- Position1 of 3›
- The Signatories
Cancel culture threatens to destroy the lives and livelihoods of its victims for holding unpopular views. This inhibits people from sharing their thoughts and ideas and instead fosters discord, fear, and a social hierarchy built on conflict. That is not the hallmark of a healthy society.
The argument
If the media is diluted with hand-picked voices, then freedom of the press is essentially bypassed in favor of an echo chamber. Journalistic integrity is at stake, especially while the threat of “fake news” demands a higher level of dedication to both opinion and fact. As stated in the Harper’s Letter, “Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.” These supposed controversies range from literal job requirements to the generally expected fumblings that come along with being a human being. This is not to say there are no moral wrongs, or that justice should not be served in many cases; however, the most constructive thing we can do for our society is to guide others down a redemptive path rather than crucifying them over it. Societal consequences have their place, but the loss of livelihood is no insignificant thing and should be reserved for only the essential times. The firing of David Shor was one of the stated motivations for the letter's original author, Thomas Chatterton Williams. The circumstances behind the firing were so muddled between objective facts and emotional appeals that it becomes nearly impossible to discern legitimate motivations. For this reason, the letter serves to emphasize why intolerance is counterintuitive to progressive change.
Premises
Counter-arguments
There is an irony to people complaining about people complaining. This argument, and the inevitable backlash, is not constructive to continuing open debate so much as emphasizing a moral divide. Specific examples and circumstances are more helpful and relevant when making a point so fraught with controversy.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The premise infers a systemic condition from a list without denominators. Each item names an episode, and the letter gives no counts, no comparison with earlier decades, and no indication of how often such outcomes occur against the volume of controversial work published. Critics also note that the media's narrowing is at least as attributable to consolidation, closures and collapsing local revenue as to any culture of fear. [Rejecting P2] Proportionality is agreed on all sides; what is disputed is who applies it. The decisions described were taken by editors, boards and universities exercising their own judgement — itself an exercise of speech and association rather than its suppression by the state — and the premise supplies no principle for distinguishing an unjust dismissal from ordinary accountability. [Rejecting P3] Redemption over cancellation is offered as a general preference without a mechanism, and the objection on record is that the argument works only case by case. Several signatories were themselves criticised for the vagueness of a letter that named no incident, and the opposing view holds that the wider availability of public criticism is more speech rather than less — a claim the premises never engage.