How would you like to have a world run with set rules of engagement, morals and beliefs? How would you see a world where we have rules for discussion? Some 'Politically Correct' souls may find this a welcome move. But hold on, this is exactly what the 'Cancel Culture' movement is all about. 'Cancelling' all that's not progressive can be justice for the 'liberal' society. But I have to remind the 'liberals' here that extreme justice can sometimes lead to extreme injustice!
The world after the 'George Floyd incident' is quite disquieted, especially America with the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. It is disquieted about its past. The latest project rising out of this movement leads to this cancellation/erasure of the past. Some 'liberals' think a progressive utopia can be built by erasing the past. But is it feasible? No, it is not feasible and it is also absurd. The humankind made mistakes but it is also up to us, to own it as responsible individuals. Only by being reminded of the world's 'vices', can 'virtues' truly flourish in this world.
Recently, in America smashing up statues has gained much importance. I hope the 'liberals' think they can destroy all the statues belonging to the racists and be done with it. What started with the 'Black Lives Matter' campaign soon turned out to be the 'Cancel Culture' movement. The term 'Cancel Culture' originally came up as a twitter hashtag, it was there in action since some years but now it has gathered a big 'liberal' crowd. For what its worth, it is about naming, shaming and 'cancelling' people from society. 'Cancelling' here means denying existence to a person by banning him from social spaces. To me, this is cruel and inhuman. Nobody has the right to 'cancel' a person's life. I'm not here asking to tolerate intolerance but to show basic humanity. Today, people are laid off, suspended from their jobs for some incorrect tweets they posted years ago. The 'liberal' crowd here harasses the person, bullies him and denies him space because of the incorrect tweet he posted years ago. The problem here is that the 'liberal' crowd is denying the person a second chance. He who is made the public enemy #1 is harassed and is 'cancelled' without even considering that he is a person not an object. Normally, the word 'cancel' itself is used in a different context. Is it even right to use it in a phrase like, 'cancelling a person'? Ultimately, what I understand is that the movement is all wrong in its foundation.
This 'Cancel Culture' was not controversial until a letter signed by 150 notable writers, journalists surfaced against the movement. Significant names like Chomsky, Pinker, Atwood, Rushdie all signed the letter. This letter has now caused a huge uproar among the 'liberal' community. This also invited differences of opinion in Kerala when NS Madhavan in his regular Friday Column expressed his dissatisfaction with Chomsky and others who supported the letter. Well, NS Madhavan himself might not be able to grasp the real situation caused by this 'Cancel Culture, which is really a 'cancer' eating our democratic and political 'culture'.
This is a sensitive issue that I'm talking about here. Deeply political but still i decided to write this because i thought I may well write it while I can. I take full responsibility for what I'm saying here. Okay, now let's just not stand on ceremony here.
I know that symbols and language play a huge part in shaping our thoughts. It plays a crucial role in our lives. Our reality is what we can relate with our language. Now, smashing up statues (although it is connected, we may leave that from this piece) but extending it to 'cancelling' anything is absurd, let alone ironic.
I will get this straightened out. Consider the example of George Washington. He is the father figure of America but he was also the owner of many black slaves. Of course, this is not something that one can be proud of. But can we 'cancel' Washington all together? No we can't. Even trying to do that is absurd. Washington was key in building America as a nation. Who could deny his role in American history! But again of course, he was a racist. Still there is a good side to Washington too. This is exactly a problem that I relate with the human psyche. We want all our heroes in our history to be faultless but that is not the way. We often tend to forget that heroes were humans, that heroes also made mistakes. Why can't we tell our children that people make mistakes! The contribution of Washington to America is big but his history with slave trade is problematic. This is the 'liberal' problem and it is also the tricky state of affairs here. As far as I'm concerned, we should accept both. Nobody's 'black' or 'white', everybody's 'grey'. We should understand Washington completely, as he really was in his entirety.
