As Americans, we love a symbolic gesture. We’re not real big on fighting the big fight. We’re not big on substantive change (look who’s in the White House for proof). We prefer to keep it light. We don’t seek real change.
The lampoon newspaper the Onion of course knows this. In the time after 9/11 they ran some great content. It was some of their best work. They did a piece which ran the headline: “Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake.” Nailed it.
A friend of mine said of the Onion years ago, “All the Onion does is make observations of this culture and then exaggerates them by 5 percent.”
The most recent major cancellation, I believe, was J. K. Rowling. Rowling made—and continues to make—some ignorant statements about trans people. She is clearly off the mark and does not understand the issue. She is ignorant and has said hurtful things as a result. I don’t think anyone would argue with that.
The response has been to get out the pitchforks and torches and burn Harry Potter in effigy. (Someone, somewhere probably actually has done that.) No more J. K. Rowling. If you mention her in a college classroom, students make faces. The culture has washed its hands of J. K. Rowling.
Is this the correct response?
We saw the same thing in the fine arts a few years ago. The painter Chuck Close had a questionable track-record with women. And when this came to light, the response was to cancel Close. Galleries banned his work, people called for taking his work down in other galleries and museums. Pitchforks and torches.
I remember clearly when this happened. Close was a truly gifted painter, but his art wasn’t my cup of tea. No matter. He was a pig and yes, mistreated women. Full stop. But take his paintings down? I thought to myself at the time, “If you start taking down paintings in the Art Institute produced by artists of dubious moral character, there isn’t going to be a whole lot to look at.”
I understand the anger. And it’s hard to watch these people enjoy success while they say and do revolting things. But Rowling is a billionaire. You’re not going to hurt her by not buying your kids Harry Potter books. Wouldn’t a dialogue be better? Wouldn’t that be more productive? Maybe help her understand what she has said? Nope. Burn the witch.
We have this issue in philosophy as well. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German twentieth-century philosopher, who is in the canon of great thinkers. He joined the Nazi Party. He also had his mentor, Edmund Husserl (a Jew), booted from the University of Freiburg. We still read Heidegger. I do. And some in the philosophy world maintain we should not. I do not think we should commit Being and Time to the flames. It’s a brilliant, creative work of thought. (No, there is no fascist propaganda in it.)
We should, for all time, remind ourselves that this is a work written by a contemptible human being. Even after WWII, Heidegger was puzzled by the harsh response to him and his involvements. I truly believe he wasn’t well, and legitimately did not see what was wrong about his party affiliation. Yipes. Say what you want about J. K. Rowling.
This brings us to the Aunt Jemima phenomenon. I mention this constantly. In the wake of BLM and racist police brutality against Black people, there were cries to take Aunt Jemima off the shelf. (They have since rebranded.) But again, I thought at the time, “Is BLM about pancakes??” The Aunt Jemima character did have a racist history.
The character was originally played by Nancy Green, a former slave. She would go to state and world fairs and plug the Aunt Jemima brand. She was playing a “mammy,” who in the antebellum South was a house servant. Green would go fair to fair and talk about how wonderful the South was, telling all these charming stories. It was nonsense. The mascot was racist. But the cries to take her and Uncle Ben off the shelves get back to our woman baking an American cake. This does nothing.
Is that what it means to be an American in the twenty-first century? Someone who prefers to do nothing? Americans have a high tolerance. You can pay them less, take away their jobs, economically squeeze them, their kids can die at school from gunshot wounds—just don’t raise gas prices! There is no way to upset an American faster. But, when it comes to facing a problem like racist violence, let’s talk about pancakes instead.
Cancel culture does no one any good. The rational thing would be to have a dialogue. Is it worth having a dialogue with people like Chuck Close? Maybe not a dialogue, but a Truth & Reconciliation situation as was conducted in post-apartheid South Africa in 1996. But taking his paintings down? That just makes us feel better. And I suspect that is what cancel culture is supposed to achieve: maximum feel-goodness for minimum effort.
