Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), explains with his colleague Rikki Schlott in their book, The undoing of the American mind (2023), a phenomenon affecting American society for almost a decade: the culture of dismissal.

According to the authors, this culture consists of the practice of trying to win arguments, essentially avoiding discussion with those who think differently.because tactics are used ranging from punishment at the workplace, the disappearance of those who think differently from public forums, an organized attack on a person, to defamation of the subject of the dismissal and threats to those who dare to defend him.

The authors begin by demonstrating why this phenomenon is real and not paranoia. For example, between 2014 and 2023, FIRE recorded more than 1,000 attempts to fire, sanction, or silence teachers in one way or another. About two-thirds of these attempts were successful, resulting in various consequences, from investigations to dismissal. But even failed attempts are important, because they have a silencing effect on the rest of the faculty. In comparison, only five professors were kicked out of their university for something they said in the post-9/11 era, while more than 200 professors have been fired in the Cancel Culture era since 2014. This exceeds the roughly 100 to 150 teachers who were fired during McCarthyism (1947-1957).

“I lost the best job of my life because of a photo on social media”: the dangers of “cancellation culture” (and where the line is)

Deaf hero of trademark culture

Chapters 6 and 8 are of particular importance to Ecuadorians given that the techniques for avoiding debate are the same ones that allowed freedom of expression to be so effectively curtailed during the authoritarian government of Coreism. The authors describe “perfect” and “effective” rhetorical walls used to disqualify those who dare to have a different opinion. They are often disqualified because of their political orientation, race, gender, sexual orientation, questionable relationships, etc.

All of this reminds me of the reputational assassination that Carlos Alberto Montaner said was attempted by the Cuban regime. Quoting Cuban lawyer Juan Antonio Blanco, a former member and official of the Chinese Communist Party:

“Reputation assassination is a deliberate and long-term process aimed at destroying the credibility and reputation of a person, institution, social group or nation.

Promoters of reputation assassination use a combination of overt and covert methods such as false accusations, rumor mongering and information manipulation to achieve their goals.

“Reputation killing aims to nullify the victim’s ability to influence, silence her voice and achieve her rejection by society.”

The book concludes by asserting that a culture that supports freedom of expression is more important than legislation that supports it. Governments and laws change frequently, and even without worsening, a culture of cancellation can effectively silence many from civil society institutions. (OR)