Imagine a world in which no unpleasant statements were ever uttered. A world in which one could never be insulted or mocked. A world in which anyone who ever dared to offend us would be immediately silenced and confined to an oubliette.
Ever since the advent of social media, many have attempted to create a simulacrum of this utopia through online censorship. This has taken the form of Silicon Valley tech giants intervening to prohibit the expression of certain opinions, or users actively campaigning to have other users removed from platforms. Many have taken it further, using the internet to track down offending parties and complaining to their employers. This attempt to destroy people’s livelihoods and reputations for causing offence has become known colloquially as ‘cancel culture’.
Typically, this is a tactic of those who identify as Left-wing, but the authoritarian instinct is common throughout humanity and is therefore not tied to any one specific political group. This week, we have seen many campaigners on the Right attempting to cancel those who have made unpleasant comments about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the murder of Corey Comperatore. The less imaginative have repeated the identical joke – “Make America Aim Again” – while others have expressed what appears to be genuine irritation that the gunman missed his target.
Grim stuff, obviously, but hardly unexpected. For years, we have seen that those who style themselves as being on “the right side of history”, who apply hashtags such as #BeKind and #LoveWins to their online bios, are often the most ferocious and unrelenting bullies. Their confidence in their own compassion seems to bear an inverse relationship to their actual capacity for empathy. The guise of virtue is naturally appealing for sociopaths seeking a cover for their cruelty.
Elon Musk has been so inundated with complaints that he felt obliged to post the following:
For some, there have been real-world consequences. A few days ago, an employee at Home Depot (a home improvement retailer in the U.S.) was filmed at work by a man questioning her about a recent Facebook post regarding the assassination attempt. She had written: “To [sic] bad they weren’t a better shooter!!!!!” The video went viral and she was fired.
Many of us will find the sentiments that she had expressed contemptible. Her words do not come close to the threshold for incitement to violence, but they do express an ugly flippancy about the sanctity of human life. Is this sufficient reason to see her lose her livelihood? This is likely a worker on a minimum wage and not somebody who can afford to be unemployed, let alone endure the ongoing stigma of such a targeted online campaign. Why could her detractors not have responded with criticism, or blocked her account, or simply ignored her? There’s a very good reason why the singer Nick Cave described cancel culture as “mercy’s antithesis”.
While emotions are running high the need to lash out is understandable, but that does not make it justifiable. I take the view that companies have no business monitoring the legal social media activity of their employees, and nor should they capitulate to demands to see them fired if others take offence. One might counter this view by pointing out that there are certain jobs in which a respectable public profile is essential. It would never occur to me to post any kind of endorsement of violence on social media, but if I did I would not expect to be hosting my show on GB News this weekend. It would be an immediate violation of my contract, one that I had willingly signed. This would not be a free speech matter.
But the vast majority of jobs do not in any way involve maintaining a public profile, and it seems grossly unfair to penalise people for mistakes that would in usual circumstances be almost instantly forgotten. The complainants often rationalise their position by claiming that no company would wish to employ “that kind of person”, and so by revealing their true colours these people deserve to lose their jobs. But this is to reduce humanity to a Disneyfied narrative of Goodies and Baddies. It is simply not the case that good people say good things and bad people say bad things. It is perfectly possible that the woman fired from Home Depot might later have regretted her words, perhaps written unthinkingly in the heat of the moment. But even if she hadn’t, is public shaming really the answer?
All of those calling for cancellations this week might want to ask themselves a simple question. If all the private messages you had ever sent were suddenly uploaded online for all to see, would you be happy with that? Are you really so pure that no statement you have made in the past could be weaponised against you?
In one of the more high profile cases, Jack Black has announced the cancellation of his Tenacious D tour after fellow band member Kyle Glass made a joke about the assassination at a show in Sydney. While blowing out the candles of a birthday cake on stage, he made the wish: “Don’t miss Trump next time.” Black later wrote on Instagram that he “would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form”. But can anyone honestly claim that this was the intention? It looks to me very much like a tasteless joke.
The expectation that human beings ought to be infallible is unrealistic and cruel. I do not approve of many of the comments I have seen about the violence of Saturday evening, but nor do I suppose that all of those making such comments are inherently evil. Even those who consistently and explicitly take joy in the suffering and deaths of their political opponents have the right to free speech. I do not ever wish to associate with such people, and so there is some benefit in their tendency to expose their sourness so willingly.
