Cancel Culture Poorly Fills a Necessary Role

 Morgan Wallen got canceled yesterday.

The 27-year-old pop country singer (previously best-known to many, myself included, for an incident last fall in which his scheduled Saturday Night Live performance was postponed after he opted to spend the Saturday night prior partying with college girls in Tuscaloosa, rather than social distancing) saw his music taken off the airwaves, removed from Apple Music and Spotify Playlists, and made ineligible for the Academy of Country Music Awards. His recording contract was also suspended.

The offense this time (and we have to specify that it’s “this time,” because in addition to his SNL-adjacent shenanigans, he was arrested for disorderly conduct outside Kid Rock’s bar back in May) was Wallen drunkenly, casually referring to a friend of his as a “p****-ass-n*****” in a video reportedly captured by neighbors witnessing his late, loud return home after another night out.

We’ll get to cancel culture, and we’ll get to more about Wallen, but let’s get one aspect out of the way quickly here before we get to the meat of this:

One possible interpretation of these three scandals—a non-exclusive interpretation, meaning it can be taken a la carte with or without other interpretations—is that Wallen has a problem with alcohol. If that’s the case, then hopefully he seeks help. The problems certainly are more than just alcohol, but if that’s a piece of it, let’s not neglect to wish him sobriety.

Now.

Cancel culture.

Predictably, there was a backlash to Wallen’s cancelation. An attempted cancelation of it, if you will. People don’t like cancel culture. It’s a buzzword of a phrase, one of the most annoying buzzphrases in our current sociopolitical ecosystem. It’s black-and-white, and it’s often ostensibly treated as black-and-white, with many of its supporters—if taken literally—advocating hypocritically for intolerance of anything but perfection while its opponents—if taken literally—advocate for a complete absence of accountability.

There needs to be grace.

There needs to be accountability.

Morgan Wallen deserves to have his music off the airwaves right now. Morgan Wallen deserves to miss this year’s ACM Awards. Morgan Wallen deserves to have his recording contract suspended. The n-word is too bad, and avoiding using it is too simple and easy, for his actions to be in any way excusable. At some point, I’m sure, he’ll release new music. At some point, I’m sure, he’ll tour again. It will be later than some people want. It will be earlier than others want. I don’t think it’s in my purview to say what contrition and growth should be demonstrated before Morgan Wallen can return to the stage. For one thing, that word is not a word that affects me in the way it affects millions of our friends and neighbors. For another, I won’t decide when Wallen returns. That will be decided by the market.

In a perfect world, Morgan Wallen would not have used the n-word. Al Franken would not have groped women. Nick Cannon would not have spouted off antisemitic conspiracy theories. In a slightly less-perfect world, the market that finances celebrities like these, a market made up of individual consumers and voters, would react by earnestly reflecting on the offense or offenses committed, listening to those most affected by the wrongs, and arriving individually upon proper levels of contrition and growth to be demanded. There would be disagreement, but that’s ok—if only twenty percent of people earnestly believed Morgan Wallen to have demonstrated the proper levels of contrition and growth, Morgan Wallen would have twenty percent of his previous market. Gradually, through more contrition and more growth, Wallen could climb to fifty percent, and then seventy percent, and so on. This would be a sensible way for cancel culture to function: An earnest set of consequences informally imposed upon those whose actions are wrong but fall outside the purview of the justice system due to either not being illegal or not being prosecutable (for a variety of reasons, not limited to statutes of limitations). It doesn’t need to be an aggressive use of time. Not everybody has to be involved with every celebrity’s accountability session. This is, with one damning exception, the way it already works. We make our own choices. Many have stopped listening to Morgan Wallen’s music after this week’s revelations. Some of those will return sooner than others. Some never listened to Morgan Wallen’s music to begin with, and thus don’t have to make any choice.

The exception is the earnestness. Or, in the way it already works, the lack thereof. Thousands of fans are ready to “forgive” Wallen right now, or more accurately, to say he did nothing wrong. This is not an earnest stance. This is not an honest stance. Thousands more were ready to pounce on Wallen or someone like him because of his past offenses, and because his fanbase is so largely constructed of people on the opposite side of themselves in their culture war. This too is not earnest. This too is not honest. Thousands in between will jump to their own set of standards, or their own duration of “timeout,” without seeking out the opinions of those most hurt by the situation (or by only considering those opinions which support their preexisting leaning, or by following the herd). This can be somewhat earnest. This can be somewhat honest. It’s better than the alternatives, and it’s the most common response. But it can be better. And the other two are scarily common themselves. And they’re only growing in force.

