1 00:00:17,399 --> 00:00:21,879 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emilgasanski, culture 2 00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:25,120 editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show at 3 00:00:25,199 --> 00:00:29,359 radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:33,520 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and over at the Federalist 5 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:37,320 dot com to the premium version of the site. We are joined today by 6 00:00:37,359 --> 00:00:41,000 Evan Narman. He is the co author of the new book The Cancel Culture 7 00:00:41,119 --> 00:00:45,640 Curse. From Rage to Redemption in a World Gone Mad. Evan is founder 8 00:00:45,679 --> 00:00:49,679 and CEO of Red Banion. Evan, thank you so much for joining us, 9 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:52,240 Emily, it's good to be with you. Thanks for having me. 10 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:56,640 Now, somehow you snagged the u r L Cancel culture dot org right, 11 00:00:57,719 --> 00:01:00,000 cancel culture dot com. That's even better than it's even better than that, 12 00:01:00,359 --> 00:01:06,000 even better. How did you get cancel culture dot com? That's incredible. 13 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:11,000 Well, you live in a capitalist society and certain people like to buy domains 14 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:15,640 and then just sit on them and resell them to people. So I found 15 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:21,560 that someone had the domain, they weren't doing anything with it, and so 16 00:01:21,599 --> 00:01:23,439 I approached them and asked if I could purchase it. And they agreed, 17 00:01:23,719 --> 00:01:29,480 So that's how I wound up with it. Well you can, that's simple. 18 00:01:29,879 --> 00:01:33,480 You can get your copy of the Cancel Culture Curse at that incredible domain, 19 00:01:34,359 --> 00:01:38,319 cancel culture dot com. Evan. Before we dive into the books, 20 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:45,079 have a lot of questions about you know, you do this pretty broad survey 21 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:48,760 of everything that's happened over the last couple of years. So I'm excited to 22 00:01:48,799 --> 00:01:52,400 get into it. Tell us a little bit about how you ended up writing 23 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:55,400 this book, and if you can't, it's your first time on the show, 24 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:57,680 just maybe a little bit about how you ended up where you are right 25 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:01,000 now too. Sure, Well, I'll take the second part of the question 26 00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:06,959 first, And how did I end up where I am today? I went 27 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:13,759 to school in Washington, DC at George Washington University and a colonial. Hi 28 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:17,159 Hi right. Indeed, Well, we're colonials at least for the next couple 29 00:02:17,199 --> 00:02:22,800 of months until they rebrand us as something. I don't know what canceled canceling 30 00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:27,680 the Colonials. It certainly appears that way, although I guess we'd have to 31 00:02:27,759 --> 00:02:30,960 run it through the framework of the book to see if in fact that's the 32 00:02:30,039 --> 00:02:37,639 right verb. But we'll get into that perfect. So I was at GW 33 00:02:37,879 --> 00:02:42,719 Learning Communications. One of the cool things about GW is you don't have classes 34 00:02:42,719 --> 00:02:46,599 on Fridays because they encourage you to get internships and take advantage of the fact 35 00:02:46,599 --> 00:02:49,960 that you're in Washington, d C. So I had a number of internships. 36 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:52,319 I learned a lot about what I didn't want to do. I also 37 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:55,919 found some things I liked. Ended up working in politics and policy in DC 38 00:02:57,039 --> 00:03:02,560 for about seven and a half years. Left a nonprofit advocacy organization promoting the 39 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:07,039 USS or a relationship to go work at a high stakes crisis PR firm, 40 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:12,439 and that was where I really decided this was going to be my path. 41 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:15,759 I wanted to help good people and good organizations who find themselves in complex or 42 00:03:15,879 --> 00:03:21,560 challenging circumstances. But at the time I was working for someone else, and 43 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:23,919 while I liked the work, the type of work, I even enjoyed some 44 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:28,759 of the clients, I was thinking to myself, you know, if this 45 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:32,360 were my company, I'd do it one hundred eighty degrees differently. I do 46 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:35,759 the complete opposite. One day, I'm going to have my own firm, 47 00:03:35,759 --> 00:03:39,360 and I'm going to do that. And so fast forward twenty years and here 48 00:03:39,439 --> 00:03:43,240 I am. I've got my own firm. So that's how I wound up 49 00:03:43,319 --> 00:03:46,960 where I am. Any questions there before I answer the first part of the 50 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,759 question, No, that's super helpful. And the sort of crisis PR background 51 00:03:51,199 --> 00:03:57,120 is such a seamless transition into cancel culture, actually, definitely, And I 52 00:03:57,199 --> 00:04:01,000 have a team of about thirty people across the country, and we have a 53 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:08,080 dedicated group of eight or nine folks who only do high stakes and crisis PR. 54 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:14,280 Last year we worked on about one hundred different instances and so many of 55 00:04:14,319 --> 00:04:20,000 them were cancel culture related. So after spending the last year seeing this dramatic 56 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:30,399 influx in people facing really tough challenges, I started to identify some recurring themes 57 00:04:30,439 --> 00:04:34,480 and some elements that seemed to repeat themselves time after time. And I also 58 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:41,480 got a window into how destructive cancel culture can be, not just for big 59 00:04:41,519 --> 00:04:46,519 companies or high profile celebrities, but for average men and women, for private 60 00:04:46,519 --> 00:04:51,360 individuals, people who are small business owners, etc. And so I wrote 61 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:57,319 the book because I wanted to share what I had been exposed to, which 62 00:04:57,399 --> 00:05:03,680 was understanding in a real visceral level the damage that cancel culture causes, but 63 00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:10,319 then also to teach people what is cancel culture versus what isn't because we hear 64 00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:15,879 the term bandied around a lot. I also wanted to give people suggestions for 65 00:05:15,959 --> 00:05:20,079 what to do if they end up on the receiving end of a cancel culture 66 00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:25,800 attack, and also give them a lot of very concrete, real world advice 67 00:05:25,959 --> 00:05:30,439 on how to not end up being canceled in the first place. So that's 68 00:05:30,879 --> 00:05:32,920 the genesis of the book. And at the end of the day, if 69 00:05:32,959 --> 00:05:38,959 I can prevent someone out there from having to go through this, or maybe 70 00:05:38,959 --> 00:05:43,360 they do