At heart, cancel culture is a form of revenge. Most people are rightly distressed by the spectacle of violence, and are resentful of those who appear to have no regard for human life, or are so wrapped up in their ideology that they have surrendered their basic empathy. The best response is criticism. There is nothing wrong with letting people know how we feel about them, particularly when they have behaved so badly. To leap directly to punishment and public shaming may make us feel better about ourselves, but its utility ends there. Either we are for cancel culture or we are against it. There is no middle ground.
Andrew Doyle is a writer, comedian and broadcaster who hosts the GB News show Free Speech Nation. He is the author of Free Speech and Why It Matters and The New Puritans. He created satirical Left-wing activist Titania McGrath, whose two books are Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. This article was first published on his Substack page. Subscribe here.
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Brilliant article, and great analogy about the hot air balloon.
Which reminds me of a thought which crossed my mind a while back, after happening upon this column by Freeland in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/17/political-imagination-end-lockdown-mass-testing-contact-tracing
…in which he used the quite inappropriate (though superficially plausible) analogy of the public being a family hiding in a cabin whilst a wild bear prowled outside, and needing to make a decision on when it was safe to come out (ie. when the bear had gone away).
For starters, I found this troubling because if the bear just stayed outside indefinitely the family would eventually starve.
But the point is, the analogy was wrong. Under lockdown, we are not sitting in a cabin which is safe and stable for the foreseeable future. Instead we are taking huge risks with the entire functioning of society.
The better analogy which then crossed my mind was we are all in a submarine. The virus was some unknown fault which sounded an alarm in the engine room. Under those circumstances it might be sensible to temporarily shut down the engines whilst the fault was investigated.
However what has happened with lockdown is the engines have just been left switched off and the powers that be are saying “let’s stay here until we can be perfectly sure they are safe to start up again. After all, we are all still breathing and everything is perfectly comfortable, isn’t it?”
Whilst all the time the ship sinks nearer to the bottom, the hull pressure increases and the remaining air decreases. We can only hope someone shouts the order to surface before the entire ship implodes.
Yes, the “bear” scenario really annoys me. Most people – apparently including almost all politicians and other “decision makers” – have no idea at all what viruses are, how small they are, or how ubiquitous they are.
The world is thought to contain about 10 to the power 33 viruses – more than stars in the universe, more than grains of sand in the world. Much of our human DNA consists of old viral genes from invaders that burst in, were assimilated, and joined the host genome. (Karin Moelling, a leading virologist, states that the human immune system was created by viruses trying to defend the cells they had conquered from other viruses).
Every human body is full of viruses, bacteria, fungi, archaea, amoebae and other microorganisms – a total of 2-3 kilos for an average adult. Only about 10% of our cells are human; the other 90% belong to our tiny symbiotes.
Thus, as Moelling explains, our immune system is not so much “at war” with viruses as “playing ping pong with them”. Health consists of keeping the balance between all the myriad elements of the human body.
To say that someone has “been infected” with Covid-19 is misleading. I am sure we all have a few billion of the little buggers somewhere in our bodies. It’s only when the number of billions ramps up sharply that we start to feel off-colour – and only then that tests can detect the virus. (Both the PCR and the antibody tests are extremely unreliable, giving both false positives and false negatives – not least because trying to confine a virus or keep it out is like, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “shovelling flies across a room”).
The virus does not really exist, in active form, anywhere except in human cells. It may lie around dormant on surfaces for a while, but eventually it degrades. And it probably gets into the body only through the nose, mouth and eyes. It gets the upper hand whenever the body is weakened – the immune system is inadequate, or there is some powerful stress. (Such as being locked down). Both stress and immune deficiency can be caused by a bad diet, such as Western governments have been recommending for the past 50 years, by vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and by lack of sunlight and fresh air (the best disinfectants).
So locking yourself in your house until the virus “goes away” is as ludicrous as the frantic attempts of a horror film victim to barricade the doors and windows – only to find the monster is already in the house. As Pogo said, “we have met the enemy and it is us”.
The virus will never go away. The best we can hope for is that, in time, almost everyone’s immune system will have encountered it and created sufficient defences to hold the balance – to maintain the ping-pong rally indefinitely. That is how human beings have been coping with viruses for the few million years humans have existed, and there is nothing else. Clever drugs and vaccines do no more than clumsily try to provoke the immune system into premature action – which may not end well even when it appears to succeed.
This is brilliant. This is what I have been trying to explain, but Tom Welsh has it well and truly nailed. Thank you!
