A couple of weeks ago, I went online and encountered the kind of news that no one ever wants to read. A prominent Biblical scholar and Oxford professor, Jan Joosten, had been arrested for downloading some 28,000 images and videos documenting the sexual exploitation of children, a charge to which he has confessed. Throughout the rest of the day, many members of a large professional organization of Biblical scholars took to social media to express their disappointment and disgust. The consensus among these individuals was that Joosten should be immediately dismissed from his positions of leadership within that professional organization, and that a definitive stance should be taken against the exploitation of children. It sounds like a simple request, and yet, given that organization’s gentle handling of another member convicted of similar charges in the past, it could not be taken for granted that ties with Joosten would be cut. And so a group of scholars quickly mobilized in order to pressure the organization to take action. A statement came — some considered it too little too late — but at the very least, a stance was taken. Joosten had been, for all intents and purposes, cancelled by his professional peers.

几个星期前，我去网上和遇到的那种消息，没有人愿意读。 一位著名的圣经学者和牛津大学教授扬·乔斯滕因下载约28,000张记录并记录了对儿童的性剥削的图像和视频而被捕 ，他承认这一指控。 在一天的余下时间里，一个大型的圣经学者专业组织的许多成员到社交媒体上表达他们的失望和厌恶。 这些人之间的共识是，应立即解除乔斯滕在该专业组织中的领导职务，并应采取明确的立场反对剥削儿童。 这听起来像是一个简单的请求，但是，鉴于该组织过去对其他因类似指控被定罪的成员的温和处理，不能认为与Joosten的关系会被切断是理所当然的。 因此，一群学者Swift动员起来，迫使该组织采取行动。 发表了一项声明-有些人认为这太少太迟了-但至少采取了一种立场。 无论出于何种意图，Joosten都已被他的专业同行取消 。

The story of Joosten highlights the possibilities of “cancellation” at its most morally unambiguous. Power tends to protect the empowered at the expense of the relatively disempowered, and “cancellation” is a strategy by which individuals with limited tools at their disposal band together in order to make a dent in that protective fortress. (Like much internet slang, the word “cancel” is appropriated from Black Twitter, where it originated as a mechanism for demanding accountability from people in positions of relative power.)

约斯滕的故事在道德上最明确的意义上强调了“取消”的可能性。 权力往往以牺牲相对没有权力的人为代价来保护被赋权的人，而“取消”是一种策略，通过这种策略，那些拥有有限工具的人可以聚在一起，以在那个保护性的堡垒中产生影响。 (就像许多互联网语一样，“取消”一词源自“ 黑色推特” ，它起源于要求相对权力者承担责任的机制。)

That said, the very thing that makes “cancellation” a potentially powerful tactic for challenging the Harvey Weinsteins (or the Jan Joostens) of the world also makes it a potentially dangerous weapon when wielded in bad faith, such as when the president uses social media to accuse people of heinous crimes for the purpose of inciting outrage. In many ways, Trump is a paragon of “cancel culture.” Before he was president, he was on a TV show where it was literally his job to find reasons to fire people. But in Trump’s mind, “cancel culture” is something that only other people participate in. During his 4th of July spectacle at Mt. Rushmore, Trump denounced “cancel culture,” which he defined as “driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.” Multiple outlets quickly pointed to the hypocrisy in this statement, listing the various times he’s tried to get people in the media fired for crossing him. Indeed, in practice, many of the most vocal opponents of “cancel culture” are themselves seeking to suppress dissent — specifically, dissent directed at them personally. This is what makes “cancel culture” such a slippery charge, especially when it is invoked independently of the power structures within which it is activated.

就是说，使“取消”成为挑战世界上的哈维·温斯坦人(或扬·乔斯滕斯)的潜在强大策略的事实，也使它在怀有恶意时(例如当总统使用社交媒体时)成为潜在的危险武器。以煽动暴行为目的指控人们犯下令人发指的罪行。 在许多方面，特朗普是“取消文化”的典范。 在担任总裁之前，他曾在电视节目中寻找解雇人的理由是他的工作。 但是在特朗普的脑海中，“取消文化”是只有其他人才能参加的活动。在他7月4日举行的芒特奇观期间。 特朗普在拉什莫尔(Rushmore)谴责“ 取消文化 ”，他将其定义为“驱使人们离开工作岗位，羞辱持不同政见者并要求任何不同意的人屈服。” 多家媒体Swift在此声明中指出了虚伪 ，列出了他试图使媒体中的人们因跨过他而被解雇的不同时间。 实际上，在实践中，许多“取消文化”的最直接反对者本身正在寻求压制异议，尤其是个人针对他们的异议。 这就是使“取消文化”如此溜溜的原因，尤其是当它独立于其激活的权力结构而被调用时。

In order to analyze the phenomenon colloquially known as “cancel culture,” it is useful to first decide what exactly it is that we mean by the term. As it stands, “cancel culture” is used to refer to everything from trying to get rapists removed from positions of power to leaving someone a critical reply on Twitter. The common thread that unites — and often complicates — these disparate practices is social media’s unprecedented power to amplify messages quickly, combined with a profit-driven privileging of clickbait headlines and reductive narratives over precision and nuance. Thus, in order to understand “cancel culture,” we must first understand the role of media in its construction.

