The Outsider Test for Offense

The willingness to subject your own values as if they were those of another is the beginning to understanding why cancel culture is bad.

In reading various takes about the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the ongoing conversation about cancel culture, I have not had much to add which would be unique. I believe that the torrent of recent spilled HTML may have covered all of the ways to view to what extent there is a difference between how the “left” and the “right” (indicators of an increasingly meaningless use, useless meaning, and otherwise antiquated political continuums) have handled the consequences of opinions, acts, and tribal affiliations.

But then, while walking home from work yesterday, I reflected on a book I read some years ago. Back when I was much more active within the atheist/skepticism spaces, I read a considerable amount of books on the subject of religion, usually from various atheist or skeptical authors. One such book was John W. Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith, a book which I enjoyed. It stuck with me because I thought it was a useful metaphor to articulate—to a believing religious person of some faction or another—why a person might find reason for doubt in their claims; all they needed to do was look at the set of ideas from the point of view of someone who held faith in some other set of claims.

It was different from some other arguments which atheists would make in that it wasn’t saying merely that their religion was wrong because of logic or whatever, but that if you could use faith for your belief and also for some other belief which didn’t overlap or logically cohere to yours, then the concept of “faith” was dong a lot of work for too many incompatible beliefs.

And then it occurred to me that this critical approach was part of what led me to my political awakening some years ago; I began to be able to see my own political conclusions, values, and tribe from the point of view of some other convictions. I began to become self-critical from an outsider’s perspective, and I realized that my worldview wasn’t as air-tight as I once thought.

I began to realize that there was some amount of faith involved in political tribes, at least insofar as groupthink de-emphasizes actual critical thinking and we put more stock in those within our walls as compared to those outside of it.

So, what about offense? What does that have to do with any of this?

Cancel Culture is an attempt to right a wrong

What do you think is happening when a mob responds to some comment, proclamation, or action by another with calls for them to be fired, removed from some group, or perhaps murdered? What types of noises do people make when confronted with a set of ideas a person might say or actions which they do?

Think about some of the responses to the death of Charlie Kirk. For some, they will say something along the lines of “I’m not mad about it” or “he had it coming.” What is going on here? Well, it seems to me that some people didn’t like what Kirk said (or at least what they think he said) and felt no sympathy or empathy for the killing. Good riddance, amirite?

In short, they found his views despicable, full of hate, and offensive. They weren’t sad the man died because his views were disgusting, gross, and an affront. They were offended by him and his death was anywhere between a ‘meh’ and a reason to celebrate and call for more of the same for others like him.

This offense is a shock to our values, our sense of what’s right, and tends to be one of the primary criteria for dividing our tribal affiliations. Think about how offense feels; it’s akin to being disgusted, isn’t it? There’s an ewww connotation, as well as a holding of the metaphorical nose, turning away or confronting—fight or flight—to the source of this word or deed which we were so offended by. It’s primal, tribal, and visceral.

In other words, its moral—cultural. The culture wars are nothing if not a conflict between moral tastes, and like we used to war with nearby tribes or ostracize a neighbor when they offended us, we now “cancel,” which often takes the form of removing a means of financial security, society, or even life from someone.

Is it fair to say that Charlie Kirk was cancelled?

So then the question became whether people getting fired for a ‘meh’ or for calls for more assassinations of such people was cancel culture or not. Also, was it hypocritical for people who, a few years ago, were complaining about cancel culture “from the left” were now gleefully calling for people to be fired for cheering on the death of some ‘debate me’ bro. I’ll not try to summarize the various arguments, as I’m sure you can find them on your own.

The importance of neutrality

The fundamental point here, which I believe to be obvious by now, is that the questions about ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘whataboutism’ hinges on the question of playing fair. The offense people have at Charlie Kirk’s beliefs were only relevant if you had different beliefs or values than he did; you wouldn’t be offended if you agreed with those beliefs, right?

Thus, when thinking through whether a punishment is warranted—everything from a side-eye, firing, or a bullet to the neck—the question is whether the word, act, or idea is actually harmful or offensive. And in a pluralistic society with a plethora of worldviews, there will not be universal agreement on what is offensive, harmful, or dangerous.

So, if you are going to be the judge, administering justice, you need to be able to step outside of any particular set of beliefs and look at a situation fairly. How? Well, that’s a good question. In order to address this, I’ll quote the esteemed (in my view, anyway) Helen Pluckrose from yesterday:

If, on serious ethical reflection about a certain incident, you think you have strong evidence that somebody is a danger to vulnerable people and that you have a responsibility to inform their employer of this, you should do so. Make sure that your ethical justifications are well evidenced, soundly reasoned, consistent across political divides and not issued in the service of your own political ideology in a way you would not like to have somebody else’s imposed on you.

If, on reflection, you find that you are searching for people saying things you oppose in order to punish them, [fueled] by your own feelings of outrage, disgust and, in the case of the murder of Charlie Kirk, grief, please stop and consider the bigger picture. Think about what such actions contribute to culture and whether this is a culture you wish to build. Consider whether you might do better to make an ethical argument against that person’s stance and persuade others to oppose it for good reasons. Think about whether contributing to a culture of cancellation could backfire on you if your own political views fall out of favour.

The point here is that judgment is supposed to be blind, which means it needs to step outside of activist or moralist robes and put on neutral garb. I agree. But this is a hard ask, especially when you believe that actual harm is happening, is immanent, and that slowing down to look at things rationally is merely allowing harm to perpetuate in the name of some illusory neutrality, which I know many do.

The problem is that this neutrality can only seem illusory if you believe you already have the correct perspective, and I guarantee you many of your ideological opponents think they have the right perspective with equal certainty as you do.

