Debate Teacher Reacts to Cancel Culture Arguments | Feat. Dave Chappelle

And so it sounds really good to say these kinds of things at a party. You know, you can have your cup and say a few things and then sip and then everybody can go, whoa, that was that was really great.

But under the analysis of a formal rebuttal or under some kind of challenge under cross-examination, I don't think these things would hold up very well at all. Welcome back to another debate teacher reacts video.

My name is Nate and my mustache. And I welcome you to this new video. Look, last time I tried something new and it appears to have been well received. OK, I decided to type into the search engine abortion arguments.

And again, from a debate teacher's perspective, I decided to react and respond to some of those things. It looks like that video was well received. So, hey, if it ain't broke, let's not fix it today. I want to look at cancel culture.

A lot of people have different opinions about it. But here's my question. Are people talking about cancel culture when they're disagreeing with each other? Are they talking about it effectively? OK, by the way, what are your thoughts?

Let me know how you feel. Are cancel culture conversations? Are they going really well? Are they going very badly? Let me know in the comments below. I'm going to type into the search engine right now.

Cancel culture arguments. And we're going to look at some of the most viewed videos. Let's do it.

Barack Obama on Call-Out Culture and the Limits of Judgmental Activism

You know, this this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly. The world the world is messy. There are ambiguities.

People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids and. You know. Share certain things with you, and I think that one danger I see among young people, particularly on college campuses, Malia and I talk about this.

Yara goes to school with my daughter. But I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media. There is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people.

And that's enough. Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or use the word wrong verb or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, man, you see how woke I was.

I called you out. Let me get on TV. Watch my show. Watch Grownish. You know, that's not that's not activism. That's not bringing about change. You know, if all you're doing is casting stones, you know, you're probably not going to get that far.

That's easy to do.

So this first video has over a million views, and basically it's Barack Obama talking about. So this isn't cancel culture. He's actually talking about call out culture. And there's an argument that both can be used synonymously.

I'm not going to get into it. So these are some great thoughts from Barack Obama. And what's ironic is, I guess what's appropriate is a lot of folks don't like him because of his political policies.

All right.

But this is a perfect example of showcasing that you can disagree with somebody on a whole host of issues. But when they get something right, they're right. OK, and they should be commended for that. And that goes to part of what he's saying here.

OK, so cancel culture as a bigger movement, as an exercise, I should say, is an example of being so reductionistic. You know, taking such a reductionistic view of people that you basically shrink them down to their worst moments and you label them.

And then you essentially ostracize them based on these things. Full clarity, cancel culture began under different contexts. But generally today, it refers to a celebrity or some kind of cultural or social figure that says something or expresses themselves in a manner that others deem offensive.

And then they get canceled. That is, they are essentially ostracized from the community. Now, Obama makes some great points here, particularly about the idea of casting stones and how it's very easy to do that.

You know, it is. It's very easy to tear something or someone down. It takes a lot more energy to build something or build someone up. I think the greater strategy, though, when it comes to talking about cancel culture should be to discuss the issue as an issue.

OK, like like if we're going to go into a more formal debate about cancel culture, you would need to define the phrase in the first place. Like what is cancel culture? You need to talk about like the ethics of it, you know, and whether it is a morally justified set of actions in response to certain behaviors that we see in other people.

You should discuss whether it's an effective strategy in our kind of society at all. You know, those are the ways to talk about cancel culture in a much more effective sense that would hopefully produce results.

But in regular conversations, I just don't see that very much. So now we have our second video. And again, in the search, this is just one of the most viewed videos of all time. I think it's got like two point three million views.

This is middle ground done by Jubilee. It's really great. By the way, Jubilee is really great for like sparking discussions and all those stuff. But it's on the issue of cancel culture. Should we cancel celebrities is the topic.

Cancel Culture, Toxicity, and the Semantics of Ostracizing People

So he said something very interesting to me about like the whole cutting off the arm and that to fix a cut. And I feel like the exact opposite, because when you talk about how like, oh, if you're canceling people, blah, blah, blah, and they have good inventions, it's like there's so many smart people that aren't toxic.

