The Culture War

There’s a cul­ture war raging for our minds.

It’s the social justice war­ri­ors versus the pop­u­list­ic tra­di­tion­al­ists. They con­sume much more than their fair share of the online agenda.

Where does this leave the rest of us?
Where does this leave reg­u­lar businesses?

Here we go:

The Culture War

According to both sides of today’s polar­ised land­scape, the cul­ture war is a jus bel­lum justum (a just war) for our mor­al values.

The just war the­ory dic­tates that “[… ] war, while ter­rible (but less so with the right con­duct), is not always the worst option. Important respons­ib­il­it­ies, undesir­able out­comes, or pre­vent­able atro­cit­ies may jus­ti­fy war.” ¹Just war the­ory. (2023, November 14). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​J​u​s​t​_​w​a​r​_​t​h​e​ory

However, the cul­ture war is spelling dev­ast­at­ing con­sequences for brands world­wide. Media polar­isa­tion. Woke journ­al­ism. Populism. De-plat­form­ing. Cancel cul­ture. Political correctness. 

Businesses are try­ing to rise to the chal­lenge, but how?

The Publics of the Culture War

We can identi­fy three crit­ic­al pub­lics in the cul­ture war based on their com­mu­nic­at­ive behaviours. 

The two primary pub­lics are act­ive but small…

Social justice war­ri­ors (act­ive pub­lic). They will not accept any per­ceived “injustice,” regard them­selves as mor­ally super­i­or, and see all oppon­ents as imme­di­ate threats to their con­vic­tions. According to this pub­lic, online aggres­sion is an appro­pri­ate polit­ic­al expres­sion (if per­pet­rated by them­selves).
Related read­ing: Cancel Culture is Evil

Populistic tra­di­tion­al­ists (act­ive pub­lic). They see “com­mon sense” derived from gen­er­a­tions of empir­ic­al mor­al insights to trump all oth­er forms of dis­cern­ment. They cel­eb­rate homo­gen­eity and pat­ri­ot­ism and are often reli­gious. According to this pub­lic, online aggres­sion is a prop­er polit­ic­al expres­sion (if per­pet­rated by them­selves).
Related read­ing: How To Fight Populism

… and the third is inact­ive but large:

The silent major­ity (inact­ive pub­lic). They are mod­er­ately inves­ted in mor­al philo­sophy and more focused on mak­ing ends meet in their per­son­al lives. They avoid tak­ing any such aggress­ive stands — at least pub­licly. However, they con­tinu­ally “vote” online by click­ing, watch­ing, read­ing, and listen­ing.
Related read­ing: The Spiral of Silence

How should a brand nav­ig­ate this cul­ture war?
Either pick a side and stick with it — or steer clear?

Today, organ­isa­tions must decide wheth­er to hire and fire based on con­flict­ing mor­al stand­ards. You must look dif­fer­ent but not think differently.

Building a team with such mor­al double stand­ards while sim­ul­tan­eously pro­mot­ing com­pet­ent, inde­pend­ent thinkers is impossible.

Learn more: The Culture War

The Media Polarisation Model

We often hear how the media cli­mate is “polar­ised” — a known and reas­on­ably well-under­stood effect of clas­sic media logic.

It also seems true that social media logic has amp­li­fied the effects of polar­isa­tion by group­ing people into echo cham­bers where con­firm­a­tion bias, con­ver­sion the­ory, and the hos­tile media effect are allowed to roam freely without any checks and balances.

“Political elites, par­tis­an media, and social media con­trib­ute to soci­et­al-level polit­ic­al polar­iz­a­tion, lead­ing to mis­per­cep­tions of divi­sion among the elect­or­ate and fuel­ing anim­os­ity and actu­al ideo­lo­gic­al polar­iz­a­tion over time.”
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences ²Wilson, A., Parker, V., & Feinberg, M. (2020). Polarization in the con­tem­por­ary polit­ic­al and media land­scape. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 34, 223 – 228. … Continue read­ing

More pro­foundly, media polar­isa­tion is prob­lem­at­ic because it draws false lines between extremes that aren’t neces­sar­ily per­pen­dic­u­lar. These “false lines” will force oth­er­wise bal­anced media con­sumers to place them­selves between the media-sug­ges­ted extremes.

