American Values & the Cancel Culture Movement
Accountability and free speech are both American values that are fundamentally different from the cancel culture movement. Canary Mission's detractors accuse us of stifling their free speech. Is that true? If anything, Canary Mission amplifies their speech by giving it a wider platform.
Canary Mission values free speech. It informs the public exactly what the anti-Semites among us are actually thinking and feeling. The latter is accomplished by Canary Mission by simply quoting their own words – words that these anti-Semites are not shy about sharing publicly – on social media and YouTube, at protests and in other open source forums.
So what is the real objection to Canary Mission? For those that land on the site, as well as their ideological supporters, their objection is the possibility of facing real-life consequences, of being held accountable for their words. Implicit in that objection is the understanding that, according to American values, anti-Semitism is neither morally nor socially acceptable. How is this accountability different from the cancel culture movement?
Whether consciously or not, this objection raises two important questions. First, how does the right of free speech – and the absolute need to protect it – come to terms with holding anti-Semites accountable for their hate, bigotry, and, at times, racism? Second, how is holding anti-Semites accountable different from the cancel culture movement?
Getting the Facts Straight on Free Speech
The American right to free speech is almost unparalleled in the world in that it includes the right to spew hate, whether through speech, writing or public protest. The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees this right. The Framers of the Constitution rightly perceived that the first step to tyranny by the government was the curtailment of speech.
Recently, we have seen this phenomenon in America’s neighbors to the north, where expressing hate speech on social media can now land a Canadian in jail for two years. In Europe, free speech, even in a private setting, is not an inalienable right.
Yet, even in America, the broad right to free speech is not absolute. Laws limit plagiarism, obscenity, child pornography, libel and slander as well as speech used to incite imminent harm.
Accountability and American Values
A separate category of laws in America prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, religion and the like. These laws do not negate the Constitutional right to free speech – including the right to express hate, bigotry or racism. Rather, they enshrine into law certain shared American values and mores.
In this sense, the reasoning behind these non-discrimination laws is similar to the reasoning behind the limitations of obscene speech. In prohibiting obscenity, the law is based on three considerations, all of which reflect the mores of American society: (1) community standards (according to the average person), (2) patently offensive (as defined by state law) and (3) lacking serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value (according to the average person).
People from vastly different backgrounds, religions and ethnic groups built and continue to share America. What holds these disparate groups together? Traditionally, a shared set of values, mores and standards of behavior. Particularly, Americans of all sorts value -- and cherish -- free speech.
At the same time, holding an individual accountable when his or her speech violates these American values is not a contradiction. It's also not part of the cancel culture movement.
In short, anti-Semites have an important legal right to spew their hate. At the same time, the larger American society is correct to hold them accountable.
The Cancel Culture Movement Versus Being Held Accountable
Americans use accountability as a “last-stage” tool when agreed-upon American values, including certain red lines, are being violated. In contrast, the radical Left and its intersectional crowd use the cancel culture movement as a first-stage tool to shut down the free exchange of ideas and limit speech to “sanctioned” ideas.
Far from reflecting the American values of the broader public, the cancel culture movement represents the tyranny of the few.
The fact that this minority has been able to wield such outsized power is due to the amplification of its voice through social and mainstream media. In addition, compliance to its diktats by corporations (whose heads are either on board ideologically or acquiesce for fear of consequences) has greatly added to its power.
The cancel culture movement is the antithesis of American values and America’s liberal and libertarian underpinnings. In contrast, holding others accountable is the healthy outcome of a society that has a set of shared values.
The Cancel Culture Movement and Anti-Semitism
American values include righting old wrongs. We like to “do better.” As the moral compass of America evolved, anti-Semitism became unacceptable.
Most recently, this has included the anti-Semitism inherent in the demonization of Israel and support for Israel’s terrorist enemies. The fight against this pernicious form of anti-Semitism was recently codified in the definition of anti-Semitism put forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
The United States and 34 other countries around the globe adopted this definition. The Europe Union, the Organization of American States and the United Nations endorsed it.
Yet today in America, anti-Semitism is increasing, The Far Left now joins the Far Right in engaging in anti-Semitism, with the Far Left accusing Jews of having “white privilege” and Israel of being a “settler-colonialist apartheid state.”
Calling out these anti-Semites and exposing their bigotry is fair game. It's not part of the cancel culture movement. It’s accountability.