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Cancel culture empowers the powerful — at everyone else’s expense
Normalizing the idea that institutions should “cancel” people for unpopular speech hands those institutions expanded discretionary power.
www.thefire.org
"In the absence of a culture that champions a principled defense of free speech, institutions not legally obligated to uphold free speech are, in the short term, incentivized to implement and enforce policy in whatever direction the social wind blows, strategically capitulating to the loudest voices.
In this, institutions can count on backup from those who play down the effects of their decisions — at least when those decisions impact someone they don’t like. “Cancel culture is overblown. You yourself said that Chappelle was able to perform the same week at a different venue!” This conveniently overlooks the fact that when it comes to comedy, Chappelle is the powerful. He’s already wealthy, massively popular, and can book and fill a show in less than a day. It’s similar for many of the famous figures in entertainment and culture whose cancellations make the news, yet who seem mostly to make out all right.
But that misses the real message that these cancellations send: “If this can happen even to a Washington Post reporter, or to a famous comedian — powerful and influential people, compared to most Americans — imagine what will happen if you, a nobody, crosses the line we set.” The message isn’t aimed at Dave Chappelle or even Dave Weigel: Its real target is the average American, and their hostility toward cancel culture shown by poll after poll indicates that that message is coming through loud and clear.
Normalizing the idea that institutions should “cancel” people for unpopular speech hands those institutions an expanded breadth of discretionary power. Left free to selectively enforce policies in the manner those in charge find most palatable or convenient, the powerful are further empowered to crack down on anything they don’t like, from bad jokes and unorthodox opinions to critiques of bad governance and exposure of corruption. This might be a good deal for those running the institutions; it’s a bad deal for everyone else."