrawal 00:12:52.279 --> 00:12:55.179 of support. It's about viewership, purchases, 00:12:55.700 --> 00:12:58.700 ticket sales. It's about hitting a public figure 00:12:58.700 --> 00:13:02.120 where it hurts their wallet and their platform. 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:04.539 So it's economic and social warfare. That's a 00:13:04.539 --> 00:13:06.419 good way to put it. It's rooted in a social justice 00:13:06.419 --> 00:13:09.879 perspective, targeting sexism, racism, homophobia, 00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:13.200 and using market forces as the weapon. And Lisa 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:14.919 Nakamura from the University of Michigan has 00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:16.759 a really interesting take on this. She calls 00:13:16.759 --> 00:13:19.539 it an ultimate expression of agency. I think 00:13:19.539 --> 00:13:22.360 Nakamura's point is absolutely vital for understanding 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:24.940 the motivation here. Think about who is usually 00:13:24.940 --> 00:13:27.080 doing the canceling, at least in this formulation. 00:13:28.220 --> 00:13:30.620 Historically, it's people who don't have access 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:33.279 to the traditional levers of power. They don't 00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:35.480 own TV networks. They don't run the newspapers. 00:13:35.860 --> 00:13:39.860 They can't fire CEOs. Social media is the one 00:13:39.860 --> 00:13:42.059 place where their collective voice has power. 00:13:42.519 --> 00:13:44.220 So it's a way of leveling the playing field. 00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:47.600 Nakamura argues that canceling is born of a desire 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:50.779 for control and for accountability that isn't 00:13:50.779 --> 00:13:54.019 centralized. It's a distributed justice system. 00:13:54.220 --> 00:13:56.899 So if the actual justice system won't punish 00:13:56.899 --> 00:14:00.200 a powerful person for being, say, racist or sexist, 00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:02.620 and the HR department ignores all the complaints. 00:14:03.019 --> 00:14:05.960 People say, fine, we'll do it ourselves. It becomes 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:08.559 a cultural boycott. It's the market speaking 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:11.840 loudly. But there's a flip side to this agency. 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:14.480 A darker side. And this is where we get into 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:17.580 the concept of safetyism. Yes. This comes from 00:14:17.580 --> 00:14:19.720 Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, who wrote 00:14:19.720 --> 00:14:22.220 the very influential and also very controversial 00:14:22.220 --> 00:14:24.860 book, The Coddling of the American Mind. I've 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:26.419 heard a lot about this. What's the core idea? 00:14:26.840 --> 00:14:29.360 Hate and Lukianoff argue that call -out culture, 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:31.899 particularly on college campuses, stems from 00:14:31.899 --> 00:14:34.320 a fundamental shift in moral culture. They call 00:14:34.320 --> 00:14:37.159 this new culture safetyism. Safetyism, meaning? 00:14:37.419 --> 00:14:39.480 It's the belief that people, especially young 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:41.659 people, need to be protected not just from physical 00:14:41.659 --> 00:14:44.440 harm, but from emotional harm and from offensive 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:47.299 ideas. So this is the framework where you get 00:14:47.299 --> 00:14:50.620 the idea that words can be violence. That's the 00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:53.519 core of it. In this framework, if you believe 00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:56.139 that hearing an offensive or challenging opinion 00:14:56.139 --> 00:14:59.000 causes you actual trauma, that it is a form of 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:01.779 violence, then you have a moral obligation to 00:15:01.779 --> 00:15:04.879 shut that speech down. So you aren't just disagreeing 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:08.259 with it. You're actively preventing harm. Exactly. 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:12.360 You're creating a safe space. Which sounds noble 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:14.360 on the surface. I mean, who doesn't want people 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:17.519 to feel safe? But the critique is that it completely 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:21.000 shuts down necessary conversations. It leads 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:23.659 to a refusal to make tradeoffs. The argument 00:15:23.659 --> 00:15:26.519 is that the need for open debate is secondary 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:29.419 to the need for emotional safety. And that shutting 00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:32.019 down has a name. It's a well -documented phenomenon 00:15:32.019 --> 00:15:34.120 in political science. It's called the spiral 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:36.200 of silence. That sounds like a sci -fi movie 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.080 title. It does sound dramatic, doesn't it? The 00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:40.279 spiral of silence. Or maybe a heavy metal album. 