From the mean to the meaningless: the targets of Cancel Culture
From the mean to the meaningless: the targets of Cancel Culture
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
(20/09/2024)
Cancel culture is one of those terms often bandied about by people who neither understand what it actually is and who its victims are. Some, mainly on the Left, have wrongly claimed that its targets are all very powerful people with money, fame and recognition and they are not really cancelled because they continue to write books, articles and use twitter. That is the case for people like J.K Rowling, or Norman Finkelstein after an initially difficult period, not so much for others who have struggled to earn a living after being cancelled. Many others worked in factories, offices, NGOs and just joined the dole queues. I recently came across a database of those it lists as cancelled and provides links to the source material.[1] It makes for interesting reading, though at the time of writing it has not been updated since 2023.
Amongst those who appear on the database are some unwholesome individuals, the type of person we might actually feel, well you had that coming, such as radio host Ron Lederman who compared toaster settings to the colour of black women’s skin.[2] Crass statements by any yardstick. But most cases are not of such a nature. Most of us on the Left would be hard pressed to find common cause with or sympathy for a deputy prosecutor. But take the case of the unfortunate Josh Drake who spoke out against an Arkansas law that allows landlords to file criminal charges against tenants in arrears rather than civil charges. He stated that he hated that particular law. He lost his job. To top it all he had made his statements during the Covid Pandemic. Those evicted were left with a criminal record.[3]
You might have little sympathy for anti-vaxxers and justify them being sacked from their jobs. You would be wrong to justify someone losing their jobs for their opinions. Which opinions are punished depend on those in power and their junctural needs. So, you might be surprised to learn of someone who was not an anti-vaxxer being fired by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2021 Dr. Martin Kulldorff from the Harvard Medical School was removed by the CDC from its Covid-19 Vaccines Safety Technical Work Group after he had publicly disagreed with their decision to pause the use of the Johnson and Johnson Covid vaccine. He was sacked two days later, but the CDC followed his advice four days after that and resumed use of the particular vaccine and justified the decision using the exact same reason put forward by Kulldorff and almost the exact same wording as him,[4] in his op ed in The Hill.[5]
One of the smears around cancel culture, is that it is some form of Marxism, it is not. Marx had always argued against censorship and appealing to the state and the capitalists to resolve issues. It is thoroughly reactionary, even though many who claimed (or still claim against all evidence to be Marxists) have advocated for it. Take Chris Stirewalt, a political editor for Fox News. Poor Chris got the boot for accurately calling the election for Biden, when all other right-wing types were preparing the ground for the ridiculous stolen election claim.[6] Most of Cancel Culture is led by right wing elements and some liberals.
Some of the cases on the site involve discussions around racism. Not necessarily racism per se, though there is that, but discussions about it. One such case is that of Professor Elisa Parrett at Lake Washington Institute of Technology who took part in an obligatory racially segregated diversity training session at the insistence of her employer. She read out a statement that was critical of what she termed “capital-A anti-racist pedagogy”. She stated that "Racial segregation of that kind seems like a throwback to the pre-1960s and not a good way to create any kind of cooperation or collaboration,"[7] The conference was influenced by the Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility, a reactionary money-making scam in the world of diversity training. As a tenured professor she had every reason to expect to be able to question the basis and nature of the conference. Tenure as she explains is supposed to guarantee academic freedom. If you can’t question a concept, you can’t argue for it either. Even if DiAngelos’ nauseating rubbish were correct, that could only be shown through discussion, but they had no intention of allowing any discussionof this.
DiAngelos’ book has been criticised by many. The Washington Post described the book as oversimplified and perhaps anticipating Parrett’s predicament stated “Any dissent from “White Fragility” is itself white fragility. From such circular logic do thought leaders and bestsellers arise.”[8] John McWhorter the black linguist also criticised it in The Atlantic. He describes her book as condescending, points out lots of errors, questions its politics and ultimately points out that it fails to achieve what it set out to do. “The sad truth is that anyone falling under the sway of this blinkered, self-satisfied, punitive stunt of a primer has been taught, by a well-intentioned but tragically misguided pastor, how to be racist in a whole new way.”[9] Despite the many and varied criticisms of DiAngelo from a myriad of perspectives her work is a bench mark in many diversity programmes, from which you are not allowed to dissent. Though McWhorter absolves her of the charge of being a grifter, I think he is perhaps too generous, Cancel Culture is a reactionary ideology but it is also a money making scheme and a window of opportunities if you are on the right side of the cancelling.
Some of the cancelling beggars belief. Dr Rafaela Espinal , a Dominican American woman was dismissed from her job as the head of Community School District 12 in New York, because she refused to make the Wakanda Forever salute! Just to be clear, we are talking about a salute in US superhero film. A meaningless gesture. She was told she was not black enough and should learn to be quiet and look pretty.[10] Yes, misogyny is allowed in the Cancel Culture world, but not fighting against it. She sued them, but ended up accepting a demotion as she was one year away from reaching her pension age. Another educator in New York employee Karen Ames met a similar fate. On a side note, in the Black Panther film, one of the “good” white characters is Everett Ross, a CIA operative who is on the side of Wakanda. The CIA as a force for good is hardly a noble idea, and neither is saluting such rubbish.
