TERRIBLE FRENCH ACCENT: Bonjour! I believe I have le displeasure of speaking
with le Marquis et le Marquess de Pamplemousse. It is, uhhh, my solemn duty to inform you
zat the Committee de Public Safety has pronounced you, uhhh, CANCELLED. Et moi, et le grande, grande mob which is
awaiting just around ze corner have come to transport you to Paris, where you will be
making... COMMENTER ONE: Yo, what is this? COMMENTER TWO: Is that meant to be a French
accent? COMMENTER THREE: Well, this is the most cringe
thing I've watched all day. COMMENTER FOUR: Is this like a Borat kinda
thing? Is this supposed to be ironic? COMMENTER FIVE: First! COMMENTER SIX: My great, great, great grandma
actually died in the French Revolution so sorry if I'm failing to see the humour here. COMMENTER SEVEN: Does anyone know what yikes
is in French? COMMENTER EIGHT: Long-time subscriber here
and, yeah, I'm really not sure about this. COMMENTER NINE: Yeah, sorry Tom, but I think
maybe you should rethink this one. Ohhh, shhhhhhhi- Few ideas have captured the collective imagination
of the internet in the past year or so more than that of âcancel cultureâ. For the uninitiated, the broad idea is that
the contemporary internet (and, in some formulations, society more broadly) has become an increasingly
hostile, uncompromising and censorious place. Say the wrong thing, or even the right thing
but in the wrong way or at the wrong time, and one runs the risk of being âcancelledââset-upon
by an outraged online mob who wonât stop until youâve lost your job, your friends,
your family and been fully exiled from public life. Debate over this supposed phenomenon reached
boiling point in July of 2020, when an open letter titled A Letter on Justice and Open
Debate, written by The New York Times Magazine journalist Thomas Chatterton Williams and
signed by 152 journalists, writers and academics, appeared in the American publication Harperâs
Magazine. Although not using the phrase âcancel cultureâ
itself, the letter hit all the main beats of the same argument, warning that âthe
free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of liberal society, is daily becoming
more constrictedâ, continuing that âwhile we have come to expect this on the radical
right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our cultureâ. In fact, at a time when America, the country
in which the vast majority of the signatories are based, was witnessing a brutal crackdown
on freedom of expression through popular protest by right-wing politicians and police chiefs,
it was mostly online social justice advocates which the letter implied represented an existential
threat to the body politic. One aspect of the letter which stood out given
the urgency of its language was its lack of reference to specific incidents. It contained several vague allusions to âbooks
[being] withdrawn for alleged inauthenticityâ and âjournalists [being] barred from writing
on certain topicsâ, and readers with a bit of time on their hands could likely decode
some of the events to which these allusions referred by looking over the list of those
who had signed. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that a letter
which stated that âit is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution
in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thoughtâ refused to outright
name any of these apparently oh-so-common events. The vagueness of what has since become known
in some quarters simply as âthe Harperâs letterâ is fairly representative of discussions
surrounding cancel culture. Those making the case that we should be worried
about this supposed phenomenon are quick to diagnose what Jurgen Habermas calls the âpublic
sphereâ with a malignant disease but much slower to point to any specific symptoms of
that ailment. In fact, as appeared to be the case with the
Harperâs letter, when the phrase âcancel cultureâ is invoked, there is often the
sense that the person raising it does so precisely so that they donât have to engage with the
specificities of a particular incident. There are several reasons why proponents of
the idea that âcancellingâ is a widespread phenomenon that we should be deeply worried
about might prefer to talk about a broad, âculturalâ issue at the direct expense
of focusing on any specific âcancellingsâ themselves. Weâll touch upon some of those reasons in
the course of this video. Thereâs a specific thread which I want to
pull upon as a means of unravelling this recent anxiety about cancel culture, however, and
that is its frequent engagement of the figure of âthe mobâ. The phrases âmob ruleâ and âmob mentalityâ
crop up frequently in opinion pieces and articles discussing cancel culture. As I was writing this video, Rowan Atkinson,
the actor who portrays Mr Bean, Blackadder and Johnny English, told the UK magazine the
Radio Times that âwhat we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming
the streets looking for someone to burnâ. Where the word âmobâ itself doesnât
appear, the broader idea is surely there. At the heart of what we might call the âcancel
culture hypothesisâ is the idea that all of us are at constant risk of unwittingly
angering a merciless online mass which is untameable and unrelenting, a faceless digital
crowd which is prone to whipping itself up into a frenzy and which knows no limits in