00:15:40.519 --> 00:15:42.779 Totally. But what is it, actually? It's a very 00:15:42.779 --> 00:15:45.559 grounded political science theory. It was originally 00:15:45.559 --> 00:15:48.480 proposed by Elizabeth Noel Newman, but it was 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:50.320 highlighted in the context of cancel culture 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:53.720 by Pippa Norris at Harvard. The theory is that 00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:56.240 people have sort of sixth sense for public opinion. 00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:58.840 We can read the room. We can read the room. We 00:15:58.840 --> 00:16:01.679 are intensely social animals and we are constantly 00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:03.779 scanning our environment, whether that's an office, 00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:05.620 a classroom or the Internet, to see what the 00:16:05.620 --> 00:16:08.259 majority view is. Because we don't want to be 00:16:08.259 --> 00:16:10.480 the odd one out. We don't want to be the antelope 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:13.059 that strays too far from the herd. Exactly. We 00:16:13.059 --> 00:16:15.720 fear social isolation more than almost anything. 00:16:16.159 --> 00:16:19.080 So let's say you're on Twitter or you're in a 00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:21.980 university seminar. You see everyone shouting 00:16:21.980 --> 00:16:25.000 one opinion. Loudly. And you see that anyone 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:27.639 who expresses even a mild disagreement is getting 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:29.700 absolutely destroyed. They're mocked. They're 00:16:29.700 --> 00:16:32.919 shamed. They're called horrible names. Even if 00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:35.240 you privately disagree with the group, you see 00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:37.279 the consequences of speaking up. So what do you 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:39.679 do? I keep my mouth shut. It's not worth the 00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:42.179 trouble. Precisely. And here's the crucial mechanism 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:45.460 of the spiral. Because you remain silent. and 00:16:45.460 --> 00:16:47.379 the person next to you who also disagrees remains 00:16:47.379 --> 00:16:50.779 silent, the loud side looks even stronger and 00:16:50.779 --> 00:16:53.320 more unanimous than it actually is. It creates 00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:55.519 an illusion of consensus. A false consensus. 00:16:56.059 --> 00:16:58.480 Which makes the next person who disagrees even 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:01.860 more afraid to speak, and the next. Hence, the 00:17:01.860 --> 00:17:05.880 spiral. It spins downward until only one opinion 00:17:05.880 --> 00:17:08.599 is allowed to be voiced publicly. It's self -reinforcing. 00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:10.759 And Keith Hampton at Michigan State University 00:17:10.759 --> 00:17:13.579 found something really critical here in his research. 00:17:13.700 --> 00:17:16.380 He found that cancel culture contributes massively 00:17:16.380 --> 00:17:19.720 to political polarization. But, and this is the 00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:22.539 absolute kicker, it does not actually change 00:17:22.539 --> 00:17:24.779 opinions. Wait, it doesn't change minds? No. 00:17:25.150 --> 00:17:28.029 The people being canceled or, more importantly, 00:17:28.170 --> 00:17:30.589 the much larger group of people watching the 00:17:30.589 --> 00:17:32.849 cancellation and staying silent, they don't say, 00:17:32.910 --> 00:17:34.750 oh, wow, I guess I was wrong. They say, I better 00:17:34.750 --> 00:17:37.450 shut up. I hate you for making me shut up. It 00:17:37.450 --> 00:17:39.730 just drives their opinion underground. It doesn't 00:17:39.730 --> 00:17:41.730 eliminate the disagreement. It just makes it 00:17:41.730 --> 00:17:43.809 fester in the dark where it often becomes more 00:17:43.809 --> 00:17:46.789 extreme. That seems incredibly dangerous for 00:17:46.789 --> 00:17:49.410 a functioning democracy. If we aren't arguing, 00:17:49.569 --> 00:17:51.769 we aren't thinking, we're just performing compliance. 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:54.839 And that brings us directly to the philosophical 00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:57.519 battleground, because this isn't just about Twitter 00:17:57.519 --> 00:18:00.259 feelings or campus politics. This is about the 00:18:00.259 --> 00:18:03.740 fundamental principles of liberty and free society. 00:18:04.519 --> 00:18:07.039 We have to talk about free speech. Is cancel 00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:10.420 culture a form of free speech or is it the enemy 00:18:10.420 --> 00:18:12.960 of free speech? It feels like it can't be both. 00:18:13.079 --> 00:18:15.480 That is the million dollar crusher. And we have 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:17.539 some very heavy hitters on both sides of this 00:18:17.539 --> 00:18:19.819 argument. Who's on the defense team? On the defense, 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.339 you have people like Eugene Scalia, the former 00:18:22.339 --> 00:18:25.880 secretary of labor. He argues that legally speaking, 00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:28.779 cancel culture is a form of free speech. How 00:18:28.779 --> 00:18:31.180 does he square that circle? That seems so counterintuitive. 