This Is Not Your Regular Mainstream Media Rant about Cancel Culture
Cancel culture has become a cultural watchword, a catchall phrase for what happens when society reacts to the bad behavior of a public figure. When a comedian has been accused of sexual harassment or assault, or a CEO is caught in a pattern of racism, or a famous author vilifies a whole community, people tend to not want to continue to reward that person with fame and money and accolades. When a person uses their platform to cause pain and suffering in others or to advocate for their ostracization, it makes sense to retaliate against that platform, to try to mitigate their ability to do harm.
But power protects power and human brains can default to sympathy with the singular figure whose name and face and story they know as opposed to the more nebulous movement of people whom they do not. And as a result, cancel culture becomes not a question of harm reduction or a fight against bigotry, but a question of free speech and the angry mob trying to destroy an individual over a difference of opinion, over just asking questions, over a little mistake or brave resistance to progressive orthodoxy.
Recently, the New York Times published an op-ed by Pamela Paul called “In Defense of J.K. Rowling.”1 Why does she need to be defended, you might ask? J.K. Rowling, in addition to writing one of the most popular children’s book series ever, has become one of the most famous faces of anti-trans advocacy. This has led to a lot of reasonable pushback and a lot of understandable anger, particularly among queer fans or former fans of her work who are not only hurt by the betrayal of a beloved creator, but also by the bigotry, violence, and discriminatory legislation that has come out of her politics.
It is unfortunately not surprising that the New York Times published this op-ed, as their many of their own staff and contributors just the day before released an open letter criticizing the Times for their one sided coverage of trans issues, which not only doesn’t include the perspective of actual trans people, but also often highlights suspect anecdotal evidence and largely disproven science. And it’s not surprising that Pamela Paul wrote it, as the prior week her op-ed was entitled “What Liberals Can Learn From Ron DeSantis” and included a oblique defense of book banning (concerning on its own, but especially from the former editor of the New York Times Book Review). But unsurprising though it may be, it still belies a logical fallacy that, for the sake of democracy and people’s lives, demands we expose it.
Pamela Paul felt the need to use her platform to defend J.K. Rowling - but from what? From her Twitter mentions? Here’s what is not happening to J.K. Rowling: no one is passing laws that determine what bathroom she can use or what sports she can play, or what name she can use to introduce herself. In fact, J.K. Rowling is known to much of the world not by the name she was given at birth, and also has a very popular mystery series that she writes using a man’s name, even though she was assigned female at birth. The entire world could stop buying anything related to Harry Potter tomorrow, and J.K. Rowling would still be a very rich, very comfortable woman. There may be threats in her twitter mentions, but the same week Pamela Paul published her op-ed defending J.K. Rowling, a young trans girl was murdered in England.
Pamela Paul wrote her op-ed to defend J.K. Rowling from cancellation, that thing that happens to the rich and powerful when they are called out for doing harm, a desire to see that harm mitigated and to remind people that just because J.K. Rowling wrote some popular books doesn’t mean that she’s right in her bigotry. But here’s the thing: we don’t call it cancel culture when states ban books or pass anti-abortion laws or when Black kids get sent home from school because of their hair styles. We don’t call it cancel culture when someone attempts to sue so that they won’t have to make wedding websites for queer couples, even though they haven’t been asked to. We don’t call it cancel culture when people are killed by police. Where is our defense of them?
The concept of cancel culture and its backlash tries to elide or even reverse the power imbalance inherent in all of these social reactions. When a person is told that their behavior is harmful, they have two options - to apologize and make amends for that behavior, or to double down and fight for their right to continue causing harm, to assert that curbing their ability to cause this harm is in fact the greater crime. And power, fame, and money all go a long way to insulate people from criticism, to protect them from negative consequences, and to amplify their capacity to cause harm. Meanwhile on the other side, lives are at stake. Bigotry dehumanizes people, and when people are dehumanized they face greater violence and threats against their bodies, minds, and livelihoods.
My point, however, is not to argue for social retribution writ large, but for a greater understanding of how this process plays out in our politics. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has the capacity to cause harm. The goal is not a culture of ostracization and public shaming, but an understanding that so many people are already ostracized and shamed, and that we are responsible for an ever expanding vision for humanity that pushes back against that impulse. J.K. Rowling, when faced with the critique that she is making the lives of trans people much harder, had the opportunity to reach for greater understanding and empathy, and instead she chose to close the doors, to keep people out.
We have the incredible opportunity to build a world out of curiosity and new ideas. We have the capacity to look at people who are different from us and learn from them, to be challenged by new ideas and use them to grow and know ourselves better. The point of democracy is to give each of us a voice, to give each of us an opportunity, to give each of us the power of self determination.
Our democracy is not and has never been perfect. But when faced with a choice between two sides, we can choose an expansive vision of humanity, a culture of belonging. When someone tries to divide us, to keep people out, to fight for those in power against those whom they have power over, we can choose to defend those they would exclude. We can choose to be open to new ways of being, to laws that protect people’s rights to make choices for themselves, rather than their right to make choices for others. We can choose, when faced with the knowledge that we have caused harm, to learn and grow and change, to help where we have hurt. We can accept our own humanity in those moments, and the knowledge that this ever expanding vision of humanity includes us too.
I’m not linking to this piece or to the other Pamela Paul piece I reference later. If I could have written this whole essay without referencing her at all, I would have. Instead I highly recommend this interview with author Anand Giridharadas which was critical for making this essay more than just a Pamela Paul rant.