Quick Summary
- Anyone can be cancelled with evidence.
- Based on the available data, I hypothesise that only white men can be cancelled without evidence.
- Of course, over time, other examples could come out that ‘break’ the rules I am proposing here. If that’s the case, I will update the article.
You need proof to cancel some people
If you want to cancel a white man, you can do that with an accusation. If you want to cancel anyone else, you need evidence.
Society has cancelled many people in recent years, so we can just look at what has happened to them. If we work backwards, we can infer the involved thinking process.
Having examined some examples (see below in this article for some), I think there are a couple of relevant rules :
- Mainly, the mob needs some evidence to Cancel a person in the court of public opinion.
- If you’re dealing with a white man (at the top of the Hierarchy of Victims, not seen as a victim in any circumstance), you don’t need evidence to Cancel him.
White men are never seen as the ‘Victim’
If you listen, you will hear the vilification of white men all around you. Toxic masculinity. White Privilege.
Society does not view White men as the victim of any circumstance. In the daily headlines, what that means is if you want to cancel a white man, you can do that with a mere accusation. If you want to cancel anyone else, you need evidence, and even then, there’s no guarantee the cancellation will ‘stick’.
Let’s look at some examples of Cancellation of different types of people, with consideration of the HoV and HVV models.
First, I wrote an article on Johnny Depp – a white man who society cancelled based on a rumour. Here are some more examples, first of white men and then other groups of people who have been cancelled.
Ellen as an example
Talk show host Ellen is an excellent example. It took a long time for the Outrage Machine to Cancel her. News reports with rumours about Ellen being unpleasant to work with and even a bully have been around for years. Initially, she wasn’t cancelled when the rumours became public. Only after about 20 people corroborated the stories about Ellen’s bullying (when there was plenty of evidence) was she cancelled.
Ellen has decided to step down from her TV show soon after she was cancelled. Rumours were around for a long time that Ellen was difficult to work with, but she was only cancelled after about 20 people complained together.
Source : The Guardian
Head to Head – White Man vs White Women
In Australia, where I’m from, two news stories bubbled up within weeks of each other with remarkably similar (and, I’m sorry to say, tragic) results.
- Christian Porter:
Australia’s Attorney General was accused of committing rape 30 years ago. The accuser was a woman who was mentally ill. Later reports indicate that she took her own life. Her friends and the media claimed that at least part of the reason she took her own life was that she had been so traumatised by the rape. Porter was removed from his job, and his career was over.
Christian Porter was cancelled and lost his political career as a result of being accused by a mentally ill woman of a rape she alleged occurred 30 years ago.
Source : The Guardian
- Three women in Parliament:
Shortly after that, a remarkable coincidence. Penny Wong, Christina Keneally and Katy Gallagher were accused of bullying a fellow (female) politician, Kimberley Kitching. Kitching took her own life. The media and her friends blamed Wong, Keneally and Gallagher for contributing to the suicide.
Kimberley Kitching tragically took her own life. Some claim she did it due to being bullied by three female parliamentarians.
Source : The Guardian.
So, what’s the difference?
If you squint, it’s the same story. An individual commits suicide as a result of the actions of others. The only difference between the two stories is the gender of the person who hurt the victim. The white male lawyer lost his career as a result of the rumour. On the other hand, nothing happened to the female politicians involved. Why?
I would suggest that the reason for the different treatment is simply that in one of the two scenarios, a white man was accused. All that is required to secure the Cancelling of a white man is an accusation. Once made, the hierarchy of victims is employed – he is cast as the villain, the mentally ill woman the victim and the crowd demands his cancellation.
In the case of Wong and Keneally, the constituent elements of the drama triangle could not be populated. Since they were women and one of them a woman of colour, a quick check of the Hierarchy Of Victims shows that they, too, are victims and, therefore, cannot be Villains.
Will Smith Wasn’t Cancelled
Source : 2022 Oscars
Will Smith. It might be the most witnessed individual assault of all time.
There are times when the outrage machine fails to work as one might expect. Why is that?
Will Smith’s attack on Chris Rock at the Oscars is another example of how some people are not Cancelled when they do the wrong thing.
The model fails when there is no clear Villain
Smith’s attack on Chris Rock might be the most witnessed assault ever.
- Victim: Chris Rock. He’s done nothing wrong. He’s in a public setting making jokes at the Oscars.
- Villain: Will Smith. He has publicly assaulted a man in plain view.
- Hero: Any internet user looking for ‘Clout’ ‘should’ be able to exploit this situation to condemn Smith, support Rock and score some valuable Clout points.
In other circumstances, when someone commits an assault like this on a black man in public, a Hero would step up to prosecute the Hero Villain Victim model. They would condemn the act, and the world would back them.
So, why no outrage in Will Smith’s case?
I believe Smith’s assault shows, just as the situation with Kennealy and Wong, how confused people get when there the Villain is also a Victim in the Hierarchy of Victims.
Both Smith and Rock are black men. Despite being rich and famous, their colour put them towards the bottom of the Hierarchy Of Victims in the public’s minds. When one assaults the other and Heroes look for Clout points, they come up dry. Putting Smith and Rock into the Villain and Victim spots into the Drama Triangle simply does not compute. People see 2 Victims, not a Villain and a Victim.
In fact, quite the opposite of Cancellation happened. Incredibly, several media outlets saw it very much from Will’s point of view and suggested that he was receiving criticism for the assault only because he was a black man. Despite his millions of dollars and fame and his perpetrating the crime in front of so many witnesses, he was, according to the press, still a victim. They said the culture of discrimination had ultimate responsibility for his actions – not him.
What if someone else had assaulted Chris Rock?
I’m not here to stand up for racism. Mel Gibson should not have been cancelled when he (allegedly, reportedly) said, “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world!” during a 2006 DUI incident with police. Of course, it’s speculation, but let’s ask the question. What if he, Mel Gibson, a white man, had left his seat and slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars under similar circumstances as Smith’s? Here is a link to the video in which Gibson was asked this precise question.
If Mel Gibson had issued the same slap to Chris Rock that Will Smith did, he would have been criminally prosecuted and sent to jail. The same assault, carried out by a white man hitting a black man in public, would have triggered outrage – simply because there was a ‘Villain’ which fitted the needs of the Drama Triangle and Hierarchy Of Victims. It seems clear to me Gibson would have been Cancelled (again.)
In conclusion
I concede that, at a superficial level, the issue is confused by the fact that many white men accused of bad behaviour were actually guilty. Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Kevin Spacey, and so on – all did the wrong thing and were rightfully cancelled.
My point isn’t that white men are good; my point is that white men are like everyone else – that there is good and bad behaviour in every social group. Society should hold everyone to the same standard, as everyone deserves the same treatment. The rule should be that if you want to cancel someone, you need evidence.
So, for now, the hypothesis (you can only cancel white men without evidence) seems to hold true to the available data. I am open to more information, and if an example pops up where society cancels someone other than a white man without evidence, I will write a follow-up article.
Neil Aitken - Blog 