00:18:31.589 --> 00:18:33.529 Well, think about it from a strict First Amendment 00:18:33.529 --> 00:18:36.410 perspective. The First Amendment protects your 00:18:36.410 --> 00:18:38.829 right to speak. It prevents the government from 00:18:38.829 --> 00:18:40.750 arresting you for your opinion. Right? It's about 00:18:40.750 --> 00:18:42.849 government action. But it also protects my right 00:18:42.849 --> 00:18:45.369 to criticize you. It protects my right to boycott 00:18:45.369 --> 00:18:47.690 you. It protects my right to stand on a soapbox 00:18:47.690 --> 00:18:49.869 and tell all my friends, don't buy this person's 00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:52.609 books or don't watch their movies. So if a group 00:18:52.609 --> 00:18:55.170 of people decides... We don't like what this 00:18:55.170 --> 00:18:57.789 person said, so we are collectively refusing 00:18:57.789 --> 00:19:00.710 to buy their product. That's just the free market 00:19:00.710 --> 00:19:04.670 of ideas and action. Legally, yes, that's a protected 00:19:04.670 --> 00:19:08.230 form of expression. But socially, it feels very 00:19:08.230 --> 00:19:10.309 different. And that is where the philosopher 00:19:10.309 --> 00:19:12.690 John Stuart Mill comes in. OK, we're going back 00:19:12.690 --> 00:19:15.630 to the 19th century now. To his seminal 1859 00:19:15.630 --> 00:19:19.130 work on liberty, Mill warned about something 00:19:19.130 --> 00:19:22.490 he called social tyranny. Social tyranny. Tell 00:19:22.490 --> 00:19:25.349 me more about that. Mill argued that society 00:19:25.349 --> 00:19:29.009 itself can practice a tyranny that is more formidable 00:19:29.009 --> 00:19:31.970 than many kinds of political oppression. Whoa. 00:19:32.190 --> 00:19:34.539 More formidable than the government. That's a 00:19:34.539 --> 00:19:37.000 really bold claim. It is. But think about his 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:39.759 reasoning. The government's power, while immense, 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:41.900 has limits. They can't be in your living room 00:19:41.900 --> 00:19:43.720 all the time. They can't monitor every conversation 00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:45.400 you have with your friend group. At least they 00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:47.859 weren't supposed to be able to. Right. But social 00:19:47.859 --> 00:19:50.900 tyranny, Mills said, penetrates much more deeply 00:19:50.900 --> 00:19:53.900 into the details of life and enslaves the soul 00:19:53.900 --> 00:19:57.380 itself. Well, enslaves the soul. That hits hard. 00:19:57.880 --> 00:20:00.200 That's not a phrase you just toss around. Mills' 00:20:00.259 --> 00:20:03.000 point was that if you are terrified of your neighbors 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:06.039 shunning you, If you live in constant fear that 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:08.259 your employer will fire you for a private opinion 00:20:08.259 --> 00:20:11.420 you expressed, you're not truly free. Even if 00:20:11.420 --> 00:20:13.700 the law says you have free speech. If the social 00:20:13.700 --> 00:20:16.259 cost of using that speech is the destruction 00:20:16.259 --> 00:20:19.019 of your entire life, then you don't really have 00:20:19.019 --> 00:20:21.319 it in any meaningful way. It's a right you're 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:23.839 too afraid to exercise. And the modern philosopher 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:26.140 Martha Nussbaum takes this a step further, right? 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:29.039 She talks about the justice of the mob. Nussbaum 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:31.740 is... extremely critical of this phenomenon. 00:20:32.039 --> 00:20:35.319 She argues that what we see online is mob justice 00:20:35.319 --> 00:20:38.640 and it is fundamentally not deliberative. It's 00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:41.079 not impartial. What does she mean by deliberative? 00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:43.869 Think about a court of law. It has procedures. 00:20:44.009 --> 00:20:46.289 It has rules of evidence. It has a defense attorney, 00:20:46.450 --> 00:20:48.930 a prosecutor. There's a judge, a jury. There's 00:20:48.930 --> 00:20:51.369 a process of weighing facts. The Internet mob 00:20:51.369 --> 00:20:53.630 has none of that. It's just instant emotional 00:20:53.630 --> 00:20:56.130 judgment. It's guilty until proven innocent. 00:20:56.250 --> 00:20:58.329 And even if you are somehow proven innocent, 00:20:58.509 --> 00:21:00.490 it doesn't matter because the punishment, the 00:21:00.490 --> 00:21:02.809 reputational damage has already been inflicted. 00:21:02.829 --> 00:21:06.609 The damage is the process. And she has this concept 00:21:06.609 --> 00:21:09.150 of the spoiled identity, which I found really 00:21:09.150 --> 00:21:12.000 chilling. Yes, this is crucial. A spoiled identity 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:14.500 means that the person who is canceled is branded 00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:17.779 as irredeemable. They aren't just someone who 00:21:17.779 --> 00:21:20.779 made a mistake. Their very identity is now spoiled. 00:21:21.019 --> 00:21:23.480 They are a mistake. They are seen as fundamentally 00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:26.500 unwelcome in the community forever. It's the 00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:28.859 modern equivalent of the scarlet letter. You 00:21:28.859 --> 00:21:31.119 wear the mark of your sin and it defines you 00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:33.980 completely. And Nussbaum's warning is that this 00:21:33.980 --> 00:21:36.279 creates a society without forgiveness, without 00:21:36.279 --> 00:21:39.519 grace. A society where one slip up can define 00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:41.900 you for the rest of your life. But is there any 00:21:41.900 --> 00:21:44.910 counter argument here? I mean, can shame be a 00:21:44.910 --> 00:21:47.529 good thing? Shame is a powerful social tool. 00:21:47.730 --> 00:21:49.990 It stops us from doing terrible things sometimes. 