Daily Obloquy

 A recent post by Nate Silver about "Blueskyism" has renewed a years-old debate about "Cancel Culture" on the Left. 

Noah Smith weighed in this morning to offer a capsule history of the phenomenon. He offers a plausible account of why, for a time, it seemed so prevalent and inescapable in the progressive moment; and why it has since faded. 

He concludes that many of the same people who fomented cancel culture during its peak of 2018-21 or so are still trying to do the same thing—they are just doing so within the progressive echo chamber of Bluesky now; so the larger culture is not really paying attention anymore. 

I thought Smith's points were valid so far as they went. But I was frustrated that he wrote an entire piece about cancel culture, in this week of all weeks—and did not once mention that the Right is currently in the midst of trying to use the exact same tactic to wreck the lives and careers of anyone who has said the "wrong thing" about the Charlie Kirk assassination. 

Indeed, the Right is being unsubtle about this. They are busy collecting lists of people to doxx—having reportedly already received tens of thousands of submissions. Their goal is to post information about these individuals so that they can be harassed by armies of internet trolls and drummed out of their professions. "Make liberals homeless again"—as one of the Proud Boys founders reportedly said. 

In short, the Right is specifically trying to weaponize the worst tools of the commissarial Left during the darkest days of ideological conformity on social media, circa 2019-20. 

For better or worse, this type of cancel culture is not new in American history; nor is it confined to any one part of the political spectrum. Indeed, it's possible that it's a near-inevitable feature of majoritarian political institutions; which always tend to a belief in the inherent wisdom of crowds. Vox populi, vox dei, etc. Which makes it remarkably frightening to find oneself alone in one's convictions. 

For this reason, Alexis de Tocqueville—writing all the way back in the early decades of the republic—argued that American life seemed uniquely predisposed to what we would now call "Cancel Culture." 

In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth. (Reeve trans.)

Does this not describe American cancel culture almost perfectly? 

And so, we see this phenomenon of what Noah Smith calls the "dogpile." People get "ratio'd"—as they used to call it on Twitter during peak Cancel Culture. 

One person—"Bean Dad," say (whose podcast I actually love and admire, and whom I would defend before anyone)—would be plucked from relative obscurity to become the absolute evil for the day; the Emmanuel Goldstein before whose image all denizens of social media must perform the ritual of their "two minutes hate," in order to be accepted by others.  

As revolting as the spectacle is, it's also part of the democratic tradition. It stems from the principle of vox populi, vox dei, with its concomitant fear of ever being found to stand alone. That's why the "eternal spirit of the populace"—as Matthew Arnold once put it—can be found "every time that we add our voice to swell a blind clamour against some unpopular personage[.]" (Not at all an inapt description of cancel culture.)

Back in the heyday of this phenomenon, of course, people would often say that criticisms of Cancel Culture were overblown, because no one was losing their lives because of it—just their livelihoods. 

So too, the right-wing mob that wants to cancel people this week for insufficiently mourning Charlie Kirk defends itself by saying: we're just using public information; we're just informing employers about what their staff are saying online; we're not literally violating anyone's First Amendment rights here. 

And indeed—fair enough. As Noah Smith observes, "losing your job is a lot less bad than losing your head." This wasn't exactly the guillotine; even if the mob psychology underlying it was rather similar (as Smith also notes.) 

But—to Tocqueville's point—a majority opinion that enforces consensus through shaming and "obloquy" can be quite insidious and tyrannical in its own way—even if it's not as bad outright as literally burning or beheading people.

I know that many people who engaged in these kinds of public shaming campaigns during their peak in the 2018-21 era later regretted it. Or regretted it even at the time. Why, then, did they participate? The answer, unfortunately, is not that hard to find. It resides in a prevalent feature of human psychology. 

As Mark Twain once observed—the secret fuel of every organized mob—ginned up to go and commit some evil—any one member of which would admit, if you asked him or her about it directly, they knew all along in their hearts that what they were doing was wrong: is "man's commonest weakness, his aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice[.]"

This surely explains why the Left found it so easy to pillory people on the internet during the heyday of Cancel Culture—to gloat over forcing someone out of a job because they had momentarily questioned a prevailing leftist orthodoxy on Twitter—or simply said something in a clumsy and inartful way. I'm sure not every single person who participated was actually that mean-spirited and vindictive. They were just going along with what their neighbors were doing. 

And indeed, they were afraid that if they didn't—they might be next to face the mob's ire. "This gave rise"—as Noah Smith puts it—"to a phenomenon I call ponzi screaming — berating the person immediately to your right on the political spectrum, out of fear that if you don’t berate them, people further to your left will berate you."

This is why—when the tide of Cancel Culture finally ebbed—so many liberals and progressives were secretly relieved to see it go. They had hated it in ways they felt they could not admit, even (or especially) to each other, while it lasted. Just as even the most rabid Jacobins themselves feared the guillotine—and were secretly rooting for anyone who could make its butchery stop. 

And that is why the first person to dare to stand up and speak the truth often manages to persuade others. Secretly, many of them were only waiting for that sign. This was Mark Twain's theory too: the way to stop mob violence was to put just one brave person in their midst who would be willing to cry stop. 

I hope that one such person can be found in the MAGA right today—as they try to cancel their critics and drive them out of the labor force. There have to be people, even within that coalition, who secretly harbor in their conscience some doubt as to whether this is the right thing to do. 

And look, I don't say that they are wrong to object to some of the stuff that leftists are posting on social media right now. It's wrong to applaud violence or glorify a political assassination. But the MAGA cancel culture wave seems to have spread to sweep in anyone they accuse of insufficiently mourning Charlie Kirk. 

They are going after local officials who refuse to fly the flag at half staff for Kirk's memory—even though I can't at all blame the latter. It's quite the moral dilemma. On the one hand, we want to condemn the killing. On the other—do we really want to be conscripted into a period of compulsory national mourning for someone who was, after all, a right-wing extremist who promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement canard? 

I'm glad I'm not in charge of a flag right now, is all I can say. I don't know how I would square either course of action with my conscience. 

I thought—in the hours after the assassination—that I was obviously against the misguided leftists who would make light of this horrific bloodshed. Indeed, I'm still against them. But now that MAGA is making a list of them to try to doxx them, harass them, and drive them out of their livelihoods—I find myself more inclined to take their side. 

I'm reminded of the narrator in the poem by Bertolt Brecht, who finds out that the regime is hosting a book-burning, and discovers that none of his works have been included on the proscribed lists. "Haven't I always told the truth," he asks—"and here you are, treating me like a liar? Burn me!"

And indeed—it's uncomfortable to think that I might have taken the view in the aftermath of the assassination that MAGA deems appropriate and acceptable. If there is a list of people to be harassed and persecuted at the hands of MAGA, it seems like I ought to be on it. It would surely be an insult and a dishonor not to be. If MAGA approves of what I say, I must have been doing something wrong; I must not have said quite clearly enough what I really believe. 

And that's how I feel about any cancel culture—the left-wing variety too. When all the people who show any courage or independence of thought are being scapegoated and hounded out of the community, it feels like an implied insult to be left in peace—does it mean people think I'm one of the cowards and the conformists?

"Haven't I always told the truth," I say—scanning the list of the proscribed and doxxed and prohibited, and seeing my name not there—"and here you are, treating me like a liar?"