(The story of the window and the mirror)
As with all arty farty pretentious wankers, I find it hard to explain to ‘political types’ the effect that the rice bubble echo chamber or so-called cancel culture has on artists. The following is my meagre attempt to explain this phenomenon somewhat. Most people on the left would deny that cancel culture exists, or if they can no longer deny that it does, term it ‘left-wing cancel culture’, to differentiate from right who use it as an accusation against being accountable for bigoted behaviour. The difference professed by the left is therefore inter political verses intra political. I am of the left, and I make no such distinction. I will discuss why I see both sides of politics behaving as the same, when it comes to cancelling.
The mirror. Do you like what you see?
A mirror looks one way, it is one-way glass. You can’t look through to the other side. The window looks both ways, you can look out of the room, or you can look into the room from the outside. George Orwell states that ‘good prose is a window pane’, and numerous articles have been written in discussion of this statement. I take it to refer to the two-way glass, that you, the reader can see me through my writing, as I am making an observation of you, or at least someone relatable to you. Social media is prose, it can be good, like a window pane. Or it can be distorted, frosted glass.
If the way that you see me is distorted by my prose, if I present myself as somewhat of a person with moral fibre, someone who loves and cares for all human beings equally, then that is the fault of the prose, not me. Bad prose is dishonest. Bad prose makes me into some kind of super hero instead of the loser I am. Thinking I’m awesome. Demanding social indemnity for my reprehensible actions. Not taking ‘responsibility’. Not being hashtag accountable. Yeh, being a person in other words. Muddling through relationships, sometimes caring way too much, sometimes not enough. Can you see me through the window, or are you looking at something else?
George Orwell could never have imagined a world with thousands of windows, looking in, looking out, all at the same time. Social media, twitter, Instagram, all these tools, for what use, and to what end? To share knowledge and creativity and positive outcomes for groups who have otherwise been marginalised, or to tell people how important I am whilst pretending to care about the former.
In a conversation between Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal, pondering over hopes and fears, and what motivates them as people, Noam Chomsky states” I just want to be able to look in the mirror and not be absolutely appalled by what I see.” To this statement Gore Vidal replies ” I just want to be able to look out the window and not be absolutely appalled by what I see” This is the duality in a nutshell, the difference between the political and the poetic, one is self -motivated, one is motivated by the world around them, and trying to make it better. It’s beautiful in its difference and in its unity of vision. Noam Chomsky, the organic academic, getting involved in grass roots activism to affect change, just so he can look himself in the mirror, as part of the rebellion, not a part of the empire. Gore Vidal, writing political analytical, in the hope that the social world does not become darker and more debauched. To accept I look at myself and I am not appalled, even by my darkest of shadows. I look outside and I am not appalled as I swallow apathy and excuse it as ignorance. I look for the part of you, the part that only wants a better world after all. Unfortunately, all I see is the part of you that thinks cancel culture is the way to achieve this.
I look out the window, and I see people put into hierarchies according to their identity. I identify as a worker and move on. I look outside the window and see the bullies, who invade multiple windows with their buzzwords, like ‘harm’, ‘trauma’, ‘demands of accountability’, along with words like complicit, disidentify, centrist, racist for those who think for themselves. More on the centrists later. Ironically these online bullies are always the last to ‘take accountability for harm’ when the finger is pointed at them, but do fingers get pointed at these popular social media stars and their bombarding posts of who to cancel next and why you should care?
And why should I care? Why the fuck does it even matter? There are two reasons, personal and political. The effect of media humiliation has nearly sent a lot of people I know over the edge. People are banned from performing at venues, constantly barraged with abusive messages, lied about, their workplaces are hassled to fire them, addresses are given out as well as personal phone numbers. This and many other tricks. And I don’t ask how. The how is easy. The why and what the cancellers hope to achieve is harder to answer. It may be a safe space where people who think for themselves or differently are not there to challenge them. The alienation and casting out of the tribe of people that cancellers deem ‘problematic’ The dark part of me thinks that the cancellers are disappointed when they don’t drive a person to suicide, as often this is what the aim seems to be.