go through it and they're able to navigate it successfully by drawing upon 71 00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:46,079 some of the strategies and the tactics outlined in the book, well then I've 72 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:54,319 done my part to hopefully make the American society and beyond a little bit kinder, 73 00:05:54,519 --> 00:05:58,279 more forgiving, and a little bit more generous of spirit. So that 74 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:01,879 was really the story where the book came from. Now it's really interesting and 75 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:04,879 there's a lot to go off of there. And actually, right before we 76 00:06:04,959 --> 00:06:09,199 get to the definition, it may seem like I'm asking these questions in reverse, 77 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:12,600 but I feel like your definition actually has a lot to tell us about 78 00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:15,519 the evolution of cancel culture. In general. So I want to ask this 79 00:06:15,560 --> 00:06:19,920 a very basic question and just if you could do you know, maybe like 80 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:26,439 the elevator pitch type answer of where cancel culture stands today, Because about a 81 00:06:26,519 --> 00:06:28,920 year ago this time, there were all of these pieces about, you know, 82 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:34,120 the so called vibe shift, and we have seen obviously alternative platforms, 83 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:38,680 you know, whether it's Rumble or whatever, start at sub stack, you 84 00:06:38,759 --> 00:06:43,120 start to flourish, and obviously the sort of business structure of some of this 85 00:06:43,199 --> 00:06:48,839 stuff has shifted a little bit. But I imagine Evan you and you maintain 86 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:53,160 that cancel culture is still very much with us. So what is the kind 87 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:56,800 of state of play when it comes to cancel culture today. It's a great 88 00:06:56,879 --> 00:07:00,519 question. It's still, unfortunately, very much with us. My hope is 89 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,519 that, you know, maybe you'll have me on your podcast a year from 90 00:07:03,519 --> 00:07:08,240 now we could talk about the death of cancel culture and how it's been completely 91 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:13,279 relegated to the dustbin of history. I don't expect that will be the case, 92 00:07:13,319 --> 00:07:15,959 but it's a noble goal to shoot for, and I'll certainly do what 93 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:23,399 I can to make that a reality. But I think really with what we've 94 00:07:23,439 --> 00:07:26,839 seen over the last number of months, even is a dramatic shift. I 95 00:07:26,879 --> 00:07:35,199 think people are understanding better what cancel culture is and rejecting the premise that all 96 00:07:35,240 --> 00:07:44,079 mistakes should be permanent and that unelected people, outside of any sort of due 97 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:49,399 process, can determine the fate of their fellow men and women. And I 98 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:57,120 do see dramatic changes taking place in terms of people rejecting cancel culture. You're 99 00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:01,079 seeing more people on the left say no to cancel culture and be willing to 100 00:08:01,079 --> 00:08:05,680 speak out against some of the activists coming from the hard left. You're seeing 101 00:08:05,879 --> 00:08:11,879 alternative platforms. You mentioned substack, which is a great example, and Rumble 102 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:18,519 other media. It's providing an opportunity for people who had been canceled, or 103 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,680 there had been attempted cancelation of these people and they were left sort of without 104 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:26,439 a home or a soapbox or a platform. And now what we've seen is 105 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:31,879 a proliferation of means by which people can still connect with audiences and share their 106 00:08:31,919 --> 00:08:39,519 ideas, regardless of how popular they may be or whom they may happen to 107 00:08:39,879 --> 00:08:45,360 anger or disappoint. And I think we're also seeing for the first time, 108 00:08:45,399 --> 00:08:50,519 and this is really the most exciting, is that universities are recognizing that they 109 00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:58,480 need to do a better job of creating places where discourse can flourish and where 110 00:08:58,519 --> 00:09:07,600 people students who go to colleges and universities under the premise of being challenged and 111 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:11,919 opening themselves up to new ideas. Cancel culture really emanated to a large degree 112 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:16,759 on the campuses, and so I think it's important that now we see at 113 00:09:16,919 --> 00:09:24,600 universities around the country then making a concerted effort to reverse that trend and appointing 114 00:09:24,639 --> 00:09:28,360 people to make sure that there is diversity of thought and different views on campus. 115 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:33,879 So, while I still think the impact of cancel culture is very much 116 00:09:33,919 --> 00:09:39,159 with us, and a lot of people are still facing the prospect of having 117 00:09:39,159 --> 00:09:43,799 their lives ruined on a day to day basis, there are lots of reasons 118 00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:48,600 to be optimistic and hopeful. And here one of the most interesting things you 119 00:09:48,679 --> 00:09:54,000 do in the book is actually dip into history, dip into the pre existing 120 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:58,600 literature and cancel culture from other people who've been ruminating on it in the last 121 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:03,159 several years, come up with a set of criteria for when something is as 122 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:07,120 you alluded to in our colonial back and forth a little bit earlier, what 123 00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:11,559 constitutes cancel culture, What makes something an example of cancel culture. Can you 124 00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:13,639 tell us a little bit about where you land on that very central question. 125 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:18,320 Yeah, absolutely so. In the book, my co author and I define 126 00:10:18,399 --> 00:10:26,320 cancel culture as quote, the use of intimidation by a morally absolute coalition to 127 00:10:26,519 --> 00:10:35,240 isolate and disproportionately punish an alleged transgressor. And I think it's important to define 128 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:41,360 cancel culture because in order to defeat it, you first have to define it. 129 00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:46,919 And I think there's been a tendency in recent years for folks on the 130 00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:52,639 political left to deny that cancel culture exists or to downplay its impact, and 131 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:56,840 then on the political right you have a tendency to call everything cancel culture. 