Progressivism and Cynicism
Bo Brusco | June 29, 2020
Note: The following is meant to be a philosophical commentary and not a politically charged opinion piece.
"Cancel Culture" by markus119 is marked with CC0 1.0
Progress in the Face of Despair
J.R.R. Tolkien believed that the past is always better than the future. For him, everything was continuously getting worse; a theme threaded throughout his epic tales. Outside of his characters and plots, Tolkien himself said, “I expect history to be nothing but one long defeat.” With the pronounced turmoil of our time, it is easy to sympathize with Tolkien’s philosophy. But in the face of despair, Progressives (or any one who wants to see more economic and social equality) relentlessly search for improvement and evolution; however, no matter how innocent the intent, they are not always successful, even in their apparent victories.
Cancel Culture Dilemmas
While we are seeing the long overdue removal of Confederate statues constructed to legitimize White Supremacy during the era of Jim Crow, we are also seeing the rise of cancel culture and outrage. Though many of these instances of people getting “cancelled” have been beneficial, like the R. Kelly’s and Harvey Weinstein’s of the world, there are a concerning amount of cases where this culture seems to be more harmful than helpful.
For example, at a 2019 college football game, Carson King raised millions of dollars by holding up a sign visible to television viewers that read: Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished, and attaching his Venmo code below. In an unprecedented act of human kindness, King donated $2.95 million of the money he had received to The University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital. After observing this act of charity, the beer company, Anheuser-Busch, publicly announced that they would slap King’s face on their cans, award him a free year’s supply of beer, and match King’s donations to the children’s hospital; but any reader who is familiar with cancel culture knows where this is going.
Aaron Calvin, a reporter at the Des Moines Register at the time, uncovered some unsavory social media posts from King’s juvenile years. This resulted in King getting “cancelled,” and Anheuser-Busch publicly distancing themselves from him and withdrawing their aforementioned offers. What followed was King, despite his effort to do some good for his community, making a televised appearance to formally apologize and atone for his “hurtful and embarrassing tweet.”
Karma swung at Calvin like a swift sword, though. After being credited with taking down King, Twitter users dug up some concerning tweets from Calvin’s own past life, so Calvin got canceled too; which included collecting his due dose of hate from social media, and ultimately getting fired from his job as a reporter (additional source).
A Convoluted Quest for the Highest Moral Ground
The irony is poetic, but what did anyone gain from this bout of cancel culture and the hundreds more cases like it? What great benefit do we stand to win when we berate people for their past sins—many of which are humorless tweets from our teenage years? Aside from the serious instances (like Weinstein or Kelly), how is this practice fruitful and why do we insist that forgiveness is not within us to offer? It seems as though many of these cancel culture attempts are indicative of a deeply rooted need for us to feel morally superior. Whatever the case may be, there is always a higher moral ground we claw to stand on.
For example, if a principal or superintendent of a school named after a Confederate general were to announce today that they are officially changing the name of their school (which they absolutely should), how many of us would still feel inclined to ridicule those in charge for not doing so 10 or 100 years ago? Or some of us might scoff at their attempt to improve and claim that the move falls short of some undetermined ethical standard we intrinsically hold.
The Final Destination
Another important question to consider is what is our end goal in doing this? Where is our final destination and how will we know when we have arrived? It seems that some of us will never be satisfied until we’ve proven our devotion to morality at the expense of one of our fellow human being’s past mistakes. Is our ideal trophy really ruined careers and heaps of Twitter hate? Which is ironic, again, because cancel culture should aim to improve society, but instead we’re too focused on seeing the demise of our peers whom we have deemed morally inferior.
Moral Fluidity
Even our past peers, the ones from American history and antiquity, are becoming subject to our affinity for cancel culture, and many of these cases aren’t as morally unambiguous as the removal of Confederate statues. It is difficult to pass our modern day judgement on those who have come before us. It is an observable truth that morality is fluid and its parameters change with time, so is it fair to use our advanced moral tools to measure the ethics of historical figures? In some cases, it is obviously so: Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, even Christopher Columbus. These figures committed reprehensible acts, regardless of the moral sphere in which they operated, but what about those who are guilty of actions only seen as morally offensive to us in 2020?