Some of the cases available on the database, might be considered to be people on the right of the political spectrum. But that is not what unites them, as there are many on the left and the right. What unites a pro vaccine Harvard doctor and someone questioning some of the more ridiculous DiAngelo type workshops is not where they stand on the political spectrum, but rather that those in power, in each case, decided to clamp down on dissent by threatening their employment. Hitler used just such a tactic after the Nazis came to power. McCarthy tried to control the cultural output of the US in film, music and books with the same tactic. Dare to disagree and you will be reduced to a broken, poverty-stricken wretch unable to find employment in your own or indeed in some cases, any field.
But what to do in cases of overt and uncontested racism or other vile ideas? Well, that has already been answered by a previous generation. This generation took a different route. Such is the case of Howard Bauchner, the Executive Director at the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA). He did not make any statements, however JAMA broadcast a podcast where the Deputy Editor, Ed Livingston stated that structural racism was not a problem in medicine. It is an unlikely proposition, given that there are whole areas in which it is evidently a problem. Livingstone resigned but Bauchner was suspended pending investigation.[11] Some of the criticism levelled at him, is reasonable, in the sense that the doctors discussing racism were white. One doctor was reported as tweeting that
Without diversity, you don’t know what you don’t know,” he said. “With such a non-diverse panel of people, you have all these blind spots that allow these podcasts to go from execution to publication without anybody saying, ‘Wait a minute, this is ill-advised.[12]
Exactly, you don’t know what you don’t know, and the only way you can come to know this is through discussion, where DIVERSE OPINIONS are presented, contested, discussed and discarded. Diverse backgrounds is important in many issues but so too are diverse opinions, something Cancel Culture does not accept.
In the early 1990s a much more serious issue arose and it was treated, at the time, by eminent scientists in a much different manner to today’s pampered gatekeepers of righteousness. In 1994, Richard J. Hernstein and Charles Murray wrote a book titled The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. The book basically argued that a person’s situation in terms of poverty was down to biology, genetics in particular. Of course, there is a racial element to poverty in the US and they didn’t shy away from saying that poor performance by blacks in educational settings was down to genetics. To put it in crude terms, it claimed they were genetically inferior, genetically stupid and destined to be ruled by the Cognitive Elite. So how did the scientific world react to such nonsense? Well, they didn’t call for them to be cancelled. They fought ideas with ideas. Stephen Jay Gould, the palaeontologist had written a book in 1981 called The Mismeasure of Man. The book dealt with all the ridiculous attempts to ascribe intelligence to biology, amongst them such ideas as craniometry i.e. the size and shape of the head, and even the size of certain bones, as some groups displayed differences when comparted to whites, though why they thought a shorter bone indicated intelligence is beyond me. This was not based on science, but prejudice. In 1996 a new edition of the book included two extra chapters in response to The Bell Curve, where he showed up the ridiculous nature of their claims. Gould did not cancel them, he demolished their arguments, completely. His book is wonderful and deserves to be read by all. He criticised The Bell Curve as a piece of research and argumentation stating “The Bell Curve is extraordinarily one-dimensional. The book makes no attempt to survey the range of available data, and pays astonishingly little attention to the rich and informative history of this contentious subject.”[13] And went on to say that “Nothing in The Bell Curve angered me more than the authors’ failure to supply any justification for their central claim, the sine qua non, of their entire argument.”d But he also dealt with the politics of it all the implications “We must fight the doctrine of The Bell Curve both because it is wrong and because it will, if activated, cut off all possibility of proper nurturance for everyone’s intelligence.”[14]
In short, unlike the shrill whiny voices on US campuses Gould put the ideas down by showing they were wrong and arguing about where they would lead us.
Many on the Left have backed the liberal/right-wing idea of Cancel Culture to the hilt. Some who claim to be Marxists have been strident in their denunciations of people who crossed their red lines. They chose some easy targets to set the ball rolling. The easiest were racists. When the pampered Right marched with Tiki torches in the US shouting “Jews will not replace us” they jumped at the opportunity to demand they be sacked from their jobs and circulated photos to that effect so they could be identified. They went from there to targeting obnoxious types involved in harassing or challenging black people on spurious grounds. Basically, people engaged in reprehensible behaviour, but what you do outside your job is none of your boss’ business, except in science fiction dystopian novels and films, where control of everyday life is absolute.
And that is where we are headed. The Left in its stupidity never thought that this would rebound on them. But it has, predictably on Palestine, as the Zionists had been practicising Cancel Culture for many years before them. Now conferences are banned in Germany, invited speakers are expelled or barred from entry. Zoom conferences are banned from transmitting certain speakers and the slogan From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free is classified as hate speech.[15] Calls to sack Tiki Torch fascists have now been replaced by the actual sacking of workers. In Ireland an IT worker was sacked by the company she worked for, which had ties to Israel, for her pro-Palestinian tweets. She has found it difficult to gain employment in the sector ever since. She won her case and was awarded compensation, but she had to move out of her apartment and is now effectively blacklisted in the sector.
