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On Freedom and Accountability

Updated: Oct 14



Constant and Perpetual? An Evaluation of the Legitimacy of ‘Cancel Culture’ Justice


Although the concept of 'cancel culture' has been thrust to the forefront of modern life due to the Internet's ability to make private grievances public, there has long been tension between informal and formal justice (Koh; Ronson). In this context, informal justice refers to rulings enforced not by a structured legal system but by those without such strict protocols, whereas formal justice is the inverse. The Red Scare in the United States constituted a widespread campaign of informal justice endorsed by the federal government, which faced opposition from the formal legal system (“Executive Sessions”; “Have You No Sense of Decency?”). Conversely, the formal justice delivered by the now-infamous OJ Simpson court ruling prompted outrage from those who viewed him guilty in their courts of informal justice (Cowan and Fairchild). Across history and legal cases, the dispute between the value of the 'justice' provided by formal and informal justice systems has revolved around their usefulness in holding wrongdoers accountable.


However, to find an answer to this enduring question, a robust operational definition of 'justice' must be constructed such that one system can be seen to be superior. Among the innumerable philosophers who have proposed definitions for 'justice,' the Roman Institutes of Justinian provide "the most plausible core definition" (Miller). According to Justinian, justice is "the constant and perpetual will to render each his due” (Justinian). From this, we can see that the uniform application of moral principles is critical to achieving justice, highlighting that it is "the opposite of arbitrariness” (Miller). For a system to be just, all cases must be assessed impartially, and offenders must be given due process. As psychological research has established, humans are intrinsically biased despite believing the opposite, making a system of rules necessary to achieve this "constant and perpetual" justice (Alter; Justinian; Robbennolt and Taskin).


Therefore, as this essay will argue, a formal legal system is the best method for achieving justice, as per Justinian, and inversely, informal systems, such as 'cancel culture,' are not a legitimate way to hold individuals accountable. This essay will then explore the social implications of 'cancel culture' whilst refuting counter-arguments to highlight how not only is



Is the concept of “cancel culture” a legitimate way to hold individuals accountable, or does it stifle free expression and promote intolerance?


'Cancel culture' an illegitimate form of justice, but it also stifles free expression and promotes

intolerance.


Formal and Informal Systems:


A formal legal system is governed by principles and regulations designed to ensure impartiality, consistency, and fairness in the administration of justice. According to the European Convention on Human Rights, the presupposition of innocence and the guarantee of due process are paramount to criminal law (Picinali). These principles ensure that individuals are judged on their actions rather than the judge or jury's prejudices, safeguarding individuals against punishment without substantive evidence of wrongdoing. With them, three different men accused of the same crime with the same evidence are more likely to receive the same verdict, whereas otherwise, positive or negative biases against the accused could taint legal decision-making, undermining Justinian justice.


In contrast, informal justice, as delivered by 'cancel culture,' lacks these crucial elements. The absence of codified regulations governing 'cancel culture' allows individuals to base their 'guilty' or 'not guilty' verdicts on subjective factors, such as emotions and biases, rather than on the facts of a case (Ronson). Additionally, what evidence is considered is subject to less scrutiny than under a formal system, enabling individuals to be condemned based on misinterpretations, hearsay, or even outright falsehoods, as was the case during the 17th century Salem Witch Trials, or, conversely, exonerated despite substantial proof (Hylen). In an informal system, the three men could receive different verdicts despite identical evidence because of their individual differences, whether that be race or other protected characteristics (Office of Human Rights).


Ideology and 'Cancel Culture':


Of these protected characteristics, ideology plays the largest role in informing our perceptions of others. Psychological research has revealed that due to our evolutionary history, humans instinctively form in- and out-groups around shared goals and objectives (Haidt). While to our ape ancestors, these shared goals were based around ensuring survival in the wilderness,


2) Is the concept of “cancel culture” a legitimate way to hold individuals accountable, or does it stifle free expression and promote intolerance?