the destruction it can cause. In doing so, proponents of the cancel culture
hypothesis tap into a powerful and ingrained cultural idea. âThe mobâ and the notion that individuals
who find themselves within a crowd have a tendency to lose all sense of reason and become
prone to engaging in extreme, violent acts is a longstanding trope. It is also one which has been frequently invoked
in the past year or so in relation to physical groups, peaceful or otherwise, as crowds have
once again become a central force in our politics. In fact, the cultural trope of the frenzied
mob is central to anxieties over cancel culture. It is in many ways our learned fear of the
uncontrollable mob which gives the cancel culture hypothesis its power. In order to unpack this proposed contemporary
phenomenon, I therefore want to begin by exploring the origins of the idea of the mob itself. Weâll come back to call-outs and cancellations
shortly. But, first, let me transport you back to the
19th century and the birth of the mob. DEEPLY SAD VOICE: Helloooo... It's my seventeenth attempt to record this... I'm just not used to speaking from the heart
without a script. So, by now, most of you will have seen may
most recent video. And, if you haven't, you've probably seen
some of the... controversy... that it's provoked. Oh god, it's raining, of course it's raining. So I just wanted to make a quick video to
address the situation, because I think some people might've... got the wrong end of the
baguette. Can't say that... can't say that... Many of you will know that I've been trying
to take more creative risks with my videos lately and that's really difficult for me
because I just have all these amazing creative ideas coming at me all the time. I just have to bat them away like "get away
from me amazing idea, get away, I can't use you all". Sometimes, this is gonna mean that ideas that
are less good... or maybe too powerful that you can't appreciate them are gonna slip through
and so I just, I... I... I... I wanna apologise. Okay? If the particular creative direction that
my last video went in was too much for you. You know, I deeply, deeply regret putting
something out there into the world which some of you clearly weren't ready for. You know, that is my fault, that is my fault,
that is on me. You know, I love all of you. Every single one. I love my subscribers. I love those of you have yet to make the life-changing
and mind-expanding decision to click subscribe and, uhhh, ring that bell. You know, I love you whether you smash like
or whether you haven't worked out how to do that yet. Hell, I love you whether or whether not you've
been to patreon dot com forward-slash Tom Nicholas to sign up to support the channel
whilst getting early access to my videos and more or whether Patreon's not available in
your region. I guess... I guess the main point is that... I'm sorry. And, in the future, I'll try not to put out
videos which are just so ahead of the curve. Itâs important to begin by acknowledging
that, at least in periods where there has existed some density of living, there have
always been mobs of one form or another. In their beautifully composed video essay
"Crowds, Masses, Riots", TheLitCritGuy and LaborKyle highlight that the mob or crowd
was an important force in the politics of the Roman Republic. Senators proposing new policies would often
find themselves supported or contested by throngs of plebs and peasants. These crowds would regularly turn violent
and, even when they didnât, it was always the implicit threat of violence which gave
them their power. Yet, while they were certainly viewed as an
inconvenience to those they opposed, the Roman mob was not viewed as irrational or exceptional
but was in many regards an accepted part of the Republicâs political process. As Kyle puts it âwhat modern eyes may interpret
as an unruly mob was, to the Romans, something that was regulated by civil society. The crowd had a role to play in politicsâ. In a society in which few of those assembled
in these crowds had any real voice within the formal political system, it was taken
as a given that it was through physically gathering to show their collective power that
they would express themselves. The idea of âthe mobâ as it is passed
down to us today: as irrational, uncontrollable and as an intrinsic threat to public order
is a product of what Eric Hobsbawm refers to as the âdual revolutionâ of the late-18th
and early-to-mid-19th centuries. The first of these revolutions was the Industrial
Revolution, in which first Britain, and subsequently other countries, leapt from being largely
agrarian and artisanal societies to ones which revolved around mechanised production. One impact among many of the Industrial Revolution
was an unprecedented change in the size and geography of the population. Census data shows that, between 1801 and 1851,
the population of England more than doubled. Moreover, people began to be more and more
concentrated in cities. As Clifford Stott and John Drury write, âindustrialisation
created an explosion in the scale of urban society; for the first time in history, large
urban populations emergedâ. Over time, this increasing concentration of
working-class people in cities gave them the ability to organise with a view to bettering