00:21:50.289 --> 00:21:52.470 That's the nuance. Some philosophers, and they're 00:21:52.470 --> 00:21:54.309 referencing thinkers going all the way back to 00:21:54.309 --> 00:21:56.890 Plato, and modern counselors like Anna Richards 00:21:56.890 --> 00:21:59.589 argued that shame can be constructive. How so? 00:21:59.769 --> 00:22:01.950 It can lead to moral improvement. It teaches 00:22:01.950 --> 00:22:04.349 us social norms. It makes us reflect on our behavior. 00:22:04.849 --> 00:22:07.809 But, and this is a massive but, it only works 00:22:07.809 --> 00:22:10.109 if it is paired with a belief in redemption. 00:22:11.269 --> 00:22:14.160 There has to be a way back. Exactly. The message 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.519 has to be, you did a bad thing, and you need 00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:18.980 to understand why it was bad, fix it, and then 00:22:18.980 --> 00:22:20.660 you can come back into the community. It can't 00:22:20.660 --> 00:22:23.680 be, you are a bad person, so go away and never 00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:26.859 come back. If there's no path back, if the door 00:22:26.859 --> 00:22:29.819 is permanently locked from the inside, then the 00:22:29.819 --> 00:22:32.480 shame isn't constructive. It's purely destructive. 00:22:32.579 --> 00:22:34.779 It's purely punitive. It doesn't make the person 00:22:34.779 --> 00:22:38.349 better. It just destroys them. Yeah. Now... I 00:22:38.349 --> 00:22:40.529 want to pivot to something that I think genuinely 00:22:40.529 --> 00:22:42.490 surprises a lot of people when they dig into 00:22:42.490 --> 00:22:45.569 this. There's this persistent myth, this narrative 00:22:45.569 --> 00:22:49.130 that cancel culture is a tool of the woke left. 00:22:49.509 --> 00:22:51.670 Oh, yeah. You hear it on talk radio and cable 00:22:51.670 --> 00:22:54.250 news constantly. The left is canceling us. The 00:22:54.250 --> 00:22:56.369 left is censoring free thought. That is very 00:22:56.369 --> 00:22:58.670 common perception. But the historical record 00:22:58.670 --> 00:23:00.849 and the modern evidence show that it is completely 00:23:00.849 --> 00:23:03.490 factually false. The mechanism of cancellation, 00:23:03.690 --> 00:23:06.529 as you said before, is tool agnostic. It happens 00:23:06.529 --> 00:23:09.109 across the entire. political spectrum, the historian 00:23:09.109 --> 00:23:11.289 Nicole Hammer points out that the American right 00:23:11.289 --> 00:23:14.230 has been canceling people for decades, long before 00:23:14.230 --> 00:23:16.890 the term even existed. You dug up some history 00:23:16.890 --> 00:23:19.430 on this that really blew my mind because I think 00:23:19.430 --> 00:23:21.450 we tend to have such short memories. Well, think 00:23:21.450 --> 00:23:24.569 about the most famous example, McCarthyism in 00:23:24.569 --> 00:23:27.970 the 1940s and 50s. The Red Scare. The Hollywood 00:23:27.970 --> 00:23:30.210 blacklist. That was the ultimate cancel culture. 00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:33.380 It was the state and society working hand in 00:23:33.380 --> 00:23:35.960 glove. People were blacklisted from their industry, 00:23:36.220 --> 00:23:39.519 fired from government jobs, and socially ostracized 00:23:39.519 --> 00:23:42.220 because of an accusation of communist sympathies. 00:23:42.279 --> 00:23:44.200 You didn't even have to be a communist. You just 00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:46.920 had to be accused of knowing one or not being 00:23:46.920 --> 00:23:49.740 willing to name names. It ruined thousands of 00:23:49.740 --> 00:23:51.900 lives and careers. And then you have the lavender 00:23:51.900 --> 00:23:54.500 scare running alongside it. This was the systematic 00:23:54.500 --> 00:23:57.299 firing of suspected gay employees in the federal 00:23:57.299 --> 00:23:59.829 government. It was a purge. based on the idea 00:23:59.829 --> 00:24:01.950 that they were a security risk. Or look at the 00:24:01.950 --> 00:24:05.309 1970s and Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign. 00:24:05.609 --> 00:24:07.930 Which sought to ban gay people from teaching 00:24:07.930 --> 00:24:10.109 in public schools. Or the constant attempts to 00:24:10.109 --> 00:24:12.849 ban books from school libraries, like Heather 00:24:12.849 --> 00:24:15.450 Has Two Mommies in the 90s. Or more recently, 00:24:15.450 --> 00:24:18.390 with groups like Moms for Liberty targeting LGBTQ 00:24:18.390 --> 00:24:21.349 -related books, like Entango Makes Three. So 00:24:21.349 --> 00:24:23.970 the target changes over the years. It's communists, 00:24:23.970 --> 00:24:26.930 then it's gay teachers, then it's books. But 00:24:26.930 --> 00:24:29.049 the tactic is exactly the same. It's exactly 00:24:29.049 --> 00:24:31.589 the same ostracism and the removal of livelihood 00:24:31.589 --> 00:24:35.369 in order to enforce a specific moral code. And 00:24:35.369 --> 00:24:38.269 we see it just as clearly in the modern era. 00:24:38.470 --> 00:24:40.769 We have to talk about the Bud Light boycott in 00:24:40.769 --> 00:24:44.170 2023. Oh, right. The Dylan Mulvaney situation. 00:24:44.269 --> 00:24:46.849 This is a huge story. It is a textbook example 00:24:46.849 --> 00:24:49.529 of right wing cancellation. Anheuser -Busch, 00:24:49.730 --> 00:24:52.049 the parent company of Bud Light, sent a single 00:24:52.049 --> 00:24:55.650 personalized can of beer to a transgender influencer. 00:24:56.140 --> 00:24:58.799 Dylan Mulvaney. It's one can. It wasn't even 00:24:58.799 --> 00:25:01.200 a commercial. It was one can for an Instagram 00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:04.140 post. The conservative backlash was swift. It 00:25:04.140 --> 00:25:06.859 was coordinated and it was massive. And it wasn't 00:25:06.859 --> 00:25:09.039 just, I disagree with this, so I'm not drinking 00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:11.319 this beer. No, it was a coordinated effort to 00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:13.859 destroy the brand's market share, to get the 00:25:13.859 --> 00:25:16.480 marketing executives who approved it fired. There 00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:18.660 were videos of people shooting cans of Bud Light. 