“Our discussion is unique in this series in that—appropriately for a center dedicated to examining questions related to religion and culture—we wanted to look at the spiritual and religious aspects of what some believe is a new wave of censoriousness and intolerance in American society,” said David Gibson, director of the center and the panel’s moderator. “I wonder if this isn’t just one of the issues at stake, but is in fact, the issue.”

Public vs. Private Accountability

The Rev. Charles Howard, university chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, said he had been wrestling with the question of whether the U.S. is “an increasingly unforgiving society” and discussed it with his 15-year-old daughter. His daughter said she believed it depended on whose behavior was in question.

“With celebrities, I think we are less forgiving,” his daughter said. But Howard said that among her friends, she thinks that people are actually more forgiving and more understanding.

Howard said this is in part because knowing a person makes you inclined to look at their good sides, and because people can also easily hold that person accountable.

“When it comes to my friends—I understand why they make the mistakes they make,” he said. “I know what they’re going through. I know that person. Therefore, we’ll check him and we’ll push him or her, and we will allow them to sort of reenter the fold—we will forgive them.”

For public figures, the only way to have that accountability is publicly via social media or by “unsubscribing” from their content—whether that means not watching their show or supporting their fashion line. Howard said that one of the reasons the younger generation is doing this is because they don’t believe the rich and famous are being held accountable by anyone else.

“She said, ‘Look Dad—what we see are people who are wealthy and powerful, (they) always get off—courts aren’t sort of stopping them, the law is not arresting them. We have to hold people accountable.”

When Should We Forgive?

This notion of holding people accountable fits with the work of Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg of the National Council of Jewish Women. Ruttenberg has a new book called On Repentance And Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, where she explores “the forgiveness question”—the notion that we as a society often look to forgive, but also need to see people make amends.

“What are the reasonable expectations of the harm-doer vis-à-vis cleaning up their mess?” she asked. “We all make mistakes, right? We all cause harm. Sometimes people cause harm quite intentionally; if somebody causes harm, what is a reasonable expectation? What is the path forward? If I screwed up unintentionally, how do I fix it?”

She gave the example of someone who accidentally breaks someone’s foot—possibly by stepping on by not paying attention.

“I want to know what you’re doing to pay my medical bills, I want to know that you’re not going to do it again, if it was because you weren’t paying attention, because you were staring at your phone, because you were drunk again, and you need to look at that,” she said. “Why am I forgiving you? I’m sitting here in pain—let’s talk about the expectations on you to do some cleanup work.”

The Role of Isolation

One of the concerns that Stephen Pope, professor of theological ethics at Boston College, noted was that, even before COVID, people in our society have become more isolated from each other.

“Our society is more and more stripping away civil institutions and intermediate associations,” he said, adding that their absence leaves us disconnected.

Pope also said that while people are using social media, talk radio, and cable news to find “their groups,” in order to belong in that group, people have to distance themselves from those they don’t agree with.

“Our ability to empathize with people from other groups is reduced,” he said. “I think that raises anxiety and fear and mistrust. Mistrust is now at historic highs—historic highs for our political institutions, for the government, but also system mistrust for our groups and their members. We now have people that are not just different, but they are opponents and opponents aren’t just people that have different points of view and different interests, but they’re our enemies.”

Pope said that this group isolation is one way to explain the “new wave of censoriousness and intolerance” that Gibson talked about.

“I think our worry is the lack of civility in our public spaces, a lack of public discourse that is tolerant, and seeking understanding,” he said.

Two ways to combat this, Pope said, are to try and be curious about others and have humility about yourself and your own beliefs.

“One [way]is the importance of trying to understand how other people think, especially when they don’t share my framework or maybe even some of my core values, so curiosity is key,” he said. “And I think second is humility—the willingness to see that we have our blind spots, we have our frailties, we’ve made mistakes, and that we shouldn’t be standing in judgment of other people, but rather, in a stance of human solidarity [where]we share a common dignity but also common moral weaknesses.”

There are two more Speech Acts events scheduled before the series wraps up: ”Epistemic Bubbles and Echo Chambers: The Epistemic and Political Impacts of Modern Technology” on March 24 and Academic Discourse and Freedom of Expression on Campus on April 6.