their lot in life. The second revolution to which Hobsbawm refers
and which gave birth to the idea of âthe mobâ was the French Revolution. The period of the French Revolution from the
abolishment of absolute monarchy in 1789 to the installation of Napoleon as First Consul
in 1799 was one of radical and fast-moving change. Whilst much of this was the result of politicking
amongst royals, nobles and clergymen, throughout, crowds (in particular the people of Paris)
were a decisive force. There were several moments in which the Revolution
would likely have been defeated were it not for crowds of Parisians marching on the Palace
of Versaille to make their voices heard and the most enduring image of the Revolution
likely remains that of the storming of the Bastille on 14th July 1789. If the Industrial Revolution gave the new
European, urban working-class the ability to organise, the French Revolution thus served
as an inspiration and a testament to what could be achieved when people physically gathered
together to make their voices heard. The following decades only saw further instances
of mass action by (usually urban) crowds. Sometimes this action was violent. The revolutionary wave of 1848 often referred
to as the âSpringtime of the Peoplesâ, for example, saw barricades erected in cities
across Europe. Elsewhere, it was entirely peaceful (at least
on the part of the crowds themselves). The Chartist movement in Britain, for instance,
campaigned to secure the vote for all men over the age of 21 and employed as one of
their primary methods of campaigning the mass meeting in which thousands would gather to
listen to speeches and show their support. To a world which, for centuries, had been
accustomed to the direct rule of kings, such modes of political action and agitation seemed
strange and new. To the wealthy and powerful, they were downright
terrifying. Several journalists and scholars therefore
set out to try and understand what it was that made crowds tick. And, in doing so, they founded a field of
research known as âcrowd psychologyâ. Unsurprisingly, given how many revolts and
revolutions the country underwent during the 18th and 19th centuries, the most influential
proponents of this new âcrowd psychologyâ were French. Chief among them was the writer and polymath
Gustave Le Bon. Le Bon had been living in Paris during the
pronouncement and later violent suppression of the Paris Commune, the worldâs first
socialist republic. A committed conservative, he very much viewed
such mass action by crowds through the eyes of the anxious elite. In his 1895 book The Crowd: A Study of the
Popular Mind, Le Bon argued that crowds were intrinsically dangerous and that the simple
act of being in a crowd changed people. âBy the mere fact that he forms part of
an organised crowdâ, Le Bon wrote, âa man descends several rungs in the ladder of
civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual;
in a crowd, he is a barbarianâ. To Le Bon, and other crowd psychologists like
him, crowds were irrational and intrinsically prone to violence. In the introduction to his book he writes
that âlittle adapted to reasoning, crowds, on the contrary, are quick to actâ, adding
later that âcrowds are only powerful for destructionâ. In short, crowds could not be reasoned with
and, by extension, their grievances were never legitimate. While there have perhaps always been mobs
of one form or another, then, it was as recently as the 19th century that the idea of the mob
as irrational and inherently destructive was born. Le Bonâs work has been immensely influential. It continues to be cited in academic studies
(including, interestingly for our discussion here, in relation to so-called digital crowds). Moreover, it is the very foundation of contemporary
popular perceptions of mobs. Ideas about individuals being intoxicated
by the crowd and becoming prone to perform unthinkable acts when part of a mob, first
expressed by Le Bon, continue to have considerable currency. And, itâs an alluring thesis. The only problem is that, as soon as we try
and apply it to any actual examples of what might be described as mobs, physical or digital,
Le Bonâs thesis simply doesnât hold water. HOST: Okay, well, next up we have a guest
on the stream and it's my pleasure to introduce Tom Nicholas, a YouTube creator who some of
you might be familiar with following a recent bit of a... dispute shall we say... surrounding
a video about the French Revolution and perhaps a slightly misjudged choice of accent. TOM: Hello? He- hello? HOST: Hello Tom. TOM: Ohh, ohh, hello. Yes. It's a- a- a- pleasure to grace your stream
with my presence. HOST: You're... uhhh... you're welcome. Uhhh, so I know we don't know each other overly
well but you've always seemed like a decent enough guy so I wanted to bring you on and
give you the opportunity to perhaps clear some of the confusion surrounding your latest
video. TOM: Thank you. Uhhh, I mean obviously I thought that the
complete and unreserved apology which I uploaded to my third channel would have been more than
enough but, uhhh - HOST: Well, yeah, about that, I... I guess some people felt that it didn't... uhhh... come across as entirely sincere. TOM: Well, I think you'll find that I said
that it was... uhhh... and I'm... I'm quoting myself here... "my fault"... twice...