132 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,919 And so I felt like it was very important right out of the gate, 133 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,240 and this is in the very first chapter of the book to talk about what 134 00:11:03,279 --> 00:11:09,080 the definition is of cancel culture, and to also introduce this framework, which 135 00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:15,440 I describe as the condemn framework, and that's an acronym for C N D 136 00:11:15,559 --> 00:11:26,679 em And these elements are aspects that you see raising their heads a time and 137 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:31,320 time again when there are instances of cancel culture. And I think the condemned 138 00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:35,039 framework provides a roadmap for determining whether or not something is cancel culture. If 139 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:39,960 five or six of the elements are present, then you know you've got a 140 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,320 bona fide case of cancel culture. But if you've only got a couple, 141 00:11:43,759 --> 00:11:52,279 then it may be a pr crisis, or it may be something that a 142 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:56,320 company or an individual is grappling with, but it's not necessarily cancel culture. 143 00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:01,240 So I'll take you very quickly through if I can the the framework of condemn 144 00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:03,200 I'll go through it very quickly, and then if you want to dig into 145 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:07,000 any of them in more depth, we can. But the c is that 146 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:13,159 a collective is considered a victim of the crime. And that's important because what 147 00:12:13,279 --> 00:12:18,720 cancel culture is predicated upon is that someone does or says something that's objectionable to 148 00:12:18,799 --> 00:12:22,159 a larger community. So in other words, if I were to get into 149 00:12:22,159 --> 00:12:26,080 an argument with you, for instance, Emily on this podcast, then it 150 00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:31,919 wouldn't just be that Emily and Evan had a disagreement and I told you something. 151 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,480 It would be well, I would have to apply that to a larger 152 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:39,039 collective. So you happen to be a woman, so maybe it's you know 153 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:43,320 that I'm speaking in a way that's offensive to women writ large, maybe you're 154 00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:48,960 from a certain part of the country, and therefore I'm denigrating Northerners or Southerners. 155 00:12:50,759 --> 00:12:52,759 You get the idea. So the C is that there's a collective that's 156 00:12:52,799 --> 00:12:58,639 considered a victim of the crime. The A is that it arises and accelerates 157 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:03,799 quickly, which we can only happen in the age of the Internet, where 158 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:11,000 people are prone to outrage and things accelerate fast. The N in the condemned 159 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:18,440 framework is that the nature of the offense is actually trivial or it's manufactured even 160 00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:22,759 and so we would see that time and again when we were helping people through 161 00:13:22,919 --> 00:13:28,679 cancel culture crises. Is the actual crime that they were alleged to have committed 162 00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:33,519 was on its face really quite minor, but it was this additional value that 163 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:39,279 it was almost like trumped up charges related to the nature of their offense because 164 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:43,200 they defended a collective. And so you would see this time and time again 165 00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:48,159 dealing with these clients. And then the D is that it prompts a disproportionate 166 00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:54,320 response goes well beyond what you would think. So if you and I back 167 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:56,679 to the analogy of you and I having an argument and I said something offensive 168 00:13:56,720 --> 00:14:00,840 to you, it wouldn't be enough that it would just be a call for 169 00:14:00,879 --> 00:14:03,960 me to apologize to you. It would be I'd need to lose my job. 170 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:07,519 I'd need to have terrible one star reviews on my book. You need 171 00:14:07,559 --> 00:14:13,879 to look for ways to hurt me financially or reputationally. The e in the 172 00:14:13,879 --> 00:14:16,519 condemned framework is that everyone's afraid to get involved, and the reason is they 173 00:14:16,519 --> 00:14:22,080 don't want to defend the accused because they're frightened that the mob of cancel vultures 174 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:26,960 may come for them next. So people who end up being the target of 175 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:31,799 cancel culture often find themselves at a time of real weakness and they're being attacked 176 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:37,200 and it's very disorienting, disorienting and disconcerting. And then they can't rely upon 177 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:43,480 their friends and their family necessarily or their employers because everyone's running scared because they 178 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:46,399 don't want to get targeted. And then the m the final element is the 179 00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:54,120 moral absolutism of those doing the canceling. And I think that self righteous nature 180 00:14:54,559 --> 00:14:58,759 is something that's really come into the public zeitgeist in recent years. And the 181 00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:05,320 people who are who celebrate cancel culture and enjoy and relish the opportunity to take 182 00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:09,559 other people down. They truly feel like they are on the side of the 183 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:16,200 angels and they're doing God's work and that anything they do is justified because they 184 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:20,039 think they've got the moral high ground to go after the person they're canceling. 185 00:15:20,399 --> 00:15:24,639 So again, if you take these as a whole, this condemned framework, 186 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:31,639 you can apply it to most instances of a disagreement or a bruhaha that's happening 187 00:15:31,639 --> 00:15:37,000 in the news and know with certainty very quickly whether or not you're dealing with 188 00:15:37,039 --> 00:15:41,559 the circumstances that could accurately be labeled cancel culture. And yeah, there's a 189 00:15:41,639 --> 00:15:45,799 theme in the condemn criteria that I want to pick up on, because you 190 00:15:45,879 --> 00:15:50,240 say nature of the offense is trivial or fabricated. That's under the end. 191 00:15:50,519 --> 00:15:54,360 And then the D is disproportionate response. And that's really interesting because the question 192 00:15:54,360 --> 00:16:00,919 of proportionality is really central to the question of cancel culture, because you know, 193 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:04,639 you'll see an example where something somebody does something genuinely wrong, and then 194 00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:08,200 you know, the Left could argue all day about what happened to Al Franken, 195 00:16:08,519 --> 00:16:11,519 or they could argue we could all argue all day about any of the 196 00:16:11,559 --> 00:16:15,879 me two examples, probably or Woody Allen, because we have different standards for 197 00:16:15,919 --> 00:16:21,320 politicians and different standards for artists, and