00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:20.779 It was a cultural war. And it worked, didn't 00:25:20.779 --> 00:25:23.660 it? Their sales absolutely tanked. It hurt the 00:25:23.660 --> 00:25:26.079 product's performance significantly. And the 00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:28.380 Harvard Business Review noted that the real impact 00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:30.279 was that it made brand marketing departments 00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:33.099 across the country terrified of taking a stand 00:25:33.099 --> 00:25:35.339 on any social issue. That's the definition of 00:25:35.339 --> 00:25:38.099 a chilling effect. Exactly. And then we have 00:25:38.099 --> 00:25:41.759 a very recent, very dark example. The aftermath 00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:44.380 of the assassination of the conservative activist 00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:47.829 Charlie Kirk in 2025. This is a critical case 00:25:47.829 --> 00:25:50.049 study in what the New York Times called the rise 00:25:50.049 --> 00:25:52.990 of a woke right. It really is. So let's remind 00:25:52.990 --> 00:25:55.329 listeners of the specific details here. Charlie 00:25:55.329 --> 00:25:58.269 Kirk was assassinated. A political tragedy by 00:25:58.269 --> 00:26:00.950 any measure. But the reaction to the reaction 00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:03.529 was where the cancel culture element really came 00:26:03.529 --> 00:26:06.039 in. Right. After his death, there were some people 00:26:06.039 --> 00:26:08.460 on social media, liberals, leftists who were 00:26:08.460 --> 00:26:11.259 critical of him or in some cases who just failed 00:26:11.259 --> 00:26:13.740 to mourn him adequately. They were maybe indifferent 00:26:13.740 --> 00:26:16.759 or they were critical of his past rhetoric, even 00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:19.160 in the immediate wake of the event. And the response 00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:21.619 from prominent figures on the right wasn't just 00:26:21.619 --> 00:26:24.019 that's distasteful or that's disrespectful. No. 00:26:24.420 --> 00:26:28.019 J .D. Vance, the vice president, explicitly called 00:26:28.019 --> 00:26:30.759 on Americans to report people who were celebrating 00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:33.579 the killing. to their employers. He promised 00:26:33.579 --> 00:26:35.880 federal investigations into liberal organizations 00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:38.140 that didn't condemn it strongly enough. Think 00:26:38.140 --> 00:26:40.160 about that for a second. Yeah. The vice president 00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:42.740 of the United States called for private citizens 00:26:42.740 --> 00:26:46.539 to be reported to their employers for their speech. 00:26:46.819 --> 00:26:50.500 He was effectively deputizing the public to cancel 00:26:50.500 --> 00:26:52.960 their neighbors. Yes. And The New York Times 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:55.839 analysis described this as a conservative version 00:26:55.839 --> 00:26:59.029 of cancel culture. that mirrored exactly what 00:26:59.029 --> 00:27:01.230 the right had spent years criticizing the left 00:27:01.230 --> 00:27:04.029 for doing. The logic was identical. You have 00:27:04.029 --> 00:27:06.170 violated our sacred moral code so you should 00:27:06.170 --> 00:27:08.369 lose your livelihood. It's an absolutely perfect 00:27:08.369 --> 00:27:10.829 mirror image. Yeah. And we see the same dynamic 00:27:10.829 --> 00:27:13.069 on college campuses regarding the Israel -Palestine 00:27:13.069 --> 00:27:15.430 conflict, too, right? Absolutely. It's a political 00:27:15.430 --> 00:27:18.049 pincer movement. You have Republicans in Congress 00:27:18.049 --> 00:27:20.849 grilling university presidents, accusing them 00:27:20.849 --> 00:27:23.009 of not doing enough to silence speech that they 00:27:23.009 --> 00:27:25.210 perceive as anti -Semitic. Pushing for students 00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:27.599 to be expelled or faculty to be fired. At the 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:30.220 same time, you have pro -Palestine activists 00:27:30.220 --> 00:27:33.299 calling for boycotts and deplatforming of speakers 00:27:33.299 --> 00:27:36.539 and scholars they see as Zionist. You even had 00:27:36.539 --> 00:27:39.240 NYU withholding a diploma from a student who 00:27:39.240 --> 00:27:41.539 was critical of US support for the war in Gaza. 00:27:42.220 --> 00:27:44.200 So if you're pro -Palestine, you risk getting 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:46.559 canceled by one side. If you're pro -Israel, 00:27:46.700 --> 00:27:48.980 you risk getting canceled by the other. And stuck 00:27:48.980 --> 00:27:50.920 in the middle, you have that spiral of silence 00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:53.839 widening, just swallowing up everyone who is 00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:56.720 too afraid to say anything at all because they 00:27:56.720 --> 00:27:58.920 don't want to get hit by the political crossfire. 00:27:59.500 --> 00:28:01.859 So we've established that everyone does it. It's 00:28:01.859 --> 00:28:04.359 a bipartisan blood sport. But what does the average 00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:06.519 person think about all this? Yeah. Because if 00:28:06.519 --> 00:28:08.720 you look at the polling data, it seems like we're 00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:10.980 a nation of anxious people constantly looking 00:28:10.980 --> 00:28:13.559 over our shoulders. The data is really sobering. 