Breaking my own rules here. I had decided
that one of my phlog themes is COMMENT
and I had defined it as "commenting on
something specific" so it WOULD usually
mean I have a link to the thing I am
commenting.
But I have to make an exception this time.
The topic I am about to comment is
something that I think has kind of
traumatized me.
Because of the potential for trauma to others
I am not even sure if I should mention this
at all. If you have seen the Ring, you
know what I mean. If you haven't,
think of Pandora's box.
DISCLAIMER: Do not read further if you are easily rattled.
If you do continue to read, know
that I am not throwing this out there
in order to shock anyone. I find it
a point that would be hard to make
without pointing to a case that is
disturbing and that has affected
myself.
I suppose in these days probably
majority of people who read this have
seen at least one decapitation video,
so it could be that I am just too
sensitive for the times we live in.
Right?
Right.
So, lets begin.
I saw a phlog in the gopherspace about people who have done
something that the public finds despicable. I am unsure if
this was also scaled out to include people who have different
political stances since I could not follow the implied
breadcrumbs.
BTW, the reason I don't actually point
to this phlog is not because I think
you are not able to find it or something
like that.
It's because, if the Pandora's Box is
as distasteful to the writer of that
phlog as it is for me, I just don't
want to mention their name in the same
post that I mention the Pandora.
It might be a bit extra paranoid from
my part, but I think it is the safest bet.
So, the point in that phlog was, that there are people who have
done something that is opposed by a large part of the public
and the writer was wondering about how they should react to this.
I find this question quite interesting myself. And I find it
somehow quite scary as well. Because to me it seems that public
sentiment can be too easily pushed by corporations and politicians
and whoever has enough of a platform.
The best argument I have heard for cancel culture has been this:
Freedom of speech is not the same
as freedom to have a platform.
I find this compelling. But as a counterargument I kind of think
that social media is so ubiquitous that it is comparable
to a utility service. And I think that maybe the dilemma lies
here in this grey area of platform vs service. Because, if we
were talking about something like denying email service for
everyone who says "wrong" things, that would no doubt be
stepping on freedom of speech.
I think human rights are important. I think rule of law is
important. I haven't been following the deplatformings that
much because I find this topic quite stressful, but I think
the way these things seem to go down, there must have been
cases where people are deplatformed without clear evidence.
This troubles me. It's like the question of how many
innocent should go to jail versus how many guilty walk
free?
I don't know what I think about this, but here's the part where
I think I can point to something that may or may not give some
different perspective to the question. And this is the
traumatizing part.
There is an artist who as a student videotaped himself killing
a cat. He claimed this was art. I have never seen this video but
I have heard it described and it really never left me. Sometimes
just randomly this video comes to my mind out of nowhere. I find
it really disturbing that this person is considered a successful
artist. I think a case could be made that without getting himself
noticed by killing the cat he would not be as successful.
Now, even though I have not seen the video, I must admit that
it really is art. It is a sort of social commentary that is
impossible to put into any other category than art. It has
made me question my meat consumption, for example. It has made
me question my shopping habits. When I see a video of how
they butcher cows it makes me think of the cat. And this
association makes me think of myself as a worse person
because I find one cat dying to be more shocking than those
truckloads of cows.
What I think about the person? Sometimes I hear someone mention
his name and I say "oh, the cat killer". He is always that. No
matter what he comes up with, artistically, he will always just
be that cat killer to me. He has in some sense turned himself
into a human sacrifice. He has truly colored everything he does
with the act of killing that cat in the beginning of his career.
It's very hard to not think it's art.
What does that say about me? On one hand I really despise
this person very deeply. At the same time I know that it is
irrational of me to do so, compared to the good he must have
caused to animal rights, for example, by really rubbing it in
for many people. I mean, even if only one person became a vegan
as a result of the video, it means that the cat saved lives.
But what about the trauma? If the video or even the knowledge
of the video caused trauma, how is that compared to the animal
lives that were saved?
It's just a very complex question. In a way, what this person did
to his own public persona somehow is a sort of analogue of the
sort of public shaming that the deplatforming seems to entail.
In this person's case it is very clear cut to me that whatever
reputational damage he has taken was deserved, especially since
he did it knowingly. But what scale of reputational damage is
deserved in each of the deplatform cases? I have no idea.