you can't adjudicate everything in the court 198 00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:25,440 of public opinion, etc. Etc. But it does seem cancel culture is 199 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,360 very much a phenomenon of social media, and I wanted to get your take, 200 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:34,720 especially somebody who does crisis pr on how it seems to me. I 201 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:38,600 mean, you talk about witch hunts, you talk about maoism, but it 202 00:16:38,639 --> 00:16:45,679 seems to me that this iteration of cancel culture is very much facilitated by the 203 00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:52,639 kind of fundamental structure of Twitter, in particular in the way that you can 204 00:16:52,679 --> 00:16:56,080 just pile on and are incentivized to pile on. Maybe that's off base, 205 00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:00,600 but I'm curious what you think about that question. No, it's actually very 206 00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:04,880 much on point. And part of the reason why we haven't had cancel culture 207 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:11,400 until recently is because we couldn't. But it's the nature of social media lends 208 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:18,279 itself to exactly this, because you have people who are incentivized for bad behavior, 209 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:26,759 and we know that negative news travels much faster than positive online. We 210 00:17:26,839 --> 00:17:32,960 know that in a world in which people derive a lot of their self value 211 00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:38,880 by how many likes or retweets, or cliques or comments they get when they 212 00:17:38,920 --> 00:17:44,519 post to social media. They're looking for social approval from some critical mass of 213 00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:48,240 people. So therefore they're incentivized to both look for the outrage of the day, 214 00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:53,519 which is often trending on Twitter, and then to pile on and get 215 00:17:53,559 --> 00:17:59,920 involved. It also gives people. The Internet gives people a sense of power, 216 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,720 especially people who have never before traditionally held what we think of his power. 217 00:18:04,119 --> 00:18:08,400 So the internet is really the great equalizer every single person, from a 218 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:15,960 president to a senator, to a CEO to a guy who lives in his 219 00:18:15,039 --> 00:18:21,400 mother's basement and plays video games all day, they all have an equal opportunity 220 00:18:21,519 --> 00:18:26,279 to go online and to transmit their thoughts, their feelings, their views to 221 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:32,319 an unlimited audience. And so what you have is a lot of people who 222 00:18:32,799 --> 00:18:37,440 don't necessarily have the facts, they don't have the context. And you mentioned 223 00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:41,000 Twitter. Twitter. Twitter is a great enabler of cancel culture, and traditionally 224 00:18:41,039 --> 00:18:47,039 has been because the platform itself, with its limited character account, the nature 225 00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:51,240 of the beast is such that you can't provide a lot of context all you 226 00:18:51,240 --> 00:18:56,559 can do is provide a quick talking point or a sound bite, and so 227 00:18:56,039 --> 00:19:00,480 people rush to judgment of their fellow sent a sins. They don't have all 228 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:08,359 the information, and it leads to this this mob justice pileon event. And 229 00:19:08,799 --> 00:19:12,200 the term that we introduce in the book to describe the people who get involved 230 00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:18,960 in this is canceled vulture. And it's not merely because vulture runs with culture. 231 00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:22,359 Therefore, hey, that's really clever, although that is a nice aspect, 232 00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:26,559 but it's it's the fact that, you know what do vultures live upon? 233 00:19:27,279 --> 00:19:33,480 They live upon roadkill. They prey on the pain and the death of 234 00:19:33,599 --> 00:19:38,839 others, and so they swoop down, they feast on the carcass, and 235 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,799 then they fly off to get their next meal. And that's really a perfect 236 00:19:42,839 --> 00:19:48,039 analogy for what happens with so many of these cancel culture attacks. There's an 237 00:19:48,079 --> 00:19:52,160 outrage of the day, people read about it on social media, their networks 238 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:56,839 and their echo chambers start to mobilize. They get involved, they feel like 239 00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:00,960 they've they've done their bit too. They go crazy. They aim for whatever 240 00:20:02,039 --> 00:20:06,960 kind of retribution or vengeance they deem as required in that instance. They try 241 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:10,680 to take somebody down and then a couple days later, they've moved on to 242 00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:15,200 the next outrage. And what people don't understand is on the receiving end of 243 00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:25,079 that are real people who then are rendered damaged, unemployable in many cases, 244 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:33,720 psychologically wounded, financially harmed, and really with very few prospects for recovering in 245 00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:40,160 the future. And that's a scary prospect because what that does is it fundamentally 246 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:45,000 changes our society into one where people don't enjoy some of the aspects that have 247 00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:49,920 made America such a beacon of freedom for countries and people around the world. 248 00:20:51,079 --> 00:20:56,240 You know, we celebrate freedom of expression, freedom of thought, the ability 249 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:02,559 to also extend due process to people under the law. Cancel culture deprives people 250 00:21:02,599 --> 00:21:07,279 of all of that because there's a rush to judgments. There is not a 251 00:21:07,319 --> 00:21:14,200 requirement that someone approach it with independence or careful thought. And you can be 252 00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:22,960 punished and punish permanently just for saying something that another group deems unacceptable. And 253 00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:26,400 you'd be hard pressed to find something that's that's more Unamerican than that. Yeah, 254 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:30,039 and I wonder if, as you're saying that, it occurs to me 255 00:21:30,079 --> 00:21:34,039 that perhaps what the future of cancel culture looks like is I don't know if 256 00:21:34,079 --> 00:21:37,119 the right phrase would be like a scaled back version of what we saw at 257 00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:41,640 the height of Me Too, or at the height of the cancel culture movement 258 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:45,599 in general, where it was like a celebrity a day was going down for 259 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:51,839 something. But it seems like it's possible that that's just happening now to regular 260 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:57,839 people going about their lives in the sort of Instagram, Twitter video viral explosion 