00:28:13.619 --> 00:28:15.920 Pew Research Center, Morning Consult, Harvard 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:18.279 -Harris, they all paint a very similar picture 00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:21.599 of deep division and widespread fear. Let's hit 00:28:21.599 --> 00:28:24.720 some of those key stats. OK, so as of 2020, about 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:27.339 44 percent of Americans had heard a fair amount 00:28:27.339 --> 00:28:30.759 about cancel culture. So awareness is high. But 00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:33.299 the generational divide is really stark. What 00:28:33.299 --> 00:28:35.700 does that look like? 55 percent of voters aged 00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:39.019 18 to 34 admitted to taking part in cancel culture 00:28:39.019 --> 00:28:41.160 in some way. Over half of young people admit 00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:43.619 to doing it. That's incredible. Compare that 00:28:43.619 --> 00:28:45.839 to only 32 percent of voters over the age of 00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:48.700 65. So it is definitely a younger demographics 00:28:48.700 --> 00:28:52.410 tool of choice. But the fear. The fear is universal. 00:28:52.750 --> 00:28:55.490 This is the one that got me. A 2022 New York 00:28:55.490 --> 00:28:58.869 Times -Siena poll found that 84 % of adults believe 00:28:58.869 --> 00:29:01.529 it is a serious problem that Americans do not 00:29:01.529 --> 00:29:04.710 speak freely due to fear of retaliation. 84%. 00:29:04.710 --> 00:29:06.769 That is the vast majority of the country walking 00:29:06.769 --> 00:29:09.210 around afraid to say what they really think. 00:29:09.390 --> 00:29:10.950 I mean, just pause and consider the implications 00:29:10.950 --> 00:29:14.130 of that for a society. And 46%, nearly half, 00:29:14.230 --> 00:29:16.470 said they feel less free to talk politics than 00:29:16.470 --> 00:29:18.950 they did a decade ago. That is the social tyranny 00:29:18.950 --> 00:29:21.869 Mill was warning us about in 18... 1959, it's 00:29:21.869 --> 00:29:24.130 not a hypothetical anymore. We are living in 00:29:24.130 --> 00:29:26.210 it. But what's so interesting is that even with 00:29:26.210 --> 00:29:28.369 all that fear, Americans are completely split 00:29:28.369 --> 00:29:30.230 on what cancel culture actually means. Right. 00:29:30.369 --> 00:29:32.829 The definition itself is part of the fight. A 00:29:32.829 --> 00:29:35.230 morning consult poll found that 49 percent of 00:29:35.230 --> 00:29:37.410 people define it as holding people accountable 00:29:37.410 --> 00:29:40.430 for their actions. So half the country sees it 00:29:40.430 --> 00:29:44.500 as accountability. But 14 % define it as censorship 00:29:44.500 --> 00:29:47.920 and another 12 % define it as mean -spirited 00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:51.079 harm or bullying. So we are all looking at the 00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:53.539 exact same phenomenon and seeing two totally 00:29:53.539 --> 00:29:55.980 different things. One person's justice is another 00:29:55.980 --> 00:29:58.710 person's mob. Which has led to this concerted 00:29:58.710 --> 00:30:01.769 effort to rebrand the whole thing. You've probably 00:30:01.769 --> 00:30:03.930 heard the term consequence culture being used 00:30:03.930 --> 00:30:06.630 more and more. Yes, LeVar Burton, another legend, 00:30:06.769 --> 00:30:09.769 Geordie LaForge himself, and Sonny Hostin from 00:30:09.769 --> 00:30:12.190 The View have been big proponents of this. Their 00:30:12.190 --> 00:30:14.529 argument is that the term cancel culture is a 00:30:14.529 --> 00:30:17.170 loaded phrase. It's a right -wing talking point 00:30:17.170 --> 00:30:19.430 designed to imply the victimhood of the person 00:30:19.430 --> 00:30:21.769 being canceled. It frames them as the victim. 00:30:21.890 --> 00:30:24.029 Right. Consequence culture, on the other hand, 00:30:24.089 --> 00:30:26.539 reframes it. It implies that you are simply taking 00:30:26.539 --> 00:30:28.779 responsibility for the effects of your opinions 00:30:28.779 --> 00:30:31.700 and your speech. As the saying goes, freedom 00:30:31.700 --> 00:30:34.140 of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. 00:30:34.579 --> 00:30:37.440 Which is a very powerful and catchy slogan. But 00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:40.410 the skeptics aren't really buying it. No. John 00:30:40.410 --> 00:30:42.890 Ronson, who wrote the incredible book So You've 00:30:42.890 --> 00:30:45.410 Been Publicly Shamed, which I highly, highly 00:30:45.410 --> 00:30:48.109 recommend to everyone listening, argues that 00:30:48.109 --> 00:30:50.809 cancel culture isn't a useful term at all. Why 00:30:50.809 --> 00:30:52.829 not? Because it encompasses too many different 00:30:52.829 --> 00:30:55.529 things. It's too broad. Right. I mean, canceling 00:30:55.529 --> 00:30:58.730 Harvey Weinstein for actual crimes is not the 00:30:58.730 --> 00:31:00.829 same thing as canceling a teenager for a dumb 00:31:00.829 --> 00:31:02.789 tweet they made when they were 12 years old. 00:31:02.910 --> 00:31:05.869 They are two completely different moral and social 00:31:05.869 --> 00:31:08.369 universes, but we use the same term for both. 00:31:08.730 --> 00:31:11.069 And Sarah Manavis from the New Statesman points 00:31:11.069 --> 00:31:13.869 out that for non -famous people, for regular 00:31:13.869 --> 00:31:16.769 folks, public shaming isn't about free speech 00:31:16.769 --> 00:31:19.390 or consequences. It's about a massive power imbalance. 