What i find strange in this analogy you mention is what Roy Aitken, former Celtic FC and Scotland defender / midfielder would be doing outside a cabin terrorising a family.
I agree with the analysis. I think there is also a compounding problem of the “safe space” culture that has been propogated in the last 30 years. The BBC and the Guardian are guilty here but so is most of the rest of the press and now our politicians have succumbed. The Andrew Marr interview with Michael Gove last week is a prime example. The idea one can negate all risk is absurd. Gove rightly asserted one cannot avoid all risk but it is unfortunately a brave politician in this time of panic who actually speaks sense. And it pains me to write this as someone on the left who feels his world is crumbling before his eyes both figuratively, legally and economically.
“A courageous decision, Minister…”
Hmm, this psychological aspect is perhaps even scarier than the state to which governments have brought their economies. We have finally been allowed to go on the beach, but I keep wondering if we are actually about to go ‘On The Beach’ (a la Neville Shute).
That book has been on my mind a lot over the past few weeks.
Don’t think it’s just individuals, institutions are finding it hard as well. A week after the lockdown was eased here all the park car parks are still locked up, I think the local authorities are finding it easier not having to deal with the public
But how will they manage without the income? Not to mention deferring two months of council tax…
They won’t understand that bit until it’s much too late (and then they’ll blame the government anyway).
Taxpayers are no longer needed. We print money now.
Brilliant.
(When there’s a Guy article to read, I always pause, set myself up with a coffee, and then settle down for a real treat).
Hear, hear! It’s quite unusual to find opinion that is so well written, well argued, and well researched.
I think you mean E.M. Forster, not C.S.
Please don’t get the little things wrong, because it’ll give the malicious the chance to claim that all the big things are wrong too.
Excellent piece. I have another analogy – that blissful moment when road runner is off the cliff and in mid air, still running. Or the whale in Douglas Adam’s story becoming conscious for a few seconds as it plummets to earth. This situation is as darkly comical and as tragic.
A common theme in the comments of this website is the notion is that people enjoy being on forlough as furlough is a dream situation is that you are paid not to work. They get only get 80% of their wage but this is compensated by no travel costs.
The lockdown is going to have a major economic impact and one cause is large sections of the population not working even if this is only temporary. Let’s say a company is unable to operate during the lockdown and the workers are all off. If no one is working, things like toilet paper, soap, stationary etc are not needed which will have a knock on effect on suppliers. There is a convenience store near the company which receives a lot of trade from the workers eg buying coffee for breaks, newspapers. The convenience store looses this trade when the workers are not there. A fair number of workers travel by bus and bus companies loose this trade when the workers are away. Many of the workers are worried if they will have jobs to go back to and are reluctant to spend money.
When my younger son was at collège, as the French say, he went through a bad patch. I’ve never been able to find out precisely what happened, but I think his so-called friends stopped speaking to him. One evening he even cried. Then he learned to cope. He hung about with a new boy, observed the others, joined in the conversation when he could, was gradually re-accepted by the group. The whole experience was unpleasant, but made him more resilient. It occurred to me that if covid19 had happened when he was thirteen he would have liked nothing better than to be allowed – forced – to stay at home where his family was nice to him and he didn’t have to meet these nasty friends. He would probably have dreaded going back to school. His character would have developed in a different way. It is not good to be too safe at an impressionable age.
Tom Welsh is spot on. The worst thing to do for one’s health is to stay at home, out of the sun. This is especially so at mid to high lattigudes. The lunatic advice to stay at home, enforced by police state behaviour, has taken the last remaining elements of self-sufficiency from most people. I am also seeing a nastiness develop in formerly decent people who gave been in isolated lockdown. Having no face to face contact with colleagues for a few months is causing personality shifts towards dictatorial and repressive behaviour, or maybe exacerbating these traits.
Reminds me of
Klaatu, Everybody Took a Holiday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_O0ltzBlLs
Great article. But I keep asking the reasons for many of the measures in the emergency act and how was it drafted and agreed so smoothly and quickly. I’ve used https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/coronavirus-act
as a decent summary and believe that the sections on death certification, post mortems and inquests and the removal of liability for indemnity from health services probably make the primary statistics of death wholly suspect. Most of the Act has a shelf life of two years, but not this last section. Our health services may be exempt from liability for some time.
One question remains. I’ve heard talk of health workers being subject to the Official Secrets Act. Is this true and where are the references?
We are being scammed.