Word Weld

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.

Exodus 23:2

Sometimes when I write an article, I wonder if I am falling into the blogger routine of producing written content about whatever is going on in order to get views, since that is currently what is getting traction online. But frankly, I don’t do it to get views. I know my audience is small and my views are typically unpopular. I also realize that there is no particularly compelling reason why my opinion should matter to anyone more than any other. However, I take comfort in my writing and my opinion if I take a Biblical position, and then my own views will be tempered by the truth of Scripture.

So today I’m going to address a recent trend within our culture: that of cancellation of internet “influencers” and “personalities.” I have become aware of the cancellation of numerous people of various levels of fame, most of which I have never heard of because I do not spend hours trawling online (because I have an office job, a wife, children, am active in my church, and so on). But I do watch or listen to a podcast here and there or occasionally scroll the old bottomless pit that is Facebook, when my time is not better served doing something else, and it seems that there is a rash of these “public figures” being set upon by rabid mobs online because of supposed inappropriate things they said. I have just a few things to say about this issue.

The Mob Rules

The mob is the most ruthless of tyrants.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Before I get into my thoughts about the influencers themselves, let’s take the main point first. There has always been a mob. By now everyone knows the modern terms of group think and mass formation psychosis, but the idea has been around since human beings had reached a population large enough to be called a “group.” Human beings enjoy the comfort of going along with the flow… of being accepted by other humans. We wonder if how we are behaving or what we’re wearing or what we’re saying is what we should be, and so like the kid who is unsure of his math answers, he sneaks a peek at the kid beside him to see if he’s close. This is not inherently a bad thing, as sometimes there are good behaviors built into culture, usually based on Judaeo-Christian foundational ethics, and that desire to look for a standard to match up with can be good. I often tell my teens, when they start going off the rails, “How many adult people do you see crying in public because they were told to do a job?” or “How many well-functioning adults do you see losing themselves to angry fits?” And this lets them know that there is a standard range of behaviors that they are deviating from and that they should adhere to.

The problem is that as with all things, corruption inevitably follows. It seems that there is nothing that the Devil or errant human beings cannot turn to evil, and this concept seems particularly useful for the forces of darkness. If people can be made to adhere to morally good behaviors by using the pressure of society, comparison, and conformity, then they can be pushed to evil just as easily. One of if not the most famous example is found before Pilate’s judgment seat.

But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.
The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.
And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.
When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.
Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

Matthew 27:20-26 (Emphasis mine)

This is seen throughout the New Testament in many examples, including the stoning of Stephen (Acts 6), at Antioch when Paul preached to the Jews there (Acts 13), and basically anywhere Paul preached (Acts 17; Acts 21). Group thinking was used in all of those cases as a weapon against Paul and the Apostles in order to attempt to silence them. So, just as a moral standard can be used to promote good behavior (especially in the young), so a false standard can be used to promote evil behaviors. This is the force behind eating disorders and so-named “social contagions,” trends, and even such things as racism. Group thinking can even be dangerous when it is used initially for good, such as during the original French Revolution and many subsequent revolutions. Oppressed people rise up to overthrow their oppressors, only to become a mob and in turn, oppress others.

This is why God says not to go with a multitude to do evil. Scientifically, there are certain situations that cause people to lose their agency, and some of these include group mentality, wanting to fit in, and fear of rejection. These things can happen so quickly that before we know it, we’re caught up in the flow and going along with things we would never normally do. Dictators like Hitler and Stalin used stirring speeches about patriotism to stir people to group thinking, and throughout history the same things are evidenced.

Some people will say that religion produces the same results. And they are correct in the sense that group thinking has been utilized by major organized religions throughout history to terrible effect. That cannot be said of Bible-believing Christianity, however. It is true of Hinduism, Islam, Catholicism, Mormonism, and so forth, as well as supposedly non-religious ideologies that nevertheless resemble religion in dogmatism and faith, such as Communism and Atheism. Biblical Christianity, on the other hand, for one thing, is seldom (if ever) in the majority or even a significant block of the population. This is sad, but not unexpected:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

But more than this, the Bible discourages group thinking and instructs the believer to be conscientious and to rely not on the will of the masses, but on the moving of the Spirit of God (1 John 4:1). Like a drug, group thinking overtakes the mind of the individual and causes him to fall in line with the mob, and that is what we are seeing weaponized in our country currently, especially (but not exclusively) on the political left. And these influencers are being pressured by the mob, and “canceled” by them for supposed or actual indiscretions sometimes decades removed.