And it's like when you cancel someone that is toxic, it's sending the message to other toxic people. You cannot get away with this.

Notice the semantics here. We're not discussing people who, like Obama mentioned a few moments ago, do something bad, but are also parents. They're also charity workers or, you know, whatever they are, because that's a much more robust understanding of people.

And of human beings in general. Right. That people are generally a combination of good and bad characteristics. OK, people fart, they burp, they do bad things, but they also do good things. But that nuance is gone from this young lady's statement.

OK, instead, people are toxic. Some people are toxic. Right. You know, the entire person, it sounds like, is rotten to the core. This is a very vague and ambiguous way of speaking that carries a lot of water, so to speak, for the pro-cancel culture person.

Because if people are really entirely bad, there is not an ounce of goodness in them. Then theoretically, there's no problem with ostracizing them from society. But if this were a debate, someone should try to challenge this person's use of language in cross-examination.

So let's see if that happens.

Here's how I think of it. Like, I have the right to stop this. And if other people want to do that also, and we bond together like the powers in our hands. And I feel like for me, I'm doing my part by not choosing not to, like, mess with that person anymore.

Yeah, I was gonna ask you a question, though. Do you feel like you should be the one making the decision? Or do you feel like YouTube or Spotify should make the decision?

Right. So in this discussion, we're not going to challenge the language being used here to basically reduce full human beings down to labels like toxic or wicked or whatever. Right. And don't get me wrong.

Like if someone has performed criminal acts, they deserve punishment. OK, but that's not typically what's going on with cancel culture. Cancel culture is you say something stupid or wrong. You say something that someone else thinks is stupid or wrong, but is not actually a criminal act by any any standard of law anywhere.

And we ostracize you for it. OK, we try to get you fired. We try to take away your livelihood. We try to remove all influence that you have in the social square, so to speak, that for all intents and purposes, you basically do not exist in any social sense.

That's what we're talking about with cancel culture. And again, that is a that is a reductionistic view of human beings that furthers a particular agenda. And it needs to be challenged because language and semantics play a huge role in accomplishing the task of canceling someone else.

The devil is in the details with stuff like this. All right. And that's why you see not a lot of people are really interested in discussing the details.

Honestly, I've said this before, like I think the pendulum has swung the other direction. And like, yes, maybe it's getting a little string, but I also think sometimes that's necessary for change. For so long, we let everyone get away with everything.

And there was only one voice as part of the conversation. And it was like, right. And it was mostly like white men back in the day versus now we have a platform where everyone can share their opinion.

You're like, hey, that makes me uncomfortable. And I think some people are going to have to be made examples of in order to set precedent in what's acceptable for us, our generation and the society today.

So once again, there's a lot of sweeping statements that are not parsed out or delineated in clarifying ways. And this is typical of regular conversation on the street. OK, which I commend these folks for getting together and discussing these issues.

I mean, I think that is a really good thing. But the problem is a lot of people haven't really thought out the issues in a systematic or thorough fashion. They haven't thought about how to how to justify specifically what they're saying in any articulate sense or, you know, with studies, with evidence, with good reasons.

Anything at all. Instead, we hear a lot of allusions, you know, to things that include a sweeping number of issues, but nothing more than that. And so it sounds really good to say these kinds of things at a party.

You know, you can have your cup and say a few things and then sip and then everybody can go, whoa, that was that was really great. But under the analysis of a formal rebuttal or under some kind of challenge under cross-examination, I don't think these things would hold up very well at all.

For example, she talks about cancel culture being extreme, but necessary for change. Well, there's so many words that need clarifying in that particular statement. What do you mean by cancel culture? First of all, what do you mean by that phrase?

What do you mean by extreme? And what do you mean by change? Change into what? We don't know what these terms mean because nobody defines them clearly in the conversation, because even cancel culture, as far as I can tell in this particular conversation, has not been properly defined by these folks, at least in a manner that everyone agrees to some kind of a definition for it.

So are we talking about like bringing awareness to sexual abuse and rape in Hollywood or are we talking about, you know, Roseanne Barr saying something racist on Twitter? Because you understand those two things are not the same.