They have now become largely social or political objectives as day-to-day survival is no longer a pressing issue in our modern world (Haidt; Tomasello). Within this ideological framework, the in- and out-groups are determined by whether individuals agree or disagree with one's outlook, creating groups of people to receive positive and negative biases (Mason).


Other political and psychological research has established a top-down model for this group polarization, showing that individuals believe that the general public is "only marginally" less polarized than the extreme partisans of the in- or out-group (Ploger). In effect, this means that we attribute the polarization of the partisans that gain attention to their entire group, which increases how much we believe the in-group to agree with us and widens the ideological divide with the out-group (Ploger).


In an informal system, the strong positive bias towards the in-group and the negative bias towards the out-group that we intrinsically hold subconsciously shape our judgments of members of both groups. As a result, the judgments in this system are arbitrary, as they are not made through the consistent application of universal standards. This can be seen in the case of Bret Weinstein, who, in 2017, was a professor of Biology at Evergreen State College who spoke out against a change to the college's annual 'Day of Absence' tradition. While in previous years, the minority students and staff would voluntarily stay away from campus to "raise awareness about the contributions of people of color" during the day, in 2017, organizers suggested that white students should stay off campus instead (Duke Law; Svrluga and Helm). In response, Weinstein wrote an open letter opining that suggesting certain racial groups should leave campus promoted race essentialism by casting white people as opponents of racial progress. The letter prompted widespread campus protests by liberal students, leading to a lockdown of the school and Weinstein's resignation (Svrluga and Helm). Here, Weinstein's public expression of his opinion, which went against the liberal institution's paradigm, had him relegated to the out-group and judged for it despite nominally not doing anything wrong. Weinstein's case also reveals the inconsistency of judgments involving ideology and what Haidt terms the "blinding" effect of group polarization (Haidt). At its core, Weinstein's argument mirrored those of Martin Luther King Jr., a liberal paragon, that racial essentialism and


3) Is the concept of “cancel culture” a legitimate way to hold individuals accountable, or does it stifle free expression and promote intolerance?


Separation are counterproductive to racial progress because they undermine multiracial collaboration (Hughes). However, because Weinstein was in the 'out-group,' his argument, which otherwise would likely have been accepted, was dismissed with hostility. The inconsistency of ideological 'cancel culture' judgments can also be seen on the political Right. In 2021, Liz Cheney, Representative of Wyoming and the then third-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, publicly condemned Donald Trump for "[lighting] the flame" for the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and supported his impeachment, stating that there had "never been a greater betrayal" of the people by an American president (Associated Press; Prokop). In response to her breaking from the party stance, House Republicans voted to remove her from her leadership role, and she was later barred from the Wyoming Republican Party and censured by the Republican National Committee (Everett et al.; Richardson). As with Weinstein, Cheney was informally judged by a court of public opinion and punished for it despite only expressing her First Amendment rights, which, as a formal system would have found, is not a punishable offence (“First Amendment”).


Through Cheney's explanation of her rationale, we can further see how group polarization along ideological lines leads to inconsistent judgments. She stated that her support for an impeachment was driven by "the oath [she] swore to the Constitution" and her belief in the "basic principles that underpin… our democracy," echoing a Reagan-era conservative emphasis on moral character and the rule of law (Goldman; Johnson; Richardson; Weiss). While these sentiments may have once gained her support from her right-wing peers, they had no such effect as she had become a member of the out-group (Haidt; Weiss).


These cases exemplify how ideology and resulting group polarization distort accountability, producing outcomes based not on fairness but rather on allegiance. As both the defenestrations of Weinstein and Cheney show, individuals can be condemned in informal systems because their views challenge the dominant orthodoxy of their social environments, not because they violate any legal or moral standard. Therefore, the judgments of these informal systems are doubly arbitrary. Not only are they not governed by laws to ensure due process and the presupposition of innocence, but the moral standards used are inconsistently applied: Weinstein's 'crime' was repeating civil rights era beliefs, whereas Cheney's was upholding


4) Is the concept of “cancel culture” a legitimate way to hold individuals accountable, or does it stifle free expression and promote intolerance?


