Ginsburg practiced anti-cancel culture
In 2015, at aHarvardUniversity luncheon held in her honor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked what advice shewould give youngwomen today. “Fight for things you care about,” Ginsburg replied, “but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
The quote appeared in full over the weekend on the display board of the Barclays Center, in the heart of Ginsburg’s native Brooklyn, NewYork, following her death on Friday. But if you go onto the internet to explore the endless array of RBG-themed tchotchkes— mugs, T-shirts and even face masks— you’ll find that many of them omit the second part of her comment. Allwe need to do, apparently, is fight for whatwe believe in. Getting others aboard isn’t as important.
And that speaks volumes about American politics, where persuasion has gone out of style. The key is to speak your truth, as loudly as possible. Some peoplewon’t agree, because— it often goes now— they are evil or stupid (or both). You can’t change their minds; all you can do is bring them to heel.
That’s the theory behind cancel culture, the bipartisan tendency to vilify and abuse our political and intellectual opponents. And Ginsburg neverwent in for it. Her entire career reflected the faith that you couldmove others to your point of view.
But that required you to showbasic respect for their humanity, even at moments when theywere not returning the favor. “When a thoughtless or unkindword is spoken, best to tune it out,” Ginsburg told an interviewer in 2018. “Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.”
Let’s be clear: Ginsburg had ample reason to be angry and annoyed. Like millions of otherwomen, shewas denied opportunities simply because of her gender. So she fought back, of course, but in a generous way that swayed former skeptics to her side.
So Ginsburg also represents a standing rebuke to cancel culture, whichworks on the opposite philosophy: to defeat a foe, you must destroy them. It’s not enough to say, for example, that you disagree with J.K. Rowling about transgender issues. You need to malign her on social media, utterly and totally, until she recognizes the error of her ways.
But that strategy is a fantasy, and a selfdefeating one at that. Sure, canceling someone might force them to issue an abject apology. But nobody is ever improved via humiliation. It makes all of us smaller, because it denies the possibility of real change in our souls.
I recently attended awebinar about cancel culture, where one speaker defended it as aweapon of the oppressed against the powerful. WhatwasMartin Luther King Jr.’sMontgomery bus boycott, she asked, other than an early example of canceling?
Please. Like Ginsburg— indeed, like every other greatwarrior for human rights
— King believed in the humanity of his opponents. He did not shrink fromfighting them, of course. But he insisted that they had the potential for goodness, no matter howbadly theywere thinking and behaving.
Asked howshe could be best friends with Antonin Scalia, Ginsburg’s ideological opposite on the Supreme Court, she quoted Scalia’s ownmaxim: “I attack ideas. I don’t attack people. Some very good people have some very bad ideas.”
It’s a lessonwe all need to remember, especially right now. Thank you, RBG, for reminding us, over and over again, about the need to renew our frayed faith in each other.