00:31:19.809 --> 00:31:22.630 Exactly. When thousands or hundreds of thousands 00:31:22.630 --> 00:31:25.349 of people pile on one normal person, a nurse, 00:31:25.450 --> 00:31:27.809 a truck driver, a student, that isn't accountability. 00:31:28.190 --> 00:31:30.529 That's just destruction. So this brings us to 00:31:30.529 --> 00:31:33.049 the ultimate practical question. Does any of 00:31:33.049 --> 00:31:35.809 this actually work? Does canceling someone actually 00:31:35.809 --> 00:31:38.519 achieve meaningful social change? Or is it mostly 00:31:38.519 --> 00:31:41.240 just noise and performance? There's a concept 00:31:41.240 --> 00:31:44.039 from linguistics called semantic bleaching that 00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:46.619 Danielle Kurtzelbin from NPR talks about in this 00:31:46.619 --> 00:31:49.579 context. Semantic bleaching. I like that. It 00:31:49.579 --> 00:31:51.039 sounds like something you do to your laundry 00:31:51.039 --> 00:31:53.000 when you use too much bleach. That's exactly 00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:56.160 the metaphor. It refers to when a word is used 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:59.359 so much in so many different contexts that the 00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:02.279 color, the specific meaning, is washed out of 00:32:02.279 --> 00:32:05.670 it. Becomes bleached. And the term cancel culture 00:32:05.670 --> 00:32:08.769 has been used so often by politicians, specifically 00:32:08.769 --> 00:32:12.750 Republicans, as this catch -all defense. If you're 00:32:12.750 --> 00:32:15.690 criticized for anything, a policy, a scandal, 00:32:15.789 --> 00:32:18.609 a lie, you just claim you're being canceled. 00:32:18.910 --> 00:32:21.549 It becomes a dog whistle, as the academic Pamela 00:32:21.549 --> 00:32:23.950 Palmater puts it. It's just a way to shut down 00:32:23.950 --> 00:32:25.970 criticism and avoid any real accountability. 00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:28.579 I'm not wrong. I'm just a victim of the woke 00:32:28.579 --> 00:32:31.099 mob. Exactly. It short -circuits the conversation. 00:32:31.500 --> 00:32:33.819 And when we look at the actual tangible effects, 00:32:34.059 --> 00:32:36.160 Conor Gurel from Vice argues that for the wealthy 00:32:36.160 --> 00:32:38.960 and the powerful, cancellation rarely has meaningful 00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:41.680 long -term effects on their lives. Like the Louis 00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:44.230 C .K. example. He won a Grammy. Or Mel Gibson, 00:32:44.430 --> 00:32:46.529 who continues to direct major movies. Right. 00:32:46.569 --> 00:32:49.589 Or Morgan Wallen, the country singer who had 00:32:49.589 --> 00:32:51.809 the number one album of the year right after 00:32:51.809 --> 00:32:54.670 being caught on tape using a racial slur. Precisely. 00:32:54.829 --> 00:32:57.170 If you are rich and powerful enough, you can 00:32:57.170 --> 00:32:59.849 wait it out. You have a redemption arc built 00:32:59.849 --> 00:33:02.230 into your PR budget. You can disappear to your 00:33:02.230 --> 00:33:04.549 mansion or a private island for a year and then 00:33:04.549 --> 00:33:07.299 come back when the news cycle moves on. but for 00:33:07.299 --> 00:33:09.980 ordinary people. For ordinary people, as Ligaya 00:33:09.980 --> 00:33:12.480 Mishan wrote in The Times, it is shambolically 00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:15.900 applied. It can range from a hostile online debate 00:33:15.900 --> 00:33:18.660 to full -blown stalking, harassment, and losing 00:33:18.660 --> 00:33:21.259 your livelihood. For a normal person, a Google 00:33:21.259 --> 00:33:23.740 search result that permanently labels you a racist 00:33:23.740 --> 00:33:26.900 or sexist is a life sentence. There's no Grammy 00:33:26.900 --> 00:33:29.119 waiting for you. There is no comeback tour. It's 00:33:29.119 --> 00:33:31.660 basically a caste system of cancellation. The 00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:33.839 powerful survive, and the weak are destroyed. 00:33:34.380 --> 00:33:36.960 Which is a very dark irony considering the tool 00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:39.200 was supposedly invented to give agency and a 00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:41.920 voice to the powerless. It's become so pervasive 00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:44.660 now that pop culture is just eating it up and 00:33:44.660 --> 00:33:47.099 satirizing it constantly. I mean, South Park 00:33:47.099 --> 00:33:49.240 did a whole hashtag cancel South Park marketing 00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:52.599 campaign. Which was just brilliant. They preemptively 00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:55.200 canceled themselves to mock the entire outrage 00:33:55.200 --> 00:33:57.619 cycle. They leaned into it. And then you have 00:33:57.619 --> 00:34:00.839 a serious artistic film like Tar. You've seen 00:34:00.839 --> 00:34:03.880 Tar. Oh, absolutely. Cate Blanchett is just phenomenal. 00:34:04.220 --> 00:34:06.779 It's a masterpiece. And it explores this nuance 00:34:06.779 --> 00:34:09.260 so perfectly. It asks the really hard question. 00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:13.400 Can we and should we separate the art from the 00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:16.239 artist? Lydia Tarr is a musical genius, but she 00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:18.260 is also a predator. The movie doesn't give you 00:34:18.260 --> 00:34:20.059 an easy answer. It just makes you sit in the 00:34:20.059 --> 00:34:22.349 mess of it all. And then on the complete other 00:34:22.349 --> 00:34:24.889 end of the cinematic spectrum, you have the 2022 00:34:24.889 --> 00:34:28.050 reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A slightly 00:34:28.050 --> 00:34:30.030 different artistic approach. Yes. There's this 00:34:30.030 --> 00:34:32.809 one scene that went viral where Leatherface, 00:34:32.989 --> 00:34:34.530 the guy with the chainsaw for those who don't 00:34:34.530 --> 00:34:37.190 know, is threatening a bus full of influencers 00:34:37.190 --> 00:34:40.309 who have come to gentrify this ghost town. And 00:34:40.309 --> 00:34:41.949 one of them holds up their phone and says, try 00:34:41.949 --> 00:34:44.079 anything and you're canceled, bro. And then he 00:34:44.079 --> 00:34:46.340 proceeds to kill all of them with a chainsaw. 