in quick succession for emphasis. HOST: Yes, but you did also imply that the
blame for this scenario was really more on the viewers of the video, rather than yourself. TOM: Yes. Yes I did. HOST: I'm sure that's not what you meant though. I... I'm sure you realise that perhaps there's
a tiny bit of a misjudgement on your part and that you'd like to say that... now...
so we can all get on with our lives. TOM: Look... I thought that at first as well. You know, I saw those comments coming in saying
"Tom's made a very minor judgement of error here" and I though... ohh, maybe they've got
a point. But, at the same time, I've been getting a
lot of new followers on Twitter lately. And lots of them have been saying "No Tom,
you were completely correct to upload that video". And that just seems more logical to me. Because, no one's ever told me that I've been
wrong about anything before. So, it just seems more likely that I'm probably
completely in the right here as well. HOST: Yeah, but you have to aware that some
people, perhaps those with connections to France most of all they're gonna feel a little
uncomfortable with your... performance? TOM: Yeah, well maybe that's a good thing. HOST: I don't follow. TOM: Well, these... "French people"... if I'm even allowed to
say that any more. Maybe they need taking down a peg or two. HOST: I'm not sure what you're trying to - TOM: Well, why should they get the special
treatment, hmmm? Yeah? "Le treatment speciale"? If you ask me, we've been bending over backwards
for these people for far too long and I will not be silenced by them. I will not... [TOM PULLS PLUG FROM MICROPHONE] The
crowd psychology of Gustave Le Bon and his peers has been hugely influential, including
on debates surrounding cancel culture. In fact, Le Bonâs work is given some attention
in Jon Ronsonâs 2015 book So Youâve Been Publicly Shamed which, following its publication,
sparked the first wave of anxiety over online âcancellationsâ. Ronsonâs book starts from the proposition
that the early 2010s marked what he calls âthe start of a great renaissance of public
shamingâ and argues that contemporary instances of Twitter backlash against both celebrities
and ordinary people can be likened to historical practices of public punishment, such as the
stocks. Ronsonâs discussion of Le Bonian crowd psychology
is complex. On the face of it, it is primarily critical. Drawing on an interview with the psychologist
Stephen Reicher, Ronson foregrounds the manner in which what might initially appear as unified,
frenzied Twitter mobs are, in fact, always infinitely diverse. He writes that âfor Gustave Le Bon a crowd
was just a great ideology-free explosion of madnessâa single blob of violent colour
without variation. But that wasnât Twitter. Twitter did not speak with one voiceâ. He highlights that, in any instance of Twitter
backlash, peopleâs particular grievances and the form that they takeâfrom constructive
criticism to heartfelt pleading to outright abuseâvary wildly. Later in the book, Ronson suggests that he
has discounted Le Bonâs ideas from his analysis of so-called âpublic shamingâ entirely. Nevertheless, as soon as his direct critique
of Le Bon is complete, many of the same notions, that digital crowds are irrational, that they
are intoxicating for those âswept upâ in them and that they have an inherent tendency
towards destruction, quickly come crawling back. There are two primary reasons for this. For one, Ronson is a pop-science writer and
is never one to let the facts or even argumentative consistency get in the way of telling a good
story. He will often acknowledge that a particular
argument is ridiculous before preceding to make that very argument anyway. Thereâs one section in So Youâve Been
Publicly Shamed where he writes that âthereâs an old Internet adage that as soon as you
compare something to the Nazis you lose the argument. Maybe the same could be said about the Stasiâthe
East Germansâ secret police force during the Cold Warâ. He then proceeds to spend the next two pages
comparing people getting angry on Twitter with the Stasi. Yet, Ronsonâs embrace of the idea of the
frenzied mob even while acknowledging that the evidence for crowds working in this way
is shoddy also points to how ingrained this idea is in our culture. For, the evidence that crowds work in the
manner in which Le Bon suggests they do is bad. Very bad. One of the most-referenced works in rebuffs
of Le Bonian style crowd psychology is a study by the British historian E.P. Thompson. Thompson undertook a detailed survey of the
food riots which were a semi-regular feature of 18th-century England. Such riots have often been viewed by historians
as largely irrational outbreaks of mob violence which were, as best, inspired by the base
desire of âthe mobâ to satiate their hunger. Yet, on closer inspection, Thompson found
that such riots were, in fact, âa highly-complex form of direct popular action, disciplined
and with clear objectivesâ. Firstly, these riots were not driven solely
by hunger but by a moral and broadly political concern with changing laws and economic structures
which either enabled farmers and merchants to charge the poor more for the grain with