261 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:04,000 culture, that people are just being like context context lists plucked from their environment, 262 00:22:04,079 --> 00:22:07,279 put on the internet and then screwed. And can you talk a little 263 00:22:07,279 --> 00:22:11,440 bit Evan about what happens, what you've seen happen, because that's one of 264 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:15,200 the things with cancel culture. A lot of people don't have sympathy, especially 265 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,279 on the left, and they don't want to talk a lot about cancel culture 266 00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,759 because it's you know, well, what do we care about these rich celebrities 267 00:22:21,799 --> 00:22:23,039 getting a little come up and so they're all fine at the end of the 268 00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:27,160 day. What does that actually look like to people who don't have money and 269 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:33,440 power and all of that. Yeah, Well, there's this complete fallacy that 270 00:22:33,519 --> 00:22:38,519 has taken hold in some quarters that it's only rich, powerful white men who 271 00:22:38,559 --> 00:22:44,359 get canceled and there's actually nothing further from the truth. It's just call out 272 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:49,400 culture. They'll say, yeah, well, look, we don't need cancel 273 00:22:49,519 --> 00:22:53,720 culture in order to hold people to account. And so what a lot of 274 00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:57,359 people often point to, and you raise the issue of me too, is 275 00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:03,119 they'll point to someone like a Harvey Weinstein and say, see, Harvey Weinstein, 276 00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,480 that's a great example we need cancel culture, to which I would say, 277 00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:11,640 well, actually, no, Harvey Weinstein sits in a prison cell because 278 00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:17,480 he was convicted in a court of law. He was extended due process. 279 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:23,279 People brought evidence against him, people testified against him, and a jury weighed 280 00:23:23,839 --> 00:23:29,599 all of the arguments on both sides and convicted him based on evidence in fact, 281 00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:34,240 having not prejudged the outcome. So he was he was put behind bars 282 00:23:34,599 --> 00:23:40,920 by the American judicial system, not by cancel culture. And you see that 283 00:23:41,079 --> 00:23:48,119 time and again where proponents of cancel culture they think that prior to the advent 284 00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:52,640 of cancel culture, there was no way to hold people accountable. But that's 285 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:56,359 that's simply not the case. If an average person suffers some sort of injustice 286 00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,599 in their in their workplace and in a give you an example if it doesn't 287 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:06,839 have to rise to the Harvey Weinstein nightmare example, where you're talking about someone 288 00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:11,799 who's raping women and assaulting them and abusing power in that way. But if 289 00:24:11,839 --> 00:24:18,240 someone does or says something inappropriate in the workplace, there are mechanisms by which 290 00:24:18,839 --> 00:24:23,079 you can pursue justice. And so there are HR departments, there are policies, 291 00:24:23,599 --> 00:24:30,039 there are handbooks, employee handbooks and protections of workers rights. There are 292 00:24:30,039 --> 00:24:33,799 all these different things that are available to us. And so this argument that 293 00:24:33,839 --> 00:24:40,240 we somehow have to rely on cancel culture to hold people accountable is nonsensical. 294 00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:45,880 And the assertion that it's only the famous, the rich and the famous and 295 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:49,240 the powerful and they kind of deserve it because the people who are canceling them 296 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:56,000 have been somehow suppressed by them and they're finally getting their come uppants for trying 297 00:24:56,039 --> 00:25:00,839 to keep the people down. It's just doesn't add up. Because I've worked 298 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:06,720 with so many people in recent years who have been none of those things. 299 00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:11,559 They've been neither rich, nor white, nor male, nor famous or celebrities, 300 00:25:12,079 --> 00:25:18,079 and yet they've had their lives completely shattered by cancel culture. And so 301 00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:22,440 we really, I think it's important to push back against this notion that you 302 00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,680 cancel culture is reserved for only one subset of society. It's not. And 303 00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:30,839 if you look at the book, I have case studies in the back, 304 00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:36,079 and it just so happened that three of the four case studies then I chose 305 00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:40,400 to highlight in the book they're actually women. They're not men. They're women 306 00:25:40,519 --> 00:25:47,640 whose careers and livelihoods were thrown into question by cancel culture. And unfortunately, 307 00:25:48,519 --> 00:25:52,359 like you said earlier, there's often a lack of empathy, total lack of 308 00:25:52,400 --> 00:26:00,960 empathy towards someone because people saw a snippet of a video or that taking perhaps 309 00:26:00,039 --> 00:26:06,839 out of context, or they received information that they didn't independently verify or vet. 310 00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:12,559 And so it is the average person who is most at risk because politicians, 311 00:26:12,839 --> 00:26:18,039 celebrities, CEOs, they have teams, they have staffs, they have 312 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:22,960 resources that the average person doesn't have to come and stand at their side if 313 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:27,599 they get into trouble. Largely it's the average person who doesn't know what to 314 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:32,799 do and has a much harder time rebounding in the wake of a scandal. 315 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,440 Yeah, and I like that you also invoke, you know, the kind 316 00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,480 of historical potential parallels in the age before social media, because social media does 317 00:26:41,599 --> 00:26:45,920 is just amplify some really bad human impulses. And if you look at what 318 00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,359 Silicon Value was saying about it in two thousand and eight versus what they're saying 319 00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,480 about it now, one of the fundamental things they think they got wrong was 320 00:26:52,519 --> 00:26:57,559 just sort of overestimating human nature. Is sort of hilariously enough, but isn't 321 00:26:57,559 --> 00:27:03,640 that is there maybe a cancel vulture inside all of us, And the problem 322 00:27:03,839 --> 00:27:10,200 is that we have these tools that are unprecedented that allows that that that sort 323 00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:15,519 of encourages the cancel vulture that really needs food that needs to score points, 324 00:27:15,599 --> 00:27:21,039 because it's not getting that kind of moral that moral food elsewhere, the food 325 00:27:21,079 --> 00:27:25,079 that you really truly nourishes its soul. It's just sort of you know, 326 00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:27,559 looking for the scraps of the roadkill along the highway. As you mentioned. 