That's where, again, if people are going to like have effective conversations about cancel culture, they need to define what it is as an activity and a movement because it appears to be both. They need to identify a clear social standard of behavior for folks and then also identify like a criteria of violations of that standard.

And then they need to attempt to justify cancel culture as an appropriate response. OK, none of these things are happening. There's a lot of assumptions that in vague statements and half arguments that are going on right now.

All right. So we have another video from this time. It's Bill Maher from his show Real Time with Bill Maher. Looks like he's giving a monologue. Now, this video has almost three million views. Again, just searching cancel culture arguments.

This is what pops up. So let's go ahead and take a look.

Bill Maher on Hypersensitivity, Shame, and the Social Costs of Cancel Culture

Is this really who we want to become? A society of phony, clenched avatars walking on eggshells, always looking over your shoulder about getting ratted out for something that actually has nothing to do with your character or morals.

Think about everything you've ever texted, emailed, searched for, tweeted, blogged or said in passing or now even just witnessed. Someone had a Confederate flag in their dorm room in 1990 and you didn't do anything.

You laughed at a Woody Allen movie. Andy Warhol was wrong. In the future, everyone will not experience 15 minutes of fame, but 15 minutes of shame.

That's a good lie.

And 62 of Americans say they have opinions they're afraid to share. 80 of Americans, young, old, rich, poor, conservative, liberal, white, minority, all hate the current atmosphere of hypersensitivity.

Yeah, everybody hates it and no one stands up to it. Because it's always the safe thing to swallow what you really think and just join the mob. So if someone asks you if Justin Timberlake owes Britney Spears an apology for not being a perfect boyfriend when they were teenagers, just say yes.

Easy. As Justin did, issuing an abject apology and then vowing to return sexy back to where he found it.

Interesting joke. I see this happening a lot in these kinds of conversations. A lot. And it looks like the strategy here is basically to say, look at all the bad consequences of cancel culture. Look at all the negative effects on people who have been basically run over by the cancel culture bus.

The problem with doing this is it certainly appeals to people who already agree with you, but it doesn't do very much to those who don't. And that's the thing. You have to anticipate your opponent's reactions.

You have to think like your opponent if you're going to truly challenge them in any meaningful sense. And if you're really trying to persuade somebody to change their minds, pointing out that there are bad effects to those who are canceled is basically saying, hey, you know, cancel culture really works, you know, because that's what the pro cancel culture folks.

That's what they want to happen to the people they disagree with.

All right.

They want these celebrities lives or whoever deleteriously affected. They essentially want them ostracized from society. And all we're doing is we're saying, hey, it's working. I mean, that's essentially what this argument is doing.

That's why I'm saying a much more effective strategy. And this is right out of a debate playbook at this point is to recognize that anyone saying that they should cancel somebody else is making a claim.

And claims need to be backed up with good sound reasons, period. We need to start asking folks for definitions of terms, you know, definitions of cancel culture itself. Right. For a clear social standard of behavior.

So we know what criteria violates that standard, so to speak. And then a clear justification that cancel culture is a moral and effective response to those kinds of social violations to the standard on our society.

Right. And that's all purely just to explore whether or not the cancel culture as a system is good or not. That's the strategy right there in a nutshell. And we need to push folks to answer these questions.

Why? Because nobody is asking them these kinds of questions. You know, for those who advocate canceling others, they're they're just not being challenged in meaningful ways. Not that I can see. And so the idea continues to persist.

Hey, if you do anything wrong in your life and I find out about it, I'm going to try to take everything away from you. And I don't care what I find out. Could be today, tomorrow, 15, 20 years from now.

If I find out you're finished. Who's that? That's you. That's what the audience sounds like to me.

Dave Chappelle, Empathy, and Why Tough Questions Beat Moral Grandstanding

All right. So this final video, as we search through cancel culture, the most viewed videos on cancel culture arguments is Dave Chappelle completely destroys cancel culture. Let's hope he does. This is tallying in at like four point three million views.

People are watching these videos and trying to think through cancel culture.

