I'm not for cancel culture, as you might have noticed. But I'm not against what it's about accomplishing, at all. I'm for that.

Boycotting can be super effective. We vote with our pocketbooks and our eyes and ears. All that makes perfect sense, and a well-placed, well-communicated, well-delineated, forward-thinking boycott is possibly the best means of social change we have at our disposal. That's saying quite a bit, I think.

So we're all free to boycott anything we want to boycott. And if we get together and express why, clearly, then that just brings more power to the effort. It's great.

I am very much for good boycotting.

The way I'm not for cancel culture is simple - it's just about philosophy, namely my own.

I'm not treating a human as not a human, because a human is a human. Pretending otherwise is a lie. Because I personally don't consider that lie useful, I'm not going to be lying. That's all. I have compassion for all living things, and that includes all humans, however you feel about them. It isn't a comment on your or any situation that I have compassion for a person. I just do. That's how my heart and mind work naturally. It isn't difficult for me. It makes perfect sense and helps in all kinds of situations and all kinds of ways. If you stabbed me in the stomach, with a knife, I could probably still see your perspective and have compassion for you. Please don't do that.

And don't think I can't fight. I can. Have you ever broken someone's rib through a chest-guard? Maybe a recently-ex-army dude, ten years older than you, bigger? Well I have, by mistake. I was maybe 15. It was just a good kick. (A jumping back kick to counter a roundhouse kick... maybe the best timed and landed one of those I ever did.) It was automatic, actually. It felt like lifting a glass of water and taking a drink, or those first few moments of sprinting that just happen - easy, smooth, satisfying. A reflex that hit the spot. Before that, my brother and I fought tooth and nail hundreds or thousands of times, and of course there was all the sparring practice in class.

I know my way around a scuffle. But just like that guy whose rib I broke managed a "Nice KICK!!!!" through gritted teeth while bent double, I think I could still reach for your perspective and have some compassion for you if you stabbed me in the guts and stood there watching me bleed out with a grin on your face. I wouldn't let that happen. And I'd do the same to you first if it meant saving an innocent life. But I wouldn't lose compassion. Or only for approximately the instant needed to save a life.

So no, I'm not losing all compassion for whoever offended or scared or even hurt you. It's just not me to be like that. You know? I'm sorry that this upsets people, genuinely. But I feel it's a misunderstanding. They think it's a comment on them or their situation. No, it isn't. It's something about my core that you aren't changing.

So anyway, go ahead and cancel people, ignore them, act as if they aren't human, twist and exaggerate and otherwise misrepresent their words and positions and motives. You have the right to do those things, as do I. But I have the right not to, as do you. That's all. Does the completeness of that simplicity make some sense?

Public hazing of miscreants may be for a sufficiently good cause (it is), and sufficiently effective (is it?). This is quite possible, and I defer to any evidence. But I am not entirely convinced so far - I think a good boycott, even here in the realm of egregious prejudices and outright systemic murder in some rare but real cases, would work a little differently (on the basis of the science on boycotting and also on deterrents). The principle of a good boycott is that it needs to be what I mentioned: makes basic sense, well-placed, well-communicated, well-delineated, forward-thinking. When people can understand that you're working for a better world rather than attacking them or their beliefs - even if they totally disagree with you - they tend to get more accommodating. A good boycott is conditional: We will forsake this institution unless and until A, B, and C. It isn't declaring anathema and making the sign of the cross every time the hated item (previously human or otherwise) appears. That's just garden-variety hatin' on.

Which I deeply, deeply, deeply dislike. So if that's what I feel what you're asking me is about, then I will politely (or occasionally impolitely) decline.

Change is afoot. Take all the above with grains of salt. Waves of protest against Trumpism, the forward steps of #MeToo and BLM and the like - I don't necessarily know what's working and what isn't. But something is working. I believe that. More needs to work. So... how? What are the best approaches? What does science say?