Your Right To Destroy People: No One’s Trying To Take Away Your Social Media Right, But ….

You are god-like.

You have the power to take someone (their words/actions—in context and without) and offer them to the angry alter of the world. You have the power to define someone within the small, pixel space of an iPhone, reduce their deeds (good or bad), their history, their family, their volunteerism, their triumphs and mistakes … reduce everything about them to a singular moment, a public character count, thumb clicks on a keyboard.

This expansive (and sometimes crushing) reductionism … it is your god-like power.

And if you’re a vengeful god, your hope is that other vengeful gods will see your tiny frame within in their own tiny frame, and they too will grow angry. And they too will follow the cycle … define the “object” within the small, pixel space of an iPhone, reduce “its” deeds, “its” history, “its” family, etc. All this, from your heroic and ahhh so satisfying hope … a hope to hold everyone accountable without pause, without dialogue, without any discernment between pure evil and errors made by the purely good.

Don’t worry. I’m not trying to take away your right to destroy anyone. You now have that right. You can apply this right without conviction, though one would hope you’re patrolling only for monsters. And there are definitely monsters … oh so many monsters … and your destructive power—for the greater good—should be levied full force upon them. In these moments, our collective conscience thanks you.

Your Right to Destroy (Indiscriminately)

But the fundamentals of collective conscience employ two machinations … collective and conscience. Within conscience—that guide to rightness or wrongness—surely you—the destroyer—can admit that not every wrong word, social slip-up, public comment, past transgression, foolhardy phrasing, unintentional post, communal misdemeanor, vapid vocalization, and honest mistake is worthy of your Zeusian judgement. With every subtle offense, your mountainous social media hand need not part the clouds and squash a soul between your bloody fingers. I promise you … it’s okay to forgive. It’s okay to dialogue, it’s okay to accept an apology. Your power to destroy will not wane if you pause, think, consider, if you ask first and shoot later. 

Monsters are intentional; mistakes are not.

Today, you have the right to destroy … careers, families, reputations … to digitally suffocate the breathing, to reduce a living human being to a living death, and do it all with the quickness of a keystroke. I’m not trying to take away your right to destroy anyone when I ask you—all ye little gods—to pause before you crush someone into dust. When you smell blood, are you Jack or are you the Giant? Is your hunger only satisfied when you’ve ground someone’s “bones to make your bread?”

Freedom Is Something Very Different Than “Responsible” Freedom

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.

—Proverbs 18:21

If free speech is a right, and “words can kill,” then there must be a counter freedom to punish/forgive those words that hurt. Regarding the latter (punishment vs. forgiveness), the speaker is always at the mercy of the listener. As the ol’ Spider-Man quote goes, “With great power (e.g., the freedom of speak) comes great responsibility (e.g., be careful what you say).”

Within this careful weighing of words, some weigh their words carefully so as to intentionally wound. These are our monsters, and they—as they should be—are subject to our giants. They know—or they’re too arrogant to not know—that the collective power of social media (though some might call it a police state) is the living, breathing embodiment of Justice Louis Brandeis’ famous quote:

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.

Today, there is much social media sunlight disinfecting much divisive and hateful language. Again, thank you. This is to be applauded. This is the stuff of heroes. But within this pool of moderation, accountability, and exposure, the slippery slope of legal yore is causing good people to slip into the very thing they hate … monsters. A consuming fire—your right to destroy—does more than just disinfect. It recklessly scorches the earth, rectifies without mercy, and plays scoreboard with people punished. It is, to put it wildly, malevolence marauding as an avenging angel.

A Revolution Will Not Suffer If It Periodically Dispenses Compassion

Within social media, I continue to see this play out. Again, you’re right to destroy people … that’s intact. You can sleep comfortably knowing that in the morning, you can patrol, patrol with eyes glazed and mouth watering, patrol without mercy or falter. But having seen it play out, I’ve witnessed many people—and sadly, many people of my shared Christian faith—shoot first and ask questions never. To my Christian brothers and sisters, are we not called to dialogue with the sinners? Is there love and mercy in the accusation made—without discourse—in the assault and demand—without a glimpse into one’s soul? What’s most difficult is watching Christians—people I know and respect—pass unrestricted judgment upon the unintended and transform the mindless into acts of unmercy and unloving.

Difficult to imagine our God, our world as a big digital space, and within that space, the Lord running unabated and without clemency, destroying lives because of slip ups, mistakes, and words unweighed. Basically, destroying lives without first pausing—without separating the monsters from the misspoken.

Christian Cooper, the black bird watcher, who—while in a NYC park—was threatened by a white women, recently touched upon these monsters … but in loving way. Compared to Cooper, I’m asking for less of us. To me, the true, honest, definable monsters … they’re fair game and undeserving of compassion. Their tumble to the wasteland is precipitated by their own lost souls. But for the mistaken and the unintentional … we must first contort against our heated selves to pause, question, explain, to ratchet down the whiplash violence. 

In a Washington Post op-ed, Christian Cooper said he won't be cooperating in the prosecution of the woman who filmed him. His motives:

I must err on the side of compassion and choose not to be involved in this prosecution.

Considering that Amy Cooper has already lost her job and her reputation, it’s hard to see what is to be gained by a criminal charge, aside from the upholding of principle.