为了分析俗称“取消文化”的现象，首先确定该术语的确切含义是有用的。 从目前的情况来看，“取消文化”是指从试图将强奸犯移离权力职位到在Twitter上给某人一个关键性答复的所有内容。 这些截然不同的做法团结在一起并经常使它们复杂化的共同点是社交媒体前所未有的强大能力，可以Swift放大消息，并结合以利润为导向的点击诱饵标题和精简细腻的叙事方式。 因此，为了理解“取消文化”，我们必须首先了解媒体在其建构中的作用。

Power tends to protect the empowered at the expense of the relatively disempowered, and “cancellation” is a strategy by which individuals band together in order to make a dent in that protective fortress.

权力往往以牺牲相对没有权力的人为代价来保护被赋权的人，而“取消”是个人为了团结在这个保护性堡垒中而陷入困境的一种策略。

In 2005, the sociologist John B. Thompson published an article titled “The New Visibility.” In it, he argued that that the “new world of mediated visibility” made possible by the internet had created a new category of interaction in which the “previously hidden” actions of individuals could not only be viewed instantaneously by people in other places, as live television had made possible, but could also be subjected to instantaneous feedback from the public. More recently, James A. Dewar and Peng Hwa Ang have noted that the “many-to-many” communication made possible by social media represents only the third paradigm shift in the history of physical media. The first shift was the emergence of the “one-to-one” communication of language, and the second was the “one-to-many” paradigm of the printing press. In each case, dramatic changes to how knowledge is stored, retrieved, and manipulated had a cascade effect that lasted decades and even centuries, as populations adjusted to the paradigm shift. During each of these periods, Dewar and Ang argue, a range of “unintended consequences” has, at times, come to “dominate intended ones.” The full contours of the “unintended consequences” of social media will continue to reveal themselves until long after my lifetime, and yours.

2005年，社会学家约翰·汤普森(John B. Thompson)发表了一篇题为“ 新的可见性 ”的文章。 他在书中认为，互联网带来的“媒介可见性的新世界”创造了一种新的互动类别，其中，个人的“先前隐藏”的行为不仅可以被其他地方的人们即时地看到，例如实况电视已经成为可能，但也可能会受到公众的即时反馈。 最近，詹姆斯·A·杜瓦(James A. Dewar)和彭华昂(Peng Hwa Ang) 指出 ，社交媒体实现的“多对多”交流仅代表物理媒体历史上的第三次范式转变。 第一个转变是语言“一对一”交流的出现，第二个变化是印刷机的“一对多”范式。 在每种情况下，随着人口适应范式转移，对知识的存储，检索和操纵方式的巨大变化都持续了数十年甚至几个世纪。 杜瓦(Dewar)和昂(Ang)认为，在每个时期中，有时会出现一系列“意想不到的后果”，“支配预期的后果”。 社交媒体“意想不到的后果”的全部轮廓将继续展现出来，直到我和你一生很久以后。

It is both crucial and daunting to locate the set of phenomena known as “cancel culture” in the broader historical context of the media paradigm shift we’re currently in the middle of. Seeing the big picture of what’s happening right now is a bit like asking a fish to notice the water it’s swimming in. But the dynamics of previous paradigm shifts provide many interesting points for comparison.

在我们目前正处于媒体范式转换的更广泛的历史背景下定位被称为“取消文化”的现象集既至关重要又令人生畏。 看到目前正在发生的事情的全景，有点像让一条鱼注意到它所游的水。但是以前的范式转换的动态提供了许多有趣的比较点。

It’s worth thinking, in this social and political moment, about all the things written language made possible, from legal codes to religious literature, and the new kinds of systems afforded by those practices. Likewise, the cultural transformations that occurred in the century after the introduction of the printing press cannot be overstated. Information, which had largely been under the strict control of powerful institutions, became virtually impossible to control. Newspapers and conspiracy theories flourished. A Reformation rooted in vernacular access to sacred texts irreversibly undermined ecclesiastical authority. Earth finally began to revolve around the Sun in books, just as it does in the Solar System. Given the many leaps forward in knowledge made during this period, it is easy to romanticize the (relative) democratization of information in the early modern period. However, this period is also marked by bloody wars and new consolidations of power, with the press increasingly wielded in the service of propagandists, inquisitors, and witch hunters. The effects of the new technology were, to put it mildly, a very mixed bag.

