We live in a time of personal timorousness and collective mercilessness.
There might seem to be a contradiction between being fearful and fearless, between weighing every word you say and attacking others with abandon. But as more and more topics become too risky to discuss outside of the prevailing orthodoxies, it makes sense to constantly self-censor, feeling unbound only when part of a denunciatory pack.
Institutions that are supposed to be guardians of free expression—academia and journalism in particular—are becoming enforcers of conformity. Campuses have bureaucracies that routinely undermine free speech and due process. Now, these practices are breaching the ivy wall. They are coming to a high school or corporate HR office near you.
The cultural rules around hot button issues are ever-expanding. It’s as if a daily script went out describing what’s acceptable, and those who flub a line—or don’t even know a script exists—are rarely given the benefit of the doubt, no matter how benign their intent. Naturally, people are deciding the best course is to shut up. It makes sense to be part of the silenced majority when the price you pay for an errant tweet or remark can be the end of your livelihood.
Do these problems really matter so long as we have a president who daily tramples on rights, civil discourse, and the rule of law? They do. Of course, we must keep our focus on the danger this administration presents. But it is also our moral and strategic obligation to vigorously defend the principles of a free society. Upholding these values will help us defeat Trumpism.
The process by which sinners are punished and apostates expelled can seem random. But there are rules and patterns to the ways in which speech is being silenced. Analyzing and understanding these can help us stand up to the illiberalism of this moment, whether it comes from the left or the right.
To that end, here is my taxonomy of fear.
The Perils of Safety (...)
Confronted with words, ideas, or decisions they dislike, a growing number of people are asserting that they are in danger of suffering psychological or even bodily harm. But when one party asserts that a debate threatens their very well-being, it is hard to deliberate on policy—or topics such as race and gender. The result is a narrowing of the space for public discussion and an inability to teach ever more ideas and books.
Contamination by Association (...)
VanDerWerff’s note certainly illustrates safetyism. Going one step further, it also assumes the truth of a principle of “contamination by association.” People, the logic goes, cannot only be made unsafe by the beliefs or statements of their colleagues but also by those with whom their colleagues associate.
Intent Is Irrelevant (...)
Whether or not the accused had an intent to commit wrong-doing is a central question in many criminal prosecutions. Though it might be less obvious, understanding someone’s intent is just as crucial to our social functioning. If we decline to understand why others acted the way they did, or to take into account whether they intended any harm, we multiply the number of violations we perceive—and often end up treating benign people as moral wrongdoers.
Report to the Authorities (...)
Of course, some things do need to be reported. But when you live in a society in which people are primed to disclose all discomfort to authority figures, trust and goodwill quickly erode. It also means being aware that you yourself might end up as the subject of a complaint. As Lukianoff and Haidt write, “life in call-out culture requires constant vigilance, fear, and self-censorship.” But shaming someone, especially when done publicly as part of a group, “can award status.”
One of the most disturbing examples of this trend is that high school students are now being encouraged to excavate each other’s social media, looking for instances of racial insensitivity and making them public. “Many students believe the only consequence their peers will take seriously is having their college admissions letter rescinded,” reports the New York Times. As a sixteen-year-old administrator of a social media account exposing the alleged racism of her classmates explained, “people who go to college end up becoming racist lawyers and doctors. I don’t want people like that to keep getting jobs.” (...)
To be sure, being shunned by your peers or having your admission to college rescinded is not the same as going to jail. But in the age of the internet, social censure can, much like a criminal record, mark someone for life. Do we really want a world in which someone’s educational and professional prospects are diminished because of something they said—genuinely stupid or offensive though it may have been—when they were fifteen?
A Chilling Effect
Some on the left still claim cancel culture doesn’t exist. Mass firings, they say, are not taking place. Only a few people—who probably deserved it!—have lost their jobs.
But it doesn’t require mass dismissals to put many people in a genuine state of unease and intimidation. A few chilling examples are enough to spread the fear to a lot of people that an inadvertent error can destroy your life. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes, “the goal isn’t to punish everyone, or even very many someones; it’s to shame or scare just enough people to make the rest conform.” (...)
Many people ask why any of this should matter in the age of Donald Trump—a president who attacks free speech, stokes bigotry and division, and believes he is above the law. It matters because we have seen what happened when his enablers on the right failed to stand up to the worst impulses of their leader. These enablers are now morally responsible for the tragic consequences of their inaction.
We better make sure that we don’t end up committing the same sin. For as Thomas Chatterton Williams writes, “ a generation unable or disinclined to engage with ideas and interlocutors that make them uncomfortable … open[s] the door—accessible from both the left and the right—to various forms of authoritarianism.”
There might seem to be a contradiction between being fearful and fearless, between weighing every word you say and attacking others with abandon. But as more and more topics become too risky to discuss outside of the prevailing orthodoxies, it makes sense to constantly self-censor, feeling unbound only when part of a denunciatory pack.