which they made their bread or, if they felt they could get a better price, to transport
that grain elsewhere. Those who participated in these so-called
riots therefore had very specific demands: they wanted to purchase the grain which they
relied upon for sustenance at the price which they had previously been told was fair. Secondly, whilst these outbreaks often involved
violence, Thompson continues that âit is the restraint, rather than the disorder, which
is remarkableâ. Counter to what Le Bon suggests, these crowds
did not undertake wild rampages but used the power of numbers to achieve a very specific
end. They could simply have stolen the grain which
they needed; but this was rarely the case. Thompson recalls the example of âthe Honiton
lace-workers, in 1766, who, having taken corn from the farmers and sold it at the popular
price in the market, brought back to the farmers not only the money but also the sacksâ. While some may attempt to write such events
off as instances of illogical, unrestrained outbursts of frenzied mobs, then, what we
actually find is that those who participated in these food riots had very specific reasons
for taking part and that, on joining the crowd, they did not find themselves impassioned to
undertake complete destruction but came together to achieve very specific goals, after which,
they stopped and went home. Many other studies which have analysed specific
so-called âmobsâ have found that, once we view them within their proper social and
historical context and account for the particular reasons they assembled, Le Bonâs ideas begin
to look ridiculous. In fact, it is Le Bonâs suggestion that
we ignore such details in favour of viewing the phenomenon of the crowd itself as a kind
of intoxicant and those who find themselves within crowds as suffering from something
akin to mental ill health that is the very reason that his work was embraced by his peers. The ruling classes of the late 19th century
didnât want to view the crowds which had so frequently sought to overthrow them as
intelligent and rational and they certainly didnât want to contemplate the idea that
the revolutions, protests and mass movements which had dominated the previous century might
have been in any way an outcome of their own actions in creating a deeply unequal society. It was comforting, in a way, to simply explain
these events away as simply another instance of what Charles Mackey called the âmadness
of crowdsâ. Moreover, Le Bonâs ideas were politically
useful. For, in ignoring the specificities of individual
crowds, his work implied that all crowds were essentially the same. It suggested that, no matter how orderly and
peaceful a crowd seemed, they were always a potential threat in need of suppression. We can see how powerful this notion was in
its influence on the novelist Charles Dickens. Dickens was, as anyone with even a passing
knowledge of his work will know, deeply distressed by the poverty and inequality which surrounded
him. Yet, as is evidenced in his 1859 book A Tale
of Two Cities, he was terrified that any mass movement which sought to end that suffering
would lead to uncontrollable violence. In 1848, he went as far as serving as a volunteer
policeman in order to help suppress meetings of Chartists campaigning for a more representative
democracy. Such was the power of the idea that all mobs
were reprehensible, then, that it could lead to someone as dedicated to social reform as
Dickens signing up to wield a truncheon with which to beat down people with whom he likely
agreed on a substantial amount. So, having developed a slightly more complex
understanding of crowds and seen the political motivations behind the circulation of the
idea of âthe mobâ, letâs return to the present day to consider what parallels we
might find between the emergence of the figure of âthe mobâ in the 19th century and contemporary
warnings about âcancel cultureâ. Hey everyone, I just wanted to say a quick
"hi" to all the new followers I've had on here lately. You know, it has been a really rough couple
of weeks for me. But to all the haters, I just wanna say... AU REVOIR! [LAUGHTER] Nah, nah, nah but seriously I appreciate the
support and... some of you... you've really opened my eyes to just how deep some of this
goes. Yeah? Cause the... the French lobby, they've been
trying to stop truth-tellers like me... and like you from... well, you know, like... telling
the truth... for a long, long time. Yeah? The other day on my... uhhh... super-secret
Discord server which you can join for just seventy dollars a month... some people were
saying... and I don't wanna fully endorse this idea just yet, you know? I've gotta do some of my own research... watch
a YouTube video or two... But some people have been saying that France... NOT EVEN REAL. Yeah. Yeah, just completely made up to... to silence,
yeah? And... and you. AND TO DESTROY WESTERN CULTURE. Yeah. As I say, I don't wanna fully authorise this
ideal just yet but... does seem pretty convincing. I mean, just look at a map. What kind of a shape... for a country... is
that? Yeah, but anyway... uhhh... you all... uhhh...