327 00:27:29,279 --> 00:27:33,480 Yeah, well, look, humans have been treating other humans terribly since time 328 00:27:33,559 --> 00:27:37,880 immemorial and that hasn't changed. It's just the tools by which we use to 329 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,000 do it have changed. At the same time, I think there's a lot 330 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:47,839 of people who have a propensity to do and say terrible things about other people. 331 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:52,599 There's also a critical mass of people who I think don't want to live 332 00:27:52,599 --> 00:27:59,039 in a world where every mistake is permanent and where every punishment is eternal. 333 00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:03,319 And I think, you know, one of the things that we need to 334 00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,279 fundamentally rethink about cancel culture. And all the people who say, oh, 335 00:28:07,319 --> 00:28:11,039 cancel culture is good or here's I'm going to make a case for cancel culture. 336 00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,400 Well, it's all well and good when you're pointing a finger at someone 337 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:22,640 else. But the problem is, every single person who walks this planet makes 338 00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:27,400 mistakes. We all do things that we ultimately regret and are not correct. 339 00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:33,880 Every single one of us is fallible. And so the problem with endorsing cancel 340 00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:40,759 culture is you're saying it's okay to do it to someone else today, but 341 00:28:40,799 --> 00:28:45,240 I suspect you'd feel very differently if you were the target tomorrow. And too 342 00:28:45,319 --> 00:28:49,640 many people lose sight of that and they get amped up and again they feel 343 00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:56,039 this moral absolutism, and it's a scary thing because we need to get back 344 00:28:56,039 --> 00:29:00,960 to a time where people don't think that their way is the only way. 345 00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,759 And that's really you know, one of the things that we talk about in 346 00:29:04,799 --> 00:29:08,200 the book also is why is cancel culture happening now? And I think it 347 00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:14,799 really is a perfect storm of a lot of different factors, and it's the 348 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:19,920 power and pervasiveness of social media. It's also the breakdown of an editorial process 349 00:29:21,119 --> 00:29:26,720 in a lot of mainstream press, and so the nature of the news business 350 00:29:26,839 --> 00:29:30,920 has changed so much that you're under pressure like never before to crank out stories, 351 00:29:32,039 --> 00:29:37,799 to seize on these hot topics of the day, don't necessarily pause to 352 00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:47,480 run things through an editorial process. You've got this commingling between social media and 353 00:29:47,599 --> 00:29:51,759 mainstream media, feeding off of one another and looking to each other for story 354 00:29:51,839 --> 00:29:56,920 ideas and validation, etc. You've got people inclined to activism as a consequence 355 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:03,319 of movements like meat, and you've got just a critical mass of people who 356 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:10,039 are more politically polarized than ever before. They're seeing what's going on in Congress 357 00:30:10,079 --> 00:30:15,000 from Washington and beyond and the partisanship and the rancor and the tribalism, and 358 00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,440 they're choosing sides. And I think it's all of this. It's the perfect 359 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:25,039 storm of all of these things coming together that have made cancel culture take root 360 00:30:25,119 --> 00:30:27,880 right now at this moment in time. Yeah, And that's I think kind 361 00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:32,759 of where the rubber meets the road, like cancel culture, is this explosion 362 00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:40,680 of I think elite sentiments that it became disproportionately powerful over culture. But what's 363 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,880 so rancorous about it, or what's what's been so divisive about it, is 364 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,680 that we have this uneven I guess moral code now, like to get to 365 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:56,039 the m in condemn you have the moral absolutism of a few that is being 366 00:30:56,599 --> 00:31:00,039 used to dominate I guess the morality of the rest. You know, so 367 00:31:00,079 --> 00:31:03,200 many of the examples to the point of, you know, their trivial. 368 00:31:03,319 --> 00:31:06,839 The offense is either trivial or not an offense at all. As you right, 369 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,160 Um, you know, someone didn't do anything wrong. They were just 370 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,880 sort of politically heterodoxy. They were you know, maybe conservative or J. 371 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:19,119 K. Rowling is a great example, somebody who is completely progressive but bucks 372 00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:25,359 the sort of far left on a couple of different aspects of ideology, and 373 00:31:25,799 --> 00:31:29,960 it just explodes. So I guess the question that I wanted to pose is 374 00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:34,160 is this partially also exploding right now because we no longer agree. You know, 375 00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,440 there were times when we agreed on some really bad moral codes. Um, 376 00:31:38,799 --> 00:31:42,799 you know that there are sometimes when we had consensus on you know different 377 00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:45,880 parts of the South where there was consensus, and Jim Crow that that's the 378 00:31:47,119 --> 00:31:49,599 that is our moral code when it comes to these issues. At the same 379 00:31:49,599 --> 00:31:55,079 time, you do have to have a consensus on a positive morality, and 380 00:31:55,319 --> 00:32:00,000 right now it seems we have no consensus. And if anything, the elite 381 00:32:00,119 --> 00:32:05,920 consensus is incredibly divisive because it's being used to apply universally around the country when 382 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,559 other people just don't agree with it. I think that's true, and I 383 00:32:09,599 --> 00:32:15,160 think JK. Rowling is a great example to point towards, because I agree 384 00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:21,200 with you in most aspects. She's quite progressive, but she got cross wise 385 00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:30,440 of a critical mass of the populace who labeled her at trans fogue and said 386 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:35,519 that she was anti trans rights, when really, if you go back and 387 00:32:35,599 --> 00:32:38,920 you look closely at what she was talking about, she wasn't talking about depriving 388 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:44,440 anybody of their rights. She wasn't talking about harming anyone, She wasn't speaking 389 00:32:44,519 --> 00:32:52,200 out against any group. She was sharing her belief that there are physiological and 390 00:32:52,279 --> 00:32:58,319 biological differences between men and women, and she was pointing out what she felt 391 00:32:59,079 --> 00:33:07,000 was a ridiculous aversion of not just recognizing science and so for having those views 392 00:33:07,039 --> 00:33:15,880 which a small but vocal group seized upon. That's how quickly it can become 393 00:33:15,359 --> 00:33:19,960 a matter of cancel culture. And hers is you know, look at look 394 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,440 at what she's had to endure as a as a perfect example of cancel culture. 