There is no doubt in my mind that the cancellers don’t have any clear aim other than a safe space for themselves. This conflicts with any attempt to envisage an alternative society where there is liberty, yet people who shout loud about abolition are even louder when someone has transgressed some imaginary moral line. Cancellers claim to be creating a movement for social change, yet can’t even have a single conversation where those who make mistakes aren’t judged harshly. People are allowed to ‘take responsibility for their actions’ when they are ready to and not when hundreds of thousands of people demand that they are, but cancellers violently disagree. People are being turned away from social movements that create positive change, because of cancel culture. This is me, holding up a mirror to cancel culture. If I’m banging you on the head with it already, you need to keep reading, because what I’m saying is nothing compared to the style of media humiliation that has been inflicted on others.
Cancel culture portrays a distorted image in the mirror. It is an image that is linked with identity politics, in which you see yourself as residing in a certain level of oppression instead of as an individual. I’m not stating that inequalities don’t exist in society because they do, the problem is that defining people purely by identity ignores individual experience and pigeonholes individual’s creative expression. This is as bad for art as fascism, to which art can only respond as dada and art is in an endless circle with society instead of being in front of society where art always has been. Politics has always hated art, for art is a mirror, and can’t be exploited or subject to expedience.
Furthermore, art is not conservative,
Cancel culture is.
Don’t try to make artists conform to it. We demand social indemnity. Without social indemnity there is no art.
There is nothing punk about cancel culture punk.
I always found that these ‘look at what this person said to this person, this is so wrong, this person has been victimised so you must react with rage’ type of statements so inherently conservative. The ‘othering’ of someone you don’t know is common, conservative and takes place in the Murdoch media every day. Its monkey see monkey do mentality from child- like social platformers who, like junk journalists are just after the likes, even if they come at the expense of somebody’s mental health. And the justification for this is ‘accountability and harm prevention.’ I see people type this; I just don’t see how they type it with a straight face emoji. It is rare that consequences such as narrative distortion, job loss and social isolation ever match the crime of ‘saying that to this person’. And like centrist politics it absolves the canceller from making a cohesive argument as to what they believe in. It’s simply tabloid magazines in politically correct clothing. The act of dictating social norms and punishing people that don’t adhere to them is an extremely conservative ideology, whether you are left or right wing. Especially since social norms change rapidly in mostly meaningless ways, such as what words are deemed offensive to whatever minority group is trending at the time.
Any criticism of cancel culture is seen as a) being right wing or centrist and b) seen as an impediment to social good, these perceived social norms that are dictated by the popular people on social media. Yet ironically cancel culture is extremely centrist in nature.
The centrist characteristic of cancel culture is the censoring of any idea’s that don’t fit the norm. This is unhealthy as lack of conflict leads to stagnation of ideas and the sharing of bad ideas with no thought or criticism. Cancel culture is anti-debate in all forms and it is giving conflict the power to do harm, instead of having healthy discussions to create positive outcomes. The stifling of debate is deliberately centrist, as centrists oppose any political changes which would result in a significant shift of society strongly to either the left or the right and support hierarchies that are already present. Cancel culture protects existing hierarchies by attacking the artists, the writers or the musicians, instead of discussing the tweet or the text message that somebody found objectional. This stifles debate and gives power to implied intent. The stifling of debate has led to bad idea’s just being accepted by the mainstream left, ideas such as if you are anti-fascist you punch ‘Nazis’ in the face and that the way to ‘fight the rich’ is to key their cars. It’s hardly a thought-out strategy, yet is platformed as leading to the ‘social change’ and the ‘harm reduction’ that these people claim to be ‘fighting’ so hard for. I would be labelled ‘a bootlicker or a centrist’, just for posing these questions. And that is one of the problems of this culture. You can’t ask questions. You have to agree. Or you might ‘harm’ people and cause them ‘trauma’, even if it’s unintentionally.
Intent is important politically and socially, but meaningless when it comes to cancel culture. When the meaning of the offensive words, and the intent behind it (that being to cause harm and trauma) is inferred without need to ask the author. Words can be taken out of context, and adding to this the danger of extrapolating meaning, then you have a puritanical control of art. The need to punish and dishonour artists who are human and therefore fallible is both anti -humanist and pro sectarian. Artists bear the brunt of cancel culture. Artists also bear the brunt of creating social movements that call forward political movement historically. Having a political culture like cancel culture which directly targets artists can only lead to political stagnation. It reminds me of a Chinese movie called ‘the black cannon incident’ with endless meetings about this guy who picked up a chess piece, leading to the government thinking he is a major spy.
Art with no meaning, or hell I’m not a bloody nihilist fuck you
A socialist once said to me artists have very little effect on society as most artists are nihilists, to which I replied ‘and teenage boys never read comics or listen to punk rock’ Artists are constantly holding a mirror up to society, saying this is what the world looks like to me. The act of creation is a selfish and a selfless act, based on the will to re enchant the world. Political people will never understand this, and are therefore willing to throw artists under the bus if it means increasing their social capital online. I term myself a constructivist post-modernist who believes in the re enchantment of art, making comment on the destruction of the natural environment, and acknowledging the loss of ritual and connection to the natural environment. I see both permaculture and the formation of temporary autonomous zones as constructivist post modernism. Protest is art. It’s getting together to make art. And art is going to offend people. If it doesn’t it simply is craft. And both the left and right wing have created a political culture that abhors being offended. Which is a problem because my job as an artist is to evoke an emotional response, and your job in politics is to cancel me should I succeed.
(Protest is art and artists are the front line. Cancellers are the hippies at the protest camp. They’re the hippies who took over the kitchen and declared it vegan, yet never did the washing up. They’re the hippies that flaked out five minutes before an action, declaring ‘let’s just all go home’. They’re the hippies that gave your name to the cops. Those ones. They’re still asleep right now, after bragging all night about how they mobilized 500 people to an action without making any phone calls, writing any media releases or putting up any posters.
Other than having my intent implied, the other major threat to this is being accused of cultural appropriation, though I don’t copy any indigenous styles. I can also be termed a ‘colonialist’ for commenting on the history of this country. If wearing hoop earrings and dreadlocks is termed cultural appropriation, I can’t see how art would make it out alive. All artists are vain, selfish and lazy and demand social indemnity as the morally reprehensible beings that we are, but rarely are we deliberately using some-one else’s culture for financial gain. Social platformers on the other hand do.
Left wing cancellers are culturally appropriating cops
Most people who aren’t artists call the politically correct norms that artists are supposed to follow good and well needed, giving artists freedom and safety. ‘We’re not stopping you from making art, just make appropriate art, art that we approve of, art that makes a statement but not one of your own, one that we give you, so we can look in your mirror and like what we see.’ But it’s pretty obvious that this is far from freedom. Not that I want to make racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic statements, but without the freedom to do this the opposite is also not possible. And instead of meaning cancellers are searching for the offensive in my art, searching for the harm, searching for something that can be pulled out of context, whilst appropriating a jack boot and a pair of scissors themselves. Left wing cancellers are culturally appropriating cops. You can look through the window and not see me draw, as you were never looking at me in the first place. You were writing your own prose, verbose and overly flowery as it is, declaring war on all that is creative, free and meaningful through a lens that is stratified according to levels of oppression. You declared war on me then claimed surprise when I fight back by not signing the apology form. To quote the Wobblies, an injury to one is an injury to all. Collective sadism is still sadism, no matter how many likes are being received. Don’t double think causing harm with healing, don’t relabel conflict as harm, don’t assume you have a moral high ground. Be intellectually curious. Be open. Embrace Art.
Embrace Art as we use your words against you. We redefine harm, colonialism, problematic, accountability, we cut them up and randomly place them in dictionaries of scriptures and myth, and as always, we make art. For ‘good prose is a window pane.’ Its final act is to remove the mirror, remove the myth of the given and see the leaves, blowing in the wind, create symbols and algorithms unseen by the naked eye, deciphered only by the heart.
Read more from Kimbo Dawson at https://secretworld322.com