Institutions that are supposed to be guardians of free expression—academia and journalism in particular—are becoming enforcers of conformity. Campuses have bureaucracies that routinely undermine free speech and due process. Now, these practices are breaching the ivy wall. They are coming to a high school or corporate HR office near you.
The cultural rules around hot button issues are ever-expanding. It’s as if a daily script went out describing what’s acceptable, and those who flub a line—or don’t even know a script exists—are rarely given the benefit of the doubt, no matter how benign their intent. Naturally, people are deciding the best course is to shut up. It makes sense to be part of the silenced majority when the price you pay for an errant tweet or remark can be the end of your livelihood.Do these problems really matter so long as we have a president who daily tramples on rights, civil discourse, and the rule of law? They do. Of course, we must keep our focus on the danger this administration presents. But it is also our moral and strategic obligation to vigorously defend the principles of a free society. Upholding these values will help us defeat Trumpism.
The process by which sinners are punished and apostates expelled can seem random. But there are rules and patterns to the ways in which speech is being silenced. Analyzing and understanding these can help us stand up to the illiberalism of this moment, whether it comes from the left or the right.
To that end, here is my taxonomy of fear.
The Perils of Safety (...)
Confronted with words, ideas, or decisions they dislike, a growing number of people are asserting that they are in danger of suffering psychological or even bodily harm. But when one party asserts that a debate threatens their very well-being, it is hard to deliberate on policy—or topics such as race and gender. The result is a narrowing of the space for public discussion and an inability to teach ever more ideas and books.
Contamination by Association (...)
VanDerWerff’s note certainly illustrates safetyism. Going one step further, it also assumes the truth of a principle of “contamination by association.” People, the logic goes, cannot only be made unsafe by the beliefs or statements of their colleagues but also by those with whom their colleagues associate.
Intent Is Irrelevant (...)
Whether or not the accused had an intent to commit wrong-doing is a central question in many criminal prosecutions. Though it might be less obvious, understanding someone’s intent is just as crucial to our social functioning. If we decline to understand why others acted the way they did, or to take into account whether they intended any harm, we multiply the number of violations we perceive—and often end up treating benign people as moral wrongdoers.
Report to the Authorities (...)
Of course, some things do need to be reported. But when you live in a society in which people are primed to disclose all discomfort to authority figures, trust and goodwill quickly erode. It also means being aware that you yourself might end up as the subject of a complaint. As Lukianoff and Haidt write, “life in call-out culture requires constant vigilance, fear, and self-censorship.” But shaming someone, especially when done publicly as part of a group, “can award status.”
One of the most disturbing examples of this trend is that high school students are now being encouraged to excavate each other’s social media, looking for instances of racial insensitivity and making them public. “Many students believe the only consequence their peers will take seriously is having their college admissions letter rescinded,” reports the New York Times. As a sixteen-year-old administrator of a social media account exposing the alleged racism of her classmates explained, “people who go to college end up becoming racist lawyers and doctors. I don’t want people like that to keep getting jobs.” (...)
To be sure, being shunned by your peers or having your admission to college rescinded is not the same as going to jail. But in the age of the internet, social censure can, much like a criminal record, mark someone for life. Do we really want a world in which someone’s educational and professional prospects are diminished because of something they said—genuinely stupid or offensive though it may have been—when they were fifteen?
A Chilling Effect
Some on the left still claim cancel culture doesn’t exist. Mass firings, they say, are not taking place. Only a few people—who probably deserved it!—have lost their jobs.
But it doesn’t require mass dismissals to put many people in a genuine state of unease and intimidation. A few chilling examples are enough to spread the fear to a lot of people that an inadvertent error can destroy your life. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes, “the goal isn’t to punish everyone, or even very many someones; it’s to shame or scare just enough people to make the rest conform.” (...)
Many people ask why any of this should matter in the age of Donald Trump—a president who attacks free speech, stokes bigotry and division, and believes he is above the law. It matters because we have seen what happened when his enablers on the right failed to stand up to the worst impulses of their leader. These enablers are now morally responsible for the tragic consequences of their inaction.
We better make sure that we don’t end up committing the same sin. For as Thomas Chatterton Williams writes, “ a generation unable or disinclined to engage with ideas and interlocutors that make them uncomfortable … open[s] the door—accessible from both the left and the right—to various forms of authoritarianism.”
by Emily Yoffe, Persuasion | Read more:
Image: uncredited
[ed. Of course, social media plays a massive role in making this phenomenon worse, but that's just stating the obvious. It's also possible to point to mass media's herding tendencies (and the economic incentives that support it), and general balkanization of information as consumers rely on niche sources for news.]
[ed. Of course, social media plays a massive role in making this phenomenon worse, but that's just stating the obvious. It's also possible to point to mass media's herding tendencies (and the economic incentives that support it), and general balkanization of information as consumers rely on niche sources for news.]