To me, this looks analogous to a religious conflict. And, as I wrote recently, we need to try to obtain a kind of ideological secularism when evaluating ideas. I’m saying essentially the same thing here, with a different framing. So, let’s break down how this works.

The Outsider Test: More than merely putting yourself in their shoes

Your values and beliefs feel right to you. That’s just how that works. The people you are offended by, whose ideas seem disgusting to you, feel secure in their beliefs and values as well. That, again, is just how things work.

So when we live in a society which contains people of wildly different ideas about the nature of the world, morality, etc, there absolutely must be people willing and able to look at your incompatible worldviews as equal, at least to start. It is quite analogous to how an atheist (especially if they know a lot about religion) sees two arguing theists; that atheist sees you arguing about reality and you are both using the same concepts of offense, disgust, and faith.

Me watching these arguments about cancel culture between progressives and conservatives feels very similar to this. As a committed liberal (and yes, I lean hard to the left, but I’m a liberal in the sense of valuing open debate, free speech, etc), I defend a worldview which values the ability to look at all perspectives, my own included, with skeptical eyes. I need to see evidence, argument, and hope for a willingness to see other points of view when evaluating a conflict.

Helen Pluckrose’s point from above stands: “Think about whether contributing to a culture of cancellation could backfire on you if your own political views fall out of favour.” If you are unable to imagine yourself in the shoes of your ideological opponent, then consider having the cultural and political circumstances shifted suddenly to where your tribe is now out of favor. That’s the importance of neutrality.

If you are a Christian—say a Baptist—and you can’t imagine believing that the creator of the universe is named ‘Allah’ (which really just means ‘god, but you get my point) or that Mohammad actually was given a whole new set of divine ideas which are God/Allah’s actual words, or that Jesus is a mere prophet then it might be helpful to imagine that you believed in Islam and that you were hearing about the concept of the Holy Trinity from that point of view.

And if that’s too hard, then imagine suddenly being transported to a time and place where everyone around you believes in Allah, his prophet Mohammad (PBUH), and that Ramadan is coming and you’re going to be hungry for a month. Also, imagine that those people around you, with those beliefs, aren’t quite fond of unbelievers, for the holy Koran says a few things about that.

"Then kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush..." (Quran 9:5)

"As to those who disbelieve, for them are cut out garments of fire, boiling water shall be poured over their heads..." (Quran 22:19-21)

And then contemplate how sure you are that you want to insist upon the Trinity as an absolutely true idea you want to insist upon and hand out consequences to those who disagree. Because, you see, offense depends on your beliefs and values (and are largely culturally learned). So, how sure should you be about those beliefs and to what degree is is appropriate to apply ‘consequences’ for having another belief? How righteous or pragmatic is it to insist upon canceling, punishing, or applying consequences to people who disagree with you, especially if you might only have the power to do so right now, and that may change?

If you believe that Charlie Kirk deserved death, what if it was one of your advocates which had been killed? If you believed it’s ok to have a person fired for celebrating his assassination, would you apply the same logic if you saw someone cheering for one of your enemies? Would you not join in on the cheering, or merely say ‘meh’? Is your answer based upon what team you are on or on some higher principle?

Do you want the judges you will face be people with tribal affiliations (which may or may not be your tribe) or who adhere to a principle of neutral justice? This was the whole point of John Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance: create a world where you don’t know what part of it you will end up. That is, make the culture one which is fair in principle for all potential members. We should be doing the same with cancellation; make the rules of consequences such that you don’t know which tribe is currently in power, rather than punish offenders and do all you can to hold onto that power.

The bottom line here, as usually for me, is epistemological humility; you need to be less sure of your beliefs, because we humans are so often incorrect about things. This doesn’t mean not to have beliefs or values, but it means that we shouldn’t celebrate the deaths of enemies or the firings of people who cheer for the death of our heroes.

Cancel culture is bad because the ‘consequences’ of actions or beliefs are considered good from one point of view, and almost nothing is as simple as to be able to divide them into clear good or evil. And even if you could, the further problem is that cancel culture is an expression of power—cultural power. It is not justice to wield power against ideological enemies. Not just because they will ultimately do it to you when they wield power, but also because you might be wrong.

The person who killed Charlie Kirk likely thinks their action was just, because all of the hate Charlie Kirk had or whatever. But is any one person ever all good or evil? And is not the killing of a person, even if they are filled with hate, also not an act of hate? Is not such ‘justice’ self-defeating?

I’m reminded, as I am often these days, of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

There is no such thing as a good or evil person, there are just people who, with their many values, flaws, and complexities do things which others will view as good, evil, or puzzling. And they won’t agree which are which! We are all a mess. Too many people too certain, too many uncertain, and all of us human, all-too-human.

We need to make an attempt to meet other people where they are, if we want to understand why they are what they are. And if we can’t, we must make a pact that we will not wield the power of punishment, consequences, and especially death even if its only for the selfish and pragmatic reason that such power is fleeting and may one day be in the hands of our ideological opponents.

Those who, like myself, have been warning the “left” to not wield their cultural power in certain ways lest they hand that sharpened blade to their enemies in due time are now seeing what happens when the “right” wields such a honed weapon. They learned it from watching you, and they feel justified to visit revenge for the consequences that were given to them. Human, all-too-human.

And if you’re going to argue that the “right” was always going to do that, then I’ll leave you with this thought. If they were always going to do evil, then doing evil to stop them only adds to the totality of evil in the world. If there was no avoiding evil, then our whole project as a species was always to fail. Therefore if your attempts at social justice is another form of evil, then I don’t see merit in fighting for it.

If you want to be the avatar of justice, then be willing to be wrong. Otherwise, all you are doing is insisting on being obeyed.