 |
| JSTOR Daily |
Cancel culture boxes nothing
At present, “cancelling” is an act of
confining someone from reconstructing and redeveloping himself from personal
growths and intellectual advancements, often hailed as a detainee by a
digital community due to an action widely accepted as “deem problematic”. It
is a form of online boycotting fueled by any social transgression.
Social transgression happens whenever an
individual deviate from social norms—online in this context.
Basically, if the Twitter world
finds you travelling into a different avenue, way too distant from accepted
roads, you’re cancelled.
Do you have a chance to redeem yourself?
No.
Because, you’re robbed from the
opportunity.
As to the most limiting of all
explanations, your voice is now silenced.
Point blank.
Cancel culture is the internet’s
collective movement of shaming an individual on a social media platform,
most popularized on Twitter. The act of mortifying starts after accounts of
broad influences take their narratives resulting to linear perspectives being
passed from user to user. It is a perpetual cycle of throwing ad hominems,
denying someone’s access to idea maturation, and to the extreme,
reducing someone’s human value to no absolute worth.
There is an underlying false sense of
superiority against the cancelled. If people were doing an action widely
supported by a strong community movement, people may amplify their individual
worth more and embrace the social gesture in exchange of a perpetuating motion
of online bullying someone – without acknowledging the aftermaths of their digital
actions.
Redefining
wokeness
As to modern definitions, this is an
expression of culture to be socially, culturally, and politically aware, more
detailed to what we speak up against. This cultural manifestation has invaded
the underlying elements of our society, so much so that, people are now
petrified to learn, engage, and speak up – with fear from becoming “cancelled”.
This has been a polarizing debate topic for familiar patterns are made anew as
the new normal: a significant person of fame does or says something offensive
or drops upon a deviated action; a backlash from the public – often
threateningly energized by politically progressive social media, prospers. To
more common grounds, it is a stance of ideology that asks the masses to observe
and examine how several factors inform or punctuate their personal lives.
Take for instance, a recent media talent
was called out on Twitter for catfishing a transgender woman. This
culminated to expose same schemes underpinning the vulnerability of the
affected parties, by the same person. This sparked outrage from the
social media platform, trying their utmost best to deprive this media talent
career opportunities due to said incident.
Without a single pinch of doubt, being
woke is a good thing. We must be all aware of the societal structures,
barriers, and actions put in places to enrich extreme levels of inequalities between
different groups of people. We, as citizens of the world, must be aware of our
own place within, and how can we help contributing social help for those laying
underground. The world faces disarrays, being woke is the only viable answer.
In contrary, wokeness in its purest form is not the issue rather it’s the
performative nature that inspires a bigger problem.
While cancel culture, before, was a social
change for good. At present, it becomes the complete opposite.
With how things transcend, wokeness has
been the new vent for self-enjoyment and one’s capitalist gain. The much highlighted
“stay woke” further emphasized that disintegrating structures of oppression is
a process that needs constant vigilance, and heightened response of relearning
and unlearning important things. Yet, the social media culture has driven to
decide active, continuous engagement with spare wokeness – for instance; politically
correct stands, free healthcare, and quality education for all – isn’t all that
important. Rather, we value the mere appearance of self-performance of social
awareness. The damaging aspect of wokeness is how easily people declare
their own “wokes” without radically thinking about their statements thoroughly.
We are in a rush to be outrage, to speak out, and cancel anything without extensive
discussion. These problems are further exacerbated by the speed and ease of
how social media allows us to the bare minimums to establish our personas.
Executing this awareness requires
signaling your values, acting as if you’ve got to prove to people that you have
the know-how of social justice – regardless of your actual beliefs or advocacy
--- in order to mine your excavation to prove that you are a part of the social
intellectual elites. “Wow, this person is woke” as we might say to delineate
someone to channel that we approve of him and suggest our friends do the same. This
is often utilized to gauge the level of people’s awareness, commitment, and
sophistication within movements of progress. Wokeness has directly shifted its primacy
focus from developing “awareness and consciousness” of social justice issues,
to “performing activism”, which is highly concerned with policing, moralizing,
and silencing people who struggle to face discourse entitizing the
conversation. This creates moral superiority, which aggravates authentic social
justice efforts, to an extent. When we cancel, we get rid of the potential
for a healthy discussion with people to think differently. We are offering little
to no room to begin to disintegrate the oppressive systems that we face. With
exemptions. When people act inappropriately without any good concern, desire to
understand, or remorse even, there’s little you can do to force them to change.