395 00:33:24,039 --> 00:33:29,119 It was against a collective, So her saying she believes you're either a 396 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,960 man or a woman. You can't wake up one day and say you're one 397 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:37,160 thing and then wake up the next day and you're something else. So a 398 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:43,960 collective was harmed by her views, allegedly, and that was the trans community. 399 00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:46,759 It accelerated, and it rose quickly, and it became very, very 400 00:33:46,799 --> 00:33:52,759 big online, and every time she would say something else it would reignite. 401 00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:57,640 The nature of the offense was largely minor. I mean, all she was 402 00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,519 doing was expressing her views. It prompted a disproport response, we need to 403 00:34:00,559 --> 00:34:05,079 cancel Harry Potter, or we shouldn't buy her books. She shouldn't be able 404 00:34:05,119 --> 00:34:12,199 to make movies out of her books anymore. Everyone was afraid to defend her. 405 00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:17,079 I mean, look, a lot of the actors who participated in her 406 00:34:17,159 --> 00:34:22,199 movies were scared of the mob, and they came out and actually spoke out 407 00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,639 against her. And then the moral absolutism of the people doing the canceling. 408 00:34:25,679 --> 00:34:29,880 I mean that goes without saying, but I think one of the things that 409 00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:34,000 we should draw from the JK Rowling example, and I think people are really 410 00:34:34,079 --> 00:34:38,199 waking up to this, and this is probably the secret to breaking the cancel 411 00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:45,880 culture curse is she refused to be canceled. And increasingly, I think organizations 412 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:52,519 and people are learning that you don't necessarily have to count out to the mob, 413 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,239 and just because they want you to go away and stop talking doesn't mean 414 00:34:55,280 --> 00:35:00,559 that you have to. And so there have been numerous examples since JK. 415 00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:05,800 Rowling of people who the mob has tried to destroy, tried to take down, 416 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:07,960 tried to cancel, and these people have said, I'm not going to 417 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,039 go away. I'm going to continue to have my views and to share my 418 00:35:12,119 --> 00:35:15,199 views. And now they have mechanisms by which they can do so. So 419 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:22,159 the Internet which allowed a group of people to coalesce and to take collective action, 420 00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:28,039 the Internet also ironically provides other avenues for people to share their views and 421 00:35:28,119 --> 00:35:31,320 to get messages out. And I think people are seeing that a cancel culture 422 00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:37,800 sentence doesn't necessarily have to be a permanent one, right, And that is 423 00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:40,599 a perfect segue because what I don't wanted to ask next is kind of a 424 00:35:40,599 --> 00:35:45,719 two part question. You address obviously what can be done all the way to 425 00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,440 parenting. In the book you talk about a lot of different things that can 426 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,760 be done. So that's the part one of the question, and then part 427 00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:54,880 two is what does the future of cancel culture look like? If you had 428 00:35:54,920 --> 00:36:00,599 to make a prediction right now? Well, the parenting piece, you know, 429 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:05,000 it hits very close to home for me. I'm the father of two 430 00:36:05,079 --> 00:36:08,000 children, a sixteen year old boy a thirteen year old girl. I've actually 431 00:36:08,039 --> 00:36:13,639 had some pretty spirited debates with my kids because for a time, my daughter 432 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,719 and I were at odds and she really believed that cancel culture was a good 433 00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,920 thing. And we would have these discussions as I'm driving her to school, 434 00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,159 and you know, she would ask really, I think, pretty smart, 435 00:36:25,599 --> 00:36:30,039 probing questions, and you know, she said, well, Dad, don't 436 00:36:30,079 --> 00:36:34,280 you think it's important that people are held accountable? And I said, absolutely, 437 00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,599 I believe in a culture of accountability. And then I walked her through 438 00:36:37,679 --> 00:36:42,079 some of the things that we've talked about, the idea that there are mechanisms 439 00:36:42,079 --> 00:36:45,599 by which we can hold people accountable for bad behavior, and that we don't 440 00:36:45,599 --> 00:36:52,119 need to rely upon cancel culture per se as the great as both, because 441 00:36:52,199 --> 00:36:57,960 ultimately what happens is it's trial by mob with cancel culture, and the cancel 442 00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,920 culture has become judge, jury, and excutioner before you've even to have the 443 00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:06,519 chance to present your opening arguments. So it's a complete inverse of the kind 444 00:37:06,559 --> 00:37:09,480 of justice that we believe in as Americans. Now, I think we as 445 00:37:09,599 --> 00:37:17,239 parents have a responsibility to educate our kids about how to safely use the Internet 446 00:37:17,639 --> 00:37:22,519 for their own sake, for their own good, because one, we don't 447 00:37:22,519 --> 00:37:27,920 want them becoming targets of cancel culture, nor do we actually want our kids 448 00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:32,159 to become cancel vultures either, and so I think we have to There's been 449 00:37:32,199 --> 00:37:37,880 so much talk in recent years about bullying and especially cyber bullying, and how 450 00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:42,159 dangerous it is, and not all cyber bullying is cancel culture, but all 451 00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:45,400 cancel culture certainly is bullying, and I think we need to talk to our 452 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:50,639 kids about the concept of cancel culture. We need to shine a light on 453 00:37:50,679 --> 00:37:52,760 it as a form of bullying. We need to let them know about the 454 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:58,719 consequences that it can have when people are bullied and they're attacked, and how 455 00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,440 harmful it can be. I think we have to help teach our kids concepts 456 00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:10,599 like reasoning