00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:49.960 It's obviously over the top satire, but it captures 00:34:49.960 --> 00:34:51.900 the absurdity of thinking that a Twitter thread 00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:54.780 can stop a physical threat. It shows how disconnected 00:34:54.780 --> 00:34:57.920 online power can be from physical reality. And 00:34:57.920 --> 00:34:59.940 then there's a film like Dream Scenario with 00:34:59.940 --> 00:35:02.440 Nicolas Cage. The director said he conceived 00:35:02.440 --> 00:35:04.719 the idea after reading all these stories about 00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:06.619 professors being fired for personal opinions. 00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:09.659 It just captures the absolute nightmare of suddenly, 00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:13.519 inexplicably. becoming the villain in everyone's 00:35:13.519 --> 00:35:16.260 story, the sheer confusion of it. So where does 00:35:16.260 --> 00:35:18.659 this whole journey leave us? We've gone from 00:35:18.659 --> 00:35:21.739 a chic disco track about a bad date to J .D. 00:35:21.739 --> 00:35:24.039 Vance calling for federal investigations into 00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:26.699 how people grieve, all the way to Leatherface 00:35:26.699 --> 00:35:29.300 revving his chainsaw at influencers. It is a 00:35:29.300 --> 00:35:31.940 wild, wild journey. But if we try to synthesize 00:35:31.940 --> 00:35:34.219 all of this, if we zoom out, we are left with 00:35:34.219 --> 00:35:36.119 a core conflict that isn't going away anytime 00:35:36.119 --> 00:35:38.579 soon. The conflict between accountability and 00:35:38.579 --> 00:35:41.579 mercy. I think that's it. Exactly. On the one 00:35:41.579 --> 00:35:44.039 hand, we absolutely need mechanisms to hear the 00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:46.420 voices of the marginalized. We need to be able 00:35:46.420 --> 00:35:49.360 to say as a society, this behavior is unacceptable, 00:35:49.820 --> 00:35:52.280 especially when the law or the corporations fail 00:35:52.280 --> 00:35:55.079 to do so. That is the consequence culture argument. 00:35:55.340 --> 00:35:57.880 We cannot have a society where the powerful can 00:35:57.880 --> 00:36:00.429 do whatever they want. with impunity. But on 00:36:00.429 --> 00:36:02.849 the other hand, in building that mechanism, we 00:36:02.849 --> 00:36:06.050 have created a machine of spoiled identity, a 00:36:06.050 --> 00:36:08.489 machine that judges instantly, often without 00:36:08.489 --> 00:36:11.309 context, without due process, and that offers 00:36:11.309 --> 00:36:14.570 no clear path to redemption. And that machine 00:36:14.570 --> 00:36:17.789 is now being operated by everyone. The left uses 00:36:17.789 --> 00:36:20.670 it. The right uses it. It has become the primary 00:36:20.670 --> 00:36:23.250 weapon of modern cultural and political conflict. 00:36:23.510 --> 00:36:25.829 It's the social nuke we all carry around in our 00:36:25.829 --> 00:36:27.829 pockets. And as we discussed with the spiral 00:36:27.829 --> 00:36:30.750 of silence, it is making us all quieter, more 00:36:30.750 --> 00:36:33.949 afraid, and arguably more polarized and divided 00:36:33.949 --> 00:36:36.309 than ever before. We're just shouting at each 00:36:36.309 --> 00:36:38.010 other from our trenches, not talking to each 00:36:38.010 --> 00:36:40.130 other in a common square. So what's the final 00:36:40.130 --> 00:36:41.590 thought you want to leave our listeners with? 00:36:41.980 --> 00:36:43.480 Well, here's a thought I want to leave you with. 00:36:43.579 --> 00:36:46.519 We talked about Plato and the idea of constructive 00:36:46.519 --> 00:36:50.320 shame. The idea that shame can be a tool for 00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:54.079 good, but only if there is a door left open for 00:36:54.079 --> 00:36:56.599 the shamed person to come back in. The path to 00:36:56.599 --> 00:36:59.699 redemption. Right now, cancel culture. whether 00:36:59.699 --> 00:37:01.980 you call it mob justice or consequence culture, 00:37:02.179 --> 00:37:04.679 often feels like a house with no doors. It just 00:37:04.679 --> 00:37:06.500 locks people out. And my question for you is 00:37:06.500 --> 00:37:09.440 this. If we embrace a culture of cancellation 00:37:09.440 --> 00:37:12.139 without a clear and consistent mechanism for 00:37:12.139 --> 00:37:14.940 redemption, are we actually creating a society 00:37:14.940 --> 00:37:17.860 of moral improvement or are we merely creating 00:37:17.860 --> 00:37:20.699 a society of permanent exile? And if the tools 00:37:20.699 --> 00:37:23.500 of cancellation are now wielded by everyone against 00:37:23.500 --> 00:37:26.119 everyone, has the term cancellation even lost 00:37:26.119 --> 00:37:29.409 its meaning? Or is this just the new brutal normal 00:37:29.409 --> 00:37:32.269 of how we exist together in a digital world. 00:37:32.429 --> 00:37:34.590 It's a terrifying thought, but it's one we all 00:37:34.590 --> 00:37:37.110 have to confront. That is all for today's Deep 00:37:37.110 --> 00:37:38.849 Dive. We hope we don't get canceled for this 00:37:38.849 --> 00:37:40.949 one. Fingers crossed. Thanks for listening. We'll 00:37:40.949 --> 00:37:41.510 see you next time.