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Our pleasures reflect our environment – the structural and cultural conditions that we turn to in order to find the optimal neurochemical processes leading to a feel-good state. Chen Lizra, a dancer and therapist who has spent some time in Cuba, observed that the absence of media causes people to search for stimulation enhancing their wellbeing in dancing or flirting. This example can help us to see the changing character of preferred pleasures because it is so much in contrast to our culture. It is worth asking oneself whether the pleasures we search for are the ones that we choose or the only ones available to us. We are shaped by the virtual world, which determines which pleasures are within our reach. These available pleasures are sensuality poor. Our pleasures are the pleasures of the dispossessed.
We spend so much time online and looking at screens because it gives us gratification. An action movie induces emotions flushing through our bodies. Similarly, specific online interactions generate a flush in our hormonal system. Those who lack motivation or confidence to cultivate excitement in their offline lives may be able to access that motivation and confidence in the virtual world. Indigenous societies in the past and sports teams in modern times gave the young the possibility to go through a physical rite of passage, which corresponded to their natural attraction to extreme experiences due to the risk-seeking stage in their lives. Online life replaces the excitement of a real-life experience with the ideological struggle. Cancel culture can generate a framework for enacting emotionally loaded situations. It normalizes behaviors such as rejection and humiliation. Searching for extreme online conduct may be a contemporary form of the rite of passage.
In a panel on gender pronouns, in which Jordan Peterson was one of the speakers,1 the moderator cited the refusal to participate2 by one of the invited activists. The panel concentrated on the law imposing punishment on people not using the chosen pronoun towards people who do not conform to traditional gender categories. The person or people justified their decision in the following way: “Giving (Jordan) Peterson this platform serves to legitimize his views which are based on bigotry and misinformation. The humanity and rights of transgender, non-binary and intersex people are not a matter of debate, and holding a debate that places a false equivalency between the views expressed by Peterson and the human rights concerns of the trans community would be an act of transphobia.” Such behavior may be self-interested. By rejecting another person, one can experience a feeling of being superior and in charge. I wonder if there is any pleasure in the act of exclusion and taking this type of power. By refusing the debate, the activists assert that there is no other option than agree with this law. They automatically marginalize other views by calling a debate to be transphobic. The insidious message that one can read through this statement is that certain people are not worth having a conversation with, suggesting that Peterson should not be given a platform. Or any platform that would include him is illegitimate. They exclude him from public debate and voicing his resistance to a law imposing what language he should use.
Even if Peterson’s generalizations are disputable, this is the nature of science and public debate to inquire and consider various points of view to build a more nuanced version of the truth. This is what happens when people engage in discussions. Debates have motivated scientists to pursue studies and learn more. Peterson’s belief in meritocracy can be countered with examples, but the opposite views also would need to be buttressed so that we understand the dynamics of merit better. His claim that women and Leftist orientation dominate humanities and social science can be balanced with the opposite trend in business schools and the academic discipline of economics. His discussion about many contentious issues may present an opportunity to question the stereotypes that characterize “woke” academia. If one denounces discrimination against women, why would one not want to explore the ways men are being discriminated? Maybe there are other invisible ways in which oppression against men happens?
His vision that hierarchy is a natural fact rather than a social construction can be juxtaposed with empirical studies on the importance of culture in a group of baboons by Robert Sapolsky. Another study of egalitarian culture in South-East Asia demonstrated that anarchist societies had developed practices to escape sedentary societies’ fate, in which hierarchies had built up. They knew about the disadvantages of a power grab from these examples and had a firm intention to avoid their lifestyle.3 With an example of a North-American tribe, Graeber and Wengrow illustrated that one group can alternate between hierarchical and horizontal types of relations. The shifts depended on the season because the work to be undertaken required a different form of governance.4 The question of whether the hierarchy is natural or constructed needs a more nuanced analysis about the context or conscious efforts to structure group relations than what Peterson or his opponents are saying.
Karl Marx wrote about the exploitation of one class by another rather than hierarchy. The latter was present in the pre-industrial era, which is not the center of Marx’s analysis. It seems that there is a semantic problem between Jordan Peterson and his opponents. If both sides engaged in distinguishing between hierarchy and exploitation, they would understand each other better. It seems that the opponents of his statements about hierarchy and meritocracy hear him praise exploitation and injustice. He may not understand that the conditions enabling exploitation need to be sorted out first in order to introduce a hierarchy as a tool of optimal functioning. Removing hierarchy would not necessarily abolish exploitation. Hierarchy provides for the formal attribution of power, but it is not the only form of power. The most recent version of capitalism – however we call the current period – bases its exploitation on horizontal structures and hidden hierarchy. The best example is Facebook where there is no official hierarchy but only a hidden censor and the users submit to their exploitation voluntarily.