and how to debate ideas, and how to allow their preconceived notions 457 00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:15,400 or their views to be challenged and to be open to learning and growing and 458 00:38:15,519 --> 00:38:20,880 hearing other perspectives, and we have to normalize that. We also need to 459 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:25,320 teach our kids about how vital it is that they don't make preventable mistakes that 460 00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:31,400 could end up in them getting canceled. And that includes saying things online which 461 00:38:31,679 --> 00:38:38,960 are all but guaranteed to anger or trigger or set off a cancel culture mob. 462 00:38:39,639 --> 00:38:45,760 And if they do things like use social media responsibly by sharing with care 463 00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,360 and posting with purpose, they can avoid a lot of that. We really 464 00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:54,280 need to have these uncomfortable conversations with our kids about what they say online, 465 00:38:54,559 --> 00:39:00,199 the types of content they share. We need to remind them about not stepping 466 00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:09,800 into super radioactive topics, other basic things like safety of not showing their location 467 00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:14,800 in real time. There's just a whole lot of conversations that have to happen 468 00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:21,079 with kids around usage of the internet and also teaching them the difference between credible 469 00:39:21,119 --> 00:39:28,519 information and information that's meant to incite, and giving them some guardrails and some 470 00:39:28,559 --> 00:39:32,159 guide posts for how they should think about what they see and read online. 471 00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:37,840 And I think the future of canceled culture, my hope is that people are 472 00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:44,519 coming to their senses and they're seeing that this is not actually a world in 473 00:39:44,559 --> 00:39:49,039 which we want to live. I think anyone who's reached any level of maturity 474 00:39:49,199 --> 00:39:55,320 knows that we've all experienced things in life that we've learned from. And you 475 00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:59,880 know, we as kids made mistakes, but you learn more from your miss 476 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,400 stakes then you do never having them, and there's a lot of personal growth 477 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,000 and development that comes from that. And we need to normalize again the idea 478 00:40:08,079 --> 00:40:13,320 that people can make a mistake and that they can recover from it, and 479 00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,679 that they can learn from it and become better. And we have to destigmatize 480 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:23,480 mistake making and also remind people that, you know, things happen, but 481 00:40:23,599 --> 00:40:28,440 people need to have another chance. Yeah, that is a great point. 482 00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:31,239 Where do you think cancel culture goes from here? Do you are you optimistic 483 00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:36,280 that it's kind of fading? Do you think it will be around with us 484 00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,920 so long as the people who are raised in the era of cancel culture, 485 00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:43,639 are in the workplace and in charge of culture. What does it look like? 486 00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,400 Unfortunately, it is going to be with us for some time. How 487 00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:52,199 long? Who knows. I think we're chipping away at it, and so 488 00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,360 I think it's going to take a long time because I think that there's been 489 00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:02,159 this this gleeful celebration by so many people who participate in these takedowns and again 490 00:41:02,199 --> 00:41:07,039 for a variety of reasons, that they feel empowered, they feel like activists. 491 00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:12,679 But I think when we start to really educate the public about how damaging 492 00:41:12,679 --> 00:41:16,159 this practice is and how it really is self defeating, it does nothing to 493 00:41:16,199 --> 00:41:22,880 advance dialogue or discourse in this country. I do think that ultimately Americans are 494 00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:29,760 going to grow to reject cancel culture. And I think some of the people 495 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:35,440 who have been targets of cancel culture but have refused to bow and have refused 496 00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:42,559 to go away, are the best evangelists for explaining to people the dangers of 497 00:41:42,599 --> 00:41:47,639 cancel culture and just showing by example that there is life after cancelation. And 498 00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:52,920 I look to people in the comedy sphere lately, because that's been one area 499 00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:59,440 where comics have come under heavy Fire, Dave Chappelle refusing to be canceled. 500 00:41:59,519 --> 00:42:05,000 Chris ro He titles his Netflix special Selective Outrage and talks about a lot of 501 00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:09,280 the themes of cancel culture and Netflix refusing to cancel them. That's right, 502 00:42:09,559 --> 00:42:15,000 Netflix refusing to cancel them, Spotify refusing to cancel Joe Rogan because of a 503 00:42:15,039 --> 00:42:20,119 couple of things that he had done and said that piss people off. And 504 00:42:20,159 --> 00:42:28,519 so companies are growing to see that they don't necessarily just because there's a brew 505 00:42:28,599 --> 00:42:34,079 aha in the press or there's some subset of the society is calling for their 506 00:42:34,079 --> 00:42:37,559 heads, it doesn't mean they have to just give in. And I think 507 00:42:37,039 --> 00:42:44,440 corporations growing a backbone and being willing to stand up to cancel vultures is also 508 00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:47,800 a fundamental thing that has to happen to really move past cancel culture. But 509 00:42:49,079 --> 00:42:53,079 if we as individuals and also the business community decides we're not going to let 510 00:42:53,079 --> 00:42:57,679 this persist, We're done with cancel culture, We're going to retire it as 511 00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,119 a practice, then all of a sudden we take away so much of the 512 00:43:01,159 --> 00:43:06,840 coercive effect of the people who want to use cancel culture. The book is 513 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,400 called The Canceled Culture curse, from rage to redemption and a world gone mad. 514 00:43:10,559 --> 00:43:15,920 You can get it over at canceled culture dot com. Evan Nierman, 515 00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,440 thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you 516 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,559 for having me. Of course, you can follow Evan on Twitter. Its 517 00:43:22,679 --> 00:43:23,920 name, it's it's just his name, first name, last name. It 518 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:28,360 should be easy enough. I'm Emilyasnski, culture editor here at The Federalist. 519 00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,719 We'll be back soon with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and 520 00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:43,840 anxious for the fray right.