Why ‘call-out’ culture is counterproductive > Shaming and harassing the uneducated Carlos Bilan Staff Writer «¢ 7all-out” culture is prevalent in social media, especially when concerning the topic of social justice. From the name itself, it’s the act of calling someone out for doing something offensive. It’s usually the case that a person gets called out when they make a remark that is either racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, or anything oppressive towards a marginalised group. This is by either posting a screenshot, sharing the post, or any other means of exposing the offender. The argument for this is that they want to educate their followers about why this person is horrible and why what they did is wrong. It becomes similar to “public shaming,” by letting the repercussions educate the offender. Unfortunately, this method is not always effective, and is in fact counterproductive. The natural reaction of those who see these call-outs is to get offended and angry, so the called-out person will start receiving many messages. Not all of these messages will be informing the person why what they did is wrong; there are likely going to be anonymous messages telling the person to kill themselves, or other extreme things. Not only that, there can also be insults about the called-out person’s appearance. People who do the calling-out may get creative and compare the person to an ugly character and thus, the person becomes a laughing stock. It now becomes a form of online bullying, because the person becomes a spectacle for everyone to make fun of, and the followers of the individual who support “call-out” culture get riled up. Instead of conveying an educational message, it creates an environment of fear and toxicity. It also gives a bad impression of social justice. Sometimes, the individual learns and acknowledges the consequences of their actions, but this rarely happens. What usually happens is that the individual gets pushed further towards ignorance. Moreover, the offender could use it as even more reason to justify their oppressive actions. The offender could even start to trivialise advocates of social justice calling them the pejorative “social justice warriors,” and the offender becomes an anti-SJW. You might think that it will all end when the individual makes an apology, but that is not the case. People who usually participate in the culture will think that the offender only apologized because they got caught. Even when it was a remark made by someone as young as 14, this gets overlooked by people who call out. In the case of influential and famous individuals, calling them out for something they did is acceptable as it creates awareness. For example, posting on social media how Mike Pence is a horrible person because he proposes conversion therapy and is notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ informs others of how his ideals are harmful towards minorities, which is important because he is a person in a democratically-elected position of power. However, singling out an individual you encounter on social media brings problems. If you really want to educate the How culture has affected us > Relativity vs. truth Colten Kamlade Contributor he English philosopher Roger Scruton once said “a writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.” When Scruton wrote this—more than 20 years ago—I doubt he could have guessed the eventual ubiquity of the philosophical position he was criticizing. Yet here we are, at a point in time when theories of relative truth permeate culture. So, what is relativism? It is a philosophy that claims that there is no absolute truth. All of the things we believe to be true are nothing more than projections of our own cultural biases. The problem with this position is that it is self defeating. When you say that you believe in relativism, you are simultaneously admitting that it cannot be true. This is because relativism states both that there is no truth and that relativism is true. To clarify, 1 am not arguing that our perspectives are not skewed by our cultural, economic, or social position. We all have biases and it can be difficult to take an objective view of the world. It is when we take this healthy dose of self-awareness and turn it into skepticism about all of reality that logical problems arise. In one of my epistemology classes, we discussed a statement made by an anthropologist who was studying First Nations people. He claimed that the scientific evidence for the origins of North American indigenous groups contradicted traditional origin stories. Since he considered these two ways of knowing to be equally valid, he did not claim to believe one over the other. There must be a fact of the matter, however, about where First Nations people come from. It is incoherent to say that something both is and is not true. Image via thinkstock Image via thinkstock person, then send them a private message explaining to them why the action was offensive. I can vouch that I have educated people this way and they can begin to unlearn this behaviour. Let’s be honest, not all of us are born educated about social issues, and most of us have done many things in the past which could get us called out. Even I, a person of colour, am not an exception. If we know now why our past behaviours are problematic, we definitely did not learn the reasons why from “public shaming,” but instead from educational articles and discussions. Tam not concerned with whether individuals choose to have faith in traditional stories or in the scientific method; I am concerned with whether they are choosing at all. I regularly share my views with people, and they often disagree. Instead of arguing, they simply shrug their shoulders and say “Well, that’s what you believe.” Admittedly, this could be apathy. I believe it goes deeper than that though. We have been taught that all views are equally valid, and so we accept every view, even if it is inconsistent with our own, as deserving a spot on the broad spectrum of truth. However, there is no spectrum of truth, there is only truth; there is only one way that the world really is. It may be difficult to uncover beneath all of our assumptions and prejudices, but it is the goal we must always pursue.