stay vigilant. Right? And I'll speak to you soon. In the previous sections, weâve explored
the idea of âthe mobâ as it emerged in the 19th century and has been passed down
to us in the present. And, weâve seen that it is just that, an
idea, a cultural trope which, as soon as we examine any actually-existing examples of
so-called âmobsâ is quickly proven to be a fiction. But it has been a useful fiction. Whenever there have been instances of mass
collective action, it has served as a way of drawing attention away from the reasons
that have inspired people to join in with that action and as a means to encouraging
us to view the arguments they have made as inherently unworthy of our time and energy. In the introduction to this video, I highlighted
that, whenever someone invokes the idea of âcancel cultureâ, they tend to appear
to have a specific supposed âcancellingâ in mind. And yet, by centring the conversation on cancel
culture, rather than focussing on the specific event which has provoked them to speak on
the topic, they only end up drawing the discussion further and further away from the matter at
hand. This may, initially, seem odd. Yet, the similarities between cancel culture
anxieties about digital mobs and the historical anxieties surrounding physical mobs that weâve
been looking at suggests that, in short, this might be the whole point. See, the ruling classes of the 19th century
were vehemently opposed to the reforms demanded by the socialist and democratic mass movements
which arose throughout that century. They certainly werenât above arguing that
even limited expansions of the vote might lead to the complete downfall of civilisation. Yet, it was simply easier to disparage those
campaigning for such reforms as an unruly and irrational mobâthe added benefit being
that doing so didnât run the risk of legitimising the grievances and hopes of these movements
as being worthy of debate. As I see it, the term âcancel cultureâ
operates in a very similar way. Letâs take one of the higher profile cases
of a supposed âcancellingâ as an example: the backlash against J.K. Rowlingâs increasingly confident and proud
transphobia. There is, of course, a more basic question
to be asked here about whether someone who, at time of recording, has a book at number
one on the New York Times Best Sellers list can be meaningfully said to have been âcancelledâ. With regards to the debates which have sprung
up around the affair, however, the manner in which those defending Rowling so often
try to move the conversation towards being about the broad notion of âcancel cultureâ
works to tacitly discourage people from actually looking into the things that sheâs said
and from actually considering whether there might be any evidentiary basis for her spurious
claims that the happiness and basic safety of trans people conflicts with that of cis
women. The suggestion is that you donât need to
look at the details; theyâre not important. And, itâs a clever rhetorical turn. For, whilst those seeking to defend Rowling
often do agree with her transphobic rhetoric, guiding the conversation toward this vague
notion of âcancel cultureâ enables them to defend the author without having to do
the hard work of actually piecing together a defence of the specific things sheâs said
and written. At a perhaps even more pernicious level, the
notion that there exists a thing called âcancel cultureâ encourages us to view all instances
in which someone receives online backlash for their words or actions as essentially
the same. This also carries over aspects of historical
discourses surrounding mobs. George RudĂŠ has argued that the work of crowd
psychologists such as Le Bon âserved to foster the illusion that, regardless of time
and place, âa mob is a mob is a mobââ. It perhaps goes without saying that crowds
have done both brilliant and terrible things throughout history. It was a crowd which stormed the Bastille,
but it was also a crowd which [...]. Crowds marched (and continue to march) declaring
that Black Lives Matter whilst, not so long ago, other crowds [...]. The mob hypothesis, however, encourages us
to view all of these crowds as identical. The implication being that, if we want to
criticise one of these supposed âmobsâ, we have to be willing to criticise all of
them. This same idea, transposed into the key of
the internet, is central to âcancel cultureâ discourses. To return to the founding document of cancel
cultureâanxieties, it is the unacknowledged glue which holds together Ronsonâs argument
in So Youâve Been Publicly Shamed. The book is essentially a loosely-structured
set of anecdotes about people, both celebrities and ordinary folk, who have received some
form of backlash on the internet. Despite Ronsonâs hesitancy to concede any
wrongdoing or lack of judgement on the part of those on the receiving end of these instances
of backlash, most people who read the book will likely come to differing conclusions