在这个社会和政治时刻，值得思考的是，从法律法规到宗教文学，以及由这些习俗提供的新型系统，使书面语言成为可能。 同样，在印刷机问世后的一个世纪中发生的文化转变也不能过分夸大。 信息在很大程度上一直受到强大机构的严格控制，实际上几乎无法控制。 报纸和阴谋论蓬勃发展。 一项以宗教语言为母语的宗教改革，不可逆转地损害了教会的权威。 地球终于开始像太阳系一样在书中绕太阳公转。 鉴于在此期间知识取得了许多飞跃，很容易使近代早期的信息(相对)民主化浪漫化。 但是，这一时期的特点还在于血腥的战争和新的权力合并，越来越多的新闻界为宣传家，审判官和女巫猎人服务。 轻轻地说，新技术的效果是一个非常复杂的包。

Just as writing and printing made possible a whole range of activities that were previously unheard of, the “many-to-many” paradigm of social media, partnered with the “new visibility,” makes it possible for virtually anyone anywhere to have their response to current events go viral. This fact alone is extremely destabilizing to existing hierarchical systems in which power must be “earned” (or “bought”) within the rules of the system, which are inherently exclusionary. Anxiety over this destabilization has given rise to a new category of anti-activism (or “cancel culture” cancelling), which I have called Status Quo Warrioring. Osita Nwanevu has recently dubbed it “reactionary liberalism” in a very measured and detailed takedown of the contradictions inherent in this position:

正如写作和印刷使以前从未有过的一系列活动成为可能，社交媒体的“多对多”范例与“新的可见性”合作使几乎任何地方的人都有可能做出回应到时事传播病毒。 单单这一事实就严重破坏了现有的分级系统，在分级系统中必须在系统规则之内“获得”(或“购买”)权力，而这在本质上是排他性的。 对这种不稳定的担忧导致了新一类的反激进主义(或取消“取消文化”)，我称之为“ 状态维持和平状态” 。 奥西塔·恩瓦涅(Osita Nwanevu)最近在对这一立场固有的矛盾进行了非常仔细和详尽的整理后，将其称为“ 反动自由主义 ”：

Slippery slope thinking, fallacious to most, is the reactionary liberal’s primary means of understanding the world around them, and their tendency to catastrophize produces a state of alarm about the spread of dangerous ideas as constant and hysterical as the stereotypical liberal arts student’s.

滑坡思维对大多数人来说都是谬论，是反动派自由主义者理解周围世界的主要手段，而他们的灾难性倾向使人们对危险的思想如定型的文科生那样不断而歇斯底里地传播感到震惊。

What this reactionary liberalism conveniently ignores are the power structures in which this discourse is ultimately embedded. Nwanevu brings up Bari Weiss’s labeling of a group of “critics of progressive identity politics” the so-called “Intellectual Dark Web,” a faux-badass moniker which obscures both the banality and institutional entrenchment of the perspectives it represents: “There’s nothing particularly dark or inaccessible about major publications like The New York Times and The Atlantic, where their writings or the substance of their opinions are often found.” Indeed, with very few exceptions, those complaining the loudest about “cancel culture” are very well platformed — and often very well funded as well.

这种反动自由主义方便地忽略的是这种话语最终嵌入其中的权力结构。 恩瓦内夫(Nwanevu)提出了巴里·韦斯(Bari Weiss)的标签，即一群“渐进式身份政治的批评家”，即所谓的“智力黑暗网”。像《纽约时报》和《大西洋 》这样的主要刊物暗淡或难以接近，在这些刊物上常常能找到他们的著作或见解。 确实，除了极少数例外，那些抱怨“取消文化”的人非常有平台，而且通常资金也很充裕 。

Which brings us to the reason why “cancel culture” is currently trending on Twitter. Yesterday, in an open letter published by Harper’s, 150 signatories decried “an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.” While the words “cancel culture” are never explicitly used, they are heavily implied. Most of the substance of the letter is relatively uncontroversial, however the fact that many of its signatories have undergone public scrutiny for bigoted statements carries a powerful subtext. When the “moral certainty” in question involves the humane treatment of groups whose civil rights hang precariously in the balance, how much room for disagreement is ethical on any given platform before we approach the limits of Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance? Again, this really doesn’t need to be a point of contention. As Nwanevu writes:

