Interview with Peter Coffin - 2022
Interview #14 (Nonfiction, Sociology, Political Theory, Media Studies, Academic)
Peter Coffin is a video essayist (Very Important Documentaries), podcaster (PACD), and author (Custom Reality and You). Relatable humor and a commitment to everyday people keeps their perspective fresh, fun, and most importantly sharp.
Randal Eldon Greene: Hello Peter Coffin.
You book Cancel Culture: Mob Justice or a Society of Subscriptions looks at what exactly cancel culture is, how it works and who it works for, and what the ultimate outcomes of canceling are. The first thing that may surprise some readers is that you don't actually agree with the "culture" part of cancel culture. As a cultural phenomena, I'd think the term would suit the behavior of canceling just fine. Yet you make an argument against this terminology.
Peter Coffin: Generally, when people say "culture," they mean sets of customs that develop from the interpersonal exchange between members of a social group. "Cancel culture" I think describes a set of dynamics or behaviors rather than customs that do not simply develop from interpersonal relationships. These behaviors developed out of an ideology that comes to us from the ruling class: neoliberalism, a system-justifying ideology for a capitalist society primarily categorized by its fetishization of markets. A less incendiary definition, perhaps, would be "a market-centric approach to all of society," where market dynamics get applied to everything. I don't think we'd call neoliberalism a "culture." At least I certainly don't; I call it an ideology, and I believe "cancel culture" is simply this form of ideology manifesting in social spaces.
To put it another way, "cancel culture" is a product of business rather than culture. Or, perhaps, an attempt to get people to see business as culture. We see people talking about personal relationships becoming very transactional, dating apps perhaps being the most blatant example. "Cancel culture” is seeing social relations as something one can subscribe and unsubscribe from. I could understand someone seeing that as culture, because the overarching ideology of our society paints it as one, but I try pretty hard to make the distinction here.
Randal Eldon Greene: How do you differentiate collectivization—a mass movement of people working together—from a cancel culture mob? Is it simply the online aspect of cancel culture or is there something more fundamental than medium at play that makes canceling different than mass protests, such as Black Lives Matter protests?
Peter Coffin: I don't think I would differentiate between them—a cancel mob is people collectivizing to pursue what they think is "justice." Obviously, a cancel mob and BLM are different things, but I think if we were to differentiate along these lines, we're basically saying "collectives are good, and a cancel mob isn't that, because it's bad," and I don't believe that's true. I think it's better to ask, why would we want to collectivize? To amass power, right? That's ultimately the reason we do things together rather than individually - because in this situation most of us have very little power. So what would we rather use that power for? To take down some individual we perceive to be bad for their opinions, or to attempt to struggle against a ruling, capitalist class?
In terms of the online aspect, I think that has an impact, for sure, but it's more that there is any kind of mediating platform that is owned by capital. In terms of Twitter or other social media, there's a mode of communication that incentivizes conflict and spectacle because it gets one likes, retweets, whatever. But with BLM, there's several non-profit orgs which more or less commandeered the movement with funding from capitalists and mainstream political parties and other orgs. It went from being about changing the relationship between citizen and police (as well as the funding situation, particularly along racial lines), to electing Joe Biden, who is moving in the exact opposite direction the movement was demanding everyone go in before the campaign hit high gear.
My friend Caleb Maupin—who heads an org called the Center for Political Innovation—talks about the need to "get out of the movement and into the masses," and I think that is a macro understanding of the kind of thing we're talking about here. A movement that isn't explicitly founded with protections against its commandeering is one we must assume is, or will be, commandeered. My friend Andrew Saturn of the newly-revived Socialist Party of America is in the process of building a party with those types of protections, and I think these two orgs, the CPI and SPA, represent the beginnings of a kind of collectivization of power that's nothing like a cancel mob. But that doesn't mean a cancel mob isn't collectivization, it's just one driven by market incentives that are injected into the participants social experience via mediating platforms - which happens offline as well.
In fact, I would start attempting to move away from dichotomizing on and offline. These things are increasingly intertwined in even many of the most low-income situations, and many low-income jobs are establishing online requirements. I think it's more about who owns what's connecting you and I - and their agenda - than what it is.
Randal Eldon Greene: If I understand correctly, you say that the notion of justice—the desire to see justice served—is what gives cancel culture its power.
Peter Coffin: Well, that depends on exactly what power means, relatively speaking. In terms of why a lot of people can exert their will on one person, then to one sense, yes. The will to see justice served is the ostensible reason people team up to "cancel" someone, and the team is more powerful than the individual.
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