about whether some push back might have been warranted (or not) in each individual case. Yet, the argumentative thrust of the book
is that we should view every single case as fundamentally the same. Ronsonâs thesis is that, if you donât
think that the online mocking of a pop science writer for fabricating quotes and plagiarising
the work of others is completely barbaric, then youâre also sanctioning care workers
who took a misjudged humorous photo at Arlington Cemetery being piled upon and losing their
jobs. In fact, the âcancel cultureâ hypothesis
relies upon the complete stripping away of detail and nuance. Like the theories of physical crowds which
it so clearly echoes, it is, at best, a lazy attempt to string together a profound-sounding
cultural analysis which there is little evidence to support. At its worst, it is an opportunistic attempt
by media figures who would prefer to operate in a scenario in which their communication
with the general public was entirely one-way to delegitimise any criticism of their words
or actions. Either way, it asks us to make an all-or-nothing
pronouncement on the legitimacy and morality of collective action on the internet. Yet, just as, when we look at specific examples
of physical mobs, we find them to be infinitely more complex than Le Bon suggested, usually
having very clear grievances and objectives, so too does taking a closer look at any instance
of online backlash usually reveal a very specific disagreement. On some occasions, we might feel that a certain
comment or action justifies being challenged; at other times, we might feel as though someone
is being unfairly victimised. But retaining that nuance is important if
weâre to have meaningful conversations about how we want our public sphere to operate. [⪠GENTLE CLASSICAL MUSIC âŞ] [SOUND OF PHONE VIBRATING] TOM: Hello, you've reached the telephone of
Tom Nicholas. You must be one of my new three-hundred dollars
a month Patreon subscribers looking for your free five-minute chat. Oh, or is this about the divorce. LAURA: Hi Tom, no actually this is Laura from
Pidgeon Books. TOM: Oh, so you received my manuscript then? LAURA: Yes. Although having it sent by armed courier wasn't... strictly necessary. TOM: I wish it wasn't... I wish it wasn't... LAURA: It wasn't. But we had a read anyway. TOM: Still trying to... piece your mind back
together after having it blown. LAURA: Not exactly. TOM: Perhaps you weren't quite ready to hear
the truth, yeah? The... the real truth. I understand. I understand. LAURA: Frankly Tom, it's one of the worst
pieces of writing I've ever had the displeasure to receive in my entire career. There were less than ten fullstops in the
entire document. And you argument... that France... isn't...
real? A country I've been to literally multiple
times... doesn't exist? To put it kindly Tom, ludicrous. Tom: [sighs] So they've got to you too? You know I've always hated the publishing
industry and they're idiotic pro-France agenda. LAURA: Let me finish... let me finish... Yes, it's an intellectual and literary car
crash. One of our fact checkers experienced physical
pain reading it, Tom. But... Dr. Peterson's got himself in another meat
coma so we're pushing back the publication of "I Pity The Rule: You Guessed It, Even
More Rules" and we think this might appeal to a similar market. TOM: Hmmmmm... Hyper-intellectual renaissance men with abnormally
large brains. LAURA: Sure. TOM: Ahh, I've always loved the publishing
industry! Never afraid to print the truth no matter
the cost! LAURA: So... and it makes me deeply... existentially
sad to say this Tom... if you could get us a full draft... say by the spring... and please
could you break it into chapters this time... we would be... delighted... to publish. TOM: Well, you better be ready for the fight
of your lives 'cause they're gonna pull out all the stops to try and stop this one. LAURA: I am a hundred percent certain that
won't be a problem. TOM: Of course it won't... of course it won't... [SIGHS] I want to close out this video with a few
thoughts which I would have liked to have touched upon in greater detail but, for reasons
of time, will merely pose as questions which you might want to mull over whenever you see
the notion of âcancel cultureâ brought up in conversation. In particular, I want to highlight the extent
to which the idea of the âfrenzied mobâ, whether online or off, only really makes sense
through its opposition to the idea of the ârational individualâ. In his own study of crowds in 1841, the Scottish
journalist Charles Mackey wrote that âmen, it has been well said, think in herds; [âŚ] they
go mad in herds, while they recover their senses slowly, and one by oneâ. This idea that, alone, we are logical and
intelligent whilst, collectively, we lose something of our mental faculties and become
prone to some form of âgroupthinkâ is deeply ingrained in our culture. It is not hard to see why such an idea has