These questions, though we may be scared to ask them, deserve our sincere and committed contemplation because we know who cancel culture is coming for next: the Founding Fathers. They’re the great men who founded this country, but is it possible for someone to be “great,” or even “good,” if they owned slaves? I will stop this conversation here as I am not qualified to publicly speak on the matter, nor do I believe I am capable of passing judgement accurately on these historical figures.
Utopia or Cynicism?
At this point in my composition, I feel it is important for me to say that I do believe in the cause of Progressivism. Especially given the fact that morality is fluid, we need people who are interested in continuously procuring and preserving the rights and freedoms of every American. My concern, however, not only lies in some of their methods of achieving progress, but also, as previously mentioned, they’re somewhat opaque destination. It is likely that every practicing progressive believes, at least implicitly, that they are helping this country usher in a Utopia; which, idealistically, would not be a bad place to be. But we have reason to worry that this course and approach, if left unchecked, could ultimately land us in Cynicism. Instead of Utopia, I fear that our unfettered progress puts us in danger of arriving at a place where no one will ever be good, and goodness will cease to exist. Morality will become obsolete because each individual’s version of morality will vary too greatly from the next—due to our dire search for the moral high ground.
The Foundation for Progress Must Be Built on Common Ground
In her book “Being Wrong,” Kathryn Schulz suggests that, even though we are helplessly prone to being wrong about even the most basic things, there are some things we must be certain about in order to function, reason, and progress. Paraphrasing what an early 20th century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, suggested, Schulz says, “If we want to get through life in a functional fashion, we have no choice but to treat some of our beliefs as absolutely certain.” These beliefs include obvious facts we don’t think to question, such as: You exist. You can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. If any of us doubted those beliefs it would be hard to reach other conclusions both philosophical and scientific alike. In fact, noting that primitive knowledge makes progress possible, Wittgenstein wrote that, “at the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.”
I mention this because I think it is important that a similar concept be applied to morality. We must collectively concede what is good so that goodness can exist in all of our worlds. Of course, as we’ve discussed, morality seems subject to change with time; however, I believe it is in our best interest to agree that there are some universal moral truths, or unchangeable moral laws because, like with knowledge, there must be an agreed upon foundation of ethics if there is to be moral advancement. This is why it is imperative for progressives to cooperate with their allies on the right side of the aisle, and vice versa.
It may sound redundant coming from me again, but this issue, like many others in our nation, can be resolved to a great extent by improving our ability to communicate across political lines. The left and the right need to work together so that America can still progress but in a more calculated, and undeniably beneficial, way. As Julia Dhar explained in her Ted Talk about how to disagree productively, these political entities need to find shared reality. She suggests that in order to find this common ground, or shared reality, we need to learn how to separate ideas from identity and train ourselves to be open to persuasion. By doing so, there is a chance for us to reach unanimous conclusions about morality in the 21st century, and from there discuss the best path forward for Americans and humanity in general.
Consider This: There is Some Good in this World
During these unsettling times of injustice and political upheaval, I am often reverting back to how J.R.R. Tolkien felt about the past always being better than the present; how everything always seems to be getting worse. Though he had no reason to—given the fact that he walked through the virtual trenches of Mordor in the First World War, and lived to see the rise of powerful, evil figures like Stalin and Hitler—Tolkien always believed in hope and trusted that good would come; that a eucatastrophe would happen, which Tolkien described as a “sudden and miraculous grace,” like the eagles swooping down at the last second to save the day. I believe that this progressive movement has the potential to be an overwhelming force for good in our country, but the real eucatastrophe, and the grace that would propel us to our potential, would be for all political parties to work together for the progress of America.
In spite of his apparently pessimistic philosophy on history, Tolkien penned significantly encouraging words through Frodo and Sam during one of the most trying moments he conceived for them. Sam recalled the good people in all the dark tales of Middle-earth who could have given up but refused to do so, even in the midst of great adversity. Sam explained to Frodo that the, “Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.” When Frodo asked, “What are we holding on to, Sam?” Sam replied, “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”
That is something we need to believe: That there is some good in this world. That there are good people throughout history, regardless of the era, and that there are good people now, regardless of political affiliation. That is the good we need to hold on to, for it serves as our foundation upon which we can progress.
