I hope most of my readers will be aware of the phrases ‘cancel culture’ and ‘ghosting’. The latter was the subject of a book entitled ‘Ghosts’ by British millennial author Dolly Alderton; an interesting if heartbreaking story. What concerns me is the long lasting, often traumatic, effect that either action has on its victims. Last year there was an article in The Times entitled “Cancel Culture on Campus; ‘Most of us are terrified’” by Alice Thomson. She was prompted to investigate what is going on by the death of Alexander Rogers, an Oxford undergraduate who committed suicide after being ‘cancelled’. Someone killed themselves because they were cancelled?
The coroner, Nicholas Graham, seemed to think that the punishment of ostracization exacted immediately before Roger’s suicide played an influential role. He cited an independent review commissioned by his college, Corpus Christi, describing an establishment and normalised culture in which students would rush to judgement without knowledge of all the facts and shun those accused. Finally, he urged those in positions of responsibility to take cancel culture, ‘the exclusion of students from social circles based on allegations of misconduct, often without due process or a fair hearing’, seriously. Thomson wrote that whilst at 20 one is old enough to take responsibility for one’s actions, nothing should be unforgiveable.
Blimey! Actually ‘blimey’ doesn’t do it! ‘What the f**k?’ would be a better expression of my reaction. What a very sad reflection on the realities of the social scene for our young adults, a time when they should be experiencing and learning about relationships in real life, not shunning them for fear of being cancelled; in real life and not on-line! A graduate of Cambridge, Ceci Browning, wrote: “This is the paradox of my generation. We are meant to be the most tolerant and liberal, yet when one of our friends slips up and falls out of step, they become the enemy. We cut friends and acquaintances from our lives on the basis of second-hand information about something deemed morally iffy that they may or may not have done. But we are also perpetually afraid that precisely the same thing could happen to us.”
We know that the difficulties of learning how to start, continue and stop relationships start in one’s teenage years. My own childhood, although privileged, was very mixed. Whilst I have fond memories of the second preparatory boarding school where I spent my pre-teenage years, I shudder at some of the early memories I had of my teenage ones. Bullied and ostracised, rather wet by nature, feeling abandoned by my parents, I took a long while to find my feet and my confidence. Then of course there was no instant messaging, no aggrieved soul venting their hurt on social media, for others to share with God knows who. So rumours rose and died, snuffed out by the smallness of the audience.
The suicide of Alexander Rogers is another statistic to some, but Caitlin Moran’s recent article ‘Too Many Boys are Killing Themselves.’ highlights a worrying trend. I read her book ‘About Men’ last year, an unusual topic for her, and subsequently wrote PCs 352 & 354 (About Men and More About Men) in September 2023. Moran writes that too many boys/young men are killing themselves. I have three grandsons so this subject is right there, on the front burner for me, trying to understand the modern pressures and how the three of them will be able to develop sensible values and self-discipline, able to filter out the crap peddled by influencers like Tait, who want to encourage boys to become incel – ‘unable to find a romantic or sexual partner’.
Socially relationships are key to our social fitness. The concept is not new; Aristotle, writing more than 2000 years ago, said that ‘man is by nature a social animal’. Moran described the difficulties of both sexes interacting in the digital world. For instance, what to one person might be an attempt to give an affectionate ‘touch of the neck’ could be construed by the object of their actions, someone who perhaps has watched too much internet porn, as a preliminary move towards a strangle hold and shock and revulsion is their response; a touch of the lower back easily extrapolated into an imagination of unwanted sexual advances. And this at a time when everyone is experimenting, trying what works for them, understanding what doesn’t.
It’s also important to remember that the ‘squishy part of the brain responsible for sensible decision-making’ isn’t completely developed until one’s mid to late 20s. ‘Students are still especially susceptible to making stupid mistakes and perhaps overreacting to perceived slights’. Rather than try and discuss and understand and accept an apology, they reach for their social media account. Stories are gobbled up in such an insatiable way there is no thought to pause, to think if it’s true or somewhat exaggerated; ‘share’ and ‘share’, part of the herd. So when someone is cancelled by those whom they believed to be in their ‘friends and acquaintances’ circle, it doesn’t take much to understand how their whole world comes crashing down.
I wonder whether those involved in the story of Alexander, either personally or by association, feel any lasting blame for their actions, any lasting shame. What has changed since the independent report commissioned by Corpus Christi? Has it really made it easier for students to talk about the inappropriate behaviour of other students, as part of a normal discourse about growing up and developing proper boundaries, or has the college decided that its reputation is more important than that of one individual?
In the final analysis we think and no one else can do that for us; we feel what we think, these feelings coloured by past experiences and expectations; then it’s our responsibility whether we act …. or not.
Richard 10th January 2025
Hove
PS Read ‘The Happiest Man on Earth’ by Eddie Jaku if you’re a bit down; time to reflect.
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