Polemic point guard Kyrie Irving has again made headlines by tweeting an Amazon Prime Video link to the Ronald Dalton movie “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake up Black America.” Based on a book with the same title, the film has been widely condemned for promoting anti-Semitic tropes.1 I must admit that I haven’t seen the movie, although I intended to before writing this essay. I intended to watch it, but as a matter of principle, I refuse to pay $10 plus to rent any movie. As a consequence of his tweet and refusal to apologize, Irving was suspended indefinitely by the NBA.
Irving is a lightning rod for controversy–not because his views are unique, but because he stands tallest among those who are like-minded. He and his ideological peers are representative of an unfortunate transition we have seen in the United States over the last several years–a transition to a post-truth society–and our futile efforts to return to normalcy.
Even without mentioning his alleged anti-semitism,2 it is important for me to use “alleged” because Irving did not endorse the film or any one of its conclusions Irving has promoted several post-truth talking points: (1) the earth is flat; (2) dinosaurs are not real; and (3) the Covid vaccines and vaccines, in general, are not safe (unfortunately this is not an exhaustive list). As unbelievable as it is that a single individual could hold these beliefs in modern times, it is even more astonishing that these beliefs could get traction and thrive. The rise of such beliefs is indicative of the age in which we sit—the aptly named Post-truth Era.
Martín Montoya Camacho,3 Professor of de Philosophy at the University of Navarra (Spain) in “The era of Post-truth, Post-veracity and Charlatanism,” does an excellent job of defining what is meant by Post-Truth Era:
Its meaning refers to something that denotes circumstances in which objective facts are not as influential, in terms of forming public opinion, as an appeal to personal emotions and beliefs. Therefore whoever wishes to influence public opinion should concentrate on the creation of discourse that is easy to accept, and place an emphasis on what will satisfy the emotions and beliefs of the audience, instead of real facts.
Post-truth is a frightening moniker for an era. What makes it terrifying is not that society has lost interest in facts–what’s alarming is the willingness of those seeking power to take advantage of this societal flaw. I will grant you the reality of world leaders lying to seize more power is nothing new: a quasi-recent and quintessential example of this being Hitler using the Reichstag fire to ignite the fervor against European Jews. What makes the circumstances of today different is there is little desire amongst the majority to do more than the least we can do to combat the lies and disinformation plaguing us.
The most common course of action taken to limit the spread of misinformation has been to silence proponents of disinformation through cancelation. In so doing, we have only poured water on a grease fire. Intuitively, cancelation appears to be an attractive solution. Canceling someone not only makes it seem like we have extinguished his or her errant line of thinking, but if we are being honest, it also feels good to strip the riches from those we believe to be unworthy of their wealth and position, especially when we the righteous have neither.
However, canceling the person cannot be the catalyst we employ if we want lasting and substantive change. On the contrary, it has proven to do the opposite. These problematic beliefs thrive in darkness and are only extinguished by shining light on them through free and open debate.
Since Kyrie Irving has shined a spotlight on the subject, it is apropos to examine how successfully the measures taken against Holocaust denial have stemmed its proliferation. Holocaust denial is an untouchable subject. The topic is off-limits in Western Society. While summary cancelation is the most common form of punishment, Germany has gone as far as to make Holocaust denial illegal. Yet, be it cancellation de jure or de facto, the result of such a prohibition has proven ineffective.
The threat of cancelation or prison time is not enough to quash the desire for what the dissemination of lies can offer–power. Throughout time power has proven to be an inelastic commodity. Individuals have been willing to risk integrity, wealth, freedom, and even their life to obtain it. For this reason, cancelation as a deterrent is illusory, which makes it particularly pernicious. Taken at first blush, cancelation allows us to believe we have succeeded—as we can scour social media and find no trace of the provocateurs we protested. However, the lies are not gone but are only in a different locale. Once in their new home, the lies are hidden from scrutiny. When lies are underground and are not exposed to the light of day, they thrive in the darkness.
Look at the aftermath of websites like YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter cracking down on false information by suspending user accounts and banning topics. The users did not react by changing their viewpoints–they merely changed the forum in which they shared their views: Websites like 4Chan and 8Chan replaced Reddit, Parler replaced Twitter, and Rumble replaced YouTube.
The victory we claim defeats us because it relaxes the vigilance we need. In this way, the new websites are far more insidious than their predecessors. Without opposition to serve as a baffle, these sites are booming echo chambers amplifying the volume of the misinformation and lies. These new forums are so fit for their purpose that they serve no purpose for anyone except those who seek to continue the banned conversations. Out of the websites, we witnessed the origins of the QAnon conspiracy theory and the planning of the Jan 6 insurrection.
While there is no guarantee that these events and theories wouldn’t have gained purchase with the sympathetic without the measures taken by mainstream social media services, we can be sure the methods employed did not work.
Lastly, canceling never affects the individuals with significant influence, and therefore, it never affects the people it must deter to accomplish its goal. Most celebrity targets of cancelation are often “too big to cancel” and quickly return to prominence once the news cycle has turned over. Not only does the initial attempt to cancel them fuel the perception that the mainstream [insert institution] is trying to silence the real truth, the inevitable, unrepentant return of the celebrity target of our collective ire gives tacit credence to the misinformation. Time has proven that we cannot simply cancel the person, e.g., Kyrie Irvin’s and Donald Trump’s return to the hardwood and Twitter, respectively. The real solution is difficult–to cancel the ideas through free and open debate.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.