I have one more thought on “cancel culture” and “self-censorship”: In most elite institutions, the only political opinions that are guaranteed *not* to get you some pushback are those adhering to the established centrist tropes of “polarization,” “division,” and “lack of unity.”
https://twitter.com/tzimmer_history/status/1501272904662724609
The problem with the way the term “self-censorship” is currently deployed to suggest a pervasive “cancel culture” is twofold. First of all, it disregards the fact that some measure of modulating when and how we voice our opinions is just normal – and certainly needed.
Political opinions, opinions about people in our lives, even opinions about movies, sports, whatever: We all understand that we can’t always offer our unadulterated takes on anything and everything, to whoever, regardless of circumstance. That’s not how the social contract works.
The only surprising thing about these “self-censorship” surveys is that there actually are people who claim they never modulate and adjust – if that’s true, then they must the most obnoxious fellows in the world.
The second problem with the way the “self-censorship” idea is deployed as evidence for a supposedly rampant “cancel culture” is that it usually comes with the suggestion that it is a leftwing / “woke” regime enforcing stringent rules of what is and what is not acceptable.
But even though the idea that all elite institutions of American life are dominated by radical “wokeism” has basically become dogma on the Right and among reactionary centrists, there is just very little evidence for a widespread leftwing orthodoxy.
In most elite contexts, *not* self-censoring a properly leftwing critique of American society, or at least cushioning / modulating a critique of the persisting structures of racist or sexist discrimination, will get you, at best, some bewildered looks, and maybe in real trouble.
If you really want to avoid uncomfortable conversations and just hope to get everyone in the room nodding approvingly, you should stick with a middle-of-the-road, centrist / moderate lament of how “polarized” everything is and how we need more “unity” in this country.
As an aside: To a considerable degree, the attractiveness of the #polarization narrative stems precisely from this – the fact that it provides the language for a lament that blames nobody and everybody and satisfies the widespread elite longing for unity.
https://twitter.com/tzimmer_history/status/1462795912837750785
If your political, social, or cultural diagnosis of what is going on in America deviates from this moderate / centrist standard, it is highly likely that you will have to engage in some form of “self-censorship,” some form of opinion modulating, almost constantly.
My point here is not to rail against the moderates/centrists wo are “canceling” deviants, but to emphasize that the “cancel culture” discourse paints a picture of elite life that doesn’t hold up to empirical scrutiny – a caricature legitimizing a reactionary political project.
The problem with the “cancel culture” discourse is that it ignores and obscures the fact that there are always norms of what is and what is not acceptable as public speech, and that it has traditionally been the prerogative of elite white men to determine those boundaries.
It is willfully ignorant of the fact that we are all constantly navigating those norms / boundaries – by adapting, modulating, adjusting, deciding when it’s worth to deviate, and to what extent, and in what form.
And the “cancel culture” discourse deliberately obscures the fact that the amount of pushback as well as the level of sanctions one has to expect for deviating very much depends on who does the deviating – with the results always being worse for traditionally marginalized groups.
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