For anyone who has ever attended a university debate,where precocity so often outweighs poise,it is hardly surprising that one of the speeches was a bit rubbish. But afterwards,the backlash began.
Cambridge Union president Keir Bradwell – who,it is worth noting,is only 21 – issued an apology,saying he should have intervened at the time.
“We will create a blacklist of speakers never to be invited back,and we will share it with other unions,too. Andrew will be on that list,” Bradwell said.
The whole exercise underlines how hard it is,even for the younger generation,to navigate the etiquette they have helped create.
But then,perhaps realising what a massive own-goal it was to put potential speakers in fear of a blacklisting,Bradwell did a U-turn. He scrapped the blacklist,and said:“If there is a dichotomy between free speech and offence,I would defend free speech. I don’t want to create an impression that the union is against free speech.” It may be too late for that.
But the whole exercise underlines how hard it is,even for the younger generation,to navigate the etiquette they have helped create. If you elevate the taking of offence to the ultimate guiding principle,people will begin to operate out of fear of censure. That fear can impede creativity,especially in those who lack cultural power (which Cleese obviously does not).
It also makes it difficult to test your ideas in opposition to others’,something a university debating society should probably adopt as a priority.
There is an argument over whether “cancellation” really exists. Some people say the term is a right-wing fiction that mischaracterises legitimate criticism as punishment,resulting in real harm.
This debate recalls American author Jonathan Franzen,who was cancelled way before it was fashionable,when he sneered at Oprah Winfrey’s book club,after his 2001 book,The Corrections, was endorsed by Oprah’s bookworms. Americans are a divided people,but they all agree on one thing:it’s uncool to be mean to Oprah.
Since he dissed O,many have condemned Franzen as too white,too male,too aloof and too snobby to be relevant. This is a shame if it turns anyone away from his latest book,Crossroads, because it is one of the best depictions of intergenerational conflict I’ve read (maybe since Ivan Turgenev’sFathers and Sons,where the young nihilists fight the old liberals).
Crossroads is set in the ’70s,a time of great cultural change. The paterfamilias of the book is a miserably married,middle-aged white guy,a wannabe-hip pastor who uses his prior involvement in the civil rights movement,his collection of classic blues records,and his friendship with a Navajo community to virtue-signal to his children and pastoral flock.
One of the most poignant and amusing sections of the book comes when he smokes weed for the first time with a female parishioner,ostensibly as part of a journey of spiritual discovery. Actually,he is hoping to lower the inhibitions of the parishioner,whom he wants to “bone”,as his son contemptuously puts it.
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Instead of euphoria,he experiences paranoia,and sees a naked vision of his own fraudulence and irrelevance. He sees the generational gap for what it is – a huge failure of communication and care for which he is responsible. He reacts with a potent combination of shame and rage.
Which brings me to another recent cancellation – that of radio legend Alan Jones,perhaps the nastiest and most talented broadcaster Australia has ever known.
Jones was dropped first by his radio station,2GB (owned by Nine,the publisher of this masthead),then by the newspaper that published his columns,and then,finally,by his TV channel,Sky. He lost his relevance,which is the most bitter cancellation of them all,but one that comes to us all eventually.
Twitter:@JacquelineMaley
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