Do you remember the last days of Socrates? Accused by a popular court of having corrupted the youth, he was sentenced to death.
He drank the hemlock, and continued to chatter, but this chatter will not be relevant for this column. It will be about the trials and the masses who instruct them to their advantage.
For a philosopher, the professional reflex consists of defending Socrates and all those who, after him, were condemned for crimes of opinion. At least, that’s what Joseph Heath, who teaches at the University of Toronto, would have hoped. But what he observes worries him.
Some people doubt the existence of a cancel culture. Rather, they speak of a “culture of consequences”. According to them, we are witnessing a healthy return of the pendulum. People must simply assume the consequences of their discriminatory words or actions. Calls for “cancellation” are said to be the only recourse for marginalized and disempowered groups.
Heath disagrees. “This culture definitely exists,” he says on the phone. But to understand it, you have to make the right diagnosis. This is not a left or right issue. It’s not a woke or social justice problem either. »
Before going any further, a few clarifications are necessary.
The term “canceled” refers to a multitude of very different cases: an intellectual cited out of context or kept aside because of unpopular remarks, an artist whose fictional work is interpreted as if it were a essay, a polemicist who simply reaps the anger sown or a person accused or guilty of a sexual crime or hate speech.
The type of cancellation also varies: loss of advertising contract, social ostracism, dismissal or even prison.
During our interview, we will not discuss cases of a criminal nature such as sexual assault. Heath is especially interested in the debate of ideas.
Judgment must be made on a case-by-case basis. Let me give an example: a star takes the initiative to film himself uttering racist remarks for free, then loses a contract, because the company in question thinks that among the billions of human beings, it will find one who would make a better brand ambassador. If it is a “cancellation”, it is not scandalous. Not everyone is Socrates…
So don’t read the following using a particular case where “cancellation” seemed justified to you and then discredit Mr. Heath’s point.
This column aims to take a few steps back to understand the evolution of the phenomenon.
Instead of “social justice”, Heath suggests analyzing it with a broader framework: conflict theory.
According to him, people’s values have not radically changed. The new thing is the tools.
During conflict, the natural tendency is to seek allies. Hence comes the expression read the room. She says: open your eyes, no one in this room is supporting you…
However, social networks today make it possible to recruit and mobilize a huge number of people. A good example: the Lieutenant-Duval affair at the University of Ottawa, where the rebellion was led, among others, by people who had not attended the course where the “word that begins with N” was pronounced.
The second aspect is how quickly people can now intervene.
It becomes difficult to learn the context or obtain the opposing point of view. The right to defense is lost. The largest group, or the most motivated, imposes its version.
Heath takes a detour into evolutionary psychology. In the history of our species, the intervention of third parties makes it possible to enforce social norms to pacify a group. “Let’s get a queue. If you get passed, you hope someone steps up to point out that this behavior is unacceptable,” he explains.
But with new technologies, the opposite occurs. There is escalation. Some people make it a “performative” exercise to show off their virtue. Others enjoy the exhilarating effect of joining a group that defeats a powerful enemy, with the impunity of one hiding in the crowd.
As a good philosopher, Heath likes to examine arguments closely, highlighting blind spots in a debate and ensuring that the “contrary” perspective has been fully considered. But he doesn’t seek attention and he doesn’t relish controversy.
“I have a pile of texts in my closet that must not be published until I die,” he jokes.
He closed his blog a few years ago. “The comments were becoming too negative and aggressive,” he said. Sometimes people who agreed with me only dared to tell me so in a private message. »
Politically, I would define myself as a voter who hesitates between the Liberals and the New Democrats. But in any philosophy department meeting, I’m the person furthest to the right in the room…
Joseph Heath
In Canada, calls for “cancellation” come more often from the left, he acknowledges. But in the United States, the picture is different. This culture is used by all camps.
There, for example, progressive teachers are subject to pressure from conservative lobbies. While in universities, the minority of professors who identify as “conservative” fear being sanctioned for their comments more than their left-wing colleagues. Surprisingly, self-censorship is more common today than during McCarthyism and the communist hunt of the 1950s, according to a survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Since the start of the Cold War, the rate of self-censoring social science professors has increased from 9% to 25% 1.
Heath first focuses on the difficulty of advancing an unpopular position in a debate. His analysis focuses on this discomfort felt at the idea of disagreement.
His statement looks more like an attempt to establish an ethics of discussion.
To relearn how to debate, philosophy has a lot to teach us, he argues. “As every undergraduate student is taught, before criticizing a position, you must first explain it as clearly as possible. »
This proves that the criticism is based on good faith disagreement and not on a distortion of the opposing position. This method also has the merit of forcing you to put yourself in the head of the other to allow your audience to form their own opinion.
This requires emotional neutrality. Or the ability to explain an argument without contaminating it with emotions or prejudices.
We are not robots and there should be no pleasure in shocking. Empathy is important, but it has limits. The feeling of the other is a subjective and irrefutable criterion. If every upset person has a veto, the discussion will become impractical.
The controversial statement must also be put into context by paying attention, at least a little, to the intentions.
To do this, we need individuals who seek to understand and convince in an honest way. People who want to advance thinking instead of scoring points. Who value debate and not combat.
Heath gives the example of the philosopher Daniel Weinstock. In 2012, this professor at McGill University summarized what motivates symbolic excision. He gave the example of doctors who performed this procedure on Somali women to prevent them from returning to their native country to undergo this mutilation. However, Weinstock went on to express his strong disagreement.
A misleading extract circulated in the media, people went wild and the CAQ government disinvited him from a conference on the old ethics and religious culture course. All without having taken the trouble to obtain his version of the facts.
This is an example which should chill those who support “cancellations” in the name of rebalancing the balance of power and advancing their cause. It could end badly for everyone.
If we no longer know how to respond to an opposing argument, if we no longer recognize the legitimacy of reasonable disagreement, democracy will become very complicated.
1. Read FIRE’s report on censorship and self-censorship in the United States
Who is Joseph Heath?
- Professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, where he was previously director of the Center on Ethics.
- Former guest professor and researcher at the Ethics Research Center of the University of Montreal
- Author of several works, some of which have been translated into French, such as Revolt consummated, Dirty Money And Why is life so good in Canada?