Steven Pinker’s book Better Angels of Our Nature is perhaps one of my favorite books ever. And though I’m skeptical of some of the causes he identified for the phenomenon, I was persuaded by his overall argument that humanity is becoming less violent.
All that is to say, I’m a fan. I’m aware of some of the critiques against him, and find myself agreeing with some of those critiques, but I am a fan nonetheless.
So when Intellectual Dark Web personality Bret Weinstein tweeted that Pinker was in danger of being “canceled,” I was intrigued.
I discovered the danger was posed by a letter calling for Pinker’s removal from a group that had recently put out a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The letter argued that Pinker’s remaining in a high position in the group could not be reconciled with the group’s position on Black Lives Matter because Pinker had a history of, among other things, “downplaying” anti-Black injustice, including by “misrepresenting facts.”
Given this charge, I wanted to know what the basis for Weinstein et al.’s objection to the letter was. Was it that the charge was false? Was it that it didn’t matter (e.g., because the punishment being demanded didn’t fit the crime)? Was it both? I just wanted to know the basis for the objection. I expressed no view on the merits.
I’m not famous, so alas, my efforts to get an answer to this question over Twitter failed.
Yet what if another reason I couldn’t get an answer was that Weinstein et al. don’t have a good one? What if the basis for their objection isn’t all that coherent to begin with?
Indeed, the more critiques of “cancel culture” I come across, the more I suspect that much of those critiques are little more than knee-jerk reactions to the disorienting experience of seeing people whose status has never been seriously challenged before being challenged in a serious way. In other words, I suspect that the discomfort is born more of an instinctive desire to maintain the status quo than a well-reasoned objection to the practice of “cancelation” itself. After all, imagine a world in which Pinker routinely distorted facts to cast doubt on the prevalence of anti-Black racism, including by citing an article for the proposition that police did not disproportionately shoot Black people, when the article actually said the opposite. Wouldn’t that give any intellectually honest person at least some pause as to whether Pinker might have fallen victim to Khaled’s Tell, and revealed himself to be, well, kind of racist,1 despite claiming to the contrary?
In fact, that is exactly what the letter claims happened. I don’t know enough to form a definitive judgment on the merits of the claim. But my point here is that, before one can conclude that the letter itself is the evil to be opposed–as Weinstein et al. did–shouldn’t one first satisfy oneself that the letter’s claims that Pinker misstated facts to downplay injustice are false or at least unproven? At the very least, shouldn’t one be prepared to argue that even if the claims are true, Pinker should not be removed from the group?
The problem is that Weinstein et al. don’t appear to have done any of this. Instead, they seem to have decided to oppose any effort by Black Lives Matter activists and sympathizers to “cancel” powerful establishment figures over their behavior (and choosing what to say and what not say is most certainly behavior as much as it is “mere” speech).
As for “cancel culture,” I still fail to perceive what is so threatening to freedom and democracy about the current moment. Yes, we must be vigilant that punishments fit crimes and that facts and evidence are not displaced by fabrications and lies, but is there any reason to believe we’re close to any of that happening? It’s not like the letter calls for Pinker to be beaten or imprisoned or even for his career to be ended. It merely calls for him not to be given a certain honor. Forgive me if I think comparing that to Stalinism or the Cultural Revolution is over the top.
I’m sure there have been recent examples that cross the line as well, and it is right and good to criticize those examples. In fact, one thing I admit I could be better about doing is seeking out those examples, lest Sara’s Law operates to expose me as someone who doesn’t actually care about them. But given that no one can credibly claim such examples are even close to becoming the norm, those making breathless comparisons to Stalinism and the Cultural Revolution seem to betraying their own blind spots more than anything else.
As for the merits of “canceling” people who have advocated, fought for, or even unwittingly supported, the dehumanization of other people, doing so seems eminently consistent with the idea that all humans have equal moral worth. And given that no one is seriously saying that “canceling” someone or something means “erasing” them, but merely shaming or removing them from places of honor and power, my feeling is: cancel on.
- Which would make him no different than the rest of us.↩