And yes, people must bear the consequences of their own actions and words. But,
to shame without welcoming dialogues is to further drive the wedge between
those with contrasting views even further.
Performative wokeness is one’s self-congratulatory
platform. It falsely maligns your opinions by using a host of social justice buzzwords,
as taken from The Harvard Crimson, these are some intersectionality,
marginalized, discourse, or any -sim, without taking full regard to how other
people would understand your ideas. This culture separates certain conversations
from oppressions that they give frameworks for understanding from the
communities they seek to empower. Rather, too critical concepts become tools
for strengthening our own self-image and earning other people’s approval.
On the good side,
How
influential it is
It’s important to recognize what cancel
culture combats. The culture successfully fights racism, sexism, or any other
type of abuse or wrongdoings to other fellows. This holds the people
accountable for their actions in ways that was not feasible in the past. It’s a
good avenue for preventing individuals from getting away with their
wrongdoings.
The culture demands social change and prioritizes
inequalities from keeping the bottom majority, oppressed.
When the justice system fails to punish
those accountable, we redirect to cancel culture. The results of public outcry and
pressure through social media have impacted how justice is attained. Besides
highlighting the racial and societal narratives, the culture also lends
powerful impact on brands we support and how we consume them. The internet is
now calling for broader make up ranges to cater to people of color, the same
platform is calling for PWD friendly devices, or for lesser environmental carbon
footprints, and the list forwards.
As we shift getting to a more
politically correct world, holding accountable the biggest oppressors, it’s a
social norm of us to be more aware regarding the things we say and the way we
act. By having the ability to express moral outrage, cancel culture has
permitted for dynamics of power to revolutionize change. There may be seats
around tables which aren’t allowed to be sat currently but other marginalized
folks are finally able to take seats at now vacant ones – taking grasp of their
actions due to power with every tweet.
The
problem with wokeness
Wokeness works to challenge people to
rewire their relationships with space and with place, its dominant failure is
that rather enriching action, it freezes it. Rather inspiring the masses to speak
up, it silences them. It makes them afraid of becoming socially wrong. David
Brooks of New York Times said that the irony of cancel culture is that undoing
knowledge does not happen within the concept of fear, but within a space of
acceptance. The fear of becoming wrong filters out people from social justice
issues, making it “harder to practice the necessary skill of life”.
What wokeness must repair is its expectations
for perfection and its insatiable eagerness and yearning to “call out” those
who step out of lines—those who make mistakes. Too often, we are aiming at
wrong targets.
The outcry which we reside innocent
mistakes or past ones is a linear reaction rather than responsive. The intolerance
is not even radical. Forcing people into silence is not radical.
To
ponder
The culture should put us into a much
tolerant viewing of points. Being with the advocacy means aiding meaningful conversations
to be uplifted and efforts to be moved forward when no one is watching. It’s
not shouting, yelling, or be at constant rage doing outcry to people who already
agree with us and embarking a bridge to further divide with those who don’t
necessarily agree with. Because, it is only when we restrict our comments and
likes as checklist exercises for our internal values that we can revolutionize
new lives breathing away from a broken system.
The problem of cancel culture is the
restriction of radical conversations. We deprive people from opportunities to
discourse. We deprive people from personal and intellectual growths. The act in
its present self is a linear method where in at the nearing end, no greater
benefit is attained. Ask ourselves about the motivations behind our comments, statements,
and posts. Better yet, go ask ourselves if there’s anything we could do to
light up helpful discussions, even little by little. Never rob someone from
their opportunity to learn and to grow. Let them be accountable but do not put
fuel to already massively lit bonfires. We must not exacerbate the situation
more rather we must refocus our channels by doing radical forwards, little by
little. Let us agree to be more conscientious, open-minded, and radical to
conversations that will spark progress.
Even by doing baby steps,
we can reclaim woke – to the purest of
its definition.
Asulats.