这使我们了解了Twitter上当前“取消文化”趋势的原因。 昨天，在哈珀(Harper)的一封公开信中，有 150个签署国谴责“对反对意见的不容忍，对公众羞辱和排斥的时尚，以及倾向于以盲目的道德确定性来解决复杂的政策问题”。 尽管从未明确使用“取消文化”一词，但它们被大量暗示。 这封信的大部分内容是相对没有争议的，但是，其许多签署人都对公开声明进行了公开审查，这一事实带有强大的潜台词 。 当所讨论的“道德确定性”涉及对民权treatment可危的人道人道待遇时，在我们达到卡尔·波普尔的“宽容悖论”的极限之前，在任何给定的平台上有多少意见分歧的空间都是合乎道德的？ 同样，这确实不需要成为争论点。 正如Nwanevu 写道 ：

While public universities in America are generally bound by the First Amendment, controversial speakers have no broad right to speak at private institutions. Those institutions do, however, have a right to decide what ideas they are and aren’t interested in entertaining and what people they believe will or will not be useful to their communities of scholars — a right that limits the entry and participation not only of public figures with controversial views but the vast majority of people in our society. Senators like Tom Cotton have every right to have their views published in a newspaper. But they have no specific right to have those views published by any particular publication. Rather, publications have the right — both constitutionally as institutions of the press, and by convention as collections of individuals engaged in lawful projects — to decide what and whom they would or would not like to publish, based on whatever standards happen to prevail within each outlet.

虽然美国的公立大学通常受《第一修正案》的约束，但有争议的演讲者没有在私人机构发表演讲的广泛权利。 但是，这些机构确实有权决定他们对娱乐的想法和不感兴趣的想法，以及他们认为哪些人会对学者社区有用或将不会有用的权利-不仅限制了学者的进入和参与，而且还限制了他们的权利。有争议的公众人物，但社会上绝大多数人。 像汤姆·科顿(Tom Cotton)这样的参议员有权在报纸上发表自己的观点。 但是他们无权让任何特定出版物发表这些观点。 相反，出版物在宪法上既作为新闻机构，又按照惯例是从事合法项目的个人的收藏，都有权根据每种出版物中适用的任何标准来决定他们愿意或不愿意出版的内容和对象。出口。

What is really at stake, in other words, are the standards of discourse for any given institution — which those institutions are fully entitled to set for themselves. The worst thing that could possibly happen for these signatories — who are overwhelmingly white, affluent, and cisgender — is that they’ll experience rejection from a platform they feel entitled to.

换句话说，真正危在旦夕的是任何给定机构的话语标准，这些机构完全有权为自己设定。 这些签字人(绝大多数是白人，富裕和顺产人士)可能发生的最糟糕的事情是，他们将遭受自己有资格获得的平台的拒绝。

For the targets of their scorn, however, the stakes are invariably higher. It bears mentioning that while this handful of relatively empowered public figures frets about runaway cancel culture, thousands of Americans are encountering violence, being detained indefinitely, and even being killed for protesting police brutality. Journalists are being arrested for reporting on the protests. The carceral state is the biggest, most powerful “cancel culture” there ever was. Meanwhile, the EARN IT Act — a piece of impending legislation masquerading as a law to protect children — has been called a “disaster for online speech and privacy” by the ACLU. There are illiberal threats to free discourse happening right now. Their absence from the Harper’s letter is as conspicuous as it is disheartening.

然而，对于他们的鄙视目标，赌注总是更高。 值得一提的是，尽管这批相对有权力的公众人物对失控的取消文化感到担忧，但成千上万的美国人正在遭受 暴力 ， 无限期拘留 ，甚至因抗议警察暴行而被杀害 。 记者 因 报道抗议活动而 被捕 。 患癌状态是有史以来最大，最强大的“取消文化”。 同时，《 紧急信息技术法案》是伪装成保护儿童法律的一项迫在眉睫的立法，被美国公民自由联盟称为“在线言论和隐私的灾难”。 目前，自由话语面临着非法的威胁。 他们在《 哈珀》信中的缺席令人沮丧，但同样引人注目。

At best, discussions of “cancel culture” which are not grounded in an analysis of power structures are disingenuous distractions. At worst, they are a silencing cudgel wielded by those who are actually doing the very thing they accuse others of doing. It’s worth mentioning that JK Rowling, one of the signatories of the Harper’s letter, recently threatened a transgender activist with legal action over a tweet. How can someone advocate “open debate” while also aiming to silence dissent? How, indeed. As Jessica Valenti writes, “cancel culture is how the powerful play victim.” The Harper’s letter is expertly crafted to make its signatories appear to be the victims in the fights they themselves have picked.

