Why the cancellation of cancel culture and 'no debate' should be welcomed by us all
From Covid and the trans debate to climate change and net zero, public discourse is finally starting to open up
It’s impossible to say when things started to change, but ten or 15 years ago the phrase “cancel culture” was not in common use and “no debate” was a position few people would adopt.
The internet transformed the way we think within a very short space of time. Suddenly everyone carries in their pockets access to what seems like the answers to everything. Who needs tedious discussion?
In the anti-social media, open-air asylums of X, Reddit and BlueSky, most users merely confirm their own biases while dismissing the opposing views of others out of hand. This is antithetical to a founding principle of Western thought ascribed to Socrates, that true wisdom lies in knowledge of one’s own ignorance. “I know that I know nothing!” is a statement unlikely to adorn placards on any protest march.
‘You can’t say this publicly’
The epistemic humility to admit even the possibility we could be wrong seems to be in vanishingly short supply these days, but I hope and believe we have now passed the point of peak censoriousness. And yes, I could be wrong.
In 2015, the gay and transgender rights charity Stonewall eschewed dialogue on trans issues and instead adopted an absolutist “no debate” stance. This position spread until it became remarkable to challenge the assertion sex is mutable or the mantra “trans women are women”.
The moustachioed features of esteemed biologist Lord Robert Winston used to be a regular sight on TV until his latest appearance on the BBC’s Question Time in 2021. He told the audience: “I will say this categorically, that you cannot change your sex... Unfortunately, you can’t say this publicly. This is one of the big problems. Even saying this on this programme undoubtedly will result in my getting a huge amount of hate mail. It always does.”
He added: “Overall I think it’s a very sad thing that we can’t discuss biological science without actually getting completely caught up emotionally with something that is really completely wrong.”
Questionable Covid decisions
When Covid spread across the world, the debate over the virus’s origins soon formed two distinct camps: the scientific establishment, which argued that it spread from animals in a Chinese wet market; and those who suspected it was more likely to have emerged from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Instead of engaging in reasoned debate, those in the former camp dismissed and marginalised those in the latter. And yet now, the lab leak theory seems increasingly plausible. Last year, the CIA said coronavirus is “more likely” to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals.
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Key decisions made at the time seem increasingly questionable. The UK Covid Inquiry, which is expected to cost upwards of £200 million and not issue its final report until next year, so far appears to be skirting around the most basic question of all: was lockdown worth it, or, in the final reckoning, was the treatment worse than the disease?
Despite the shutting down of society and the vast array of rules and restrictions – the social distancing, the masks, who could attend funerals, and so on – the UK had a relatively bad pandemic. According to Our World In Data, there were 3,404 deaths per million. Sweden, which was criticised at the time for not imposing mandatory and crippling lockdowns, saw 2,732 deaths per million.
‘No such thing as consensus science’
Even the once seemingly unquestionable foundations of climate change theory, and its attendant imperative to reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to “net zero”, are coming under increasing public scrutiny.
Exactly 20 years since the release of former US Vice-President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning and hugely influential documentary An Inconvenient Truth, growing numbers of sceptics are poking their heads above the parapet to question whether it is sustainable to suggest “the science” became “settled” two decades ago.
To such heretics, this stance, which brooks no dissent and demonises sceptics as “deniers”, appears distinctly unscientific. As the late writer Michael Crichton observed: “There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.”
In any case, there is no shortage of credible and well-informed people who do not believe the response to changes in the Earth’s climate – advocated by the likes of activist Greta Thunberg and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband – is proportionate.
Indeed, many question whether the primary cause of these changes is the release of carbon dioxide caused by human activity. And the slight increase in carbon dioxide levels over recent decades, from a perilously low level, has led to the planet becoming significantly and literally greener.
The catastrophic economic consequences of net zero are becoming all too apparent as voters seek and fail to find sufficient assurances that the pain is justified. When Glasgow hosted Cop26 in 2021, politicians seemed to speak of little else but climate change and net zero. However, the issue was notably far down the agenda in the election campaigns that have just drawn to a close across Britain.
The pendulum has swung. Since the start of this decade, public debate has opened up around these three issues – transgenderism, Covid, and climate change and the pursuit of net zero.
Question Time guests might get invited back on to the show even if they state that sex is immutable. Expressing doubt over the wisdom of lockdown no longer risks social ostracism. And suggesting a change of course from economic harakiri in the name of contested theories and modelling is no longer considered infra dig.
In the coming days, the complexion of the next Scottish Parliament will become clear. Politicians could well be forced to find common ground to a greater extent than they have done in recent years. They might have to set aside entrenched tribalism and concede the possibility they may be wrong and the other side has a point.
This would be a good thing. Socrates would approve.
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