Social punishment mechanisms
Shame is a secondary emotion that has been used to encourage cooperative behavior. Shame plays an important role in correcting the undesired behaviors of the person, especially through self-punishment, whether voluntary or involuntary. In the Middle Ages and early modern times, methods of public atonement were applied, with the public exposure and shame of those who violated society's moral standards. This strategy was adopted by the secular powers that rose with the Middle Ages, and the educational and penitent character of the punishments was redesigned, inspired by the atonement understanding of religious practices. In particular, acts such as fraud, perjury, breaking an oath, adultery, misdemeanors, and other violations against a community have brought with them shameful punishments (walking around naked in public, being chained, etc.).
The human brain's capacity to feel shame has been exploited in various ways throughout human history, and societies have developed sophisticated tools to shame group members who misbehave with neighbors and friends and violate norms.
As you can see, public embarrassment is nothing new. It is used as a punishment practice in all societies. Public shame is always embraced by the laws of the states and used for the daily control of moral norms. However, in the last few centuries, some states have realized the partial persecution created by the mechanism of public shame and have gradually moved away from the laws applied in this sense. In daily life, embarrassing individuals in front of the public is now widely seen as an unacceptable behavior. This situation, which we can call "moral recovery", which appears in our laws, has lost its balance over time with the rise of social media and the emergence of new types of shame with it.
Under the name of the concept of shame, we continue to examine each other with our labels of "purity". We often want to punish the people around us for even the smallest violations. Thanks to the online shaming carried out through our evolving social networking services, our job is now easier, and we believe we create an atmosphere of surveillance, fear and conformity with ease.
We have all witnessed the operation of the "online call" mechanism and how people active in social networks can defame someone for their slightest mistakes. Celebrating their moral purity and political correctness with the masses, too many people were able to take down many names by making a call. Fortunately, the number of people pointing to the chaos created by this issue is increasing. Of course, the culture of call and cancellation has not ended, but it has started to be questioned more and more these days. This is because even the calling participants sometimes find themselves "cancelled" as soon as they reveal their unacceptable thoughts. It is clear that no moral or political affiliation has patented weapons of embarrassment, and no one is immune from its effects.
The culture of cancellation as it is practiced today, especially when applied as a first reaction rather than a last resort, is actually only a product of individualism, and perhaps an inevitable extension. Individualism interprets self-interest rather narrowly, limiting it to the interests of an isolated person. This is the basic working principle behind capitalism and liberal democracy as we know it. Cancellation culture has close ties to both. In general, the culture of cancellation is about preventing the views of the abolished from being taken advantage of, and this phenomenon has also been described at times as a democratizing process, as it allows ordinary people to exercise power over the powerful.
Individualism has brought us many privileges, but perhaps we need to examine the limits of individualism and realize the contrast created between “me and us”. In ego ethics, the "primary bargaining unit" is the individual. Ethics is still about how we get along with each other, but the premise in ego ethics is that the individual's values and interests are the starting point. Most current ethical theories fall into this category because they are based on individualism backgrounds. In the we ethics, on the contrary, the relationship is primary. Individuals are of course valued, but they are valued as parts of a whole. When conflicts arise, the focus is on restoring the relationship through harmony, recognizing the worth of all members and aiming to meet their interests.
We don't cancel people on ethics. When the relationship is of paramount value, it becomes “engagement in the relationship” that matters. Listening is given priority over reacting. Canceling is, of course, a way of defending values and is a powerful act of expression. However, it is an individualistic reaction because it puts these values before relations and integrity. Cancellation is precisely the sign that a group of people no longer want to be in a relationship with another person. It's as if the tomatoes have decided to leave the dish because they can no longer share the taste of the onions. But if the tomatoes are gone, the dish no longer has any flavor or sentimental value.
So what do we lose when we cancel?
The culture of cancellation insists on an unattainable moral purity. Many of the prominent figures in history were morally flawed, as were the rest of us. Ignoring these ideas would greatly impoverish philosophy and at the same time obscure the realities of intellectual history. We are always in contact with them, for better or for worse. It's hard to even imagine what would happen if they were canceled in the slightest eccentric sentences. We must show how people's good ideas mingle with their bad ideas and think hard about how to adapt to the values we share with them and the differences we have with them, that is, we must learn how to live with people. That is why we must confront their flaws and try to draw something harmonious out of them.
When is it the right thing to “cancel”?
I do not think that a principled answer can be given to this question. Maybe there is no clear, principled line of demarcation, so there is only a gray area and we must apply practical wisdom to each situation.
Today, we are in the process of changing the things we cannot accept, rather than accepting the things we cannot change. It's a powerful way to make progress and can actually be done in a harmonious way, contrary to what one might think. Perhaps the only wisdom in the gray zone is to act without destroying hope of harmony and acting like a sword and destroying people.