Spending time on this flat argument about hierarchy delimits their debates. One may wonder whether this is a conscious or unconscious omission. Keeping things on the surface seems to be part of the game. The fight can become the pleasure on its own like a soccer match. Manipulating people into conflicts against each other is another form of non-hierarchical steering because everyone pursues their own convictions, which conveniently provides a set of conditions for the elites to pursue their own agendas.
Let us explore the appeal of Jordan Peterson despite his controversial status. Peterson is an excellent example of a pop scientist. His simplifications appear as compelling and give the pleasure of having understood and learned something. In comparison to boring professors specialized in one discipline, he provides fun and distraction. He covers a wide range of subjects with much passion. He is personifying a feeling that many people spending most of their time in front of screens can hardly ever experience in their daily lives. Movie creators master the intensity and rhythm to provide a captivating experience. So do some public speakers. Having a balanced and nuanced point of view may water down the performance aspects. So, the extreme and simplified views gain more popularity, especially with an audience new to the field but wanting to be intellectually entertained.
Anyone who has ever played an online game may recollect the feeling of arousal while playing. Similarly, identifying with the subject matter of a game or video creates a sense of aliveness. Watching YouTube content offers a similar feeling. Several high performers in this art of entertainment provide an excitement comparable to what sports fans experience when fully and unconditionally identifying with their camp. While traditionally, sport brought fans of competing teams together and the teams needed to be in contact in order to play the game, ideologies resist that engagement framework and instead form two separate “sides” where to interact with the other amounts to treason and loss of credibility.
It is not enough to convince people that they should join the opposite camp – the righteous anti-woke thinkers It is not the problem of having the best theories and join the right camp. As Heather Brunskell-Evans expressed it in an interview, getting rid of the current (mis)use of Foucault’s theory is not the essence of the solution contrary to what anti-woke intellectuals suggest.5 Instead, we should consider our individual strategies in the face of external domination. Joining a camp is disempowering in the long run. It is a short-term gratification with long-term depletion as the result.
It is important to reflect on the gratification that is being produced in these battles. Canceling can be seen as a way of scoring goals. Banning strengthens self-affirmation and identity on both sides while rendering further impermeable the prospective points of entry to dialogue that may have once existed. Cancel culture may provide some gratification to those who are canceled and their fans. The fact that someone has been censored may be interpreted as a sign of courage and virtue. Thus, the ego is flattered, and the individual feels a sense of belonging to a community. This may out-compete the potential losses related to being canceled.
In August 1966, students beat a teacher to death because she did not show adequate respect to Mao. It was just one of many incidents of the “tragedy in which ideological delirium turned ordinary people into monsters who devoured their own.”6 Mass murders and cannibalism escalated in the wake of Mao’s rhetoric legitimizing violence. The Cultural Revolution story illustrates the potential of radicalizing young people and turning social groups against each other. China’s history demonstrates how the divides within the society can help authoritarians consolidate power. Whether it is intentional or not, the practice of punishing by canceling exercised by the unelected powers that be, mainly social media giants, sends a legitimizing message to the crowds that certain voices should not be allowed. Such a demonizing may reinforce a mentality that certain people need to be removed in order to maintain a greater good.
We need to recognize that social media activism plays out in the context of broader relations of power. Social media gives users access to the opportunity to attack individuals who agree to be on social media. By this decision, they let other people affect them by the contents sent towards them. Cancelers can exercise their power of canceling as long as the channels of canceling are open to them. People like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or Elon Musk do not put themselves in a situation where they can be canceled or affected by canceling. And I am just naming those that are in the public spotlight. Many billionaires enjoy the comfort of never having been heard about. Their position is unquestionable, or in contemporary parlance, uncancelable. To be or not to be? Well, to be uncancelable is to be untouchable. We cannot cancel what and who we do not know exist. So, canceling applies only to those who do not have enough power to insulate themselves completely from the outside world. For example, their livelihood may depend on public opinion, which is not the case for the monopolists, who collude with government officials to sustain their market position.
The act of canceling constitutes a decentralized dictatorship. Power, no matter how small, brings satisfaction. Understanding the pleasures driving this behavior can help to observe how this form of taking power is perpetuated. The incidents of punishment and putting oneself in the position of a defender of moral purity generate new ways of exercising power beyond the legal and established institutional framework. These new forms of silencing – which happen through the pursuit of pleasure by many individuals – give legitimacy to corporations to pursue their acts of silencing anyone who expresses criticism against them because they have the cultural recourse to do so.
Canceling originates from the legacy of hierarchical thinking. Hierarchy is sustained by the pleasures of being higher in a hierarchy. Shying away from questioning has a functional advantage, but it also fosters stagnation. Imposing ephemeral relations of hierarchy through canceling foils creative solutions for the society. Corporations benefit from our incapacity to build egalitarian relations, whereas cancel culture reinforces hierarchical thinking.