充其量，对“取消文化”的讨论没有建立在权力结构分析的基础上，是不切实际的干扰。 在最坏的情况下，它们是那些实际上在做自己指责他人在做的事情的人的沉默棒。 值得一提的是， 哈珀(Harper)信的签署人之一JK罗琳(JK Rowling)最近威胁对跨性别激进主义者采取一条推文采取法律行动。 某人如何在倡导“公开辩论”的同时还希望压制异议人士呢？ 的确如此。 正如杰西卡·瓦伦蒂( Jessica Valenti )所说： “取消文化是强大的游戏受害者的方式。” 的 哈珀的 这封信经精心设计，使其签名人似乎是他们本人挑衅的受害者。

This is not to say that online abuse does not happen. The runaway sharing of information that turns out to be untrue (or reductively construed) absolutely happens, pointless pile-ons happen, and even cathartic, vengeful mobs happen. These backlashes are a function of human psychology (with all our messy proclivities for confirmation bias), of sociology (with our desire to create ingroups and outgroups bound together by emotions, or what Sara Ahmed has called affective economies), and corporate media platforms, which tend to reward emotionally enticing, snappily worded statements over depth of substance. All of these phenomena are well worth examining in their own right.

这并不是说不会发生在线滥用行为。 信息的失控共享绝对是不真实的(或归纳为解释性的)，发生了毫无意义的堆积，甚至发生了通俗的，报复性的暴民。 这些抵制是人类心理学(伴随着我们所有混乱的倾向来确认偏差 )，社会学(伴随着我们创造受情感束缚的群体和群体，或者萨拉·艾哈迈德所说的情感经济 )和企业媒体平台的作用，这往往会奖励在实质性内容上引人入胜的，措辞活泼的陈述。 所有这些现象都值得单独研究。

At best, discussions of “cancel culture” which are not grounded in an analysis of power structures are disingenuous distractions.

充其量，对“取消文化”的讨论没有建立在权力结构分析的基础上，是不切实际的干扰。

There is also a valid conversation to be had about what to do with those whose behavior transgresses the boundaries a given community has decided to set for itself. I’m an abolitionist; I don’t believe in prison, nor do I believe in the efficacy of punishment for its own sake. “Canceling is punishment,” writes Adrienne Maree Brown, “and punishment doesn’t stop the cycle of harm, not long term.” Is it possible to allow communities to set their own boundaries without imagining that it is possible (or beneficial) to subject those who transgress these boundaries to total exile? I suspect that shifting our thinking toward a more restorative model of justice, in general, is something that can help us get over the hump of thinking of the world solely in terms of punishment and retribution.

对于那些行为超出给定社区决定为其设置的界限的人该怎么办 ，还有一个有效的对话。 我是废奴主义者； 我不相信监狱，也不相信惩罚本身的效力。 艾德里安娜·马里·布朗( Adrienne Maree Brown) 写道： “取消是一种惩罚，而惩罚并不会阻止危害的循环，不是长期的。” 是否有可能允许社区设定自己的边界，而没有想象过(或有益于)使那些超越这些边界的人完全流亡？ 我怀疑，一般而言，将我们的思维转向更具恢复性的司法模式 ，这可以帮助我们摆脱仅在惩罚和报应方面对世界的思考。

Vigilante strategies exist because of the fundamental injustice of the system. They are not likely to disappear until those injustices are addressed. But the truth of the matter is that there isn’t a “cancel culture” which exists over there and not here; there is room for every one of us to become a more savvy and less reactionary user of media. And there is also ample room for many of us to work on our — dare I say — illiberal impulse to try to shut down those who dare to tell us when we’re wrong. It’s this impulse currently driving the cancelers of cancel culture into a spiral of self-justification. There are four magic words that can end it at any time, but for some reason they’re the hardest words in the world for many of us to say.

由于系统的根本不公正，存在警惕策略。 在解决这些不公正现象之前，它们不可能消失。 但是，事情的真相是，没有一个“取消文化”的存在在那里 ，而不是在这里 ; 我们每个人都有空间成为一个更精明，React更少的媒体用户。 而且，我们中的许多人还有足够的空间来处理我们(我敢说)的自由冲动，以试图关闭那些敢于告诉我们我们错了的人。 正是这种冲动目前将取消文化的取消者推向了自我辩解的漩涡。 有四个魔术词可以随时结束，但由于某些原因，它们是世界上最难说的一个词。

Those words are: I could be wrong.

这些话是： 我可能是错的。