There would be many 'liberals' who would question this but they should be really worried about themselves here. All this useless campaigns originate from social media. Basically, there is a problem with social media these days. It has developed into a place to express one's outrage, not one's opinion. If we take the Yellow Vests protest or any other social media guided protests we can find one common factor - 'outrage from specifically carved out niches'. These days in social media, every discussion or engagement is nothing but bullying in new ways. People are out in the digital space to 'brand' other people as 'conservative' or 'liberal' (There are many other labels). This agenda in itself is killing the democratic spirits of our time. The liberal/conservative fight is something common in the digital space and I myself have been at the giving and receiving end of it. The abuse and bullying associated with this 'warfare' is real. Even the outrage that one expresses, is for the faction. Everyday people do it. They do it for the 'brand', either to sustain themselves in the brand or to win a branding. This has developed into a mental pressure for the youth in social media. The surprising thing is that they just don't know it. So what I'm saying is that there is no personal freedom in the most celebrated free speech space that we believe we have. And like all absurd movements, this outrage from carved out niches is behind the 'Cancel Culture'.
Let's come back to Washington. Now I think I have made myself clear regarding why can't we 'cancel' Washington. For more understanding on the issue, lets jump into our familiar Indian context. We will consider MK Gandhi now because that would be the direct parallel for Washington (fathers of nations). Here also, what's surprising is that we call Gandhi a 'Mahatma'. Why should someone call a person 'Mahatma'? Gandhi was also a human being. He has his good side and his bad side. Again, Gandhi is a controversial figure today. The decades long strategy to 'brand' Gandhi as a 'Mahatma' really had its impact on people's mind. But now we can see the human Gandhi is, with all his virtues and vices. Again, should Gandhi be 'cancelled'? Can we undermine Gandhi's contribution? No, we can't. But still we can accept his bad sides. He was a misogynist without doubt, a casteist but he was important. He is important. We all just have to accept Gandhi as the human he was. Someone who is neither 'black' or 'white' but 'grey'. As a matter of fact, even Ambedkar wouldn't want to 'cancel' Gandhi altogether. They may had differences of opinion but Ambedkar respected Gandhi.
Now, let's just think of all the 20th, 19th, 18th Century intellectuals who contributed to the forming of our ideas today. The fact is that they were all misogynists in one way or the other. I'm not endorsing this but if we suddenly choose to 'cancel' them all...then boom, No Marx, No Kant, No Rousseau... No nothing. Every progress we made will be gone. So clearly, this is a project with ridiculous objectives.
Again, its also about a person's 'episteme' in which he is situated. If I lived in the early 20th Century, I could say with great assurance that I would've been a racist and a misogynist. So "What can we know and How do we know it" is really important. And I'm pretty sure that many things we believe now maybe regressive to our future generations. That's the role that 'epistemology' plays in our lives, the human lives!
Now coming back to the letter that is causing all the uproar. The Harper's magazine released the letter titled, 'A Letter on Justice and Open Debate'. I read the letter and I also support the group of Chomsky, Pinker, Atwood in their undertaking. I explained in this piece why am I doing so. To tag it along the letter, the outrage culture is now turned into "a vogue for public shaming and ostracism" and is also part of "the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty". Nothing is absolute in this world, even free speech or tolerance, but my point here is clear. To 'cancel' our past is a pointless act. But there is something that we can do. Something that Michel Foucault did. The history as shown to us was one-sided only. Taking that in to consideration, our job should be to 'excavate' individuals who contributed to society but was buried for being a black, or a homosexual or a woman. This is our project. This is how we correct ourselves, by telling our children that there are histories. So here I suggest this, not to bury the incorrectness in past individuals but to excavate and find the buried goodness in our marginalised brothers and sisters.
With great conviction, I can tell that this 'Cancel Culture' is a 'cancer' spread out from the 'outrage culture' of our social media which should be fought with all our might.
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