So let's take a look at what he says. You guys got to remember, I'm not saying it to be mean. I'm saying it because it's funny and everything's funny till it happens to you.

If bad things happen to someone else. That's not that's not necessarily funny.

Look at it this way. I grew up in the crack epidemic. I tell jokes about I grew up in the crack epidemic. And now there's an opioid epidemic. Are they treating the opioid epidemic the way that they treated the crack epidemic?

No, this is a national health emergency. When we were coming up, we were policed by the National Guard. Addicts were criminals. Now they understand addicts are sick people. And maybe it's because of the demographic of the opioid epidemic is not the same demographic of the crack epidemic.

Racially. Right. About race. Right. So now that your community is getting destroyed is the whole nother ballgame. And then you have it's a huge window of empathy. Oh, my God. We can see each other. We both went through similar pain.

But I'm just saying everything's funny. What happens to you is more about is more about empathy that you there.

But for the grace of God, our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe, say or do.

But both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. Well, there it is. There it is. I mean, ironically, this is Christians and those on the more libertarian or conservative side of the aisle.

This is what we have all been saying for decades now. You know, and this notion that if you disagree, you hate. It's a talking point that I first remember seeing coming out of the LGBTQ community decades ago, which is unfortunate because I think I said this a moment ago.

But language and semantics play a huge role in furthering or accomplishing a particular agenda. And everyone who pushes their own agenda can be guilty of this. OK, I'm not just saying it's the LGBTQ community, but the devil is in the details.

All right. And the fact is that when you stop making sweeping claims like this and you stop and think it is possible and happens all the time that someone can disagree with you and still love the heck out of you.

And tolerance actually means allowing folks to say or do things or express themselves in ways that you disagree with. All right. It is the utter height of arrogance and pride to start stepping in and make authoritative statements and try to cancel people.

You know, like people I don't agree with should be canceled to say these kinds of things in normal society. It just goes to show, I think, cancel culture just goes to show how arrogant and prideful humanity really has become in the 21st century.

Now, in one sense, comedy can be used as a form of effective communication. But I think still this kind of way of communicating doesn't really cross over the other side of the aisle very easily. OK, in other words, if you are already a fan of Dave Chappelle, then you're going to laugh it up when he makes these kinds of statements.

If you don't like Dave Chappelle for for his political and other kinds of social ideas. Well, then this is probably just going to make you further pissed off at him. You know, I mean, so like, again, if you really want to be effective and you want to try to like change somebody's minds, the best thing to do, it would be to ask them questions in order to seek understanding from their view and then also try to identify flaws or errors that they're making or assumptions that they're that they're assuming.

Well, I kind of thought that this would happen, actually. Before watching these videos, I tried to guess, like, you know, would some of the most viewed videos of all time on YouTube in the area of cancel culture arguments, would they really contain any real substantive arguments for or against cancel culture?

And the answer is no, they really didn't. And that's where, again, I just think it would be more effective and more wise to treat these kinds of conversations. If you get into a conversation about cancel culture like cross examination, we need to question people that we disagree with on this issue and force them to identify their claims, define terms, support themselves with with good sound evidence, but do it in a way that tells someone I still care about you at the end of the day.

That's where you really need to connect with somebody on a heart to heart level. You know, I always say this, but like you need to have a tough mind and a tender heart. OK, that's really what it boils down to when we communicate with people.

Our job is to question them and ask questions in a manner that exposes flaws and identifies errors or assumptions or whatever they're doing in their in their thought processes and help them to see where they're going wrong, but in a way that still, at the end of the day, maintains relationship.

And that is key. That brings down the wall of defenses that gets somebody to listen to you, because if they trust you, they'll listen to what you have to say. And that goes into all of that. If you can get someone to realize that they don't have good reasons for what they believe and you can do it with all humility and maintain relationship with them through that process, that is a much more persuasive way to talk about cancel culture.

Thanks so much for watching this particular video. I hope that it gives you some tools to get out there and start talking about this issue more effectively. If you would like me to react to more things along these lines or you have a specific debate in mind that you would like me to react to, definitely let me know in the comments below.

I'm going to take a break, but will return soon with more of these videos. And in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.