At the extremes, sheltered by the social safety of a like-minded peer group (i.e. echo cham­ber), it’s pos­sible to dis­reg­ard oppos­ing evid­ence as “attacks” on their pos­i­tion. As the amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is states, any such attacks will only strengthen the pos­i­tion of the extremes.

The harder you attack someone verbally, the more you con­vince them of their belief, not yours.

The Post-Truth Zone

The amp­li­fic­a­tion hypo­thes­is sus­tains a post-truth zone at the extremes through media polar­isa­tion. If a) the zone is wide enough and b) the extremes are suf­fi­ciently close to each oth­er, the forced “bal­anced” pos­i­tion between them will also res­ult in the post-truth zone.

“Post-truth is a soci­et­al phe­nomen­on, influ­enced by the expect­a­tion that hon­esty is the default pos­i­tion, and the pub­lic tol­er­ance of inac­cur­ate and undefen­ded alleg­a­tions in polit­ics.”
Source: Nature ³Higgins, K. (2016). Post-truth: a guide for the per­plexed. Nature, 540, 9 – 9. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​3​8​/​5​4​0​0​09a

Since the forced “bal­anced” pos­i­tion will have a hard time shel­ter­ing any­one from our fear of social isol­a­tion, the spir­al of silence par­tially explains why extremes are so effect­ive in silen­cing the major­ity of oth­er­wise bal­anced media con­sumers. ⁴Silfwer, J. (2020, June 4). The Spiral of Silence. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​p​i​r​a​l​-​o​f​-​s​i​l​e​n​ce/

Why Media Polarisation is Disturbing

Like every­one else, I have opin­ions. However, as a PR pro­fes­sion­al with 18+ years of exper­i­ence, I can ana­lyse media issues without sid­ing with any of the extremes.

But no mat­ter how pro­fes­sion­al my ana­lys­is of a cur­rent media issue is, I risk blow­back from left and right extremes — with no back­ing from the silent majority. 

Many feel com­pelled by the news media to choose between out­land­ish extremes — or settle for an equally out­land­ish middle ground.

Media trends tend to be cyc­lic­al, and I estim­ate that the post-truth era peaked in 2019. My hope, how­ever, is that the pan­dem­ic, fol­lowed by glob­al infla­tion and AI pro­gress, will dampen the media’s interest in extreme pos­i­tions and shrink the width of the post-truth zone.

“Post-truth com­mu­nic­a­tion has shaped our under­stand­ing of truth, polit­ics, and the media, with its impact on pub­lic policy, his­tory, and social media.”
Source: Social Studies of Science ⁵Sismondo, S. (2017). Post-truth? Social Studies of Science, 47, 3 — 6. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​1​7​7​/​0​3​0​6​3​1​2​7​1​7​6​9​2​076

Still, it’s dis­turb­ing that the ration­al busi­ness decision for many aca­dem­ics, pro­fes­sion­als, and organ­isa­tions is to stra­tegic­ally steer clear of top­ics taken “host­age” by left and right extrem­ists — or for organ­isa­tions to opt for the media black­out tac­tic.

Normalise Not Having an Opinion

More often than not, in a post-truth soci­ety, hav­ing no opin­ion sud­denly seems like the only ration­al escape.

My opin­ion?
Let’s nor­m­al­ise not hav­ing one.

The iron pre­scrip­tion (men­tal mod­el). Senior advisor Charlie Munger argued: “I have what I call an ‘iron pre­scrip­tion’ that helps me keep sane when I nat­ur­ally drift toward pre­fer­ring one ideo­logy over anoth­er. I feel that I’m not entitled to have an opin­ion unless I can state the argu­ments against my pos­i­tion bet­ter than the people who are in oppos­i­tion. I think that I am qual­i­fied to speak only when I’ve reached that state” (Knodell, 2016). ⁶Knodell, P. A. (2016). All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll nev­er go there: Buffett & Munger – A study in sim­pli­city and uncom­mon, com­mon sense. PAK Publishing.