—Christian Cooper Says He Won't Help In The Investigation Of Amy Cooper Who Called The Cops On Him In Central Park, by Tasneem Nashrulla of Buzzfeed News

In our world today, there are many—like Christian Cooper—who choose to “err on the side of compassion.” And in guiding toward compassion, I’m trying—for the sake of the searchers and destroyers—to set the bar low. You have the right to destroy monsters … I am not trying to confiscate your weaponry. But it’s not asking much to “err on the side of compassion” when someone has (maybe … hopefully) erred in their words. To err towards compassion isn’t giving up your right to destroy. It’s deferring that destruction until you’ve heard the defense, the explanation … until you’ve actually gazed past the digital screen and into the baring of one’s soul.

If Cancel Culture Has No Victims, Then What’s The Point?

I recently watched the art of dialogue-free destruction play out in social media; a white Christian man called out a black author and publicly baptized her reconciliation commentary as racist. It was a strange reversal to see the extreme of privilege (white and man) calling out the extreme of unprivileged (black and woman). This man might argue that I know nothing of his privilege … maybe he was raised in poverty, maybe his adopted parents are black. But this argument is destructive of itself because in the case I’m referencing, this white man knows nothing about this black woman’s unprivilege … nothing at all about her perspective, her challenges, the racism in her past, present, and future. 

This dialogue-free destruction gets a passive “yes” in an article written by NBC’s Mikki Kendall. This well-thought-out article, which I agree with in part, makes the case that “cancel culture” isn’t really “cancel,” especially for the rich and powerful. It’s more like “inconvenience” culture, a momentary blip in one’s earthly (and mostly upward) arc:

[D]espite the hype, "cancel culture" is largely meaningless for those with platforms and some form of social power.

Nick Cannon isn't 'cancel culture' run amok. He's why it's time to stop using the term, by Mikki Kendall for NBC News.

Agreed. But then Kendall goes on to say:

Can those consequences, in the age of the internet, be disproportionate to the actions or your role in society? Maybe, occasionally. But more often, anti-cancel culture rhetoric has somehow come to center on protecting those who would really lose the least — a few fans or followers among the many they already have or a bit of prestige or influence.

….

There are, of course, exceptions that prove the rule, but even those people who have been "canceled" in ways we may think were disproportionate often go on with their lives and their careers.

The obvious response is that nobody can know the depth and reach of the generalized “cancellation.” Not every “cancellation” rises to a Nick Cannon level so the broader consequences … that is, the cancellations we never hear about … might be more than a mere “Maybe, occasionally.” Moreover, “cancellation” is a broad term … it can be extended (furthering the “Maybe, occasionally”) to the more micro … one spouse canceling another spouse, one student canceling another student, and so on. In this sense, it raises the question: What’s the definitional line dividing good cancellations (socially driven) from bad cancellations (bullying)? Trying to find this line within “Maybe, occasionally” is like trying to unmix paint. 

Likewise, one can “go on with their lives” but with ramifications that run emotionally deep. I can’t help but hear the echo of a school principal telling the cyber bullied to “go on with your life.” Even if the exception is to “go on,” that doesn’t mean the exception is to “go on” without scars, wounds, friends lost, reputation injured … the pull of a digital sinkhole that lives for eternity, always searchable, always findable, always returnable like a boomerang. For those with “social power,” it may be a blip. For the monsters, it is definitely deserved. But for the in-betweeners … the unintentionally who’ve been denied dialogue and soul-baring … it is a potential lifetime of “what ifs” and looking over one’s digital shoulder.

Not "Terror" But One The Verge Of Something Like It

I’m not trying to take away your right to destroy anyone. I’m just asking, before you exercise that right, to seek explanation, to give your target a chance to untarget themselves. You’re not shooting at clay pigeons with your cancel gun; your shooting at people, and unlike lifeless clay, people—good people who make mistakes (they are not monsters)—deserve at least one chance at your mercy.

One of the things I agree with in Mikki Kendall’s NBC opinion piece is that “cancellation” is a leverage for the oppressed, for the singular voice that grows with collective power. She writes:

The form of cancel culture that needs to be stopped is the one that punches down, not up; it's the one that does direct and clear long-term harm to the lives (and, yes, careers) of those with the least power in our society. Defending free speech doesn't mean removing social consequences; it means making sure we protect the right of the least powerful to speak to the most powerful among us, even when we don't want to listen to them.

Agreed, but here, it’s apt (even if a bit juvenile) to again quote Spider-Man: "With great power comes great responsibility.” A great power of the people … for the oppressed and the voiceless … is a good thing, but it mustn’t be a soulless power. It mustn’t fall upon the heads of all … the cold hand of a cold god, unchecked and without responsibility, thought, or compassion.

This power—a bloody power—was the power that Thomas Jefferson so coldly lauded. Speaking to the power of revolutions, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “ rivers of blood must yet flow, & years of desolation pass over, yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of desolation.” Likewise, speaking of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, Jefferson applauded the bloody power of indiscrimination, a cruel power that brought “kings, nobles and priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with human blood.”

The French Revolution’s Reign of Terror was cancel culture on a life-or-death scale … indiscriminate, merciless, without opportunity for rehabilitation. Between June 1793 and July 1794, there were nearly 17,000 death sentences in France, with many meeting their death by guillotine. Robespierre, the architect of this great power, once said:

Terror is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice.

I’m not trying to equate today’s cancel culture with yesterday’s Reign Of Terror. There is no real entry between the brazen first and the bloody second … beyond this one simple ingression. Without dialogue, without a chance to explain, without the separation between the intentional monsters and the unintended mistakes, cancellation seeps into terror.

I’m not trying to take away you’re right to destroy people. I’m just trying to remind you that without clemency, without interlude, without discernment between the sinners and the sacrificed, cancellation—much like terror—is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice.