Terminating the outrage cycle.

Just because the left does something bad, doesn't mean doing the opposite thing with equal zeal is the right solution.

One again the problem of existential polarization has reared it’s ugly head in American social discourse. This time the problem revolves around a situation in which a relatively low status white woman was caught using the n-word to insult a child that had (apparently) accosted her child. She was confronted by a man with a camera who dared her to repeat the word, which she then did in a flippant sarcastic way. The man then said “we’ll see what the internet has to say about you.” The video of this uploaded on to several social media platforms, and the predictable controversy ensued. In the wake of the controversy, the woman was doxxed, had her information leaked, had her family threatened, and is now required to move. A crowdsourcing website has raised more than half a million dollars to support the woman’s attempts to relocate, while the NAACP has raised $300,000 in support of the black child’s family.¹

These controversy’s need to be examined both because their frequency and intensity is puzzling, and because the social costs of such controversy’s in terms of racial division and polarization is becoming quite significant.

One part of the problem stems from the fact that the left elevated the level of moral opprobrium associated with the use of the N-word to a degree that vastly exceeds to harm caused by the act. They then used that increased level of moral opprobrium to justify handing out social "punishment" for using the n-word that far exceeded the crime. For example, there are more severe *social* sanctions and stigma associated with the use of the N-word than there is associated with robbing a bank even though the legal sanctions for robbery are higher. The significance attributed to the use of the N-word and the social stigma and reputational damage associated with having used the word is wildly out of proportion to the actual damage and harm that is caused by the use of the word. The result of this is that uses of the n-word caught on camera generate the sort of attention and publicity that used to be reserved for acts of violent crime. For example, the impoverished white woman in the video using the N-word against an immigrant child is now on its 4th straight day of dominating the news cycle.

The intensity of the response to uses of the n-word is totally divorced from the actual consequences of using the word, and the significance attributed to uses of the word far outweigh the actual consequences of having used it. There have been natural disasters with double digit body counts that did not command the same level of national attention as an egregious use of the n-word caught on tape. The level of significance we attribute to N-word uses far outweighs the actual significance the use of the word has in the real world. This outsized significance, and the level of attention that such incidents draw, has the effect of unduly empowering political activists, social organizers, and moral entrepreneurs who are already looking for an opportunity to build their profile and advance their political causes.

If the analysis I have offered here so far is correct, the problem here is reasonably clear: the degree of significance and the level of stigma that we associate with racial slurs in general and the n-word in particular is much to high. That is not to say that using racial slurs is fine; it isn’t. It is to say that we ought not to treat garden variety uses of the n-word with the same level of significance and amount of attention that is on par with high-level gang violence. Racial slurs should not get the same level of attention or be treated with the same degree of significance as situations with a body count. Drawing undue levels of attention to a single use of the n-word because one has attributed outsized significance to uses of the n-word carries with it significant social costs. For example:

• Attention that could be spent on more important issues get diverted to insignificant uses of the n-word by private citizens with no power

• Grifters of all stripes are able to use the attention garnered by the situation to stoke the controversy to make money.

• The intensity of the ensuing controversy threatens racial harmony

• Insignificant private citizens get “made famous” by those who are looking for a socially acceptable target to pick-on.

Further, treating uses of the n-word with undue significance drives attention to every instance of its use, and this builds an incentive to create content around every filmed use of the n-word. This is how we end up with heaps and heaps of discourse, activism, and content revolving around a word almost no one says and which almost everyone condemns.

For this reason there is a good argument to be made that we ought to reduce the level of stigma and the level of moral opprobrium that we associate with the use of the n-word. The idea is not that the taboo around using the n-word should be zero, but rather that there should clearly be a stigma associated with the n-word, and using the n-word ought to be seen as reprehensible. We ought not to treat using the n-word as though it were as severe as, for example, gang violence, bank robberies, or assault. In other words, the power level of the n-word is breaking the meta and making the game impossible to play, so it’s time to “nerf” the n-word.

That said, this course of action is also fraught with difficulty. The problem that arises is that there are some people who actually are malicious racists who genuinely want to see racist behavior make a return to social respectability. Such people do not want to merely reduce the stigma associated with uses of the n-word, they want there to be no stigma at all, and in fact would like racial slurs and the racial ostracization that accompanies them to become socially acceptable. People rightly see that it is a huge mistake to continue to attribute absurdly high levels of social and political significance to uses of the n-word because doing so allows for the endless production of outrage cycles. However, attempts to reduce the stigma associated with the n-word are ripe to be taken advantage of by those seeking to capitalize on the outrage fatigue by using it as an opportunity to make racial slurs (and racism itself) socially acceptable. We need to socially navigate our way to situation in which we attribute a lower level of significance to uses of the n-word without abolishing entirely the stigma associated with racial slurs. However, nobody knows how to do that without opening up the entire process to abuse by those who want free reign to hurl racial abuse at others, or the moral entrepreneurs who seek to monetize the controversy when such racial abuse is caught on tape.

This brings us to Matt Walsh. Walsh has rightly intuited that we need to do something to disincentivize the cancel culture mobs that have been weaponized against ordinary people. His solution is to attempt to destroy the cancel culture by making it backfire:

His solution here is understandable given the degree to which the political left has made it socially acceptable to make white people targets of racial abuse. By way of example, Nell Painter writing in the Washington Post said “No longer should white people be allowed the comfort of this racial invisibility; they should have to see themselves as raced. Being racialized makes white people squirm, so let’s racialize them with that capital W.”² In this environment it is not surprising that many on the right are using scorched earth tactics to try to put an end to the cycle of outrage farming that is created by attributing undue significance to the n-word. However, the problem is that scorched earth tactics are also the tactics most likely to result in blowback against the people that use such tactics by enabling bad actors who take advantage of the new incentives in ways people did not expect, while simultaneously providing material for their opponents to use to rally supporters the opponents cause.

In moments like these that I like to remind people that best way to deal with manipulative people is through nonchalance. A big and highly visible response is the thing that manipulative person wants to create, and the best way to fight this is to ensure that there is as little a response as possible. What Wash has suggested here is essentially a form of philanthropy that has been weaponized in the service of social signalling, with the goal being to “give generously” to a cause for the purpose of sticking it to ones enemies and “sending a message.” It is the creation of a new form of social technology, one in which the popularity, social potency, and correctness of a cause is demonstrated through a vote in the form of raising large sums of money through donations. It is the philanthropic equivalent of an election where the winner (or who is in the right) is determined by a vote held on crowdsourcing platforms: whoever raises more money wins. This is why the woman raised $670,000 on givesendgo, and the NAACP raised $300,000 for the child. Neither of these people needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle a literal playground dispute, every donation was made by people voting with their dollars to send a social/political message. It’s the use of crowdsourced fundraising in the service of letting people have their say about social media controversies.

Again, social technologies develop in unexpected ways, and people will always learn to use platforms in ways their designers did not expect. With that said I think there is something bigger at play here.

Americans have been watching for the last decade as every area of life has been politicized. Every aspect of culture has been taken over by people seeking to use their institution, school, church, art form, place of employment, local hangout, and organization as a vehicle for their preferred form of political and social change. Every artists, musician, actor athlete, thinker, and entertainer gets asked about their political beliefs in an attempt to either get that person on side or cancel them if they oppose you. People are tired of the relentless politicization of everyday life, and most people just want a break from having to remain constantly self-critical, endlessly vigilant and hyper-aware of the political valence of everything in their life. People are done of having to be constantly negotiating and renegotiating their meta-level understanding of the political meaning of various aspects of culture and everyday life, and they are sick of constantly having to “interrogate” every aspect of culture in order to find out what the politics of that aspect happen to be. People simply want to move on with life. They do not want yet another cycle of activism, outrage, partisanship, and so fourth. They want their society to work, they cities to be safe, and then they want to go about living life rather than hyperfixating and constantly struggling over the various aspects of politics and culture. People just want to watch a football game without having to engage their meta-level awareness of the political assumptions baked into that weeks NFL broadcast.

In an environment like this people are done with political activism. They don’t want the next radical group, or the newest slogan or cause. What people want is calm, assuring competence…and the first group to provide what feels like calm, assuring, competence is going to win. Radical politics, rebellion, radical chic, what we might think of as the Che Guevara vibe, all of that social activism is “out.” The calm, competent, well prepared man in a suit who know what he is doing and makes everything work…that is “in.” So the solution is not to fight the cancel culture with opposite incentives or by making cancel culture backfire, the solution is to offer a political program that lets people stop caring because everything is in good hands. A competent government that gets things done has the effect of quelling controversy and starving the social activists and moral entrepreneurs of the attention they so desperately crave. Forget beating activists at their own game: whoever figures out how to project a calm competent demeanor while providing a compelling direction for the country is going to win long term.

Sincerely,

Wokal_distance.

1. https://whatstrending.com/video/public-divided-as-shiloh-hendrix-raises-over-600k-after-racial-slur-drawing-karmelo-anthony-comparisons/

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/22/why-white-should-be-capitalized/