Re An Accused, Tell The Truth

Agnes Callard says we should not fight her cancellation:

Within the mob there is no justice and no argument and no reasoning, no space for inquiry or investigation. The only good move is not to play. … If I am being canceled I want my friends … to stand by, remain silent, and do nothing. If you care about me, let them eat me alive. … The expectation that one’s friends exhibit the “courage” to speak up one one’s behalf, the inclination to see the cancellation as a test of the friendship, which suddenly requires proofs of loyalty — these are the first step on the road to the friend purge.

Here is how it goes: a few of the cancelee’s friends meet the expectation to speak up in support, but those who remain silent — which is most of them — become suspect. New, publicly aligned friends are acquired to take their place. The beleaguered cancelee now feels she sees who her “real friends” are, but in fact she has no friends anymore. All she has are allies. First she turned her friends, and perhaps even her family members, into allies; and then she acquired more allies to fill the ranks of the purged friends. The end result is a united front, but what I would call real friendship has gone missing in the bargain. I do not want any of that. I want friends who feel free to disagree with me both publicly and privately.

If I were accused of a crime, I wouldn’t want my friends to protest outside the courthouse, at least at first; I’d want to give the legal system a chance. But if my associates were called on to testify about me, I’d want them to comply, and to tell the truth as they saw it. Not to say whatever would seem to “support” me, but just to tell the truth.

Humans have only had legal systems for the last ten thousand years or so. For a million years before that, we had mob justice, which worked better than no justice, even if not as well as legal justice. (if you doubt this, see no justice among non-human primates.) Today we still handle some kinds of accusations and punishments via mobs. I’d rather we handled them via law, but given that some accusations are handled by mobs, I’d still want to help mob justice to work as well as possible. Mob justice is in fact possible, and legitimate.

Under mob justice, there is no central authority to subpoena witnesses. So people must instead volunteer their relevant testimony. But such testimony still functions as in legal trials to appropriately influence mob jury verdicts. Thus if I were accused under mob justice (as has in fact happened to me in the past), I’d want my associates to offer testimony relevant to that accusation. Not loyal ally support, but to just tell the relevant truth.

For example, many recent mob justice accusations have been of the form that someone’s statement is a “dog whistle”, purposely done to express nefarious beliefs or allegiances. Thus intent is relevant here, and intent is something on which close associates are often especially qualified to testify. The mob jury can thus reasonably want to hear associates’ take. Given what you know about this person’s views and styles, how plausible is it that their statement was in fact intended to express the alleged beliefs or connections?

We humans are often far more willing to say positive than negative things about associates. But this can work out okay as we commonly infer negative things from the unwillingness to say positive things. For example, when asked for a recommendation re a previous worker, many employers are willing to say express honest positive opinions, but will decline to say anything if their opinion is negative.

I have at times had private contact with people who actually hold views that, at least in a technical sense, might reasonably be labeled as racist or sexist. So if I had to answer the question of whether an expression of theirs might plausibly express such views, my honest answer would have to be yes. But if I had the option, I’d try to instead just say nothing about the subject. But for most of my associates, I’d happily say that such an interpretation is quite implausible, given what I know about them.

In this sort of context, Callard’s request for silence from her friends would hinder mob justice, and make it more likely to go awry against her. The silence of her friends (among which I count myself) would likely, and reasonably, be taken by the mob jury as evidence against her. I get that she is willing to accept this cost, for the cause of preventing the friend purge process that she reasonably detests. But I will hold my friends to a higher standard: don’t just support me unconditionally, but instead tell relevant truths.

If you don’t know anything relevant to the accusation, then yes stay silent. But if you have testimony relevant to the accusations against me, then speak up. Politely, calmly, and with appropriate qualifiers and doubts, but truthfully. Please friends, enemies, and others, in any trial, done at court or before a mob, just tell the relevant truth.