been so heavily circulated: contemporary capitalism requires us to view ourselves as disconnected
individuals pursuing our own personal interests and the notion that there is an inherent connection
between rationality and individuality helps to keep us skeptical of those who think or
work collectively. The cancel culture hypothesis, knowingly or
otherwise, cleverly narrativises this opposition. Articles and anecdotes which encourage sympathy
towards someone who has supposedly been âcancelledâ generally work to construct a mythic saga
in which a lone individual has found themselves facing-off against an undifferentiated online
mass. Our highly individualistic culture has taught
us where our sympathies should lie in such a scenario. Yet, we have to recognise that such framings
are always selective. For one, as we explored earlier in this video,
we do not lose our individuality once we become part of a digital crowd. If we did, then online forums, subreddits
or Facebook groups, to name but a few examples, would be perfectly harmonious places entirely
free from conflict; something which they evidently are not. It would, therefore, be more than possible
to re-tell any of these stories of supposed âcancellationsâ in a way which highlighted
the specific reasons that a particular individual chose to call out behaviour that they found
objectionable or hurtful. And, the opposite is true as well. For, at least in most of the higher-profile
cases, the person who has been âcancelledâ is also, in one way or another, part of a
crowd. To go back to the example of J.K. Rowling, Rowling retains legions of fans,
at least some of whom have come to support her precisely for her transphobic comments. Indeed, those new fans seem to have shaped
some of her thinking about trans rights. Rowling is, therefore, every bit as much part
of a âmobâ as those who criticise her. It is simply that a choice has been made in
how to tell the story of her radicalisation and the criticisms it has engendered. Who is part of a âmobâ and who is not
is therefore not something absolute but something which is decided by how these events are thought,
written and spoken about. Once we begin to recognise this, we likely
begin to see how these decisions might be informed, at some level, by the broader issue
of who gets to be seen as an individual in our society and who is denied that right. The word âmassesâ has long been used as
a synonym for working-class people in manner which denies their individuality and, through
the cultural connection between individuality and rationality discussed a moment ago, their
intelligence. And, a similar phenomenon frequently occurs
in relation to other marginalised groups. Phrases like âthe LGBTQ+ communityâ or
âthe Black communityâ, to point to just a couple of examples, can be powerful adhesives
when used by people within those communities to organise. But they can also be used (carelessly or maliciously)
by outsiders in ways which infer a level of homogeneity to the concerns and experiences
of the countless individuals who make up those groups. Itâs therefore important, when appraising
discussions of âcancel cultureâ to consider how this broader inequity between who is allowed
to be seen as an individual and who is denied that privilege might be tacitly informing
the conversation. To approach this from the opposite angle,
we would also do well to be skeptical of the notion that those who present themselves as
completely disconnected individuals are inherently and extraordinarily rational. For, recent years seem to have seen a rising
tide of contrarianism in our culture. This is evident in (often quite pathetic)
attempts by some to get themselves âcancelledâ precisely as a means to gaining attention
and sympathy. It also has some echoes in the formation of
conspiracy theory groups. Nevertheless, there is also a broader trend
in which, following any cultural or political event, a competition begins to compose the
most âuniqueâ take on that incident. It doesnât matter how terrible that take
is, as long as it is unique. This seems to be driven by a similar fetishisation
of individualist rationality and by a desire to be seen as more intelligent than âthe
crowdâ solely for the reason that oneâs analysis differs from that which is more widely
accepted. Obviously, sometimes, someoneâs unique viewpoint
can enable us to understand a certain topic or event in new (and perhaps better) ways. Yet, we should be cautious to think this is
always the case; sometimes consensus has emerged for a reason and âthe mobâ actually might
have a point.
The whole thing about the basis text for the "psychology of crowds" being like an allergic reaction to the Paris' Communes really shocked me. Is there any more case studies of "mob psychology" not being that true?
Did Mr.bean got cancelled?
Remember Wat Tyler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Q06XKrPvE