It was like I was blacklisted from the tech sector. There were multiple tweets, LinkedIn posts, all within that circle regarding me as a person who supports terrorism. I felt it incredibly difficult to have a conversation with people and dispute the claims made about me online.
I would have great interviews, conversations with people, and as soon as my previous employment was brought up – [there were] what I would assume to be background checks done on me – every line went cold.[16]
She is not the only one to fall foul of the Zionist propaganda machine. Journalists have been silenced. Watch any news programme and you can tell that they are under pressure. Even banal terms such as quoting a death toll and saying “according to the Hamas run Ministry of Health”. But Hamas is the elected government whether they like it or not. No one says, “according to the Tory run Ministry of Health” or any other government party anywhere in the world. In 2021, a Guardian journalist, Nathan Robinson was sacked by the paper following a tongue in cheek tweet that stated that the US Congress was not allowed approve any spending unless a portion of it was earmarked for military expenditure for Israel. It was tongue in cheek but actually accurate as the bill in question did actually link military aid to Israel to other issues. The Guardian sacked him claiming the tweet was antisemitic.[17]
Now it is progressives who are being targeted by states, using the same weapons the Left praised and used itself, weapons provided by the state and ones they endorsed and championed uncritically. There is a whole list of left organisations that did the dirty work for the state on this issue of repression and censorship. They can pat themselves on the back for a job, not only well done, but done with gusto. The list is unfortunately quite long, too long to include here. They simply refuse to accept that you fight ideas with ideas, mobilisations of the Right with mobilisations of the Left and not by asking the state and companies to interfere in people’s lives and suppress freedom of thought and expression.
[1] See https://canceledpeople.org/cancellations/
[2] Syracuse (08/04/2021) 3 more fired at Buffalo radio station after racist comments on-air. Geoff Herbert. https://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/2021/04/3-more-fired-at-buffalo-radio-station-after-racist-comments-on-air.html
[3] ProPublica (27/11/2020) A Deputy Prosecutor Was Fired for Speaking Out Against Jail Time for People Who Fall Behind on Rent Maya Miller & Ellis Simani https://www.propublica.org/article/a-state-prosecutor-was-fired-for-speaking-out-against-jail-time-for-people-who-fall-behind-on-rent
[4] The Federalist (28/04/2021) CDC Punishes ‘Superstar’ Scientist For COVID Vaccine Recommendation The CDC Followed 4 Days Later. Joy Pullmann. https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/28/cdc-punishes-superstar-scientist-for-covid-vaccine-recommendation-the-cdc-followed-4-days-later/
[5] The Hill (17/04/2021) The dangers of pausing the J&J vaccine. Martin Kulldorff. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/548817-the-dangers-of-pausing-the-jj-vaccine/
[6] The Washington Post (21/01/2021) Top Fox News managers depart amid Murdoch’s concerns over controversial Arizona election night. Sarah Ellison https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/fox-news-stirewalt-sammon-murdoch-arizona/2021/01/19/a54e9f72-5a8f-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html
[7] Reason (05/04/2021) A Professor Pushed Back Against 'White Fragility' Training. The College Investigated Her for 9 Months. Jesse Singal. https://reason.com/2021/04/05/a-professor-pushed-back-against-white-fragility-training-the-college-investigated-her-for-9-months/
[8] The Washington Post (18/06/2020) White fragility is real. But ‘White Fragility’ is flawed. Carlos Lozada. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/18/white-fragility-is-real-white-fragility-is-flawed/
[9] The Atlantic (15/07/2020) The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility. John McWhorter. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/dehumanizing-condescension-white-fragility/614146/
[10] Atlanta Black Star (24/02/2021) Two Demoted Educators Sue NYC Department of Education, Claim Pattern of Discrimination Included Being Ordered to Make ‘Wakanda Forever’ Salute. Niara Savage. https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/02/24/two-demoted-educators-sue-nyc-department-of-education-claim-pattern-of-discrimination-included-being-ordered-to-make-wakanda-forever-salute/
[11] The Hill (26/03/2021) Top medical journal editor suspended over podcast on racism in health care.Morgan Gstalter.https://thehill.com/homenews/media/545110-top-medical-journal-editor-suspended-over-podcast-on-racism-in-health-care/
[12] Ibíd.,
[13] Gould, Stephen Jay (1996) The Mismeasure of Man. New York. W.W. & Norton. (epub) Para 17.16
[14] Ibíd., 17.34
[15] Le Monde Diplomatique (18/04/2024) German police suppresses Palestine Congress. Daphne Preston-Kendal. https://mondediplo.com/outside-in/german-police-palestine-congress
[16] Irish Times (19/06/2024) Irish Wix worker who was unfairly dismissed for criticising Israel on social media feels ‘blacklisted’. Stephen Bourke. https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/06/19/wix-worker-who-was-unfairly-dismissed-for-criticising-israel-on-social-media-feels-blacklisted/
[17] Reason (10/02/2021) The Guardian Fired Columnist Nathan Robinson After a Joke Tweet About Military Aid to Israel. Robby Soave. https://reason.com/2021/02/10/nathan-robinson-the-guardian-israel-tweet-joke-column/