We saw this with the most recent judges that were appointed to the Supreme Court, with the media industry digging through whatever outrage gems could be mined from old social media posts or articles. And it has occurred with actors, politicians, and basically anyone who might be in the spotlight, or might be able to influence public opinion away from the left’s agenda. Usually, this is done with accusations of racism, which is what we’re seeing with influencers. There are certainly other infractions, such as support for Trump, opposition to homosexuality or transvestism (which have modern names I don’t like to use), but racism is the most common and popular, because it is the most insulated from criticism. After all, who really claims to be racist, or that openly says racism is ok? Racism is rightly decried as wrong in our society, while simultaneously racism in the name of fighting racism (starting to sound like the French Revolution out here) is cheered and celebrated. And as the “standard” for accusing someone of racism gets more and more blurry, it becomes easier for more and more people to fall under the tyranny of the mob’s gaze. And I think it might be one of the main reasons for Christ’s apparent pacifism:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

Matthew 5:38-40

Notice that Christ does not refer to corporate punishment, but is speaking to the individual. He does not say not to punish a rapist, but let the rapist have your other daughter. He does not say that we should let murderers go free. But he is cautioning the individual about seeking justice for himself. And what is one of the first things a man seeking vengeance does? He will often go to others, attempting to incite them to righteous rage, and so a mob begins to form. Punishing evil behavior then becomes the excuse for more evil behavior, until the punishing becomes so addictive that they have to work harder and harder to find more and more victims to sate the crowd, all the while claiming the moral high ground. There are no atrocities with the mob, all they do is justified in the fight against what the mob decides is evil. This is how the revolutionaries justify the slaughter of women and children, or even those who would caution against extreme behavior. At this point the mob has become a juggernaut, self-sustaining, but like a monster now out of control, drunk with the power to perpetrate whatever evils it likes while somehow being justified because it is ostensibly meting out justice.

But we all know that when the actual evils run out, the mob has by then become so corrupt itself that it is a kind of offspring of the evil it destroyed, an heir of atrocity, a successor to sin. Like Luke Skywalker, righteously striking down his own father in Return of the Jedi, suddenly realized, he was not destroying the evil in defeating Vader. He was merely replacing it with himself.

The Mob Cannot be Satisfied

We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which furious party cries will be raised against anybody who says that cows have horns, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening mob with the news that grass is green.

G.K. Chesterton

When a group of people is weaponized against a smaller group of people, it becomes addictive. All of the worst that lies in humanity comes to the surface. There is no compassion, there is no mercy, there is no restraint. Like the howling crowds of the colosseums of Rome, the mob finds what is happening entertaining, and can’t stop itself. All of the basest instincts of humanity come to the surface, whether the mob is a dozen boys on a playground roughing up another boy for lunch money, or a group of women ostracizing a woman who believes different things about parenting or dress, or a bunch of teenagers beating up a kid because he comes from “the wrong part of town.” And yes, this includes angry crowds on the internet, all howling death threats at someone who dared suggest that a conservative opinion might be the right one, or that perhaps the left has gone too far, and that perhaps being racist against white people is possible and might be just as wrong as any other form of racism. The mob does not wish to know what is actually morally right, but only what has been decided is right.

Which brings us to the “influencers,” actors, celebrities, and personalities who are typically either neutral in their stance (their channels/podcasts/blogs, etc are considered politically neutral), or who have considered themselves on the left and thus immune to the mob, but are now finding themselves in its crosshairs. The mob cannot be appeased. Once there is blood in the water, sharks will even turn on each other, and we are seeing that with this new round of cancellations. Some of these unfortunate souls, desperate to maintain popularity, and avoid being vilified, prostrate themselves before the mob, posting lengthy and confused apologies, half the time unsure of what to say, then getting mobbed again for something they said in their apology, and having to issue new apologies one after another. They show themselves to be without any real principles, instead betraying the fact that they depend upon popular opinion to make money and fearing that they might say anything that would ultimately impact their money.

But Christians (and some conservatives) have known for a long time that you will never be able to please the world at large. Unfortunately, those who value truth and righteousness will never be in the majority. This is because this world is enemy territory.

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

John 15:18-19

Christians ought to talk less about numbers, about how many countries our missionaries are in, or how many converts our church or our ministry has made, or how many people attend on Sunday morning. We need to stop feeling good when we hear that a church is big and bad when we hear that a church is small. We are the minority, and the business of saving people is Christ’s, we are only to represent Him in this life as best we can. The vast majority of the world will hate and despise Christ and anything to do with Him, because Christ calls upon men to repent, and that implies that men are not good. It implies there is a standard of behavior, of thought, of speech that we as a people and as individuals have fallen short of: that we are wrong, and need to change to be right. Our current appetites and proclivities are ultimately destructive and harmful, and must be denied, and that is something the average man or woman cannot abide. While a Christian hears of his depravity and seeks do find God in spite of it, the world would rather destroy the messenger and ignore the message. That was why the first martyr, Stephen, only got so far as telling the Jews about their crimes against Christ before they literally mobbed him. They could not abide the truth, and neither can the world as a whole. But that hatred is the very evidence of salvation for those who believe.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Matthew 5:11-12

If you are going to speak about anything, and try to say anything that is true, you will find in enough time that you will be challenged, and if you continue to say it, you will be ultimately attacked by individuals, and in time by the mob. And the more influence you have, the more people you reach with your voice and with the truth, the more people will seek to discredit, vilify, discourage, and ultimately silence you. You can’t appease them, and they won’t be on your side. You can try to avoid cancellation with a thousand apologies, but all you will do is convince everyone that you stand for nothing at all. So, stand up for what you believe in, be sure of it, and die on that hill. Know that if you are speaking the truth, you will not be celebrated for it.

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

C. S. Lewis