Learn more: The Media Polarisation Model

Cancel Culture is Evil

What is can­cel culture?

Cancel cul­ture = the weapon­isa­tion of social out­rage to silence, pun­ish, and exile indi­vidu­als or ideas rather than enga­ging with them in ration­al debate. 

Cancel cul­ture thrives on pub­lic sham­ing, digit­al mob justice, and elim­in­at­ing nuance, redu­cing com­plex human beings to single state­ments or actions — often taken out of con­text or judged ret­ro­act­ively by evolving mor­al standards. 

“Cancel cul­ture or call-out cul­ture is a phrase con­tem­por­ary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostra­cism in which someone is thrust out of social or pro­fes­sion­al circles — wheth­er it be online, on social media, or in per­son. Those sub­ject to this ostra­cism are said to have been ‘can­celled’.”
Source: Wikipedia ⁷Cancel cul­ture. (2023, January 4). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​a​n​c​e​l​_​c​u​l​t​ure

Conformity, Oppression, and Stagnation

Unlike tra­di­tion­al account­ab­il­ity, which allows for dis­cus­sion, learn­ing, and pro­por­tion­al con­sequences, can­cel cul­ture demands imme­di­ate and abso­lute destruction. 

Historically, soci­et­ies that have embraced ideo­lo­gic­al purges — wheth­er in the form of book burn­ings, black­lists, or polit­ic­al witch hunts — have not led to pro­gress but instead to oppres­sion and intel­lec­tu­al stag­na­tion. Cancel cul­ture, while often dis­guised as act­iv­ism, is fun­da­ment­ally a mod­ern form of author­it­ari­an con­trol, ensur­ing con­form­ity not through reas­on but through intimidation.

In its most extreme form, can­cel cul­ture leads to col­lect­ive amne­sia, eras­ing people, books, films, and even his­tor­ic­al fig­ures from pub­lic life, as if uncom­fort­able real­it­ies can be scrubbed from existence. 

What makes can­cel cul­ture par­tic­u­larly insi­di­ous is that it oper­ates out­side form­al insti­tu­tions, giv­ing unac­count­able digit­al mobs the power to act as judges, jur­ies, and executioners. 

The Terror of Being Next

“Cancel cul­ture on social media is a form of pub­lic sham­ing that aims to dif­fuse pub­lic dis­course and pro­mote tol­er­ance, but can also be viewed as a form of intol­er­ance against oppos­ing views.”
Source: Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities ⁸Velasco, J. (2020). You are Cancelled: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Emergence of Cancel Culture as Ideological Purging. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 12. … Continue read­ing

Cancel cul­ture replaces con­ver­sa­tion with coer­cion, cre­at­ing a world where mor­al pur­ity is per­form­at­ive and intel­lec­tu­al explor­a­tion is replaced by ideo­lo­gic­al conformity. 

A soci­ety ruled by the fear of can­cel­la­tion is not a free soci­ety — it is a social pan­op­ticon in which people are not guided by mor­al con­vic­tion but by the ter­ror of being next.

It cre­ates an atmo­sphere of fear (i.e. the spir­al of silence), where people are afraid to express dis­sent­ing opin­ions, ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions, or chal­lenge pre­vail­ing dog­mas. This stifles cre­ativ­ity, intel­lec­tu­al diversity, and essen­tial human inter­ac­tion, as indi­vidu­als con­stantly self-cen­sor to avoid social annihilation. 

How To Navigate Cancel Culture

The cul­ture war with de-plat­form­ing, can­cel cul­ture, online lynch mobs, woke journ­al­ism, pop­u­lism, fake news, and mor­al slackt­iv­ism are fast becom­ing our biggest chal­lenges as PR professionals.

Here’s how to nav­ig­ate can­cel culture:

Learn more: Cancel Culture is Evil

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