The capacity to silence someone equates with taking and affirming power. The pleasure of revenge for past helplessness rebandages the old wounds. Even if that expression is simply seen through switching off a microphone during a public debate, it gives a feeling of powerfulness.
Some people transform their traumatic experiences into grandiosity. They may pursue the pleasure of being a hero. The interpretation of defending the only truth fosters the impression that one is a hero. By fighting a straw man, one can gain the pleasure of impacting and controlling the outside world in a very affordable manner. Demonizing the other and constructing an “enemy” distills purpose.
Caricaturing and misrepresenting another person may appear as an innocent mistake. Nowadays, one can be labeled a conspiracy theorist if one says something that is not in the mainstream narrative line. Since conspiracy theories are associated with mental illness, it is a statement about one’s sanity. However, history shows us the atrocity that such rhetoric has legitimized. Some dictators send their opponents to psychiatric hospitals. The decentralized dictatorship in the form of cancel culture also aims at removing opponents from “civilized” society.
I will not give all the details of canceling Bret Weinstein accused of a racist attitude because he refused to participate in a day of absence from the campus as a form of honoring the people of color at the Evergreen State College and the protests against racism that this event spurred in 2017. I recommend going to the sources to learn about the details of the events told by the participants on both sides of the conflict. Thanks to extensive documentation done by a former student of the Evergreen State College, Benjamin A. Boyce, we can learn more about the personality of one of the most vocal protesters, Jamil A. Bolling, who incited others to rebel against the university administration. In one of the videos this person7 posted, this Black activist asks for “likes” on Instagram arguing that getting “likes” will contribute to the wellbeing of this person. In light of this urge to be noticed, we can see how canceling becomes a tool to establish connection to the outside world and feel socially validated. It is ironic that the acts of excluding can be motivated by the longing to be included.
Benjamin A. Boyce’s footage of the Evergreen events showed several situations when students demanded White males to stop using their hands when talking. They interpreted these slight gestures as an exercise of domination. Making someone change their natural expression and body language is a form of tyranny. What is the difference between such demands and expecting someone to change their accent, skin color, or sexual orientation?
It is easier to destroy than to create. Creation requires devotion, concentration, and long-term sticking to a project. Clicktivism and scattered forms of rebellion can give one the pleasure of filling one’s time with productive endeavors. A day goes by, and one can feel good about oneself thanks to a little bit of drama and emotional arousal with just a couple of clicks.
Beyond deciding on the factualness of systemic racism, intersectionality, and critical theories, it is worth asking what are the consequences of victimhood stratifications on young people? In this paradigm, the more victimhood points you get, the more you can score on grandstanding. You do not need to do anything to become a victim. The same goes for the White “oppressors.” In medicine, there is a well-researched phenomenon of placebo effect. It seems that using its advantages is a moral course of action. So far, the nocebo (opposite to placebo) effects have not been discussed in the context of wokeness and critical race theory. Can we experiment on young people by submitting to the proponents of introducing intersectionality and critical race theory into the education of teenagers? Is victimhood hierarchy emancipatory or damaging for achievement prospects and healthy psychological development?
The conditioning exercised by screen-dominated culture or other forms of isolation prompts more and more people to implement canceling as their emotional management system. We need to find compassion for their situation as listeners to their suffering, whereas we do not need to make them feel comfortable by giving up our integrity. Once we start to follow their demands, we enter a dangerous game of perpetuating a decentralized dictatorship. History and present times have given us enough examples of how violent self-appointed executors of justice can become. Notice that the atrocities of Nazi movement, Stalinism, and Chinese Cultural Revolution were conducted with similar arguments. If one is using violence and marginalizing based on either Left or Right ideology, it is still violence. Ironically, a violence under Leftist banner can become more dangerous because these humanitarian labels make it more difficult to see the lack of empathy behind its agenda.
Unconscious acts aggregate to a system shaping our lives. This is why pleasures are so dangerous. It is essential to understand whom our pleasures may serve. Enabled by people in high positions in professional hierarchy, they lead to the institutionalization of norms. The next chapter will contextualize canceling behavior in the system of power relations.
1Genders, Rights and Freedom of Speech. YouTube channel The Agenda with Steve Paikin, October 27, 2016.
2The author was kept anonymous. The message was posted on Facebook on October 24, 2016.
3James C. Scott (2009): The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Yale University Press.
4David Graeber and David Wengrow (2018): How to change the course of human history. Eurozine, March 2.
5Heather Brunskell-Evans (2021): The True & Faux Foucault. Benjamin A Boyce YouTube channel, May 14.
6Pankaj Mishra (2021): What Are the Cultural Revolution’s Lessons for Our Current Moment? The New Yorker, January 25.
7I am choosing the depiction “this person” because I am afraid to mispronoun.