Oh, Mumford and Sons. I remember my mom telling me during one of my teenage years that we had plenty of time to buy tickets to one of the three shows they were playing at the Ryman Auditorium in their Sigh No More days. She assured me that a little rinky-dink folk band from England wouldn’t draw that big of a crowd. I also remember how tickets for all three nights sold out in a record-breaking 5 minutes. I didn’t get to go.
News broke yesterday that their guitar/banjo player, Winston Marshall, has become the latest victim of the internet mob’s quest to “cancel” everything they deem “problematic.” What was his crime that sent these Redditors and Twitter users into a frothy-mouthed frenzy? He tweeted about reading and appreciating Andy Ngo’s new book Unmasked, which analyzes the terrorist group, Antifa.
Marshall quickly deleted his post, tweeted out an apology, and decided to take time away from the band for self-reflection. This is a shame, truly. I hate that this happened to him. My greatest hope is that, in his time of self-reflection, he discovers a backbone and some courage hidden deep in his heart.
Mob Rule and Cancel Culture
The Bible warns us about the dangers of mob rule. In Exodus 23:2, Moses writes:
You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice [...]
What is the mob? Who are the many the Bible warns us about here? They’re you. And they’re everyone else. They’re all of us, sometimes. Mobs result when groups of people throw all their better judgment and wisdom out the window and become blinded by their passions and anger. We’ve all been there.
So it seems wise not to allow society to be ordered by the angriest people (or by people at their angriest) and instead be governed by processes that ensure level-headedness, anti-impulsivity, and balance.
The internet mobs aren’t government officials (at least, not mostly). They don’t actually know you or have any control over your life (most of the time). And I don’t believe the most avid internet ragers are generally adults with jobs, families, and any real stakes in their lives. So why are people so afraid of them?
Cancel culture is what happens when we reduce our convictions down to being liked and being nice. When being liked by other people is more important to us than anything else, we will sell every other conviction down the river in order to keep their approval. It turns us into spineless, pathetic cowards who are unwilling to stand up to anyone about anything. If a certain belief, book, thought, or concept makes someone mad, we become the ones willing to cancel it in order to appease the mobs. The mobs cancel nothing; the people responding to the mobs do. The problem isn’t the mob. The problem is that we’ve become a culture of cowards.
And for what? Are people really willing to capitulate to basement-dwelling Redditors? Willing to be shouted down by teenagers on TikTok who know nothing about real life? Willing to apologize to angry college students still living with their parents? Do we really have to be afraid of people tweeting at us from their toilets? People who will forget about the whole situation as soon as they close their phones?
And here’s what we need to realize about the internet mob: The more we feed it, the hungrier it gets. When someone gets called out for saying something obvious (such as, “I think men are actually men and women are actually women”), and then gets shouted at until they apologize, it shows the mob that their tactics work. It emboldens them. It “proves them right” and makes them think that maybe they can eradicate from society everyone they decide they don’t like on any given day.
It’s about time people started to have a backbone. How refreshing would it be to see someone confronted by the internet mob and—rather than immediately backing down—dig their heels in?
It would have been much more refreshing for Winston Marshall to have said, “No, I’m not going to apologize for reading a book. Antifa is a terrible, destructive organization, and you’re stupid if you disagree with me.” If he said that then, sure, maybe we could have criticized him for a lack of tact...but he would have retained his dignity.
You might say, “Well, what about people who say things that are truly racist, sexist, or bigoted?” Yes, I am aware this happens. When it does, it needs to be addressed and the offending party should apologize. However, does someone deserve to have their entire career and livelihood destroyed over one stupid tweet? Do we really have to refuse to forgive someone who sincerely apologizes? Know this: The mob isn’t concerned about restoration. They’re concerned about revenge. There is no forgiveness. Once they take you down, they want you down forever. It’s complete nonsense. And we shouldn’t stand for it.
The Normal Cowardice
But the most common cowardice isn’t people who back down and capitulate to the mob. The cowardice that manifests in most of us is silence, stemming from a desire to just be left alone. We don’t want to ruffle feathers. We don’t want to say something controversial like, “Antifa is bad.” We just want to keep our heads down, do our work, go home, and repeat. We convince ourselves that our religious liberty and freedom of speech are things that the mob will take from us if we make too much noise, so we keep the volume low.
But here are three things we have to remember:
1. The mobs are liars.
Trans-women are women!
Abortion is healthcare!
The election was stolen!
So much of the ideology of the mob is composed of empty, baseless platitudes. I don’t doubt many of these people believe the things they’re shouting, but that doesn’t make it true. If a Twitter mob started a virtual descent upon the White House demanding that the United States legally recognize that the sky is green (#blueskynomore #greensky), what should the government do? Capitulate because the people seem to believe it? Or remain committed to the truth?
Now think about how we should respond when someone says that a man—complete with male reproductive organs, XY chromosomes, a full beard, and a pointy adam's-apple—is in fact a woman, and should be treated as such. Are we going to capitulate to the mob because we want to be liked? Or are we going to refuse to live according to their lies?
Stand firm in the truth, and don’t be bullied into silence by liars.
2. The mobs are not our standard for morality.
The Bible is the objective standard for all truth and morality. That means that the mobs don’t get to decide what is racist, sexist, bigoted, or immoral. God decides those things. And He has said all of this in His Word.
Many of us think that if the internet calls us racist or sexist, it somehow becomes true. Let me assure you: it doesn’t. The mob changes their definitions for those words every day. You don’t have to sacrifice your dignity to appease people who have impossible and ever-changing standards. Live your life in obedience to God’s Word, with a clear conscience, and let the mobs be as mad as they want to be.
3. The mobs can be easily withstood.
Because I’m convinced these internet mobs are mostly young, naive people with little to no responsibility, I’m going to guess their attention spans are pretty short. I bet if Marshall would have stood firm, this whole situation would have been over within a week. The mobs want quick kills. That’s what they’re used to. They have no long-game strategy. Resist the woke devil and he will flee from you!
Cancel culture will last as long as the public allows. So why not read the Bible to your kids (and maybe a Dr. Seuss book, too), live by the truth, and refuse to be intimidated by internet mobs. I imagine most people are looking for someone who isn’t afraid. Maybe witnessing someone refuse to care about the silly opinions of internet hordes will encourage them to do the same. Be that person: At work, in public, online. Be the person who is so convinced of the truth that you’re willing to “joyfully accept” any consequences that come from it (Heb. 10:34).