There’s a lot of gray within cancel culture. It often goes wrong. Especially when it’s applied to non-celebrities. The number of instances in which a non-celebrity has lost a job, been doxed online, been subjected to threats (a high irony), or suffered any of a number of other “punishments” from an online vigilante mob of morality due to an ambiguous happening, a mistaken identity, or pure fanatical ideological puritanism is too high. Those who perpetuate cancel culture are often self-serving, often hypocritical, and often imposing with respect to their sociopolitical beliefs to a degree even they, one would imagine, taken off the dehumanizing battleground of the internet, would likely believe has some room to give.

But there are elements that are right. Cancel culture exists because we live in an age in which more accountability is possible than ever before. Social media and camera phones have combined to make it harder than ever to get away with doing really bad shit, at least in public. An awakening realization of the severity of sexual misconduct has made it harder than ever to get away with being a predator, at least in celebrity spheres. An overdue intolerance for outright racism has made it harder than ever to get away with outright racism. In this environment, a mechanism or mechanisms for accountability must naturally arise. Cancel culture fills a necessary role. It fills it poorly in many ways, but it fills it. And it’s good the role exists: Accountability for these things is good, and making that accountability happen in a positive way is something for which to strive.

This is the piece that’s often lost in the backlash against cancel culture. We still need accountability. While yes, there are examples of cancelations in which no real wrong was committed, situations with real wrongs—situations like Wallen’s, and Franken’s, and Cannon’s—are despicably common. The argument is made that we shouldn’t judge people at their worst. It’s true. We shouldn’t judge people, period. But we also shouldn’t condone their actions or ignore their actions. Don’t judge people. Yes. But when necessary, judge their actions, and hold them accountable for those actions in a manner that rehabilitates. And rehabilitation is necessary, because I would guess very few of you reading this, at your worst, are groping or antisemitizing or shouting the n-word through your neighborhood in the middle of the night. Many of the actions that elicit “cancelations” really are inexcusable, and intolerable, and while opinions can differ on the amount of contrition and growth necessary to atone and rehabilitate, and rehabilitation and mending should be the goals, it’s essential that wrongdoing is not excused through the simple desire to do away with an annoying cultural phenomenon.

So, let’s propose two things here, to make some progress in our individual contributions to the trend:

First, to the cancelers. To the online vigilante mobs of morality. Think before you tweet. Think before you comment. Think before you post. Ask yourself if there is ambiguity in what you’re seeing. Ask yourself how you can handle this in a way that leads to accountability, and not just wanton punishment. Ask yourself whether this is something for you to handle at all. Sometimes, it may be. The millions who shared the video of George Floyd’s murder were doing something good. Other times, it may not be. The thousands who mistakenly identified “Umbrella Man” from videos of the ensuing protests a few days later were doing something bad.

As another part to the first, to the more casual among us. Perhaps some Morgan Wallen fans considering next steps. Behave earnestly. Think about what you’re doing. Seek out differing opinions, and seek them out from friends and neighbors (and that is a broad, broad term) with different experiences from your own, and not necessarily on Morgan Wallen specifically (or whoever it is in the given instance) but on the severity of the word he used (or whatever the misdeed was). Think about what’s right. Be honest. Especially with yourself, where honesty right now appears to be a challenging task for many.

Second, to all of us. Embrace accountability. Embrace the deserved consequences. No, you don’t need to embrace “cancel culture.” It’s an obnoxious, loaded, divisive phrase. We’re stuck with it for a bit, but it’s awful. But the reason we’re stuck with it for a bit is that it’s arisen naturally as we, as a society, try to figure out how to handle incidents like these. Something is going to fill the role cancel culture currently fills. It’s good that the role exists.

The thing about these incidents is we know the thing is wrong, or (as is far too often the case with the n-word, specifically) we should know these things are wrong. Make sure you remember what’s wrong. Make sure your loved ones remember what’s wrong. Parents, remind and educate your children. Children, remind and educate your parents. Just because a wrong used to go unchecked doesn’t make it not a wrong. Reminder of the wrong’s wrongness should be impetus enough to dissuade one from committing it, but reminder of the consequences does add some urgency, and in cases, it seems, the urgency is necessary.

Cancel culture, and so much wrapped up within it, is a problem. But the bigger problem remains that the Morgan Wallen video was entirely unsurprising. And that his actions are being excused by far too many. Push back against cancel culture if you want. Reject it if you want to reject it. But don’t reject accountability. Without it, there can be no growth.