Once-mainstream conservative tenets, actions otherwise laudable to the political Left and Right (Goldman; Hughes; Svrluga and Helm). This inconsistency is antithetical to the "constant and perpetual" justice proposed by Justinian, making informal justice, and thus, 'cancel culture' an illegitimate form of justice (Justinian).


Ideological Conformity, the Suppression of Free Expression, and Intolerance:


Beyond its failure as a legitimate method of achieving justice, 'cancel culture' also enforces ideological conformity within the groups that practice it. Within our social lives, the groups we form, whether friendships, hobby circles, or, on a larger scale, political groups, are based on common interests, goals, and ideas (Tomasello). In short, a degree of 'sameness' is critical to the formation and maintenance of social groups, although this is not intrinsically harmful. In fact, within groups that do not self-police and allow formal systems to hold individuals accountable, all this 'sameness' does is maintain social stability (Sleek).


However, within groups that self-police, such as Evergreen State College or the Republican Party, judgment and punishment become targeted on those who represent the feared out-group (Everett et al.; Svrluga and Helm). To the other group members, this signals the danger of being perceived as a member of the out-group, as it could lead to expulsion from the group altogether. This fear encourages behaviors such as self-censorship, which stifles free expression for the sake of greater social conformity, “enslav[ing] the soul itself” (“America’s Mass Spiral”; Mill). These ideologically homogeneous groups in which members self-isolate from alternative perspectives constitute echo chambers in which members are only exposed to a narrow range of information (“America’s Mass Spiral”). Consequently, they can develop distorted perceptions of

those outside of the bubble, as they only see in-group characterizations of the out-group rather than understanding them on their own terms. It is through this that we are able to dehumanize our fellow human beings such that presidents can call migrants ‘dog-eaters’ and crucial blue-collar workers become inhabitants of 'flyover country' (Chavez et al.; Wang; Weisman). Given that intolerance is defined by social scientists as "antipathy toward a group of people... different from oneself," it is evident that the echo chamber phenomenon promotes intolerance of those outside the bubble and their alternate perspectives (Verkuyten et al.).



Refutations and Concluding Arguments


This essay anticipates that the primary objection to this argument will assert that 'cancel culture' is a method of holding 'problematic' people accountable, therefore making it a legitimate form of justice. This essay wholeheartedly agrees that it is admirable to stand up for what one believes to be right and to act on one's convictions, but the perception of what is 'problematic' is founded on at least partially subjective moral codes (Gert and Gert; Haidt). Cheney's eviction appears to us retrospectively as a tribalistic ousting of a group leader for heterodoxy. However, the Republican lawmakers who led the charge almost certainly did so because they believed themselves to be right due to our instinctive self-righteousness (Haidt; May). By ‘canceling’ others, we force our moral standards on the accused and demand that they be held accountable to our personal moral laws. In short, we infringe on others’ freedoms to enforce an illegitimate justice (Justinian; Mill).


What then of holding people accountable? If 'cancel culture' and informal systems of justice were to be abolished, wrongdoers would be held accountable through structured formal systems that, as per Justinian, "constant[ly] and perpetual[ly] render to each his due" (Justinian). While this justice may be slow in comparison to an informal system because of due process and rigorous examination of evidence, it arrives, nonetheless, ironclad and universal. To forgo 'cancel culture' does not mean rejecting one's convictions but realizing that everyone has their own convictions and that nothing makes one's own convictions superior (de Montaigne; Mill). Because of this, a standardized set of laws, as established by a formal system, representing the aggregate of a society's moral convictions is the best way to consistently hold individuals

accountable to everyone's standards, not just one's own, thereby achieving true justice.



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