The panel featured Meredith Clark, Ph.D., associate professor and founding director of the new Center for Communication, Media Innovation, and Social Change at Northeastern University; Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America; and Cornell Belcher, president of Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies and political contributor for MSNBC. Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, associate professor of communications and media studies at Fordham, served as moderator.

What is ‘Cancel Culture?’

After studying Black Twitter for some time, Clark noticed that over the past few years the community as a whole has started “using its collective power on the site” to demand accountability from people for racist or offensive behavior. She cited the example of media mogul Russell Simmons, who made an offensive video “spoof” of Harriet Tubman having sex with her slave holder.

“The resounding pressure was such that he issued an apology,” she said, adding that he removed the video from his collection. “He said that apologizing was something that he would never otherwise do, but the outcry had been so loud.”

Belcher said this type of calling someone out isn’t new.He referred to it as “checking” someone.

“What we call checking people—I think that’s as old and American as apple pie,” he said. “What I think is dramatically different is the vehicle that it has, and the power of that vehicle to mobilize and spread it and actually give it more power.”

Belcher gave the example of Amy Cooper, the white woman in Central Park who called police on Christian Cooper, a Black birdwatcher.

“Once upon a time when a woman said some crazy racist [stuff]to a Black guy watching birds in Central Park, he might check her and say something about it, but that would be the end of it,” he said. “Now when that crazy person said some racist [stuff]to the birdwatcher in the park—there’s now a

With so many more people witnessing these events and cancelations, Nossel said, their impact can be multiplied in a way that worries her.
“My concern is about the way in which these particular cancellations can deepen divisions and polarization—a phenomenon I’ve witnessed of cascading cancellations where someone is called out, is out of bounds, and that even if you just defend them, you too can be sort of swept up in that,” she said.

On the flip side, the people doing the “calling out” can also be “shunned and stigmatized,” she said. “It can just escalate a battle instead of offering enlightened discourse.”

Separating Cancel Culture from Accountability

Both Clark and Nossel noted that there should be a difference between holding people accountable, such as the movement to hold R. Kelly accountable for his actions, and canceling someone for having an opinion you don’t agree with. But the two are often conflated, Clark said.

“The assumption that there’s a culture around it really does speak to some racialized origins— it throws back to the idea of the culture wars, that there are multiple groups in this country that are fighting to sort of set the ground rules of how we relate to one another and how discourse is supposed to flow,” she said.

Nossel said that it’s one thing when celebrities come under fire; they often have the resources to bounce back. But when a less famous person, like a journalist or professor, gets canceled, it can be hard for them to weather the storm.

“Individuals are within their rights to withhold their ticket-buying market power from a celebrity, or to tweet their outrage at something—that’s free speech,” she said. “But in our jet-fueled social media landscape … when you are under fire, it just feels thunderous and overwhelming. And what I have witnessed on multiple occasions is how institutional leaders, they just crack, they can’t take it.”

Possible Solutions and ‘Presumption of Innocence’

One possible way to address the under-fire feeling is to examine what the company is under fire about.

“I think one of the things that we need to look to institutions to do … is start thinking very seriously and very critically about how we’re going to address loud and outside demands for some sort of accountability, or how we’re going to address what is just noise,” Clark said.

Another possible solution raised by Belcher was “calling out cancel culture.” He cited the example of comedian Dave Chapelle, who made controversial comments related to the trans community in a comedy special. Right after he made it, he alluded to the fact that he’d probably get canceled.

“I’m not so sure Dave Chappelle hasn’t just killed cancel culture,” Belcher said. “He relished in it. And after the concert, he actually said, ‘Do you think they’ll cancel me?’ And he smiled, and dropped the mic. He’s calling out the canceled culture … that is probably the greatest sort of critique of canceled culture that I’ve ever seen.”

Still, Clark raised a few concerns about this method, particularly since a similar one had been employed by right wing speakers, such as Richard Spencer, who would work to get invited and then disinvited from a college—and use the outrage over that to fundraise or enhance their image.

Nossel said that we should try and move back to a place where there’s at least a “presumption of innocence” against those being called out and give them a chance to defend themselves.

“I think there’s something very fundamental to the fabric of our society that hinges on the idea that you’ll have an opportunity to defend yourself,” she said. “If you’re innocent, you’ll have a chance to prove that—you won’t receive a punishment based on a sort of speculation or innuendo, that there will actually be an inquiry.”